Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (17 page)

‘And the other two survivors. What happened to them?’ I pressed on.

‘So many questions, Sophie,’ said Cathy, smiling. ‘Haven’t you witnessed enough death of your own that you need to drag up all mine?’

I looked around the table, my knife and fork held rigidly in my hands. Shelby, Sam, Liam, Kay and Polly all looked at me with expressions that made me feel like I was a hammered dinner party guest making a shameful spectacle of myself by insulting the hostess (not far from the truth, only without the luxury of being drunk). ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, looking at Cathy now. ‘I just –’

‘No. No, I’m sorry,’ said Cathy. ‘That was rude of me. It’s just … it’s been hard … Marcus and Jen. That’s the other two survivors. Marcus got attacked outside a few days later while fetching some eggs, and Jen … she … she jumped off the roof of the hotel later that same day. I was alone until Shelby and … and Wade turned up.’

‘Shit. I’m sorry,’ I said. And I let it lie there.

4pm Day 57
I summoned Sam and Polly to my room. ‘I don’t trust Cathy,’ I said to them. I sat cross legged in the middle of my bed, while Sam sat on the sofa, and Polly perched on the dressing table by the TV (a useless relic of a bygone age – referring to the TV not Polly, but could apply to both).

‘Why?’ asked Sam.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘There’s something I can’t quite put my finger on.’

‘What exactly are you accusing her of?’

‘I don’t know, Sam,’ I said, getting irritated that he didn’t just agree with me and maybe even try it on with me, instead of sitting all the way across the room on the bloody sofa. For fuck’s sake! ‘I’m just not sure that zombies are all we have to worry about any more.’

‘You’ve lost it,’ said Sam and he stood and marched out of the room.

I put my head in my hands, unsure what worried me the most … my vague suspicions of Cathy or Sam’s cold shoulder. I took a deep breath and looked up at Polly who’d been silent so far. She gave a little nod of her head and followed Sam out of the room.

I used to have the whole of central Folkestone look to me as a leader. Now even my closest friends think I’m mental.

10pm Day 57
Sam’s been really offish all day, and I’ve had enough. He’s gone to bed already. It’s only10pm. Cathy insisted on him having some cocoa before he went up. He hates cocoa, and I could see that he obliged because he had no will to fight.

I’ve made up my mind, I’m going to his room now and I’m going to put a fucking smile back on his face ;)

January 10
9.45pm Day 58
Sam looked tired when he opened the door of his room last night. He only had his boxers on and he stood with one hand against the door, the other he ran through his dark hair. ‘You okay?’ he asked sleepily.

‘Yeah.’

‘What’re you doing here?’

In the manner of someone who is afraid of heights but quite determined that they
are
going to do the bungee jump, I threw myself at Sam. I heard a murmur as though he tried to say something, then my lips were on his. With my fingers in his hair, gripping his head so that he couldn’t get away, I kicked the door shut behind me and then pushed him backwards towards the bed. By this time he’d gotten over his initial shock and had wrapped his arms around me, his hands running down my body, pressing firmly. Then, as the backs of Sam’s legs met with the bed, we both fell. I landed on top of him, breath coming hard, and stroked the hair off his fucking gorgeous, sleazy face, while I kissed him, looking him in the eye.

I felt pretty excited by this point, Sam’s near naked body beneath me, and I stopped kissing him for a moment. I levered myself up and moved so that I knelt on the bed beside Sam, and I pulled my t-shirt off over my head. Sam lay there and looked at me for a moment. Then he raised himself onto his elbows, smiled an insanely dirty smile and launched himself at me, throwing me back and pinning me on the bed.

We kissed – a lot. Hands went … everywhere. My jeans got suitably ripped off. Then the moment I imagined things would heat up and get even more active, Sam’s movements began to slow, until his hands stopped moving altogether and his lips gradually fell away from mine.

The fucking bastard passed out!

I shoved him on the shoulder, but nothing. I shook him harder. ‘Sam. Sam! SAM ... Fucking arse!’ Frustrated didn’t even come close. Severe sexual frustration mixed with anger, humiliation and hurt. Not a good combination.

I sat on the bed in just my underwear beside Sam’s sleeping form and took a deep breath. I was pissed off at him … but he did look beautiful. My negativity started to ease a little, and I kicked back the bedsheets (lovely Egyptian cotton) to open them up, moving down the bed so that I could pull them out from under Sam’s body, then I lifted them over Sam and myself. I lent over to turn out the lamp beside the bed, plunging the room into near total darkness. I gave Sam a kiss on his cheek and then I settled down next to his warm body, glad at least to be back in his bed.

A noise woke me up. Disorientated, I shot my head up to listen. There it was again – something moving in the room. I thought it must be Sam. I couldn’t see anything in the dark room, so I slid my hand along the bed. I touched Sam’s body. Shit. Not Sam then.

‘Who …’ But that’s as far as I got. I heard a loud crack. Dizzy, I had time to realise that the crack was in fact something hard meeting with the back of my head and then everything went black.

I’d love to tell you where I woke up in the early hours of this morning, but, right now, I need to stop. I need to get some sleep.

January 11
4am Day 59
It’s four in the fucking morning. I can’t sleep. I keep having nightmares.

It’s a clear night and the stars look amazing. They look so much better when there are no street lights to dilute them.

I wish I could sleep but my mind is swirling. It’ll probably help to finish writing about what happened in the early hours of yesterday morning, because, right now, it keeps replaying in my head … over and over. I hope I can download it onto this blog and then delete it from my memory.

The only other person up is Liam. He found a new weapon yesterday that he’s quite proud of – a big sword – and I’m watching him practise with it. Pretty sure it’s gonna take a few zombies’ faces off.

10.20am Day 59
So, I woke up, yesterday morning, on the cold concrete floor of a dank, dimly lit room. It was quite large. I’ve got no concept of measurements but the corners of the room disappeared off into the gloom. No windows, just one grimy strip light on the ceiling among the bare wooden beams and dusty old pipes, giving off a buzzing, artificial glow. I could see dead bugs in it.

The bang on my head had left me groggy. I tried to move, and that’s when I realised my hands were tied behind my back. I looked round and saw that they had been tied with a thin but strong rope that cut into my wrists, the other end attached to a pipe that ran across the brickwork wall behind me. I could get to my feet and stand but I couldn’t move very far from the pipe.

I looked down and saw that I wore only my bra and pants. That really helped up the vulnerability value of the situation.

I thought,
Should I really be worrying that my bra and pants don’t match, that I’m freezing, or that I ache like buggery from sleeping on a cold, hard floor in a weird tied up position, or should I be more concerned by the other three really shitty and unfortunate things in the room?

The other three really shitty and unfortunate things in the room …

1) The thin, dried up zombie of a man with his throat ripped out, tied by an ankle to a big old radiator that I hoped to fuck was securely attached to the old brick wall behind it.

2) To my right I could see a long wooden table, again, not so good with the measurements so I can’t really do the specifics. Let’s just say it was long enough for Sam, in only his boxers, to be laying on with just the ends of his toes sticking over the edge. And, oh, he was tied to the table by lengths of rope wrapped around his body. Not that he was going anywhere … he was still out cold. At least, I hoped he was just unconscious. That brings me to the number three really shitty thing in the room:

3) Cathy … yeah, I was right about her. Though I had no idea just how right I was. I’ll admit, I never really expected to see her like this … with a huge fuck off sword (I have since been informed by Liam that the huge fuck off sword is actually called a longsword, but, right then, it was just a big fuck off sword attached to a mad woman) in both hands, raised above her head, the trajectory of said sword … Sam’s left shoulder joint.

11.45am Day 59
‘Get away from him, you fucking crazy bitch!’ I shouted at Cathy.

She wavered, looked at me and lowered the sword. ‘What did you call me?’ she said. The sword, now held in one hand at her side, made a scratching sound when it dragged along the concrete as she stomped over to me.

‘Um … crazy bitch …’

‘I’m crazy for wanting to look after my boyfriend? The man I love!’

‘That’s your boyfriend?’ I asked. Ah shit … ‘That’s not your boyfriend. That’s a zombie. Your boyfriend’s gone, I –’

‘He gets so hungry. He wouldn’t eat the fish or chickens I brought him, so …’

‘Please tell me you’re not …’

Cathy stood directly before me. I could see her zombie-boyfriend straining at the bond on its ankle, its arms outstretched, groaning. The horrible realisation of what Cathy had been doing … what must have happened to Wade and Keith and fuck knows how many of the previous hotel guests – what was about to happen to Sam and me – made my legs shake so bad I had to use all my strength to stand. She fed them to her bloody zombie-boyfriend!

‘I chop them up … so they don’t turn into zombies too, you see? I’m not stupid,’ said Cathy.

‘No, just fucking insane,’ I sneered. Cathy snorted at me and marched back towards Sam, raising her sword. ‘Don’t you fucking dare! STAY AWAY FROM HIM!!! STAY AWAY!!! STAY AWAY!!! DON’T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HIM!!!’

Zombie-Boyfriend started groaning louder, a horrible high pitched screech, and it pulled on its bond even harder, clearly agitated. Cathy lowered her sword and stormed back towards me. I was sure I’d get a huge fuck off sword to my head and there was nothing I could do to protect myself. Instead, she squared up to me, her face in mine.

‘Look what you’ve done!’ she shouted. ‘You’ve upset him!’

Yeah, I upset him … it ...

It was instinctual. The rope had just enough slack left in it for me to pull forwards and I head butted Cathy. She staggered back a little. Dazed and off guard, I raised a leg and kicked Cathy Kung Fu stylee in the stomach knocking her backwards … right into the loving arms of Zombie-Boyfriend. Nicely done! Zombie-Boyfriend was obviously pleased to see her and bit down on her throat. Cathy screamed – yada yada, like I gave a shit right then – and struggled, dropping her sword, but Zombie-Boyfriend didn’t let go. It yanked its head back from her throat, ripping out a chunk of flesh and muscle. Blood exploded. Then it went back in for more. Cathy’s body started shuddering, like she was having some sort of fit, while Zombie-Boyfriend had a good go on her throat, snuffling like a pig in a trough.

Cathy’s body went limp and fell to the floor, while Zombie-Boyfriend got down on its hands and knees beside her, still feeding.

I heard wet, tearing noises that turned my stomach while Zombie-Boyfriend made the most of its meal. It used its hands now to shred the flesh from Cathy’s shoulder and arm, scooping handfuls of bloody meat into its ravaged mouth. I had a front row seat at feeding time at the Fucked Up Zoo Of Horrors. Where was my popcorn, damn it!

Zombie-Boyfriend looked a little startled when Cathy twitched back to life after a few minutes. But not as startled as me … Oh yeah, they do that when they’re killed outright, come back straight away. Bugger!

So, there’s me … tied to a pipe, hands behind back, and Sam … unconscious and tied to a blood stained table, with a brand spanking new zombie loose in the room with us.

Cue screaming …

2.50pm Day 59
Fuck did I scream. Zombie-Cathy staggered towards me, her eyes dead and buggy, her skin already drained of colour; throat missing, of course, and flesh stripped from her right shoulder and arm, blood now turning a thick congealing black.

Sam slept on, that was some heavy shit she must’ve drugged him with … I’m guessing something must’ve gone into his cocoa the night before. But I wondered if he was actually dead already. This thought, I’ll be honest, made me feel a little better. At least if he was already dead, he wouldn’t feel Zombie-Cathy eat him once she’d finished with me.

So, I tugged on the rope, my wrists hurting like hell where the rope had cut into my flesh, but I ignored the pain and only felt desperation to get away. It was a pathetic waste of time, actually. The rope had been tied tight, and, despite looking old and decrepit, the pipe it had been tied to was firmly attached to the wall. Zombie-Cathy reached me. Her (her/it, I’m not really comfortable calling Zombie-Cathy an
it
, so, on this occasion, I’ll just use the her/she pronouns) hands touched my bare arms. They were creepily cold even though she had only just died. I shivered and brought my leg up, kicking her off me. She was closer to me than the last time I kicked her, so it was delivered less Kung Fu and more Tai Chi, and I struggled to keep my balance with my hands behind my back.

It worked though and she wobbled backwards, steadied herself – as much as a zombie can – and came at me again. I immediately realised my problem though. I could keep kicking her, but eventually I’d get tired. Zombie-Cathy had this whole relentless Undead thing going on.

Sam groaned. He was alive! And he was waking up. The groan caught Zombie-Cathy’s attention, she gave a little groan of her own, and changed course for Sam. Shit! FUCK FUCK SHIT!

Now the screaming really began …