Class Four: Those Who Survive

by Duncan P. Bradshaw

  He fought against them, but three became five, which swelled further in even increments, until he fell to the floor screaming. Despite his wild thrashing, the zombies were very much like barnacles to his boat hull and would not be shifted.

  Anton watched as the bundled masses tore and gouged at his rescuer; a pool of blood broke against his feet. The decision to flee was passed without the need for a second vote.

  He grabbed his belongings from under his bed, peeled Andy’s sword from the exposed buttocks of some unfortunate bastard who must’ve died in the shower, and headed towards the nearest door.

  The factory now rang with the screams of those being eaten alive, the moans of those wishing they had put their best foot forward, and the war cries of the few survivors making their final stand.

  Steve, though, had chosen Option Four. He tried to clean his glasses again. His hands shook with the ferocity of an aroused tectonic plate. He gave up and managed to get them back on his face. He peered around the corner of the cupboard and saw a violently-smitten zombie, lying in three sections on the ground. A cunning plan hatched in his brain; he crept from his place of cowering and moved towards the corpse.

  This is totally going to bloody work.

  He crouched down by the body. The smell hit him first. It was like a rubbish bin which had been left out in the rain, where the rain was sewage water and six months had passed. He gagged, but kept his supper of cream crackers and Ritz down. He slipped his hands into the section he labelled as ‘probably the torso’ and rooted around for something.

  He pulled out a lump of tissue. He guessed that it was a kidney, but it was black and pus-ridden. Steve held his breath, squeezed the chunk of meat, which oozed black and yellow goo, and began to administer it to his body. He needed a few more parts before he managed to cover himself, saving a small collection of nut-like objects for his face. He contemplated whether Lynx would pick up this latest trend in aromatic sensations.

  The bile he suppressed as he rubbed congealed blood and month-old stools across his face, and accidentally into his nose and mouth, suggested it would not be a winner.

  Content with his work, and amazed that he remembered the scene from The Walking Dead, he rose to his feet and got into character. Turning a foot inwards, channelling Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint and the zombies from the aforementioned TV show, he moaned and stumbled towards the door.

  This is genius.

  He dragged his palsied limb past another feast, and was around ten feet away from the outside world. He had gotten used to the smell, and in some dark recess of his mind, he quite enjoyed it. Worried what Freud would make of this new predilection, he picked up the pace.

  As he reached the doorway, a straggler knocked into him. The two things looked at each other. One was a man: Clive, who had been a plumber until a zombie had rather fancied tucking into his throat. The other was a therapist, who was covered in the decaying remnants of a zombie.

  Clive sniffed him and seemed to recoil.

  Ha, these aren’t the droids you’re OWWW WHAT IN THE NAME OF FUCK.

  Steve shuddered as Clive sank his teeth through the undead paste and into his face, tearing off a cheek as if it were a filo pastry shell. Falling out of character completely, Steve flailed about and tried to fight off his attacker. Clive hadn’t taken the mantle of ‘last one in’, though, and a posse of geriatrics took their chance and brought Steve crashing down to earth.

  As shrivelled, grey fingers pried into the gap his face once covered, scores of gummed mouths fought to break the skin. Steve let out an annoyed gurgle and felt around for his glasses. If he was going out, he was going to go out with his motherfucking glasses on. He had spent the last six months trying to keep them together with scavenged Sellotape.

  His filth-covered hands twitched and fell still. Around the factory, the last vestiges of human resistance were crushed into human crumble and devoured.

  Without custard.

  Savages.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Life as a henchman in a Doomsday Cult was a pretty cushty gig. You got a snazzy red hoodie, especially as Reggie was part of the Big Cheese’s cabal. None of those white robes, like the common Children of Ishtar got.

  Nope, not for him. Crimson red, like blood, with a moleskin interior, ample pockets and water-resistant to a degree. It wasn’t going to be much cop in a monsoon, but for early December in Southern England this was some nice attire.

  Not only that, but you had some decent weapons to choose from. Having pillaged vast tracts of the Home Counties, they had amassed a large collection of weapons, from those preferred by keen enthusiasts right up to military grade hardware. Times were good. Not for his family. Obviously. Nope, they were probably dead. But Reggie cared not one jot for them.

  They’d always held him back, stunted his development and growth. He remembered when he had managed to get his first girlfriend, Sabina, a German exchange student. Ahh, sure her command of the English language was basic, at best. Granted, she smelt of cigarettes and David Hasselhoff, and admittedly, her personal hygiene routine was…patchy, she was still categorised as a woman.

  He was being cosmopolitan by French kissing a German, when his father walked in. Convinced that he was on the verge of completing the Immaculate Conception, Sabina was ejected from the house quicker than it took the Fifth Panzer Division to get through the Ardennes forest.

  Nope, Reggie didn’t care one bit that his family were either wandering around as one of them or had provided the undead with a healthy feast.

  Fat bastard.

  Sure, he didn’t agree fully with all the doctrines of the Children of Ishtar, but they gave him purpose, reason, camaraderie and a bloody huge gun.

  He remembered seeing this film as a kid. Couldn’t remember the name, something about locks and stocks, some Financial Locksmith perhaps. Anyway this one guy had something called a Bren gun. He didn’t remember much about that film, but the one thing he did was the sound it made.

  When they rolled over an outpost in an old World War Two museum, he called dibs on his dream gun.

  He called it Brenda.

  Brenda the Bren gun.

  Had a nice ring to it, he said. However, one thing being a henchman for a doomsday cult in the undead apocalypse, is that you seldom get a chance to loose off a few rounds. He’d had Brenda in his possession for six weeks now, and the closest he had come to shooting it was in a dream he’d had a few nights ago.

  He closed his eyes and thought back to it. Sabina wrapped herself around him, pulling Brenda into the fray in a ménage a trois. Her hairy legs entwined with his. She blew smoke rings to him which morphed into various erotic images.

  Mainly boobs.

  She pulled in closer and closer. The smell of the Hoff was overpowering his senses. He was ready to surrender, and then…

  A twig snapped. He looked up to see a woman walking down the railway line towards him. She looked injured as she held a crutch or a broom under her arm.

  Let no one out, except for Douglas. Only he shall pass.

  His orders were clear enough, but what about this woman. She looked like no threat at all. “Hang on, love,” Reggie called out. “You can’t be out here, you’re going to get shot, if you’re lucky, if not, one of them will probably rip the purple rinse off ya.”

  The woman kept on walking towards him and the forest beyond. She had a coat pulled up tight to keep out the chill.

  “Seriously, love. I’ve got orders to shoot anyone I see. Please, go back where you came from, and I promise I won’t shoot you.”

  The woman hobbled to within six feet of him, her grey hair with a rhubarb top had small water droplets hanging from the curls, formed from the condensation of her breath.

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you? Donald warned me about people like you.” She swivelled the shotgun up to her midriff and let loose both barrels at Reggie.

  He was struck in the chest and slumped to the floor. Brenda hit the floor with a clatter against t
he rusting railway sleepers. Sylvia walked over to his body, his chest rising and falling in time with a nineties techno beat.

  “B...B…Brenda…” he rasped, trying to hold in parts of his body which had never seen such sights as the outside world before.

  Sylvia reloaded, brought the gun up to his head, and pulled the trigger, disintegrating Reggie’s skull into a thick soup of blood, fragments of bone, and brain croutons.

  Sylvia reloaded and walked past his smoking corpse and into the forest. “Damn Poles. Donald was right, they get everywhere, they look just like us nowadays.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The cabin door swung closed and Sylvia leant against it to make sure it was shut. She’d walked for what seemed like forever. The forest was a never-ending maze of trunks and bushes. Just as the first hint of daylight broke out, she saw the log cabin.

  She threw the bag onto the table and emptied its contents: a map, some food, the survival guide that the stranger had brought with him a few weeks back. She flicked through the pages and allowed herself a chuckle.

  In the growing light, Sylvia took the chance to look around. It wasn’t the biggest of places, but it felt…familiar. Not much remained of use in the kitchen, and the previous occupants must’ve used this as a temporary stop instead of a permanent base. A single camp bed rested against one wall; an unzipped sleeping bag lay on top.

  Recollection jolted her. “I’m home, Donald. Sure it’s not the little place we used to go to for our anniversaries, but it’s good enough for little me, eh?”

  She rested the shotgun against the bed and sat on a chair by the table. “So much, so soon, Donald. I don’t know how I’m supposed to cope with it all,” she muttered, rubbing the row of raised new skin on her arm.

  “Hmm, I guess I could, Donald, but it all seems so very difficult right now. I’m tired. So tired, and…”

  She looked down into her hands, covered in soot and mud. “…I miss you. I know you didn’t mean to do those things to me. I know that I tried your patience and was so silly, no other man could put up with me, hmm?”

  “No.”

  “Still, no one around now, no one to interrupt my journey.” She pulled down her sleeves and flicked through her hair, getting it just right.

  She stood up, pushed the chair under the table, and walked over to the bed. She kicked off her shoes, folded her socks into them and slid the set neatly under the bed. Sylvia then climbed into the sleeping bag and hugged her knees.

  “I’ll be your princess again. Where we’ll be, everything will be okay. I’ll be everything you wanted me to be.”

  She tucked the shotgun between her legs, and pulled the sleeping bag over.

  “No more silliness, Donald.”

  “I promise.”

  She placed the barrels into her mouth; the metal clacked against her teeth.

  Made sure the angle was just right.

  Her thumb fumbled for the trigger.

  Sylvia Clare Patterson found her peace.

  May 14th 2014

  21:08

  The doctor bolted out of the room, screaming for assistance. His cries disappeared as he ran down the corridors, frantically looking for anyone. Diane gritted her teeth, Francis clenched her hand. “It’s okay baby. It’s okay.” He repeated the mantra over and over again.

  “He…he’s trying to get out…” Diane grunted through lockjaw. She let out another scream of pain.

  Francis looked at Diane’s belly. It rippled like a caterpillar trying to free itself from its chrysalis. Her skin puckered and rose as something within squirmed around. Diane let out another bellowing cry of agony.

  “F…Fra...Francis…I lo…” Diane’s head fell to one side, her tongue fell from her mouth and lolled like a cat’s might under anaesthetic. A trickle of blood ran from one of her nostrils.

  “No, baby, come on, stay with me,” Francis pleaded. He held her face in his hand; it felt cold and clammy. Her pulse felt weak, as if he was feeling for it through a woollen jumper. From the corner of his eye, he saw something move.

  The bump went from being a mound to a squat, squeezed tube of toothpaste. The thing inside was pulling itself from its natural cradle and up through its mother. Diane’s body shuddered like a washing machine set to the spin cycle.

  Chapter Forty

  “What’s wrong with this picture?” Russ asked rhetorically. They stood in the car park of ‘Daily Dairy’, and it was littered with dismembered bodies, burnt-out vehicles, and the smell of overcooked meat. A thin tail of smoke rose through a sizeable hole in the roof of the building.

  Nathan huffed and kicked a mouldering foot, which tumbled across the pock-marked concrete. “Not fair,” he muttered, and sat down on the floor, sulking.

  Francis ruffled his hair, which seemed to antagonise him further. “This is becoming a habit. Ah well. We’ll just keep on going. Got to be somewhere we can stop before night-time. It’ll be alright, Nate. It just means we’ll be even closer when we wake up tomorrow, won’t it?”

  The words caused a smile to crack through his façade, and Nathan gave an eager thumbs up. Zena had already wheeled back through the ripped open gateway and was ambling down a dirt track towards panels of fields trimmed by monstrous hedgerow.

  “You wanna talk about it?” Francis asked. He’d caught Zena up and the pair were causing a small dust cloud to form in their wake.

  Zena grunted. “No, what’s there to talk about? Tom’s dead, and I’m left, and all that time I spent getting from Norway to here was a complete waste of fucking time, woo-fucking-hoo.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it. The obvious way I guess.” Francis chewed off a craggy fingernail and spat it into a tall stack of waving weeds. “As odd as it sounds, you got to say goodbye, you got to find out what happened to him. No ‘if onlys’. Sure, the end result wasn’t what you or any of us wanted, but you get closure.”

  “Again, I refer you to the woo-fucking-hoo,” Zena scoffed.

  Francis picked at the jagged ridge left on his fingernail. “We bumped into a fella a few weeks back. The one who put us on this little journey, as a matter of fact. He’s going out now to look for his father, what, ten months after he went missing. You know why, don’t you?”

  “Illuminate me,” Zena replied sarcastically.

  “Because he needs to know what happened. Sure, in his heart, he knows that the father he had is dead, and is wandering around god knows where. He might be properly dead now, probably eating survivors like us, it doesn’t matter to him, cos he has spent the past ten months having that doubt eating away inside him. I’m not saying for one minute that what happened to you was a good thing, but you got something that some people don’t have anymore. Answers.”

  Zena looked from the dry dirt track across to Francis. “Well, I’m not completely sold, but some of what you say makes sense. Just…what do I do now? I spent so long holding onto the prospect of getting there, that I don’t know what comes next.”

  Francis chattered on the little peaks left on the end of his finger. “Sister, who does anymore? We’ve got no home, got nothing but each other, all we can do is keep going and look out for each other. The rest? That’ll figure itself out. No point in fretting about something you have no control over. We keep going or we become one of them, and I know which I prefer.”

  “Hey guys, is that a farm over there? Do ya reckon we could see if we can hole up, work out what we do next?” Russ shouted from behind them.

  The smallholding, which lay beyond waist-high partially collapsed stone walls, was an eclectic mix of churned dried mud and wild, untamed greenery. The area was dominated by a large breezeblock barn, covered in rusting sheets of corrugated iron. A clapped-out tractor sat entrenched in a large puddle of mud, which had risen up the wheels, dried and looked like it had melded with the earth.

  To the side of the barn ran a long narrow extension, half the height of the building. At the far end, a door banged listlessly against the exterior wall. Just behind t
he embedded farm machinery was a large patch of deep, lush vegetation. The top of something was visible in the waving grass bristles.

  “What is that?” Francis wondered out loud, and walked off towards the object. Russ sat atop a small tractor wheel and rummaged around in his bag for something to eat which wasn’t fish in origin. Like a cat at feeding time, Nathan watched him with eyes full of expectancy.

  Francis’ heavy legs waded through the dense undergrowth. Whatever he had seen still offered tantalising glimpses. It looked like it was a wooden board. Zena followed behind him, though failing to share the same level of intrigue as Francis.

  He got to within six feet of the mysterious object when, almost on cue, the tall grass parted and revealed a mud-stained cupboard door. It looked like it had been pulled off a kitchen unit and someone had gone to town on the surface in a thick black permanent marker and atrocious handwriting;

  Sharing one trait with felines, curiosity, Francis took another step towards the crude gravestone. His foot failed to connect with solid ground and instead he fell forwards through a flimsy and rubbish grassy net. As he fell he let out a yelp.

  Then a dull, “OW!”

  “Francis?” Zena shrieked. One minute the lumbering bearded man was there, the next he had been subsumed into the ground. Russ’ and Nathan’s gaze darted to the flurry of exclamations and the pair sprinted over to Zena, who was bent over looking into the straggly mass of grass, as if she had lost a fiver.

  “Francis?” Zena squealed again, this time with an added level of franticness.

  “I’m okay,” came a muffled reply. “Be careful. There’s an opening just before that wooden marker up there. Must be…aw man…gross.”

  Zena got onto her hands and knees and rooted round in the ground where Francis’ voice was emanating from. She picked up a worm just as the words, “This is great,” rumbled through the earth. Discarding the non-arthropod invertebrate behind her, she resumed her search. Her hands fell away in front of her, and she bid the others to stop where they were.