by RR Haywood
I stab into groins and slit stomachs open. I bite noses off and relish in the destruction I am able to give. An ear comes away in my mouth but it’s not enough so I stab the earless thing in the face through the eye socket. A hand claws my face so I bite down on the thumb and rip it free with the ragging motion that Meredith does. I am an animal. I am Meredith. I am Dave with the speed I use. I am Clarence with awesome strength. I smile and laugh like Cookey. I have passion like Blowers and I am as fierce and loyal as Nick. At the bottom of the stairs I trip and slip over dead bodies and laugh a maniacal laugh as I fight dirtier than I have ever fought before.
Marcy at the top staring down. I fight for Marcy. I fight for them all. A big man takes me down with his body weight but I get the knife up into his gut and saw it sideways to spill the innards while I clamp my mouth on his cheek and tear the flesh away. Nothing is beyond me. I spit the flesh aside and heave him off before scrambling to my feet and lurching out the open front door and somewhere behind the raging mask of bloodlust my mind makes the connection that they’ve thinned out and that thought sends a shiver of fear that they’ve split the team and gone after them.
In two strides that thought process is complete. I can make the Saxon and get to the GPMG or my axe. I can do this. I run fast in a straight line and they charge to converge in a head on rushing howl. I can make it. I can get there. They’ve thinned out and reduced their numbers to go after the others. My stride lengthens and my eyes remain fixed on the broad side of the vehicle. Feet pounding the earth, arms pumping and I give it everything I’ve got to run through them in the pure held belief I will get there.
I don’t get there.
I get taken out from the side and swept up high off my feet by an undead that looks eerily like Jimmy Carr with a high forehead and gleaming white teeth. He’s naked though, Jimmy Carr that is. Naked and pumped up and snarling to show me the gleaming white teeth while ripping me off my feet and into the horde coming from the other way. I go down in a tangle of limbs, the air whacked from my lungs by naked Jimmy Carr landing on me with his bollocks far too close to my face for comfort. I could bite them but biting Jimmy Carr’s testicles just seems wrong.
More add to the scrum. The weight of them bearing down, pinning me in place. Bodies over my legs and torso. I can’t breathe or see anything. Darkness and the close up stench of filthy decaying bodies covered in shit and gore. Still they come, flinging themselves onto the mound like lemmings from a cliff. I writhe and buck and get twatted round the face by Jimmy Carr’s testicles. I try and headbutt up but knock gently against the saggy sack which makes me gag more than anything else so far. The weight above drives him down and soon his naked groin is smothering my face with his anus far too close to my mouth. I want to scream but I can’t breathe and the air is being pressed further from my lungs.
Something hot and wet dribbles across my chin and the downwards force applied is not only crushing the life from me but the shit from Jimmy Carr’s bowels that oozes from his arse. The smell makes me gag and I try and twist my head away but manage an inch at the best. Another wet squirt and more pushes out. My mouth clamped shut but I can feel it hit my chin and dribble down my neck and cheeks. Whimpering in my throat, preening like a baby but there is nowhere to go and nothing I can do to stop it. Flashes of light in my eyes now as the oxygen is cut from my brain. A dull thunder of blood roaring through my ears. Another noise joins the tricks of sensations as I sink into unconsciousness. Bangs. Sharp retorts from close by and several sound out before I recognise the sound of gunfire. A single weapon being fired then something else. A drumming noise that I can feel through the ground that gets faster and closer. The weapon fires again and the drumming impacts the mound on top of me with a shuddering jarring sensation but the weight is less now and I snatch air from the split second relief on my chest. It hurts like hell but it’s enough to keep me alive for another few seconds.
The drumming fades then stops but starts again. Gaining faster and closer and again I can feel the vibrations through the ground. Something so familiar but I can’t make the connection. It almost makes me scared, like a primeval sound ingrained to strike fear. The second impact shudders the bodies again and more are whipped off. The weapon fires dull and close. The drum fades, stops and comes back and the weapon fires. The third impact and I can start to buck and thrash at them. My body heaving with a frantic motion to get out and away. I kick and twist and beat the things on top of me and I realise my hand still grips the knife. I stab up and into anything that the blade can bite. I stab and thrust and twist side to side and amidst that frenzy so the drumming comes again.
Daylight above me. Enough bodies shifted to let light into the press. I fight harder, stabbing faster and the blood and shit spills over my body. A noise, animalistic and strange. Gunfire. I surge up, swimming and fighting against the writhing once human forms that groan and snarl.
My head breaks through them, my shoulders pushing to get up. My legs kicking to find purchase and all the time stabbing and punching. I grasp the long greasy hair of a woman and drive the point of the knife into her throat and saw until she goes limp enough to stop fighting.
In my peripheral vision I see something huge looming. A shadow that blots the sun and it rears up on back legs to pummel out with hard hooves that smash the skull of a fully grown man to pieces. It drops and rears up again, fast as lighting and kicking out. Whinnying but a harder whinny from a horse I have never heard. An angry sound, aggressive and baleful. With the sun behind it I can’t see details, just the size and shape that drops, turns and lifts. The man on the back holding an assault rifle and gripping the reins one handed. The death it gives out is staggering. Clarence is strong but he has nothing compared to this beast. It takes them down with a simple turn that drives its back end into their shoulders with enough force to send them flying metres to the side.
Mesmerising and wonderful in a way only nature can be. Then it runs off and the connection to the drumming sound is made. Heavy hooves that thunder on the hard earth. It stops, turns and comes back with a head that thrashes side to side and eyes that glare without fear but pure stubborn aggression. It heads straight for the mound I am still emerging from and I watch as the infected lunge to intercept it only to get knocked flat and trampled one after the other without the blink of an eye. The realisation hits as the rider waves his assault rifle at me in wild panic. He has no control of the direction or steerage and waves frantically for me to get down, get up, run or do something because he can’t bloody stop.
I scream and with new found strength in my limbs I surge up and dive free as the horse leaps to jump the mound but purposefully kicks down and uses the bodies as a ramp with bone breaking force. I’m screaming. The rider is screaming and the horse is killing zombies while we gibber in fright.
It lands from the mound and rears straight back up and then back down to break the spine of a man. Stamping down on the body it turns with ruthless precision while the rider hangs on for dear life. As it turns we lock eyes for a second then the horse canters off to gain space and speed for the return.
A scream behind me. Not me. Is it me? Am I still screaming? Marcy! Everyone is crammed into the space between me and the front door to the house while the rest of the square is now empty. Dead bodies are thick on the ground, mangled and bloodied. Some from being stabbed, others from being shot but most from the horse trampling and kicking down and without the crazed bloodlust driving me on the going is suddenly very hard. Tripping on limbs, slipping on blood and getting snagged by entrails.
Into the house and Marcy in the kitchen stabbing out to a cluster of undead males converging on her. A hastily grabbed kitchen knife but it’s a serrated blade and not up to the job. Three of them. All rangy and thin with decaying skin and sickening grey pallor. She backs into the kitchen cupboards as I charge into the side of them with a yell. A tangle of limbs as we crash through into the alcove of the back door. Stabbing down and stamping as they thrash to get past me.
> Arms wrap round my neck and for a second I think it’s Marcy either trying to pull me away or attacking from behind. They grip tighter, squeezing hard to crush my throat. I jerk up and away while spinning round and grasping to pull the arms away. What I grip are the tiny wrists of a child. Then the tiny teeth of the child bite into the back of my shoulder and I howl with pain while trying to prise its grip off my neck. It clings on and two little legs wrap round my waist like a limpet. Another child flies past my head and on the turn I see Marcy fending off another trio of small bodies whipping about trying to attack her. Children everywhere. Under my feet, round my legs and Marcy flailing trying to knock them away. The noises are the worst thing, like children trying to be monsters but with clawed hands and wild bloodshot eyes.
‘Get it off,’ I hiss the words out while spinning on the spot and trying to pull the little shit’s arms from my throat and all the time being bitten in the shoulder, ‘Marcy…’
‘Busy!’
‘Fuck’s sake,’ I go to kick an undead child away but it dodges and I overextend with the thrust and get pulled down backwards from the extra weight on my shoulders. The landing kills it. Crushed and broken from my heavy body impacting hard and I can feel the small bones cracking and a sense of enormous guilt floods through me. I’ve killed children before, loads of them but this act sickens me to the core.
The rest stop attacking and stare fixed at me with a weird, intense expression. Then one of them bursts into tears. A small girl that once had long black hair. She cries and sobs with real tears coursing down her grey face. The rest follow suit with faces screwing up in expressions of abject pity and their tiny voices wailing sorrowfully. Marcy reels away aghast at the sight and my shock is visible. The infection playing tricks. The infection detecting the guilt I felt and instantly using the advantage.
‘Mummy,’ a single world stuttered between sobs and it makes my stomach churn with terror at what we’ve just done. Children, small children with tiny hands and thin legs and long hair. Crying and standing pitifully sad with arms hanging limp.
‘Mummy…’ another one plays the trick and wraps her own arms round her body as though cold and afraid, she snivels and shudders with fright and looks up at me with huge terrified eyes.
‘Marcy…’ I say in a whisper, ‘…Marcy…’
‘Go,’ she says and backs into me. Facing the children she pushes me backwards towards the rear door, ‘go…’
‘Mummy!’ One of the girls holds her arms out for a hug and we both scream and turn to fight through the dead bodies and wrench the back door open so we can run into the garden.
‘Please mummy…’ It follows us out with those arms raised and begging to be hugged. The others behind her, ‘mummy…please mummy…’ they copy the first and walk slowly begging to be hugged with hands held out in front.
‘You’re sick,’ I shout in disgust, ‘fucking sick…’
‘Mummy please…’
‘Stop doing that…it’s sick,’ I back away pointing the knife at the lead child.
‘I’m sorry mummy.’
‘Oh you cunt.’
‘Howie!’
‘What? It’s not a real child.’
‘Don’t be angry at me, Howie,’ the child speaks with a hoarse rattling voice that just makes the effect even worse.
‘Don’t use my name you evil fucker,’ I rage at the infection within the dead child stalking us down the garden.
‘I’m sorry, Howie.’
‘Oh you fucker…you bloody wait…’
‘I’m better now, Howie. Really I am.’
‘Try this on Dave and see what happens.’
‘We’re better now,’ the child gargles the words out, the rest of the children out in a wide line behind her.
‘Argh,’ I dart forward with the knife but stop mid swing and jump about in temper instead. The thought is there now. The mere suggestion that this is a child and not a monster. So small and weak with her arms held out and adopting a sad expression, ‘oh you little sod,’ I shout, ‘Marcy…you do it.’
‘Me?’ She looks at me like I just offered to shit in her mouth.
‘Yeah you, you’ve killed kids before.’
‘What?!’
‘Well you have, kill it…’
‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ she says glaring at me.
‘Just kill it,’ I nod eagerly at the child, ‘go on…get it.’
‘I’m not Meredith,’ she snaps, ‘don’t tell me to get it…’
‘Eh?’ I look from the child to her, ‘what? I just meant…’
‘And you’ve killed enough kids by now…’
‘Yeah but…’
‘You squashed one in the kitchen about thirty seconds ago.’
‘It was on my back and I fell!’
‘You stilled killed it.’
‘Yeah but…so yeah I did one so you do this one.’
‘Oh for the love of God! Give me that knife…right,’ she grips the handle then screws her face up in disgust, ‘it’s filthy…’ she swaps the knife from her right hand to the left and stares down at her right palm, ‘Howie,’ she admonishes me, ‘this is disgusting.’
‘What? I was bloody using it.’
‘Bloody isn’t the word…what’s that smell? That’s…’ she sniffs her hand once then again, ‘that’s shit!’
‘Er…’
‘Howie, there is shit on the knife handle.’
‘Forget that…just kill that bloody child!’
‘How did you get shit on the handle? Oh my god…what is that?’
‘What?’
‘On your chin? Is that shit?’
‘Eh?’ I reach up to touch the smearing goo at the same time the stench hits me, ‘oh,’ I say dumbly, ‘Jimmy Carr shit on my chin.’
She blanches, blinking a few times and staring at me in utter confusion, ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says politely, ‘what did you say?’
‘Jimmy Carr, he was naked and shit on my chin,’ I nod as though it’s the most normal explanation ever given, ‘what? He did! He’s right out there getting trampled by the fucking great big horse.’
‘A horse? What horse? Jimmy Carr? You’ve lost it.’
‘Lost it? I haven’t bloody lost anything. Jimmy Carr was naked and landed on top of me and shit on my chin then the horse came and squashed him. WHAT?! That happened…it happened…stop looking at me like that.’
‘Of course it did,’ she rolls her eyes and looks away, ‘right,’ she fixes her gaze on the child.
‘It bloody happened!’
‘Of course it did,’ she repeats without looking at me and takes a tentative grip of the handle on the knife, ‘this is gross.’
‘Blame Jimmy Carr.’
‘Of course and I suppose Bernard Matthews was shoving the handle up his backside.’
‘Bernard Matthews?’
‘I meant Manning!’
‘You said Matthews.’
‘I meant Manning.’
‘Bernard Matthews did the turkey stuff.’
‘I know who Bernard Matthews is.’
‘Anyway, they’re both dead.’
‘So is Jimmy Carr apparently, by a big unicorn that just happened to appear.’
‘Horse,’ I say quietly, ‘it was a horse not a unicorn. Can you please just stab that child.’
‘I AM!’
‘Well do it then!’
‘I WILL!’
‘GO ON THEN!’
‘STOP SHOUTING AT ME!’
‘YOU’RE SHOUTING….okay, okay fine…I’m not shouting…now please will you stab that freaky fucking child.’
‘Please, Marcy,’ the child bleats.
‘SHUT UP,’ we both roar at the child.
‘Are you stabbing it or…’
‘I can’t,’ she turns to me with a wince, ‘you’ll have to do it.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, listen why don’t we just leg it.’
‘Yeah, let’s do that,’ she says eagerly.
‘SHIT!’ We both run as the child launches itself at Marcy’s legs and perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to give the plan away. We sprint down the garden and leap high to gain the top of the fence with the mini horde of mini zombies charging after us. Both of us get halfway over and both of us get little teeth biting into our ankles. We kick out, cursing and flailing until enough of our weight gets over the edge and we fall tumbling down the other side clutching sore ankles.
‘Bit me,’ Marcy groans, ‘right on the ankle bone.’
‘Did it break the skin?’
‘Duh,’ she says with a withering look, ‘I’m already infected.’
‘Alright I bloody forgot.’
‘How can you forget something like that?’
‘I can’t keep track of everyone bitten and immune, Marcy.’
‘What you mean Blowers, Cookey, Reginald, Me and you? Five?’
‘Sod off my ankle hurts.’
‘Did it bite the bone?’
‘No the fleshy bit.’
‘Then you don’t know what pain is.’
‘I don’t know what pain is? I got bit on the shoulder…and the arm…and the thigh…’
‘Okay, hero. Sorry,’ she says sarcastically.
‘And Jimmy Carr shit on my chin.’
‘Of course he did.’
‘He did!’
‘Yep, sure. And you’re just leaving it there for what reason exactly?’
‘What? I don’t have any water. Do you have any water?’
‘Spit, Howie. Spit on your hand and wipe it off.’
‘It’ll smear everywhere.’
‘So you’re just going to leave it there?’
‘You spit and wipe it.’
‘No way. I’m not wiping my hand on your shitty chin.’
‘Well I’m not doing it either.’
‘Your top is still wet, use that.’
‘Eh?’ I look down at my still sodden top, ‘it’s covered in shit too.’
‘Oh my g….use the other side then you idiot.’