Chris was unsure how to proceed. James seemed to be telling the truth. He didn’t seem scared. Surely if he had cut the stuff, he would have ben scared.
“Well, someone’s been cutting my stuff, and I want to know who. Where’s Jules?”
James motioned back down the hallway, “He’s in bed, not feeling well. Someone bloody bit him last night, can you believe that?”
“Bit him? Did he have fucking rabies or something?”
“I don’t know. But he’s been feeling pretty bad this morning.”
“You ought to get him to a hospital.”
James shrugged. “What can you do, stubborn bugger. Look, Chris, how about I make a cup of tea and we see what we can do about your drugs?”
A cup of tea did sound nice. He was gasping.
“Yeah, alright. I’ll sit myself down here eh?”
Chris eased himself into the seat by the TV and James went into the kitchen.
“Jules,” shouted James. “Jules, would you like a cuppa?”
A strange guttural sound, like a moan, came from Jules’s room.
“Fuck me,” said Chris to himself, “sounds like the bugger’s dying.”
“Jules?” said James. He left the kitchen and went to James’s room.
Then all hell broke lose.
A terrifying scream filled the apartment. Chris jumped up and pulled his knife out.
Another scream, accompanied by a loud moan.
“Jesus…” said Chris, unable to move. He wanted to get away, but he didn’t want to get any closer to those sounds.
James appeared at the doorway, blood streaming down his face. It looked like there was a large gash around his eyeball.
“Help!” his voice was high pitched, like a little girl’s, thought Chris. James stumbled into the lounge and grabbed at Chris, trying to hide behind him.
“What are you doing? Get off!” shouted Chris. He tried to grab James and the two span round as James struggled to cower behind Chris.
A hideous moan from the doorway stopped their dance.
“Fuckin’ hell,” said Chris.
Jules, or at least something that looked like Jules, stood in the doorway. It’s skin was pale and mottled, like damp paper, looking ready to drop of his skull at the lightest touch. Blood covered his mouth and neck. His eyes were solid black.
His mouth opened and closed rapidly, clicking and gnashing like comedy wind up teeth.
James let out another scream, the loudest and most girly yet, thought Chris.
Chris grabbed James and pushed him towards the Jules thing.
The Jules thing grabbed James and used his chattering gnashes to make quick work of James’ neck. Blood squirted like a fountain across the walls, deep red and thick. Bits of flesh flew into the air, little pink globules of nerves, skin, and tendons
James’ screams turned into gurgling bird calls.
“Bollocks to this,” said Chris. He quickly ducked the two students and ran from the apartment, grabbing the fire extinguisher as he left.
Chapter 5
Standing at the door to James’ apartment block, looking out over the pedestrianised area of the Dock’s shopping precinct, things had obviously taken a turn for the worse.
Chris was glad he had the fire extinguisher.
A woman ran past him, screaming, blood pouring from a large gash in her shoulder. Three things that looked like the Jules-thing, all covered in blood with entrails hanging from various parts of their bodies, shuffled after the woman, moaning loudly.
A man in a tracksuit was trying to get into a white car, but a small child gnawed at his knee, squirting the car with blood. The man screamed, trying to shake off the kid thing, who was impervious to his blows.
Only ten feet away, an old woman lay face down. An old man pulled her spine out of her back, blood and small pieces of flesh spraying into the air as each vertebrae popped with a horrible splat sound.
“Fuck me…” said Chris. He knew what this was.
It was the zombie apocalypse.
Surprisingly, he wasn’t scared, he had only one thought - Nan.
He ducked back into the doorway of the apartments, took out his phone and dialled. The call dropped straight away. He tried a few more times and finally connected.
“Nan, stay in the flat, whatever you do don’t go out.”
“What are you talking about Chris? I need to go and get some veg for our roast tonight.”
“Nan! Listen to me, just this once, trust me, do not leave the fucking flat.”
“Language, Chris, where you born in-”
“NAN, sorry, listen to me, don’t leave the flat. Sorry for swearing.”
Silence for a minute, then she said, “What’s going on?” her voice sounded different. He realised he’d never heard Nan scared before.
“Things are… happening outside. Don’t worry, I’ll be home soon. Just lock the door and don't let anyone in but me, got it?”
“Is it this virus?”
“Yes Nan, it’s the zombie apocalypse.”
Silence on the line for a moment, then, “Bloody hell. Like that film the other night?”
“Exactly.”
“Bloody hell,” she said again. “Hurry up and get home, lad. And be careful.”
“Will do, Nan. Love ya.”
He hung off the call. Now to get back.
The trains would be off, the busses would be engulfed. He would have to run all the way.
Or steal a car.
The man in the tracksuit had lost his fight with the kid, and was lying on the floor in a pool of blood and organs. The kid zombie was munching away happily on what looked like a lung.
“Right,” said Chris. He took a deep breath and charged towards the kid.
The kid zombie looked up at the last moment and snarled.
Chris brought down the fire extinguisher hard on its head. The small skull caved in, fragments of white bone sinking deep into the pink brain matter.
The zombie kid fell forward, dead for the second time.
Chris then caved in the head of the man in the tracksuit. He was taking no chances. The dull clang of the fire extinguisher against concrete signalled Chris had pounded right through the man’s head.
That should do it.
Luckily, the car keys where in the door. Chris hadn’t fancied searching the man’s pockets - he was a bloody mess, his skin ripped back to reveal an almost empty rib cage, bits of organs half hanging out amongst torn tissue and bones.
“What a stink,” said Chris.
He got in the car and stowed his fire extinguisher beside him. He pulled out of the car park quickly, running over one of the zombies that was chasing the woman. It bounced off the bonnet with a thump.
Joining the main road, Chris had to swerve hard as a car came straight at him from the opposite direction. He avoided it, just, and glancing in the rear view mirror, he saw the car smash into a lamppost.
Rogue cars were not the only hazard. Panicked people and hungry zombies ran across the road at random. Chris did his best to avoid the people and hit the zombies.
He raced past an office building to his right, flames bursting out of its windows. A person jumped from the eighth floor, and hit the ground with a nasty splat. Three zombies immediately fell onto the free feed.
Fires, screams, crashing cars, blood.
It was getting hard to tell who was who. Chris took a simple approach - if it runs, it’s human, if it walks, it’s zombie.
He left the centre of the city, and got onto the dock road heading back towards Bootle.
He didn’t get far.
A red car in the corner of his vision was all he saw. There was a loud crash and the front of his stolen vehicle span to the right. Chris held on tight to the steering wheel as the car spun in two wide circles, before mounting the pavement and hitting a warehouse on the side of the road.
Chris took a deep breath, the pain of bruised ribs, thanks to the seatbelt, adding to his physical ailments.
/> The red car that hit him was twenty feet away, crashed into the same warehouse. An angry looking zombie was battering at the window, banging its head and fists against the glass.
Smoke poured out of Chris’ car’s bonnet. The engine had stopped.
Chris turned the ignition. Nothing.
“Bollocks,” he said. He was still a good few miles from home.
A van raced past, flames pouring out of the bonnet and windows, a charred figure hanging out from the passenger side. It hit a police car on the other side of the road and the two vehicles flipped through the air, flying in opposing directions. The police car exploded.
Chris would have to leg it back home. No way he was getting in another car.
He opened the door, grabbed his extinguisher, and took a quick look up and down the road. Zombies shuffled towards him from a side road about thirty yards away.
He turned off the main road. He was going to take a route home through the housing estates and high streets. There might be more zombies that way, but he fancied his chances against them more than the crazy traffic on the main road.
If he was going to die in the zombie apocalypse, it was going to be because of a zombie and not some skidding fucking Prius.
He turned down a residential street of red bricked terraced houses. It was full of zombies and running people. Families mainly, couples with kids. Groups of kids.
One fella with a baseball bat was making quick work of any zombies that came close.
A woman was swinging an ironing board at the head of one unfortunate zombie.
Some kids were using small cricket bats to attack what Chris thought at first was a zombie, but one that seemed to be shouting out for help.
Chris ran down the street, dodging the undead, the living, and the fighting.
Something grabbed his shoulder, but he shook it off and ran faster.
He quickly stepped over a figure that fell onto the ground in front of him.
He jumped to the left to avoid a crazy kid wielding a bloodied cricket bat.
He was breathless by the time he got to the end of the road. How could he keep this up all the way home?
Chapter 6
After the call from Chris, Nan sat on the couch in silence. He was prone to flights of fancy, that was for sure. Not the brightest lad, but something about his voice on the phone had sounded different.
Different in a good way. None of the big talk, the pretending to be someone he wasn’t. She realised what it was - he had sounded like a man. Like her Gerry, may he rest in peace, used to sound.
Even so. Zombie apocalypse? They had watched some film the other week about zombies. All blood and gore and guts. Not really her cup of tea, but Chris seemed so keen, and she would have watched anything if it had meant he was in the flat with her, and not out getting into trouble.
The film had been pretty daft. People coming back to life after being chewed to bits. Daft.
She put on the BBC news. Riots in London, like it had been for the past few days, and a virus. But no one said anything about people coming back from the dead.
Nan stood up, letting out a long sigh as her knees reacted painfully. She walked to the window and looked out across the city. From her high vantage point on the fourteenth floor, she could see right to the new skyscrapers around the docks.
Three columns of smoke were rising from the city centre. That wasn’t normal, thought Nan.
She took her binoculars from the sideboard. They had belonged to Gerry - he had been an avid bird watcher, and had saved up for months to get these ‘bins’, as he called them. She aimed the bins to the streets surrounding the high rise.
She took in a deep and fast breath. Bodies lay on the floor of the car park - she counted seven. But even more alarming was that some bodies had a person crouched over them, seemingly feeding on the carcasses.
She focused on the nearest body. A traffic warden was pulling out the body’s intestines, and eating them.
Nan dropped the bins and ran to the kitchen. She threw up in the sink.
“Bloody hell,” she said. “I need a cuppa.”
She put on the kettle and paced the kitchen. It looked like Chris was right. It was the bloody zombie apocalypse.
Chris ran down a second street, full of people, zombies, and feral kids swinging cricket and baseball bats.
He hefted his extinguisher high and brought it down on the head of a zombie that had got too close. “Bollocks to you mate!” he shouted as he repeatedly pummelled the head of the zombie, who looked like it used to be a milkman. Blood and pieces of skull flew out from under the red extinguisher.
“Hey, watch what you’re doing, nobhead,” shouted a high pitched voice from near Chris.
Chris looked up and saw a kid in a track suit with a baseball bat, wiping a pink chunk of brain off his white tracksuit.
“Shut it,” said Chris.
“Fuck off,” said the kid.
Chris had an idea.
He threw the extinguisher at the kid, aiming to miss, but it was enough to make him flinch.
Chris jumped forward and grabbed the baseball bat.
“Get off!” shouted the kid.
“Give me the bat you little prick.”
They wrestled for a few seconds and Chris managed to prise the bat away from the kid.
“Do one!” shouted Chris.
The kid stuck his finger up, aimed a well placed kick on Chris’ shins, and ran off.
Chris let out a small cry and was about to run after the kid, but then remembered where he was, and what was happening.
He began running again, feeling safer with the weight and flexibility of the baseball bat in his hands. He took a swing at a passing zombie, the connection ringing with a hollow metal clang. The zombie wobbled, and Chris hit him again, caving in the left of its skull. It fell to the ground.
“Nice one,” said Chris eyeing the blood on the end of the bat.
He ran again.
His lungs struggled with the pace. He couldn’t keep it up all the way back home. He would need a better plan.
First, get off the street.
He ran down a small alley in-between two houses into the small back yard of a house. Tall brick walls surrounded the yard. A battered wooden shed sat in the corner.
He looked in the back window, into a kitchen. He saw an old woman, her eyes wide with fear, holding a kitchen knife. She was waving it and shouting at him.
Chris smiled and shouted, “It’s ok lady, I’m just getting me breath.”
She ran out of the kitchen.
Chris took out his phone. He didn’t want Nan to get worried - it was going to be a few hours before he was home. No signal though.
But he had a plan.
He opened the door of the yard that led into the back alley that ran between the rows of tenement houses. He stepped out into a thin, brick floored lane, bordered by the houses.
He ran to the house opposite and looked over the wall. An empty back yard. He went to the next, looked over that wall. Not what he was looking for. He went to the next, and the next, and the next.
Nan sat in the lounge with her cup of tea, changing channels, looking for news. It was mostly the same story, seemed to be on repeat. Riots in London, a virus and the newsman telling everyone to stay in their homes.
Some channels were gone completely.
She turned off the TV.
The picture turned to black and there was a small hum as the set powered down. Once that was gone, there was no sound in the apartment save the ticking of her wall clock. It was an hour since Chris had called. She pushed down the fear that something had happened to him.
She sat in the relative silence. She took a picture of Gerry from the table beside her couch and looked at it. Tall, strong, worked hard at the docks all his life. He had been her rock, until their daughter, Kerry, died. When Kerry died, Gerry had fallen apart. He had doted on her like crazy, did anything for her.
When she went, it was like she took Gerry�
�s heart with her. He had become a shell of a man.
He died a few months later.
“Oh Gerry,” she said. “You’d know what to do. I hope you’re watching over Chris. Help him Gerry.”
A scream from the corridor outside the flat. She dropped the picture and and it landed hard on the floor, the glass frame cracking.
Another scream.
Nan’s heart beat fast. She held her chest.
A loud bang on the door.
Nan shuffled back on her seat and let out a small cry, “Oh, God save me.”
Another loud bang, “Mrs Benson! Mrs Benson, help, help me!”
It was a woman’s voice. One that Nan recognised. It was Amy, that girl that Chris was soft on.
“Mrs Benson!” The girl’s cry was loud, desperate, “Help!”
Chris had told her not to let anyone in. But how could she ignore someone shouting like that?
She looked at the photo of Gerry on the floor. She knew what he would have done.
She got up and went to the door as quick as she could. She looked through the eyehole. It was Amy alright, her face covered in tears, mascara running down her cheeks. She was banging on the door, panicked glances to her left.
Nan opened the door.
Amy looked shocked, as if she hadn’t expected the door to open.
Nan grabbed her arm, “Get in here girl.”
Nan stuck her head into the corridor and looked where Amy had been looking.
Only six feet away, Mrs Williamson from down the corridor was in her dressing gown, covered in blood. Her chest was pulled open and her heart was hanging down, blood spurting from it, rhythmically decorating the corridor wall red. Her jaws clicked up and down, her hands reached out for Nan.
“Bloody hell,” Nan ducked back in her flat and pulled the door shut. She locked it.
Chris was half way down the alley, and still no joy. The noises from the adjoining streets were getting louder and more violent. More screams, more yells, more bangs, breaking glass, revving engines. There had been an explosion and in the near distance, a few rapports of gunfire could be heard. He wished he had a gun. He fancied poppin’ some zombie’s heads.
Surviving the Fall: How England Died Page 25