by Woods, Mark
His two finest Friesians, both of whom had once been his pride and joy, and that had won him numerous trophies and awards over the years, he now saw only as monsters.
It was bad enough that his wife and grand-daughter had been so cruelly taken from him, Arthur thought, let alone that his cattle might start eating them and desecrating their corpses. Raising his shotgun, Arthur moved towards the two hungry bovines; burning ice cold with rage and only too eager to help bring this day, that was rapidly turning into some kind of nightmare, finally to an end.
As both cows lifted their heads in unison, disturbed from their meal, Arthur watched as blood and entrails dripped from both their mouths. From Maisy, a small blood bubble emerged, which quickly popped; splattering her maw with even more gore, if that were even possible.
Arthur had never seen a cow consume meat before.
By rights, it should not even be possible.
In years gone by, back during the first B.S.E crisis, when panic had first begun spreading like wildfire through all of his fellow dairy farmers, Arthur had witnessed whole herds of abandoned cattle ending up starving to death, rather than resorting to cannibalism in a bid to try and survive. If asked, Arthur would have told you there was no way he ever expected to see a cow eating meat – they were herbivores; regardless of the fact their teeth were not designed to eat meat, it was just not in their nature - but then he had also never heard a cow growl before.
This was what Maisy did now; her voice emanating with threat at the suggestion that Arthur might dare to disturb her. Matilda quickly joined in, but her growl was much less recognisable and came across more as a badly distorted moo than a growl, despite also being just as heavily laced with menace.
As Arthur continued to watch, he thought he saw Matilda’s bottom lip moving up in what could only be described as a snarl.
Both cows watched him carefully with their cold, milky white eyes....then slowly started to move forwards towards him as though finally realising that he might make a much better and much fresher meal.
Arthur, already anticipating the threat both animals posed, raised the shotgun and squeezed the trigger...then stood there momentarily confused when nothing occurred save a lone, distinctive click. It took a second for him to remember that he hadn’t bothered to reload after despatching the lone Zombie outside.
It also took a moment for him to realise that the only spare shells he had were the few he carried in his jacket pocket, and though his aim had been true once, back outside with the zombie that had attacked his family, there was no guarantee that, in his current state, it would be again.
Knowing that he was no match for two cows their size given their current nature, namely the unnatural desire to feast upon his flesh, Arthur decided his best move was to beat a hasty retreat. He didn’t have time to fuck around with trying to fish out his spare shells from his pocket now and though his pair of prize bovines were slow, slower still now they were undead, still he was not confident in his current state that he had time to reload before they would be upon him.
Arthur moved back quickly, back the way he’d come but in his haste, Arthur had forgotten about his third cow.
As he continued his retreat, Daisy emerged from out of her stall behind him; blood and parts of undigested guts hanging from her own jaw, the same milky white eyes staring from her head.
God alone knew what it was she had been feeding on.
As Arthur passed her, the cow let out a moo that sounded, to his ears, more like a lion’s roar and breathed her stinky, carrion infused breath directly in his face. Arthur saw her jaws working as she attempted to bite him, and pulled back suddenly away from her. Using the shotgun as a blunt weapon, Arthur quickly turned his gun around and whipped her about the snout with the stock, then quickly resumed backing further away and towards the only exit from the shed.
All three cows came together in a herd, and began to close in on him a lot quicker than he’d expected.
Arthur began to feel scared; worried he was not going to be able to make it out in time, and was barely able to get out and close and secure the door behind him before the deadly trio closed the distance.
Even as he stood there, with his back against the door, he felt the three undead cows pushing back against it; mooing pitifully in a combination of desperation and frustration at having been denied consuming their fill.
Arthur wasn’t sure how long he could hold the doors shut against their combined effort and weight, and wondered where they possibly could have got their strength.
They were dead, right?
All three of them were dead.
He knew the dead were coming back to life, he had seen them for himself in the distance – seen that herd of them crossing the outskirts of his land several weeks back, but Zombie cows...?
How in God’s name had that ever happened?
Arthur realised he had the answer even if he hadn’t fully understood it yet.
He also thought he knew how his wife and grand-daughter must have been caught unawares. The Zombie he’d killed earlier in the yard must’ve gotten in the cow shed and become trapped there, possibly sometime during the night; must have become stuck in there and in its eternal hunger, attacked his cows. When Mary and his grand-daughter, Rosie, had gone in to feed the cattle, the Zombie must have come out and attacked them.
It must have gotten Rosie first – she was always running ahead - and when Mary had tried to fight it off, that must have been when she obviously had also succumbed to its attack.
When Arthur had come outside and killed it, and then taken the bodies of his wife and grandchild into the shed for storage, the cows must still have been in the process of reanimating most likely.
It was only after he had gone back to the house that his three Friesians’ must suddenly have come back to life....and that was when they had begun to feed on his family.
Suddenly, Arthur realised the pressure being put on the door behind him had stopped. The cows, in their mindless state, had obviously gotten bored and wandered back to feed on what was left of his dead family. Cows, after all, were known for their short attention spans – and it seemed now that this might possibly be the case in undeath as well as life.
Seeing his chance, Arthur decided to flee back to the house.
He could plan there what he intended to do next, and maybe have another drink at the same time.
His Whiskey was there.
Another drink would help him clear his mind...or, at least, that was what he tried to convince himself.
Before he could move, something emerged from out of the long grass and bit at his ankle. Without even thinking, Arthur lashed out with his foot and kicked out. Something small and furry flew from the toe of his boot as he punted whatever had attacked him through the air, landing several yards away and well away from him. It was only as another small figure charged at him from out the grass that Arthur realised what was attacking him now.
It was Mary’s two Tabby cats that had gone missing a few days before. From their milky white stare, Arthur guessed that his earlier intuition had been right. They had been attacked by Zombies.
And now they were back.
Arthur didn’t know what had happened to the first cat, he had not seen where it had landed when he kicked it, but with any luck it might’ve broken its neck.
He wasn’t about to get bitten again by the second little shit.
Raising the shotgun above him, Arthur used it as a blunt weapon to crush the little creature’s skull. He felt a momentary second of remorse, the cat looked so helpless and unthreatening at first glance, but then he remembered the bite to his ankle.
Was he now infected? He wondered. Wasn’t that how it worked in the movies? And if so, how did that work if you got bit by a Zombie animal? Did you still turn and, if so, into what..?
This was a question for another time though, Arthur thought, as the door to the cow shed behind him finally pushed open, now that he had moved away, and the three zombie Friesi
ans that had once been his pride and joy started to emerge - no doubt still intending to munch upon his flesh, given half a chance, having decided the bodies of his dead wife and grand-daughter held no more interest for them.
Arthur turned towards the house and quickly started back the way he’d come, moving as fast as he could, but now limping due to the bite on his ankle. Something swooped toward him from the sky in an aerial attack, and Arthur barely had time to catch its approach in his peripheral vision before it was upon him.
Swinging out his arm to deflect the blow, Arthur felt his limb connect with something sharp, as the bird attacking him attempted to peck and claw its way through his thick, flannel lumberjack-style shirt. The culprit was a crow, he realised, but from the stench coming from it and the glazed look in its eyes, Arthur knew it must have been a long time since the bird had last been alive.
Shit, Arthur thought, now we have Zombie birds?!? What the actual fuck???
Having been cut off from the outside world for so long, Arthur had kind of lost touch with what else had been happening these last few months, but this was a new one. Somehow, he guessed, the original virus that had brought the dead back to life must have mutated somehow to now affect animals as well as humans – for up until today, he had encountered no other examples.
Hell, he supposed it was plausible.
If mankind could come down with variants of Bird flu and Swine Flu, if B.S.E could evolve into C.J.D, and if A.I.D.S really had originated from monkeys, who was to say that the same principle couldn’t work both ways? That animals feeding on the carrion and bodies littered everywhere around them couldn’t themselves end up becoming infected?
Shit, shit, shit, Arthur thought, if animals can now be infected, then there goes any chance of ever eating meat again! Hell, if mankind can’t even hunt now for food without fear of the animals’ being contaminated, then there goes any hope of survival! Everyone left alive is going to have to become vegetarian, vegan even, and what about when Zombie birds start eating the crops?
What happens then?
Quite unsurprisingly, Arthur had always paid short-shrift to people who called themselves Vegetarian in the past. He barely had time for people in general, let alone those that refused to eat meat!
And now, what was left of Humanity was going to have to turn Vegetarian?
In a way, he thought, it was kind of bitterly ironic.
Arthur felt rather than saw the crow coming in for a second attack and anticipating the threat this time, now swung the shotgun round like a bat. It didn’t connect, but Arthur felt a short-lived sense of satisfaction when the Zombie-bird changed direction and had to dodge his swing regardless. Realising that the odds were now severely becoming more and more stacked against him, and realising that there was still a lone cat out there somewhere that might attack him any time, as well as the three cows closing in behind him, Arthur resumed his flight back to the main house. Knowing he would never make it to the front door in time, he instead headed back towards the closer, rear entrance that led into the kitchen – figuring that this decision might just help re-balance the odds of his survival back in his favour for, despite his earlier misgivings, Arthur, for now at least, had decided he wanted to live.
He wasn’t quite ready to die just yet.
Arthur made it to the door but, in his half-drunken haze, neglected to see the boot scraper that had always lived there beside the back step for as long as he could remember. Before he could stop himself, Arthur found himself sprawling over the solid piece of cast iron and face-planting the back step violently.
He felt a couple of his teeth shatter as his face hit the step but, more importantly, he also felt his ankle twist on the way down – leaving it twisted in an angle no foot was ever meant to go.
Trying desperately to rise to his feet, and hearing the sound of menacing moos closing in behind him, Arthur tried and failed to get to his feet.
White hot pain rushed through him, almost causing him to pass out.
The crow swooped back and sensing he was now vulnerable, began going for his eyes. Arthur managed once more to beat the bird away, but could feel its beak piercing the skin of his hand and hear its caws seemingly mocking him, no doubt also summoning reinforcements from others of its kind.
Somehow, in a stroke of blind luck, Arthur managed to grab a hold of one of its legs, and proceeded to bash the crow’s head against the door frame. With one last final caw, the crow fell silent and went limp and as Arthur let it go, once again he struggled to rise back to his feet.
White hot pain flooded his vision for a second time.
It was almost like someone was pouring molten liquid all through his body all at once. Arthur couldn’t see, he couldn’t breathe, and for a moment, once again, it almost felt as though he were about to black out...
But Arthur knew he couldn’t afford to do that right now.
Not if he hoped to survive.
Any earlier doubts that he might have entertained about chucking everything away and following his wife and grand-daughter into the grave temporarily forgotten, Arthur suddenly rediscovered the survival instinct he long thought he’d lost. If he chose to change his mind and end everything later then that was one thing but, for now at least, Arthur realised, he wanted to survive.
He wanted to live.
He owed it to his dead wife and grand-daughter, he thought, owed it to them both not to give up; to carry on, to continue to fight…and to survive.
It was what they both would have wanted, he told himself.
Fumbling at the back door, somehow Arthur’s hands found the door handle. Able to apply pressure enough to cause the door to open, Arthur half- stumbled/ half-fell inside; lost in a fog of pain, all stemming from his twisted - broken? - ankle.
Managing to close the back door behind him, Arthur collapsed back against it, feeling temporarily safe now from all the dangers that waited for him outside. The ankle he had twisted on the boot scraper outside the door was the same one that had been bitten, he realised, and now both wounds flared and burned as though someone were holding a candle to his flesh and his ankle began to visibly throb.
Glancing down, Arthur saw his ankle had already swollen to three times its size, and looked inflamed, gangrenous…infected…which, no doubt it probably was having been bitten by one of them…a Zombie cat no less! Arthur wasn’t sure which was the more ridiculous, Zombie cats or Zombie birds.
Hell, maybe the Zombie cats can go after the Zombie birds, he thought, and found himself giggling hysterically.
He still found the whole thought of Zombie animals incredulous, but at least for now, he thought, he was safe and the Zombie animals were still all trapped outside...
Arthur tried to remember if he still had any Whiskey left stashed here, here in the Kitchen, but then recalled he had finished all the bottles he had hidden here several weeks ago.
That was an unfortunate state of affairs, he thought manically.
If he’d thought he was in need of a stiff drink earlier, Arthur really needed one now, but the only Whiskey he had left lay down what, at the moment, seemed an impossible distance away; somewhere down the hall in what he thought of as his study.
Arthur wanted to swear.
He wanted to curse and wail and blaspheme, but knew it wouldn’t do him any good. Knew it wouldn’t help in any way, shape or form and so, instead, tried to resolve himself with just sitting here, waiting until such time as the pain in his ankle started to recede and he could, finally, start thinking about trying to move once more.
It wasn’t like his whiskey was going anywhere, after all…
A noise came from down the hall, startling Arthur, and nearly making him jump to his feet.
He stopped himself just in time, biting back a scream of pain.
Something was back there, he thought, moving about.
Something was in the house.
Arthur suddenly remembered that when he had left the farmhouse earlier, in his rush he had left the fron
t door open behind him.
Now it sounded as though something must have gotten in.
Something. Shit, another one of them more like.
Another Zombie – possibly even another Zombie animal.
Something black moved past the open doorway, leading out into the hallway beyond, passing by his line of sight close enough for Arthur to now lay his eyes on whatever it was that had entered his house, and enabling him to see what it was that was moving around.
When he saw what it was, Arthur wasn’t sure, at first, if what he felt was relief or terror…for standing there in front of him, at the end of his lengthy hallway, stood his old bull, Barthomelew, or Barty as his grand-daughter had always chosen to call him.
Barty was a surly old thing in his old age, much like his owner.
If it was true what they said about pets often coming to resemble their owners, the same was less often said of livestock, but Barty had come to replicate his owner’s nature in later years, of that there could be little doubt.
In his older years, Barty had become far less sociable and friendly than he had once been. Arthur had come to respect Barty’s need for his own personal space and boundaries and so often left him pretty much to fend for himself in one of the farm’s furthest fields.
He would feed him and tend to him himself as little or as often was necessary - rather than leaving his wife or grand-daughter to do it and putting them at risk of Barty charging them - according to whatever mood he judged the bull to be in, but now, here he was, in Arthur’s house, and judging from the smell emanating from him, Barty was none too well either.
It certainly explained how the bull could fit inside the hall.
Barty appeared to have shed weight since the last time Arthur had seen him, several days ago, and was almost emaciated compared to his usual bulky self.
It was only when Barty turned that Arthur saw the reason why.
The flesh was literally falling off of Barty.
Literally.
Parts of his skin had been rubbed away, and raw pieces of flesh could be seen all along his flank.