“I don’t understand. You said earlier we were going to look for supplies, why aren’t we inside?” I asked.
“We are going to look for supplies only not in the house. What if I was to tell you that I buried a large stash of food, weapons and medical supplies? Where’s the one place nobody would go looking for it?” he said looking slightly chuffed with himself. “Roll your sleeves up brother, we’ve got a lot of dead bodies to shift in very little time.”
Did I ever tell you how much I hate my brother? I just stood and watched at first whilst Butty threw himself enthusiastically into the task of lowering the mound. Quickly he climbed to the very top and began throwing the dead to the ground. He honestly looked like he was enjoying himself and below his heavily camouflaged face, I think I could see a maniacal grin. It must have been therapeutic, taking his aggression out on the dead. Well as much as I would have liked to stand around and watch as he did all the work, a bollocking from Butty was imminent so I rolled up my sleeves as instructed and climbed the fleshy mountain of bodies, joining him at the top.
Slowly the deathly heap reduced. It was hard, disgusting and smelly work, especially as we got deeper into the mound where the oldest zombies lay. Before the fire they were frozen but now they were warm and moist. Several times my feet slipped as the treads on my boots tore skin from bone like pulled pork.
“Need a hand Ace and Ace?” Dave shouted.
We looked over to the house to see a happy Dave, cigarette in one hand and a partially melted battle paddle in the other. The handle appeared untouched by the fire but the shovel end was damaged, with only half of it remaining.
“It may have seen better days lar but I’d still take my battered old mayonnaise stirrer over a fucking crowbar. Happy fucking days! Now all I need is a new Walkman and I’ll be fully back in the game,” he continued, walking towards us and using what remained of the battle paddle to prise bodies away from the deathly heap, “Why are we doing this anyway?”
“Butty has buried supplies directly under this pile of bodies,” I informed.
“You’re a fucking genius you Butty lad. If it was John he would have put them under a bed or tucked them away at the back of a food cupboard. Not you though kidda, always fucking thinking you are!” Dave smiled, “How about some music whilst we work eh? If I had my Walkman I’d probably be listening to the motivational tunes of Devo or some classic synthtastic OMD but as I don’t I’m going to have to sing. Now this will be a treat for two reasons because not only do I sing like a fucking dream; honestly, angels have been known to cry tears of joy when I do my falsetto; I’m also going to give you a lesson in German because here comes a pitch perfect rendition of Rock Me Amadeus by Falco. Ten points to whoever notices the when I sing the line mango cunt.
Er war ein Punker,
Und er lebte in der großen Stadt,
Es war Wien, war Vienna,
Wo er alles tat,
Er hatte Schulden denn er trank,
Doch ihn liebten alle Frauen,
Und jede rief,
Come on and rock me Amadeus…
Dave’s warbling was a welcome distraction and helped take our mind off the disgusting job at hand. With his horrendous German with added Scouse twang in our ears, we quickly made headway removing the bodies and in little time we were at ground level and grabbing a shovel, Butty started to dig and dig deep. Honestly, I’ve known shallower graves. He must have buried his stash 10ft down!
“Buried this deep enough have you?” I asked.
“I buried the other stashes deeper than this,” he replied, “I’ve been burying stuff since we were kids. Remember back in the early 80s when we had that mini earthquake? You were on the toilet and the house shook so much the loo broke and you were left crying sat in a puddle of your own piss and broken porcelain with your pants around your ankles?” Butty smirked.
“No,” I replied sheepishly.
I did remember, of course I did. The toilet exploding whilst you’re sat on it isn’t something you forget in a hurry! It just wasn’t something I wanted bringing up in front of 80s Dave. A story like this can result in a lifetime of japes and taunting from someone as sarcastic as my retro friend.
“Hang on, you take a piss sitting down. The girls way?” Dave laughed.
“I was only little I don’t do that now!” I attempted to explain.
“Yeah you do you piss sitting down, cat’s out of the bag now kidda. Why do I have to find out these little nuggets of gold when it’s the end of the world and everyone’s dead?” he moaned.
“Nice one Butty, why the hell did you have to bring that up?” I asked angrily.
“Because that earthquake was when my apocalypse obsession started and I began planning for every eventuality. I’ve got stuff buried all over this garden to suit any type of apocalypse you can think of. Natural disasters, alien invasions, robot uprisings… hey hang on that’s just reminded me. Dave, grab another shovel and start digging where the garden starts directly in front of the back door. After I watched Terminator back in 1984 I started burying any kind of technology I could find. Dunno why, I think I thought I would be able to use the stuff to build my own robot to fight off all the android assassin’s that would be coming after me. Anyway, there’s a Walkman in there I’m sure of it!” Butty explained.
Dave didn’t need to hear any more in fact he had grabbed a shovel and started digging upon hearing 1984!
In no time at all Dave had dug down to the large container and quickly he opened its lid. You should have seen the look on his little face. I have never seen someone so happy and full of wonder, it was like all of his Christmases had come at once. The first thing he lifted out was an original red with black lightning strike CP3 Alba Walkman and he held it above his head like he’d just won the World Cup.
“I’m fucking back lar!” he screamed with joy.
At the same time as Dave’s yell, Butty finally reached his stash and opened the container to reveal several med kits, multiple crowbars, hammers, cricket bats, an axe, food supplies (spam obviously) a C.B radio, two large holdalls and plenty of battery supplies of every size.
“Here!” Butty shouted, throwing a pack of batteries to Dave, “Fill your head full of Bananarama or whatever crap you like listening to.”
“Hey come on now Butty lad, don’t ruin my good mood, although Cruel Summer was a top tune and their early work with Fun Boy Three was acceptable. They can fuck right off with all that Robert De Niro talking Italian bollocks,” he said, placing the batteries into the Walkman. “No Bananarama for my ears Ace. There’s only one artist deserving of christening the Alba and that’s Gary Numan. Telekon I reckon, classic album!” he grinned, reaching into his bum bag , removing a tape and slotting it inside the Walkman then placing the headphones over his ears.
“It does surprise me that from all of the music from the 80s you like Gary Numan the best. He was well groomed, stylish and wore make up. The complete opposite of you. He’s err… what do you call it? Metro Sexual. What are you Dave?” I asked mocking him.
“Retro Sexual. Now fuck off!” came the reply.
Whilst Dave rooted through my brother’s robot uprising stash, we filled the two holdalls with the supplies. It was now close to four hours since we left Emily with Barry and I was eager for us to return.
After we had re-buried Butty’s robot uprising apocalypse stash (he had insisted on it believing a Terminator-esque Armageddon was still a possibility) we were now ready to leave. I glanced at Dave who had decided to help himself to more than just a Walkman. He was now wearing a 1980s vintage calculator watch! He almost snagged a retro wall clock shaped like a large wrist watch but Butty had insisted he put it back stating it was a very important anti robot defence weapon.
The journey back to Barry’s was similar to our trip back to the house. Only instead of Dave moaning about having to use a crowbar to kill zombies, he was happily chunnering along to the sounds of the 80s whilst thwarting any undead advances with his beloved battle
paddle. It amazed me how even when partially melted, a mayonnaise stirring paddle could still be an effective weapon against the living dead.
We returned to BJ & J Owens newsagents to see Barry slumped behind his counter with his head in his hands, presenting a look of both fear and panic.
“I’m sorry John she’s gone. I don’t know how or when but Emily’s gone. One minute she was sleeping and the next thing I knew she had vanished. I’m so sorry,” he informed apologetically, his voice filled with sorrow.
I was again filled with the same panic and fear from a few days earlier; when the zombie outbreak hit and Dave and I went in search of my daughter. Only this time it was different. This time she had more than zombies on her mind. This time she was out for blood, intent on revenge for Jonathon’s death. We had made a huge mistake in leaving her with Barry and now our plan had backfired, big time! Now she was gone and I had to find her before she did something stupid.
“How long has she been missing?” Butty asked of Barry.
“It’s hard to say. I checked on her just after you left this morning, then I opened up the shop and well, it must have been over an hour before I went into the store room again. That’s when I noticed she had gone. I ran outside after her but it was impossible to know which direction she had taken. I was hoping maybe she was heading back to the house to meet up with you guys,” Barry said sincerely.
“She knows as much as we do and that is that Jonathon’s killer drove away towards Weston Point. That’s where she’ll be going. Knowing our Emily she’ll knock down every door on every house until she finds the bastard,” Butty said.
“Well then, what the fuck are we waiting for? Let’s find some wheels and go look for her. Tool up boys and let’s get a move on. We’ve got about five hours of sunlight and we need to make the most of it. Thanks for the hospitality, Bazza, top notch lar and if I find myself back in the area I’ll pop in for a chat, a bag of Space Raiders and a jazz mag but I don’t think I’ll eat the Raiders first. The last thing I want is pickled onion fingers whilst knocking one out. Later Ace!” Dave said heading for the door.
“It’s not your fault Barry please don’t punish yourself. This is all my doing. Emily is strong minded, I should have seen this coming. Thanks for all your help and for letting us stay here last night, we won’t forget it,” I said.
“And thanks for my copy of Splosh, I shall treasure it always and here, take this…” Butty smiled, handing Barry one of his C.B. radios, “Keep in touch. If you have any problems at all you can always get hold of me on this. My handle is Lone Wolf. If for some strange reason I don’t answer just ask yourself one question, what would Lone Wolf do?”
Barry took the C.B. radio and gave my brother a look of both bewilderment and confusion. If facial expressions were words then Barry’s face was speechless. It’s an expression I recognised all too well as over the years I have witnessed it many times. On the faces of family members, friends (when he had some), postmen, door to door salesman, store workers and just about everyone that had come into contact with my brother.
Butty handed me a cricket bat from his stash and taking a crowbar for himself we left BJ & J Owens to begin our search for Emily. We knew where she was likely to be going but not the direction. We had decided it was highly unlikely she would have taken the direct route into Weston Point as it would have involved her passing her uncle’s house. She would not have risked being caught and what’s more, she would have believed Jonathon’s body to still be tied to a lamp post, not knowing that Dave had moved him inside the house. She wouldn’t put herself through the ordeal of seeing him like that. No, she would have chosen a different route, probably cutting through the back roads, taking her behind her Uncle’s house and into Weston Point that way.
“It’s what I would do and over the years I’ve tried to teach our Emily everything I know,” Butty concluded.
That was good enough for me so that’s where we headed only first we needed transport and further along the street was a small block of flats with secure, undercover parking. It was the logical place to look and Dave was a good 100 yards ahead of us by the time we left the shop, stopping only to search the bodies of the dead for any cigarettes they may have and thwarting the occasional attacking zombie with his battle paddle. The area was still relatively zombie free apart from a few stragglers that is. The lure of The Pavilions and the smell from the many corpses in the road was keeping the majority of the deaders away.
“What are you thinking brother?” I asked, hoping for a reply that would ease my tired and worried mind.
“I’m thinking we need to get Dave some nicotine patches to help him quit smoking. If he carries on at this rate there’ll soon be more stubbed out cigarette butts than corpses in this town. What was he like in work? I mean, I take it he wasn’t allowed to smoke whilst making mayonnaise?” Butty asked.
“Well it would take him five minutes to prepare a batch of mayo and then another five minutes for it to cook. So he would be smoking whilst the machinery mixed all the ingredients together. Then he’d come back, bring me a sample of the disgusting gloop to test then bugger off for another fag before coming back for the results. So that’s a fag every five minutes and Dave worked eight hour shifts with an hour lunch break and he could smoke even more during that time. He could probably get through over one hundred smokes in an eight hour shift,” I replied.
“How the hell is he still alive? I mean, I like a cigarette every now and again but he takes it to another level.” Butty asked with amazement.
How Dave is alive is a question I’ve asked myself many times over the years. I remember him going to the doctors with a chest infection. Dave was getting a little concerned that his excessive smoking was starting to impact his health so the docs did a lung capacity test and the results came back saying he was perfectly healthy and his lungs were fine. He celebrated by going on a ciggie run to France, bringing back thousands of cartons of fags! The man is a smoking machine!
We arrived at the entrance to the car park which was secured by large steel garage doors. There we found Dave waiting for us, leaning against the wall casually smoking a tab.
“That was quite a profitable little jaunt. 6 packets of ciggies I found in the pockets of the dead. That’s the great thing about this town. Every other person smokes. Here you go Butty lad suck on one of these,” he said, throwing a cigarette to my brother. “I’ll tell you what though, I found a couple of those vapour cigarette thingummyjigs. You know the type, the ones that look like Dr fucking Who’s sonic screwdriver. It’s a good job the zombies came before those things got really popular or bifters could be sparse lad. Why would you smoke one of those things anyway? If you’re gonna quit then quit. Don’t puff on something that looks like a nose hair trimmer because you think it makes you look cool. It doesn’t, it makes you look like a cu…”
Cutting Dave off mid rant was a horrific groan, echoing through the interior of the undercover car park. I peeked through the metal barred window to see a young women wearing a dark blue business suit with a white blouse. She had blood dried around her mouth, neck and blouse and in her right hand she dragged behind her a small travel suitcase. She was shuffling without direction with one ankle twisted, pulling along a broken foot tucked inside a broken high heeled shoe.
“Look at the state of this,” Dave said, “dressed up like some high powered business women. I hate yuppies like this, always chasing the fucking coin and what’s the deal with the suitcase? They all drag those silly little suitcases with the massive handles around don’t they? Suppose it makes them look important like they always have somewhere they need to be. A tenner says there’s nothing inside but a make-up bag and a copy of Take a Break.”
“Can you see any other zombies in the car park?” Butty asked, unzipping his holdall and rooting through the contents before retrieving a very large crowbar.
I looked again through the barred window. The winter sunlight partially lit the inside of the car park and from what I
could see, the zombie business woman was the only one in there. Beyond her were several parked cars. I turned to my brother and shook my head, informing that no other zombies were visible.
Butty forced a crowbar underneath the metal shutters then he began pulling and tugging, loosening the steel garage door from its frame. In no time at all he had forced a gap big enough for us to crawl through.
“Are you coming then or are you going to stay here holding your dicks all day? I’ll go first and dispose of the zombie,” Butty informed.
“No chance Ace, I saw her first. I’m gonna ram that suitcase so far down her throat she’ll need a rectal examination to open it. Hold this Johnny boy…” Dave grinned, handing me his battle paddle before crawling through the gap in the garage door.
Butty and I followed him into the garage then watched as without a weapon and whilst smoking a cigarette Dave casually approached the zombie, like it was the most natural thing in the world. His fleshy scent launched the deader into a frenzy and it began moving towards him, drooling and gnashing its teeth. Now if you can remember, Dave was the only one of us not wearing zombie limb links as he didn’t want to ruin his retro threads.
“I always have this effect on the birds,” he smirked, “alright calm down girl you’ll ladder your tights if you don’t control yourself!”
The zombie girl made a grab for Dave who expertly dodged her advances and positioned himself behind her. Before she had figured out where her intended meal had moved to, he grabbed the suitcase out of her hand and began smashing it hard into her face until she was no more. His final face smash shattered the suitcase and out of it fell a make-up bag and a copy of Hello Magazine.
“You owe us both a tenner. Take a Break you said, that’s Hello Magazine,” I informed smugly.
“Ah fuck, it was a pretty good guess though,” Dave replied.
Dave searched the dead zombie’s pockets, finding a purse and inside it a £20 note.
The Death in a Northern Town Trilogy (Books 1-3): Welcome To Dead Town Page 30