“We’re nearly there.” My wife looks both ways before dragging us across the road. There is no traffic. Up ahead, the smog is much thicker. An old man with a walking frame walks on the other side of the road, but is going in the same direction as us. He is making slow progress and we leave him quickly behind. I begin to worry that we are wasting our time. We have seen many police cars and did not attempt to slow one down or stop it. We should have done that.
There are no buildings now. The sidewalk we are on borders a very wide road, with multiple lanes. No traffic in either direction disturbs the surface. Ahead, the smog has become much thicker but I can see support columns with cables running down in parallel lines to reach a road. “Is this the bridge?” I ask.
My wife nods urgently and grips my hand tighter. We slow our pace and walk towards the structure. Our son lifts his head and indicates he wants down by making his body rigid. I let him slide to the ground and his slippers touch the sidewalk. I move him between my wife and me. We hold a hand each. As we near the bridge, I can make out the support columns rise into the smog in a giant ‘H’ shape. Thick cables support the road but below that, where I would expect to see what the bridge is crossing, like a river or the sea, there is only more smog. Swirling around, it is all around us now. We cannot see the other side of the bridge. All sound is muffled but there are people here.
An older man, thin and dressed in slacks and a polo shirt leans against a chain link fence. He looks at us with a puzzled expression. A young couple rush up behind us, clutching hands, and run panicked onto the bridge and into the smog. Very quickly, they disappear from view. I am unsure about us going any further. I stop and ask my wife, “Why this way?”
Her eyes twitch about. Her free hand goes up to her mouth and she taps fingers on her chin, thinking about the answer. “It seemed the right thing to do.” She looks up and sees the old man with the walking frame. He is nearly on the bridge now and begins to fade in amongst the grey fog as he steps carefully forward, lifting the frame, placing it in front of him, taking a step, and lifting the frame again. “See, he’s going that way,” says my wife. “We should go this way.”
I’m still not sure. Our son is becoming anxious. We are at the threshold of the bridge. I look behind us and see more people coming towards us. Some are shuffling, where others are more determined. None take any notice of us. The older man in slacks and polo shirt is the only one interested in us. He shakes his head slowly at me. I turn to look back at the bridge. I hold my hand out and it seems to be swallowed by the fog, obscured from view. My wife looks puzzled. My hand feels cold and I pull it back. It returns to view but it seems flatter somehow, like the shadows have been rubbed out. There’s very little light because of the smog but my wife and our son seem rounded while my hand looks bland. I put it in my pocket, take a deep breath, and feel sensation returning to my hand. I pull it back out and look at it again. It seems fine, normal, like before. Our son releases himself from our hands and goes to step forward.
“I wouldn’t let him do that.” The older man in slacks and polo shirt has stepped forward. I place hands on the boy’s shoulders and steer him back to his mother.
“Why should I not let him do that?” I ask the man. He has come right up to us. I see that his face is deeply lined and weathered. He is wearing a white golfing cap, square on his head. I had not noticed that before. In reply to my question, he makes a backward nod to indicate we should look at the bridge, which we do.
The young couple who had made to flee over the bridge were now returning, though they are walking slower. Their hands are still together but there is less urgency. They hold hands in a more relaxed manner and they are no longer running, but walking more normally. Returning from the bridge and not running away to cross it, their expressions are glassy, removed from their thinking and they seem flat, their movements mechanical almost. As they pass us they smile and the young man says, “Good morning, neighbour.”
Without us returning the greeting, the couple move on, back towards the city. I turn to the older man in the cap and say to him, “What just happened?”
He looks at me for a moment, with that same quizzical look. He says, “How did it happen for you? Did you do something different?” His tone is casual as if I should understand what he is talking about. My expression must give away that I have no idea what he means. He scratches his chin. “What did you do today?”
I look to my wife. She is as stunned as I am. I tell the man about driving out our street, the intersection, the gun battle, the windshield breaking and reforming, going back to the intersection and seeing the same scene but with different people, then returning home. With a hand, he stops me speaking, “You went home? To your family?”
“My wife and our son,” I tell him. I have our son by the shoulders, held in front of me. My wife stands closer to me. “Why are you asking me this?”
Instead of answering my question, the man asks me, “What did you do yesterday?”
I start to answer but no words come out. I look to my wife. She puts her mouth into a downturned smile and shakes her head. She cannot remember either. I say to the man, “Who are you?”
“I’m just a guy that’s been looking at this bridge for a while,” he says and moves to get a better view. From through the fog, a figure is starting to emerge and we hear a metallic click followed by a few shuffles. As we listen, the man in the polo shirt tells us about his morning, how he was in his yard, mowing his lawn, when all of a sudden a truck smashed through his house and jack-knifed on his lawn. A black SUV and a red sports car crashed through his fence and the occupants were shooting at each other. He could see his wife in the kitchen get blown back as bullets blasted the window. Somehow he managed to avoid the bullets and make his way inside. He found his wife on the floor in a pool of blood. Already the sound of shots was fading. His wife’s eyes looked into the distance and she didn’t seem concerned in anyway, perhaps even peaceful, but just before she died, she looked at him. Alarm appeared across her face and she cried out to him before she rattled and passed away.
He had held her hand for a while. When he stood up, he looked outside, through an unbroken pane of glass to find his yard was whole. There was no damage, no truck, no SUV or sports car. Everything in his yard was just as it was earlier. He ran outside because he could not believe what he was seeing. His mower lay gently idling on the lawn. When he reached it, it moved slightly and some tufts of grass flew out behind it. Movement in the corner of his eye, from the direction of his kitchen, forced him back inside only to find something even stranger.
“What was it, sir?” my wife asks. She is enthralled by the man’s story.
“It was my wife,” says the man, “up and about as if nothing had happened. She wasn’t hurt or injured, and her eyes were flat and colorless. She looked at me and smiled.”
“What did you do next?” I shuffle on my feet.
“I came here,” says the man, laughing, and flipping his hands out to indicate the bridge. “Some uncontrollable panic led me here.”
“To the bridge,” my wife says, wistful, like she was remembering her reason for making us come here.
“That’s right, the bridge,” says the man. “See, I did something different today, and other folks are the same. Look at this guy.” He indicates out at the bridge, towards the clicking and shuffling sound. It is the old man with the walking frame who had crossed earlier. He is returning, even slower than before, emerging from the smog but still distant. He lifts the frame, places it in front, then takes two shuffles to catch up, and then lifts the frame again. The man in the cap says, “He’s done something different today, and for some reason, he couldn’t help himself but come here.”
We watch the old man come closer. The colours of his clothes appear out the smog, but pale and flat, like a bad drawing. I swallow. “What does this all mean?”
“I can’t tell you that,” says the man, “but think back to the people you saw at the intersection. It was like they wer
en’t taking it seriously. Am I right?”
“Like a game?”
“All I can tell you is what I see,” says the man. “It was like it didn’t mean nothin’ to them and we don’t mean nothin’ to them. Half the people I seen today look the same, just staring into space. Then something happens and they come here.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” says my wife. Her demeanour is anxious, like she is on the verge of grasping the point. “We come here to be refreshed. To come back new and ready.”
“What are you talking about?” I’m yelling at her and grab her arms as she flails about. Our son moves away, scared, and the old man in the cap keeps a hold of him in case he runs off onto the bridge. I am still yelling. “How did you know to bring us here?”
“We’ve got no choice!” my wife shouts. She is crying. Tears stream down her face. “We can go back there with all our memories and try and survive or we go out there and be refreshed.”
I relax. Back there, in town, at our home, we would have cars crashing into our yard and people shooting police officers, but here we would forget. All we would have to do is cross that bridge. Like the young couple who ran across so frantically but returned so calmly, we could do the same. “Could that be right?” I ask the man in the cap and slacks and polo shirt.
“I think your wife is right,” he says to me. We see from the direction of the town, the old lady from the porch rocking chair. She is bent over and can hardly walk, but she is trotting towards the bridge and the smog.
The old man with the walking frame keeps coming closer. He is the figure we have seen and heard approaching, but much nearer now. He lifts the frame, places it in front of him, takes two shuffles to catch up, and then lifts the frame again. He looks towards us, almost through us, as if his eyes are not quite focused. His features are flat and unresponsive but he looks like he could be the brother of the man we have just been talking to, and who is still right next to me, and is wearing a cap, slacks and a polo shirt. The old man with the walking frame smiles.
He says, “Good morning, neighbour.”
Zombie Park
WE WATCH THE video on a large screen. There is no sound and the image flickers in the darkened lecture room. No-one speaks. I want to take in every detail. At first, all we can see is the control panel of the aircraft. Blue gridded panels sit either side of what looks like a map screen. Funnily, I notice the symmetry of it. The camera is attached to the pilot’s shoulder and it bobs the image around. We only have a brief sight of the heads-up display and the horizon beyond as it flips from level to angled as the pilot moves the stick and his Typhoon fighter responds. A light begins to flash on a sharp-cornered square button and, a heartbeat later, the pilot has made a decision and ejected. A flurry of soundless energy escapes and the scene blurs as the pilot is wrenched from his position.
There is a weightless pause before the horizon comes into view on this massive screen and it’s clear the pilot is now out of the aircraft and in the air. We catch a glimpse of the fighter jet falling away, spinning a coiled exhaust as it falls towards the old shopping centre. There is a jerk and we see the sky but then we see the pilot’s body and the ground below. His slow pace of falling means the parachute has deployed. Clad in a green flight suit, his body is lean and we catch sight of his helmeted head as he himself glimpses the ground. He’s heading for an open area of grass dotted with a few clumps of trees. The grass must be long because it sways in a breeze and waves of movement pass across the whole area.
I lean in closer, forearms on the bench in front of me, and peer into the screen. Waves of grass seem to part and create a massive pattern forming a ‘D’ shape before it moves again. There is a small tut behind me. I think the person who made it has realised that what he is seeing on the screen is not grass, but human bodies. As the parachuting pilot nears the swaying mass of people, we see he is trying to make manoeuvres to avoid them. He tugs on the parachute and his target position moves, but the swarm on the ground moves to meet him. We begin to see ravaged faces, ragged clothes, and outstretched arms.
The pilot is panicking on screen. His legs are kicking as if he’s trying to run away but he continues to fall. In the room, we’re becoming uneasy. We know what’s going to happen. He is near the ground now and we can make out hundreds of faces, red greedy eyes, rotting teeth biting the air in anticipation. There is a glimpse of the shopping centre in flames because the abandoned Typhoon has crashed into it. And in the last few moments of the pilot’s life, grasping bony fingers reach out for him as he drops helplessly into their midst.
Mercifully, the screen fades and the lights come up. Jerry, our host and trainer, steps forward into the centre of the now-white screen. Unlike the other people who work here, he’s not wearing black army-style clothes and a square skip cap. He wears chinos and a green logoed polo shirt. All morning, his smile has been wide and his teeth are bright white, but now his face is serious.
“Welcome,” says Jerry. “To Zombie Park.”
In the truck, we’re all a bit quiet though there’s a lot of engine noise and we sit in two rows facing each other. Canvas panels keep the view hidden. We were told to bring our own boots. I’m wearing comfy hiking shoes I got from the internet. The rest of our outfits are mock-ups of military uniforms. Only a huge American calling himself Gus is fully done up in his own gear. He wears a wide brimmed army hat which is pinned up on one side. He chews something behind massive jaws and he smiles under a broad moustache. To hide my nervousness I look away but this only encourages him to talk to me. He leans over and says through whatever it is he’s eating, “Where you from, kid?”
I shrug, intimidated his size and confidence. “Here, Edinburgh.”
He raises his chin in understanding. “Scottish then. You been out there? Before it happened?”
“To Livingston? Few times. My cousin lived there.” We’re heading there in the truck now, leaving Edinburgh on the old A71 road. The towns and villages between here and there have all been evacuated and we’re officially in the Cleared Zone. My cousin Dave lived near the shopping centre we saw in the video and we hung about in the games shop while his mum went to the supermarket. I haven’t heard from Dave in a number of years. This American thinks it’s funny.
Laughing, Gus claps me on the arm. “You’ll maybe see him again, kid.”
He leans back in his seat, happy with his joke. We’re all sitting in a row like we’re going to some battle, which of course we are, but the taste of it is disgusting. We’ve had the training. Of course, this Gus guy could already shoot well. Others in the group even had some experience during the outbreak. Lisa, a woman from the North East, claimed at dinner one night to have ‘popped’ seventeen of them. Like me, she’s a lottery winner. Our numbers came up and we won the trip of a lifetime. Gus has paid for this ‘vacation’ with his own money. I’ve kept quiet. I just want to get in there.
I can feel us barrelling through the darkness to this town in Central Scotland, leaving my hometown of Edinburgh. Other places got hit harder, so they say, but there’s not much left of Wester Hailes where I grew up. I was in the cinema the first time I saw one of them. He seemed like a normal schemie sort of guy, with the low slung trackie bottoms and the hat at a stupid angle. He was just sort of standing there, looking depressed, then he just attacked this lassie for no reason. I’d seen something similar before outside the library but this was different, more frenzied and he bit right into her neck. I knew what he was straight away, even before someone shouted “Zombie!” and we all got off our marks. And that was the end of the movie.
There’s a change in the engine noise and I hear what I think is shouting. Through a gap in the canvas coverings I see we’ve come inside a massive gated corridor. Outside, there are some people holding up banners and shouting their heads off. They’re outside the fence but still in the Cleared Zone. Gus humphs a laugh. “Protesters,” he says, half to himself, then shouts out louder, “They can’t feel nothin’!”
A coupl
e of our fellow travellers laugh at him but I see Lisa just curls her lip slightly. “Some of those people have family in there, wandering about.” She has to shout to be heard.
Gus just shrugs. “You’re comin’ in too, sweetheart. If anyone has a problem, ya can call my solicitor.” He says the last word in what he thinks is a British accent. Lisa sets her jaw to one side, folds her arms, and looks at the canvas ceiling.
Finally, we’re out the truck and into the cool autumn air. There’s no breeze and apart from our movement there are no other sounds. We’ve fallen in, army style like we’ve been trained. Sergeant McIntyre has ordered us to stand easy; feet apart with hands clasped behind the back. Her face gives us a proud look as she looks us up and down. We’ve had a week of this and she’s telling us we’re ready now. One afternoon and it will all be over. I wonder how I’ll feel afterwards.
We’re inside a small fenced area. Jerry appears from a portakabin next to the wire. Carrying a clipboard, he’s in his chinos and green polo shirt with a red ZP stitched into the left breast. The stylized P seems to appear out of a slashed Z. I’ve been studying marketing at college and interested in such things. You even find yourself saying ‘zee’ instead of ‘zed’. We’ve heard all his stories of being a Holiday Rep in Ibiza when the outbreak happened. He says he barely made it out alive and now he works here. Next summer, he hopes to go back out there. ZP Inc have a park there too, you know.
“Good morning, everyone,” he says breezily. “Not long until you get in there. I just need to run over some of the safety information.” He points over at a large board fixed to the wire. In large bold type, under the ZP logo of course, is a big list of rules we’ve had drummed into us since the beginning. He reads through them. “One: This is a live environment. Two: The Infected are in the Park. Three: You are about to enter the Park. Four: Danger of death is more likely than serious injury. Five: If you are infected, you will stay in the Park and become part of the Attraction. Six: Head shots are the most effective way of stopping one of the Infected. Seven: Do not shoot each other, except in an extreme emergency. Eight: You enter at your own risk. Nine: Have fun.”
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