Class Four: Those Who Survive

by Duncan P. Bradshaw

  I put the bag of food by our door and went in their flat. I could hear Jenny’s voice. It was soft and calm. Like when we first met. When we had everything open to us.

  Their flat was the mirror image of ours. I got to the living room door. It was shut. I could hear Jenny on the other side and someone crying.

  I pushed the door open and my heart stopped. Laying on the floor with a bruise the size of a fist on his head was the old fella. There’s this big armchair facing the telly just behind his body. I can make out the back of the old woman’s curly hair. She’s sitting down, watching the blackness of the powerless telly.

  She’s the one crying. Jenny is stood in front of her. Being kind enough to not obstruct the telly I should add. She looks up at me and smiles, then down to the old woman again. I step over the man. He’s still breathing. Which is something.

  Buried in the old woman’s lap is Casey. This bloody knife is lying next to the woman. Casey’s delicate little fingers are rummaging around inside the old lady. You could see her little knuckles under the creased, yellow skin.

  Knew you’d be proud of her, Jenny said. She didn’t want to eat anything we had. So I remembered what we saw. Henry got in the way so I had to hit him. And try as she might, Casey couldn’t get into the good stuff.

  Could you?

  No you couldn’t.

  After a starter of a few fingers, Mummy thought I’d better help you out. All I had to do was make a little cut and our clever little girl did the rest.

  Who’s a clever girl?

  Casey isn’t paying her any attention. She’s too interested in cramming her little inquisitive hands into the innards of the old lady. Reminded me of Han Solo cutting open the Tauntaun in Empire Strikes Back.

  You like Jar-Jar, Matt? Says it all really. No. I didn’t. Why? Because he was a fucking twat. Do you mind? Yes. I guess I did interrupt your story. Sorry. May I continue? Cheers.

  I’m not entirely sure what happened next. I think I blacked out. The sight of your neighbour being eaten alive by your dead daughter, having been prepared by your wife, is not something you can easily anticipate.

  I wake up and I’m looking into the eyes of Henry. The old fella. Jenny has been busy while I’ve been out. The old man has got a sock for a gag and is tied up. He’s proper frantic. His bruise is looking full on nasty, too. I was half expecting to find myself in the same predicament. To my surprise I find I’m able to stand up.

  Casey has the same bored look as the man we saw. Chewing on some piece of meat. No idea what it was. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a bit of kidney. She stops chewing and then just barfs all over the floor.

  Once she’s finished, she shoves her little hands back inside the old dear. She was slumped forwards now. Either dead. Or very nearly dead. I tell Jenny that while it’s great we still have Casey, I don’t really want to spend my time living with a zombie old lady. She laughs. The last time I said anything that made her laugh was a week before Casey was born.

  The first time she was born.

  Properly.

  Not when she came back.

  Jenny checks for a pulse. Then, quick as you like, she grabs the old dear by the throat and slings her over her shoulder. Casey looks a bit miffed, but as Jenny lifts the body up, bits of stuff plop out of the hole. Casey lets out this little moan and got back to eating. She was always a fussy eater. Not so much anymore.

  Never had Jenny down as a physically strong person. I always had to do the lifting. But she carries the old woman down four flights of stairs and into Gary Glitter’s, no bother. She reappears a few minutes later. Flashes me a key which she stashes in her bra.

  Why do women do that?

  Anyway. We get back upstairs just in time to stop Casey starting on dessert. Henry. Jenny says that we need to space out the feeding. She pulls on the skipping rope and leads our little girl into their bedroom. She ties the end of the rope to the radiator pipe again, kisses Casey on the head, and then leaves.

  I didn’t sleep for two days. Jenny on the other hand slept like a log. When I did sleep I had the same nightmare over and over again. I’d wake up and find myself tied to the radiator pipe. Jenny leans over me. Smiles and then hacks away at my guts. She then steps back. Our little girl totters over and starts pulling out my insides like they’re on special offer.

  Jenny cuts off a length of my intestines which are lying on the floor. She ties one end around Casey’s wrist and the other around hers. I wake up just as Casey’s unravelled the lot and is tugging on my pancreas.

  Jenny tells me it’s going to be okay. All she wants to do is show me that our daughter is still alive. The same thing I’d seen tuck into the old bird next door. I was somewhere between desperate and shit scared. I know it’s not much of an excuse. It’s all I got. All I had.

  What was I going to do?

  I don’t think I would have made it to the front door. Not before Jenny would’ve stopped me and turned me into a nice fricassee.

  Five days after Casey’s demise, Jenny says it’s time to feed her again. She asks if I want to help. Given the fact that she was wearing an apron and holding a cordless electric knife. I opted to postpone the events of my dream manifesting in real life, and said yes.

  Henry was still passed out on the floor. His breathing was soft. The bruise had gone down. But the lack of sanitary conditions had left him a rather unsightly mess. And smell. Jenny turned him over onto his back with all the care of an abattoir worker.

  The look in his eyes. He had come to by then. She revved the knife up. Poor sod. She sliced into his side. Not too deep. Then she dragged him into the hallway by his shirt collar. We could hear Casey scratching at the door. Jenny told me to stand back. Opened the door and there she was. Since I last saw her, she had changed. Her skin was grey and lifeless. Her veins were blotchy lines of black.

  Something else struck me, though. She was wearing different clothes. Jenny had obviously been back in and changed her. It didn’t really do much. She still looked, well, like a zombie. Just a slightly smarter dressed zombie. With a pink ribbon in her hair.

  Feeding time began. When Henry was on the way out, Jenny chopped off a leg to tide little Casey over. Then hauled him down the stairs and into the bottom flat.

  That became our life. The stoners went next. They had loads of food. I was happy with that. Jenny lured them in with, well, herself. Never seen her act like that in a long time.

  A month later, though, the flats were nearly empty. Except for ours, the now silent Star Trek Tennis Porn man and number one.

  I thought I saw a change in Casey. Sure, she didn’t want to play with her dolls anymore. But the more time I spent with her, you could see that something remained. Or so I thought.

  Honestly? Looking back? I think I would’ve found a similarity to David Bowie if I’d looked hard enough. It was fair to say my mental health was deteriorating.

  Five days after Star Trek Tennis Porn man had been added to the undead waiting-room downstairs, we were out of people. Jenny had eked them out as best she could. Even managed to get a few passers-by that she promised safety to.

  Amongst other things.

  She had become a bit more rambling by then. Said that she needed more connection with Casey. That it was no good just being her mum any more. She needed to be at one with her.

  I should’ve seen the signs.

  I’m asleep one night and woke up with a start. This searing pain is lancing through my skull. I try to get up, but I can’t move. I’m pinned to the bed. And not in a good way. Not in a ‘it’s my birthday’ kinda way.

  I can feel my cheek is all runny. Out of one eye is darkness. The other is that half-light you get. The pain increases. It’s then I realise that it’s Jenny. She’s trying to eat me. I’ve never hit a woman before. Hit a few blokes when they deserved it, but never a woman. My first punch is a testament to that. A mere slap. The second though, when it feels like she is actually going to rip my eye out, well, that one sent her flying.

>   I was up on my feet straight away. Half expecting her to fly at me. Arms pumping with rage and fury. Nothing. Do you know what I got? That moan. The one I heard from the worm. But this one was in the same room as me. Burrowing into my flesh. She flailed at me and missed.

  My face was still hurting like a bastard. Could feel liquid running down the left side of my face. It ran into my mouth and I got that coppery tang. Jenny was dead. Gone. The veil had been well and truly fucking lifted. Nothing remains when you go. Nothing. No vestige of humanity. No spark of ingenuity or enquiry. No impulse to explore and expand your horizons.

  Just a desire to feed. A desire to kill. In some respects you could argue that in those final few seconds we had together, the true Jenny was exposed. We’d grown so far apart. We were nothing like the people we once were when we met.

  No chance to grow.

  No chance to explore.

  We had wilted together.

  The relationship with the woman I met called Jenny died years before. I watched as she clawed her way across the bed on her belly towards me.

  Since the power went I had this torch next to me. Proper full-on security thing. Cheap in Woolworths years ago. I don’t remember picking it up. I don’t remember bringing it down onto her skull.

  Again. And again. And again.

  I do remember seeing what was left of her after. I shone the light on her. With the blood running over the lens, she took on a peculiar hue. She had these little bite marks up and down her body. Guess that’s the price she paid for insisting on changing our daughter.

  I clock the bedside table. Her side. The bottle of Jack Daniels I got on Day One was next to a pile of pills. All the colours of the rainbow, must’ve been hoarding them from the other flats. She wanted to join our daughter. Do it properly. No fucking about.

  I couldn’t stand to see Casey again. Not like that. Not after what I had witnessed her doing. I got a length of tubing. Chose one of the cars outside. Drained enough petrol to fill a bucket that we used to put the mop into.

  I lay a trail of it from number one to the path outside, lit a match, and watched them all burn. Grey hands pawed at the window. Scratching to get out.

  I heard the worm scream.

  I saw the worm writhe.

  I watched the worm die.

  I wandered for days. From one place to the next. Forever onwards. Surviving one day at a time. Trying to forget about my dead family. Eventually I bumped into a patrol. They took me in here. After a few clashes, though, my card was marked.

  I don’t mind. It’s better to pick up dirty paper plates than kill them through the fence.

  Plus. I have a new nightmare.

  I’m on Heads Up detail. Walking around the fence, stabbing the zombies in the head with the end of this crowbar. Turn to face the next one and it’s Jenny. Her head is all bust open. She doesn’t moan, though. She just says, ‘I’m disappointed in you’. As well as you can with half a head anyway.

  I stab her through the face. She drops and turns to ash. I move onto the next one. It’s Casey. But she’s not a zombie anymore. She’s that little girl I blamed for everything.

  I’m crying now. I try to stop myself. But I can’t. I smash the crowbar into her skull. She sinks to the ground. Her little hand holds onto the leg of my jeans. She starts to pull me through the fence.

  So strong. Can feel my flesh getting all pinched. Then I get dragged like cheese through a grater.

  My legs first.

  Then my body.

  My heart.

  Lungs.

  Arms.

  Just as my head is being dragged through, I let out a scream. That tends to be echoed by the sound I’m making as I wake up.

  I have only one reminder of those months. This lovely scar. This necklace around my eye. I never look in the mirror. I need no reminder of the things I witnessed.

  Of the things I lost.

  Not just now.

  But all those years ago.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A stunned silence hung over the group. Dee broke the silence first. “Fucking hell, we’re a bunch of cheery souls, eh?”

  Steve finished scribbling in his notebook, pulled his glasses off and rubbed weary eyes. “Thank you, Anton. I appreciate that must’ve been very difficult to talk about. I…we all thank you for letting us in. The first step to recovery is…”

  “Sausages?” Matt asked enthusiastically.

  “No, Matt, not sausages. Talking. The more you talk about something, the less of a hold it has over you. We don’t speak just for ourselves, we speak to remember those we have lost along the way. Those who are no longer able to tell their story. You have all shared something which unites you. Loss. Grief. The stories you shared may be different, but the crux of them all remains the same. We call this survivor guilt. Why did I live when those we cared about did not? Why do I alone remain?”

  Steve looked around the group. Matt raised a hand to which Steve shook his head gently. “It’s not a question which requires an answer, Matt. It’s rhetorical. I hope you can all see now that you are not alone. We will continue this work next week. There are some coping mechanisms we can discuss. Don’t know about you lot but I could do with a drink.”

  Steve eased the glasses back onto his face and pulled a half bottle of whiskey from his jacket pocket. A stack of plastic goblets was retrieved from the other. He lined up the cups and poured a decent measure into each, before offering them around.

  “To those we have lost, we remember them. And to those who survive, we salute them. Salut,” Steve said sombrely, taking a brief moment of introspection before taking a sip.

  “That tastes like gran,” Matt said.

  Dee coughed. “Shut up, you idiot. That nearly came out of my nose then.”

  Sylvia laughed, held the plastic cup in both hands and took a sip, before wincing. “Been a while since I had a drink.”

  There was a gentle rapping on the doorframe. “Steve, sorry to interrupt, can I just have a quick word with Dee?”

  Dee walked over to Andy. “What is it Sar…Andy?”

  The sound of plastic hitting concrete made everyone turn around. Sylvia was stood stock still, a hand clutched the empty space her cup had been. “You alright, Sylvia?” Dee asked.

  “I…I…I’m fine, just lost my grip. I’ve got to go, excuse me.” Sylvia put her head down and skittered out of the room, brushing shoulders with Dee on the way out.

  Andy shot Dee an inquisitive glare. “Sure she still doesn’t remember?”

  Dee looked around at the sight of Sylvia disappearing into the factory, “She hasn’t said anything. Sure she would’ve done by now. Anyway, what’s up?”

  “Just wondered if you’d be up for going on a run soon? Paul and Dean have cleared out anything half cop nearby. Going out in a couple of days, if you fancy it?”

  Dee’s face broke into a smile which threatened to destabilise the universe. “Do woodland animals crap in their beds. You bet I would, thanks mate, cheers.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The two guards rechecked the fuel canisters that had been prepared by their brethren. One said to the other, “Have you ever met The Apostle?”

  “No, have you?” came the enthusiastic yet hushed reply.

  Guard number one checked off the total from his list and shoved the notepad into his hoodie pocket. “No, he’s rarely seen by anyone. More often than not he is amongst the unbelievers, making preparations. When he returns, he rests for a few days and then he’s off again.”

  Petrol sloshed around within the containers as the pair loaded them into the RV, tucking them behind the door. “I heard that he was born of Ishtar herself, taught Her ways since birth. He is the epitome of our purity,” his friend added.

  “I’ve heard many things said of him, yet too often, I’ve heard the same story retold to make it even grander, more fantastical,” came the reply. “There’s one story of his that I believe, though.”

  After placing the last of the suppli
es in the vehicle, curiosity got the better of him, Checking to ensure they were not overheard, he replied, “Go on, tell me.”

  “This was when the end days began, before the Mass Rapture campaign started. He was captured by the despicable Lions of Gilgamesh outside of Runcorn. For fourteen days and nights they tortured him, hoping to learn the location of his Grace and his brother. For fourteen days and nights he refused to submit to their violence and threats. He said no word or made one utterance of pain.”

  The guard closed the door softly, checked the safety on his pistol and continued. “On the fifteenth morning, they went to wake him, to begin their assault anew, yet when they got to his chambers, it was empty. Even his sweat and blood, which had marked the floor and walls, was gone. It was as if he was never there. The Lions grew frantic. They searched high and low for The Apostle, some questioned whether they had ever captured him at all, for no sign of his incarceration or torture could they find.”

  He slid the pistol back into his belt. It nestled in the small of his back. “On the fifteenth hour, a great cry came from the sentries. One of the Lions had been found, crucified to a telegraph pole outside their compound. The Ascended were feasting on the fool. Before they could retrieve their kin, a second call sounded out. A horde of the Enraptured were bearing down on them from all sides. They yelled that a man was at the head of the host. The Apostle.”

  The second guard looked upon his friend with incredulity. “But how could that be?”

  “It is said that The Apostle is able to command the Ascended, make them do his bidding. The army he summoned fell upon the vile curs and tore them asunder. None were allowed to Ascend and swell Ishtar’s ranks. As the last of the accursed Lions was slain, his Grace arrived, summoned by Her to use The Apostle as the sickle in the coming harvest,” his friend finished.

  A clanking sound from the rear of the RV set both of them on edge. The pair crept round to see Malky closing the cage on the final penitent. They bowed respectfully and continued with their preparations.

  The padlock closed with its customary metallic finality. Malky pulled on it a few times to ensure it was locked. “You should feel pride at being the last one. You will lead Her flock to the very gates of our enemies.” He looked at the emaciated woman now incarcerated in its gore-splattered frame.