No Zombies Please We Are British

by Alex Laybourne

  Jack could not clearly see what it was, but his imagination filled in the blanks. In any case, it was enough to silence the man’s tortured screams, and that in its own right was a blessing.

  A growl brought Jack’s mind back to his own predicament. The two men had realized that there was a simpler way to get to their prey and were moving around the car. Thinking fast, his strength returned, or at least the surge of adrenaline convinced him that was the case, and Jack leaped at the car. He pushed himself up onto and over the roof in a fluid move. Jack landed on the other side and was met by the persistent, crawling woman. Her raw face looked up and him. Jack hurdled her and found his stride immediately. Running down the street, he bolted back into his building and threw the door shut behind him.

  Panicked, he looked around for a way to block it, but then realized it locked automatically and could only be opened from the outside with a key card.

  Jack looked at his hand as if for confirmation. At some point in his flight from the living dead, he had pulled the card from his jeans pocket. It was there, clasped in his fingers; covered in blood, much like the rest of him, but it hadn’t stopped its effectiveness.

  He wondered for a moment if the creatures killed a resident, would they have the wherewithal to be able to use the card to get into the building. He realized soon enough that if that was the case, they were fucked on many more levels than that.

  Turning, he bolted up the stairs, his legs turning to jelly as the initial surge of adrenaline wore off. His body shook as he fumbled the key into the lock of his front door.

  Jack collapsed the moment he crossed the threshold, falling to the hallway floor. He lay there a while, on his belly, his eyes closed. His world was spinning, his mind unable to process what it had seen now that he had distanced himself from it.

  His stomach cramped and he vomited over the floor, chunks of still-to-be-digested pizza crust floated before his eyes on a sea of regurgitated stomach contents.

  Crawling through the hall, aware that he was heaving his body through his own vomit but uncaring of the fact, Jack pulled himself to his feet in the living room. He stared out of the window, joining the ranks of the curtain twitchers he had seen in the other building.

  The trio were still out there, but had wandered off in their own directions. To the right, the well-dressed man with the expanded chest was alone, his killers long since disappeared, no doubt in search for fresh meat.

  The man himself was jerking on the street. His life returned to him in death. He thrashed in wild, jerky movements. Back from the dead and hungry for flesh, yet he appeared to be confined to the location of his demise, unable to right himself without assistance and that would surely never come.

  Falling back to the floor, a location he was getting overly familiar with, Jack closed his eyes and tried to block out the foul smell of partially digested undead human offal that was smothered over his face.

  “This can’t be happening,” he spoke aloud. “I’ve gone crazy. I’m dreaming, that’s it. I must be dreaming.”

  Pulling himself back to his feet, Jack scrambled to find his phone. He needed to get ahold of Sarah. There was still no service. Cursing, he turned back to the television.

  The first reports were still continuing with the story about rioters, but as he watched, the images filled the screen. All of them too fleeting to give even the most eagle-eyed viewers more than a second or two to take in the full-scale assault on the nation’s capital.

  It was only on the third run through the same edited footage that Jack noticed them. Figures within the crowd. Multiple points from which the mass exodus was produced. The riots were a cover. The rising dead were to blame. They were in the city, and from the look of it, in numbers far greater than he could believe.

  The pictures came around again, and the final penny dropped.

  “Motherfuckers!” Jack yelled at the television.

  On the fourth image of the riots, still an aerial shot but one made from a closer angle than the others, you could see a building on fire. It was a location that Jack knew well because it was where he had spent many hours of his youth, back when it was an internet café, and also the years after when it became a rather specialist computer supplier.

  The problem was, that building had burned to the floor during the 2011 riots. The structure had been saved, but was currently still undergoing renovation. Yet the burning image he saw was clearly still the computer shop.

  The realization was a stunning and sobering blow. At some point overnight, while he had been eating pizza and playing video games, the world had gone to hell in a hand basket.

  Chapter 2

  Jack showered and made himself another coffee, desperately trying to convince himself it was all fine. If he went through the usual motions, reality would catch up to him and everything would be fine.

  He listened as the screams continued outside. Sometimes there were but one or two, and at other times, it seemed as if the entire borough was yelling as a single pained collective.

  One by one, the television channels stopped broadcasting, using excuses pertaining to the riots. It was a rich story as several of the channels were not even broadcasted from London-based studios.

  Opening the front door of his flat, Jack looked out. The hallway was a long one with doors along either side. He looked left and right. Somewhere, someone was screaming. Inside their building.

  Jack walked out into the hall. Several other doors opened and people appeared. Their eyes were wide with fear, and as soon as Jack turned to look, they shrank away. Mrs. Gloucester from the apartment opposite him actually jumped back inside and slammed the door. Jack heard the double deadbolts slam. Nobody would be getting her out any time soon.

  “What’s going on?” a voice asked.

  Jack turned around and saw a woman, whose name he did not know, standing in an open door. She was holding a young child in her arms.

  “I don’t know,” Jack told her.

  “Is it the riots?” she asked, her voice shrouded by a heavy Eastern European accent.

  “No, no it’s not. It is something else.” Jack didn’t know what to say to her. “Are you okay, you and your family?”

  “It’s just us. We are fine,” she replied. She was a young woman, not long out of her teens. She looked tired, but it could not hide her pretty features.

  Her long auburn hair was pulled back into a rough ponytail, and her make-up free face had a natural beauty to it. She was wearing a white tank top and a pair of black trousers that definitely showed off her shapely legs. She wasn’t wearing a bra, a fact that Jack tried hard not to notice.

  The child who clung to her was a girl, dressed in a delicate pink dress and a pair of white tights. The child had been crying. Her eyes were red and her cheeks streaked with the stains of her tears.

  “Are you sure? You can … you can come to my apartment if you want. I’m alone and, well … I think it is going to get dangerous around here.” Jack stared at the woman and hoped she realized he was just as eager to have her over for some company as he believed she was.

  “Thank you,” she said, stepping out of her flat and into the hall.

  A few more doors opened and more people came into the hall. They all shared the same look of fear and confusion.

  “Eric,” Jack called out when the door to the apartment at the end of the hall opened.

  Eric was an acquaintance of Jack’s. They knew each other through their choice of lodgings and the fact that neither had a regular job.

  The main difference was that while Jack still worked and made more than pretty much anybody he knew, Eric was a stoner. He came from a rich family and spent his days sitting in the weed-infused haze that fogged his flat like a supernatural mist.

  “Jack, what’s happening, man? I was having a nap and just, fuck, this screaming and shit started. I looked outside and this dude was eating another dude’s face. I don’t mean like in a gay way but like in a pass-the-bath-salts-I’m-getting-fucking-hungry way.
It’s all just messed up, man. I don’t know what’s going on.” At some point during his rant, which saw his voice move from a whisper into a scream and back to a whisper, Eric began to cry.

  “It’s all okay, man. It’s just–”

  “It’s the dead. The dead have risen,” a voice called, and an old woman appeared in the hall.

  Jack didn’t know her name, but he had seen her around. She was well into her eighties, and lived with her son. A single man who had lived at home since the day he was born. Jack had met him once. Queer sort of man, but he certainly left an impression.

  “What did she say?” A single voice clarified the sentiment murmured by most of the people milling around on the floor.

  “The dead have risen. They crave flesh. Can’t you see?” The woman leaned on her walking frame, and took a deep breath. The oxygen tubes that extended from her nose wound around her large frame and connected with the canister that was attached to the wheel-driven walker.

  “I don’t think–” someone else began to contest, but a scream rang out from the floor above them and everybody was sent scurrying.

  The scream was one filled with terror. It lacked the guttural straining of pain, but hit all the right notes for utter, desperate fear.

  It brought the nervous chatter to a halt. Everybody froze, and some disappeared back into their flats. Some teamed up, disappearing together into one abode. Safety in numbers and all that.

  “What was that?” Eric asked.

  “They are inside,” the young mother said, her voice trembling.

  The child in her arms began to cry.

  “No, no they can’t be. It’s just someone freaking out, or something,” Jack tried to reason.

  The scream came again, only this time there was a strange finality about the way the voice cut off, just as the pitch reached its zenith.

  The way the flats were set up, there were two stairwells that led to each floor and a lift that ran through the centre of the building. There were four floors to the building, but the upper two contained maisonettes, and rather than four flats on each side of the hallway, there were but two.

  “We should go check on them,” Jack spoke, looking around. Everybody was gone. Only he, Eric, and the young woman were left in the hall.

  “Are you crazy?” Eric scoffed, staring at Jack.

  “We can’t leave her alone up there,” Jack shot back.

  “She’s probably dead,” Eric said flatly.

  “She’s scared,” the young mother replied.

  Jack and Eric turned to her, both wondering if she meant the woman upstairs, or the daughter in her arms.

  “You’re right,” Jack spoke softly. “You should wait here. Come on, you can stay in my place.” He placed his hand on the woman’s shoulder and led her through to his apartment.

  “Thank you.” The woman smiled. “I’m Tania.”

  “Jack. It’s nice to meet you.” He smiled, realizing that if what was happening was real, and not some crazy dream, this may be the last formal everyday introduction he shared with someone.

  “Thank you for helping us.” Tania hugged him. “This is Anna.”

  The little girl pulled her head from the crook of her mother’s neck and smiled at Jack. She had stunning green eyes. They were large orbs on her small face.

  “Hi there, heartbreaker.” Jack had always been good with children, not that he harboured any desire to have them himself. “You will be safe here. Lock the door behind me.”

  Jack ran to the kitchen and grabbed a large kitchen knife from the drawer. He said nothing as he moved to the door.

  “You’re really going to check it out?” Eric looked at him through red-stained eyes.

  “Yes, whoever is up there needs help. We can’t just ignore that.” Jack stood firm. “You can come if you want to help, but if not, make sure that door is locked behind me and doesn’t open until I come back.”

  Eric stood for a few moments, mumbling to himself as he mulled over his options.

  “Dammit.” He sighed and trudged off into the kitchen.

  A few minutes later, the pair emerged from the apartment. The door closed and locked behind them. The atmosphere in the hallway had changed noticeably. Silence dominated the place. A silence that was true to the word. Not the noiseless quiet that most often got confused, but a silence. It was as if people were afraid to even breathe for fear of being found. Even from the streets, there was nothing. Even the rain failed to truly penetrate the spooky ambiance.

  “Are you sure about this? It’s quiet now.” Eric tried once more to get Jack to change his mind, but it was to no avail.

  “Come on,” Jack replied, determined.

  Armed with a kitchen knife and rolling pin, they made their way to the stairs. They could feel the eyes watching them, straining through peepholes to track their progress.

  Moving behind one another, weapons raised, they made their way to the third floor. Jack assumed the lead, his heart racing as their every step echoed up the empty chamber.

  “You don’t really buy all this, do you?” Eric asked. His nerves made him chatty, and the fact that he was high made him all the more paranoid.

  “I don’t know, man. I’m just taking this one step at a time. If it is true, well, people will be along to save us. I’m sure there are drills and protocols and shit in place for this sort of thing.” Jack didn’t believe it, but he had to convince himself of something.

  They reached the third floor. It was dim, the storm outside having darkened the sky to the colour of dusk. The dark painted walls and the dark floor did nothing to help the matter.

  Moving onto the landing, Jack found himself caught in two minds. To call out and risk exposing himself to whatever horror may lurk in the dark, or to stay quiet and hope he happened along whoever was in peril.

  Three steps onto the landing and his mind was made up. His foot squelched as he trod. The floor was sodden. Bending down, using his iPhone as a light source, he saw the thick consistency of the red fluid. The closer he got to it, the meatier the taste of the air became.

  “What is it?” Eric asked.

  “Blood.” Jack’s answer was met by silence.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  “No, someone could be stuck here,” Jack insisted.

  His heart was racing and he wanted to be as quiet as possible, but Eric seemed to overcome by his nerves to be quiet.

  When they reached the mid-point of the hall, they saw the door at the end was ajar. It was smeared with blood; a streaked handprint ran from the centre to the handle, before falling away to the floor.

  Looking at it, Jack could picture the stumbling form that had created it.

  He turned to Eric who was still chatting in a low voice, about what, Jack had no clue. Eric had turned to chatting to himself when his conversation with Jack became clearly one sided.

  “Keep it quiet, I don’t want them to–”

  The door behind them crashed open, and a figure came shambling towards them.

  The woman’s eyes were a dark red as if every vessel behind them had burst. Her lips were pulled back in a snarl. Behind her, more of them appeared, a man and a woman. The woman was wearing a dressing gown, her body beneath clad in a lingerie set stained a rusty shade.

  She had a chunk of flesh missing from her shoulder, with deep strips of skin ripped away down to her breast, from where a hungry set of jaws had wrenched her meat from her body.

  The pair turned on them. Their steps were stiffened by death but far from the shambling, ambling reanimations of pop culture.

  “Get back,” Eric cried out, swinging the rolling pin like a rounders bat.

  The pair growled at him, a deep and guttural noise. It was demonic in its tone, resonating like a growling death metal singer at the height of live show fervour.

  Looking around, Jack backed up. The stairwell at the other end of the hall was their best option. The couple had closed in on them. Eric was still swinging the rolling pin, his feet plant
ed on the floor.

  One swing caught the approaching male in the ribs. The sound of the heavy wooden utensil hitting skin was a sickening one, only topped by the audible pop of bone, as ribs snapped from the impact.

  The confrontation snapped Eric from his haze, and he turned and ran. The man carried on walking, his body bent to one side ever so slightly, but he showed no long-term effects from the blow.

  “Here, through the door,” Jack called. He pulled the door open and screamed. A blood-covered corpse turned to face him. The skin was pink and warm, the blood flowed from the wound on the side of the woman’s face. Her cheek was missing as was her ear. The bloody bone of her skull visible beneath the mass of matted hair.

  Her eyes the same shade of red as the man who was coming for them from the hall.

  Jack leaped backwards, letting the door close. It slammed against the dead woman’s face, splattering blood, meat, and smears of skin against the wire-glass window.

  “Come here,” a voice called out.

  Jack turned around and saw a face peering through an open door across the hall.

  “Hurry,” the face implored.

  Jack moved, his feet feeling sluggish. He gripped the knife in his right hand. Eric was beside him. They ran towards the room, although to Jack it felt as though they were going in slow motion. The couple was upon them. A hand clamped down on Jack’s shoulder. He spun around, survival his only focus. The man’s jaws were open, his blood-stained, yellow teeth were closing the distance to Jack’s flesh.

  Thrusting the knife, Jack stabbed the man in his chest. The knife punctured the skin and sliced deep into the tissue beneath, burying itself to the handle. The man stopped, for a brief moment the knowledge of its injury registered on his face. He shook it off, however, and reached for the fresh meat that he craved. The moment passed. Jack and Eric disappeared into the flat and the door slammed shut.

  It was dark in the apartment; the lights were off and all the curtains were drawn. Thick material over roller blinds fully covered the window.