The Good, The Bad & The Dead | Book 1 | Once Upon A Time In An Undead World
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Eddie had told him that the demonstration was easy money. He just had to blend into the crowd and be one of the first to start throwing objects at the police. He didn’t like the police and the money would be useful – he also knew if he got arrested again that Clare would pack up her belongings and take Chloe with her. He didn’t want that to happen, he loved his daughter.
When the violence erupted it was worse than he had imagined. The police and protesters didn’t bother him too much, it was the blood-stained creatures that came lurking through the smog. They hadn’t picked a side they just attacked anybody. Whatever was wrong with them had caused them to bite whoever was closest. He couldn’t see Eddie or his brother anywhere, so he decided to get away from the trouble. His problem was he was surrounded by people packed in tight. On two sides were brightly coloured police fighting and arresting protesters, to his right was a dead end. He had no choice he was going to have to go through the blood thirsty group, the fear of being arrested and losing Clare and Chloe was too great.
As he got closer to the group, he could see that there was something not natural about them. Some were more injured than others, but they all had the same distant stare in their eyes. The colour of the eyes in them all was the same, white and misty like the fog. A man in overalls lurched towards him, his jaw gaping wide. Wayne punched hard into his ripped face. His fist crashed hard into the creature’s mouth; teeth splintered as the thing tried to bite. The creature in overalls staggered from the power of the blow. Wayne winced in pain as the jagged teeth punctured his skin. He looked at his crimson hand, a mixture of his blood and a darker fluid from the ruined mouth of his attacker. He pulled a shard of tooth from between his knuckles. All around him much more than shit was hitting the fan. He burst through the crowd and broke into open space. He headed in the direction of home, he needed to be at home to protect his family. He pulled a bandana scarf from his pocket and wrapped it around his bloody hand, he had no idea what was happening inside his body.
By the time he put his key in the door the stomach cramps had almost creased him double, he was sweating uncontrollably, and his hand smelt rotten. He stumbled through the door and made a feeble cry for his wife. He collapsed to his knees and fell forward onto his hands as a dark brown flow erupted from his mouth. He felt like he was dying.
The cat had leapt to safety onto the table as he came crashing through the house, it watched him. He managed to crawl to the settee and slumped into the fabric – he slept.
*
The noise from downstairs woke her from a light sleep. Clare pushed back the blankets and pushed her feet into a pair of boot slippers. She thought about taking Chloe with her but decided against it as it was probable the house would be filled with shouting for the next half hour. She looked over the top of the cot at her adorable daughter. Chloe smiled and kicked her feet excitedly. Clare pinched her cheeks and leaned in for a kiss.
The crash from the kitchen caused her to jump. She heard a strange noise from the cat and the breaking of crockery. Rolling her eyes and winking at Chloe she turned and headed towards her bedroom door. She walked along the upstairs landing towards the top of the stairs. The cat was hissing at someone or something, whatever it was it was growling back.
She moved down the stairs slowly, ‘Wayne,’ She whispered. ‘Wayne, is that you?’
She didn’t get a response. As she got to the bottom of the stairs, she stepped over a puddle of rotting fluid. She gagged and put her hand over her mouth and pinched her nose to stop herself from heaving. She could see the cushions had been moved on the settee. She moved towards the kitchen.
As Clare pushed open the door, she saw Wayne reaching for the cat. It had backed itself into a corner, hunched up and snarling. As Wayne made repeated attempts to grab the cat it responded with sharpened jabs of its own. Wayne was rocking back and forth with each attempted snatch.
As she watched the stupidity of the play before her, she noticed the awful smell, a mixture of rotting flesh and shit. She spoke, ‘Wayne what’s going on?’
He responded to his name, not through recognition but at the noise from behind him. He turned in a series of stumbling movements. ‘Oh my god Wayne what’s happened to you?’
Wayne had died several hours’ earlier and awoken minutes later. He had stumbled around the house searching for food, not the regular type that’s artificially made and packaged. He was looking for natural ingredients, the type that breathed and walked about…and now he had found it.
Clare couldn’t know it, but her husband had gone, standing before her was something awful. His face was contorted in a grotesque snarl. His eyes milky and hungry, he reached for Clare, his touch was cold…she didn’t understand. She reached out to him. The dead thing sank his teeth into the neck of his wife. Blood gushed over them both as his bite severed her jugular vein. The cat made a run for it, scampering between the legs of its dead and soon to be dead owners.
Clare fell to the floor as her life expired, she watched as Wayne chewed on her flesh. He fell upon her and tore chunks from her arm and torso. Her life passed; her final thoughts were of her daughter.
Wayne continued to feed until he heard the cry of his daughter. He lifted his head from the still body of his wife and moved towards the stairs. He negotiated the stairs slowly - by the time he had reached the top his wife had risen, and she began to climb the stairs. Wayne continued towards the cry; the door was pushed open as he stumbled forward. Chloe stood in her cot, tears rolling down her tiny cheeks. Wayne did what he always did when she cried…he reached out for her.
Chapter Fifteen
Liverpool, UK
He walked towards the coach station, more of a stumble with his hood up and shivering. It was raining and October was threatening to flood itself out. The month still had its moments, torrential rain followed by a warm period and miserably cold at night - his body was much the same, hot on the inside and cold to the touch. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol, early morning or the bite on his hand that was disturbing his body’s equilibrium. Carl Marston had been visiting his girlfriend in Liverpool, a romantic weekend was how it started – an injured hand and a brain bursting headache was how it had ended.
He moved into the waiting room, searching his pockets for change with his good hand. The woman at the snack counter eyed him suspiciously. He placed the money on the counter and asked for a coffee, he walked away without his change. He looked for an empty seat, he hadn’t expected a 5am coach to be so popular, the fear of another lockdown he presumed. He sat down in the one remaining seat, sandwiched between a pretty female, she looked like a fellow student – foreign he guessed. He could tell, the book she read was incomprehensible to him. On his other side was a well-dressed man, he moved away slightly when Carl sat down. He didn’t blame him; the wound was seeping but worse still it was beginning to smell. The foreign student gave him a slight smile. He bought the coffee to keep him awake long enough to board the coach, it didn’t work.
Carl opened his eyes slowly, the hand on his shoulder bringing him out of his slumber. ‘Newcastle, it’s leaving in five minutes mate.’
‘What.’
‘Your coach is leaving, are you ok?’
He looked around; the waiting room was empty. ‘Yeah I’m fine, just a late night.’
‘The whole country has been having a late night, most of it is still awake,’ said the cleaner.
He stood up and put the empty coffee cup into the bin before making his way to the coach. He showed his ticket to the driver and searched for a window seat preferably at the back. The only seat available was next to the window directly behind the driver. His companion for the journey was another student, he could tell by the glasses, science book and the word geek stretched across his small chest. He caught the eye of the foreign student; she looked away, embarrassed at not waking him. He squeezed into his seat; the geek began talking almost immediately. This was going to be a longer than normal journey, it wasn’t the first time he had been mistaken
.
The driver gave a quick announcement and the possible delays and diversions as the country was experiencing some disruption, caused by the previous day’s protests and riots.
‘That’s great, my girlfriend is supposed to be picking me up – she won’t wait,’ said the geek.
Carl doubted any such girlfriend existed in any reality other than the geek’s virtual existence. ‘Too bad,’ he said.
He was about to start talking about his imaginary girlfriend when Carl silenced him with a hand. Not to be deterred he asked about his hand. ‘You had a fight.’
‘No,’ he snapped. ‘I was attacked.’
‘Did they take your iPhone,’ enquired the geek.
‘I don’t have an iPhone.’
The geek looked at him with a mixture of surprise and disgust, ‘Really!’
‘I’m not the one advertising my social standing,’ said Carl nodding towards the geek’s jumper. He took the hint and withdrew into his seat.
About twenty minutes into the journey the coach was almost at the motorway junction. Carl was feeling worse, he was sweating, and a wave of nausea came over him. He jumped out of his seat with such urgency the geek almost jumped out with him. He stumbled along the aisle towards the toilet. The coach jerked sending him lurching to the left, he pin-balled around and landed in the lap of the well-dressed man he had sat next to earlier. He hadn’t bothered to wake him earlier either and karma’s a bitch. Carl vomited a dark crimson fluid across the man’s lap. The man lashed Carl back into the aisle, he landed facedown. The not so well-dressed man now, began swearing and threatening violence. The driver asked for calm, a large bald man enforced his instructions. He picked up Carl and helped him towards the toilet.
Carl placed his face in the bowl of the toilet and vomited repeatedly for several minutes, the noise was causing the passengers at the back of the coach to retch, and the smell tipped a couple of them over. One vomited into a plastic bag the other in a McDonald’s cup. Carl felt like his insides had been shredded and ejected through his mouth. He wiped a smear of shit, that’s what he thought it smelled like across his forearm. The wound on his hand didn’t smell any better. He took his head out of the pan, not caring who had been sitting on it before his face and the plastic became intimate.
He pulled himself to his feet, the stomach cramps were excruciating. He looked in the mirror, was that really him he thought. ‘Christ, I look terrible.’ His skin didn’t tan very well but he had never been as pale as he was now. He looked closely at his eyes, they looked as though they were changing colour – at this rate they would be the same ghostly white colour as his skin.
He opened the door to all passenger heads turning his way, even the driver gave a quick glance around his curtained space. He nodded thanks to the large bald man and an apologetic nod to the not so well-dressed man; he gave him the finger back. He managed to make it back to his seat without further incident.
‘You look like shit,’ whispered the geek. ‘You smell like it too.’
‘I feel like it,’ he said agreeing with him.
‘What happened to you?’
‘I wish I knew,’ he winced.
*
The man who had almost taken a chunk out of his hand was lying in a coma or worse, possibly dead in a back alley. When he had left his girlfriend’s apartment, he decided to take a few shortcuts that he had discovered on previous visits. He had been texting his girlfriend when he heard movement to the side of him. He called out and an agonising groan responded. He walked towards the sound. On the floor before him was a man, he thought it was man, but it could have been a woman. As he reached down to offer help a milky eyed cretin clamped its rotten teeth onto his hand. He pulled away before the thing tore away his flesh. The bite stung; he examined the injury – it was bad. Blood was seeping from both sides of his hand were the teeth had closed.
He felt a hand coil around his ankle, he kicked it away. It tried again; he stamped his foot down hard – the bones cracked. The broken hand didn’t stop it reaching out again. He thought it must be a junkie high on some illegal drug or several litres of cheap cider. Then horror crept into his mind, what if this thing crawling around the floor has an infectious disease, AIDS, Hep C. This time when it reached for him, he did a dance, a dance of destruction. He kicked the broken hand away and followed it up with several kicks along the ribs. He stopped himself when he realised, he was kicking the head, he may have fired in a few stamps – he couldn’t remember. Whatever he had done, he/she was no longer moving. He hoped it was a man; he didn’t want to admit to kicking a woman unconscious. He was about to lean in and check his damage when he felt his hand throb. He would ring an ambulance when he got to a payphone, he didn’t want to use his own phone for fear of the call being traced. He turned and ran towards the coach station, the sooner he was out of this city the better, the increased exertion was pumping his blood faster around his body, what he couldn’t know was that the infection was being transported into his brain at a rapid rate.
*
Carl pulled his coat tight around his body. He wished he had gone to the hospital, instead of panicking. Whatever was wrong with him could have been treated. His eyes were closing; maybe he could sleep it off.
The motorway was busy, red brake lights of cars further up the road flashed into life frequently, to frequent for the driver’s peace of mind.
The geek was too busy pressing buttons on a gadget to notice Carl slip away. His breathing decreased to nothing after a couple of minutes, his dream descended into blackness.
When its eyes opened Carl was no longer present, its former identity disappeared with its final breath. The geek had strapped himself into his seat just to be safe. The creature next to him reached across and took hold of him. Before he could speak his throat was ripped out. Blood sprayed the curtain separating the driver from the rest of the coach. The foreign female student let out a deafening scream. Her broken English was good enough to cause fear.
‘Eat, eat, eat,’ she continued to shout as she pointed to the front of the coach.
The undead creature raised its head in her direction. Its eyes had been transformed into deep puddles of white pearl. The mouth of the creature was a deep crimson smear, it was chewing something. People began to rise from their seats, most were screaming including the large bald man.
The driver opened the curtain to catch a glance of the commotion; he was going to pull over onto the hard shoulder. The movement caused the carnivorous creature to redirect its attention. The driver caught more than a glance. The creature leapt at him, taking a bite of his raised arm. The driver tried to hit the brake, but his foot struck the accelerator. The coach swerved through the lanes bouncing from car to car, leaving multiple crashes behind its path. The driver was able to look up as the coach reached the top of the incline to see the traffic in front had come to a stop; he was unable to do anything about it.
The coach hit the first line of traffic at about 60 mph; the foreign student hit the windscreen at about the same speed. Bodies were thrown about the coach as gravity was temporarily suspended. The coach ripped through the traffic sending smaller vehicles into the air. The undead creature bounced along the coach biting and scratching as it went, by the time the coach screeched to a halt it was on its side with friction sparks erupting like November 5th fireworks.
The creature had managed to work its way through most of the passengers, moving on as each one screamed louder than the last. Some had perished in the crash, others bled to death with torn out throats. The infection would work faster on those.
Thirty to forty cars had been involved in the carnage, not counting the ones that had been bumped on the way. Crumpled metal and shattered glass littered the oily ground. People in crushed cars would remain there for eternity. The people that littered the road were on their own, the emergency services wouldn’t be coming. People would be better ringing their loved ones to tell them they wouldn’t be late coming home; they would never make it.
Carl climbed through the window and stood; his followers clambered behind. Wounded people wandered about, the uninjured aided them. A woman with blood pouring from a head wound stumbled towards him with her arms open – he opened his, his mouth too and he welcomed her into the new world he had been born into.
Part Three
Surviving the Dead...
Chapter Sixteen
Southport, North Coastal Town, UK
Frank woke from his slumber, six hours was all he ever needed, that’s what he told himself. Several nights during the week he would fall asleep reading, but he never counted that as rest. Monroe was lying on her side next to him, as soon as he moved, she moved. She was up licking his face and looking for attention, us usual he obeyed. After a few minutes he swung his legs off the bed. Monroe slumped back down; grateful she had the bed to herself.
‘Are you coming?’ He asked. She sunk further into the pillow. ‘Please yourself.’ He pushed himself from the bed and headed for the kitchen.
Walking barefoot into the kitchen he almost trod in the dump Monroe had left him. He reached for the kitchen towel and tore off a piece. He crouched down and scooped it up, binned it and washed his hands. He had often thought of rubbing her nose in it, but it was the same nose she poked him awake with in the mornings.
He reached into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, he finished half with his first gulp. He headed to his laptop and flicked open the lid. He was never really bothered what was happening in the news and only took an interest for social purposes. He was up to date with the important stuff but ask him who was current in music and he would shrug his shoulders and tell you that music died at the end of the nineties.