On the other side of the copse was a stretch of hard standing and some garages for the houses one road over, and this was where Al headed with the car’s headlamps still switched off. We needed to circle once, because Al sensibly sounded the horn at the entrance to the garages and, sure enough, five or six dark shapes bumbled out. We waited until they were close, then reversed twenty feet or so, tooting the horn and flashing the fog lamps. They followed, so he did a three-point-turn as we begged him not to stall the engine again; we drove right round the block, approached from the other end of the road and slipped in behind them.
‘I’ll stay here for as long as I can,’ Al suggested. ‘Then I’ll drive the car back round the front of the house, in case we need to leave in a hurry. Let me in when you’ve got the front door unlocked.’
‘Good skills chum – you alright to take the mutt with you?’ Al nodded. ‘Come on Sweetpea, let’s go!’ I piled out of my side to see that Lou was already out. Floyd started barking when he realised we were leaving him in the car.
‘Shush! Going to the shops!’
We clawed our way past thick cobwebs strung between the garages. I pushed through undergrowth and up to the fence around the perimeter of the parking spaces, and soon found the gap in the chain link that the kids must have used. I peeled it back so Lou could crawl through, looking down the alleyway and trying to distinguish between zombie groans and tree creaks.
‘Hurry up.’ I followed Lou, as she held the wire back for me to inch underneath. The weather had dried out everything and we couldn’t help snapping twigs as we went, but soon I could make out the back of my workshop roof.
‘Come on.’ We both clambered over a pile of cuttings and fallen branches, setting down in the alleyway round the back or our house – now all we had to do was get into my garden. I had nailed the gate shut when the bin men refused to collect the rubbish from the alleyway any more, but the fence was old enough that I could punch through it, trying to make as little noise as possible. The hole ended up larger than I’d have liked, as the interlocking planks above it fell to the floor. I was being too noisy.
‘I wish we had Floyd here,’ I said ruefully, checking over my shoulder.
‘Well you told him to stay.’
The heat of the day had given way to a cool, still night with little breeze, especially in our leafy back garden. Even though it was summer, the only window I had left open that morning was one in our bedroom, and only the small top one at that. Maui, our cat, had jumped onto the water butt we used for the vegetables in front of my workshop, and was curling round Lou’s arm and gently nudging her chest whilst Lou scratched her long ears and talked nonsense to her.
My workshop was undeniably just a big shed with a pent roof and horizontal slats, but even so I tried very hard never to call it a shed when talking to a potential client. It was the same thinking that made me say it was one hundred and sixty eight square feet as opposed to twelve foot by fourteen foot. It was definitely a shed though. I had a sturdy combination padlock on my workshop doors which I’d bought in exasperation at having to trudge back into the house for the keys I forgot every single morning, effectively doubling my thirty-second commute. I could open the padlock in seconds with a plate of toast and a cup of tea in one hand, so doing it with both hands was quicker still. I silenced the pre-alarm beep and waved Lou in, followed quickly by Maui who was eager for her biscuits. I didn’t turn on the light - that was as stupid as checking out funny noises in the attic. Basic rules.
‘Let’s get the ladder down.’ I moved some plastic crates about and pulled an ancient wooden stepladder out from under my workbench, long past safe use and dangerously wobbly, but I needed it to reach the bigger one on the ceiling. As I steadied myself I eased the long ladder off its wide hooks, whilst Lou grabbed the other end. We carefully negotiated it over a half-finished Royal Oak sign and onto the floor. I glanced around, at my carefully organised tools arranged on the walls - I had spent many enjoyable hours looking around for items I might be able to put to use to fend off a zombie infestation, instead of actually doing any work. This time it didn’t feel like so much fun.
I looked across the garden to the decking directly under the open bedroom window. We’d have to put it on there, moving the table and three chairs at least. Both ground floor doors looked black and hollow; the single kitchen door with a cat flap to the right and the double doors opening straight out onto the decking on the left were all definitely locked.
‘Let’s set the ladder up in here, under cover.’ I suggested. ‘Save time mucking about outside. What do you reckon that is up to the window, fifteen feet?’
‘Probably.’ She sounded unsure. We extended the ladder, locking the three sections together to give at least fifteen feet of height. Checking behind me to make sure I didn’t knock anything over or scratch any of my signs, I pushed the door open with the end of the ladder. But I forgot a basic rule; always look through the door you’re opening. Maui was recoiling and hissing at the garden behind me, her ears flattened against her head. I whipped round to see my neighbour Bill in his pants and a T-shirt, and missing a lot of hair on one side of his head.
I ploughed the ladder into his chest as he sprang at me. Lou didn’t have the viewpoint that Maui and I had, so she wasn’t expecting to have to move with me and the action ripped the ladder from her grip. Her end of the ladder crashed to the floor, sending my end into his chin in a superb uppercut. His neck gave out a crack which echoed off the house and back to us, and his head flopped back between his shoulders.
‘Nuts. We’ve got to move, now!’
We set out into the garden and I pulled Lou past my neighbour’s crumpled heap on the ground outside the door. I could see no-one else, so we trotted the fifty feet to the decking where I pushed the ladder above my head and guided it up the wall, as Lou bent down and fed it through my hands. It made a tinny clunk as it hit the window, but was too steep to climb.
‘I’ve got to get a better angle. Let’s move the table and chairs, but do it quietly - they can definitely still hear. Bill had heard us in the shed!’
‘That was Bill? From next door? She asked quietly.
‘Yeah, I think I broke his neck.’
She held her head and stared at the floor. Her brow was wrinkled and she looked like she might cry, but we had to get a move on.
‘It might not have been him; his face was a bit… fucked up. Come on.’
We took great care not to make a noise as we lifted the furniture clear. When there was enough space I pulled the ladder out and re-sat its feet, giving it a wobble to test it. I started to climb up the ladder, but after a few steps I stopped, climbed back down and said with a grin:
‘Ladies first.’
‘That’s fine. I’m thinner than you anyway,’ Lou scoffed.
When she was half-way up I realised I might not actually have to climb the ladder if Lou let me through the back door but then I heard the rustle of leaves. The bushes were moving, down the side of the shed towards the hole I’d made in the fence. That wasn’t the closest noise though. A dry bamboo bush just twenty feet away split apart and a straggle-haired woman fell onto the path. I started up the ladder after Lou, who was fiddling with the window.
‘What’s up?’ I asked, trying not to rush her.
‘It’s a bit stiff.’
There were four freaks now, and two of them were scrambling up the path. I was racking my brain, trying to remember if they climbed the ladder up to the helicopter at the end of Dawn of the Dead.
‘Come on.’
One fell over the edge of the decking with a thud, and looked up at us, rasping and gagging. His eyes were matte in the moonlight, deep scratches lacing across his scalp.
‘Oh my God!’ Lou was looking down.
‘Don’t look down, look at the fucking window.’
‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ she said indignantly. ‘That was uncalled for.’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ I muttered.
‘I heard that.’
‘What?’ I asked, wondering what we were doing arguing up a ladder when zombie flesh-eaters were clawing at my feet. Well not quite at my feet but certainly too close for comfort, bumping around with the bush lady.
‘Don’t get in an egg with me, do something!’ Lou spluttered.
I clambered back down until my feet were just above their head height. I made sure my grip was good, crouched, and cracked the man in the temple with my right foot. He hit the decking, but the ladder had an equal and opposite reaction and lurched sideways. Lou shrieked. I looked up and saw that our precarious angle was sustained only by my wife’s fingertip grip. She grunted and pulled her way along the windowsill, slowly righting the ladder.
‘Sorry darling,’ I offered.
Two more were at the base of the ladder, one gripping a rung, staring up slack-jawed at me and gaining extra height by standing on the one I’d clobbered. I scaled the ladder as far as I could without making the thing too top-heavy and looked up to Lou – but she was already through the window. She soon had one of the larger bedroom windows open and was grabbing me by the elbow. She hauled me in and onto the floor. We hugged.
‘Don’t ever speak to me like that, okay?’ She was furious.
‘Are we still on that?’ There were times when I should just say sorry and be done with it. ‘Sorry. Thanks and that, you know, for the ladder.’ I shifted feet.
‘Just remember that when you want me to stay in the car.’ she said, her chin pointing my way.
‘Fair point, that’s the second time you’ve saved me from getting bitten today. I never want to be without something to fight them off with. Or a dog for that matter.’
‘It’s got to be proportionate though, they’re ill people,’ she said.
‘Oh, come on! You don’t still think they’re alive, do you?’ I snorted.
‘Oh, and you think they’re dead?’ she shouted, then took a breath. ‘Look, I know this stuff freaks you out, and I know it’s been a hard day. I’ve seen some stuff I… look; I’m keeping an open mind. I know it’s not bird ‘flu, or rabies. But I know it’s not zombies either.’
Silence. I wanted to tell her what Al and I had done to Susie, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t go down too well.
‘I also know that I wouldn’t be here without you and Al, and, well, thanks.’
‘Al!’
We both looked at each other, and started for the bedroom door.
‘Hang on, shall we pull the ladder in?’ she asked. I looked out of the open window.
‘Wait a minute. Watch what they’re doing.’
There were four or five of them now, looking up at the window, moaning and rasping. None of them were trying out the ladder.
‘Let’s just close these windows - we might need to get out this way in a hurry. Come on, Al must be waiting for us.’
I hopped over the bed and in front of Lou, and thundered down the stairs into the darkness. I hovered by the front door, but I could see Al wasn’t there through the door’s frosted glass. There were, however, half a dozen or so figures in my driveway and on the pavement in front of the house. My mobile was still out, so the only way to warn Al was to illuminate them – it was worth the risk. I knelt down by the front door to turn the security light on, but there was nothing.
‘The electricity‘s gone,’ I said, flicking the switch uselessly. We could do nothing else, so we waited, and after a few minutes we heard the crunch of tyres as Al, without headlights, rolled onto the drive and into the legs of two of the freaks, hammering them onto the concrete. The ones that were still standing rounded on the car, and the dogs started baying at them.
We had to act fast, as the noise would no doubt attract more of them from up and down the road. I opened the door a crack to see Al looking at me and shaking his head. I held my hand up, making a door-latch action with my hand and pointing to the boot. I mouthed ‘release the hounds.’ He grinned and leant down to the floor of the car, and I heard the boot unlock with a clunk. The dogs, though eager, weren’t able to push it open themselves so Al clambered over to the back of the car, flicked a clip and pulled one of the rear seats downwards. I watched as he shuffled his upper body through the gap and into the boot, springing it open. The dogs were out and on their quarry in seconds, as Al climbed back into the front seats, picked up the radios and the water bottle, and waited until the dogs had felled enough of them on one side for him to get to the house. When he made his move I ran out and took the water from him, letting him through the front door first, which Lou held open for us.
We whistled for the dogs but they were busy pulling at hair and faces, ripping them up like they were rags. They certainly didn’t seem to show any mercy, and I’ll admit I was shocked at their efficient determination. It was only when they had immobilised all of them that Dmitri decided he’d had enough and sauntered inside with Floyd hot on his heels, both their white chins streaked with foul-smelling jet-black seepage.
‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about,’ said Al, grinning.
Breaking Bones
[day 0001]
Al had sat down in the front room to settle the beagles when he realised he’d left his rolling tin in the car.
‘How badly do you want a doobie?’ I asked him.
‘Pretty fucking badly, actually,’ he said, seriously weighing up whether or not to go back out there.
‘Don’t go outside again; it’s really not worth it. Remember what we said? You’d be the stoner who’d get eaten trying to retrieve his stash! Don’t give the bastards the satisfaction chum,’ I said with my arms folded.
‘We can’t even boil the kettle to have a cup of tea,’ he said glumly.
I left him with the dogs to join Lou, who was checking out every room in the house armed with one of our heavier frying pans. She had already made her way up to the loft, and gave me an arse-quivering fright when I first saw her dark silhouette from the landing as she retrieved the camping gear from under the eaves.
‘Don’t do that,’ I said, clambering up the ladder. ‘You scared me shitless.’
‘Get a grip; give me a hand getting the cooking stuff out,’ she whispered hoarsely.
‘Have we still got those blue camping ice blocks in the freezer?’
‘I think so,’ she said as she stood up to kiss me. ‘I hope the milk’s alright.’
‘I could do with a beer, too.’
We took a box of stuff each, and helped each other negotiate the steep steps down to the landing. The electricity couldn’t have been off for long, as the freezer was still freezing. The fridge was cooler than room temperature too, so the milk was fine. Al had lit some candles in the front room and stacked books in front of them to stop shadows casting on the windows.
‘Cup of tea chum?’ Lou set up the camping gas stove on the coffee table.
‘Gawd bless you, missus,’ said Al, smiling from ear to ear as he doffed an imaginary flat cap. Lou lit the stove and turned it down to a faint glow, then filled the tin kettle as silence fell and we watched. We were soon unwinding with our first cuppas since what seemed like a lifetime ago. I made roll-ups as they sat back and gingerly sipped their hot tea. My home is my castle, I thought as I reclined in my armchair and let a coil of smoke wind its way from my lips.
‘No PlayStation,’ I remarked.
‘No doobies,’ Al mumbled. I was quietly pleased that I wasn’t craving a spliff as much as Al was – it was an ongoing (if fairly half-hearted) project of mine to try and stop smoking. That’s not to say I didn’t think a strong zoot wouldn’t be useful right then, as the adrenaline of the day was still coursing through my veins and I needed to get some sleep soon. I was often disappointed by my addiction to the stuff - I don’t think more than a month of abstinence had gone by for the previous twelve years or so. I should point out the fact that not only is a that a collective month but that the abstinence was imposed on me too, mainly due to foreign holidays that weren’t to Holland or due to the dreaded dealer dro
ught. The worst thing was that I felt it slowing my brain down over the years and I still didn’t stop. The giggling novelty of forgetting everyday words wears off after a decade or so – but by that time smoking pot is as much a part of your life as taking a dump. It was self-imposed stupidity, but very enjoyable stupidity nonetheless.
I would still hold my own in a good argument, as long as it wasn’t with my wife who pretty much cheated in our discussions back then, moving goalposts randomly until I gave up in a huff. I still enjoyed a good pub debate though, as long as fisticuffs weren’t on the agenda. That’s not to say I used to actually gave two hoots about other people’s opinions much; I was more fascinated by how passionate they were about them, and how they went about expressing them - the opinions themselves felt pretty meaningless. I would often play Devil’s Advocate with my opponents, provoking them into expressing some form of opinion. Fox-hunting, eco-guilt, corporal punishment, nationalism, Marxism, feminism - any and all were my territory. Suicide bombers could be freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on who I was talking to.
I could flit from left-wing to right-wing at the drop of a gauntlet, but even with my own personal opinions I wasn’t sure-footed. I leaned to the right with my unfashionable patriotism, but I felt a lefty empathy for the underdog. Prejudging someone based on their particular DNA pick-and-mix was abhorrent, but in a country were ginger-haired people were still very much fair game I had little patience for legislating against it. Social injustice left me uneasy, but I didn’t think of it as my duty to try and change it.
Was this still playing Devil’s Advocate, or was I just sitting on the fence? Maybe I was just being typically ‘English’ in my hypocrisy, but did such thing as a ‘typical Englishman’ even exist any more? Had it ever? Looking back it is evident that I encouraged external manifestations of what I thought Englishness was, which I wouldn’t have felt the need to encourage unless I was starting to feel a bit like the underdog myself.
Breaking News: An Autozombiography Page 9