The Undead the Second Week Compilation Edition Days 8-14

by RR Haywood

  ‘Are you okay?’ She looked at me quizzically.

  ‘Yep, fine….I’ll er…get these on then shall I?’ She watched me slip the shoes off and slide the jeans over my legs before bending to put the black office shoes back on. She coughed once and I looked up to see her holding a pair of brown desert boots in her hand.

  ‘You can’t wear jeans with office shoes.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They don’t go, you’d look awful.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Yes it matters now put these on. I won’t be seen dead with you dressed like that.’

  ‘But you are dead…we both are.’

  ‘That’s not the point and don’t be surly.’

  ‘That’s what he said…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, pass them here then.’ The boots get pulled on and I start doing the laces up to the top of the high eyelets.

  ‘No, leave them a bit loose so the jeans tuck into the boots slightly…here like this,’ she bent down and fidgeted with them for a few seconds and seeing as she was naked I got a cracking good view of her cherry shaped arse sticking out, ‘like that, wow you look good…no you really look good like that with your top off.’

  ‘I feel stupid.’

  ‘No you look so sexy, all rough and nasty,’ she purred coming in close to run her hands over my chest. ‘Oh you nasty zombie….coming to bite my neck and do bad things to me.’ She craned her head back exposing her neck which reminded me off the chatty beardy man at my feet with a bright pink toothbrush sticking out his eye. Even so, the sight of her neck set something off in me and I bit down, not hard but enough to draw a little blood which got her going straight away, digging her nails into my back and raking down hard enough to rip the flesh open.

  The same erotic feeling I had when she first turned flooded through me and I gripped her harder, licking at the blood dripping down her neck. She in turn bit me on the shoulder and started probing her hot tongue into the wound, licking at the salty infected blood and sucking away. My hands groped round to her butt. My fingers brushing over the dried scab on the congealed wound. I started picking away at it, gently at first then harder and harder, prising the dried claret away and exposing the still unhealed flesh beneath. Groaning in ecstasy she bit me again which set me off more.

  Then she got inventive and unbuckled my jeans to pull them down round my ankles, she pushed me down onto the toilet seat and straddled me, impaling herself on my now hardened dead member. With continual biting, tearing and ripping of each other’s flesh we made love on a dirty toilet seat in a stranger’s house with a dead zombie watching us with one eye and a toothbrush sticking out his skull, not to mention the several members of our horde standing patiently on the landing drooling away while watching our noisy love making.

  Now, outside and wearing my stupid jeans tucked into the tops of the stupid boots and feeling like some stupid zombie catalogue poser I’m looking back down the street and examining the densely packed undead babies all staring forward at me and Marcy. The whole of the street is crammed with them, from one side to the other and back as far as I can see there are dead faces drooling and staring with red bloodshot eyes. The connection is strong and I suddenly stride forward marching at them. They obey to the will of my mind instantly and scuttle back to form a narrow path down the middle. Within a couple of seconds they are standing to attention in neat lines, perfectly spaced and staring dead ahead like the lovely little soldiers they are. Marcy and I walk down the middle, examining them and noting the ones with the worse injuries.

  ‘They can go in the first wave; we’ll keep the stronger ones back,’ Marcy says and I send the instruction out through the hundreds of strands of telepathic connectors that entwine us all. Instructing and marking them as first group or second.

  ‘Actually,’ Marcy pauses, ‘we’ll do it in stages and send in the most injured first, then the next lot with not so bad injuries, then the ones with slight injuries and the strongest healthiest and freshest we’ll keep with us until the end. No point in wasting the good ones at the start…we’ll let the weaker ones break down their defences and learn where the weak links are.’

  ‘But I’ve already started telling them to go in two stages.’

  ‘Then we’ll go back to the beginning and start again,’ she smiles about turns and starts wiggling her naked behind back to the end of the line. Grumbling and muttering to myself I follow her and watch as she starts examining them again but closer this time.

  ‘Can you make them present their injuries so we don’t have to keep looking for them?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake this is fucking stupid the poor cunts shouldn’t have to stand there parading their wounds.’

  ‘Darren, just do it please,’ she snaps. The zombies are a sudden hive of activity as they shuffle and twist round, bending, kneeling, lifting tops up or dropping trousers to show their cuts, bites, lacerations and gouges.

  ‘That’s better, thank you…now how about we number them into groups, say four groups? I’ll give them a number and you tell them what group they’re in.’

  ‘This isn’t a fucking school sports day Marcy.’

  ‘Are the men and women of the same strength and ferocity?’ She ignores my sarcasm.

  ‘Yep pretty much, the bigger ones move a bit slower but obviously their extra weight helps them at the end. Also, moving them too fast in the daytime weakens them.’

  ‘By how much?’

  ‘It depends; if they’ve been dead a while then they’ll weaken faster because of the rate of decomposition they’ve already suffered. The fresher ones should last longer…’

  ‘We shall move them at a steady pace and keep them conserved until we need them to start shifting, right I’ll count out and you tell them what group they’re in.

  ‘This is fucking stupid…why don’t we just go now and rip Howie’s fucking face off, we’ve got loads and most of them are fresh.’

  ‘Did that work the last time Darren? No…so please just do as I ask.’

  ‘Fine!’

  ‘One…Four…Three…Four…’

  ‘Slow down, I can’t keep up.’

  ‘Darren this isn’t rocket science …’

  ‘Just slow down.’

  ‘Where did you get to?’

  ‘I don’t know, start again.’

  ‘Darren!’

  ‘Sorry love but you went too fast, just do it slower.’

  ‘One….got it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Four…got it?’

  ‘Don’t take the piss.’

  ‘Well apparently you couldn’t keep up a minute ago…’

  ‘Just fucking count them out,’ I shout in anger, she flashes a mean look at me before turning away dramatically and reeling the numbers off. Following behind her I send the messages as we go and let them stand easy once they’ve been checked and counted. The poor things shuffle and relax behind us as we work our way down the long lines with Marcy examining wounds like some field doctor and shouting numbers out.

  ‘Ooh, what about this one?’ She asks after a few minutes.

  ‘He’s only got one arm Marcy.’

  ‘Yeah I know but he looks strong and healthy though.’

  ‘Yeah for a one armed zombie…’

  ‘We’ll put him in the third group…I think he’ll do well.’

  ‘The third? Are you joking? He needs to go in one or two.’

  ‘But look at the muscles in his good arm.’

  ‘What do you mean his good arm? He doesn’t have a good arm, he has one arm.’

  ‘Stop being pedantic Darren, three please.’

  ‘Okay,’ telepathically I tell him he’s a two and hope Marcy doesn’t notice later, I’ll just blame it on the confusion of battle.

  We keep going down the lines, reaching a junction and sweeping round to the left and even I’m surprised at how many we’ve taken in just one day. Standing on the junction I look up then off to the left and the sheer sight
of the hundreds and hundreds of zombies makes me grin like the demented super zombie I am. Fuck you Dave you cuntrunt, try swinging your penknives at this lot and see where it gets you. Mind you he is good though, the nasty little prick is too good really. I fucking hate the way he leaps about like some fucked up ballet dancer. What fucking right has he got to be that good, it isn’t fucking fair that he’s on their side, why can’t we have a Dave on our side. Fuck it, I’ll just send all of them after Dave and get him turned. Ha, Howie would be royally fucked up the arse then if we sent zombie Dave after him. But then Dave would see it coming and probably stab himself in the brain to make sure he wouldn’t come back. Fucking stupid cuntrunt stabbing himself in the brain, that’s not fucking fair, it’s fucking cheating is what it is.

  ‘Darren!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re ranting…’

  ‘Oh am I? Sorry, just thinking about Dave stabbing himself in the brain.’

  ‘What? Why would he do that?’

  ‘Because he’s a prize cunt is why, it’s the sort of stupid cheating fucked up thing he would do, just so he wouldn’t have to go after his fucking limp wristed cock sucking boyfriend Howie.’

  ‘Darren!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re ranting again, can we just get on with it…and don’t be homophobic.’

  ‘What!?’

  ‘I don’t like it, my brother was gay.’

  ‘Marcy if you saw your brother standing there now you would eat his brains.’

  ‘That’s not the point, don’t use gay things in your ranting.’

  ‘How about racism? Can I use that?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh so just generalised non-specific abusive ranting then?’

  ‘Four…Two…Two…One…’ She presses on before I start off on one again.

  ‘How about people with learning difficulties? Can I take the piss out of them?’

  ‘No…my cousin was in a wheelchair…Three….Two….Four…’

  ‘That’s disabled not learning difficulties.’

  ‘Well he was a bit retarded too…Three…One…One.’

  ‘You can’t say retarded anymore.’

  ‘What? Who said so?’

  ‘If I can’t call Howie a gay cunt then you can’t call people retards.’

  ‘Fine…One…One…One…there’s a lot of ones here.’

  ‘There not ours Marcy, they were already turned and I’ve got no connection to them.’

  ‘Oh that’s a shame, he wasn’t really retarded he was just a bit thick really…Three...Two…’

  ‘If you saw a person with learning difficulties would you bite them?’

  ‘Darren we have spent the day slaughtering every living person we’ve come across and a few of them did have learning difficulties.’

  ‘Did they? I didn’t notice any.’

  ‘They were killed before you got there; you just sucked on them a bit.’

  ‘…I didn’t notice any difference in the taste.’

  ‘One…Three…Three…Two…’

  Seven

  We head back down the narrow path, trudging through the shaded trees and back out beside the high wall that looks out along the sweep of the bay towards the town. Clarence, Dave, Blowers, Nick, Cookey and I along with Steven and Tom. Leaving was hard on all of us, not just our group but the people left behind. Again. We had more arguments from Sarah and Terri which at one point threatened to spiral out of control until Ted and Sergeant Hopewell stepped in using their vast policing experience to calm everyone down. Thankfully Steven and Tom had the sense to stay quiet and not get drawn in, I think they were worried that if they got involved they could end up staying and miss the opportunity to come with us.

  Personally, if I was in their shoes I would have jumped at the chance of staying in the relative safety of the bunkers while some crazy idiots went off to charge a load of frenzied undead, especially with nightfall only a couple of hours away. But then that’s wrong because I could stay there if I wanted to. Any of us could. We could easily argue that we’ve done enough and just refuse to leave. I’m not sure that if it came to it we would be forced out at gunpoint, we have weapons too and everyone in there could see we’re experienced with them. So no, I wouldn’t have stayed if I was in their shoes. I haven’t “stayed” since this thing began. Some of Sarah’s words resonate through my mind as we walk in silence. She said again that we’re getting addicted to it, that the killing is something we enjoy instead of it being a necessity only to be done when absolutely necessary. I could tell that comment made us all feel a little uncomfortable and maybe there is some truth in it. If we thought it through and really contemplated it seriously we could probably come up with another way of leaving without having to fight. We could have considered taking our group further along the coast until we found another harbour with boats. This Island must have loads of harbours. With the retired navy captain with us we could have probably made our way to one of the commercial ports that the tourist ferries use and taken everyone away together.

  So why choose this option then? Glancing round I can see that all of us, apart from Steven and Tom, have serious intent expressions. We know what is coming and how truly awful it will be. We know that the simplest of mistakes could mean the death of us all. No machine guns, no safety of the Saxon APC and with two new untrained and inexperienced fighters we are virtually offering ourselves as a sacrifice, Terri said as much in her final attempt at getting us to change our minds and either stay or take them with us.

  But it isn’t that. It is something else. Our race has been challenged and as a result we have seen our families, friends and comrades die horrible, brutal and violent deaths. Something in us will simply not accept that. It’s wrong and it has to be challenged because the consequences are simply too utterly terrifying to contemplate. Bad things happen when good people stand by and do nothing. Darren was one of us and it’s almost as though he chose to be on their side. He could have gone off somewhere else and been a zombie. He didn’t have to come after us the way he did and he wilfully took the lives of our loved ones. Sarah is close when she says it’s an addiction we’ve got used to. It isn’t that, it’s the chance to take back what is ours by right of virtue. It’s the chance to make a decision as free men and see it through. To show them we will not cower and hide. And maybe a small part of it is the prospect of battle, standing in line next to your mate and culling the evil spawn of the devil sent at us. Virtuous. Glorious. Righteous.

  In the end it was Clarence and Dave that gave their pistols up to Tom and Steven. Taking them aside for a few minutes and drilling them with dry firing, re-loading and more dry-firing. Again I was surprised at how the two lads responded seriously and didn’t piss about and squabble like they do most of the time. But then I caught Ted glaring at them and figured he’d had a quiet and most likely very threatening word with them to behave.

  They look the part now with similar backpacks strapped on and sawn off shotguns wedged in so the stocks poke out. Pistols are strapped on the police utility belts they still wear, and I notice that Tom still carries his Taser and extendable baton. Dave even managed to find them an axe each, not as large as the ones we looted from the DIY store but more like the first one I started out with. They just don’t look hardened like the other lads. There is fear and nervous energy in their faces. Not just fear of what’s coming but also that they don’t look stupid in front of the rest of us.

  ‘Lads listen up, if and when it starts getting horrible I want you to split up and stick with Clarence and Dave. Keep your ears open and listen for the instructions given. Not just from me but from all of us. Clarence and Dave are both extremely experienced so don’t try and copy them or do what they do. Do not over-extend or allow yourselves to get isolated or trapped. Aim for the head and keep moving. The shotguns have incredible fire power but the range is shit. Remember that.’

  ‘What do we do if we get trapped or surrounded?’ Tom asks.

  ‘Figh
t like bastards,’ Blowers replies quickly, they both grin at the quick answer but the smiles soon vanish when they see he’s not joking.

  ‘Is that Lani?’ Nick cuts in pointing across to a wooden bench set against the wall where a small figure sits watching the sea, a backpack rests by her feet and a huge meat cleaver is across her lap. She turns her head to watch us approaching; her face stays impassive and expressionless.

  ‘Lani,’ I nod as we gather round the bench.

  ‘Mr Howie,’ she nods back and stares at me defiantly.

  ‘Why are you out here?’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ she stands quickly and starts shrugging the backpack on.

  ‘Still got my gun then?’ I notice the stock poking out the top of the bag.

  ‘Nope, I got another one. I put yours back in your bag.’

  ‘Nice meat cleaver Lani,’ Nick grins genuinely pleased to see her again.

  ‘Lani…’

  ‘Mr Howie,’ she cuts me off, ‘I’m coming with you. It’s my family out there, it’s those zombies that took my family, friends and everyone I’ve ever known or cared about. This is my choice. I waited here for you so it didn’t make it awkward for you in there,’ she nods back towards the fort, ‘but this is my choice, my decision.’ She reaches down to pick the meat cleaver up from the bench and stands ready and waiting. Looking down I see she’s even found a pair of boots instead of the trainers she was wearing before.

  ‘Lani, please go back and wait with the others.’

  ‘No. I’m coming with you. I’ve killed a few of them and I survived for nine days on my own so I’ve earned my place.’

  ‘I know you did Lani but I’d still rather you waited here.’

  ‘Why because I’m a girl?’

  ‘No it’s not that.’

  ‘Mr Howie I’m not going back. I respect you’re in charge and I will follow your orders exactly, I won’t slow you down or get in the way and this is the only time I’ll be rude to you but with all due respect Sir you can fuck off if you think you can make me stay.’ The way she says it, so polite yet firm makes me burst out laughing. Not in a take the piss kind of way, and she can see I’m not patronising her. She just won the point and she knows it, glancing round with a wry smile and a glint in her eye that reminds me of Dave.