* * *
In the dumpster, Martin and Yvonne were sat curled up. Yvonne was no longer whimpering, but neither of them dared do anything. The occasional moan from the creatures outside was audible through the dumpster, but they didn't want to look to see how many there were in case it drew attention to themselves. Suddenly they heard a hissing noise that made the two of them jump. The hissing stopped, and then it came again, followed closely by a familiar voice.
“Martin?” the voice said.
“It’s the radio!” Martin said in a muted elation, and reached around himself and pulled it from his pocket. He fumbled for the volume dial and turned it down slightly. He pushed the button to talk. “Mike?” he whispered into the radio.
“Yeah it’s me!” Mike's voice replied, sounding happy and almost chuckling as it spoke. “I’m so glad to hear your voice.”
“Me too,” Martin said, “just please tell me you and Gaz made it.”
There was a pause before Mike's voice came back. “I'm stuck on a roof.”
“On a roof?” Martin said, obviously puzzled. “Why are you on a roof?”
“We got cornered by those things,” Mike replied, “we had to get up here to get away.”
“Is Gaz with you?” Martin asked.
There was another pause, and then Mike answered. “He didn't make it.”
Martin's heart sank. He couldn't believe it. The four of them had come so close. Their goal was visible from where they were standing not even twenty minutes ago. To not make it now, he felt, was just cruel. He pulled himself around quickly. Gaz was dead and they couldn't help that. They had to find a means to escape their current situation and get to those boats. “Can you get off the roof?” he said through the radio.
“No,” Mike said, “those things are everywhere down there. Can you get to me?”
“No,” Martin answered, “we're stuck ourselves.”
“Stuck where?” Mike asked.
“In a bin,” Martin said, “and those things are everywhere out there.”
“Bollocks,” Mike said, and then there was a moment where nobody spoke.
Martin sat there feeling defeated again. He cursed everything in his mind. “How could this happen?” he thought to himself, “We were so close.” Without thinking, he slumped back against the side of the dumpster with a loud metallic 'clunk'. His heart skipped a beat. “What the hell made that noise?” he thought, but he waited silently. His worst fears were realised when the moans rose up from outside.
“Oh shit,” Yvonne said quietly, the fear obvious in her voice, “they know we're here!”
Martin hushed her. He felt angry at himself for causing this renewed threat. How could he be so careless? The first patter of hands on the dumpster from outside came, and then it was obvious more were coming as the noise grew to a deafening rapture on the metal shell. Martin raised the radio again. “Mike?” he said, no longer whispering.
“Yeah?” answered Mike's voice.
“They've found us.”
Chapter 14
Martin and Yvonne clung to each other. They were terrified. The mass of creatures outside the dumpster knew they were in there, but as of yet they couldn't find a way in. Martin knew it was only a matter of time before they found one, and Yvonne knew it too. “Martin?” she asked.
“What?”
“How many bullets do we have?” Yvonne asked him.
“Not enough,” he replied.
Yvonne began crying. “I don't want to die like this!” she said through the cries.
Martin held her tighter. “You're not going to,” he said, and he gripped his pistol in his hand. He considered how easy it would be. He would shoot her in the head in the dark where she wouldn't see it coming, and then turn the gun on himself. It was far more desirable than being torn apart and eaten alive by those things out there. He held her for a second more, then slumped back away from her. As he did, there was another loud metallic 'clunk' against the side of the dumpster. Martin reached around to feel what was making that noise. He found something that he had forgotten about in all the panic. It was a round object, rock hard, metal and about a kilogram in weight. He pulled from his pocket one of the two grenades he kept from the van wreckage. He held it in his hand. It felt cold, but oddly it gave him warmth in his heart. Murder suicide completely disappeared from his mind. This was their exit.
“Yvonne, cover your ears!” he said. Yvonne did as she was told, and Martin pulled the pin. He gripped the grenade holding the lever in place and, taking a few quick deep breaths, he pushed his hand up as fast as he could, opening the lid to the dumpster enough to get his hand and the grenade through, and dropped it. He pulled his hand back in and grabbed Yvonne again, this time forcing her into a led down position. With his body he covered her and with his hands he covered his own ears. The shock was immense. Despite the fact they both had their ears covered, the bang still echoed around inside the dumpster nearly deafening them. The whole metal structure shook and jolted, and they had a short sense of weightlessness followed by a jolt, of which they were protected from by the black bin bags. Without doing it themselves, the inertia of the movement caused them to roll, and before they knew it they were outside in the alley, finding the sudden brightness of the moonlight quite blinding.
Slightly dizzy, the pair of them sat up quickly and got their bearings. They were facing the dead end of the alley, but it was plastered with blood and what could only be described as ‘pulp’. They turned to see the dumpster had been blown onto its side, and the whole of the alley surrounding it was plastered with a red paste and the floor covered in blood and entrails, the mashed and mangled corpses of dozens of creatures led among it. Some were still moving despite missing the lower two thirds of their bodies, the heads waving slowly, the mouths still opening as though to moan, but without the lungs there was no sound coming out. The only ones able to make a sound were further up the alley, but not a single one was left standing, nor did they have the ability to stand.
Martin knew this was their chance. He made sure he had his gun, checked Yvonne was okay and grabbed her hand. Leading the way, he led the two of them running down the alley. He dodged a few creatures crawling legless along the floor, and a couple that were around the corner still standing he dispatched of with his pistol. As they moved he got back on his radio. “Mike?!” he shouted into it.
Mike's voice came back. He sounded amazed to hear them alive. “Martin? Thank Christ! What the hell was that noise?”
“Never mind that, get yourself ready, we're coming for you. Where are you?”
“The building we got separated at, there's a service ladder up to the roof behind it,” said Mike, “But those things are everywhere!”
“Just get ready,” Martin said. He and Yvonne ran as fast as they could. They found the building Mike had described and headed around the back. Once they had made it to other side they saw the ladder Mike had talked about, and just like he had said, the creatures gathered at the base of it. There must have been about fifty of them, the inner mass of which were still crouched picking at bloody bits of bone on the ground. Martin knew this must have been all that remained of Gaz. He pulled the grenade from his pocket and pulled the pin. He released the lever and as soon as it had sprung away from the device, he rolled the grenade along the floor towards the creatures. It rolled smoothly along the flagged walkway, arcing in the same way a ball would on a bowling green, and settled right in the middle of the crowd of creatures. “Perfect!” Martin thought, and he grabbed Yvonne and pulled her back behind the wall of the building.
The explosion was loud, and as they watched, bloody pieces of bodies came flying past them at the corner of the building, and a horrid thud sound, mixed with a squelching noise, was heard as the pieces of mashed up flesh rained onto the ground. Martin looked to check the way was clear, and pulled Yvonne round the corner with him. The scene was similar to that they had seen in the alley way, with pieces of body everywhere and the odd creature still alive despit
e being dismembered. The two of them carefully stepped through the mass of blood and flesh and reached the ladder. “Mike?” Martin shouted up.
Mike's head appeared over the ledge of the building. “What the hell was that?” he shouted.
“Your guardian angel,” Martin answered. “Can you get down?”
“Yeah, but it'll take a while.”
“Well get moving, we'll cover you,” Martin said, and he and Yvonne watched. There were no creatures that could threaten them in the immediate vicinity, but others had to have heard the blasts from the grenades and would be on their way to the source of the noise. Mike grabbed the top rung of the ladder and carefully swung his bad leg over the edge, then using the same method he used to climb the ladder he slowly made his way down. He reached the bottom.
“Thanks for coming back for me,” he said to his two friends.
“Don't thank us,” Martin said, “We're all leaving together.”
Martin put his arm round Mike's waist and Mike put his arm around Martin's shoulders, and the three of them set off towards the harbour. They could see the masts of the boats moored there silhouetted in the moonlight, a beacon of hope and solace, and the sight gave them all new leases of energy. They moved as quickly as they could with the water on their left. As they followed the road, they noticed creatures shambling towards them from a supermarket car park across the road to their right. They kept moving without hesitation. They were moving faster than the creatures, but all it would take was one slip up and they would be dead. The horde was growing behind them now. The creatures gathered on the car park noticed them and came in a kind of wedge shape, meeting and merging like road traffic to form one mass of bodies moving behind the survivors. The group didn't look back. They just kept their eyes forward and focussed on outrunning the growing number of moans behind them.
It seemed to take an age, but the survivors finally arrived at the entrance gate of the harbour. It was a mesh gate that rose ten feet high, with barbed wire attached the tops of the poles holding it up. When they reached it they threw themselves upon it, but it was locked. They shook it, but it wouldn't budge.
Martin looked back to see the horde only a hundred yards or so behind. He looked around the gate and saw the lock was a dead bolt which needed a key to unlock. He moved Mike and Yvonne back and fired all his remaining bullets into it. He kicked the gate and, to his relief, felt it open behind the force of his kick. The three of them urged forward and onto the gang plank. There were many boats moored here, and it seemed several of them had to double park and had been blocked in by other boats. The group continued forward. Yvonne looked back over her shoulder to see the horde still following, but with the gang plank only wide enough for three people, both flanks of the creatures poured into the water. In spite of this many were still following them along the gang plank. She could see the number was far too many to be able to stand and fight against.
“Which boat?” Martin shouted, now sounding tired now under the strain of carrying Mike.
“Does it matter?” Mike replied sounding just as equally tired after having to effectively hop the entire way to the harbour.
They came to the end of the gang plank, and on the left of them was a sloop. It was tied to the gang plank and had no other boats blocking it. As fast as they could, they got aboard. Yvonne went first, then turned back to help Mike. She was expecting Martin to follow but he ran towards the front of the boat.
“What are you doing?” Yvonne shouted.
“We need to cast off these ropes,” Martin answered. He got the bow line off the gang plank and quickly headed back to the stern. As he went towards it he saw the creatures were getting very close. He had to make a decision in his mind. He knew if he got the line off he wouldn't have time to make it aboard, but it was better that Yvonne and Mike escaped than none of them, which he felt would let down all of the people they lost on their journey here. Someone had to survive to make it worth it. He reached the line and untied it, and just as the line came loose, he felt the hands on him. He readied himself for the end, but instead heard gunfire. He looked up and saw Mike and Yvonne, standing shoulder to shoulder, picking off the creatures as they came close. Martin looked over his shoulder and saw the creatures falling, and those that followed were stumbling over their dead comrades and falling into the water.
“Get aboard!” Mike shouted.
Martin pushed the boat and jumped aboard, a couple of creatures reaching for him, but not making any contact they fell into the water beneath. Slowly the boat drifted towards the open sea. The three survivors stood there, watching the creatures in the moonlight. They were still trying determinedly to get to them, but hopelessly they fell into the water below. Martin breathed a huge sigh of relief and turned to thank his friends, then walked into the cabin of the boat. The cabin looked quite accommodating, with enough room for them all to sleep and sit. He looked back at Mike and Yvonne, who stood watching the harbour as the boat moved away. Martin found the pilot controls for the boat and saw the ignition switch. He removed the coverings, found the necessary wires and, using his expertise, got the engine running. He flicked a switch and the lights on the bow of the boat came on, and he could see out in front of him the steady rising and falling of the sea water. He carefully steered and followed a line of buoys, and before long the boat was out at sea. He found some charts and studied them, looking at which direction to point the vessel in to get to their destination, and as he did, he couldn’t help but wonder what they would find on the Isle of Mann. He knew that if things weren't any different there, they wouldn't have the ammunition or food to survive. For now he didn't care. He called Yvonne and she came into the cock pit. “I need you to do something for me,” he said to her.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“I want you to hold this wheel and keep the boat steady.” As he went to walk away, Yvonne stopped him.
“Things are going to be okay, aren't they?” she asked.
Martin looked at her. In his own mind it was a question he didn't want an answer to. They had been through hell and for now he wanted to relax. He couldn't say what he felt to her though. To vanquish the gleam of hope on her face would have been cruel. “With you, everything will be fine.” Yvonne smiled at him and took the wheel. She held it level and looked ahead at the white foam of the waves caught in the lights of the boat.
Martin moved back to the stern of the boat to where Mike stood leant against a pole. Together they watched as the shores of England, silhouetted against the night sky, shrank into the distance. From what they could make out it all looked so calm and peaceful, the only signs of chaos coming from the flames of whatever accident had happened on the day the purple fog hit, still burning bright in the night sky. “What do you reckon?” Mike said.
“About what?” replied Martin.
“Our chances out here.”
Martin took in a deep breath. He couldn't bring himself to answer the question. “Let's not bother about that just yet,” he said, and the two of them stood in silence, and watched, until the land was swallowed by the darkness of the night.
A Note from the author
The story you have just read is the result of good times spent with friends whilst growing up. As a group of friends, the six of us always used to enjoy watching movies, playing video games and talking about random, useless rubbish, which would always end up turning into a discussion of our favourite supernatural creature, the zombie.
The obsession began when a certain popular video game series launched in the mid-nineties, and from there the passion for zombies grew. The passion became obsession when a very popular zombie movie based in a shopping mall made its way into my household, and research on the net gave us our own great ideas (or at least they seemed it at the time) for zombie movies. Using my dad’s Hi8 camcorder we filmed a five minute zombie movie in my house. I don’t think my parents know this, so I’m pretty sure they’ll be finding this out right about now! With no home editing technology available
to us, the whole film was one shot, was acted terribly and was, ultimately, pretty awful.
This didn’t dampen our spirits or opinions of the zombie, and it wasn’t long after, aged just thirteen at the time, I embarked on a personal project to write an epic zombie movie script. The paper for it came from my school exercise books, and in pencil I wrote a movie script which, if filmed, would have been roughly seventy minutes long (at least by my own adolescent reckoning). In typical teenage fashion, bad language and over the top monsters and action, which all seemed so cool at the time, were in plentiful supply. The movie never took off, of course, due to the ambitious content, which was based around a bank robbery that goes wrong, only to be made worse further by a mysterious mist that transformed people into zombies.
Fifteen years on, and what you have just read is that story, updated and reworked with all the over the top action and bad language, stuff that seemed cool as a teenager, removed. To keep it in the same spirit if that movie idea most of the character’s names have remained the same, which means that six of the characters in this book make up the six of us teenagers who grew up together with a love of the zombie. I won’t tell you which are the names of those people here, but if you happen to be one of those people and you are reading this yourself, please know that the memories of talking about zombie survival and making stupid zombie movies haven’t gone away, and probably never will.
If you are one of those people, and the character named after you died in the story, the manner in which they died, or where they died in the story, is not a reflection on my opinion of you as a person. The fact your name is in the story will always remind me of those teenage years, free from responsibility and full of nothing but spare time, and it makes me smile to remember such times.
Wherever you are now, and whatever you are doing, thank you.
Gary Richardson, 2012
The Purple Haze Page 16