Zom-B City (2 page)

The pain increases and I roll over. I bang into a wall and punch it hard, tearing the skin on my knuckles. That would have brought tears to my eyes if all my tear ducts hadn’t dried up when I died.

My back arches and my mouth widens. I stare at the sky with horror, thinking I’ll never look at it again this way, as a person capable of thought. In another few seconds I’ll be a brainless zombie, a shadow of a girl, lost to the world forever.

But to my relief the pain passes and again I’m able to force myself to my feet, mind intact. I chuckle weakly at my lucky escape. But even as I’m chuckling, I know I must have used up all nine of my lives by this stage. I can’t survive another dizzying attack like that. I’m nearing the end. Even the dead have their limits.

I stumble forward, reeling like a drunk. My legs don’t want to support me and I almost go down, but I manage to keep my balance. Coming to the end of the street, I grab a lamp post and swing out into a road.

Several cars are parked along the pavement and a few have been stranded in the middle of the road. One has overturned. The windows are all smashed in and bones line the asphalt around it.

The sun is blinding again now that I’ve left the gloom. I hurry to the nearest car in search of shelter. When I get there, I find two people lying on the back seat. Both boast a series of bite marks and scratches, each one of which is lined with a light green moss.

The zombies raise their heads and growl warningly. This is their turf and they don’t want to share it with me. Fair enough. I don’t really want to bed down with them either.

I lurch to the next car but that’s occupied too, this time by a fat zombie who is missing his jaw — it was either ripped off when he was killed, or torn from him later. He looks comical and creepy at the same time.

The third car is empty and I start to crawl in out of the light, to rest in the shade and wait for my senses to crumble. To all intents and purposes, this car will serve as my tomb, the place where B Smith gave up the ghost and became a true member of the walking dead.

But just as I’m bidding farewell to the world of the conscious, my nostrils twitch. Pausing, I pull back and sniff the air. My taste buds haven’t been worth a damn since I returned to life, but my sense of smell is stronger than ever. I’ve caught a whiff of something familiar, something which I was eating for a long time underground without knowing what it was.

Three cars further down the road is a Skoda, the source of the tantalising scent. As weary as I am and as agonising as it is, I force myself on, focusing on the Skoda and the sweet, sweet smell.

My legs give out before I get to the car, but I don’t let that stop me. Digging my finger bones into the asphalt, I drag myself along, crawling on my belly like a worm, baking in the sun, half-blind, itching like mad, brain shutting down. Every part of me wants to give up and die, but the scent lures me on, and soon I’m hauling myself into the Skoda through the front passenger door.

The driver is still held in place by her seat belt, but is lying slumped sideways. Most of her flesh has been torn from her bones, and her head has been split open, her brains scooped out and gobbled up by the zombies who caught her as she was trying to flee. She’s not entirely fresh but she’s not rotting either. She must have been killed quite recently.

I should feel sympathy for the woman and curiosity about how she survived this long and where she was headed when she was attacked. But right now all I’m concerned about is that those who fed on her didn’t scrape her dry. Bits of brain have been left behind. Slivers are stuck to her scalp and meatier chunks rest inside the hollow of her skull.

Like a monstrous baby taking to the teat, I latch on to the shattered bones and suck tendrils of brain from them. I run my tongue the whole way round the rim, not caring about the fact that it’s disgusting, that I’m behaving like an animal. In fact I’m ecstatic, getting an unbelievable buzz from the grey scraps, feeling myself strengthen as I suck, knowing I can keep the senseless beast inside me at bay for a while longer.

When I’ve sucked the bones dry, I pull back a touch, wipe my lips, then steel myself for what I have to do next. ‘For what I am about to receive . . .’ I mutter, trying to make a sick joke out of the even sicker deed.

Then I stick my fingers into the dead woman’s head, scoop out every bit of brain that I can find, and stuff myself like a cannibal at Christmas.

THREE

Once I’m done dining, I lean out of the car and force myself to vomit. If I keep food inside my system, it will rot and attract insects. I’ve no wish to become a sanctuary for London’s creepy-crawlies.

I pull back inside and shelter from the sunlight as best I can, staring glumly at the ceiling of the car, thinking about the underground complex, Rage killing Dr Cerveris and leaving us to our own devices, poor Mark being eaten, the zom heads being burnt alive. What a horrible, pointless mess, the whole bloody lot of it.

The road outside is deserted. Nobody moves. The zombies are lying low, hiding from the sun like me.

I’m itching all over. I scratch gently, careful not to slice through my skin with the bones sticking out of my fingers. I catch sight of my injured knuckles and peel some of the ruined flesh away from them. The damage isn’t bad but I’m probably stuck with the wound for life. (Or whatever passes for life these days.) The hole in my chest where my heart was ripped out hasn’t healed fully, so I don’t think this will either. I’m dead. Your body doesn’t regenerate when you’re a zombie.

Still, I won’t have to bear the open scars too much longer. Normal zombies can last as long as an ordinary person. Those of us who recover our senses aren’t so lucky. Dr Cerveris told me that the brains of revitaliseds start to decompose once they fire up again. I’ve got a year, maybe eighteen months, then I’m toast.

The day passes slowly. I think about the past, where Mum and Dad might be now, if they’re alive, dead or wandering the streets of London as zombies. I recall the attack on my school. I wonder about the freaky clown and his mutants, why they tore through the compound, slaughtering all in sight, but freeing the zombies.

I wish I could sleep and kill some time that way, but the dead can’t snooze. We’re denied almost all of the pleasures of the flesh. The only thing we can still enjoy is food — as long as it’s brains.

‘You had it easy,’ I tell the corpse on the front seat, moving into the back as the sun swings round. ‘A couple of minutes of terror and pain, then it was all over. You probably didn’t think you were one of the lucky ones as your skull was being clawed open, but trust me, you were.’

The woman doesn’t respond, but I go on speaking to her anyway, telling her my story, my thoughts, my regrets, my fears. It’s the first time I’ve talked about my feelings since I recovered consciousness. There was nobody in the compound I could confide in. Mark was the closest I had to a friend, but I couldn’t trust him completely. For all I knew he was working for the doctors, a plant. And in fact he was, only he didn’t know about it until it was too late.

The dead are the best listeners in the world. The corpse takes it all in, never interrupts, doesn’t criticise me, lets me waffle on for as long as I like.

Finally the sun dips and night falls on London. I feel nervous as I slide out of the car. I’ve no idea what to expect. The soldiers and scientists told me nothing about the outside world. I don’t know how much damage the zombies caused when they went wild, or if the living managed to suppress them. By what I’ve seen on this road – the lack of activity, the silence, the zombies sheltering in deserted cars – I assume the worst. But I won’t know for sure until I explore some more.

The other zombies come out as I do, free to move around without irritation now that the sun has set. They don’t shuffle like movie zombies – they walk almost as freely as when they were alive – but you couldn’t mistake them for the living. Their eyes are glassed over, bones stick out of their fingers and toes, their teeth are too big for their mouths, they sniff the air like dogs.

The fat guy I saw earlier gets a whiff of me and moves in closer, head twitching as he sniffs and listens. I let him come as close as he likes, curious to see what he’ll do, if he can tell that I’m different to him.

Something must register inside his chaotic mess of a brain, telling him I’m not entirely the same, because he circles me warily, studying me with his cold, dead eyes.

‘Take it easy, boss,’ I grunt, pulling up my T-shirt to reveal the hole in my chest. ‘I’m one of you, honest I am.’

The zombie growls when he hears me talking, then frowns when he spots the hole where my heart once rested. He peers into it for ages, as if he thinks it might be a trick. Then he turns away and goes looking for dinner elsewhere.

‘We accept you, gooble-gobble . . .’ I murmur, remembering something Tiberius used to say. Then I press on, leaving my temporary shelter behind, to find out if London truly has become a city of the dead.

FOUR

The streets are mostly deserted and the only people I glimpse are zombies. They seem to be drifting aimlessly, sniffing the air, looking for living humans to feed on. Many groan or whine, scratching at their stomachs or heads, suffering hunger pangs. Some have accidentally clawed through to their guts or poked an eye out. They’re pitiful beasts in this sorry state. They’d be better off properly dead, no doubt about it.

Lots of zombies stop me as I draw close. They can tell I’m not exactly the same as them, maybe by my scent or the way I move. In almost every case, their face lights up with excitement, then creases with doubt, then returns to blankness once they realise I’m dead like they are.

The reviveds become a nuisance after a while. If I try to push on without stopping to be examined, they get angry and snap at me. I’m pretty sure I could take any one of them in a fight – it shouldn’t be too difficult to outwit a brain-dead zombie – but I don’t want to spend the whole night scrapping. It’s easier to stand still, let them give me the once-over, then move on when they lose interest.

To clarify my situation, I rip a hole in my T-shirt to expose the left half of my chest. That speeds things up a bit, but some still stop me to make absolutely sure I’m not one of the living. With all the interruptions, I make little headway. It’s been about a couple of hours since I left the car, but I haven’t gone far.

I spot a newsagent’s and let myself in. It’s dusty. Shelves have been knocked down, broken bottles litter the floor, the glass in a drinks cabinet has been shattered. There are a few newspapers on the counter, all dated the day of the zombie attacks, the world’s last normal day. The cash register is open, notes lying undisturbed inside it. I guess money doesn’t matter much any more.

The electricity is off but I can see fairly clearly. My eyes work well in the dark, better than they do in strong light.

I find a large
A to Z
and take it outside. I look for a street sign, then do a quick check in the book. I’m in the East End. I don’t know this area well, but I’m not far from more familiar territory. It’s probably pointless, but with nowhere else to head for, I figure I might as well go home. I doubt I’ll find anyone there, but at least I’ll be in more comforting surroundings.

I replace the
A to Z
with a smaller version and stick it in the back of my jeans. Then I set off in a northwest direction, picking my way through the streets, stopping whenever I’m challenged by one of the roaming dead.

I endure the stop-start process for another hour before I get sick of it. It’ll take forever if I keep going like this. There has to be a better way and I think I know what it is. I could try a motorbike or car, of course, but I never learnt to drive, and anyway, the roads are cluttered with crashed vehicles.

I find a street packed with shops and go on a scouting mission. First I slip into a chemist’s and hunt for eye drops. My eyes don’t produce tears now, so I need to keep moistening them or they’ll dry out and my vision will worsen. Once I’ve doused them, I load a bag with several bottles and look around, wondering if I need anything else. I think about bandaging over the hole in my chest, but it’s not a medical necessity – apart from the green moss, I haven’t seen any signs of infection – and besides, the open hole makes it easier for the walking dead to identify me as one of their own.

I move on and spot a hardware store. I spend a bit longer in this shop, testing a variety of tools, looking for weapons in case I have to fight at any point. The zombies haven’t bothered me so far, but I can’t rely on them leaving me alone forever. I know from the tests underground that they’ll attack revitaliseds if they feel threatened. I don’t plan on antagonising anyone, but sometimes things can just kick off. Better to be safe than sorry.

I settle on a hammer, a couple of screwdrivers and a chisel. Light, easy to carry and use, effective. I spend a long time among the drills, playing around with them, wincing at the shriek they make – my sense of hearing is much better than it was when I was alive – but loving their sheer ferocity. It would be cool to become a drill-packing zombie, but the bulky machines aren’t practical, so in the end, reluctantly, I leave them behind.