The Undead_Day 22

by R. R. Haywood

  ‘Oh okay,’ she says lightly. ‘Maybe he didn’t like dogs before or something.’

  Gregori looks at her, then down at his feet while she frantically wriggles but he catches sight of the motion in his peripheral vision and looks back as she pretends to scratch her side. ‘Bit itchy…so no dogs then? That’s so interesting…’ she lifts the arm holding the towel pressed against her body enough for the material to slide down and away while she yelps and tries to catch it but misses and fumbles as she steps and tries ever so hard to cover her modesty before glancing up to see he has gone then stands upright with her hands on her hips. ‘Definitely gay,’ she grumbles, slamming the bathroom door closed.

  ‘What this?’ Gregori asks, picking the box up in the kitchen.

  ‘Frosties,’ the boy replies. Crunching away on the golden flakes as Gregori takes a few to eat then grimaces with distaste.

  ‘Is sugar.’

  The boy carries on eating, watching Gregori closely.

  ‘Is too much,’ Gregori says. ‘Make sick, make fat…’

  ‘I like Frosties. Tony the Tiger likes them…’

  ‘Who Tony?’

  ‘Tony!’ the boy says as though the answer is obvious, reaching up to tap the picture of a cartoon tiger on the front of the box that Gregori studies closely.

  ‘Tiger no eat sugar. Eat animals.’

  ‘Like dogs?’ the boy asks hopefully.

  ‘Cassie say you no like dog.’

  ‘It bit Jennifer.’

  ‘Who Jennifer?’

  ‘And Mohammed and Kate and Rachel and Oliver and…’ a stream of names flows from the boy. English, Indian, Polish, men and women. He stops to chew, swallows and carries on while Gregori watches him with a scowl.

  ‘The things? The dog bite things?’

  ‘It bit Paco.’

  ‘Paco? Who Paco?’

  ‘The man from the movie.’

  Gregori gives up and puts the box of cereal down to look round for healthier food. They need fruit and vegetables. Good nutritious food. Not sugary food filled with chemicals. He looks to the window and across the grounds to the treeline in the distance. ‘You no bring things?’ he asks.

  ‘No, Gregoreeeee.’

  ‘Boy, look at me. You bring things here?’

  ‘I said no, Gregoreeee!’ the boy sing songs the reply, spooning more dry cereal into his mouth.

  ‘I check. I see and I kill,’ Gregori says, pulling his pistol from his belt to show the boy who just shrugs and eats while swinging his legs as Cassie strides in and heads for the kettle, flicking the switch down and staring for a few seconds before cursing under her breath.

  ‘No power,’ Gregori says.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she says, stepping to the gas hob to light the pan of water. ‘Go to bloody Ann Summers at this rate…’

  ‘What this?’ Gregori asks.

  ‘What?’ she asks.

  ‘Who Ann? The dog bite Ann?’

  ‘What dog?’ she asks, turning to scowl at him while he scowls at her while the boy eats Frosties.

  ‘The dog, it bite Mohammed and…’

  ‘Oh that dog,’ she says. ‘No Ann Summers is a shop…doesn’t matter.’

  ‘What shop?’

  ‘Just a shop. Coffee?’

  ‘Coffee shop.’

  ‘No, Gregori. Would you like a coffee?’

  ‘I like coffee yes. I check now.’

  ‘Check what?’ she asks.

  ‘Outside. For things. Make sure boy no bring here.’

  ‘Right,’ she says. ‘Go do that.’

  ‘I do that.’

  ‘Go on then,’ she says, shooing the hardened killer away while she rattles mugs to plonk down a little bit too loudly.

  ‘We need the fruit,’ he says, unlocking the back door. ‘And vegetables.’

  ‘Great,’ she says, smiling at him with a lot of teeth showing.

  ‘Sugar,’ he says, aiming the gun at Tony the Tiger.

  ‘Okay,’ she says, showing more teeth.

  ‘I check now.’

  ‘Fine. Go check,’ she says in a way that suggests he either goes and checks or drops dead. He goes out to check, scowling at her scowling at him while the boy eats Frosties.

  She takes a handful of Frosties to eat and tussles the boy’s head.

  ‘Get fat,’ he says with a giggle.

  ‘Then we’ll get fat together and be big fatty fat faces waddling after Gregori,’ she says, mouthing more Frosties. The boy giggles more, his legs swinging harder as she puffs her cheeks out and holds her arms out from her side. ‘I’m a fatty fat face,’ she says deeply, waddling on the spot as the boy laughs harder. ‘GREGORI SAID NO EAT SUGAR…’ she affects an accent as she bellows, hearing the boy squeal with laughter from his chair at the table. ‘I GREGORI…I EAT CLOUDS AND HEALTHY GRASS AND…’ she stops on turning, freezing at the sight of him in the doorway, the pistol in his hand at his side. ‘Coffee?’ she asks lightly.

  It is in the nature of the world that doing anything with a child takes an inordinate amount of time and the boy eats the Frosties slowly then drinks water slowly before going upstairs with Cassie to wash and dress slowly while Gregori prowls the ground floor then finally stands at the base of the stairs glaring up until they come down.

  ‘Day is gone,’ he says gruffly.

  ‘It’s still early,’ she replies, waving a hand at him.

  ‘We go.’

  ‘Yes, we’re going. Where’s the sun cream?’

  He shrugs, scowling.

  ‘He needs sun cream, it’s blazing hot.’

  He shrugs, scowling. ‘In car.’

  ‘In the car? Okay, we can do it on the way.’

  ‘We go.’

  ‘Yes! We’re going. Sorry, I didn’t realise we’re on a tight schedule.’

  ‘Come we go,’ the boy sing songs the words, skipping from the house across the parking area to the car.

  ‘Come we go,’ Cassie says deeply, affecting the accent as she puffs up to being fat again, trying to get through the door with Gregori standing stony-faced behind her. The boy bursts out laughing, clapping his hands in delight. ‘I fat. I stuck,’ Cassie rumbles.

  ‘We go,’ Gregori says from behind her.

  ‘Just having fun, Gregori,’ she says, walking on and turning to watch him lock the door then go round the car, visually checking the wheels

  ‘What’s that for?’ she asks, pausing with her door open.

  ‘Check,’ he grunts.

  ‘For what? Gregori? What are you checking for?’

  He opens the back door, nodding at the boy to get in. ‘Belt.’

  ‘Yes, Gregori,’ the boy skips round to clamber in, twisting to pull his belt over while Gregori watches to make sure he fastens it properly.

  ‘Sheesh, hurry up,’ Cassie says, wincing at the heat in the car as she sits in the passenger seat. ‘Get the engine on it’s bloody boiling in here.’

  ‘Cassie said bloody.’

  ‘Don’t say that word you little snitchy pants,’ she twists round to waggle a finger at him, pulling a face to make him laugh as Gregori gets in. ‘So, handsome…where are you taking us?’

  Gregori glances over, the scowl ever-present. Pistol into the central console, another one in the pocket of the door that he closes securely. Keys turned, check the warning lights, turn again, start the engine, listen for any noises that shouldn’t be there while reminding himself the vehicle is a diesel estate with front-wheel drive.

  ‘Okay,’ Cassie says brightly. ‘Great chat, mystery tour it is then.’

  ‘Town,’ he says gruffly. ‘Belt.’

  She tuts, pulling her belt across. ‘There’s no police now.’

  ‘It make noise if no belt.’

  ‘Oh, and there was me thinking you cared,’ she says sweetly, giving him a big grin. ‘I’m so going to make you laugh one day.’

  He doesn’t react but pulls away, driving gently from the parking area down the long drive towards the old country road that
feeds to the main carriageway. Forested treeline in all directions stretching away for miles. A natural clearing in which the house sits. Tranquil and gorgeous but dull as dishwater.

  ‘Have you ever laughed?’ Cassie asks after a few minutes of near silence that carry on when he doesn’t answer. ‘I hate it when you do that.’

  ‘What?’ Gregori asks.

  ‘Ignore me. Have you ever laughed?’

  ‘I watch road.’

  ‘There’s no other cars. Have you ever laughed?’ she tuts again and twists to look at the boy, ‘have you ever seen him laugh?’

  ‘No,’ the boy shakes his head in the way of a child, rotating fully side to side. ‘He cried at the park.’

  ‘What?’ she asks.

  ‘I no do this.’

  ‘He cried?’ she asks, then twists to look at Gregori. ‘You cried?’

  ‘I no do this,.’

  ‘At the park,’ the boy calls out. ‘He fell down.’

  ‘You fell down?’

  Gregori stiffens in the seat, tightening his hand on the steering wheel as he thinks back to pushing the boy on the swings while losing his mind as the things came out of the houses. He shot a few before lying down to let them take him. Except they didn’t and when he sat up the boy was running around their legs while they watched as docile as ever.

  ‘I can’t imagine you crying.’

  ‘I no cry.’

  ‘Everyone cries. It’s fine.’

  ‘I no do this.’

  ‘Okay okay. Take it easy.’

  ‘No say I do when I not do this thing.’

  ‘Okay, Gregori.’ He snaps his head over, glaring hard. ‘Watch the road,’ she says, pointing forward.

  ‘I no cry,’ he mutters, turning to watch the road.

  ‘Maybe you hurt your knee,’ she says quietly, lightly.

  ‘I no hurt knee!’

  ‘Joking! It was a joke. Lighten up for fuck’s sake…’

  ‘No say…’

  ‘Okay. Yes, Gregori. No swearing.’

  Silence. Then a small voice from the back. ‘Cassie said fuck.’

  ‘Don’t say that word,’ she says.

  ‘No say this word,’ Gregori says at the same time.

  Silence.

  Cassie prods the radio knobs, turning dials and wishing modern cars still put CD players in their music systems. She hums softly, turning the hazard warning lights on for a few seconds to watch the switch blink with the tick tick noise until Gregori reaches over to switch it off.

  She hums, turns a dial, plays with the air vent then turns the hazard warning lights back on, watching it glow on and off with that ticking noise until he reaches over to turn it off.

  She checks her nails, opens the glovebox, mooches through the contents and turns the hazard warning lights on as Gregori slams on the brakes, making Cassie and the child lean into their seatbelts.

  Silence.

  Tick. Tick. Cassie sits back, shifting to get comfy. Tick. Tick. Gregori grips the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. Tick. Tick. The boy stares at the button, then at Cassie, then at Gregori.

  Gregori goes to speak but before the words come out she flashes a hand out to turn the hazard warning lights off before sitting and staring around at the countryside as though nothing happened. ‘Are we going then?’

  ‘You are child,’ he pulls away, building the speed up on the wide road as they pass a road sign for whatever god-forsaken shitty northern town they’ll end up in.

  They reach the outskirts of whatever god-forsaken shitty northern town this is, and Cassie lifts her upper lip at the signs of death and carnage strewn about the streets as Gregori slows the car to gain watch and study the angles, junctions, doorways and windows. Scenting the air like a dog. His head cocked and his mouth open to listen. Every sense straining.

  She winces at a mangled corpse covered in writhing maggots then up to the smear of blood on the wall above it. Another body a few metres away. Bloodied footprints and a wake of damage that speaks of the route the infected took as they charged through. More here and there. More death. More broken bodies. A woman in a plaid skirt with her left leg but a bloodied stump. Her mother had a skirt like that.

  The thought sparks a flood of memories. Thoughts of her home and life. Her mother and father. Images in her mind of her house and friends. Pain rushes in, sudden, overwhelming and unseen by Gregori or the boy as they both study the world outside the car.

  She grips the door handle, hardly breathing, her body tensing. Grief and loss hitting with the utter realisation that the world is over and in ruins. Broken windows. Broken buildings. Broken bodies. She thinks about what she did yesterday. She took life. She masturbated in the shower thinking of Gregori taking life. She is just as broken. Just as corrupt and tainted. She can’t breathe. She can’t see. She clamps her eyes closed while her head spins. She killed. She took life. She is a freak and the reaction to her own evil is stark and powerful. An insight of the beast within. A view of herself and what she sees is black and rotten until something inside reacts to her own introspection. Another voice that grows louder and rises up as a weird feeling comes over her, like the time she was injected with a sedative that spread through her body like a strange heat. It’s like that now but coming from within to blossom and radiate out until but seconds later there is just a deep calmness that dilates her pupils and makes her sink into the seat with a low groan that goes by as unheard as the turmoil she felt but a minute before and when she looks out she does so with new eyes to see a world that isn’t broken or ruined at all.

  This is a new world. A brave new world and theirs for the taking. She locks eyes on the boy in the wing mirror and sees the flash of the thing within him that makes her heart skip a beat.

  ‘Know what?’ she asks, laughing sudden and bright. ‘We, my lovelies, are going to have a nice day today…’

  Three

  Day Twenty Three

  Danny was exiled yesterday. It was his own fault.

  ‘I’m sorry but he’s got to go,’ Keiron told the two dozen or so people taking refuge in the ruins of the old castle at the edge of their town. Danny knew Keiron wasn’t sorry at all. Danny was a reminder of a life his mum had before she met Keiron.

  The old castle wasn’t that old either. It was built in the last century by a wealthy American who decided he wanted a castle on his land. Then the American died, and the castle fell into disrepair and ended up looking more of an old castle than real old castles.

  It did, however, have a working drawbridge and a big moat full of deep water so when the end of days came the locals rushed across the drawbridge, plugged the gaps in the walls with scaffolding boards and took refuge.

  They’d done well too and lasted without serious incident for twenty-two days, but Danny’s behaviour was isolating him and in such a closely packed environment it stood out too much.

  ‘He’s too angry…too weird…’ Keiron said while his mates stood flanking Danny, holding their bats and lengths of wood ready. Danny glanced over to his mother who just looked away while holding Danny’s step-brother and step-sister to her skirts.

  ‘Don’t look at your mum,’ Keiron snapped. ‘You keep telling me you’re a man now…’

  ‘I am,’ Danny muttered.

  ‘Good. Then you can fuck off and be a super soldier then…’

  Danny hated hiding. He’d been an army cadet and was just about to join the military when the world ended. He kept saying they should be out there fighting and taking back their town. He said his dad wouldn’t hide like a coward. Then Keiron and a few of his mates pinned Danny down and threatened him with a hiding if he didn’t pack it in.

  Then on the dawn of the seventh day, Danny became increasingly agitated until he was pacing up and down clenching his fists without knowing why. If that wasn’t bad enough he suddenly broke down and wept, then surged up with a wild look and ran for the drawbridge.

  ‘I’LL FIGHT…I’LL FIGHT…’ he screamed until Keiron and his mates dr
agged him back in and locked him in a tiny storeroom where they heard him muttering the Lord’s prayer. They left him in there for two days.

  It happened a few more times after that. Odd times when Danny would suddenly tense and become agitated, his eyes hardening and the veins in his forehead bulging out, but then Danny had always been an angry difficult child, so his mother just put it down to stress and didn’t intervene when Keiron and his mates locked him away.

  ‘You’re a fucking coward,’ Danny told Keiron as he was shoved in the storeroom.

  ‘What did you call me?’ Keiron demanded, pushing through his mates to grab Danny round the throat.

  ‘Coward…you’re a fucking coward…’ Danny couldn’t help it. The anger inside was too strong, the rage was too powerful.

  Keiron punched him the belly. It was a hard punch too and Danny bent double, gasping for air. ‘Little cunt,’ Keiron told him.

  ‘Coward,’ Danny said, standing upright with a glint in his eye.

  Keiron was big too. A builder with solid arms and shoulders, and a gut to match from nights spent in the pub and he’d always used that bigger size to keep Danny in check, threatening him constantly, hitting him often and the beating that followed only ended when Keiron got too out of breath to continue and leant against the wall while Danny stared up at him with that wild glint still in his eyes.

  Then, on the eighteenth day, it came back stronger than ever and Danny once again tried to leave, and once again Keiron and his mates tried stopping him, except this time, Danny put Keiron on his arse. Not only did he put him on his arse, but he took him off his feet with a huge punch before Keiron went down on his arse, and Danny then proceeded to take on Keiron’s mates, knocking them left, right and centre.

  ‘STOP IT!’ his mother screamed at him, rushing in front of him while all around him the men stood shocked and bloodied.

  The beating that followed that was the worse one by far. They used sticks to do it as clearly fists and feet weren’t enough for Danny. Keiron even made his mates hold Danny down and used his leather belt across Danny’s back for a few minutes thinking he’d finally bring the boy to heel, but Danny started raging again so they scuttled out and locked the door.