Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (26 page)

A zombie lurched for Charlotte. She hadn’t managed to get her cleaver out from her belt, so she grabbed its ravaged arm and threw the zombie over her shoulder. She slammed her flat hand into the neck of another zombie, knocking it to the floor, pulled out her cleaver and swung it down into the zombie’s head, splitting it open.

‘Up the stairs!’ I shouted, realising that we’d got cut off.

We all backed towards to the stairs and made our way up, zombies following us. I’d got about halfway up when I realised that Polly was missing. I looked down and saw that she’d been surrounded in the make-up department. I turned to go back down for her.

‘Sophie! Where are you going?’ said Sam, grabbing my arm to stop me. It was the most he’d said to me since our
chat
last week.

‘Polly. She’s still down there.’

‘I’ll go down for her. You carry on up,’ said Sam.

‘No, I’ll go,’ said Liam. ‘I’m dressed for the job.’ He tapped the hilt of his sword against his crash helmet.

The leather clad Liam darted down the stairs while the rest of us carried on to the top. Zombies had started to climb the stairs, but I stopped at the top, leaning over so that I could see down to Polly. I watched as Liam sliced a path through the zombies and grabbed Polly with a leather covered hand, pulling her backwards towards the stairs. The ground floor was teaming with zombies and they closed in around Liam and Polly, Liam doing his best to shield Polly with his leather clad body. I saw a zombie sink its teeth into Liam’s leather jacket. Unsatisfied with its mouthful of leather, it tried to bite into the crash helmet. Liam elbowed it out of the way. They had reached the stairs now. Liam went first and pushed his way through the zombies that staggered upwards towards us. He used his sword to clear the way, then shoved Polly up ahead of him. She ran up the stairs while Liam stopped to slice zombies with his sword. With one great swing of his sword, he overbalanced and fell over the side of the railings, down into the zombies below. His sword fell from his hands. ‘Liam!’ I shouted.

Zombies swarmed on him. I waited for him to get up and shove the zombies back, indestructible in his zombie-proof suit. But zombies grasped hold of him. One pulled a leather glove off, staggering backwards with it in its hands. It looked quizzically at the glove and bit down on a finger, throwing it to the ground when it didn’t taste like human flesh. Another pulled off the crash helmet. With flesh now exposed, a zombie bit into Liam’s left cheek, ripping off a sizeable chunk. Liam screamed and I wished I’d bought the shotgun with me. Another zombie bit into his exposed hand. More zombies grabbed hold of him and one pulled off the other glove. Then I lost sight of him as the zombies bent down over him to feed.

‘We have to do something!’ I yelled, tears steaming down my cheeks. ‘We can’t leave him like that!’

Polly had reached the top of the stairs and stood beside me.

‘After you,’ she said, nodding towards the hoard of zombies climbing the stairs towards us. I could have pushed the cold hearted bitch down into them. I wanted to. But that would’ve made Liam’s rescue mission worthless.

Sam grabbed my arm and pulled me from the top of the stairs. ‘We have to go,’ he said, his voice cracking. We all ran to the back of the shop with Liam’s screams still in our ears.

We got out through a window at the back of the store and onto a little balcony. The drop to street level wasn’t too far. We travelled back to the house in numb silence. Once inside, in the kitchen, I noticed the tear in Polly’s long sleeve t-shirt. I noticed the blood that she was trying to cover up with her hand. I grabbed her arm and tried to pull her hand away. ‘Get off me!’ she yelled.

‘No! Show me your arm, Polly!’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Stewart.

The others watched as I tried to wrestle Polly’s hand away from her arm. ‘Someone help me,’ I said. ‘She’s been bit.’

Kay helped me pull Polly’s hand away from her arm, and sure enough there was a bite mark. Polly stood still and stared at me.

‘When did it happen, Polly?’ I asked. Polly said nothing.

‘What does it matter, sweetie?’ said Charlotte, her eyes red, eye lashes clumped together with the tears she’d cried for Liam.

‘Oh, it matters,’ I said. ‘When did it happen, Polly? Before or after Liam went down for you? Well?’

‘Before,’ she said brazenly. I slapped her so hard across the face that she fell to the floor, then I turned and left the room.

14th April, 2.40pm
After I slapped Polly and stormed out of the kitchen, I paced up and down the back garden smoking a cigarette. I noticed that my hand trembled each time I put the cigarette to my lips, not from the cold, but from anger and sadness. Mostly anger. If Polly hadn’t of charged in so thoughtlessly and made so much noise when she’d killed that zombie in Debenhams, maybe not so many zombies would’ve been attracted into the store. If she had just done the decent thing and let us know that she’d already been bitten, Liam wouldn’t have gone back for her and … and he’d still be alive.

I hated her more at that moment than I had ever hated her. I finished my cigarette and dropped it onto the patio, grinding it into a paving stone with the sole of my Converse. Yes, I did imagine it was Polly’s head.

‘So, who’s going to get the pleasure?’ I looked up to see Kay standing by the door looking at me. ‘It is job of the week,’ she continued.

‘What?’ I asked, confused.

‘Polly. Who’s going to get to split her head open? And by that, I mean me, right? I get to do it. I want to do it,’ said Kay.

‘I … We can’t …’

‘Oh, here we go,’ Kay said with a sigh. ‘The bitch has been bitten, Sophie. What’s the point of sticking up for her now. She’s going to die anyway.’

‘I know that, and … but …’

Stewart, Charlotte and and Sam came outside and stood next to Kay. ‘Would someone please talk sense into Sophie,’ said Kay. ‘Polly needs putting down, but Sophie, here, is getting all sentimental as bloody usual.’

‘It’s not that,’ I said, not really knowing what it was.

‘Kay’s right. Polly’s a dead girl walking, Sophie,’ said Stewart.

‘And she’s a bitch,’ added Kay.

‘But she’s still a human being … for now,’ said Charlotte.

‘We need to let her decide. It’s only fair,’ I said through gritted teeth, because I wasn’t sure if I believed that myself. ‘She should have the same rights as any bite victim. She can choose if she gets put down now, or when she turns, or whether she wants us to let her … let her go.’

‘If it was any one of the rest of you, I’d agree,’ said Kay. ‘But this is Polly. Sod it. I’m going to get my axe and crack –’

‘No!’ said Sam, putting a hand out to stop Kay from heading back inside the house. ‘Sophie’s right. As much as it pisses the rest of us off, she is right and –’

The sound of a gunshot from inside the house cut Sam off. We all raced inside and found Polly on the kitchen floor. Most of her head had been blown away. The shotgun lay beside her, and what remained of her head was surrounded by an ever increasing pool of crimson blood.

My thoughts went from a slight joy that Sam had actually been in the process of standing up for me after he’d spent so much time ignoring me recently, to utter joy that Polly had finally done the decent thing and killed herself.

20th April, 12.45pm
When I said that Polly had finally done the decent thing and killed herself, I meant that Polly had finally done the decent thing … Polly stylee (eg, thoughtlessly). Not only did she use precious ammo – we only have one cartridge left for the shotgun now – but she blew her head off in the kitchen, leaving a big fucking mess.

‘I’m going to stick my neck out on this one and suggest that she’s dead,’ said Stewart.

‘Bloody selfish. Don’t expect me to clear it up,’ said Kay.

‘Yup. She could’ve destroyed her own brain in a tidier manner. The naughty pudding,’ said Stewart.

‘She could’ve done it outside,’ said Kay. ‘Outside with the rest of the stinking corpses that I don’t have to clear up.’

I stared at the near headless body, the thick pool of blood oozing forth like oil paint from a squashed tube, the blood, brain and skull fragments splattered on the pale pine kitchen cabinets and walls and my heart sank. I really hate cleaning.

‘I’ll get a mop and bucket,’ said Sam.

We all pitched in, in the end. Charlotte and Stewart carried the body outside and threw Polly over the fence into the next door garden, while the rest of us mopped, scrubbed and picked bits of brain out of the skirting boards. Blood, and lots of it, is a bitch to clean up. Luckily we didn’t have to do it to covering-up-a-murder standards. No one was coming round with that spray they use on CSI.

Sam moved into Polly’s room last Sunday. Kick in the teeth. While he slept on the sofa, it was like the break up could be considered a temporary thing. But now he has his own room, it’s like he’s saying, ‘I’ve moved on. You should do the same.’

I couldn’t get to sleep last night. One of those mind-won’t-shut-the-fuck-up-and-switch-off nights. I’d just started to drift off when I heard music. It wove itself into my thoughts and I started to dream about being in Googies in town. A band played but they were all zombies. Keith was there, dancing, but he kept falling to pieces. The band got really pissed off when no one in the audience clapped at the end of their song, so they got a giant tortilla wrap and rolled everyone, including me, up inside it and ate them. When I came too, I could still hear music. I looked at the clock. 3 am.

The music came from outside my window. I crawled out of bed and pushed the curtain back a little. I saw Sam sitting on a bench outside, Stewart’s guitar on his lap. I rolled a cigarette, pulled a hooded top over my pjs, smoothed down my hair and went downstairs.

‘I didn’t know you could play,’ I said when I stepped out into the back garden. I shivered in the cold night air. Sam stopped playing and looked at me.

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘Not really. I had lessons when I was younger but I didn’t really keep it up.’

‘Sounded good to me.’ I walked over and stood beside him, lit my cigarette, and took a deep pull. ‘Don’t stop,’ I said. Sam looked down at his fingers that touched the strings, but he didn’t play. ‘Are you ok?’ I asked him. He made a sort of snorted laughing sound, but said nothing. He ran a finger along the crack in the guitar. ‘Sam?’

‘I’m not sure I can be here any more,’ he said without looking at me.

‘What’d you mean?’

‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to stagnant here. I want to travel, to see what’s out there.’ Sam looked up but avoided my eye.

I took a moment to catch my breath. Sam … leaving … NO! ‘There’s nothing out there. Just more of the same … zombies. Death. Fight for survival,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

‘I want to travel, meet other survivors. Hear their stories. Move on. There has to be more to life than waiting to die. I want to be more proactive,’ said Sam, and his eyes met mine. I looked away. I felt dizzy. I sat down on the bench beside him. Well, I say ‘sat’, I more of fell to avoid dropping to the floor in a heap.

‘Y-you’d leave us?’

‘There’s nothing for me here,’ he said. Heart – stopped, Soul – shattered, Mind – lost. ‘I’m going,’ said Sam.

‘When?’

‘I don’t know yet. I need to get a car. Or a bike. Soon.’

My cigarette had gone out, half smoked. I looked at it between my fingers, but I didn’t light it. I felt too sick. I clenched my teeth, trying to stop the tears. But a part of me thought,
maybe this is for the best. Maybe with Sam gone, I can move on
? But move on to what? This really is no life.

28th April, 12.30pm
So, Sam’s leaving. I lived in denial until he went out on Tuesday and came back with a silver Land Rover Discovery. ‘Escape vehicle?’ I asked. I stood on the drive, my arms folded.

‘Yep,’ he said, running his fingers across the Land Rover’s bonnet, a look of pride on his face.

‘Uh huh,’ I said, and skulked back into the house. I didn’t want Sam to see the tear that ran down my cheek.

Supply run time. Sam volunteered to go into town. He wanted to pick up supplies for his trip. I offered to go with him. He didn’t object. Sam drove the Land Rover, parking it outside Asda. ‘So, where you headed … when you go?’ I asked as I climbed out of the Land Rover. It was the first word either of us had spoken since leaving the house. I walked around the vehicle to stand next to Sam.

‘I dunno,’ said Sam. ‘I’m just going to drive north and see what I find.’

I followed him into the store. At the top of the escalators, Sam used his claw hammer to kill a zombie and then he grabbed a trolley. As I walked alongside Sam, towards the almost empty food shelves, I tried to think how to say the thing I really wanted to say:
Why don’t you ask me to go with you
? Would I go if he asked me? Would I leave the others to head off into the sunset with Sam? Fuck yeah. Instead I said, ‘We’re going to have to start searching the other supermarkets. This place is almost dry.’

‘Yeah,’ said Sam, half-heartedly as he stopped to load the last of the baked bean tins into the trolley. ‘I need to get some blankets and …’

‘What is it?’

‘Did you hear that?’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Shhhh.’ Sam put a finger to his lips.

I listened. I heard groaning. ‘Zombies,’ I said.

We left the trolley and crept along the tinned food aisle, and took a cautious peek down the length of the supermarket, back the way we’d just come. I could see a swarm of zombies gathering around the refrigeration units. We’d bypassed those aisles, knowing that the diary produce and meat products would be well past their sell by dates. But something down there attracted zombies.

I turned to Sam. ‘If we’re quiet, we can get some food and get out round the back of the store and –’ A cry, short and sharp, from the refrigeration units cut me off.

‘There’s someone down there,’ said Sam. ‘Come on.’ He pulled his claw hammer from his belt and headed towards the zombies.

I grabbed Sam’s elbow. ‘They might’ve been bitten already,’ I said.