The Restless Dead: A Zombie Novel

by Thomson, Jenny

  Once we’ve finished talking, he takes in a huge gulp of air. “Man that is crazy shit.”

  Coming from a suicide bomber, that was saying something.

  “Lucky I come along when I did, then. You’d both be dead by now.”

  A solemn silence settles between Scott and I. Doyle has no idea what we almost did.

  He turns to us and asks, “Where you want to go? I was heading home, but not much point in that now.”

  “We were on our way to Craigen Castle,” Scott mutters.

  “Ran out of petrol,” I add.

  Doyle seems impressed that we had a plan. It’s hard to read him, though. He’s one of the most undemonstrative people I have ever met. Maybe he figures the bomb vest does all his talking for him.

  “We should be safe there,” Scott says. “High walls, one way in and out, no other places for those flesh eaters to get in.”

  As he’s telling Doyle all this, I’m trying to attract Scott’s attention by poking his leg. I don’t want this mad man coming with us. Not when he has a bomb in his car. Of course, he hasn’t used the vest yet. He hasn’t killed anyone that I know of, and he did save us, but I don’t like the way he enjoys playing hit-and-run with the dead bastards. It’s like he’s enjoying killing them for fun not out of necessity like us. But it seems like Scott’s taking it for granted that this lunatic is coming with us.

  I’m having none of it. “Just drop us off somewhere,” I tell Doyle, praying he’ll take the hint. “We can make our way there on our own.”

  “Nah, think I’ll stick with you two.” He glances back at me. “Don’t want those things to go after you again, now do we?”

  I have to shrug. Who am I to disagree with a man who has a bomb in his car?

  We drive along at high speed, Doyle knocking down zombies that stray into our path like he’s in a demolition derby. He even speeds toward an old lady who’s being chased by two dead bastards: one in a suit and the other in a cleansing department uniform, both torn to rags. Zombie Inc is an equal opportunity employer.

  I want to scream at Doyle to stop until I see the old lady is holding her mangled arm as she runs, leaving a bloody trail. She’s been attacked and bitten. There’s no saving her. Doyle is simply going to put her out of her misery.

  He ploughs into her. She flips up over the bonnet and smacks face first into the windscreen. I see the terrified look on her face at the moment of impact. Her eyeballs turn white. Blood gushes from her mouth. I want to scream, but I don’t.

  Doyle swerves hard, rolling the woman off the car, then switches on the wipers to clear the view.

  By the time I look back, the zombies are hunched over her body, finishing her off. I’m almost certain that she’s dead: at least she’s been spared being eaten alive.

  Doyle doesn’t even suggest stopping, and neither do we. The worst thing about this new world is that we’re becoming immune to human suffering because showing human compassion could get us killed.

  We pass miles of cars ditched by the side of the road, some resting on pavements or upended, their glass shattered, a testament to all the accidents caused by infected drivers dying at the wheel or trying to avoid the dead bastards in their paths.

  We see some semblance of life. There’s a dazed taxi driver holding a blood-drenched hanky to his head. He yanks open the passenger door and pulls out a shrieking woman by the hair. She manages to get free and launches herself at him and chews on his face.

  Doyle veers into them, thump-thump, then zigzags back into the lane. “Got them!”

  I bite my tongue. The man is a complete lunatic, but he’s a complete lunatic who’s keeping us alive.

  When Doyle stops his crazy-person driving, Scott takes the moment to ask him, “Why?”

  “Aw man, they were dead anyway.”

  “No. You know,” Scott says. “Why the bomb vest?”

  Cue that familiar smile under the beard. “You think I was planning a terrorist attack?”

  “Why else would you have been on your way to the airport with a bomb?” Scott says it without a hint of emotion.

  “Right. I’d wonder about that too.” Doyle eyes us in the mirror. “After that incident at Glasgow Airport where the terrorists tried to blow up the place, I got to wondering what makes those idiots blow themselves up and kill innocent people? How could anybody do that? They had to be savages or psychos.”

  “So what changed?” Scott asks. “You get recruited? Got religion? Got bored?”

  Doyle gives a knowing look. “I did some reading. Did some soul searching. I found out the jihadists had a point.”

  Scott shifts in his seat. “You don’t honestly believe they get rewarded by Allah in heaven?”

  Doyle nods. “Says so right here in the Quran.” He taps the book on the dashboard.

  I want to call him all the names under the sun for being prepared to kill innocent people, but I stop myself. When you’re in a car with a nut job, fleeing monsters who want to eat your brains, it doesn't pay to antagonize the guy who saved you, especially when his car has a bomb in it. So I just come right out and ask him, “Why did you want to blow up the airport?”

  Scott cuts in. “And you still could have detonated the bomb somewhere else. Why didn’t you?”

  “The way I see it now,” Doyle says, looking serious. “The old world order is gone. The only true Jihad now is to wipe those dead cannibals off the face of the planet. We need to stick together and hope that those of us who survive can build a better world where we’re all treated fairly.”

  That’s a bit rich coming from someone who was about to commit mass murder, but I keep my opinion to myself. Besides, we’re almost there. I close my eyes and imagine we’re going to stay in a fancy hotel with comfy beds, warm fluffy towels, en suite toilet facilities, and room service. Comforts I'll never have again.

  Doyle stops the Rover with a jolt.

  My eyes snap open. I look out and see that we've we’re stopped at the bottom of a hill. Its four o’clock and getting dark.

  For once, Doyle’s cool evaporates when he sees where we are. “Shit, man. You didn’t say we’d have to walk.”

  “It’s a castle, not a drive through,” Scott says, making me suppress a chuckle. He’s enjoying Doyle’s unease.

  When I get out of the heated car and step right into a deep freeze, my humour disappears faster than a pickpocket in a train station. I’m wearing my fleece jacket, but in this weather I might as well be wearing a t-shirt. The cold seeps right through to my bones, and it’s snowing again. I console myself by thinking that freezing to death isn’t a bad way to go: at least some zombie won’t be able to bite me and turn me into a human flesh-eating drone. I don’t think so anyway. These days I can’t be sure of anything. The world’s gone mad.

  “I’m not keen on leaving the car here,” Doyle says. He’s still sitting in the driver’s seat.

  Does he expect to drive right up the hill? The hill’s far too steep, even for a Land Rover. Who knows if the coast is clear? If the place is infested with dead bastards, we might as well wave our bloody arms in the air and shout, “Dinner is served.”

  “You don’t have to come,” Scott tells him and pulls the backpack off the floor. “We’ll be okay until our pals arrive.”

  Sounds to me like he’s trying to ditch Doyle.

  I’m in two minds. On one hand I’ll be glad to be away from a nutter with a bomb, but on the other, without his transport we’d end up having to look for another car if Kenny and Mustafa don’t make it here, and I don’t fancy our chances of finding another car before the zombies find us.

  On top of that, Kenny and Mustafa haven’t exactly come across as handy so far. For all his so-called zombie knowledge, Kenny’s just a pair of glasses who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty, and Mustafa’s a wimp, good at showing off his perfect abs to giggling schoolgirls, but not much else.

  Doyle finally gets out of the car and marches ahead of us, his oversized backpack on his shoulder. I don’t a
sk him if the bomb vest is inside, but I hope it is because, if those things get too close, I would rather death by bomb than death by zombie. The bomb will kill us outright; dead bastards will eat us alive, piece by agonizing piece.

  Using the torches we brought to light our way, we climb up the hill as Scott enthusiastically informs us that there used to be a defensive ditch down here before it was filled in.

  When the castle comes into view, I have to hide my disappointment. I imagined that Craigen Castle would be a majestic building, rising up out of the rugged Scottish landscape and straight to the heavens, a fitting sanctuary. The reality is more like a kick in the teeth. Time hadn’t done the old castle any favours. Where there were once four towers there are now two remaining. Only the northeast one is completely intact. The other tower is a pitiful one story tall.

  “You call this safe?” I say it as though Scott’s going to say, “Naw, this isn’t the castle. It’s that bigger, much nicer one hiding behind it.” Wishful thinking on my part.

  A flicker of satisfaction flashes across his face. “Aye, isn’t it grand?”

  I don’t want to dampen his enthusiasm, so I don’t say anything, but in my head I’m picturing my own death, a human shaped ice cube frozen to a stone floor. It’s so cold, if I cry my tears will turn to icicles on my cheek.

  We scope out the old ruins, find nothing alive, or dead, inside. Our footsteps echo off rough stone walls. Snow has drifted into a corner through a break in the wall. What I wouldn’t give for a blazing log fire right now, but even if we did have one it’d just attract the wrong sort of attention that gets you eaten.

  Huddling together with Scott for warmth, I’m so cold, my teeth won’t stop chattering.

  “Once the others join us we’ll head off to my parents,” says Scott. “The island should be safe.”

  Scott’s parents live on an island with his sister. Unless you owned a boat, there was only one way on an off – by getting a ferry.

  Scott carries on. “We’ll find a boat in Largs. There’s plenty of them.”

  Doyle nods. “I’ll join you. What can be safer than an island?”

  “And if there’s any zombies on the island, you can kill them for us.” This time I’m not being sarcastic. I mean it. Madmen have their uses.

  “We’ll need supplies,” Doyle says. “Let’s hit St. Enoch’s shopping centre. Loads of stuff there that we need.”

  With Kenny and Mustafa’s help, we could carry a lot. I wish they were here now to discuss how we’d pull it off.

  I’m curious as to how we can get into the shopping centre. They don’t exactly leave the doors open. Or maybe the doors are already broken down, the windows smashed in, the place looted bare. I ask Doyle, “How are we going to get in, say abracadabra?”

  My words are laden with sarcasm, but I couldn’t care less. I’m freezing to death. What’s Doyle going to do about it, blow me up with his stupid bomb? At least then I’d be warm.

  I cuddled closer into Scott, hoping I won’t turn into a ice lolly.

  Scott rubs my arm. “She’s right. We’ll just go straight to the island. Going to the shopping centre’s too dangerous.”

  A small laugh escapes Doyle’s throat. He stands tall, chin raised. “You never know what trouble you’ll run into on the way. No. You’ll be going with me for supplies. Besides, we need food.”

  “Like hell,” I say, “You’re not in charge of us.”

  “You need me to lead you, keep you alive.”

  “You? Our leader?” I scoff. Who does he think he is?

  “We’ll do just fine on our own,” Scott says.

  Doyle sneers. “Like the last time?”

  “You caught us at a bad moment, that’s all.”

  “Look.” Doyle kneels to our eye level. “It’s me who’s got the Rover. I’ve got the bomb, and I’ve got something else.” He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a gun. “One of these.”

  A would-be mass murderer with a bomb and a gun, and wheels, and survival training he may have learned in one of those terrorist training camps al-Qaeda have in Pakistan. How lucky are we?

  Scott holds up his hand. “All right. You call the shots, Doyle.”

  I still wonder, though, “How are you going to get into the shopping centre? If it’s locked up, that is.”

  “Ye of little faith,” says Doyle, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “I have the pass key for the security door.”

  I’m impressed. He must’ve worked there... or... “How did you get one of those?”

  Doyle winks at me.

  “Trust me, Emma,” Scott says, his face serious. “You don’t want to know.”

  That’s when it clicks, why someone would know this. He or one of his lot was going to bomb St. Enoch’s shopping centre, here in Glasgow. Gutless bastard.

  Fury rises within me. Hundreds would have died, not only from the bomb, but from the falling masonry and the panic, the stampede to the doors, and the crush.

  An image of the chaos flashes across my brain like a YouTube clip. In our short time together I’d almost forgotten what kind of man Doyle is, what he was capable of doing. And just because he didn’t let off his bomb, doesn’t mean he’s not the enemy.

  “You’re nothing but a fucking murderer,” I scream at him.

  “Emma,” Scott says, holding me tighter. “Whatever he was going to do, it doesn’t matter now. He’s one of us now. He saved us, remember that. We were dead meat. I was going to...” His eyes glass up.

  “Scott, it’s all right. You didn’t do it. We’re safe now.”

  “Aye, with me you are.” Doyle puts the gun away. “I don’t blame you for thinking I’m a piece of shit, but there’s a new game in town. Whoever we were before this happened, we’re not anymore. It’s a sign from Allah that we’ve lost our way. That we need to get our act together.” He eyes at me like he’s suddenly become a saint.

  I’m not having that, not from him. “Don’t you dare preach to us.”

  A flicker of anger flashes across Doyle’s face, and he’s no longer Mr Easy-going. “Who’s the one preaching?”

  I clench my teeth.

  We bed down on the stone cold floor in sleeping bags that Doyle brought from the back of his Rover. I’m wondering if he’s some kind of fugitive because he’s far too well equipped for someone who claims he was going to kill himself in a suicide bombing at the airport. He even brought a gas camping stove and some food up from the Rover, including tins of soup and teabags. Maybe he just talks tough, all righteous, while all along he planned to flee from his local terror cell to hide out in the Scottish hills like the Taliban do in Afghanistan. Who knows? He’s a man of mystery, and the truth is there are some things I just don’t want to know about him, under any circumstances.

  Things like is the bomb vest in his backpack, or is it still sitting on the seat of the car?

  I don’t sleep much. Every time I close my eyes I see gnarly hands grabbing for me and choppy teeth that want to rip my meat from my bones. I see Fiona’s lifeless body lying where we’d buried her in the cold ground. She’s all alone. Marie is probably flogging papers in heaven, free of all worldly worries, unlike Tam the Bam, reeking of booze, who’s probably in hell.

  I imagine the woman in the apron with her son held close to her chest, wandering around in a daze, waiting for the police who would never come. The snowman that wasn’t a snowman at all.

  I wonder if Stephen King could have imagined all this horror.

  We were meant to take turns acting as lookouts, but Scott and I end up staying watch together. We’re too jumpy to do it alone. Every creak, whistle of the wind, rustle of leaves sound like someone coming for us, licking their lips in preparation for a bloody, gory feast.

  10 SAFETY IN NUMBERS

  By next morning, there’s still no sign of Mustafa and Kenny, and the realisation hits me like a punch in the jaw that they might not be coming. Scott doesn't say anything, but he's twitchy, eyes darting back and forth as he looks for
his friends.

  Doyle doesn’t say it, but I get the impression he couldn’t care less whether they turn up or not. Why should he when he doesn’t even know them?

  Scott’s checking his watch every two minutes, his brows arched with concern. Finally, he says, “They should have been here by now.”

  He’s right. Mustafa’s parents live in Bearsden, which isn’t that far away, even allowing for the hordes rampaging through the city, forcing them to take a detour to get to us.

  When we get to one o’clock (or thirteen-hundred hours as Doyle calls it), the time we agreed we'd leave, there’s no sign of them. The impact of what that means doesn’t register on Doyle’s expressionless face; he never thought the pair were coming at all because he thinks they're dead. Maybe he even hopes they are dead because that way he won't have to face their scrutiny.

  The way Scott’s avoiding my gaze as he brews some tea I can tell that he’s thinking his friends haven't made it. I feel a stab of disappointment. How can he give up on his friends so easily?

  Although I’m desperate to leave too (staying one more night in this icebox will kill me), I don’t want to go without Mustafa and Kenny. They’re bringing Mustafa’s family. They’re counting on us being there when they arrive. We need to stick together.

  As Doyle struts off, Scott hands me a cup of camping stove tea. We’ve agreed to wait ten more minutes. Doyle’s not happy, but screw him. He's not in charge.

  Scott’s mouth is close to my ear. “We don’t have to go with him.”

  His suggestion makes me angry. Why's he saying that? “We’re stuck here with no transport, so of course we need to go with him. What other option do we have?”

  There’s a glint in Scott’s eye. “We could get the keys off him, nick the Range Rover.”

  The expression in his eyes makes me chuckle. “Aye, we could.” The hot tea scalds my tongue, but I don't care. At least it's warm. “A big score for amateur car thieves like ourselves.”

  For a split second I consider grabbing the keys from Doyle's belt and running. But, I know it’s a crazy idea. We need to wait for Mustafa and Kenny, and as much as it destroys me to admit it, we do need Doyle. We needed him when we were fleeing from the flesh-eating freaks, and we need him now. That fact bugs the hell out of me, but it’s true. I don’t want to die, or worse, be turned into one of those slush brained bastards because I refused to use common sense.