Bovicide, Zombie Diaries, and the Legend of the Brothers Brown

by Stephen Bills

  * * *

  As the sun cast its first glorious golden rays across Archi, Quentin slumped to the ground, drained. He’d just planted an axe in Denise’s face and in a second he’d have to steady her head with his boot so he could pull it out again.

  Beside him, Sergeant Paddington finished off Rose and savoured the seconds before the next wave of zombies reached them.

  “Constable, up!” Andrea shouted.

  Straining muscles that had begged for sleep eight hours ago, Quentin rose. The only other person with them, the only one to have faced the zombies, was Ian Athanasius. Honestly, Quentin used to think he was a murdering bastard, but now Ian struck him as one of the few good people left.

  “Sarge, I can’t,” Quentin said, leaning heavily on the makeshift fort.

  “There’s only fifteen of them, constable.”

  “Come on, Quent,” Ian said. “It’ll be like that group an hour ago.”

  Except it hadn’t been an hour ago. More like four, and there’d been ten humans fighting then. Where were they now, those that had fled? Saving their families? Useless, short-sighted idea. Unless something drastic happened, the zombies would own the island in hours. They already had the southern half.

  Which meant they’d overrun his house. He couldn’t go home.

  Not that he’d considered it anyway. With no organised resistance, it was up to him and Andrea to stand what ground they could. God knew where Jim was. Quentin wanted to damn him for not being there, but he also hoped Jim was far away – on the Mainland, maybe. He’d probably love it there, Enanti bless him.

  The wall of zombies was thirty feet away. Quentin settled a silent curse on Chief Constable Quinn – wherever he was – pulled the fire axe out of Denise’s head, and grabbed a shotgun. Ian reloaded his pistol, his shovel in the crook of his arm. Andrea clutched that sabre she’d brought from home. Family heirloom, apparently. Still… bloody effective.

  When the zombies were close enough, Quentin and Ian fired. They’d stopped with complicated attack strategies ages ago. When your opponent ran at you in a straight line, you aimed along said line and fired until you ran out of ammunition, which happened after Quentin’s third blast. He tossed the shotgun into the horde – dropping things risked him slipping on them later – and grabbed his axe.

  At first, as always, the zombies headed straight for ramshackle fort of tables and fruit stalls and huddled around the closest side. Axe and shovel and sword hacked at arms and heads and zombies toppled. The next line stepped on the fallen. Too many were attacking at once; another minute and the horde would surround the barricade and find the hole they’d left at the back for quick escapes.

  “Fall away!” Quentin shouted. As undead friends yelled for his blood, Quentin staggered out of the fortress. He aimed his axe at their necks and reminded himself that they were already dead. Nothing going on in their heads, nothing to be done for them. They were just bloodthirsty beasts.

  Quentin was five steps out of the barricade when he realised Andrea wasn’t with Ian. She was back at the fort, trapped in a corner. The zombies had reached the exit with her still inside. The only way out was through the attackers. She’d never make it without being bitten.

  “Get back Quentin!” Andrea swung the sabre like a mad thing. Limbs rained around her. Quentin stumbled a step toward the fray, the axe weighing a tonne in his hand, and struck down his mother’s bridge partner.

  “We both know how this ends!” Andrea shouted. The sabre was really flying now. With too many corpses around her to aim for individuals, Andrea struck wide and shallow. More zombies poured into the street from the far end, drawn by the noised or the smell of brains or whatever made them stumble where they did.

  Quentin tried to think like Jim. He’d see some opportunity here. What did they have they could use? There was nothing except him.

  That might do… He could draw most of them away using himself as bait and Andrea could fight her way through the stragglers…

  He turned to her—

  And saw a zombie close his on her left hand. Andrea convulsed and threw off her attacker, but in the moment of weakness others bit into her – the shoulders, the arms, the neck, the head. Andrea’s fingers, already beginning to shake, locked around the sabre.

  Quentin felt the axe fall from his hand as he lumbered away and around the corner. He shoved Ian onward and kept running, but they collapsed together less than a street away.

  Andrea was dead. One of them.

  On cue, a single zombie dragged his uncooperating legs onto the street, spotted them, and warbled something. They might have two minutes until the normal zombies reached them, but Andrea would cover the same distance in ten seconds. She’d be as strong and fast as a human, but as ruthless and bloodthirsty as a zombie. Once she rounded that corner, he was as good as dead.

  More of the undead spilled onto the road, but Andrea wasn’t among them. Quentin was sure he’d spot her. She, like he, was still in her police uniform rather than filthy rags.

  Any second.

  Any second now.

  Still Andrea didn’t appear. Not that it mattered: there were fifty zombies here and Quentin had dropped his only weapon. He didn’t even have the energy to flee.

  Ian trudged toward the horde. When he reached it, he walked backward, just out of reach, and slammed his shovel into their heads. They tended to fall after the second or third blow, but Quentin saw the shakes in Ian’s arms: they’d tire.

  Even if they didn’t, Ian was beating friends and neighbours to death. Looking them in their hollow, vacant eyes while he did it. How long before he dropped the shovel and let them win? Because, deep down, maybe being one of Them was less horrifying. It couldn’t be any worse.

  To the sounds of zombie growls and distant gunfire, Quentin closed his eyes and lay down to sleep.