Blood on the Floor: An Undead Adventure (8 page)

Ten

She wakes slowly at first. Grumbling softly and grinding her teeth. Something she has always done when she is worried. Her eyes start to open, fluttering gently as the first rays of light seep through to burn her retinas. She winces, closes her eyes and starts to doze again but that voice is there. The one that made her run last night and keep running. The one that told her to take off her jeans and knickers and throw them then hide somewhere else. That voice brings her awake and she does so instantly. Snapping with eyes wide and the sudden jarring sensation of not knowing where she is. Panic grips. The room is unfamiliar. Where is she? Who else is here?

It comes back in one long stream of memories. The infected people. The running and that actor man killing the other things. She doesn’t recognise the room because it was near on pitch dark when she got in here. Now it’s not dark. It’s daylight. Pure gorgeous wonderful light filled daylight.

She scoots to roll onto all fours and starts to rise to peer over the edge of the window. She can’t hear anything so that’s good and she knows the street will be empty, apart from the dead bodies that is. Otherwise it will be empty. It
will
be empty. It
has
to be empty.

It’s not empty. She drops, screws her eyes closed from the flare of pain at staring out into the bright light so soon after waking up and squeezes the windowsill tight while swallowing the surge of anger. When she looks again he’s still there. The bloody idiot is there. Paco Maguire in the middle of the road standing dumb and stupid.

Something snaps. The fear from the night before. The heat of the night and waking up all sweaty with a sore tummy and kitchen roll poking out between her legs. Anger rises. A flare of temper. A stupid dangerous thing given the circumstances but she stands, slams the window open fully and leans out.

‘FUCK OFF,’ she screams at Paco Maguire. ‘GO ON…JUST…JUST FUCK OFF…’

He starts to turn. His arms hanging limp at his sides. How the hell he is back on his feet after what happened to him is not a thought that enters her head. Nor the inherent danger of screaming at an infected man that is strong enough to throw an obese person through a window and snap bones like they’re dry twigs.

Instead she grabs a tartan scatter cushion and launches it with a grunt at his face now staring up. It hits and bounces off. She sends a second one down that bounces harmlessly off his head. The third hits his shoulder. The fourth misses which just makes her temper even more foul.

‘Just…just bloody wait,’ she tells him with a pointing finger and runs back into the room to grab more tartan scatter cushions that get carried over and thrown down.

Paco takes the missiles without complaint. Soft whumps that bounce off his head and shoulders to land softly on the road. She aims well, tongue poking out between her teeth while she unleashes the barrage of soft furnishings. The cushions are depleted so she goes for the heavier sofa seats. Lugging them to the window and using a two handed launching method to send them sailing down with the added bonus of gravity speeding the acceleration until they hit and actually make him take a step back.

She takes that victory in an explosion of temper and a black mood emboldened by the daylight and the fact he hasn’t tried to come up and eat her. She throws the other two seat cushions. Missing with both of them with an act that seems to light the touch-paper to the real inner demon that wants to come out.

She grabs a plant pot. A small ceramic thing with a spiky cactus poking out of the dried soil. The cactus was quite happy on the windowsill. It didn’t need much water and the weather has been lovely. Sitting all day in the sun and it was really quite content so to be sent flying down to bounce off the head of a big man was not on its list of things to be done.

‘Oh shit…sorry,’ she winces and stops at the sight of the man staggering back from the ceramic pot shattering on his skull. Blood pours down his face and he looks up with an expression of such abject pity that it ends her temper instantly. ‘You okay?’ She asks almost politely. Paco doesn’t answer. He just stares up at the woman. His eyes red and bloodshot and his face now covered in small rivers of blood leaking from the cut on his scalp.

‘FUCK OFF,’ she shouts again her temper half flaring then dying as instantly as it came. She festers and seethes then worries and feels bad. ‘I’m not coming out,’ she tells Paco, nodding emphatically. ‘And…and you can’t come up…’ she adds quickly. ‘Gun! I’ve got a gun,’ she ducks in, grabs the remote control for the television and waves it about quickly. ‘See…my gun…’ she tucks it behind her back and waits, staring down. He waits, staring up.

‘Go away,’ she says after a minute of silence.

Paco doesn’t go away. He stays staring up. His face covered in blood but the scalp wound is already clotting. His arms limp. His whole manner that of a dejected child or someone who doesn’t know what to do.

‘You’re Paco Maguire,’ she says. ‘So go away.’ That’ll do it. Telling him she knows who he is. That will make him go. ‘So…so I’ve got help coming and…and they’ve got guns. I mean more guns because I’ve got my gun and…so go away before they get here otherwise they’ll shoot you…’

Paco doesn’t go away.

‘Yes hello?’ She says quickly with a new idea forming as she puts the remote control to the side of her head. ‘Yes I’m in the top flat in er…in this town? Opposite the cinema! Yes. Yes I am here now. There is one outside. Paco Maguire. Yes the movie actor. Yes I know that’s very strange but he’s right there. He’s infected too. Like totally infected and you should shoot him when you get here. In the head. Shoot him in the head with your guns…’

She watches him while chatting away on the remote control. He doesn’t show any reaction but stares up. Forlorn and stationary.

‘…So okay then. Er…see you soon…about five minutes? Yep…bye then!’

She puts the remote control phone down and looks at Paco. ‘Five minutes. Yeah,’ she waggles the remote control phone gun at him then realises she’s waggling the remote control phone gun and pulls it behind her back. ‘They’re coming,’ she adds. ‘Five minutes. So…’ she purses her lips. ‘So…you’d better go then.’ She nods. ‘I’d run if I were you.’ She looks idly up and down the street. ‘Any minute now…’ She bites her bottom lip and sighs, blasting air out, waiting patiently for her friends. ‘Yep,’ she states. ‘Any minute now….with their big guns and…knives…and er…anyway. So thanks for not eating me last night but I’m like totally serious right now. You should go. Really. Bye. Go on….shoo….piss off…run away…’

Paco doesn’t shoo or piss off.

‘Seriously?’ She asks with an angry huff then adds another at the feeling of warm liquid dribbling down her legs. She looks down at the blood soaked end of the kitchen roll and the drip down her thigh. ‘I’m on my period,’ she tells Paco then immediately wonders why the hell she told him. ‘You’re movies are shit,’ she announces then runs across the lounge towards the bathroom. ‘REALLY SHIT,’ she shouts while yanking the kitchen roll out. ‘AND DON’T TRY AND COME UP EITHER.’ She twists the tap, runs the water and starts washing herself then panics and sprints back into the lounge to stare down at Paco staring up. ‘COCK,’ she tells him and runs back into the bathroom.

She cleans quickly before darting into the kitchen to grab the roll of kitchen paper and a mug of water then runs back into the lounge.

‘Why are you still there?’ She demands and rips several sheets of paper off the roll. ‘You can’t get in and I’m not coming out.’ She makes another ad-hoc tampon. ‘Got loads of food up here…tins and everything.’ She twists it into shape, bends forward and grunts while pushing it inside. ‘Don’t stare pervert.’

Paco continues to stare.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ she stands straight, grabs the mug and starts drinking the water. Her back hurts again and the cramps persist. She narrows her eyes over the rim of the mug, trying to assess what on earth is going on. She doesn’t say anything but acts suddenly nonchalant and disinterested, staring up into the sky then round at the street. She bursts away without warning. Running into the kitchen to grab tins from the cupboard, the tin opener, more water and the box of Nurofen before racing back into the lounge with her arms full. He’s still there. Staring up. Inert and silent. Still as dejected and forlorn as he was when she woke up.

‘See,’ she says, holding a tin up for him to see. ‘Got tins…’ she looks at the label and hides the distaste from her face. ‘Custard…yeah…nice custard,’ she scowls at him, giving him her best dirty look.

Heather opens the custard. She doesn’t like custard but taking the custard back now will be a show of defeat. She glances down to the thick gloopy yellow liquid. ‘Mmmm,’ she tells him, spooning the first mouthful up and into her gob. ‘So nice,’ she coughs at the texture and taste. ‘So good,’ she yacks but forces herself to swallow it. ‘Love custard,’ she informs Paco Maguire. She eats the next spoonful barely hiding the utter hatred for the vile evilness of it but she won’t back down, not when he’s watching her, like waiting to see her throw up or something. ‘S’nice,’ she gags and pauses at the tug in her throat that tells her she will puke if she puts another drop of that stuff in her mouth.

‘What else,’ she muses, covering the faux pas. ‘Look,’ she shows him. ‘Beans… and they’re Heinz and not supermarket ones…half the sugar and salt too.’

She eats the beans while making yummy noises and scowling at him at the same time as trying to ignore the need to piss. All that water last night. She crosses her legs, grunts and eats beans.

Paco stares up.

No good. She has to go. Like right now. She runs off again. Bursting away to sprint into the bathroom to sit on the toilet and release her bladder with a sudden sensation of relief. She wipes. Rinses her hands and runs back. He’s still there.

Heather pops the tablets from the pack and mouths two that get swallowed down with more water.

‘Yeah, your films are shit,’ she says spitefully, resuming the earlier conversation like it’s entirely natural. ‘Like you do the same thing in
every
film. Ooh look at me being all Paco Maguire beating everyone up in tight tops with my big arms and shagging all the women.’

Paco takes the critique without complaint.

‘And that serious one you did? That was shit. And that comedy action one with that English actor…that was shit too. I didn’t even watch them but everyone told me they were shit. Completely shit.’

She selects another tin, checks the label and starts winding the tin opener round the edge.

‘I prefer The Rock,’ she tells him. ‘And Vin Diesel…he’s way better than you. And…Statham is so much cooler than you are.’ The lid pops, she takes a fork and sticks it into the tuna. ‘Tom Cruise…awesome,’ she says with a mouthful of tuna in brine. ‘And Will Smith is like hot. Like so hot.’

Paco doesn’t show reaction to the comparison to his peers.

Heather puts the tin of tuna down. It’s too dry to eat without mayonnaise or at least some salad cream or some dressing. It’s stuck in her teeth too. She moves her tongue round her mouth trying to prise the bits of fish while staring down at the zombie in the street then at the bodies of the other zombies he threw out of the window. Why did he do that? Why didn’t he bite her or hurt her? He was with the others when she ran into them when they were howling.

‘So,’ she begins casually, as though making idle chit chat then stops herself from asking why he didn’t bite her. Even giving voice to that topic seems too dangerous and maybe it will spark him up. She pauses, desperate to fill the silence. ‘You’re in England then?’ She asks with an inward curse at the stupid question. ‘What for? Filming?’

Paco doesn’t explain his reasons for being in the country.

She leans out to look up and down the street. Listening intently. She stares across to the cinema then down to the shops opposite on the ground floor and the windows to the flats above them. An idea forms, a new one, a fresh one, a cunning one.

She looks round again, effecting the nonchalance then snaps her head to the block of flats directly opposite. She double takes, blinks, narrows her eyes and leans further out. She waves, hesitant at first then more exaggerated until her arm is pumping side to side.

‘HELLO!’ She shouts and casts a quick furtive look down. ‘HI! Over here…oh wow…other survivors.’

Paco doesn’t turn to look at the other survivors.

‘How many of you?’ Heather stage whispers so Paco can hear. ‘Five?’ She holds her hand up, splaying her fingers. ‘No six? Six yes? Six of you? Oh wow…six more survivors in that building opposite me. Hey….be careful because the front door is like wide open. I said WIDE OPEN…’

Paco doesn’t look at the wide open door.

Heather looks down at him and on thinking she’s caught his eye she nods up, discrete and casual. She does it again. Inclining her head to the building behind him. She points with a finger, jabbing the air several times while nodding more emphatically. She winks. Nods. Points. She pulls faces, urging him to look round at the building behind him. ‘Food,’ she whispers. ‘Fresh food…brains…breakfast…yummy…yummy for your tummy…right behind you…fuck’s sake.’ She huffs, sags and folds her arms. ‘This is stalking. You’re a stalker. Like harassment. If the world comes back I’ll tell everyone you did this.’

Paco doesn’t respond to being called a stalker.

This is like facing off against a spider that’s dangling in the doorway, trapping you in the room. You can’t go near it for fear of being savaged to death or even being touched by one of those eight spindly legs. You can’t kill it either as that’s not on. So you ponder and prevaricate and come with wild plans of unwinding wire coat hangers to stretch out and snag the web to move the creature somewhere else. Problem with that is the merest motion disturbs the air which makes the spider flinch or move which renders you once more frozen to the spot. Paco Maguire is a spider dangling in the doorway, but worse. He’s over six feet in height with shoulders like boulders and arms like Popeye who has already shown he can flick a big fat bastard out a window like it was nothing.