The Undead. The First Seven Days (33 page)

I’m pulling back, trying to wrench the axe from him and, in my panic, I don’t think to just let go of it. His one arm is strong enough to drag me towards his mouth where his teeth are now bared. Just as reason gets hold of me and I let go of the axe, a knife spins past my head and embeds into the side of his skull.

Then Dave is there, pulling his head back and slicing his throat open. Dave drives him down onto the ground and pulls the other knife out.
  ‘GO.’
  Dave looks at me and we both start running back to the car. Within a few steps, we are there and I get into the driver’s seat and look in the rear view mirror. We have left a trail of bodies behind us and I can see the horde are coming our way now, the gates are open and the riot van has gone. At least they got away safely.

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Extract from Howie’s Journal:

The infection watched from hundreds of pairs of eyes as the two uninfected made loud bangs and many host bodies fell.

  The infection saw the fresh bodies and wanted them. The undead turned and started towards them, being urged by the absolute craving to bite flesh. The infection has learnt that most will run away, driven by fear. But some don’t run. They stand and fight and a very few will come towards the host bodies. The infection knows that there are few of them left now and it is only a matter of time before they are all consumed.

  As the host bodies went towards the uninfected, one stood still and watched.

  He stood with his head upright, hands clenching at his sides. The horde shuffled past and he watched as his kin were struck down by the two uninfected. The smaller uninfected had no smell of fear about him and his heart rate stayed normal. The larger one had a mixed smell, one of absolute rage mixed with adrenalin and fear - but they came on and they took down his kin. He watched as they got closer, fighting and dispatching bodies with ease. Then the larger one saw him and they watched each other. The infection saw the larger one charge forward and raise the implement he had used to kill so many host bodies. The infection sent signals as the larger one swung the implement and made the host body hold the axe.

  Then it sent more signals to that arm, making it stay still, locking the muscles out. The infection could feel the vibration through the host body as the uninfected pulled at the axe. The infection sent more signals to the host body and made the muscles contract, drawing the axe closer. The infection felt the muscle struggle to contract, so it sent more signals and more energy to that arm. The uninfected got closer and it made the host body pull its lips back and have the teeth ready to pass the deadly saliva into this new host.

  Then something happened and, instantly, it couldn’t send the signals anymore, the brain had shut down and the infection wasn’t able to control the heart - or the muscles. The infection felt as if a wound was created in the host body and the precious life blood was released, then the host body fell down and the infection lost control.

  As the host body shut down, the one remaining sense detected a change in the larger, uninfected, one.
  It smelled fear.

The undead cat slowly gets to its feet and walks a few paces, with shaky legs and the tail twitching furiously.

  Within a few minutes, it gains more control, becoming steadier on its feet, until it is moving almost normally. It stops and lies down and then rolls onto its back with its legs straight up in the air. Then, it twitches several times and spins round back onto its feet. The front legs rise up and the cat tries walking, just on its back legs, but the balance goes and the cat falls over. The cat tries this several more times then gives up and sticks to using four legs. Then the cat runs and leaps into the air but lands awkwardly with legs splayed out. It tries again by running and then leaping but it lands too heavily on its back legs and, again, ends up spread eagled. It keeps trying, running down the quiet and deserted street, jumping into the air, until it has mastered the landing.
  The cat reaches a wall and looks up. From down here the wall looks high, but it knows that it must be able to jump up. The cat takes some backwards steps, while staring fixed at the top of the garden wall. The cat then lowers itself down to the ground and prepares for the jump. It leaps high and sails through the air, the powerful hind legs propelling it faster than it intended. The cat hits the wall and slides down into a heap at the bottom, the tail still twitching like crazy.

  It gets back up and again walks backwards, while staring at the top of the wall. More height is needed, so the cat lowers down and again pushes off with its powerful back legs. The power was much better, but far too much and the cat flies over the top of the wall - with a strangled miaow - and crashes into a bush on the other side.
  It drags itself out of the bush, but a long, thorny stick gets caught in the tail fur. The cat turns round to pull it off, but every time it turns, the stick pulls away. The cat speeds up, desperately trying to catch the stick that is stuck to its tail, spinning round and round in the front garden of the quiet and deserted street.
  The cat finally catches the stick, but the spinning has made it dizzy and it staggers about drunkenly until it falls onto one side. When the dizzy feeling passes, the cat gets up and looks back at the wall with narrowed, bloodshot eyes. It positions itself better this time and launches into the air and gets to the top of the wall, but the power needed was slightly too much and its bottom drops down the other side - but it digs in the claws that it just found in its front legs and manages to pull back up.
  Once it is stable, the cat raises one front paw and watches as the claws slide out and then retract back in. Then, it swaps legs and watches the claws of the other paw. Next, it lifts both front legs to watch them at the same, but the sudden loss of stability from the front legs causes the cat to tumble and slide back down the wall into the front garden again.
  The cat leaps back up and learns to settle its weight down, the tail plays a part in the stability of this animal and it fights to control the twitching.
  Within a short time, the cat detects movement from below. There are dead bodies littering the street and one of them is nearby. The smell coming from it is very strong. The cat watches as there is movement from half way down the dead body. The body is lying on its back, the face staring up at the sky. There is movement from under the clothes and the cat watches, as a small, black rat face pushes out from between the buttons of the shirt and pauses, sniffing about.

  The rat has been gorging on the insides of the body and has made a hole to get outside and rest in the warm. There has never been this much food before and the rat is bloated and fat from the feasting.
  The rat pulls itself out from the gnawed skin and sits on the top of the cadaver. The black body glistens in the sun from the juices inside the stomach cavity.
  The cat watches the rat while a primeval instinct from its once living, small cat brain screams out. The cat allows the instinct to take over and, within seconds, the cat has launched off the wall and pounced onto the fat rat. The claws came out mid-flight and are ready for the strike. At the point of impact, the cat sank those sharp claws into the big, fat, rat belly and then bites into the neck. Hot rat blood spurts out over the cats face. The cat wants to eat the rat but that isn’t the purpose now.
  The primary purpose is to survive and the cat complies, passing the deadly infection through the bloodstream and into the rat’s body.

‘Did you see that zombie?’
  ‘Which one?’
  ‘The one that sat down reading the newspaper… ? Which bloody one do you think, Dave?
  ‘Oh! That one.’
  ‘It caught the axe! It bloody caught the axe as I was trying to chop its head off… they can’t do that.’
  ‘Why not?’
  ‘What do you mean why not? They just can’t. They are slow and stupid, they can’t suddenly start using their hands and catching things and... did you see its face?’
  ‘No.’
  ‘It was weird, it looked at me… it actually
looked
at me.’
  ‘They were all looking.’
  ‘No, I mean that it was holding its head up and really studying me. There was a sort of intelligence there, or something.’
  ‘Oh.’
  ‘If they start doing things like that, then this mess just got a whole lot worse… what if they all start doing it.’
  ‘What? Catching axes?’
  ‘Not just that - using their hands and thinking.’
  ‘They’ll be like us, I guess.’
  ‘Fuck me! This is bad - very bad. Did you see any of the others do anything weird, like that?’
  ‘Other than come back to life and try to eat the living, no I didn’t.’

I look over at Dave, surprised at the long answer and the sudden use of sarcasm. He glances back at me and suddenly looks a bit nervous.
  ‘Sorry, Mr Howie.’
  ‘What for?’
  ‘Being flippant.’
  ‘You don’t have to apologise mate, you can say whatever you want.’
  ‘Okay.’
  ‘So, anyway, maybe it was just a freak zombie, like a professor or something - or a soldier, like you, or a martial arts expert.’
  ‘Could be.’
  ‘But his strength though – that was immense.  If they all get like that one, then we’re completely fucked.’
  We drive in silence.

Dave gets the wipes out and goes through his cleaning process. First the weapons and then he cleans his knives and my axe. Next he hands me some of the anti-bacterial cleansing wipes and I disinfect my hands and clean my face. The used wipes go into an empty bag on the back seat.

We use the road atlas that I took from my parent’s house and work a route north out of the city and, before too long, we leave the urban area behind us. It feels nice to be out of the decaying city.

The heat of the day is upon us now and we are both sweltering. These cheap police cars don’t have air conditioning and the blower just sends more hot air into the car.
  ‘Have you been to Salisbury before, mate?’ I ask Dave.
  ‘Yes.’
  ‘What’s it like?’
  ‘Big.’
  ‘No, I mean the army place, what’s that like?’
  ‘Big.’
  Ask a question… get an answer…
  ‘Okay, is the base easy to find?’
  ‘I don’t know.’
  ‘I thought you had been there?’
  ‘Just once. It was dark and… I was in the back of a truck.’
  ‘Fair enough. So they train tanks there then?’
  He looks at me, the same impassive expression, but with another glint in his eye.
  ‘No… they don’t train
tanks
.’
  ‘You know what I mean, do they train people to drive tanks?’
  ‘Yes… and other things.’
  ‘The APS things?’
  ‘APCs - Armoured Personnel Carriers.’
  ‘Yeah, them, sorry.’
  ‘They have barracks and mock-up towns, so that the infantry can train too.’
  ‘Oh right, so there might be soldiers and army people there?’
  ‘Yes.’
  Shit, I didn’t think this through… as normal! I’m sure the army will let us just walk in and borrow one of their vehicles, or they might just shoot us instead! I was rushing and panicking after I realised my parents weren’t coming back and not thinking straight.
  ‘Right, so if we can’t get one, we’ll just have to head straight for London and hope for the best.’
  ‘Okay.’
  ‘I mean, it’s only been a couple of days. It’s Monday now and it only started on Friday. My sister will be safe enough, I’m sure she will. She’s just got to stay locked in and wait.’
  Dave points ahead to a group of people that are standing in the driveway of a house. We are on a country road and passing a row of nice, old cottages to the right; a small, country church is on the left hand side. The group of people are at the far end of the row of houses. As we get closer, I can see they are not people, not anymore.
  ‘Fuck it, more of them, we’ll get past them,’ I start to increase the speed, but Dave waves his arm at me.
  ‘Slow down, Mr Howie.’
  He is leaning forward, staring intently at them. I slow the car down.
  ‘What is it? Do you see something?’ I ask him, concerned at his request.
  ‘I want to see if they have changed.’
That makes sense, that last one catching my axe was very worrying. I slow down, but stick to the far side of the road. I drop the gears down and get prepared to pull away. There are only a handful of undead here, most of them look very old and infirm; grey hair and grey skin spattered with dried blood and festering injuries.
  One of them is a vicar or priest and is wearing a dark shirt with a white dog-collar. We slow down to watch them. The heat is intense and the vehicle engine is the only noise I can hear. The undead are staring out into the road, already looking in our direction.
  I thought they would be watching the house and that maybe someone was inside. A sign board outside the house gives it away; the house is the vicarage and I guess it would be the focal point for a small hamlet like this.
  The undead start shuffling as soon as we pull up. We both watch their movements, but nothing appears to have changed.
  ‘They look normal.’
Then I realise what I’ve just said.
  ‘Well, they look like the other zombies we’ve met in the day; none of them look particularly clever.’
Dave opens the door and steps out.
  ‘What are you doing?’
  ‘Hang on Mr Howie.’
  He walks round the car and towards the small group. His knives are in his hands. He looks round and then picks up a small stone from the side of the road. He then throws the stone at the vicar’s head, striking him in the face. Dave turns, shrugs at me and picks up one more stone and throws it at another of the undead.
  They don’t react but just keep shuffling forward as Dave throws stones and pebbles at their heads.
  I examine each of the undead in turn; the arms are hanging limp at their sides and the heads are rolling about. The eyes are still red and bloodshot and their movement is slow and awkward. Drool is hanging down from their mouths and the front of their clothing is soaked from the dripping saliva.
  Dave moves forward, until he is only a couple of footsteps steps away from the vicar. The vicar, in turn shows a bit more excitement and I see his lips pulling back, he lunges forward for the bite but Dave side steps him and the vicar stumbles and falls to the ground.
  Another one lunges at Dave, but again he darts out of the way and I watch as the undead body staggers,  loses its balance and goes down.