by Ian Woodhead
Dean shrugged, “Face facts, Talbot. This plague is spreading faster than even you predicted. We have to work with the material we have on hand.”
“Fair enough. It’s worth a try, I suppose.”
Dean pulled him off the sofa, threw him to the floor, and sat on Mark’s chest.
“Oh, god, please don’t kill me,” pleaded Mark. He gazed into the blond man’s eyes, searching for any sign of compassion.”
“He really is a whiney little bitch.”
“Just hold his head still, Talbot.”
Man Mountain’s upside down head appeared above Mark’s face. The man’s hands locked his head still; Mark felt like he’d just been placed in a vice.
“You were willing to let your dead family convert you into one of those filthy things a few moments ago, why the sudden change of mind?”
The man wedged Mark’s head between his knees then forced his mouth open. Mark watched in horror and revulsion as the other guy sliced through his own forearm with one of his fingernails and held the dripping arm directly over Mark’s mouth.
Several drops of glutinous, black syrup fell onto his tongue and flowed down Mark’s throat. He gagged and attempted to cough the stuff out. The vile stuff tasted like rotting shellfish.
Both men climbed off him, but he couldn’t move. His muscles locked him as rigid as a board. Volcano heat spread through his body as Mark screamed his throat raw. Abruptly as it started, the pain just vanished.
Mark grinned, he couldn’t help it. The euphoric sensation sweeping his body made the pain seem like a very bad dream.
Welcome, brother. The two voices said inside his head.
Mark slowly sat up and looked at the two smiling men in adoration.
He returned their smile. “Thank you for the gift.” He whispered.
Mark then noticed a slight frown flow across Dean’s face.
“What’s the matter?”
Tears rolled down Dean’s cheek. “I’m so sorry, he said. “It isn’t working.”
Mark didn’t understand what he meant. He felt fine, better then fine. Then, without warning, the intense pain returned, and Mark folded over in excruciating stomach cramps. Before his eyes, Mark’s fingers began to rot and liquefy. The last words he heard before the rest of his body turned to wet mush was Dean sobbing out the words ‘photocopy of a photocopy’.
Chapter Fifteen
Dominic followed Marlene up the dimly lit staircase. He just couldn’t come to terms with how scared he was. Even the faint tones coming from the mouth of that good-looking singer failed to ease his anxiety. The thought of having to help Marlene explain the situation to Bernard just exacerbated his feelings.
His mother had a medicine cabinet full of tablets within countless bottles. Dominic was sure that there’d be something to calm him down. He then remembered his friend throwing all those painkillers down his throat and choked back a sob.
“Dominic, are you okay?” asked, Marlene, turning her head.
He nodded, “Yes thanks. I just got a bit of dust caught in the back of my throat.”
His on the spot lie seemed to satisfy the woman. Where in the blazes had Douglas gone? Marlene’s suggestion of him sleeping off his illness inside his Beast seemed like a reasonable idea. He just wished they’d followed it through before rushing back into the club. Dominic took a deep breath and breathed in a little more of the dusty air, imagining that he stood atop a desolate mountain. Maybe not that desolate, he’d have to have someone to keep him company.
He allowed the fantasy to play out in the back of his mind and concentrated on
Marlene’s back. It had been a while since he’d been this close to her before. The woman had put on a bit more weight, no doubt gorging on his yummy pies. That bum had definitely expanded. Perhaps now would not be the best time to announce his breaking news.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m fine, woman,” he snapped. “Quit the fretting. You’re beginning to sound like my mum.”
“Don’t you worry about Bernard,” she said, obviously not believing him, “I can explain everything.” She paused, “And if you call me woman again, I’ll push you down the stairs.”
So that was that, his role in this drama had just been finalised. She was the heroine while his diminutive part consisted of just being Marlene’s sidekick, her faithful manservant, just there for comic relief.
She reached the top of the stairs and disappeared around the corner. Bugger it, he would tell her that she had a big bum after all.
Despite working at the club for all these years, he’d never had the need to come up here. In fact, this would be only the second time that Dominic had climbed these stairs. He felt like a burglar, breaking into someone’s house. The place hadn’t changed a bit… well, apart from becoming a bit shabbier. It must have been almost twenty years since that horrible ogre had taken Dominic upstairs to give him his super-scary pep talk.
Even though the man turned his bowels to water, he couldn’t help but laugh at his taste in décor. Looking back, it was pretty blinking obvious that Bernard had inherited the place already decorated from the club’s previous owner.
He followed Marlene into the first room. This was where Bernard had taken that eager young twenty-year-old trainee chef and told him just how lucky he was to work at his club. Apparently, there had been dozens of applicants just clamouring for this prestigious position. After he’d shaken Dominic’s hand, he then explained in graphic detail just what he would do to him if Dominic ever stole from his club.
From behind his back, Bernard pulled out a wooden walking stick and twisted the handle. Dominic’s jaw dropped as Bernard grabbed the shaft and pulled, revealing a long, thin metal blade.
Dominic padded over to a long, white leather sofa pushed against the back wall. That wasn’t here all those years ago. He shuddered, remembering that week of nightmares he had of Bernard pushing that blade into his guts.
He ran his hand along the cool leather whilst thinking back to what little he knew about zombie people. The only movie he’d ever seen as a child involved a group of survivors holed up in some shopping centre. It was just horrible; that movie frightened the pants off him and put Dominic off those types of films forever. Give him a good tearjerker anytime.
From what he could recall, zombie people were basically dead people shuffling about and drinking lots of blood. Or was that what vampires did?
Dominic did a double take when he spotted a bright red telephone sitting on Bernard’s writing desk. He rushed over and grabbed the receiver and felt his karma evaporate when he heard no dial tone.
“Oh, that is super bad news.” He muttered.
It can’t be a coincidence, both phones can’t be broken. He decided there and then that looking for Bernard could go whistle. Hiding in Dominic’s loft never looked so appealing.
“Marlene, I’m sorry, but I’ve changed my mind. Can you give me a lift home?”
Dominic replaced the receiver and turned in a complete circle. “Marlene?” he hissed.
“Where are you?”
He hurried to the door and looked both ways but saw no sign of her. What was he going to do now, how would he explain his presence if Bernard caught him rooting round his private room? He took one look behind him just to be sure she wasn’t hiding behind that desk. Dominic slowly walked to the door shaking. The woman had just run off and left him here.
“Guess what I’ve discovered!”
Dominic jumped a foot and swivelled round. Marlene grinned at him whilst leaning against a bookcase. She swung the bookcase back to reveal an entrance to another room.
“Oh my goodness!” he exclaimed. “He really does have a secret room behind his office. This is so Scooby Doo.”
She reached across the desk and took Dominic’s hand. “Come and see what I’ve found.”
He followed her, mouth agape into his boss’s private seduction chamber. The room was beyond surreal. Marlene grabbed the edge of the bookcase and
swung it back into position.
Had Dominic just travelled back in time and landed in the middle of a Roman whorehouse? No blinking wonder his boss had been able to charm so many starry eyed barmaids over the years. These lavish decorations would blindside any impressionable teenage girl.
It must have cost a fortune to design and install. He sniffed. Now he knew why Dominic hadn’t received a pay rise in the last three years. He pushed through the deep, purple gauze material hanging down from black poles fastened to the ceiling. Dominic gazed in longing at the huge four-poster bed dominating the room. Dominic sat on it and squealed in delight. Why was he not surprised that Bernard had a waterbed?
This scarlet silk sheet under his bum probably cost more than what Dominic earned in a week. He wondered whether Thomas would be blindsided if he managed to get him in here. Stuff it; this was his fantasy, why stop at just him? Dominic would bring that super, good-looking singer up here as well; the thought of him being sandwiched between two gorgeous, naked men made him drool.
He felt a sharp prod on his shoulders and jerked his head up to see Marlene glaring down at him.
“Earth to Dominic, do I even want to know where your mind has just been?”
Dominic blushed redder than the sheets he sat on. She held up a low cut, purple blouse. “Does this look familiar to you?” Marlene then threw a black bra at his head. “That was next to the blouse. Both pieces were hung over that chair. I can only assume that they both belonged to the same girl.” He knew exactly who that blouse belonged to. “Oh no, it’s our missing barmaid’s. Wait a minute, are you suggesting that she’s still in the club?”
She shrugged and then pointed to a pair of crumpled trousers lying beside the chair.
“Did you happen to notice a naked teenager running past you?”
He shook his head, “I think I would have mentioned something like that.”
“Well, Bernard isn’t here; let’s check out the other rooms.”
She wandered over to the back of the bookcase and placed her ear against the wood.
“What’s wrong?”
Marlene ran back over to him and pulled Dominic around the bed and dropped down.
“There’s somebody in that other room,” she whispered, “and I think it’s Bernard.”
“Good, let’s get this over with.” He said, standing up.
She pulled Dominic back down. “No, you don’t understand.”
Then he heard the low moans through the thin wooden panels. “Oh my god!” he hissed. “He’s turned into one of those things.”
“He helped Douglas carry that boy’s body over to the car.”
“Are you suggesting that it infected Bernard?”
She nodded, “I’m suggesting that it infected them both, we still haven’t found Douglas yet, have we?”
Dominic figured that events would have been rather different if he and Marlene had decided to check out the Beast first. Could he really be in there, just waiting for some poor sap to open the car door and ask him if he was okay? Oh good lord, he squeezed his legs together to stop his shakes. It could have been Dominic out there moaning away.
“Marlene? I don’t want to be here anymore. What say you and me just go?”
She shook her head, “We can’t leave.”
“Why not? Come home with me, Marlene. I’ll cook you anything you want. We can sit and watch a film and gorge ourselves on junk food and wait for all this to blow over.”
She was silent for a moment, “Okay, Dominic, it’s a deal, but we take Thomas as well. We can’t leave him here.”
“Sounds good to me,” he replied.
The noise outside the room gradually subsided. “Do you think he’s gone?” Marlene shrugged, “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
She crept back over to the bookcase. Dominic stayed behind the bed; he’d follow her as soon as he’d tooled up. His initial search proved fruitless, this was so unfair. How could he possibly find anything suitable in a room full of soft furnishings? Why couldn’t their boss have done the reasonable thing and seduced his girls in an armoury? Dominic saw the closed wardrobe; he stood up and ran to it, he hoped to get lucky; maybe Bernard added a slight kink to his sexual exploits and dressed up as a soldier, complete with a big gun.
“Not a nurse, please not a nurse.” He whispered. Dominic opened the door and sighed when he saw the row of seductive, frilly nighties that left little to the imagination. Oh, lord, this was so super not funny. What was he supposed to do now, dispatch those horrible creatures with a plastic coat hanger?
A very familiar object propped up in the corner then caught his eye. Dominic grinned like a Cheshire cat, reached in, and pulled out Bernard’s walking stick. He twisted the handle and pulled the outer shell down.
“Marlene? Look at the size of my big weapon.”
“It suits you, sweetheart. You look like Errol Flynn.” She swung the bookcase open and peered into the room. “It’s empty.”
Marlene gazed at Dominic, “Do you feel confident enough to use that?”
He wanted to dismiss her patronising question with a deep manly laugh; he’d dissected more flesh than she’d had hot dinners; dinners he might add, that Dominic had made for her.
Dominic handed her the blade and turned away so she wouldn’t see his tears.
“Come on, Dominic,” whispered Marlene.
He kept his eyes fixed to the floor and followed her out into the other room. Marlene stiffened; Dominic looked up and saw Bernard in the hall, staring out of the window. Marlene raised the sword and padded across the carpet.
Before she had time to deliver the blow, he spun around and jumped to the side. “Jesus, fucking Christ, Marlene, what the fuck are you two clowns playing at?”
Dominic wanted to weep with relief, he wasn’t one of those things after all, and that meant maybe his friend would be fine too.
“You won’t believe what we’ve just seen outside,” replied, Marlene, unfazed by his outburst.
“You two as well? Thank fuck for that. I thought I was going fucking potty.”
Dominic then noticed just how red his eyes were. Had his boss been crying? He found that blinking hard to believe. He approached the window and looked down onto the car park, thinking that their boss must have seen the dead boy come back to life as well.
He gasped and felt his legs turn to water at the monstrous scene below. Douglas and some middle aged woman sat in one of the parking spaces, both biting out chunks of meat from the mutilated body of an older man.
Dominic turned around and slid down the wall; he closed his eyes and began to cry. He felt a hand rest on his shoulder and presumed Marlene was about to offer him comfort. Dominic’s body was forced back upright. He jerked open his eyes and stared into the livid face of his boss. He watched him snatch the blade out of Marlene’s startled hands.
“Quit your fucking snivelling. We are all in serious shit here. I aim to survive this and to do that, I need people around me who are strong and can pull their weight. Am I making myself clear?”
Dominic managed to nod.
“Good. Marlene, pop back into my room, the wardrobe has a false bottom. Bring me what you find in there.”
When she left them alone, he turned back to Dominic. “If you don’t pull yourself together, you fucking homo, I’ll use this to put you out of the picture.” Dominic stared into the crazed man’s eyes, wishing Marlene had chopped this horrible bastard’s head off.
Chapter Sixteen
The wallet hidden away in Aiden O’Neil’s dark blue bomber jacket now bulged with a few additional crumpled notes. He had accumulated an extra £120 so far tonight and Aiden didn’t think that the Goddess of Cash had finished with him just yet.
Events were still afoot in the Stockholm club tonight. He knew from experience that where there’s drama, there’s opportunity for the acquisition of the old folding stuff.
He’d watched those two oldies sneak out of the club about ten minutes ago, the pair of dirty d
ogs. Not that it was his place to judge their antics, why should he? Edward’s abnormal levels of hormones had made Aiden £20 richer tonight. Granted, it wasn’t a king’s ransom but money was money. The old man would no doubt supply his dealer with yet more notes from his pension in the weeks to come. Aiden allowed a slight grin to play upon his lips, wondering if it was possible to make even more cash out of that oversexed pensioner.
The oldie actually thought the other men who frequented the bingo hall weren’t aware of his exploits. Even Aiden hadn’t heard some of the colourful insults they called that man. Edward was blind to it all; talk about not seeing the woods for the trees. Yes, that cash cow could definitely be milked some more. Aiden knew that the old fucker’s wife still had no clue to what her husband got up to; there could be potential leverage there. He’d have to sleep on that one though, to come up with some sort of scheme.
Aiden’s main concern tonight was how he’d managed to acquire the rest of his wallet comforter. He feared that he’d just made a pact with the devil. Bernard had just snared poor old Aiden and popped him into the dark eyed man’s pocket with the rest of his lackeys.
“Thou shall not yield to temptation.” He mouthed. Oh, but how could he not take him up on his offer? Talk about easy money, but oh so risky. He’d heard what happened to those who crossed Bernard.
Aiden shivered. Those terrible tales were best served up to other less fortunate villains, the ones whose brains needed warming up before use,
He turned back to the bar and drained the last of his Guinness. The distracted barman hadn’t noticed the empty glass, his attention was elsewhere. That suited Aiden just fine; it allowed him to earn his Brucie bonus of another fifty notes.
Aiden slipped through the doors beside him and into the club’s kitchen, confident that the place would be devoid of employees. Aiden had watched that puff and the cute bit of fluff rushing around like headless chickens a little earlier. He had no idea what had ruffled their feathers, but he intended to find out after he’d finished in here.
As predicted, the puff had left no soul to guard his precious pies. He bent over and inhaled. The aroma drifting up from these pastry delights bordered on the sublime. Aiden had earlier promised himself that he’d be in and out of here like a ninja, leaving no trace of his presence, but that idea went out of the window when he picked up the first pie and took a huge bite.