Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (21 page)

Then the front door opened and there stood the other guy – Gun Guy. Early twenties perhaps, very close cropped hair, shotgun under his arm. At least he wasn’t pointing it at us. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he asked, one side of his body hidden behind the half open door.

‘We’re from the cottage down the hill,’ said Sam, claw hammer at his side. ‘We, er, heard the gun shots and saw you guys yesterday, right? So, just thought we’d, um …’

‘Come and party with the neighbours, huh?’said Gun Guy. I couldn’t read the guy’s tone, it was flat rather than threatening, and I could see the other one in the hall behind him now.

‘Um –’

‘Cool,’ said the guy, a grin spreading across his face. ‘Come in, I’m Dan and …’ he opened the door and turned to face the other one … ‘this is Toby.’

‘Hi there,’ said Toby, coming forwards and grabbing Sam’s hand to shake it.

So, in we went. Dan and Toby were both photographers and had arrived at the cottage a few days before we first saw them. They’d come from London to look for the safe community, finding the shotgun and ammo in a farmhouse on the way. They found the safe community. It was neither safe, nor a community. The place had been attacked … no survivors.

‘We’re documenting the zombie outbreak by making a photo diary,’ said Dan. ‘One of us shoots the pictures and one –’

‘Shoots the motherfucking zoms,’ finished Toby.

‘Only when we have to,’ said Dan, glaring at Toby. ‘I don’t kill for sport.’

‘They’re fucking dead,’ said Toby. ‘Blow their brains out. Put the fuckers out of their misery. Smash their skulls. That’s what I say. In fact,’ he continued, a glint in his eye, ‘I’ve recently started taking some flash freeze pictures – you know the sort of shots you see of water droplets splashing that capture the moments not visible to the naked eye? But I do it of zombie heads exploding as bullets rip through them. Fucking cool, I can tell you.’

‘That’s sick,’ said Charlotte.

‘We disagree on that particular creative direction,’ said Dan.

‘What’s the problem? They’re dead,’ said Toby.

‘Dude,’ said Sam. ‘That’s a bit fucked up.’

‘You’ve all got weapons,’ said Toby, looking from my knife, Charlotte’s cleaver, Liam’s sword and Sam’s claw hammer. ‘You all kill zombies.’

‘Yeah. When we have no choice. To save our lives,’ I said.

‘Actually, I don’t really see the problem,’ said Liam. I looked at him and he shrugged his shoulders.

Introductions and moral dilemmas over, we thought it would be cool to have a few drinks to get to know each other. Though we decided to move the party to our cottage, it was a bit bigger and Kay was over there (Polly, too, of course. But we didn’t even mention her to Toby and Dan, what with her being nothing but a piece of worthless shit stuck to the bottom of our shoes).

If only we hadn’t gone … Fuck, the laptop’s gonna die. I need to go and charge it. I can’t type while it charges because, even hidden behind the counter in the shop, I really get the creeps being in that shop, just glass between me and the zombies.

Later …

February 4
1.35pm Day 83
So, where was I? Oh yeah, last Saturday we took Dan and Toby down to our cottage. There weren’t many zombies about, but guess who decided to show up? Zombie-Shelby, that’s who. She stood in her regular spot, looking at the cottage.

Toby had the gun. Knowing what I did about him, it made me nervous, Toby having the gun. When he saw Zombie-Shelby he did a u-turn and headed towards her.

‘No!’ I said.

‘Dan, get your camera ready, mate,’ said Toby as he marched up to Zombie-Shelby, gun raised. ‘This one’s really passive,’ he said when Zombie-Shelby failed to acknowledge his presence. ‘Oi, zombie. Want to become a work of art? Dan, camera.’

‘NO!’ I screamed. I ran after Toby, unsure as to why I was trying to save a zombie. But this wasn’t just any zombie, this was Zombie-Shelby. ‘Leave her alone!’ I darted in front of Toby and placed myself between him and Zombie-Shelby.

‘Sophie. What the fuck are you doing?’ said Sam. ‘Come back!’

‘Get out the way,’ said Toby.

‘No.’

‘Are you some kind of zombie hugger? Equal rights for the dead, or something?’ asked Toby.

‘No. Just not this one. Don’t shoot this one.’ The others had all gathered behind Toby. I was aware that I had my back to a zombie and it felt like a really dumb thing to do, but I just couldn’t help myself.

‘You’re mental,’ said Toby thrusting the gun at me. ‘MOVE!’

Zombie-Shelby got all aggravated then. I heard her snarl, heard her feet move slowly through the long grass. I turned expecting her to launch herself at me, but she staggered right past me and lunged at Toby instead. I saw Toby’s finger push down on the trigger. Instinct took over and I pushed the muzzle of the shotgun back. The gun went off and the bullet hit Dan in the chest. He dropped to the ground and didn’t move. ‘Fuck!’ I cried. ‘Fuck fuck fuck! I didn’t mean to.’

Zombie-Shelby grabbed hold of Toby’s arm as he looked at Dan’s fallen body. He turned to her, raised the gun, but before he could hit her with it, she bit him on the shoulder. Toby screamed and used the butt of the shotgun to knock Zombie-Shelby off. She stumbled backwards and Toby raised the gun. But he didn’t point it at Zombie-Shelby. He pointed it at me. I caught a look of hate in his eyes. Then I ran.

February 6
6pm Day 85
As I sprinted away from Toby that Saturday, I heard a gunshot behind me. I performed a sort of madwoman zig zag movement, hoping that would be enough to dodge the blast. It worked. I could hear the others screaming. But all I could think was –
get to the fucking cottage
.
Hide
.
Hide from the crazy infected guy with the gun
!

The gun went off another couple of times, the shots being preceded by the sound of Toby breaking open the shotgun’s barrel on its hinge and placing a new cartridge inside. I don’t know how I managed it, but I got to the cottage without being hit, though a chunk of brick level with my head got blown out of the side of the house when I paused to open the door. I slammed the door shut behind me and stood in the hall, wondering where the fuck to go. Where do you go to hide from a gunman intent on blasting your brains out? The bullet proof room, of course! Yeah, bugger, all out of those.

While I stood there, torn between where to go, Kay appeared at the top of the stairs. One look at me and she knew there was trouble. She didn’t say anything, just stood there staring at me through wide eyes. That’s when the front door exploded behind me as a shotgun shell hit it.

‘What the fuck?’ yelled Kay, instinctively ducking. ‘Weren’t friendly then, no?’

‘Keep away from me, Kay. Stay upstairs,’ I screamed.

I resisted the temptation to run upstairs (don’t you just hate it when they do that in movies? There’s no escape up there), and I realised then that the cottage was just one big trap. I ran for the kitchen, aiming for the back door. I heard the sound of splintering wood as the front door was kicked in, the sounds of a struggle as one of my lot must have tried to stop Toby from coming after me, and shouting: ‘Fuck off or I’ll shoot you too!’ and ‘Fucking leave her alone, you nutter!’ and other such exchanges. But I concentrated on getting to the back door.

I slipped on the kitchen floor and skidded into the table, really hurting my right leg. Feet pounded into the room behind me. The sound of the shotgun’s hinge clicking back into place. ‘Stop right there,’ I heard Toby say from behind me.

I stopped. I closed my eyes, squeezing them really tight, waiting for the sound of the blast that would precede my death by mere moments. I heard Toby walk closer. I felt the muzzle of the shotgun touch the base of my skull. I heard the footsteps of the others. Everyone was shouting. Each voice mixed with the next inside my head and I couldn’t make sense of any of it. I almost wished Toby would fire so that the shell could tear a hole in my head and let all those voices out.

But then I heard something else – a horrible cracking sound. I could no longer feel the shotgun against my skull, and I heard something crash to the floor. I dared to turn now and saw Toby face down on the ground and Sam stooped over him, smashing the back of Toby’s skull again and again with his claw hammer. I backed away, dropping my knife, and watched, my hands over my mouth as Sam’s claw hammer turned Toby’s skull into mush. Blood and brain and skull fragments burst forth, covering Sam and the floor. It was quite clear that Toby was dead, but no one tried to stop Sam from his frenzied attack. His left arm moved crazily fast, the claw hammer swinging through the air to splodge back down into the bloody mess that used to be Toby’s head. Blood sprayed onto the legs of my jeans, but I didn’t move back any further. Blood no longer bothered me.

Eventually, Sam’s strikes became slower. Then stopped. He collapsed onto his knees beside Toby’s body. He had his head down, his shoulders shaking. I practically flew across to Sam and knelt beside him, while Charlotte, Kay and Liam watched. I put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. It steadied under my touch and he looked up at me, his face wet with tears. I put my arms around him, not caring about the blood and gore that soaked into my clothes.

‘I couldn’t let him hurt you,’ said Sam, his face pressed into my shoulder.

Well, that was all a serious fuck up. Two people dead because I decided to save the life (death – whatever) of a zombie. Sam was in pieces because of what he did to Toby, despite the fact that Toby had been bitten. I think it was the ferocity of his attack on Toby that freaked him out most.

We couldn’t stay at the cottage any longer. Sam in particular was keen to get the fuck out of there. Liam and Sam carried Polly out to the Mazda, while the rest of us packed what we could and loaded the car with what supplies we had. We left Toby on the kitchen floor, a pool of blood surrounding his caved in head, and drove into Chepstow. That’s when we found this castle.

It’s cool living in a castle. I mean, who hasn’t dreamed about living in a castle? I’ve no idea what’s going to happen to us, where we’re going to go from here. But for now me, Sam, Liam, Charlotte, Kay and (much to our annoyance) Polly are alive. And we’re damn well going to stay that way.

February 12
Day 91
Time has stood still since we’ve been at the castle. Maybe
stood still
is incorrect – just day/night/day/night/day/night without actually getting anywhere. We take it in turns to go out and get supplies, and we’ve been bringing back blankets, cushions, and inflatable beds to make our ‘home’ more comfortable. Liam and Kay went out yesterday. Me and Sam snuck off to the ruins of a banqueting hall, leaving Charlotte with Polly.

It wasn’t as cold as it had been for a while, but still bloody cold. Cold enough that sex involved keeping most of our clothes on and getting down to it without any messing about. Afterwards we stood against part of the castle wall, a sheer drop into the river Wye below us, where we could look across to England. I wondered if we’d ever go back.

‘Look down there,’ said Sam. He had his arms around my waist, leaning his body against my back, his chin on my left shoulder. I could feel the comforting warmth of his body soaking into me.

‘What?’

‘Look.’ Sam let go of me with his left arm and pointed down towards the brown, murky river. The tide was out and the river level was low, but it was rising. On either side of the river brown, sludgy banks looked like a mud wrestler’s Heaven. I followed Sam’s finger and could see something moving in the sludge on the opposite bank. A figure stuck in the mud. It wriggled and squirmed but couldn’t get free.

‘Is it a human?’ I asked, pressing myself against the wall to see better.

Sam leaned over the wall as far as he could. ‘No. Zombie.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yep. Definitely.’

‘How can you tell? I can’t really see from here.’

‘Sophie, listen. There’s nothing we can do for them either way. There’s no way we can get down there.’ Sam looked me in the eye. ‘It’s a zombie, right?’

He put his arms around me again and we stood in the cold and watched as the tide rose swiftly and swallowed the figure up.

I looked today, with the tide out, and the figure had gone.

February 18
7.15pm Day 97
I’m sitting on the steps outside our
home
and I’m biting the grubby nails of one hand while smoking a roll up with the other (didn’t tell you I’d started smoking did I? Well I have, just the odd one or two. There doesn’t seem to be a good reason not to. Do I fear cancer more than I fear zombies … no). The laptop is on the step beside me and I’m typing on it intermittently while I bite and smoke. Sam is sitting on the step above mine, his arms around me. He has his chin rested upon the top of my head. Neither of us wants to talk. Talking wouldn’t make any difference.

And why are people so fucking obsessed with talking anyway? Sometimes it’s nice to shut the fuck up. To just be.

Liam and Charlotte went out in the Mazda to scavenge supplies early this morning, around 8am. Supply runs usually take a couple of hours at the most, we’re so close to the shops here. Over eleven hours later and we haven’t seen them. At around 2pm, Sam suggested we go and search for them. We argued because I said it would be a dumb idea. If they’re not back, they’re dead, right? That’s that. What would be the point of sending the rest of us out to our deaths?

‘We need to concentrate on our survival,’ I said to Sam as we stood near the shop and the castle entrance earlier today. ‘We need to go out and pick up another car for supply runs. But we can’t afford search parties. There’s hardly any of us left to sacrifice.’ The words broke my heart into dust to say. Liam and Charlotte are ... were my family, and deep down I’m not as ruthless as I had sounded. But the look of scorn Sam shot me became the wind that blew my heart fragments away.

‘If it was you out there, Sophie, I would never give up on you,’ he said.

Sam turned and sloped away, leaving me with the thought,
If it was him out there would I have made the same decision
?