Zombie Defence

by Rick Wood

  She stood.

  They surrounded her.

  It was time to fight.

  And, honestly, she kind of liked it.

  AFTER

  Chapter Six

  There was no light. No natural light, anyway. Just the harsh sting of artificial luminosity, the fluorescent fake white of the dim bulb above.

  Gus couldn’t remember how long he’d been staring at it.

  He was sure it was weeks. It felt like years, but it couldn’t have been. He knew that was in his head. When you’re laid there, doing nothing, day after day, those days can drag, and when days drag, they turn into longer days, and they can trick your mind.

  Tricks of the mind were his biggest enemy. He had to try and resist them, try not to fall into a spiral of madness induced by his immobility.

  Any bustle of noise outside the room perked him up. He didn’t even care who it was who came to visit him anymore. Doctor. Nurse. Someone coming to torture him. Hell, he’d take a dinner date with the infected if it cured his solitude.

  He never thought he’d hate being alone.

  He’d made a habit out of it.

  But two people had changed that. His two friends. Sadie. Donny.

  And where were they now?

  Probably trapped somewhere else within the building. If they were even alive.

  The last time he’d seen Sadie, she was being tortured. Eugene Squire had restrained him and forced him to watch, forced him to be a voyeur until he gave up all he knew about Sadie’s existence. Who she was. What she could do.

  He’d said nothing.

  But Gus knew Eugene was nobody’s fool. They both knew Sadie was a remarkable girl; yet it had appeared at the time that Eugene hadn’t learnt just how remarkable she was.

  By now, that was probably no longer the case.

  Then again, why else would Eugene keep Gus alive, except in hope that Gus might let on what he’d seen Sadie do? That he might spill his knowledge in hope of being put out of his misery?

  After all, Sadie could be the key to everything. Whilst she appeared to be the daintiest, most fragile girl there could be, she most definitely was not. She hadn’t the verbal ability of a human – in fact, there was very little human about her at all. She moved like a predator and attacked like a beast. Yet, there was something more than feral. She was like one of the undead, except she wasn’t. She had survived her blood mixing with the infected without turning. The infected were strong and fast – but she was stronger and faster.

  Her abilities surpassed theirs.

  Gus knew there was something about the way she had reacted to their blood. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it was crucial – most of all, he knew he couldn’t let Eugene know. Otherwise both he, and probably Sadie, would be killed.

  She may be being tortured, but at least she was alive.

  So, he said nothing.

  He had to say nothing.

  But the longer he said nothing, the longer he was left alone to wonder – does Eugene know?

  And Donny. Where was Donny?

  He hadn’t seen him since they’d arrived. Since they had willingly walked through the doors, under the pretence that he was delivering Eugene’s beloved daughter, whom he had saved from London – the hive of the undead. A pretence that turned out to be a lie.

  That girl, that sweet, innocent little girl he’d rescued from London – Eugene had shot her in the head before Gus even had an inkling they were being betrayed.

  All of it had been for nothing. The drive to London, getting into the quarantined city, fighting against thousands of the infected to get the girl out – for nothing.

  Then again, no. It hadn’t been for nothing. This was worse than nothing. Nothing would have been stuck in his old flat drinking himself to death. Nothing would be remaining in the peacefully ignorant life he’d been in before all of this happened.

  No, he’d pretty happily take nothing at that moment, rather than having to lay there day after day, knowing nothing about where his friends were, or what was happening to them.

  He lifted his head. Peered down his body. Still no leg.

  Sometimes, he convinced himself it was because his leg had gone numb. That it was all a dream. That he’d wake up the next morning, look down and see it, relieved the dream wasn’t true.

  But it wasn’t a dream.

  It was gone. The bottom half of his right leg. From the knee downwards. All that was there was a stump.

  It made sense, really. He had been shot in the leg years ago in Afghanistan, and the bullet had remained lodged in his calf. In the end, he’d had to reach into his calf and pull out the bullet to shoot the cannibal that was trying to kill him and Donny. He couldn’t do such a thing and still expect the use of his leg.

  How was he meant to get out of there?

  Because, make no mistake about it – leg or no leg, he was going to get out of there. He fully intended to make his escape. Any moment now, he was going to take his opportunity and leave.

  Only, he’d been thinking that since the first moment he had been restrained to this bed. His wrists, waist, and only ankle, were fixed in place. The room was like a sterile hospital room; it smelt of cleaning products, its walls were a blank white, and every day, they seemed to close in on him a little bit more.

  The door opened.

  His only two regular visitors entered. They visited three times a day. Meal-times. And neither of them ever said a single word to him, however much he tried to lure conversation out of them.

  The first man was a guard. He held a gun, a large machine gun – Gus couldn’t make out the model – and he kept it fixed on Gus. Gus had read this guy’s name badge, back before he stopped wearing it, and it had said his name was Corporal Krayton.

  “Corporal,” Gus declared. “So nice to see you again. How are we today? How’s the wife? How’s the kids?”

  Krayton smirked a knowing smirk. A wide smirk, as if to say, you’re tied to the bed, I have the gun, why would I give a shit about how you taunt me?

  “Yeah, I’ve just been hanging out, you know, the usual,” Gus continued. “Thought about going down the pub, but, you know, couldn’t get these straps loose.”

  The second man was, Gus presumed, a doctor. A tall man with grey hair and stubble, his long, white coat trailing behind him. He sat on a chair beside Gus’s bed, took out some food smushed into a container, and placed it on a teaspoon. He held the tea spoon to Gus’s lips.

  “This tastes like shit, you know that?” Gus said.

  The doctor’s expression didn’t falter.

  “Do I get to meet the chef? Say thank you? Or fuck you? You know, whichever comes to mind.”

  The doctor didn’t move. Just kept the food out, ready, waiting for him to eat.

  He put his lips around the food. Took it into his mouth. Locked eyes with the doctor. Spat it at him.

  Krayton stiffened his grip on his gun.

  If the doctor was perturbed, he didn’t show it. A flickering look of dismay passed his face, but it was gone in such an instant, Gus was sure he had imagined it.

  Instead, the doctor took the food, stood, and walked out.

  Keeping his gun aimed until the final moment, Krayton backed out of the room and shut the door. Gus heard it lock and he was alone again, alone with silence, and a fading, artificial light.

  He wished he could wipe his mouth. When he’d spat out that shitty excuse for food, some had dribbled down his chin. He tried lifting his head and wiping his chin on his shoulder, but he couldn’t manage it.

  He laid his head back. Stared at the ceiling. That same, white, damn, fucking empty ceiling. That same pathetic, ridiculous, swiney ceiling. The same ceiling he’d stared at for minute after minute after hour after God-knows-how-long because there was no sodding clock in there and all he could do was just stare, stare, stare, stare at nothing, try not to go crazy, stare at the ceiling, look at the light, look at the absence of leg, look at the empty room, always empty, forever empty, alwa
ys forever fucking empty.

  Ah, alone again.

  With myself.

  “Hello, darkness, my old friend…” he sang, hoping for a laugh at the irony, the good choice of song. But he didn’t even get an echo.

  Just silence.

  The same old silence.

  Chapter Seven

  Down the same blank sterile corridors, down the same neutral walls and marble floors, past the same men in lab coats and the women with glasses and pony tails pulled back, past the clipboards and the technology and the work – there was a darker side to the place that no one ever referred to. They all knew what they were doing was highly illegal and incredibly concerning. Everyone who worked there had a vague knowledge of what they were doing, but nothing specific. They were each a piece of the puzzle, and without all the pieces, they couldn’t see the big picture – but they could still see their own piece of the puzzle and recognise what kind of piece it was. What is was contributing. What it could mean.

  They were all sworn to an unspoken vow of secrecy.

  And no one ever left.

  They didn’t even know if their families were alive. They didn’t even know the extent of the post-apocalyptic world beyond the fences; there was no visual memory they had that told them what they needed to fear. But they smelled it when they opened a window. They heard it when they closed their eyes at night. They felt it when they had a momentary glance into another person’s eyes. And, amongst all these thoughts and glances and concerns there was one unanimous comprehension: the world had changed. They didn’t want to venture out there. Perhaps they liked convincing themselves they were prisoners – it gave them an excuse to not brave the changed world. It gave them reason to stay in their squalid rooms. To think that maybe, just maybe, what they were doing had a grander purpose.

  Denial seems like a stupid reaction to the casual observer. But, when you are in a life-threatening situation, it is a genuine defence the human mind uses to protect you. People can’t take the reality.

  Ignorance is always easier.

  And, if anyone chose not to be ignorant, to think that they may want to find their family, to stand up to Eugene Squire and General Boris Hayes and say that they did not want to continue as part of their operation – well, those people were few and far between. But one thing that was certain to anyone carrying out their work, whether they be a doctor, a physicist, a soldier, or just your regular, everyday torturer – those people who did object were never seen again.

  Although, on occasion, a doctor, or physicist, or soldier, or torturer, would pause their work to glance out of the window at the distant fence and think, for a fleeting moment, that they had caught a glimpse of a missing friend’s familiar face amongst the mass of infected – though they could never be sure.

  But the lack of certainty was enough to keep them in line.

  So the cycle went on. They carried out the tests Eugene wanted, carried out the actions Hayes demanded, went every which way to please their every need – then just hoped and prayed that it was for a better cause than they believed it was.

  Many of them were even under the impression that they were going to cure the infection.

  Quite the opposite.

  Any murmur of conversation promptly halted as those familiar footsteps were heard tapping down the corridor. People recognised them anywhere. They were loud, like clown feet, and they belonged to the prime minister. Funny, for a man with such a tight-fisted rule, the terrifying sound of him approaching sounded a lot more like the scuffle of a rat running from a bigger rat. His shadow, getting ever closer, grew bigger, but never loomed. Yet, as he marched around the corner with his crew in tow, people’s heads dropped and looked away. From behind their glass walls they continued in their laboratory, persisting in the tests he demanded they do, making sure he saw that they were hard at work.

  In this instance, those footsteps stopped at the lift. Eugene swiped his card, entered a pin number, then selected to go down a floor – to the basement.

  Only the few exclusive people with such an ID card and pin number could go to that floor.

  As the doors opened, a very different hallway appeared. The brightly lit corridor and active laboratories were long forgotten down there, replaced by shadows and dark corners and distant dripping you couldn’t place. A flickering orange light buzzed overhead, illuminating mossy cracks in the walls and stains on the floor.

  Eugene walked to the room he required, swiped his card, indicated to his entourage to wait outside, and entered.

  There she was.

  He smiled and stood between the two armed guards with deadened expressions and focussed eyes. His smile spread, hands playfully on his hips, and he bent slightly over like a primary school teacher addressing a child.

  “Ah, Sadie!” he sang. “And how are we today?”

  She looked up at him and growled.

  Her arms were above her head, a metal cuff around each wrist, attached to chains screwed deeply into the wall, and her restrained ankles were just the same. Her bleeding knees brushed the floor as she swayed under the lifeless clink of the rusty restraints, dangling from them, looking up to him with eyes that no longer had the energy to hate.

  Her lip bled. Her eyes lulled. The naked body of a battered young woman was bruised and beaten, reddened and scarred from months of misery. Her skin clung to her bones like cling film around meat. Her ribs were clearly pronounced, her legs coated in a thick strip of brown hair, and her breasts, so dainty and wounded, small as two distinctly unnoticeable pyramids, were barely discernible from her fading body.

  Despite the distant energy, vile detestation still surfaced in a growl, her response to Eugene’s patronising question.

  “Oh, I am sorry, where are my manners,” Eugene continued. “Have you eaten?”

  Her lip curled upwards into a snarl that was so weak it was barely audible. She wanted to leap forward and dig her teeth into his throat, rip out his oesophagus, bite off his face, turn him into a bloody, dead mess. But she lacked the energy or resolve. She had been in that position for too long. She had forgotten what liberty felt like.

  “I could get something, if you would like? Some yoghurt? Some chicken?”

  Her lip curled up again, revealing a bloody, broken tooth wayward from her bleeding gums.

  “Maybe just the yoghurt then.”

  She growled, a longer growl, ending with an aggressive, “Argh!”

  He shook his head. Sighed. She was feral when she was brought here, without a doubt. He was fascinated to find out what she was. Why the infection had affected her so differently to everyone else. He had thought – maybe she had become closer to what he had intended to create in the first place.

  In that line of thinking, he had expected her to talk.

  But she hadn’t. She hadn’t formed a word. Not a coherent syllable. And it was getting tiring.

  He wanted to be done with this.

  He wanted to give the lab what they needed to finish the project.

  He wanted to just get on with it.

  “Sadie, Sadie, Sadie,” he said. “This is growing tiresome. I know you can speak. I know you can.”

  Another low-pitched growl.

  “Oh, stop it. I know there are words in there. I know there are. I’m sure of it. Otherwise, how would you be… what you are? Eh? Tell me that, sunshine.”

  She mouthed something. Something that was barely a whisper. But it looked like words. Looked like something.

  “What was that?” he asked, excited. Finally!

  She did it again. He got closer.

  “One more time.” He turned his ear toward her and cupped it.

  Then those three words she knew all too well grunted past her scabbed, cracked lips.

  “Gus. Donny. Friend.”

  Eugene sighed.

  “Oh, Sadie. That is not…” He clenched his fist. “That is not – that is – that is not what I wanted!”

  He sent his fist soaring through Sadie’s face.


  She barely reacted. She was used to it. And he didn’t pack much of a punch. In fact, it probably did more damage to his knuckles than it did to her bony face.

  Still, he was perturbed. And she was the cause of it. And that did not make him happy.

  “Sooner or later,” he said, holding his wrist as he waited for the pain to subside, “I am no longer going to have a use for you.”

  He turned to the nearest guard.

  “She doesn’t move from this room unless she talks,” he said, placing a key in the guard’s pocket. “Bring her to me if she does.”

  He marched out of the room.

  Leaving her alone.

  With two armed guards for company.

  Staring at her weary, diminishing, pathetic body.

  She sniffed.

  She could still smell them.

  They were alive.

  They had to be.

  Chapter Eight

  Detail was the emphasis. Inscrutable, minute, incontrovertible detail. That’s what Doctor Janine Stanton had always believed. For within the detail is where she had made her best findings.

  And this was the finding.

  This was it.

  And maybe, just maybe, after she announced it – the prime minister wouldn’t need her anymore. He would let her go home. Be free.

  Not that he’d ever said she wasn’t free. Not explicitly, anyway. He had the calm demeanour of a wizened school teacher, the words of a politician, and the social appearance of the least-liked kid in class. It was just something in the way he spoke, the authority his commands held. He was the man in charge of the country. If he told you to do something and you didn’t do it, well… What then?

  There was hardly much of a government around to stop him.

  A letter to the United Nations wouldn’t get there. Partly because post doesn’t really happen anymore, and partly because she wasn’t even sure if they still existed.

  But this, she was positive, was exceptionally good work. Her research prior to entering the compound had involved looking at many illnesses, picking them apart under the microscope. She had created vaccines, pharmaceutical pills to help keep colds away, and had even contributed to a large, extensive project attacking cancer – and, at the latter stages of her research, she had nearly found the cure; just oh, so nearly.