Class Four: Those Who Survive

by Duncan P. Bradshaw

  Dee tried to push herself up, but was firmly entrenched within the bucket. She could feel a drip-dripping from the back of her hair onto the toilet seat.

  Feeble hands slipped off the edge of the bucket rim, and she raised her hands in defence. “It was after that other place. I was…I was still in shock. I didn’t…didn’t mean to. He was a deader, though, he was—”

  Pieces of porcelain, bone, and a jet of blood sprayed over the confines of the toilet. Sylvia thumbed the release; the expended shells landed and rolled along the floor, coming to a rest against the toe of Dee’s scuffed boot. A gasping and desperate slurping was the chorus to the shotgun verse.

  A howling came shortly afterwards as Dee clutched her leg; cold fingers pried into the ruin of it, disappearing into the tattered remnants of her kneecap. The skin and muscle had been shorn away by the blast; chewed up veins spat blood into the air.

  Sylvia slowly reached into her trouser pocket and pulled out two more shotgun shells. “He was my husband, Dee. He was my Donald. We were doing fine on our own, thank you very much. I read to him, he even helped me with my puzzles. He was perfect. Just like he used to be.”

  The first shell dropped in. Dee tried to stem the bleeding. Making a ring with her fingers above the remains of her knee, she squeezed. “FUCK,” she bellowed. Gritting her teeth merely dislodged another molar.

  “Then you came along, and in a few seconds, you took away everything that I had left in the world. Everything that I loved and treasured. My Donald was no angel, but he was still mine. He was all I had. You had no right to take him from me, to kill him.”

  The second shell slid into place. Sylvia cracked the breech shut. Content that it had closed properly, she lifted the barrels up to Dee’s chest.

  “Plea…pl…please Sylvia…” Dee coughed. “…I didn’t mean…”

  Sylvia placed the hot barrels’ point against Dee’s skin, a few inches below the base of her throat. “Don’t worry, dear, I’ll let you come back. You deserve to be dead, to live in purgatory for what you’ve done.”

  Both barrels catapulted Dee back the last few feet against the wall; her head once again smacked into the base of the cistern. A loud crack heralded broken vertebrae. A large smoke-filled crater took up most of where her chest used to be. The smell of burnt meat and flash-boiled blood filled the air. In a wide arc around where she sat was a pool of liquefied flesh and bone.

  Dee’s body sunk into the bucket further. Her legs tucked up against her body. As they rose, the bottom half of her destroyed leg hung on by tendrils of skin, before the earth called dibs and it dropped to the floor, oozing blood onto the white tiled floor.

  “What have you done?”

  Sylvia span around and looked into Andy’s distraught face. “You knew. You knew what she did, and yet you covered for her. When I was lying in that bed after you brought me back here, I couldn’t remember what happened. I asked you, and you said that my Donald had died. It didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t remember, so I took you at your word.”

  Andy was still looking at the crumpled body in the toilet. “She was all over the place that day. She went into that shop to try and redeem herself, that’s what she said. Before I knew it she had shot him. You came tumbling down the stairs. Dee…she…she nearly shot you there and then. We got you back here, to look after you.”

  Sylvia wiped a hand across her face. Droplets of sticky blood smeared across her pale skin. “I DIDN’T WANT TO BE LOOKED AFTER. Not by you. Or her. I wanted my Donald. He was the only thing I ever wanted, and you two took him away from me. That’s why I did this.” Sylvia grabbed her left sleeve and yanked it up, revealing a four inch scar running inside her forearm. It looked like someone had sewn a skewer under her skin.

  “LOOK AT IT! This is what I did, this is what you two made me do. I didn’t want to come here. I wanted to be left alone with my Donald. You’re as bad as her, aren’t you?”

  Sylvia levelled the gun at Andy, who raised his hands and edged out onto the factory floor. “Please Sylvia…please d—”

  CLICK

  Sylvia smiled slyly. “Bang.”

  Andy, who had shielded his face with his arms, lowered them slowly. “Hang on, that’s one of the guns from the armoury. How did you get it? There’s always a guard stationed there?”

  Sylvia started to reload. “There were no guards there a minute ago, I saw your girlfriend come in here so thought I’d pay her a little visit. Make her into one of them.”

  A thud announced Dee’s rebirth as she landed on one good knee and one ragged stub. The partially-filled bucket hit the side of the Formica cubicle with a loud clang. Unable to walk, her arms worked their way out in front of her broken body and started trying to pull her toward the humans. She looked like a cross between Sadako and a snail with a metal shell.

  Her head hung against her body, the neck a mass of broken bone. Hands slapped against the bloody floor trying to gain some purchase on the slick tiles.

  The rapier slid from Andy’s belt as blood-drenched hands ran up his legs. He turned Dee’s head to one side with a boot and ran the blade through her temple. Dead hands patted the floor before the human zombie snail fell to one side, life extinguished.

  Andy looked over to the corner of the factory where the armoury was. He couldn’t see anyone. “But, how can there be…”

  Heavy booted feet stomped down the stairs. Like the proverbial elephant in the room, The Gaffer stormed across the floor towards the main entrance. “Andy, you’re with me. We have guests, and not the kind who bring biscuits and tea round with them.”

  Andy looked at Sylvia one last time. she seemed at peace, nonchalantly reloading the shotgun. “Gaffer, someone’s taken out the armoury gu—”

  “Mate, we’ve been royally fucked. A snake in our midst. Tom Thompson mentioned something the other day, but had no idea how they did it.” The Gaffer pushed the main door open with the end of the parking meter.

  “Fuck me,” Andy uttered; mental checkpoints failed in their duty.

  They were met with a wall of grey faces. Dead eyes locked onto them, jaws agape. Some chattered teeth in anticipation of a meal, others let out a deep moan to signal to their chums that a midnight snack was indeed served. “Very possibly, Andy, I think we’ve all been fucked. Rouse who you can. We will need as many people as possible…”

  Andy nodded and turned back into the factory. “…even then, it might not be enough,” The Gaffer finished, before he marched out of the double doors and stood before the undead flood.

  The doors seemed to recoil in terror at the sight that greeted them and closed slowly behind The Gaffer. A semi-circle of zombies surrounded him. For as far as he could see, there were gore-covered faces; most were damaged in some way or other. Patches of skin had been torn off, eyes hung slack from sockets like pocket watches resting, mouths shorn of lips displayed rows of cracked, yellowing pegs of ivory and slabs of exposed gum.

  The moaning was interrupted by a loud huffing and the sound of displaced air, metal slapping dead skin and cracking bones. A wild swing cleared a ten foot swathe in front of him. Row two surged towards him, some tripping over their broken brethren and smacking into the concrete.

  The Gaffer was a small crustacean in an ocean of groping hands and vacant stares. Those at the back, sensing a wait, strolled past the entrance in search of other means of reaching the building and the buffet within.

  A backhand volley took out another row of the dead. A small knee- high wall of crumpled, deflated carcasses formed a small, but completely ineffective, barrier between those without a pulse and the one with a quickening one.

  “C’mon, you dead fucks! You can do better than this,” The Gaffer bellowed. An overhead smash on the skull of a sneaky bastard trying to claw up his leg sent an explosion of rippled worms of brain and jigsaw pieces of skull in a wide arc.

  Adopting the disposition of a spinning top, he whirled into the centre of the swarm. Broken bodies were cast aside as if they were animal
s meeting a tornado. His momentum came to a gradual halt. He looked back to see a trail of destruction leading from the doors and towards the gates, where the undead still ambled through.

  The zombies paid their losses no heed. No sooner had a gap been created than they surged back into the void. They walked over their fallen kin, desperate to bring down the walking meat lollipop and feast.

  He fended them off with short, abrupt swipes and jabs. His brain filled his tiring limbs with endorphins, trying to jack him up to superhuman means.

  We can do this, we can survive.

  “This one really is becoming tiresome,” Devin sighed. He closed an eye and held his breath. His finger squeezed the trigger and the .308 round was discharged from the rifle. Through the scope he saw the bullet hit the man-mountain in the left shoulder. Poised to strike, his body rocked forwards with the momentum of the shot.

  Devin’s scabrous hand reached out and pulled the bolt back to reload.

  “FUCK,” The Gaffer yelled. It felt like someone had just rammed a white-hot poker into his body. He buckled up under the impact. Running a swollen hand across his brow, he lifted the parking meter again and swung with reckless abandon; the exertion caused blood to ooze from the wound.

  The second round struck him as he completed his swing, side-on. The bullet tore through the back of his neck, spraying gore over his sheepskin coat, and he teetered to one side.

  The crusty hand pulled the bolt back once more. “Just go down, make this easier on yourself,” Devin muttered under his breath. He steadied himself on the rug lying on the RV’s roof.

  Okay, so that stung a little.

  The Gaffer’s body railed against his efforts to continue. He filed their protestations under ‘Pending’, and pushed himself vertical again using the parking meter as a crude crutch.

  He uttered a guttural yell, and charged deeper into the horde, hoping for sanctuary amongst the throng. Fingers like clammy tentacles rolled over his skin; some managed to dig into the freshly created wounds, causing him to grit his teeth further. He spat out a sliver of his own spongified tongue as he bit it off.

  He swung this way and that, trying to keep his flanks clear, desperate to keep them at bay, to make sure that they didn’t overwhelm him.

  Another distant crack sounded just after he felt the impact in his right bicep. The meter swung feebly in one powered arm. The zombies kept on coming, climbing over the ones that had been downed, yet still pawing at their new nemesis.

  The Gaffer yelled in pain as a powerful jaw clamped onto his upper arm. The mouth slurped on the warm blood and bit deeper into his flesh. Eschewing his weapon, he punched the biter with his left fist. It took a number of blows before the jaw finally relented and let go of its prize.

  The lull had swung the odds in the undead’s favour, and they surged at him like a tsunami, formed of eager maws and grabbing hands. He reached into his coat and pulled out the sawed-off shotgun. He struggled to bring it to bear, but managed to aim it in front of him and pull the trigger.

  Devin watched through the scope as a group of Her flock were blown apart at point blank range by the shotgun blast. Clumps of meat slopped to the floor. He could see that the man was fading, though. “You will soon be amongst them,” he promised, and squeezed the trigger again.

  The Gaffer’s vision lit up, as if a flare had been set off right in front of him. The faces of his enemy were illuminated in such clarity, he could make out individual ticks and snarls. His breathing felt heavy and laboured. He clutched his chest and discovered a hole around the area where he guessed his lung should be.

  He slumped backwards into the embrace of the undead. Uncaring arms slowed his descent, seemingly holding him aloft in recognition of his efforts. Then the biting started. Incisors started to chew through the tracksuit bottoms. Digits fumbled with his trainers and socks. Other luckier ghouls managed to pull at the wounds already visible and picked out lumps of meat and viscera.

  The light faded back to black. He gasped and breathed like he was hyper-ventilating. His left hand fumbled inside a pocket. “Ai…ain…ain’t going out like no bitch,” he muttered.

  Devin cocked the rifle and looked back through the scope. The target was barely visible within the gang of clawing, gouging bodies that surrounded him. “Good, he was a stubborn one, but Ishtar will—”

  With The Gaffer at its epicentre, the shrapnel from the grenade tore through the grey, decomposing ranks with ease, shredding a ring sixteen feet in radius. Pieces of severed limbs and unidentifiable body parts were flung even further. Devin cowered from the explosion, even from his vantage point.

  He looked down at Malky, who stood impassively by the RV. “Let’s get this done; my patience is wearing thin.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Grimm, where the fuck is your lot?” Andy shouted. He had pulled his sword from its scabbard and was frantically trying to stir people from their slumber.

  “Two are dead. Their throats have been slit, dumped in the back storeroom. What is going on?” he shouted back. He pulled the hammers from his belt and strode towards the rows of stirring inhabitants.

  Andy shook Steve out of his sleep and looked at the imposing figure of Grimm. “We’ve been done over. We need people up and ready now. We fight or we die. Only caught a glimpse when The Gaffer went outside, but there are loads of chompers inside the perimeter.”

  Grimm’s mask rendered his emotional state unreadable. “Why did the sentries not alert us?”

  Andy hurriedly pulled the rope off Steve’s arm, still groggy and squinty. “I don’t fucking know. It’s not the time for questions, it’s the time for action.”

  As if waiting for the magic words, the side door opened into the factory. The muffled sound of shuffling feet and moans cranked up a notch as the first of the undead staggered into the factory, eliciting screams from the humans within. Grimm turned to the intruders, and nodded towards them. Two of his guards ran over to deal with the uninvited guests.

  “We need to seal the doors, befor—”

  Just to underline the severity of the situation, another two doors were pushed open. The undead filtered inside, spreading out towards the cluster of cattle at one end of the factory. “Steve, get up. These people need to be helped. Now. Look for an opening and try to get them out of here.”

  Steve nodded dumbly and fumbled under his bed for his clothes and glasses. Another door slammed open and more zombies sauntered into the chaos within. From behind Andy, there came a growl. Matt sprinted past and clotheslined a pair of zombies that were ambling towards the lazier members of the camp. Some were somehow still sleeping, blissfully unaware of the severe turn of events.

  Matt crouched down by one of the fallen zombies and started to smack it in its face. The force and number of blows caused the jaw to crack and break off. Matt plunged his fist into the yawning abyss. Andy looked across, dumbfounded, What the hell is he doing?

  One hand held the thing’s head against the ground while the other rummaged around for something to grab a hold of. Content, Matt pulled, and despite a few nibbles, wrenched out the thing’s tongue in its grey-blue entirety. Taking a moment to view it, he then started to administer it to the zombie’s head. With its lack of moisture, it took on the appearance and weight of a blackjack.

  Matt thumped it repeatedly against the thing’s head, oblivious to his surroundings. He was swamped by a mass of grey. As he disappeared into the coterie, above the sound of skin being torn asunder, a voice rang out. “Ha ha, it didn’t work, Dee. Patches, I’m coming to see you boy, WOOF, WOOF.”

  All ways in and out of the factory were now clogged with the dead sauntering in, eager to get their rotting mitts on something good before it all went.

  Steve had secreted himself next to a cupboard which contained all the disposable plates and cutlery. He watched as the zombies streamed in and dragged the struggling survivors to the ground.

  Most of the inhabitants were barely out of their nightclothes; fewer still had
armed themselves with anything. Anton was struggling to get himself out of his arm knot, when a very dead woman, dressed in a once-smart suit, saw him and homed in. Remarkably, the glasses she wore had been with her through death and rebirth, and aside from a few scratches and dried flakes of blood, seemed perfectly functional.

  “FUCK, FUCK!” Anton shouted. The knot had tightened so much it resembled a shrivelled-up raisin. The more he fought, the tighter it held him. The woman bared rows of stained and chipped Hampstead’s and lunged at him. A few feet from contact, a swish and blur of metal flashed before Anton’s eyes.

  Two arms, which had been lopped off just below the elbows, landed on the floor with little fanfare or attention. Their previous owner, Yvonne Tatchell, who had died while hiding in the storeroom of the office in which she worked on the first day of the apocalypse, looked down at the two stumps.

  With no intellectual acuity to comprehend what this would do to her somewhat limited chances in her new life as a denizen of the undead masses, she growled again and fell on top of Anton, who was still fighting to get out of his knot conundrum.

  Teeth snapped inches from his nose. He recalled the night when Jenny had managed to clamp onto his face with teeth in a little better condition than the gnashers currently on display.

  The pressure was lifted off his chest as Andy grabbed her by her blouse collar and threw her to the floor. He put a boot on her chest and slid the blade in through her forehead. Yvonne died for the second time, with no chance of appeal. Andy pulled out the rapier and slashed the rope which held Anton in place.

  Anton rubbed his arm, trying to massage some life into it. “Cheers, mate,” he said, before looking past Andy. “Mate, watch out behind you.” The warning barely had a chance to be fully interpreted by Andy’s cerebral cortex before three zombies reached out and grabbed his jacket. He swung around and, although he managed to catch one, it merely took a chunk from its face, the moan told him that it wasn’t going to be enough.