Searching For Summer: A Zombie Novel

by Midwood, Peter

  The crowd ran for the buses with the speed of impoverished children going on a school trip, and as they sped away, the smell of burning rubber assaulted Danny’s nostrils. He dropped the radio and stomped on it until it was unrecognisable. He got into his car and checked his daughter's location. The red dot on the monitor screen continued to flash. Summer was ten miles away and still moving.

  6: Last Service

  In the second week of the sickness, the Reverend Martin Reeves looked over the pews from his pulpit, shaking his head in despair. It was Sunday morning - the main event of the week in the Christian calendar and his church was almost empty. On the first Sunday after the outbreak, the attendance number had reduced by half. At his midweek meeting, on Wednesday evening, they had shrunk again by the same proportion, and now they were down to this: half-a-dozen octogenarians coughing discreetly into balled-up tissues while praying for a miracle.

  He asked his parishioners to put their faith in God. Only by His will would this evil sickness be stopped from decimating humankind and the true believers would be the first to be cleansed. He urged his flock to visit their church at every opportunity and pray to the Heavenly Father to put an end to the misery, death and undeath. Now was the time to unite, not hide away. If prayers were to be answered, they must first be heard.

  He had preached this sermon less than a month ago, to a congregation three times the size of that which sat before him now. He could tolerate the newbies coming and going, and he could endure the nonattendance of the disinterested, but he could not accept the absence of Mr and Mrs Briggs. They were stalwarts of the church community and never missed a service. Quite frankly, he was shocked by their no-show. It was as unacceptable as his one begotten son, Moses, missing a sermon.

  He glanced at Moses in the north transept, pouring wine into a silver chalice and his heart swelled with pride. He was a good boy, very mature for his twenty years and had been Martin’s rock since the boy’s mother had gone wayward. He walked over to Moses and asked him if he would conduct today’s service while he visited the Briggs’ household and enticed them back into God’s house. Moses readily agreed, as he knew he would, and also wished his father luck on his quest. Martin left the church contented, knowing it was in the safe hands of his son.

  There was no answer when he knocked on the door of the Briggs’ bungalow, so he let himself in. While he was walking down the short hallway to the living room, quietly announcing his presence, Mrs Briggs sprang out of a side room and sank her teeth into his throat. The vicar screamed, pushed her away and clamped a hand over his gushing neck wound. He turned and ran for the door through which he’d just entered but fell over a tartan shopping trolley left in the hallway. He landed chest first, and his forehead bounced off the linoleum, rendering him unconscious.

  He never opened his eyes again.

  Mr Briggs joined his wife and the pair set about him. The Reverend Reeves – Vicar of Craghill was still out cold when his shirt was torn open, and the undead pensioners bit through the skin of his abdomen. When they plunged their hands inside him and pulled out his intestines, he was mercifully, already dead.

  Moses Reeves hated his name almost as much as the pious old bastard who had given it to him. Another thing high up on his hate list was taking sermons, especially sermons he had to preach to a bunch of coffin-dodgers such as those here; all huddled together on the back row like a murder of crows. He took a long swig of wine from the chalice and stepped up to the pulpit. “Please, my people, come forward. Come sit with me at the front.”

  There were assorted groans and creaks as the ageing congregation left their seats and shambled down the nave. Moses counted seven people in total: three couples and an old man on his own, hobbling along behind them, using a Zimmer-frame to stay upright. He had to refrain from screaming at them to hurry up as they limped along, one behind the other like the world’s slowest Conga line. Finally, they reached the front and settled down into their new seats.

  Moses looked solemnly at their faces; each one waxy white like the face of the crucified Christ behind him, and all told of horrific secrets. “How many of you have been bitten?” Moses asked.

  The question startled the members, and they looked sheepishly down at the floor in silence.

  “Do not fear,” Moses said. “You are in the house of God and free from harm. I am here to help you all, so I must ask you again, who among you has been bitten?”

  After a moment of hesitation, the old lady at the far left of the row slowly raised her arm. Moses noticed a bloody bandage, wrapped around the little finger of her raised hand. Her husband raised his arm, showing a bandage below his shirt cuff. The next couple along raised their hands simultaneously, followed by the last couple in the line. The man on his own kept his hands folded in his lap. “What about you, old timer?”

  The man shook his head, and a single tear rolled down his cheek.

  “Well, aren’t we are in a bit of a mess?” Moses said. He stepped down from the pulpit and stood directly in front of the congregation. “However, there is one thing I can do for you.” He flipped back his surplice, like Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, to reveal a holstered handgun. He drew the weapon and before any of them knew what was happening, fired six successive shots into the heads of the bitten. The remaining man on the end let out a frightened cry and tried to stand up, but his arthritis-afflicted legs wouldn’t allow it.

  Moses walked along the row, inspecting his kills and stopped in front of the only survivor. “I haven’t been bitten,” the old man pleaded.

  “I never said you have,” Moses said. “But this is no longer about you; it’s about the bigger picture. I’m creating a whole new world, and you’re not invited to the party.”

  “What’s the matter, am I too old?”

  Moses laughed, “Yeah, by about seventy years.”

  “Are you one of those paedo-types?”

  “Let’s just say I like them young, but as the saying goes, if they’re old enough to bleed they’re old enough to butcher.”

  “You make me sick,” the old man said. “I fought for this country, in a war where thousands of good men lost their lives, only for people like you to live in freedom.”

  “And I’m very grateful. Maybe one day, somebody will put a poppy on your grave.”

  Moses fired a bullet into the old man’s chest and walked down the nave. Just before he pulled the heavy oak door closed behind him, he heard the old man fall out of his pew. Perhaps his dad would find them later, although it seemed unlikely. Good old Reverend Martin Reeves had gone calling on what were probably a family of zombies, and that’s never going to end well.

  Humanity was doomed, and Moses was glad, it was fucked up anyway. What chance did it ever have when smack-heads and half-wits were allowed to breed with prostitutes and crack whores? Let the world die; he would build another one. A new world in which he would be the sole creator, father of all the children, ensuring the population would be blessed with high morals and striking intelligence. The mothers of the new race would not be gang-banged whores like his mother. They would be children at the dawn of womanhood, young ladies as pure as mountain snow and untouched by any but him. He would keep them in a harem until they were old enough to breed with and take them at his leisure.

  Moses walked down the street at a merry pace. He had God’s work to do.

  7: Rise of the Preacher

  As Danny Weston drove back onto the motorway and headed south, Moses Reeves stepped out onto his veranda and surveyed his empire. The previous two weeks had been challenging, but he was pleased with what he had achieved. He had been on a recruiting spree, visiting communal buildings where survivors had gathered.

  When the majority of the townsfolk realised that no help was coming, they sought out fellow survivors and holed-up together, leaving post-it notes to announce their whereabouts or intentions. Moses spotted several of these posters taped to lampposts and telegraph poles stating: “10 Survivors – At the Dog & Duck, Broad S
t – All welcome – bring food + ammo”, or something along those lines. Moses collected any of these he saw and visited the buildings listed in a Miami Blue Porsche 718 Cayman. He had taken the sports car from Mr Mackintosh after dispatching him with a headshot. He may or may not have been dead to start with, but he did look peaky. And Moses needed that car.

  A lot of the places he called at were empty, or the occupants were zombies, but he did find a few survivors. After being admitted into the hideouts, he asked the people to follow him. He filled their heads with nonsense about receiving a message from God, proclaiming him to be the chosen one and the saviour of the human race. He told them he had been appointed as a warrior of the Almighty and was to be known as the Preacher. Occasionally, somebody would doubt the sincerity of his claims and insist on staying put, but he had the majority on his side, and his well-rehearsed speech about the lion-hearted English and that old chestnut, fighting for good over evil, usually won them round. If they remained unconvinced, he would kill them.

  People, in general, were a docile breed and wanted somebody to follow. They needed to be told what to do and wearing a dog collar put Moses in good stead as a leader. Even the most faithless person would turn to the church in times of despair. He would gladly give the orders and did so as naturally an army major. He needed an obedient force to patrol and secure his premises, so, the sooner the survivors learnt to obey him, the better. They were either with him or against him, and those who dared to oppose him would die.

  The landlord of the Carpenters Arms was a particularly quarrelsome man who objected to Moses’ plan from the start. He categorically refused to leave his pub and believed that help would be coming. He had spelt out ‘SOS’ on the flat roof of the annexe with white bed sheets, held in place by buckets of water. Each morning, he would check that everything was still in place and on this particular occasion, Moses followed him outside. While the landlord busied himself neatening the letters, Moses walked to the edge of the roof and looked over the parapet wall. “Come here, Harrison,” Moses said, “and tell me what you see.”

  “My name’s Harry,” the landlord said, “and I’m guessing I’ll see a load of dead folks staggering down the street.”

  Moses looked at the pub’s car park, twenty-five feet below him. Four zombies pressed against the glass of the large feature window, banging on the glass and trying to bite it. He recognised the fat zombie woman in a torn red dress; it had limped towards him when he arrived, two nights ago. It knew there were people alive inside the building and would not leave while the survivors remained. The three others had joined it in the vigil and would be as equally devoted to the task. “Hey, up here,” Moses shouted.

  “Have you lost your mind, man?” Harry said, running over to Moses.

  The undead quartet looked up at the two men and hissed, like angry cats, swiping at the air above them. “That’s just great,” Harry said. “Now we’ll never get rid of them.”

  “Shall I tell you what I see?” Moses said. “I see Lucifer’s work at its most cunning. He has created an army of undead, turning man against his brother until God’s greatest creation, is wiped out and the world becomes the devil’s playground.”

  “Give it a rest, Preacher. This isn’t a battle of good versus evil. It’s a government experiment gone wrong, and sooner or later, they’ll come along and clean up their mess.”

  “You’re wrong,” Moses said. “This is a war between God and Satan, and I need to know on which side you stand.”

  “Don’t you dare start preaching that religious crap to me,” Harry said, jabbing a finger in Moses’ face. “You come into my house, uninvited, and start barking orders at everyone, promising them a new world and all kinds of shit you can’t deliver. You’re a vicar, not a reincarnation of Jesus Christ, as much as you like to think you are. Now please, go back inside and take whoever is stupid enough to follow you and get off my property, but leave me alone.”

  He turned his back on Moses and looked down the street. Several more of the creatures had either spotted or heard the two men on the roof and were hobbling towards the pub. The number of zombies in the car park had tripled. They pawed at the sky and walked on the spot as if they were climbing invisible ladders. “Just go,” Harry said, “and hopefully those fucking things will follow you. I’ll stay here and take my chances. Somebody will come. Give it time.”

  “Time’s something you don’t have, my friend,” Moses said.

  He pushed Harry in the centre of the back, sending him hurtling over the parapet wall. Harry’s neck turned almost one-hundred-and-eighty degrees as he looked back with disbelief at what a vicar had just done to him. He let out a brief scream, flapped his arms like he might start flying and slammed onto the Tarmac below. The zombies fell upon him and tore him limb from limb.

  Moses went back downstairs to the people in the barroom. He feigned distress and told them that while they were out on the roof, Harry had turned into one of those monsters. The selfish and thoughtless man had been hiding an infected bite all along, putting everybody at risk. He elaborated how he had been lucky to escape with his life and had almost been bitten himself as he wrestled the creature over the edge. He finished by adding that now would be an ideal time to leave via the back door, while the devil’s brood was at the front. Everybody was in agreement, and they followed their new leader to his chosen destination.

  Moses picked The Castle Golf Club to start his new world, an exclusive male-only country club for the super-rich where a man’s credibility was measured by the size of his bank balance, not the size of his penis. He chose this particular place because, as the name implied, it was fortress-like in design. The only access was through a pair of three-meter-high, wrought-iron gates set into a crenellated sandstone wall, built between two mock turrets. The gates opened onto immaculately kept gardens divided by block-paved crossroads. To the left was a luxury hotel, to the right was the clubhouse and straight ahead, the road led to the greens. A galvanised steel mesh fence enclosed the golf course at the rear, and CCTV cameras lined the boundaries. A generator shed had been incorporated into the design, in the case of a power cut and the machinery inside it now powered the premises full time.

  He designated the hotel as the living quarters for his followers and claimed the clubhouse as his own. He was too good to live amongst his followers, and the isolation gave him the secrecy to fulfil his needs. He resided in the steward’s quarters above the function room, a place where he could hang up his halo and put on his horns, away from the prying eyes of his minions.

  He walked back into the bedroom and closed the French doors behind him. It was a hot morning, but the air conditioning cooled the room down to bearable, and the ceiling fan over the bed generated enough draft to flutter the girl’s mousey brown hair against the pillow. Had it not been for the blood-soaked sheets between her legs and her blue-tinged lips, she could have asleep.

  She was too young to serve his purpose; that much was obvious. Moses hadn’t known her age, but she wasn’t old enough to bear a child, and he had wasted his time trying to impregnate her. She bled from the moment he penetrated her, and she ruined the white silk bed linen he had ordered in specially. Moses was infuriated by this, and her constant screaming hurt his ears. He thrust himself harder inside her while yelling at her to shut up, but she wouldn’t listen, so he put a pillow over her face to silence her. The screaming became muffled, but he could still hear the noisy little bitch. He squeezed her windpipe with one hand and used the other to press the pillow down over her nose and mouth. As she writhed under his grasp, his excitement piqued, and his grip tightened. By the time he ejaculated, she was dead.

  His bed was a bloody mess, but it could be cleaned up, and Piper would be back soon to take care of the body. He would dispose of the dead girl as he had done with the others, simply drop her amongst the twitchers when he went out on another child-collecting mission.

  All Piper wanted in return was a room in the basement and an endless supply of ammunit
ion. The deal seemed a bit one-sided to Moses; Piper could have asked for a lot more than Moses offered, but he never did. He seemed content with his reward, which was good because Moses wanted to keep him happy. The reason being that Piper was an absolute psychopath. Moses always had a handgun hidden under his robe when Piper was present, just in case the fruitcake turned loco on him. The Preacher liked to think of himself as a formidable adversary, but deep down, he knew he wouldn’t dare cross Piper. That guy was more dangerous than farm machinery.

  8: Gentlemen’s Club (I)

  The blue Ford Transit turned off the empty main road in the town of Astley into an equally deserted side-street called High Parade, formerly the hub of the town’s nightlife. The van trundled down a service road to the rear of the buildings, once used by grocers and breweries to supply the collection of pubs and restaurants with their wares. Piper put the gearstick into neutral, turned off the engine and let the van freewheel to a stop outside number nineteen.

  He got out of the driver’s seat and cursed when he stepped on something squishy. He assumed it was dog shit, although the streets were becoming cleaner seen as man’s best friend hadn’t learnt that its owner would rather bite its throat out than stroke it. Cats were doing okay, though. A cat wouldn’t come to you if it didn’t want to and if any feline saw its owner hobbling towards it, with arms outstretched and contorted mouth dripping like a broken fridge, it would simply get out of the way. Piper had no doubt about which of the two species was the most intelligent. To quote the American producer, writer and general clever-clogs, Jeff Valdez, ‘Cats are smarter than dogs. You can’t get eight cats to pull a sledge through snow.’

  He looked at the sole of his shoe and saw he had stood on a brown leathery oval and closer inspection revealed it to be a human ear. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Give me a break; these shoes are brand new.”