The Restless Dead: A Zombie Novel

by Thomson, Jenny

  Shivering, I squeeze his hand and diverting my gaze from a trailing bloody handprint on the glass, together we push open the door.

  We step out into the dazzling light. Against the backdrop of falling snow, the light stings my eyes and two of those waker things come into focus, straddling someone who’s writhing on the deck. From here, I can’t tell if it’s a man or woman.

  As we go the long way round, their feral eyes stare up at us. Blood drips from their mouths and there's flesh on their teeth. Once they seem sure we pose no threat to their meal, they go back to devouring their victim who’s no longer moving.

  I know there’s nothing we can do for whoever they’re eating, but I’m still ashamed when we stride off in the other direction towards the street where Dan's car is parked.

  As we scurry by, I say a silent prayer asking God to forgive me. It’s the first time I’ve prayed since I was a wee girl. I’ve always considered myself to be an atheist. But right now, I'll take all the help I can get.

  4 FACING UP TO REALITY

  Most streets in Glasgow have a Big Issue seller, and ours was no different. Marie had a wild mane of frizzy, curly hair as though she’d put her wet hand in the national grid, and she was the size of a brick wall. She was younger than me (one day she'd told me out was her 20th birthday), but in every line of her face I could tell she’d lived a hard life. When she handed me my change (she’d never keep it, even when I insisted) I could see scars and calluses on her hands, but I never asked her how she got them. Instead I'd buy the magazine she sold, and we’d whine about Scotland’s wind and rain and how the sun never shone.

  One morning it was freezing and without thinking about whether she’d accept it or not, I’d brought her some coffee in a polystyrene cup from the store. It was so hot my fingers were burning through my woollen gloves, but she’d drunk it in one great gulp, her throat bobbing as though she had an Adam’s apple. With the smile she’d flashed through yellow picket-fence teeth, you’d think I’d given her a gold watch. From that day onwards, I made a habit of getting her a cup a few times a week on my way to work.

  Yesterday was the last time I’d be getting her a hot drink, because as we turned the corner and came into what passes as a high street - a strip of shops with everything a person could possibly need: bookies, bakers, hairdressers, a store selling everything from newspapers to screwdrivers and a tanning salon - I realise Marie isn’t Marie anymore.

  She’s grappling on the pavement with a man we’d seen coming out of the store earlier, and her mouth’s wide open, but not because she’s giving her Big Issue I pitch. She’s trying to bite the poor guy.

  The message of countless domestic violence campaigns had been rammed home to Glasgow’s men: never hit a woman, under any circumstances. How else can I explain Scott’s initial reluctance to get involved even when he must have realised before I did that the man in trouble was one of his pals?

  My vision’s obscured by the biker’s helmet I’m wearing, so it’s only when we’re within scruff of the neck distance that I realise it’s Mustafa from the newsagent's who’s on the ground. He’s struggling to get up, but Marie has a beefy arm across his throat, and her mouth’s snapping at him, and there’s no trace of a smile. She reminds me of Donald Sutherland in the final scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  Scott swings into action with the axe, and with one swoop, he chops off Marie’s free arm so cleanly the crunch sounds like a lettuce being sliced in two.

  The limb lands with a schlep onto the ground, turning the snow crimson as blood spurts out of the stump, drenching everything in its path with arterial spray, including Scott, Mustafa, and me.

  Mad Marie stops to gawp at her arm as though she’s never seen it before. The limb’s twitching on the snowy sidewalk, grasping at thin air.

  Will the thing no die?

  I’m so entranced with watching the arm move, the fat pink fingers digging into the crisp snow, that I don’t see Scott get busy with the axe. But I hear it all, the grunts and groans as the blade falls, the snap of tendons, the crunchy separation of bone, and the squelch of bloody pulp.

  Without realising it, I’ve stepped backwards into the path of another one of those dead bastards (we’re calling them that because they’re dead and a bastard to kill). The helmet has blocked my peripheral vision, and I brush against the thing that’s still wearing a suit and tie and as I do, I catch a waft of the decaying flesh that reminds me of the stench in our flat when we’d killed Archie.

  I stagger backwards and keep moving away, trying and create as much distance between me and it. I’ve got the bat raised off my shoulder, ready to inflict some serious injury when Scott jumps between us and chops into the freak whilst yelling in time to every blow as though his voice gives him the strength to do the unthinkable, hack a man to death. Mild-mannered Scottish schoolteacher turns into American Psycho in one day.

  First an arm flies off with the suit jacket sleeve still attached, then a nose lobs off, followed by a leg, but the thing is still lugging forward until Scott slices it right across the abdomen, and its guts flop out. It trips over its own intestines and falls, leaving Scott a clear swing to sever its remaining leg. Now it’s crawling along the sidewalk, its only arm reaching out, grabbing for me. That’s when I swing my baseball bat and keep on whacking it hard on the head, spray painting the sidewalk with blood.

  I don’t realise until Scott tells me that I’m yelling obscenities as I bash the thing’s brains in, and there’s a fierceness in my expression that scares the hell out of him.

  “He’s dead.”

  I’m brought back to the present when a gentle hand is placed on my shoulder, and I turn and almost take a swing at Scott.

  Mustafa hauls himself to his feet and stands there dumbfounded. His jeans and white t-shirt are smeared with blood, but there’s no sign of it being his blood. His eyes are the size of small planets. His mouth is open wide when he turns to me and says, “What the fuck was that?”

  “Zombies,” I say.

  The word sounds dumb in my mouth, and I almost apologise for saying it. This is the kind of madness that gets someone locked away in a padded room, in an I-love-me jacket. There’s got to be a better explanation than zombies for what’s happening to people, though I haven’t a clue what that better explanation might be.

  Mustafa gazes at me as though he’s seeing me for the first time. Bet he thinks I’m crazy. I don’t blame him. I would too if I clapped eyes on a woman wearing a biker’s helmet and wielding a baseball bat covered in blood.

  I guess he doesn’t believe me. “Zombies? Are you high on something?”

  “That thing,” I say, pointing. “It’s what that is, a zombie, and Marie too.” I stare at her body parts on the sidewalk. “Well, she was Marie.”

  A flicker of understanding flashes across his face, and he focuses on the bloody axe hanging at Scott’s side, and then doffs an imaginary hat to him. “Thanks for saving my life, pal.”

  Scott blinks as though it’s no big deal. Most people would have run the other way (self-preservation and all that), which would be understandable. But, not Scott. Because of his outward demeanour, he may come across as way too serious at times, but on the inside beats the heart of a lion. It’s one of the reasons I fell for him. He has principles and the courage to back them up. Not many men do.

  Scott pulls off his blood-drenched catcher’s mask and throws it away, muttering something about it not being worth a shit in a bloodbath. I follow his lead and toss the biker’s helmet away too. Thing’s going to get me killed because it restricts my vision, even if it could prevent me from getting bitten on the head or face.

  Scott tells Mustafa to come with us, but it’s as if he can’t hear him. He’s in a daze and walks back towards the shop, prattling on about needing to lock up because his father will kill him otherwise.

  I tug on his arm. Despite the chill his skin feels clammy. “If you go back to the shop, one of those zombies might kill you, eat you first
. Or worse, you might get bitten, die, and come back as one of those freaks.”

  In case he doesn’t get it, I point towards what’s left of Marie and the suited man. “And the thing is, this plague, or whatever it is, is only going to get worse.” There’s no point in sugar coating our situation. “So you have to come with us. Scott’s friend has a car we can borrow.”

  Mustafa stops walking and turns around to face me, meeting my gaze. “I need to stay here. Dad will kill me if I don’t. The place will get cleared out like those shops during the London riots.” He turns back around and starts walking towards the store. “Besides, old Mrs King is waiting for me.”

  Scott jogs up alongside him and grabs him by the arm, and pulls him to a stop. “She’s in the shop, Muzz?”

  Mustafa’s brows knot. “Yeah, she walked in with her stick, wasn’t looking too good.”

  “Damn,” Scott says.

  I know what he’s thinking: how could we possibly take an old woman with us? Me? I’m thinking she’s already been bitten, and I don’t want to be eaten by an old woman. Or have to kill one.

  Mustafa taps his head. “She’s gone senile, that's all. She had a bit of a turn, spewed up some horrible looking green stuff, so I got her a chair. She dozed off. Weird it was. I think the old bag’s gone cuckoo.”

  “I don’t,” Scott says. “She’s been bitten. She’s one of those things now, just waiting for you to come back so she can gnaw the meat off your bones.”

  His mouth goes slack-jawed, reminding me of a ventriloquist’s dummy; after someone has withdrawn the hand.

  “We better go.” Fear laces my voice. I’m itching to get away from here. We’re out in the open, and who knows what could leap out of at us from one of those doorways and finish us off.

  Grabbing an arm each, Scott and I pull Mustafa along with us as if he’s a drag-along toy dog that toddlers play with, and this time he doesn’t put up a fight.

  “Okay, I’m coming,” he tells us, jaw muscles tightening. “But there’s someone I want to fetch on the way. He’s an expert in these things. And he’s got a car.”

  “What things?” Scott and I say at once.

  “Zombies or whatever you want to call them. Kenny has seen all the films, including the Romero movies, which he tells me are the best top ones. And he’s read all the books and comics. If we need any survival tips, he’s our go-to guy.”

  Scott raises his eyebrows. “Okay.”

  I can tell by Scott’s lack of enthusiasm that he thinks the notion of anyone being an expert in what’s happening now based on some geeky movies he’d seen and books he’d read is dubious.

  So I ask Mustafa, “Kenny? Is he the freak who works at the last video store in Scotland?”

  That’s what we all call it, but immediately, I wish I could snatch the words back, even although I have this image in my head of Kenny being some kind of nut who’ll tell us to wrap ourselves up in tinfoil and hide in a room lined with egg boxes so the aliens can’t communicate with the transmitters they’ve implanted in our heads.

  Scott eyes me with the kind of disdain he reserves for unruly pupils; I’ve seen him in action. He’s used it on me so often I’m starting to develop an immunity.

  Mustafa acts like I didn’t say anything offensive. “Kenny’s a smart guy.” Then he pauses as if he’s remembering something, and then meets my gaze and grins. “Yeah, you’re right; he is a bit of a freak. UFO’s, superpowers, extraterrestrials, he believes in a lot of weird stuff, including zombies. He’s like that guy off The X-Files.”

  Something occurs to me. He can’t be that much of a freak if he thinks zombies are real. “I don’t know about UFO’s and aliens, but he’s right about zombies.”

  Nobody has a response to that. We all know we’re screwed without Kenny, because maybe, just maybe, he’s the key to us surviving this apocalypse.

  5 THE TROUBLE WITH ZOMBIES

  Little has changed in Kenny’s world since the 1980s. We realise that the minute we step inside The Video Emporium and saw the framed Back to the Future and ET posters alongside those for Footloose, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and other movies. Bins of tapes and DVDs on sale take up most of the floor space.

  Kenny stands behind the counter, wearing thick John Lennon-style specs held together with sticky tape. He’s gabbing away to a carrot-topped pal, oblivious to what’s going on outside and their obvious lack of customers. Going by Mustafa’s comments as we jogged along to the shop, Kenny is pretty much oblivious to anything that goes on the world unless it involves little green men and the paranormal.

  One of the few concessions to the modern era was the massive plasma telly they were watching the original Von. The TV's blaring, and I know that once we leave I’ll need to make my ears pop or risk ending up with the hearing of someone submerged in water.

  As we advance towards the counter, Carrot Top and Kenny carry on discussing the best way to deal with first contact from extraterrestrial life. They seem oblivious to the zombie apocalypse landing on their doorstep.

  I’m holding my bloody baseball bat as though it’s a part of me, and Scott’s swinging his axe at his side. I half expect him to sing, “I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay.”

  Mustafa, who’d turned the keys in the lock to prevent anyone from coming in, leads the way; his body movements are as sleek as a snake’s. I swear he wears tight white t-shirts to show off his washboard abs to the giggling schoolgirls who come into his dad’s store. So far, he’s not shown that he has the balls to back up his brawn. If it weren’t for Scott and me, he’d be dead by now, but he didn't thank me.

  When Kenny and Carrot Top finally pry their eyes away from the telly where something horrible is springing out of someone’s chest, to look our way but still carry on with their conversation, Mustafa reaches across the counter and doinks his mate on the head to get his attention. “Haven’t you seen what’s going on outside?” His voice is a growl.

  A bemused glance from both men gives him his answer.

  “There are fucking zombies out there, man.”

  Kenny and Carrot Top shrug and carry on with their conversation.

  Mustafa’s body stiffens, and he turns to face Scott and me. “Tell these dunderheids the score.”

  We don’t have time for this.

  Scott swallows and is about to speak when tired of them pussyfooting around, I step forward and shove my baseball bat right under their noses and point to the blood that’s congealing at the hitting end.

  “See this…” I pause to let Kenny and Carrot Top examine it, resisting the urge to whack them across their thick skulls with it. “This here is brain matter from Scott’s best mate, Archie. You might know him - gob bigger than the Clyde, enjoys a bevy, bit of a ladies’ man. Or, at least he was. I say was because he’s dead and this time he’s no getting up. Oh, and he tried to eat us. After he was dead.”

  I hope my words sink in. I’ve got their attention now. “We had to bash his brains in so he couldn’t get up again.”

  Kenny turns to his colleague with a gormless expression on his face that I want to smack right off with my baseball bat. “Brilliant,” he says, his eyes bright. “This is your best prank yet, Muzz. You’ve even got props.”

  Aye and we’ve got a dead prop back at our flat. Very realistic it is.

  I’m about to clatter him over his dumb head with my prop, but Scott steps in front of me.

  “Haven’t you seen the news, you two? Heard about all those folk who are dying, then waking up and eating people? Christ, one of them even ate David Cameron.” He breaks off talking to make a victory gesture with his fist. Scott's dad was a miner when another Tory leader, Thatcher vowed to crush the coal unions and was accused of using the police to beat up striking miners. “And grand it was too. Looked like Milliband who did it, though he died the day before. I had to watch it a few times to be sure of what I was seeing.”

  Kenny’s disbelieving grin is lopsided. “What is this, Muzz an early April Fool’s? Or, let’s
make fun of the video guy today? You guys are always coming in and saying crazy stuff.”

  Mustafa springs forward, and with arm muscles straining, grabs his pal by the throat. “This is real, mate. Not some kind of fucking game. We need to leave. Move your arse. Now.”

  Kenny’s specs steam up, and his face turns red like it’d been given a damn good slapping.

  “Get off me,” he yelps, using both hands to knock Mustafa’s grasp away.

  Both men stand eyeball to eyeball as if sizing each other up. The goofy grin slides off Kenny's face and he starts shaking with anger. “What’s up with you?”

  Scott steps in with a neutral expression on his face. Having worked at a Glasgow high school, he’s well used to breaking up fights and not getting clobbered in the process. “Whoa, take it easy, guys.”

  Mustafa’s mutters away to himself as Kenny slumps down on a chair beside the counter. Meanwhile, Carrot Top has slinked into the back of the shop, saying something about a delivery.

  It doesn’t occur to me that we should warn him not to open the back door. Not that he’d listen. He thinks we’re wind up merchants, and that this is some elaborate practical joke.

  I’m desperate to get moving. To get to Fiona’s. In this shop we’re an easy target with all the glass windows. Whether the door is locked or not, those things are hungry and mad enough to break in.

  I’m about to point this out when something in Kenny’s brain must have clicked. He puts his finger to my bat and comes away with some blood on his fingertip. He raises it to his nose and sniffs. “Smells like copper.” He wipes the smear on a brown paper bag on the counter. “It’s blood, all right.”

  The way he announces this discovery sounds as if it’s some kind of revelation and not what we’ve been telling him all along.

  “Is what you say, true? Has it really happened? The zombie apocalypse?”

  He eyes Mustafa who nods. Kenny’s eyes sparkle, and at first, I think I’ve misunderstood his sudden show of emotion. How could anyone be pleased about this? Then he wipes his glasses with his sleeve. “I knew it would happen. One day.” There’s feverish excitement in his voice. “How did it start?”