by Rick Wood
Even the smell of the corridor was distinct. It smelt clean and scented, unlike the burning and rotting flesh that consumed the air outside.
It was wrong.
Wrong that someone should live in such luxury when the rest of the world fought for survival. Roaming through these corridors allowed one to be completely unaware of the horrors at their doorstep.
Even the rich don’t get perturbed in the apocalypse…
He followed Hayes to a door with wooden indents and a gold-coloured door handle. After knocking gently, Hayes awaited confirmation and walked in, followed by Gus.
Gus set his eyes on Eugene with pre-judgement. The way he stood was that of a privately educated man, and the way he looked upon Gus was like that of a man who knew little about true suffering. Yet, his eyes were moist, and his face was a disgruntled frown. Something had upset him.
“Gus Harvey,” Eugene acknowledged, sticking out his hand. “It’s a pleasure.”
Gus looked upon the hand like Eugene was offering him shit on a stick.
“You wash those hands with fancy hand wash?” Gus asked.
“I beg your pardon?” Eugene retracted his hand and looked back at Gus with confusion.
“I asked whether you wash those hands with fancy hand wash,” Gus retorted, pronouncing each and every syllable with full articulation.
Eugene shot Hayes a look, as if the general could offer an explanation. Hayes returned the look with a shrug.
“You’ll have to excuse me, but I don’t quite understand what you’re asking.”
“I was just thinking, as I walked through your lovely building, whether you have cleaners that make it smell like blossoming flowers,” Gus said. “Whether you have someone who will wipe your arse and bring you your expensive hand wash.”
Gus stepped closer to Eugene so he was placing the politician entirely in his shadow.
“Most of all, I was wondering whether you have a nice, big, secure lock on your door? ‘Cause it would be a shame for some nasty undead people to knock it down and ruin that perfect smell.”
Gus’s eyes remained focussed on Eugene’s, and he took a moment of rare pleasure in seeing Eugene looking intimidated, like a child in trouble.
Eugene backed away and edged to the security of behind his desk, where he continued to gaze worriedly at Gus.
“I assume this is a dig at me living in a nice, big house after the world has gone to the dogs?”
“Somethin’ along those lines…”
“Well, I would ask you – if you had the choice to do your work in a nice house or a not so nice house, which one would you choose?”
“You say that, but you ain’t seen my bedsit.” Gus chuckled to himself, looking around the office. Photos of Eugene and his family decorated the furniture. Well-crafted drawers and cupboards adorned the room with a delicate flourish. It was far posher than Gus would ever be comfortable with.
“So,” Gus blurted out. “What the fuck am I doing ’ere?”
Eugene blinked his way out of his discomfort at the use of an obscenity.
“Yes, well, I do impress upon you that time is of the essence. We have a mission for you. We need you to go to London to recall a target.”
“A target?”
“Yes. My daughter. She is trapped there.”
Gus raised his eyebrows and let out a snigger that enraged Eugene.
“Well, the rich get rich, but they do still suffer the trials of us poor folk. Ain’t that a strange kinda justice?”
“Excuse me, but that is my daughter.” Eugene spoke with an intense irritation, but it sounded like a mouse helplessly squeaking.
“There’s more,” offered Hayes. “A few hours ago, we gave the go-ahead for bombs to be dropped on the quarantined zone of London. We have two days.”
“Hah!” Gus blurted out, then began talking slowly, taking it all in. “So, you are telling me, that you want me to go into the most dangerous place in the country, racked full of zombies – basically because no one else will do it, I’m willing to wager – and you want me to get your girl out of there, within two days.”
“Probably less, now,” Eugene replied, his lip stuttering, trying to keep it together. “But yes, that would be fairly accurate.”
Gus looked to Hayes. To Eugene. To Hayes. To Eugene.
“As I told your man previously – you can go to hell.”
Gus turned and marched toward the door. He grabbed hold of the handle, swung it open, then was made to freeze by a sentence he was not expecting to hear.
“Her name is Laney, Gus.”
He remained motionless, his back to the room. His head slowly twisted around, until it was peering over his shoulder at the desperate eyes of the acting prime minister.
“You what?” he grunted, slowly and menacingly.
“That’s right, her name is Laney,” Eugene confirmed. “Just like your daughter was called.”
Gus’s blood boiled. His heart raced. A booming headache began pounding against the inside of his skull.
How dare they use his family.
How dare they con him into this like that.
“Let’s get this straight,” Gus spoke quickly and angrily, turning and jabbing his pointing finger to emphasise his words. “This is going to be done my way.”
“Okay,” Eugene replied.
“You give me whatever weapons I want.”
“Okay.”
“You stay the fuck out of my way and you do not oppose any of my methods.”
“Okay.”
“And if I should die, you don’t paint me up as some military hero. You tell the world what a sack of shit I was. I’m not in this for the lies.”
“If that’s how you want it.”
“Right.”
Gus turned to go.
“There is one more thing,” Eugene said.
“What?”
“I need you to take my media liaison officer to refer back to me and update me on progress.”
“I ain’t taken no one who’s going to slow me down.”
“Please, I insist. You can manage the hunt, he can manage communication with me. It means you can concentrate on–”
“Fine, fine!” Gus waved his hand dismissively. “But he better not weigh me down. I’m going into London – fucking London – and I ain’t prepared to be carrying around a sack of shit that’s gonna get me eaten.”
“I understand.”
“I die on my own terms, you ’ear?”
“I hear you.”
“Good.” He glanced at Hayes, then back at Eugene. “I leave in twenty minutes.”
He stormed out of the office, his war face already on.
6
Donny Jevon screamed as a hundred zombies swarmed toward him.
He bashed the buttons, pressing whichever combinations he knew would get his character to perform an acrobatic sequence of movements that would somehow make his avatar fly-kick his opponents.
But it was no good. He was eaten, screaming to death.
“Balls!” he exclaimed, removing his headset and throwing it at the computer screen. He always failed at the level of this game, and it was getting irritating.
A succession of knocks announced themselves against the door to his office.
(Donny refers to it as his ‘office’ – though it was more apt to call it a ‘basement with a desk.’)
He froze. Who on earth would be after him? No one was ever after him.
He was a media liaison officer during the zombie apocalypse – there were hardly many press conferences for him to manage in the country’s current situation. The phone wasn’t ringing off the hook with lots of people requesting confirmation that yes, they were still screwed, and no, the prime minister did not have a clue what to do about it.
“Donny?” came the voice of Eugene Squire.
“Bollocks!” he squealed in a frantically alarmed high-pitched voice.
He quickly hit ctrl+alt+del on his keyboard, crashing out of the game. He
swept his porn magazines off the table and into the bin, shoving the bin back into the corner of the room. Then, in a final attempt to retain some dignity, he speedily stacked all the crumb-covered plates scattered around his office.
“Coming!” he hastily shouted, brushing crisps off his lap and opening the curtains of the tiny, high-up window. He squinted as the high sun entered his dingy workplace and leapt toward the door.
“Hurry up, Donny!” came the impatient voice of his boss, and leader of his country.
“Coming!”
He shifted nervously from foot to foot, anxiously scanning the room for any remaining evidence of procrastination or inappropriate work behaviour. Once he was relatively sure, he opened the door.
“Hi!” he squeaked, his voice breaking at the exact moment he addressed the prime minister.
Eugene burst in, knocking Donny out the way, then abruptly stopped and held his nose.
“Dear God, Donny,” he cried. “What on earth is that ghastly smell?”
“Er…” Donny stuttered.
The sound of his computer suddenly blared through his speakers, the noise of his computer game depicting the sorry end of his avatar by the hands of ravenous zombies. The screen came back to life, revealing a pixelated image that distastefully mirrored the real-life horrors occurring outside.
“Really?” Eugene asked, pulling a disgusted expression. “Is that not a bit nasty? Considering all that’s going on?”
“It was, er…” Donny’s brain spun a hundred miles per hour. “It was research.”
Eugene’s eyes floated across the room and settled on a pair of breasts staring back at him from a page dumped in the bin.
“And I suppose that is research too?”
“Er...”
Eugene raised his eyebrows expectantly.
“It gets really lonely down here, sir.”
“Right.” Eugene shook his flustered head. “It feels rather bizarre saying this to you, but I need your help. That is, if you can take yourself away from your computer games and your pornographic material for a few moments.”
“Oh, okay, yes.” Donny shifted nervously. It had been a while since he had actually been required. “What for? Need me to release a statement? Prepare a speech?”
“No. I need you to go to London.”
“What, you mean there’s a press conference outside the walls?”
“No, there is no damn press conference. I don’t need you to write anything. I need your ability to work the technology. My daughter is stuck inside of London, and it’s going to be bombed in approximately two days.”
“O… kay…” Donny fiddled with his lip. “And you want me to go into London… to get her?”
“Yes.”
“I, er… I don’t know what to… That’s suicide.”
“If you were to go alone, then yes, I imagine you would die in a heartbeat. But you are not.”
Donny stuttered, unable to figure out whether that was meant to be reassurance. But before he could protest, Eugene continued.
“Gus Harvey, ex-military, has been tasked with the mission of going into London and retracting her within the allotted time.”
“But what good am I?” Donny inquired.
“You are the only person I have left on my staff competent with media equipment. I need you to be my liaison. I need you to update me on Gus’s progress. I need to know my daughter is going to be safe.”
“But… I wouldn’t survive in London…”
“I daren’t disagree.” Eugene looked over Donny as the incompetent fool Donny felt like. “Very well. You accompany him to London and you wait outside the quarantined zone. You can let me know when he’s in, and when he’s out.”
“I…”
“Get yourself ready, Donny. You leave in ten minutes.”
Eugene turned and charged out of his room.
Donny looked back at the office. What he’d give to shut those curtains and get back to his game.
He had a feeling reality would be different.
Minus Two Days
7
Gus found it strange to be behind the wheel of a powerful automobile. For so long, he had been used to driving a people carrier, forced to listen to children’s nursery rhymes for most of his journeys. Though it always made him smile as his girl sang playfully along in the back…
He shook his head.
Shake it off. They’re gone.
He revved the engine, providing a loud distraction. The Ferrari responded with a tumultuous roar, the whirs of the engine growling back at him. He shifted the car into gear, readying the accelerator, craving the smell of burning tyres against the road surface.
The passenger door opened and a young, scrawny man took the seat next to him. He looked boyish, with thin and gangly limbs, a greasy mop atop his head, and ill-fitting clothes hanging off his bony arms.
Gus sneered at the sight of a tattoo across the inside of his forearm that read ‘DONNY’ in Courier New. Why the hell did this guy have a tattoo of his own god-damn name? In case he forgot it?
What a knobhead.
“Hi, I’m Donny!” he sang out with a cheerfulness that made Gus shiver. As soon as he clipped his seatbelt in, Donny turned his huge, beaming smile toward Gus and held out an eager hand.
Gus glared at the hand.
After a few awkward moments, Donny retracted it.
“So, this is great, huh? An adventure! I’m well excited to get on the road and see some zombie action!”
Was this guy on acid or something? Was he happy the world had gone to hell? What was wrong with him?
“Fruit pastel?” Donny offered, holding out an open pack of sweets.
“Shut the hell up, Donny,” Gus instructed, pressing his foot harshly against the gas and screeching the car across the road.
“Rightyo!” Donny replied, again, way too cheerfully.
‘Rightyo?’ Who talks like that?
Gus relished the numbing silence that ensued for the next twenty minutes. They were setting off from Yorkshire, and they had a long drive ahead of them before they reached the death pit that was London. Gus knew he’d have to drive at a cautionary speed to avoid any hidden infected, and that the length of the journey would grow more and more tedious if Donny’s incessant happiness persevered. He was not prepared to spend the next two days making pathetic idle conversation with a guy who has his own name tattooed on his arm and replied with “rightyo” when told to shut up.
Gus’s mind drifted off to tactics. He had loaded the boot up in preparation with all the weapons he may need. Grenades, rifles, shotguns, Uzi, sniper, night-vision. Anything that could give him an advantage over the undead.
He was making no mistake about it – he was going to war.
And he wasn’t sure he’d make it out.
In fact, he hoped he didn’t.
He imagined himself finding this girl, showing her the way out of London. She would run out to Donny, awaiting her next to the car. Then Gus would hang back and allow a mass of zombies to overcome him, tearing him apart. He would use his final bullet to shoot himself in his head, finally finding his salvation, and going down as a martyr.
His heavenly thoughts were interrupted by a loud sucking sound in the seat next to him.
He slowly rotated his head toward Donny and gave him a grave stare, which went completely unnoticed.
The bloke was peeling the outer layer of the fruit pastels off with his teeth. He was sucking and nibbling until the spongy inside of the small sweet was left, eating the remains a bit at a time, then licking each of his fingers clean. As soon as he’d finish his mind-numbingly infuriating way of eating that sweet, he’d get started on another one.
Gus had seen less annoying eating habits in the undead.
“D’you mind?” Gus grunted.
“Hm?” Donny responded, turning his guiltless face toward Gus.
“Could you stop that?” Gus demanded. “And it’s not ‘hm.’ It’s ‘pardon.’ Learn some bloody manners
.”
Donny began sucking on the next sweet.
“Oh, sorry, is this annoying?”
“Yes it’s soddin’ annoyin’, didn’t I just tell you? Stop it.”
“I didn’t realise.”
He finished that sweet, then peered into the bag.
“Well, I only have six more to go.”
“You what?”
“I said I only have six more to go, so you won’t have to put up with it much longer.”
Gus turned onto the motorway and accelerated the car to eighty miles per hour, hoping the speed would give him an outlet for his sudden spurt of anger, all the while glaring with an open mouth in Donny’s direction.
“Are you fucking kidding?”
“You what?”
“I said to stop it. And it’s not ‘you what’ – it’s ‘pardon.’”
“I promise, after these six sweets.”
Gus couldn’t believe that this kid was going to dare suck on another one of those sweets.
As Donny lifted the next one to his mouth, Gus shot out his paw and clamped it around Donny’s wrist, holding it tightly.
“If you suck on another sweet, I will break your legs.”
“That’s not very polite.”
Gus’s eyes narrowed intently.
“What?”
“You told me to mind my manners, well, maybe you should mind yours.”
Donny used the hand not held captive by Gus to select another sweet and place it in his mouth.
He began sucking.
“I said quit it!”
Gus roared and threw his beefy hand forward.
Before he could halt any further sucking, Donny cried out and Gus abruptly turned his attention back to the road.
A row of cars in front of him immediately took his attention.
Instinct took over, and he couldn’t hit the brakes quick enough.
But it was too late. They weren’t going to stop in time.
His brain worked quickly. There had to be a way out of the inevitable crash. There was a gap in the long line of cars – a narrow one, but big enough to fit the car through sideways.