Dead Bones - Six Pack. The Ultimate Zombie Collection

by Ian Woodhead

  The young girl giggled, “Oh, I know which one is Darren’s bedroom.” She winked, then ran her moist tongue over her lips. “I’ll make sure that the bed is nice and warm for when you get back.”

  The warm night air cleared away some of the dope fog when he stepped out into the rubbish-strewn garden. He pushed past a couple of young girls, both wearing next to fuck all, and grabbed the catch on the side gate.

  “For fuck’s sake,” he said when he noticed the huge padlock. “Where the hell did that come from?”

  He found it a little ironic that Darren’s dad had started to lock up the gate that led to the back garden, like there was anything in there worth nicking.

  Now that he was away from the music, he could hear the sirens; it looked as though they weren’t speeding past like he’d first assumed. They sounded pretty close. Ashton wondered what was happening. He guessed that a bunch of kids must have set fire to an old mill or something. Ashton then realised that he didn’t really give a shit, and if he didn’t hurry up and have a piss he’d end up soaking his trousers. He climbed over the gate, squeezed past the disassembled remains of a couple of rusted motorbikes, and hurried through the side yard. Then he jumped onto the half-completed patio that Darren’s dad had started building a few years ago. He saw a nice patch of greenery and ran over to it.

  Ashton unzipped his fly and watered a patch of nettles, sighing in contentment. He closed his eyes and smiled at the thought of that young tart upstairs patiently waiting for him. What the fuck was that tart’s name? His eyes shot open at the sound of two large explosions detonating further up the estate.

  “Jesus! It’s a bit fucking lively round here tonight. Where the fuck do you get fireworks in July?”

  He jerked his head down to the ground when he felt a sharp stinging sensation at the end of his penis. His first thought, that he’d strayed too close to those nettles, evaporated when he saw an old woman had crawled out of those weeds. She had gripped the tip of his penis in her outstretched hand. It was Darren’s mother.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he shrieked.

  He screeched as the woman squeezed his shaft tight and pulled him closer to her open mouth. In panic, he swung back his leg and kicked the woman full force in her side. It had no effect. It was like booting a rolled up carpet.

  “Get off me, you bitch!” he sobbed.

  Oh God! The pain was unbearable, but it was nothing compared to the excruciating agony that crashed through his body when she clamped her teeth around his penis. She then snapped her teeth together, slicing it in two. Ashton collapsed, gasping. He was close to passing out. She crawled over his prone body. He tried to push her off, but the shock had made him as weak as a baby and paralyzed with fear.

  He looked towards the gate in the hope that someone had heard his screams; instead, he saw another crawling figure heading towards him. It was the last thing he ever saw before the woman fastened her jaws around the side of his neck.

  Chapter Two

  It almost felt as though that black window across the street was taunting him, laughing at the fact that he’d wasted his time in formulating his oh-so-clever plan. How long dare he wait? She had never been this late before. This was so unfair. Where the bloody hell was she tonight? Kevin Riley glared at his binoculars. It felt like they were mocking him now, those twin eyepieces almost forming a black glower of their own. He laid them down on the windowsill and counted to five before tearing his eyes away from the window.

  His special lady had not missed a single erotic session in all the three weeks and two days that he had been sighing through his own bedroom window. None of the old dirty mags that he’d stolen from his dad’s huge stash or the streaming porn videos that he’d watched could compare with what Mrs. Bradley had been showing him every night.

  It was fifteen minutes past her scheduled time, and no matter how hard Kevin Riley willed it, that comforting, warm, peach glow did not illuminate her room. The curtains had not been thrown back, and Andrea Whitley’s mum was not going to dance in front of her window whilst very slowly taking off every item of clothing.

  “I can’t see anything, Kev. Does this mean that the woman hasn’t shown up? Well, that’s fucked you up, ain’t it? How are you gonna get your nightly perv?”

  Kevin placed his binoculars back into their case and turned around to glare at the heavyset boy kneeling on his bed and messing up his Doctor Who quilt cover. His glare increased in intensity when he saw that Thom Crowley was reaching towards his First World War bayonet fastened to the wall.

  “It won’t come off the wall, you know. My dad’s, like, welded it on.”

  He really wanted to tell Thom to stop messing about with his stuff, but that wasn’t going to happen. The lad was twice his size and like a million times harder.

  Kevin now realised that he’d made a major mistake inviting this stupid meathead into his house. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time to ask him to come over. He’d never told anyone about what Andrea’s mum had been getting up to these past few nights before, but what was the point of having a little secret if you couldn’t share it? Especially if it helped out Kevin’s dire situation. Of all the idiots in school, Thom was the only one who treated him with a smidgen of decency. By that, he meant that the lad didn’t nick his money or kick the crap out of him every other day like all the other meatheads in school did.

  He was also a tough little bastard. Nobody messed with Thom Crowley, even the older youths. It made sense, at least to him, that if he could hook up with Thom then perhaps the others would leave him alone.

  Kevin watched the boy slide one of his plastic soldiers along the edge of the bayonet, and came to the conclusion that bringing him here was probably the worst idea he’d ever had. Thom was just like the others, a total dickhead.

  The boy had already broken an aerial off one of his Space Marines and was now busy cutting a German paratrooper in two.

  “I don’t think that your girlfriend is going to give us a show tonight.” Thom threw the two pieces of soldier at him and laughed. “I would have never guessed that you, of all people, would have turned out to be such a little perv. Come to think of it, you probably just made it all up. Fuck knows why, but I do know that if some milf was flashing off her tits and crack, that news would be all over the estate faster than bad curry through a drunken bastard.” He giggled then frowned. “Bloody hell, this headache is driving me bat-shit. Has your mum got any aspirins?”

  “It’s not perving,” Kevin replied, ignoring Thom’s request for painkillers. “She does it right in front of her window with her light on. She ought to close her curtains. I mean, she may as well stand in the middle of the street and do it.”

  He picked up the two pieces of his soldier and put them on the windowsill next to his binocular case. He’d have a go at repairing him when he’d gotten rid of the meathead.

  “Are you saying you wouldn’t look?”

  “Of course I fucking would,” Thom replied. “But you have those binoculars so it’s perving, innit!”

  Kevin sighed.

  “Now, if it was Andrea herself stripping off in that bedroom window, or your lovely sister, then I’d watch through your binoculars,” Thom went on, grinning. “Fuck that, no, if they were up for showing off their body to any passing cunt, then I’d just march into that house and give them a good servicing.”

  Kevin just couldn’t understand why all the boys around the estate drooled over his bitch of a sister. As far as he was concerned, she was a right ugly dog, with a horrible personality.

  Thom gave that bayonet one last look before he climbed off the bed. “So, what do we do now? I bet you don’t have any beer in the house, or any fags.”

  Kevin didn’t have a clue what to do now; he hadn’t thought that far in advance. That was a lie. He did know what he wanted. He needed to get Thom out of his house before he destroyed anything else in his bedroom.

  “Are you going to ask your mum for some aspirin or what?”
>
  Kevin silently groaned at the sound of the front door slamming shut, which did not bode well. He guessed that his loving sister had just returned from wherever the hell she’d gone, a few hours earlier than he had expected. Her coming back so early could only mean that somebody had upset the hard-faced bitch. That meant she’d take out all her frustrations on her little brother.

  “Whoa!” gasped Thom. “What the fuck is going on out there? Did you see that?” He pushed past Kevin and pressed his face against the glass.

  Kevin spun around, casting aside his worry over what his sister would do to him, and gazed through the window. The night sky was lit up like a Christmas tree. There were lights from cop cars everywhere. He opened the window and peered out.

  “What can you see? Has anyone been killed?”

  Kevin shook his head. He didn’t think that any of the police cars were inside the estate. It looked like they were around the perimeter. He wondered if a robbery was taking place. There were lots of shops just beyond the estates, including a couple of banks, so it was a possibility.

  “I bet you that some fuckers been murdered. That’s the only reason why there’ll be so many pigs crawling around.”

  Kevin was almost about to suggest that his notion of a robbery was a bit more realistic when he saw the meathead’s shining eyes. This little thug really did want to hear about a gruesome murder. That gave him a good idea. It might even get the boy out of his bedroom. He took the binoculars out of their case. “Why don’t we go have a look then, Thom?”

  The big lad smiled, “Now that sounds like a good plan to me. Are those things any good?”

  Kevin handed them over, “They are the best money can buy. Look, focus in on that house over the road. The one with the high brick fence around it. You can even count the petals on the roses with those beauties.”

  Thom kneeled down and brought the glasses up to his face. After a moment he dropped them onto the carpet. “What are you going on about? There are no flowers in that garden. Just a great big bloody hole in the middle of the lawn.”

  Kevin’s retort fell from his lips when he heard his sister banging about in the kitchen. By the sound of it, the bitch really was in a foul mood tonight. A sense of urgency crept into his bones. He just had to get Thom out of here without her seeing them. There was no way that he could suffer a confrontation with her tonight.

  Thom scooped the binoculars off the carpet and stood up. Kevin noticed that the meathead had wrapped his thick fingers firmly around his binoculars. He got the uncomfortable feeling that he would never hold them again.

  Was the loss of a vintage pair of binoculars a small price to pay to get this lump of meat out of his bedroom? After some considerable thought, Kevin decided that it was.

  Kevin peered through the window. Even without the binoculars, he saw a huge expanse of darkness where the man’s flowers used to be. It was very strange.

  “He’s probably planting a tree or something,” he replied. “Even so, you have to admit, the detail is pretty sharp.”

  “I’ve seen better,” Thom replied.

  Somehow, Kevin doubted that.

  The meathead walked over to the bed, picked up his combat jacket and threw it over his shoulder. “You ain’t gonna puke on me if there is a dead body, are you? Cos if you do, I’ll fucking make you lick it off.”

  “Of course I’m not going to throw up,” Kevin replied, grinning. “I didn’t puke when they buried my grandma a couple of years ago. In fact, I was the only one who didn’t cry.” Indeed, Kevin had wept out a large puddle when his grandma died, but Thom wouldn’t know that.

  His ears detected the sound of heavy footfalls on the stair carpet. That had to be Claire. The bitch was either going to the toilet or … his blood ran cold … or the bitch would burst in here at any moment and give Kevin both barrels of her volatile temper. Kevin ran over to the door. There was no way that he’d let her do that.

  Bugger it, he’d let Thom take the flak, while he hid in the bathroom.

  “I won’t be a moment, I just need to piss.”

  He hurried out of his bedroom before Thom had a chance to answer. Kevin pushed open the door next to his, entered his bathroom and slammed the bolt home. He loathed leaving that idiot in his bedroom alone, amongst all his valuable gear, but what else could he do? There was no way that he’d be able to withstand another showdown with his sister.

  Kevin double-checked to make sure that he’d locked the door, then padded over to the toilet. His traitorous mind showed him his sister barging into his bedroom and the meathead holding up Kevin’s binoculars before explaining in great detail what her younger brother used them for. Between the pair of them, the news that he was some sort of weird perv would be all around the school for Monday dinnertime. Kevin would be a laughingstock for months.

  Oh Jesus, he needed to get a grip on his out-of-control neurosis. Kevin’s new hobby wouldn’t even enter Thom’s small mind. The meathead would be too busy staring at Claire’s tits. Kevin remembered that dirty slut’s green dress. Thom’s poor eyes wouldn’t stand a chance.

  There was nothing else for it; somehow, Kevin would just have to persuade Thom to come back tomorrow night. Andrea’s mum had yet to miss a performance on a Saturday. Last week had been very exciting, especially when she stood on something to reach the top of the curtains. Kevin’s eyes had almost popped out of his head when her bush came into view.

  If Thom only saw the way that woman moved as she danced, he’d be hooked. Hell, if the meathead caught a glimpse of what he’d witnessed last night, he’d never tell a soul. It would be their special secret. He would have a friend for life. No fucker at school would dare lay a finger on poor Kevin.

  He unzipped his fly and lifted the toilet lid while wondering whom else on the estate watched her strip off and dance naked in front of her window. Kevin couldn’t be the only one who eagerly waited for her to perform. He bet that he was the only one who had a decent set of binoculars, though.

  The dark tiles received a spray of piss when someone hammered on the bathroom door. He clenched his teeth so he wouldn’t say anything that would earn him a slapping later on.

  “For fuck’s sake, come on, you annoying little bastard. Get the fuck out of there; I need to have a shit.”

  His sister had such an eloquent way with words. “I won’t be long!” he shouted back.

  The woman banged on the door one more time. He looked back. Hell, it sounded like she’d fallen against it. Why didn’t his parents have the bitch adopted when she was younger? He so hated that girl.

  He slowly zipped himself up, taking his time. He wasn’t going to rush for her. Kevin frowned as he heard her tapping on the door. What was she doing out there? That wasn’t tapping. It sounded like scratching, as if she was trying to dig her way through the bloody wood.

  “I said, I won’t be long,” he shouted.

  This was so unfair. It looked like he was going to get his confrontation after all. Kevin should have stayed where he was. He and Thom could have then slipped out while she was busy in the toilet.

  Kevin unlocked the door and grabbed the handle, knowing for a fact that this day just couldn’t get any worse. As he turned the handle, the door flew back, almost knocking him into the bath. Kevin gasped in horror as two figures spilled into the room. Claire fell onto the hard floor, with the other boy landing on her stomach.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Thom?”

  Kevin jumped back as Thom’s arm snaked out and tried to grab his leg. The blows that Claire rained down on her assailant were having no effect. Her eyes met Kevin’s; the look of desperation and terror he saw in there kicked him into action.

  He ran forward and grabbed the back of Thom’s hair and pulled. He found himself flying back into the wall, holding a handful of black hair. Thom didn’t even scream out.

  “Get the fuck off my sister!” Kevin yelled.

  Thom lunged towards the screaming girl. Her shrieks intensified as he fastened his teeth on h
er cheek and bit down. Her shrieking abruptly stopped when Thom pulled his head back, leaving behind a bloodied red hole in the side of her face. He spat out the chunk of flesh, fastened his bloodstained teeth around the side of Claire’s neck, and clamped his jaw shut.

  Kevin tore his gaze away from the dying light in his sister’s eyes and looked down at the boy sitting on Claire’s chest; he’d sat back up with his mouth full of his sister’s flesh and was chewing like a contented cow.

  Thom turned his head. He stopped chewing and began to moan, and Kevin’s eyes widened in disbelief when Claire began to move again and started to moan too.

  “Claire?”

  Her eyes were as still as those in a filleted fish. He knew that she was dead and yet she still moved. His mind tilted to one side and threatened to shut down completely. His instinct for self-preservation only reasserted itself when he spotted that Thom still had hold of his pissing binoculars. He snatched them from his fingers and brought them down upon the top of Thom’s head.

  “These are mine, you fucking murderer,” he sobbed.

  Kevin pulled them out of the top of Thom’s head, watching in morbid fascination as the circular indentation he’d left in the top of the boy’s head began to fill up with dark red blood. Thom didn’t seem to notice that he’d been hurt. Kevin brought them down again, harder this time, then jumped over the sprawl of legs and arms. He looked back to see Claire pushing the now still body off her.

  There was no doubt that his sister had become just like Thom.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, as tears ran down his face.

  She groaned louder when he took a step back.

  “I’ll get help, Claire, I promise. Don’t you …”

  Kevin groaned himself as he gazed down the stairs and saw that some man had crawled through the open doorway and had climbed up a couple of stairs. He gazed in complete shock at this abomination, knowing that this dead thing should not be moving. Kevin fell against the wall, feeling his senses shutting down as he watched it, wrapped in filthy rags and wet mud, heaving its broken torso up the steps one at a time while leaving behind a slug trail of dirt.