Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (18 page)

3.40pm Day 59
What happened next happened fast. Much faster than I can describe here, but I’ll try …

Zombie-Cathy advanced on Sam.

I screamed like fuck.

A loud, splintering bang on the door at the top of a small flight of stairs to my right caught my attention but, sadly, not ZC’s, who staggered on towards Sam.

An axe hacked its way though the door, the hole it made around the lock getting bigger until the lock was nothing but splinters.

The door flew open and in burst Liam, Kay, Polly and Shelby.

‘Hurry!’ I screamed.

They did, stumbling down the stairs.

ZC stumbled into the table, grasped hold of Sam’s left foot and lowered herself to bite.

Liam launched himself at her, axe high in the air, and brought it down on top of her head, splitting it open.

ZC slumped to the ground beside the table.

Everyone paused for breath, while the newcomers took in the scene and while I took in how bloody, fucking close that was.

Zombie-Boyfriend groaned.

Liam strode over to it and studied it for a moment, while ZB tried, in vain, to reach him.

Liam raised his axe and split ZB’s head open. It fell to the ground.

Liam spotted the longsword on the ground, where ZC had dropped it earlier when ZB attacked her, said, ‘Hell yeah!’ and bent down, his long hair falling into his face. He placed the axe on the ground and took hold of the longsword, stood and then tried it out, waving it around his head with a big grin on his face.

‘Now this is what I’m talking about,’ he said. ‘Aye.’

4.15pm Day 59
With everyone now present in the Psycho Torture room I became very aware of my lack of clothes. The others untied me and Sam. I went to Sam’s room to get dressed, while Kay and Shelby carried Sam, who could just about manage to stumble along by now, to his bed to sleep off the rest of the drug. Once I had some clothes on, I climbed into bed with Sam and fell asleep next to him, the room still dark because of the heavy blackout curtains, despite the early morning daylight outside, while the others packed up a car. I didn’t want to stay at the hotel any longer than necessary.

Sam woke me. I don’t know how long we’d slept. He stroked my cheek. Then Kay came in.

‘Good. You’re awake,’ she said. ‘We’re packed and ready to go. Shelby found all the car keys in a draw behind the reception desk. Fucking unbelievable.’

‘What?’ said Sam, and I realised that he had no idea of what had happened.

‘I’ll tell you all about it in the car,’ I said. ‘It may come as a shock …’

In the car, a blue Mazda CX-7 that all six of us could fit into, I asked how the others knew where to find us. ‘I didn’t want to be on my own any more,’ said Polly, sounding like the fight had been kicked – or bitten – out of her. ‘I went to Sam’s room and found his bed empty, thought he might be with you. So I went to your room. When I saw the pair of you had disappeared I figured it out. I remembered you’d had suspicions about Cathy and I couldn’t find her anywhere, either. So, I woke the others up. Then all we had to do was follow the fucking screams from Hell, you big lunged freak.’ (Ah, there she is ...)

So, all that takes us here. Where we are right now. In a cottage in the middle of nowhere in Wales, where, if the night sky is clear, you can see every star in the universe. I wonder if there are any zombies out there …

January 12
10.30am Day 60
We ended up in this cottage late Tuesday evening. We’d been driving for hours, only stopping once to fill up with petrol. It’d taken us longer than it should to get to Wales because of gridlocked roads messing us up, and we had to take a few detours. Once we were over the Severn Bridge it had got dark. This is the moment we realised that none of us really knew where we were going. The Welsh safe community is somewhere near a village called Tintern in the Wye Valley, but that may as well have been somewhere left of Andromeda for all it meant to us. We’d picked up a map of the area from a petrol station. But rather than head off there in the dark, we decided to find somewhere safe to spend the night. So we found this cottage in Devauden, near Chepstow.

The cottage is surrounded by fields, but it’s got a secure fence that runs all the way around the large garden, with a sturdy front gate. All you can see for miles are hills and trees, and one other cottage about a mile away up a hill. And, oh yeah, the occasional zombie meandering about. It’s lovely and peaceful (if you ignore the zombies) and none of us have wanted to move on.

We don’t need to. There’s a chicken run out back, a beehive (not sure if any of us are gonna be brave enough to put the clobber on and get any honey, but there’s plenty in jars in the kitchen larder), trees that look very much like they might be fruit trees, and a vegetable patch with things growing in it. We’ve picked leeks and parsnips. There’s even some lettuce. There’s a well for water.

The cottage kitchen is full of food. And there’s plenty of wine and beer, too – bonus! I find it hard to believe this place is empty, it’s quite a comfy little hide out. But perhaps whoever lived here didn’t have time to batten down the hatches before the zombies came? There was a bit of blood and gore about the place, and we had to kill a few zombies before we could move in. But now we’re set up, it’s pretty cool.

The cottage is only small, owned by a young couple … so weird just walking into someone else’s life and taking it over, especially when they’re looking at you from photos dotted about the place. They looked really nice, too. There’s only two bedrooms. Polly, Shelby and Kay are in the spare room with a double bed and two inflatable beds, Liam’s on the sofa (but it’s a totally comfy sofa, and he keeps weird hours sometimes, anyway) and then me and Sam are in the master bedroom. I’ve made it back into his bed, but we haven’t sealed the deal yet. We’re both fucked up about what Cathy did to us, and about losing Keith. Me and Sam are trying to get our heads together. He went really quiet after I told him what happened in the torture room. But he’s coming out of himself. And I can wait.

There’s a guitar, which made Liam happy. He’s giving me lessons, which is cool. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play.

January 13
1.30pm Day 61
We’re going to get pissed tonight. Been a while since I’ve had a good drink up to look forward to. We’re gonna say,
Fuck you, zombies
, and enjoy ourselves.

4.55pm Day 61
The drinking has begun. And – OMG – I’ve found a Queens of The Stone Age album –
Lullabies to Paralyze
– with some Pearl Jam, Faith No More, Rage Against The Machine and so on, hidden behind the Michael Buble and Take That and stuff. I guess the Mrs didn’t dig rock.

Happy. Dancing. Singing.

January 14
3.30pm Day 62
I was chilling out in the kitchen with Sam last night, drinking beer. Must’ve been around midnight when we heard raised voices coming from somewhere in the house. It didn’t take long to track the source – Polly and Shelby. Me and Sam stood in the living room doorway and watched them take it in turns to scream at each other, while waving arms wildly. Liam stood nearby looking worried, while Kay tried to diffuse the situation by yelling,
Shut the fuck up you couple of fucktards and just be bloody nice or I’ll bang your sodding heads together
! This caused Shelby and Polly to scream even louder to be heard over Kay.

From what I could gather the argument started because Polly changed a Michael Buble CD halfway through a song that Shelby was listening to, and from its humble beginnings (and fuelled by wine and beer), it escalated into this full scale slanging match.

‘You think you own this place,’ Shelby screamed at Polly. ‘Well you don’t! So why don’t you just fuck off.’

‘Oh, what … I’ll fuck off shall I? And where the fuck am I supposed to fuck off to – Idiot. Shall I fuck off out there ...’ At this point Polly sort of flung both arms out wide, making it difficult to ascertain the precise location of the ‘out there’ in question.

‘Fuck off anywhere you like!’ screamed Shelby.

‘Fine. I will. I’ll fuck off out there and get bitten by a zombie. Then I’ll come back in here and bite you … see how you’d like that – bitch!’

Polly stormed off, shouldering me and Sam out the way. None of us actually believed she’d go out there or we’d have tried harder to stop her. But go out there she did – crazy fucking motherfucker.

3.40pm Day 62
I heard the front door open and we all shot after Polly, grabbing our weapons on the way. It was dark outside … the middle of nowhere sort of dark, but I could just make Polly out ahead of us, running.

‘Polly. For fuck’s sake, come back!’

‘Polly!’

‘POLLY!’

We all sprinted after her, me and Sam in the lead. Polly had reached the gate. She opened it and darted off down the road.

‘Polly, Stop!’

She ran off the road and into a field, cutting back on herself slightly, but it was too dark for me to see where she was running to. Shelby now took the lead, while me and Sam changed direction to follow Polly into the ankle high grass. I could see now that she was running towards some trees. I could see movement amongst the trees.

‘Zombies,’ I yelled. ‘Polly. There are zombies up there.’ But she kept on going – weaponless.

Polly dodged the zombies that came out of the woods. Shelby used a nine inch kitchen knife to stab a zombie that grabbed for her. Liam went next, slicing and dicing zombies with his sword. He had developed some impressive moves with the thing. Me, Sam and Kay came next, the way having been cleared by Liam and Shelby.

We were only just behind Liam and Shelby, Polly not far ahead of them, when Polly disappeared from sight.

3.50pm Day 62
A little bit further and I could see that the ground ahead dropped away, but to what and how far I couldn’t yet see. Shelby got there first and I saw her head down after Polly so I guessed the drop couldn’t be too deep, and I could hear Polly screaming, so I knew she was alive at least.

Me, Sam and Kay got there just after Liam to see that Polly had fallen into a stream down a steep bank about three metres below us. I knew she must have been hurt because she was sitting in the stream, her right leg at a funny angle. She screamed as a group of six zombies staggered towards her from the other side of the stream. On that side the bank was no more than a slight dip. Four zombies reached the stream and waded into the few inches of freezing water. Shelby had put her knife through her belt and gripped one of Polly’s arms with both hands. She tried to drag Polly out of the stream, while Polly tried to stand. She shrieked every time she put any weight on her right leg.

The zombies loomed over Polly. Me, Sam, Kay and Liam went skidding down the bank, weapons raised, just as dead hands grasped Polly’s right leg. She screamed. Her free arm swung round and grabbed Shelby’s arm. Polly now used Shelby as a support to haul herself to her feet, kicking the zombies off. Ignoring the pain she must have felt, Polly now did something that I didn’t even think she’d be capable of. She span Shelby around so that it was Shelby closest to the zombies. Ravaged hands grasped Shelby’s arms, while Polly pulled her hands away from Shelby. Shelby didn’t even have time to reach her knife in her belt before the zombies bit into her flesh. She screamed with pain, then screamed a tirade of abuse at Polly.

The rest of us had made it down to the stream. Polly pushed past us and hobbled up the steep bank, but slipped and fell, only to scrabble up the rest of the way on her hands and knees. Shelby was covered with zombies and more emerged from the trees in front of us. Me and the other non-psychos attacked them, Liam and Kay taking on the approaching ones, while me and Sam killed the ones on Shelby.

Once she was free, Shelby slumped to the ground. She sat on her knees, her head bowed, covered in blood. I would like to say that at least one of us ran to her and comforted her, but we didn’t. We all stood and looked at her like we feared she was already infectious. Her shoulders heaved up and down and I knew that she was crying silently. I forced myself to move and crouched down in front of her. I tried to find a part of her body that I could safely put my hand on, where it wouldn’t disappear into raw meat. Her right knee was good.

‘Shelby. What do you want to do?’ I said to her.

Shelby’s head shot up and she looked me in the eye. Liam stepped forward with his sword. ‘No! I don’t want to be put down,’ said Shelby, looking at the big fuck off sword.

‘You haven’t got any choice,’ said Kay.

‘Yes I have. I can be a zombie. Better that than not existing at all.’

‘No way,’ said Sam.

‘Fuck yeah,’ said Liam. ‘Think I’d do the same if it was me. I’d want to know what it was like.’ Kay glared at him but he just shrugged his shoulders and twizzled his sword.

We offered to take Shelby back to the cottage and take care of her while she got sick, promising to let her go once she turned. But, whether she didn’t trust us, I don’t know, she wanted us to leave her in the woods.

We did.

January 15
1.30pm Day 63
The fallout from Friday night has been intense.

When we got back to the cottage we realised that the front gate had been left open during the whole Psycho-Polly-feeding-Shelby-to-the-zombies event, so we had to do a sweep of the cottage and the grounds to check for any zombies that might have wandered in. There were none. Once that had been done, we couldn’t put off facing Polly any longer. She’d already made it back to the cottage by the time we got there and lay in foetal position, face turned to the beautifully restored floorboards by the stairs. Her right leg didn’t look to be at a healthy angle. I guessed it was broken.

Me, Sam, Kay and Liam stood around Polly, bloody weapons still in hand. Polly’s body shook with every sob, and, lost in her pain, she didn’t seem to notice we were there.

‘I want her out of here,’ said Kay. ‘Dump her in the woods. She’ll give Shelby something to munch on later.’ Neither me, Sam or Liam said anything. ‘I’m serious,’ Kay continued. ‘I want her’ – Kay jabbed her axe in Polly’s direction – ‘gone. Fucking psycho fucktard!’ Polly looked up (perhaps recognising her name, ie ‘fucktard’).