by Ryan Casey
But with every step, one thing kept him alive.
No, three things.
His wife and his two young boys.
The second chance they’d give him.
The chance to start again.
He listened to the sound of the birds singing from the trees in the fields. The house he lived in was a terraced house, but he preferred to think of it as a semi-detached. It was a part of three houses, and there were no other houses until quite a way up the road, so Ivan had always found the “terraced” tag unfair. Not that he had a problem living in a terraced house. He just found it fucking annoying that one little “t” word took about £20,000 off the value of his home.
He saw it approaching in the distance and he felt a warmth building up in his chest. He’d lived in here with Mary for twelve years. They’d met when they were sixteen, but only settled down and married fifteen years after that. They moved in here shortly after that. Had the boys about five years after moving in. “You’re such a slowcoach at life,” Mary used to tell him, “you’ll end up living to a hundred and fifty ‘cause you’re just not quite ready to die yet.”
He got closer to the house. The one in the middle with the silver Mondeo in the drive. It was still there, which brought an illusion of normality over him. He was going home. Going back to his family. Starting again.
He stepped up the driveway. The windows were all blocked with wood that Ivan had fitted before leaving for the barracks. They were still in place, which reassured Ivan some more.
He stepped up to the door. Held his breath. Lifted his shaking hand to knock at it.
But before he knocked, he realised something wasn’t right.
The door was partly open.
A feeling of complete dread replaced the hope inside him. He pushed the door ajar, gripped tight hold of the butcher’s knife.
The door was still on the chain metal latch. Ajar, but on the latch. That was something.
“Mary?” he called. His throat hurt as he spoke. He realised just how dry and sore it was. He hadn’t had a drink of water in God knows how long. “Jack? Alex? It’s …” He felt himself welling up. “It’s Dad.”
No reply from the house.
Nothing but silence.
He waited a few seconds before pulling the metal latch from the door. He pushed the door open, looked inside the entrance area of his house.
The place smelled like home, that was the first thing he noticed. A sweetness, like the experience you got when you returned from a long holiday.
As he stepped inside, he realised the carpet looked darker, too. Heard the sound of the old grandfather clock that Mary’s mum had passed on to her when she’d died ticking away. It used to drive Ivan crazy. But now, he liked it. It was the sound of home. The sound of being back.
He looked to his left at the lounge. The widescreen television was in there that Ivan had bought as a “family present” last Christmas. Photographs of Alex and Jack lined the marble mantlepiece in golden frames, snaps taken from various stages of their lives: birth, first day at school, getting their Cub Scout badges.
Ivan stepped into the living room. He realised just how cold it was, and just how quiet it was. Layers of dust coated the white leather sofas. The sun peeked through the Velux blinds at the back of the house, shining over the oak wood dining table and through to the living room. The one window they hadn’t sealed with wood.
“Mary?” he called.
He walked through. Walked through the lounge and into the dining area. Looked in the little kitchen.
Nothing. No sign.
He turned around and the dread started to overwhelm him again. No sign of them downstairs. No reply. Maybe they were just upstairs. Upstairs and scared. Maybe they didn’t really believe he was back. Thought he was someone trying to trick them, something like that. It was a legitimate enough fear to have considering the circumstances.
He walked out of the living room and smacked face first into a zombie.
He tumbled back right onto his ass.
The zombie had dark hair. Clearly a woman, wearing a pink jogging outfit.
Ivan’s heart raced.
Not Mary. Please not …
He realised the woman didn’t have a mole above her lip.
He swung the butcher’s knife at her. Sliced halfway through her head, let her blood pool all over the brown carpet.
He stood up. Puffed and panted.
The zombie definitely wasn’t Mary. That was a major relief.
Besides, he never liked this carpet anyway.
He climbed up the stairs. His footsteps creaked with every single step. It sounded quiet up here, but then again it sounded quiet when he’d stepped into the house but a zombie had still been in here.
He hoped to God his family listened to him when he told them not to leave the house. And if they encountered any zombies, just lock themselves in the old guest bedroom.
He hoped to God they’d listened.
He reached the top of the stairs. The doors up here, all three of them, were all closed. One of them was the boys’ room. A plastic “Keep Out: Playtime In Progress” sign dangled from a nail that Ivan had knocked into the wood a few summers ago. Probably too old for that sign now, but they didn’t complain about it. Just playtime was replaced by “sponging off Ivan’s Netflix” time, a predicament many a parent faced in the new world.
Or the old world, rather. The world before whatever the hell it was now.
Ivan walked up to the door right at the end of the landing area. Looked at the white paint. At the little dint in the wood that he’d punched into it when he learned of his sister’s death in a skiing accident three years ago. Three years of saying he’ll get a new door, but he never did.
That dint in the door, always reminding him of his sister.
Always reminding him of the switch inside him that flipped when he learned of her death.
The switch inside him that never truly flicked back.
Until now.
He put his fingers on the cold metal of the door handle.
“Mary, it’s … it’s me,” he muttered. “It’s Ivan.”
He pushed open the door.
Listened to it squeak, echoing around the bedroom.
The bedroom was even colder than the rest of the house. It was light, too, which was strange because all the windows were sealed. He’d seen outside that the front bedroom windows were definitely boarded up.
He soon realised that the light came from a bulb hanging from the white ceiling.
Ivan held his breath. Stepped inside the room. He gripped the butcher’s knife, but he wasn’t sure what he was going to see. He could smell Mary’s perfume as he walked over the pink carpet. He could smell the soil that the boys always got stuck to their football boots as he turned around the wooden dressing table and looked at the bed.
Ivan couldn’t process what he was looking at at first. He could only stand there. Stand there in the complete silence. Stand there, take in what was in front of him.
Lying on the bed.
He felt his bottom lip start to quiver.
Felt the butcher’s knife tumble from his hand, hit the carpet.
He stumbled over to the bed. His eyes grew blurrier and blurrier. His mind raced. Hope was replaced by dread, which was replaced by bewilderment, a lack of understanding.
He stopped right beside the bed.
Stood there and stared.
Under the flowery pink and white sheets, Mary lay. Her piercing blue eyes were wide open, but Ivan knew just from looking at the lack of vibrancy in them that there was nobody home behind those eyes.
Her limp hand dangled from the side of the bed. On the floor, a bottle of sleeping pills, upturned and spilling out over the carpet.
Ivan crumbled to his knees, his legs like jelly. He grabbed Mary’s cold hand. Pressed his lips and his forehead against it. Sobbed. He used to always grab her hand when he was stressed. Used to always hold it, and she’d hold back, a little warm squeeze to
tell him everything would be okay, that she was here for him.
But there was nothing but coldness in her hand right now.
Nothing but the life of a waxwork model.
He sniffed up. Kissed Mary’s hand again. Stood up and closed her eyelids.
And then he let his eyes drift over the bed to Mary’s side.
Over to Alex and Jack.
Alex in his little Preston North End kit, football boots dangling over the side of the bed.
Jack’s eyes, so like his mother’s, looking right through Ivan, his skin pale.
Ivan took in a series of sharp breaths. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but he had to keep it together. Just for now, he had to keep it together.
He walked around the side of the bed.
Leaned down, kissed Alex’s rigid head, and closed his eyes.
“Night night, my soldier.”
He moved over to Jack. Rubbed the inside of his left arm. A part of him that always used to tickle, no matter how hard or lightly Ivan touched it. He used to giggle for minutes—hours—just trying to escape his dad’s tickling.
And still, he’d go back for more, again and again and again.
But Jack didn’t budge this time.
He let Ivan rub his lengthy thumbnail down the inside of his arm and he didn’t move a muscle.
Ivan sniffed up again. Wiped his eyes. Leaned down and kissed his second son on his forehead.
“I’ll miss you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He closed Jack’s eyelids. Walked around the side of the bed and picked up his butcher’s knife. Stepped to the door and looked back at them.
If he squinted, he could convince himself that his family were just sleeping. Just resting on a Sunday evening. That his children were just cuddling with their mum.
“Night night,” he said, barely stringing the words together. “Sleep tight.”
Ivan stepped out of the door.
Closed it.
As soon as he was out of his wife and children’s presence, he dropped to the floor and he cried.
CHAPTER THREE
December 25th 2013
Three weeks later …
Ivan stopped keeping track of the days soon after he’d discovered his wife and kids’ dead bodies in the main bedroom.
But when he woke up on Christmas morning—the morning of Alex’s birthday—he knew exactly what day it was.
He lay face down on the sofa. His lips were shivering, shaking. His mouth was dry and his throat was sore. He’d drank a little over the last three weeks, but he knew it wasn’t nearly enough. The odd bit of ice he pulled off the side of the house. A bottle of water from out of the dwindling fridge supplies here and there. As for eating, that was a problem, too. Snacks. Crisps. Nothing substantial.
His face felt like it was stuck to the freezing cold dustiness of the sofa. He could feel the light peeking through the blinds at the back of the house. Outside, at the front of the house, he could hear the zombies staggering around. They never stayed, though. They just passed right by. Walked on.
Acted like Ivan wasn’t even present.
And he wasn’t. Not really.
Ivan remembered reading something in a zombie survival guide before the world collapsed. One of those fictional guides—jokey, satirical, but surprisingly filled with all kinds of useful tidbits. There was something about people who became so repressed by the zombies that they actually just pretended to be them. Wrapped dead skin around themselves and walked the streets, distant and detached.
He thought about doing the same. Thought about going outside. Walking along with them.
But instead, he just stayed on his sofa.
Listened to the clock ticking away.
The clock that used to annoy him.
The clock he held on to as his one final marker of time.
Ivan could smell his own sweat, so strong, in this living room of his. He stared at the blank television screen. Listened to the footsteps outside. Felt the sun on his skin, the hunger in his belly. Hunger weighed down by dread. By sheer, unfiltered dread.
By guilt.
He’d thought a lot about the things he’d done back at the Fulwood Barracks in his time alone. He’d thought about the decisions he’d made. Killing people to store them for emergency food supplies. Killing Ted. Planning on kidnapping the women as a restart button on civilisation. At first, he’d pitied himself. Moped about how he’d only been trying to do the right thing, all that bullshit.
But he knew the truth. He faced the truth now.
Those decisions were not his to make.
The world wasn’t his to save. It never had been.
He was worthless. Pointless. Disgusting.
And no matter how far he ran, no matter how much he tried to change and become a different person, there was no getting away from the reality of the things he’d done. The lives he’d destroyed.
He was wrong about being as much of a monster as the zombies. He had the ability to think rationally, which made him much, much worse than them.
He clambered off the edge of his sofa. Walked across the living room, past the little table with a photograph of him and his family on. They always moved the table around Christmastime. Put a tree up around there.
But this year, there was none of that.
He picked up the photograph. Held it in his shaking hand. He would’ve cried, but he didn’t have anything else left in him.
He held the photograph close to his chest then carried it over to the dark-wood dining room table. Placed it on the bottom end of it. Angled it so he’d be able to see it as he fell.
As he wrapped the wire around his neck and hung to his death.
He climbed up onto the creaky wooden chair, the wood cold on his bare feet. He stood right in the middle of the table, looked up at the glass chandelier he’d put up there six years ago when Mary was pregnant. She told him it made the place look like a little palace. When Ivan tried to convince her it was real diamond, she just laughed it off.
Now, a thin electricity wire hung from it. A cable he’d already tied days ago—or maybe weeks ago.
All building up to this moment.
The moment where he faced up to what he’d done and said goodbye to a world that didn’t need him anymore.
He grabbed the wire. Put it around his neck. Tightened it so tight that he could barely swallow as it was.
He stepped back. Stepped back along the wood of the table, felt it creaking below his feet. The chandelier swung as he moved backwards, the glass pieces jingling as he shifted his weight.
He stared at the photograph of his family. Their smiling faces. All of their smiling faces.
“I’ll be with you soon,” he muttered.
He realised he was crying again.
He dangled his heels over the edge of the table.
Felt the relief of fresh air hit them.
“I’ll be with you soon. I love you.”
He dangled his left foot over the edge. Balanced on his right.
“I love you Mary. I love you boys.”
He lowered his right knee.
Hopped back.
Felt nothingness beneath his feet.
He felt the tightness of the wire as it coiled around his neck, but the very fact that he felt that tightness meant that he wasn’t dead yet.
And then he heard the chandelier crumble away from the ceiling.
Fall to the middle of the table. Glass pieces shattered everywhere.
The family photograph smashed.
Ivan hit the floor. The wire was still around his neck, but he was very much alive. Fucking chandelier. He grabbed the back of the wire. Clenched his eyes together, his back stinging from contact with the floor. “Fucking chandelier!”
He pulled the wire tightly.
So tightly that he couldn’t breathe, so tightly that his cheeks went hot.
And then his shaking hands loosened their grip before he could finish the job.
He pulled the wire fro
m his neck and planted his forehead on the carpet. He cried. Cried and sobbed hysterically.
“I just want to die,” he said. “It’s … it’s all I want. It’s all I want …”
He banged his head against the floor. Rubbed it against the carpet, giving his forehead burns.
“I just want to die,” he shouted, saliva drooling from the corners of his mouth. “Why am I still here? Why am I still here?”
It was at that point that he heard a scream.
A scream from the road outside. A little girl, from the sounds of things.
“Help! Someone! Please!”
And then another. This voice was a bit deeper.
“Dad, wake up. Wake up!”
The sound of the children’s voices forced Ivan to his feet. He stumbled over the smashed glass pieces of the chandelier, of the cracked family photograph, and went over to the wooden panels in his lounge window.
He pulled one of the panels aside slightly. Peeked out onto the road.
There was a boy with dark, curly hair dressed in a blue Nike tracksuit. A girl with matted blonde hair wearing a bulky imitation-fur coat. Both of them looked about Jack’s age. Seven.
Opposite them, four zombies.
“Please!” the girl shouted. She tumbled back in the road. Her brother, tears rolling down his cheeks, grabbed hold of her. “Someone help us! Mummy! Please!”
Ivan wasn’t sure what awoke inside him, but something did.
And just feeling something was enough to get him running to the front door, grabbing the butcher’s knife and sprinting out onto the street.
He swung the knife at the first zombie’s head. Ran over to the other one that was closing in on the kids, stabbed it between its eyes.
The kids looked on, terrified, clutching one another.
“It’s okay,” Ivan muttered as he pushed the zombie behind him down onto the ground, stabbed it in the temple. “I’m here.” He jumped up. Grabbed the final zombie from behind, stabbed it through the back of its skull.
The zombie hit the ground. Landed in a pool of blood on the concrete.
The kids held one another, eyes squeezed tightly together.
Ivan stood and looked at them for a few seconds. His heart raced. Sweat poured out of his hands, liquefied the blood that had been dried there for so many days.