Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (23 page)

Everyone climbed out of the Mazda, while Liam and Charlotte got out of the Transit and joined us by the Mazda. ‘That gate looks secure and we can reinforce the perimeter, make sure nothing can get through that hedge,’ I said.

I noticed that the zombie Kay had hit with the car still twitched as it lay face down in the road. It moved its head off the ground and pushed itself up on rotten arms. As it hauled itself up I could see that its entrails spilled from a hole in its belly, so dried and withered and twisted that they looked like noodles before you add the water. The zombie looked pathetic, trying to stand with one leg all broken and facing the wrong way. It groaned at me. I walked towards it, raised my claw hammer and smashed its skull open. I turned and walked back to Kay and the others.

‘I like it,’ said Sam, looking at the house.

Nobody complained. ‘Cool,’ I said.

1st March, 5.15pm
We parked the vehicles in the drive and walked steadily up to the house, leaving Polly in the back with strict instructions that she must not start shouting and swearing at us for doing so. The front door – a uPVC French door – was locked. I could see into a large and airy kitchen, cream walls and units in a pale pine, a matching table in the centre. We headed round the back. There we found an arched wooden door. Sam tried it. It opened. We all exchanged looks of triumph, then crept inside.

The place was silent and still, but it smelt bad. Rotten. We found ourselves in an entrance hall. Blood on the carpet. Without words, we split up, weapons raised. Kay and Liam went left, Stewart and Charlotte went right, and me and Sam took the stairs. Straining my ears, I could hear nothing to suggest the place was anything other than deserted. But the smell, something sweet and musty that caught you in the back of the throat, got stronger as we climbed.

And there it was, standing on the landing of the first floor – the zombie of a man wearing silk pyjamas and a dressing gown. It had its back to us and stood motionless, facing a closed door. I stifled a gasp, and Sam put his finger to his lips. He edged forwards and raised his nine inch bladed knife, plunging it into the top of the zombie’s head with a squelch. Sam held on tight to the knife handle so that the blade slid out as the zombie fell to the perfect floorboards. ‘Nice,’ I said.

‘Shh, there might be more,’ said Sam, and he crept to the door that the zombie had been staring at. He tried the door but it was locked from the other side. Sam gave the door a shake, then butted it with his shoulder but it didn’t budge.

By now the others had joined us on the landing. Liam gave the door a kick with a booted foot, then Sam had a go. The lock burst and the door swung open fast. The smell intensified and I heard a buzzing sound. Sam and Liam walked into the room and disappeared from my sight. As I followed I heard one of them retch. Sam appeared in the doorway and put his arms out to shove me back.

‘Don’t go in,’ he said.

‘Get off,’ I said, and pushed past him into the room.

I found myself in a bedroom, lovely and big and airy. But huddled on the super king sized Victorian metal framed bed were the bodies of a woman and two small kids. They had been human when they died. Flies buzzed about them. They looked like they’d been dead for weeks, months. I don’t know. Their haven had become their tomb. I turned and ran from the room, down the stairs, through the hall and out into the back garden where I threw up.

Home sweet bloody home.

5th March, 2.30pm
We’re settling in nicely at the new place. It has seven bedrooms, so with me and Sam sharing we all get a bedroom each, and no one has to sleep in the family death room. Despite it being the biggest bedroom in the house, no one wanted to sleep in a bed that’d had dead bodies on it. Clearing the bodies out had been a grim but necessary task. We all mucked in and carried them out to the back garden. There’s a head height wall that goes all the way around the back of the huge open lawn, so we shoved them, rather unceremoniously, I have to admit, over the wall into next door’s garden.

On a positive note, me and Sam have a bedroom all to ourselves … fuck yeah!

We’ve all been listening to Academy fm. There’s just a recording playing on a loop right now, a mixture of local bands and music made by artists who are probably all zombies now. We’re not worried. Dave, the DJ, does that sometimes, for a couple days or so. We’re waiting for him to go live again, then we’re heading down there, to the studio. Stewart’s going to go armed with his guitar …

9th March, 2pm
I woke at just after five this morning. Sam was fast asleep beside me, snoring a little, his back to me. I snuggled into his back and put my arm around him. He stirred and put his arm on mine. I felt the warmth of his body, and for a moment I relaxed, feeling safe. But then his snoring began to annoy me. Wide awake and restless, I pulled away and sat up.

I could see through the gap in the blind that it was beginning to get light. It looked like it might be a nice day. Struck by the urge to go to the beach, I climbed out of bed and got dressed quickly and quietly. A little time to myself, breathing space. What harm could that do?

Downstairs I thought about leaving a note, but I didn’t intend on being long. I guessed I’d be back before anyone got up. I put my claw hammer through my belt, and held onto my knife and let myself out of the house.

The street was empty. Too early for zombies? I’d noticed that this area isn’t a high density area. The houses are all big and spaced out and I’ve not seen another living person since we moved in. Not much to attract zombies, other than us, and we keep a low profile.

I made the short walk to the beach. The tide was out. I jumped onto the pebbles from the concrete promenade, enjoying the crunch under my Converse, and then stumbled a little way down the beach, towards the sea. I chose a spot, stopped walking and sat down, placing my knife on the pebbles beside me. It was light now. And bloody cold. But I didn’t care, the peace, the lulling sound of the waves against the pebbles and the solitude were more than enough to make up for the temperature, or lack of it.

I took my claw hammer out from my belt and put it with my knife, then pulled my baccy out of the pocket in my hooded top. With icy fingers, I rolled a cigarette. Sitting cross legged, I smoked and looked out across the sea, hypnotised by the gentle waves. Not a boat in sight. I finished my cigarette and lay back on the pebbles, feeling the head rush I get from tobacco, being only an occasional smoker. I closed my eyes, confident that even if a zombie did spot me, its feet crunching over pebbles would be an adequate early warning system.

I didn’t think that I’d fall asleep.

9th March, 2.15pm
A sharp pain in my right side woke me up. Eyes wide, I saw a thin, weather-worn man, maybe about sixty years old, with wild grey hair looking down at me. He had a shotgun pointed at my head. ‘Don’t shoot!’ I said, scrambling to my feet, the muzzle of the gun following me up. ‘I’m not a zombie. I’m not a fucking zombie.’ I had my hands out in front of me in that bullet-proof-palm manner.

‘I can see that,’ said the man, gruffly. He moved the gun a little to the left and fired over my shoulder. The blast made me jump and my ear ring. I turned to see a group of seven zombies a couple of metres behind me, and one dead one on the ground. ‘A few more seconds and you would’ve been, though, Sleeping Beauty,’ said the man as he removed the spent cartridge from the shotgun and reloaded it with one from his pocket. ‘Now fucking move. Come on!’ I bent down to pick up my weapons and followed him.

We ran away from the zombies, along the beach. The promenade was teaming with zombies now. It reminded me of one of those battle scenes from a movie where an army appears over a hilltop, stretching as far as you can see, and you know, as they begin to descend on you, that you are fucking fucked. I wondered where they had all come from. But then, I guess that’s what you get for laying yourself out like a sweet in the sun, the ants are going to come out and swarm over you eventually.

The zombies flopped themselves over the edge of the promenade and onto the pebbles. I could see that they would cut us off. The man fired at the zombies, but with him having to stop and reload each time and me only having close contact weapons, the zombies closed in.

I stopped running and stood with my weapons raised. We positioned ourselves back to back, me and the man, him shooting, me waiting. A zombie lunged at me and I swung my claw hammer, held in my right hand, catching it on the temple. It swayed. I took another swing, this time cracking its head open. Black blood splattered my face. I dived into the crowd, claw hammer flying, knife … well, I didn’t really know what the knife hand was doing, I concentrated on the claw hammer and let the knife do its own thing. Frenzied Madwoman Attack Mode.

‘You picked a hell of a day to go sunbathing, Sleeping Beauty,’ the man shouted.

I heard the shotgun go off, followed by a crack as he broke open the shotgun’s barrel on its hinge to reload. The man cried out.

I turned to see a zombie with its teeth sunk into the man’s left arm, just above the elbow. The man clutched the shotgun, still open on its hinge. ‘NO!’ I said, and dived at the zombie, smacking my claw hammer into the top of its head.

The zombie went down and the man closed the shotgun, firing at another zombie. He turned the shotgun around then, using the butt to beat the zombies down. I felt something touch my left shoulder, turned and saw a zombie. This one looked kind of fresh, though most of its face had been stripped to the bone from the eyes down. I smashed the claw hammer into its already ruined face, finishing it with a knife through the eye.

‘Listen up, Sleeping Beauty,’ said the man. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m getting fucking tired of fighting.’ I heard something fall onto the pebbles. I looked round and saw the shotgun on the ground. The man put his hands into the pockets of his combat trousers and pulled out a handful of shotgun shells, then another handful.

‘What’re you doing?’ I asked. He didn’t answer, just walked off towards the water empty handed.

A zombie tried to grab me, but I beat it down with the claw hammer. I turned to see the man waist deep in water, wading out to shoulder height. He started swimming, breaststroke.

Between us, me and the man had killed enough zombies for the crowd to have thinned out enough for me to make a break for it. I put my claw hammer through my belt and bent down to pick up the shotgun shells, shoving them into my jeans pocket, as well as in the pocket of my hooded top, then I picked up the shotgun. I looked out to sea. I saw no sign of the man.

More zombies staggered towards me, so I ran on pebbles, making my way to the now empty promenade. I didn’t stop running until I got back to the house.

Sam stood in the hallway when I got inside. If I had expected a hero’s welcome, forget it. He took one look at me standing in the doorway covered in black blood and sweat and holding a knife and a shotgun, shook his head and walked away. ‘Sam! What the fuck?’ I said.

16th March, 3.25pm
Sam has been sleeping on the sofa all week since my beach trip. He won’t talk to me. He’s doing my head in, going out of his way to make sure we’re never alone together, and he keeps himself busy fortifying the outside of the house against zombies. Him, Kay and Stewart are constructing a fence made out of some junk we found in the shed: a couple of old doors, bits of wood and furniture and stuff.

When I got back from the beach last Friday, everyone was like, ‘Whoo hoo! Well done, Sophie, we’ve got a gun!’ But while the others – Liam more than anyone else – all wanted a go of holding the shotgun, Sam made himself scarce.

I’ve been feeling bad that I didn’t even know the grey haired man’s name. He’d still be alive if it wasn’t for me. Was I worth saving? Doesn’t look like Sam thinks so.

I stood outside last Wednesday afternoon, chaining smoking my way through a packet of baccy (I’ve been smoking a lot since the day at the beach) when I spied Sam in the kitchen – alone. I stubbed my half smoked cigarette out and went in through the French doors. Sam looked startled when I walked in, like I caught him wanking rather than fixing a Cup a Soup. ‘Hi,’ I said, stopping by the kitchen table.

‘Alright,’ Sam said, turning from me.

‘Um, Sam we really need –’

‘I’ve gotta take this out to Kay while it’s hot,’ he said, nodding to the mug on the work surface, a ripped and crumpled sachet beside it. Some red soup powder dusted the gap between the mug and sachet. Sam snatch up the mug, swept past me and headed out the French doors. Just then the kettle clicked itself off having fully boiled.

23rd March, 12pm
Yesterday afternoon Academy FM went live. Stewart grabbed his guitar and sword and said, ‘Let’s go!’

All tooled up, me, Charlotte, Liam and Stewart piled into the back of the Transit van, while Kay drove, and Sam sat in front with her. Of course, Sam didn’t want to sit anywhere near me … paranoid much?

The journey to the Academy, the school where the radio station is based, took longer than it should because of the roundabout route we had to take from Sandgate into Folkestone to avoid gridlocked roads. We sat patiently in the back of the gloomy van, me with the shotgun laying under my legs. That is until the van swerved violently to the left, catapulting me and Liam across the inside of the van, to crash into Stewart and Charlotte. Then, with an almighty crunch and thud, the van stopped, throwing all four of us forwards. I hit my head on something hard, whether it was an elbow, a knee or the side of the van, I didn’t know. We lay there for a moment, groaning, then untangled ourselves from each other. ‘What … what happened?’ said Charlotte, one hand on the side of the van to steady herself.

‘I don’t know. Is everyone ok?’ I asked, rubbing my head where I’d hit it. I sat on my knees and looked at the others.

‘I’m ok,’ said Stewart as he crawled over to me on all fours. He picked up his guitar and held it to himself like a mother holds a baby.

‘Me too,’ said Liam. ‘But what the fuck …?’