Class Four: Those Who Survive

by Duncan P. Bradshaw

  “I’m sorry, slim. Seems like everyone has lost someone these days,” Francis offered, staring into the fire.

  Philip nodded his thanks. “Jim is doing alright. He found Sophie, they’re doing okay. Probably the best thing that could’ve happened to their relationship was the dead coming back to life; they’ve never been happier.”

  The wind picked up its howling, screeching through broken windows. Rain lashed the building like it was trying to scour it from the earth.

  Philip lay dinner down on his robe. “As for me, well, I’m looking for someone.” He plunged a hand down his Palehorse t-shirt and pulled out a key on a chain, which he passed to Francis.

  “A mad bird gave me this, told me that I had to find a place which it would open. As is the way with deranged crones and quests, the clue she gave me was a little on the cryptic side.” Philip warmed his hands against the heat kicking out from the blaze.

  Francis turned the key over in his hand. It was a normal plain brass key. It looked more like a locker key than a normal front door one. Aside from a few nicks and scrapes, it had no symbols or writing on it. “What’s going to be there? When you find this place?” he asked, squinting at the object.

  “Someone. I hope. They’re going to help train me to deal with the zombies. Sounds crazy, huh? Just…I’ve got something left to take care of, someone I need to see,” Philip replied. His eyes welled up before the moisture evaporated.

  “Your dad?” Francis asked. Philip nodded. “Fair enough, pilgrim. You gotta do what you gotta do.”

  “What about you two? You find Shortround here recently or what?” Philip pointed at Nathan who was wrestling with a stringy bit of rat tendon.

  Francis huffed. “Well, he kinda fell into my care after his mum…came back. Was a few hours after I left you guys actually. I headed into town and…had some demons to deal with. I genuinely didn’t care if I lived or died, not after what happened.”

  Philip poked the flaring embers. “What did happen, Franny?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. As I said, we’ve all lost people. My pops always said that your actions determine the person you are. That’s all I can do now, keep moving, keep Nathan here safe. I made a promise to that woman, I intend to uphold it, even if…” Francis trailed off.

  “I know.” Philip patted Francis’ shoulder. “So, you guys keep moving? Never stay anywhere? Must be tough.”

  Nathan piped up, “I just want to be able to read my comics somewhere, and have Francis read me a story without having to sit up a tree.”

  “Why don’t you head over to Rhayader? We’ve set up a camp there, and it’s growing every day with new survivors. We have people going out now to find other survivors. We’ve even blagged a CB radio, and it’s helping to build up a network of all those who have survived,” Philip said, taking the proffered key and chain.

  “Jim’s there, plus some other kids about his size,” Philip added.

  Francis scratched his beard; morsels of cooked meat flicked through the air. “How far away is it? Would be good to have somewhere to call home after the past few months.”

  Philip placed the chain round his neck and dropped the key down his t-shirt. “A couple of weeks walk, I reckon. Not much more than that. If you’ve got a map, I can show you the way? Point out a few places to stop at, if you need some respite.”

  Francis pulled a chunk of meat from the stick with his teeth and rooted around his rucksack. He dropped the map onto the floor and opened it up, smoothing down the creases.

  “Weird meeting you, Philip. Found your little survival guide earlier,” Francis quipped, searching the map for their current location.

  Philip smiled. “That’s good. Crops up the damnedest of places I’ll tell ya. One of the pathfinders must’ve been round these parts. Glad it’s out there. Just hope it saves a few lives and brings people together. We’ll need everyone we can to take things back. Here ya go, Francisco.”

  Francis battled with the map again as he sought to decrease it back to its pocket size form. “Thanks, slim. Gives us something to aim for. What do you reckon, Nate?”

  The two men looked across to the sleeping child, whose eyelids flickered and limbs twitched. “Ha, guess we’re staying here for now. Let’s go secure the place, you big bastard,” Philip whispered.

  Boots scuffed against the dusty concrete floor. Trails of viscous fluid led from the scene of the zombie cleansing to a collapsed pile of zombie Jenga. “So what are you looking for then, Philip?” Francis asked.

  “A legend.”

  Chapter Nine

  EEEEEEEE

  ……………..

  ……………..

  ……………..

  EEEEEEEE

  ……………..

  ……………..

  ……………..

  EEEEEEEE

  ……………..

  “Paul, mate, when we get back, you have to get some WD40 on that wheel. It sounds like WALL-E trying to have sex with a cat flap,” Dean whinged. His breath misted in the early morning chill.

  Paul looked across and smiled. “Actually thought it sounded more like you porking a cat flap.” He cast a glance behind him onto the half laden trailer attached to his mountain bike. “Slim pickings, mate. Think Galthorpe has been well and truly pillaged. We’ll have to let Andy know, see where we should hit up next,” he added, his hands pumped his burning thighs, trying to keep up the momentum.

  Dean nodded in agreement and pointed. “Ahh, home, sweet home. Least you know when you see this road and the scary bastard forest that in around eleven minutes time we can finally have a cup of tea and a sit down.”

  The two men turned up the concrete road, past a flaking, rusty sign proclaiming ‘Netzach’s Biscuits’. “Tell you what, Deano. You gotta wonder how many more waifs and strays The Gaffer is gonna take in. If we can’t find more than we did on this run, this’ll last, what, three days, at best?” Paul panted. The end in sight, he forced his calves to one last act of exertion.

  Dean wiped a gloved woollen hand across his nose, leaving a trail of snot and mucus ingrained within the thick, grey weave, “And then how much further do we have to go? Galthorpe was what? Seventeen miles? It’s no bother getting there, but getting back with some of the supplies these bastards ask for is an absolute killer.”

  “Just be grateful we don’t have a blacksmith and the sod wants a new anvil. Some Mark three-point-oh model, with a hit-o-meter and a dark matter glove. Wouldn’t put it past some of these little—” Paul managed to force out through sharp intakes of breath before a shout from Dean interrupted him.

  “What the fuck? Paul, you see that? Over there, on the left, the edge of the forest, is that…”

  Paul squinted and scanned the hemline of the forest. “I can’t see a…oh shit, let’s get a wriggle on, that don’t look good.” The two men picked up their pace.

  EEEEEEEE

  ……………..

  ……………..

  EEEEEEEE

  ……………..

  ……………..

  Thomas ducked under the decomposing arms of one of his attackers. The lazy lunge had left ribs exposed. He took advantage with a solid blow to the solar plexus with a section of lead pipe. The zombie paid it no heed and looked down at breakfast with a black hanging tongue. Its bottom jaw had long since been ripped off; the ragged tear suggested a sudden and violent removal, rather than a precise and clean one.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered and rolled sideways, missing a clumsy arm sweep from another of his undead muggers. He climbed to his feet and looked at his assailants. No-bottom-jaw zombie had swivelled round to face him, his dry tongue smacked against his face like a rubbish swing ball.

  Lunging zombie realised that his morning sweetmeats were going to be a bit more work than hoped for, and was turning around with all the speed of the Exxon Valdez navigating the Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef.

  For now, they concerned him the lea
st. For reasons known only to Mother (un)Nature, the one that was causing him the most consternation was ‘Lofty’. At least that’s what the blood- and bile-encrusted enamel badge pinned to the very dead chest of a circus dwarf purported his professional name to have once been.

  Thomas swayed and, for a moment, his head was filled with only one question.

  What was his real name?

  The lapse in concentration was nearly paid for in body parts. Lofty reached out a part hand, part claw and latched onto Thomas’ jeans, somewhere around the knee. He started to pull, and with his low centre of gravity, seemed to be winning.

  Snapped back into reality, Thomas began to shake his leg like a dog suffering with a bad dose of arse-worm.

  Clive?

  The hold was firm. He pulled his arm back and brought the pipe down onto Lofty’s head.

  The clown bowler hat, with its secret compartment of unsoiled and undiscovered tied multi-coloured hankies, absorbed the blow with ease. Lofty latched his other badly burned hand onto Thomas’ other leg.

  Perhaps Daniel?

  Thomas recoiled from the failed blow and pulled back to his favoured Nadal backhand.

  Orville?

  His next strike was full and true, catching Lofty just below the chin. There was a loud crack and splintered jaw-bone pierced his cheek in two places; fragments of tooth and dead tissue flew into the air.

  Karl?

  Lofty stumbled back and chewed the air. His face had the appearance of a fleshy surf wave. One side of his mouth worked as before, the other a mishmash of exposed bone and congealed blood. Still, though, he maintained his grip, determined if necessary to gum the meal instead. If it worked for guppy fish, it could work for him. The other two zombies were now nearly within reach of Thomas.

  Thomas exhaled sharply and brought the pipe down onto Lofty’s shoulder. It broke the clavicle and made the associated arm judder upwards. The blow also caught his name badge which splintered and the ‘ty’ fell to the floor.

  Got it, he looks like a right Clint.

  Thomas dragged his free leg backwards and repeated the process on Lofty’s other arm. Freedom reigned, though he was still none the wiser about the clown dwarf’s true identity.

  He regained his posture and prepared to fight the others, when from behind him, he heard a strange noise.

  Is that Johnny Five trying to procreate with a cat flap?

  EEEEEEEE

  ……………..

  EEEEEEEE

  ……………..

  Thomas looked over his shoulder and saw two men pedalling for their lives on mountain bikes with aluminium trailers being pulled behind them. One of the men had what looked like a wooden beam tucked under his arm. As he charged the No-bottom-jaw zombie, an expletive laden guttural yell bellowed above the sound of blood rushing around Thomas’ head.

  Deano held the fence post firmly in the crook of his arm. He’d seen it on telly, days before the outbreak, and had been waiting for a chance to try it out. The squat, square, blunt point connected just below the armpit. Given the zombie’s level of decomposition, it smashed into the mushy remains of organs that called the ribcage home and completed the process of turning them into pulp.

  The only resistance the impact faced was when it smacked against the spinal column. The zombie was cleaved in two. As the torso separated, the pulverised remains exited the gaping hole like a grisly sluice gate. Both halves slopped to the floor with a wet shucking sound. The lack of firm resistance caused Dean to brake and skid, flipping over to one side.

  Slightly dazed, he still had the forethought to stand up and plant the fence post through the zombie’s skull before it had a chance to slither across the ground.

  Brain matter—decayed away to a grey, gone off minced-beef colour—sprayed up the white fence post before dribbling down in a thick gravy. He looked down at the multi-coloured gore tableau, retched and added to the paste with his own concoction of stomach lining and partially-digested hot dog and beans.

  Paul, witnessing the unorthodox and slightly ungraceful way his mate dispatched his allocated zombie, opted for the safety first approach. He brought his bike to a controlled stop. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

  He dismounted and casually slipped the length of chain from his sleeve. It dropped two foot and then bounced up as it reached its limit. Paul stalked towards Exxon Valdez and swung the chain towards its face. Attached to the last link was a titanium hook which swished round the circumference of the zombies head, sinking inside its ear canal.

  Paul tugged gently to ensure that it was secure, and as it reached its sallow appendages towards his face, he yanked on the chain as if he were spinning a top.

  The hook opened up the top three-and-a-half inches of the undead skull as if it were a carton of chopped tomatoes. The creature stayed rooted to the spot, arms outstretched. The bottom half of its head remained, but the top half came apart in a seam of black slime and doughy tissue.

  As he tugged, the skin sloughed off the bone and plopped to the floor with a loud squelch. Paul spun the chain round his fist and in a move, well-practised since the undead started to walk, smacked the zombie square in the face.

  The metal-encased fist ploughed through the exposed, brittle nasal cavity and came to rest somewhere just past the medulla oblongata. The cadaver twitched involuntarily and slowly slumped to the side. “Timber!” Paul shouted triumphantly.

  Invigorated by the graphic violence which had happened either side of him, Thomas jammed the pipe into the gaping hole where Lofty’s mouth used to be. As it rested in-between broken jaws and cracked teeth, he remarked to himself how it looked like the zombie dwarf clown was puffing on a metal cigar.

  He chuckled to himself and brought the palm of his hand down firmly onto the pipe. It acted like a crude face-jack and split the clown’s skull into two distinct and very separate hemispheres. Lofty crumpled to the ground. The top of his skull, sans hat, rolled round on the floor like a hairy salad bowl, bereft of brain.

  Thomas retrieved the pipe and slid it back into his belt. He went to walk away and then remembered something. He crouched down by the dwarf’s body and began to rummage through his clothes.

  “You alright, Deano? Look like you lost your lunch there, mate. I knew I should’ve had that can, bloody love those little hot dogs.” Paul reached his hand inside his jacket sleeve and pulled the chain back up into its housing.

  He cast a glance over to Thomas, who was rooting around in the dead clown’s costume. “Erm, mate, what are you doing? Isn’t opening him up like a Kinder Egg enough for you to get your kicks on Route sixty-six?”

  Thomas ignored him and continued to search. His hands fell onto a tough square object. He shouted, “Ha ha,” and pulled out a wallet from the many folds of the clown outfit. Flicking through pictures of cats and vintage cars, he pulled out a driving license. His face turned up like he had just smelt an open drain, “What? His name was Shirley?” He gazed at the remains of the head, looked around, and then peered down the clown’s shirt before recoiling in disgust.

  “Fuck me, shrivelled up zombie tits, not good,” he gasped, sucking in lungfuls of cool, morning air. Through watery eyes he looked up at his two saviours, who were staring at him intently. “Cheers, lads, much appreciated,” Thomas said breathlessly. He gave them two thumbs up to highlight his gratitude.

  Paul offered Thomas a hand, and the three men exchanged manly grunts, pleasantries and first names. “What the hell are you doing out here then, Thomas? You could’ve just left those three chompers, you know? Didn’t have to try and be Bertie Big Bollocks and kill ‘em,” Paul demanded, rubbing his wrist.

  “Ah, in the excitement, I almost forgot. I couldn’t…I couldn’t leave him.” He pointed to a ditch a few feet behind the slops of the zombie remains and Dean’s overturned bike and trailer.

  Dean and Paul looked at each other quizzically before following Thomas’ pointed finger to a drainage ditch where they saw a crumpled figure. As they got closer, they c
ould see that it was a man, and he had taken one hell of a pasting.

  Paul’s muscles grew taut. He turned to Thomas. “This your handiwork, Rocky? Looks like this bloke’s been half beaten to death. Look at him. I’ve seen more life at a Leonard Cohen gig.”

  Thomas raised his hands in defence,. “Hey, not me champ, you really think I’d kick the shit out of him, attract the living dead and then not leave him to them? Not likely, mate.”

  Dean went off to right his bike and trailer, and started the process of placing the spilled items back in its hold. Paul eyed Thomas cautiously, and then nodded. “I guess, you go off with Dean, he’ll get you inside. Pretty sure The Gaffer will want to hear your side of the story, mate.” Thomas shrugged and walked across to Dean to help with the repacking.

  Paul inched closer to the beaten man, and could see that his chest was rising and falling with some regularity. “Jesus, wondered if you were alive or a chomper. Come on, mate. Let’s get you out of there and inside. The doc can fix you up.” He looked him and up and down. “Well, maybe she can. Have to see if she’s filled her miracle quota already today. You look as fucked as my marriage.”

  He leant down and offered the man a blood-speckled hand which was weakly grabbed. “Hey pal, what’s your name?” Paul enquired, hauling the man up on shaky legs.

  The man mumbled something through fat lips. “Huh? What was that, mate? Didn’t catch it,” Paul asked, offering the man a shoulder.

  “…Bartholomew…my name is…Bartholomew.” The words fell through the small crevice of the man’s mouth. He hoiked up a wad of blood and spit which he gobbed on the ground. Paul cradled the man and walked him to his bike.

  “Hey, Dean, what is this place?” Thomas asked, surveying the building. He could make out a large sign looming over the forbidding exterior.

  Dean pushed his bike along; the wheel was buckled and it took some effort to keep it straight. “This, my friend, is, was, Netzach’s Biscuit factory, home now to survivors and sanctuary to all. Providing you can do stuff and don’t piss The Gaffer off.”

  Thomas made an involuntary, “Huh.” He peered closer at the sign. Next to the name of the company, he could make out a large cherubic figure made out of a stainless steel lattice frame. “Tell me, Deano. Why is there a man tied to that angel up there?”