by Ian Woodhead
“Just perfection,” he mumbled, brushing off the crumbs that stuck to his chin.
That facsimile man sure knew how to cook. Ironic really, considering his wife was less feminine than Dominic but couldn’t cook for her life.
The Two Spoons café a couple of miles from here was about to see their customer intake treble, thanks to Aiden. He’d been tasked with acquiring the essential pie filling ingredients. Considering it was worth fifty quid, he’d be a fool to turn it down. The café owner told him that although the quantities would be helpful it wasn’t necessary, as with some experimenting he should be able to replicate the recipe.
It might seem like such a small task but he knew that it was these types of jobs that had the ability to enhance his reputation tenfold. Aiden and the café owner both knew that Aiden could supply him with any old ingredient list and that fool would be none the wiser.
With reluctance, he put the remains of the pie in the bin and made his way through the kitchen toward where he hoped Dominic would keep his files. From what he had observed, the puff didn’t appear to be the secretive type, which suited Aiden just fine.
An old writing desk pushed into the corner seemed the likeliest place to commence his search. Apart from a stained teacup the surface gave no joy, not that Aiden had expected his task to be so easy. He rifled through his inside pocket and pulled out a flat-ended screwdriver, then sat in the chair. The desk had six drawers, three on either side, all no doubt locked, hence the screwdriver.
Aiden looked behind him, went through his rehearsed ‘I’m sorry, I got lost’ speech one more time before turning his attention to the drawers. Before he set to work with his tool of choice, he allowed his optimism get the better of him and pulled the drawer handle. Aiden almost fell off the chair when the damn drawer opened.
“Good lord, ain’t you the trustworthy type.” Aiden’s eyes bugged out at the tatty sheet of light blue notepaper, sitting right at the top of the drawer.
“He’s even titled it for me too,” he said, grinning, “Ain’t that so sweet.”
Aiden picked the paper out of the drawer and stuffed it into his pocket. He’d hit on a potential goldmine here. That café owner would make a bloody fortune out of this recipe, certainly more than a poxy fifty pounds. He’d give the money back to the man then start a bidding war. This tatty scrap of paper could net him a couple of grand, easily.
His wallet-inflating scheme jumped to the back of his mind when the room plunged into darkness. The fans above him stopped and the fridges ceased to buzz. The low murmurings, rapidly turning into panicked shouts reached him from the lounge. He stood up and felt his way toward the wall,
“It’s just a power failure,” he murmured, “nothing to worry about.”
The sound of his own voice gave him little comfort. Aiden had never been wholly secure with the idea of being unable to see. This new development was not welcome. Aiden decided to cut short the wrinkly Romeo’s jolly time and retrieve his keys. He’d sit in his coach until the lights came back on.
He listened to the barman attempting to calm the rest of the wrinklies down without having much success, and Aiden then heard him announcing that he’d go check the fuse box. He realised with a shock that the damn thing was probably in here. Oh shit, Aiden couldn’t be found; there was no way he’d be able to talk his way out of this one. He saw a powerful torch beam shining through the plastic curtains. What the bloody hell could he do? He then noticed a faint green glow behind him and smiled. There was a fire exit over there, he could nip through the door and sneak round the front. It was a brilliant plan.
Aiden hurried over to where the door should be, but his stomach bumped into the bar. He told Mr. Panic to get behind him and grasped the bar with both hands, then pushed down. Streetlight greeted his appreciative eyes through the widening gap, but it wasn’t alone. The night wind brought the stench of rotting flesh to batter his nostrils. If the urge to leave the darkness hadn’t been so overwhelming, his addled wits might have seen that withered hand reaching for him. Aiden screamed as it clamped over his wrist. He tried to pull the door shut but was too late to stop the owner of the hand biting out a sizable piece of flesh from his thick wrist.
As the thing reared back, he slammed the door shut; his world plunged into darkness once more. Aiden shut his eyes, trying not to think about the agonising pain shooting though his arm. He whimpered; this would be his final few breaths. His days of ducking and diving had come to an abrupt end thanks to some diseased old tramp with a fetish for biting people. Aiden sighed, then wondered why a light from a motorbike headlamp had just blinded him.
“Are you alright? What the bloody hell happened to you? Hang on a second.”
The lights came back on. Aiden opened his eyes to see the barman reaching for a first aid box fastened to the wall above the aluminium preparation tables.
“I thought one of the oldies from my party wandered in here, some of them do have a tendency to get lost. They’re more like sheep than humans, you see. It’s their age.” Aiden wasn’t sure why he gave the worried looking barman his prepared speech, it’s not like he asked for it.
“Oh, Jesus, this hurts.” Aiden held out his damaged arm so the lad could bandage it up, it surprised him just how little blood there was. He ought to be swimming in the stuff.
“How did you do that?”
“Call an ambulance, then the police.”
“Did a dog do this?”
Aiden shook his head then wished he hadn’t. A huge wave of nausea caused by the movement almost blacked him out. “A guy did it, some crazy person outside that fire door. Will you hurry up and ring for that bloody ambulance?”
Chapter Seventeen
Talbot stopped next to a fast food shop and waited for Dean to catch up. He peered through the window into the dark interior, trying to read the menu above the counter. Talbot used to look forward to his twelve-inch pepperoni pizza with a double helping of mushrooms every Wednesday night.
He allowed himself to peer back to what used to be his normal existence just for a few moments. No pizza would be complete without his wife’s finishing touch. She would place exactly thirty two slices of jalapeños in six neat rows across the surface and grill it for three minutes. He could have just asked for the shop to put the chillies on the pizza before they delivered it, but that would have meant his wife would have played no part in the preparation of his food for one day. That was just pointless. It was like being paid without having to work for the money.
It seemed a little strange to him that he had no other fond memories of his wife or that he hadn’t even considered her until now. The woman was probably dead; either that or changed, shuffling about, feasting on the flesh of others. That role would suit the bitch down to the ground.
How ironic was it that his own son was one of the first to undergo the change and yet Talbot hadn’t even noticed. Talbot dismissed them. He put his wife, son, and freshly baked pizza on the list of items that he would never need again.
Dean had finally caught up. His deteriorating appearance and his obvious weakening state worried him.
“Are you okay, Dean?”
The man nodded and attempted to give Talbot a reassuring smile.
“Of course I am,” he replied. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
Talbot studied Dean’s reflection. He scratched the side of his neck like a flea ridden dog, but he wasn’t aware that he was doing it. When Dean did remove his hands, Talbot finally saw the extensive damage. The bite that he’d sustained whilst fighting in that alley had not healed.
“Dean? I think you should…”
Talbot caught movement in the newsagent’s doorway next to the fast food shop. A well built teenage lad dressed in black emerged and shuffled toward Dean. Why the fuck hadn’t Talbot sensed the lad earlier? This new development alarmed the hell out of him.
“I’ll deal with it,” said Dean. “You carry on looking for a set of wheels.”
He nodded absently and left Dean to h
is fun.
Acquiring more transport had been Talbot’s obsession ever since their last failure. He needed to get Dean fresh meat as soon as he could. He’d broken into half a dozen homes so far searching for live bodies, but found nothing but walking dead. He had to get him to the club; it was the only place where he knew for certain that warm meat would be waiting for them.
Talbot feared the decay he witnessed with Mark had also become entrenched in Dean’s system. His deterioration was happening at a snail’s pace compared to Mark’s light speed disintegration, but even so, the signs were there.
How different would their situation be if they had just killed Mark and dined on his flesh? Even better, if that fucking bus hadn’t overturned across the road they’d be at their destination by now instead of having to complete their journey on foot.
Talbot spotted an old Land Rover parked on the other side of the road and jogged toward it. What if the problem lay deeper than just getting more food for Dean? Maybe his decay was inevitable and no amount of fresh meat would stop the rot?
No, no way, Talbot refused to listen to the voice of apprehension. Dean was his responsibility and he refused to let him crumble before his eyes. Talbot reached the 4x4; his hopes of moving out died when he saw the flat tyres on the other side of the car.
“Shit.” He muttered, “Now what?”
Talbot turned around; the teenager’s head was no longer attached to his body.
Talbot’s grin fell off his face when he saw his companion limp toward him. He’d sustained a few more bites. Oh fuck, this was so not good. Dean should have dispatched that thing with ease.
“Won’t the car start?”
The notion of putting Dean out of his misery unexpectedly rose to the surface of his mind. “Just a couple of head punches would do it.” He muttered.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“I said, the tyres on the other side have been let down.”
Dean stumbled. Talbot ran to him and caught his body before he hit the floor.
“What’s happening to me?” cried Dean.
The multiple bite marks over his arms and legs were not knitting up.
“I’ll get you to the club, Dean. There’s plenty of fresh food there. We’ll dine like kings, mate.”
“I’m going the same way as Mark, aren’t I?”
Talbot glanced around this unfamiliar part of the city, trying to get his bearings. They couldn’t be that far away. He looked up and caught sight of the top of a church steeple. He nodded to himself; that looked familiar, he was sure that there was a church just behind the club.
“Look, just try to stay focussed. We’re only about half a mile from the club. We’ll be there in ten minutes, easy.”
He wished there was a way that Talbot could give Dean some of his strength, just to boost Dean’s immune system.
“Come on, man. Let’s get you on your feet and enough with the talk of doom. You’ve just been bitten a few times, that’s all. Your body just needs food to repair itself and to flush out the poison.”
Talbot dragged Dean away from the Land Rover and back onto the pavement. They hurried past the newsagents and turned onto the main road. Talbot sighed with relief, he started to recognise this area of the town, and they were almost there. Bernard’s club was at the end of this street, he could almost taste that warm blood running down his throat.
“I think we’re in the shit,” murmured Dean. “Look at that.”
There were five of them clambering around the chewed up body of an old woman, in a pub beer garden across the road. They all stopped tearing into the opened guts of the body and turned their heads.
“They aren’t a threat,” said Talbot. “I can handle them.”
The body had been forgotten in their eagerness to eradicate their enemy.
“Come on,” pleaded Dean. “I’m starving. I need some sustenance. Forget about them. If another one of those things bites me, it could spell my end.”
Talbot sat him down on the bonnet of a white convertible. “This will only take a couple of minutes. They won’t bite you, Dean. I’ll make sure of that.”
He turned around. “Besides, I’ve never run away from a fight in my whole life and I don’t intend to start now.” Talbot growled and ran up to the closest one, a man in his early forties, wearing only his pyjamas. All his fingers were missing. Talbot wondered how that had happened. Had his wife done that to him? Talbot sighed, like it really mattered. He put his hands together, raised them above his head and smashed them into the side of the man’s head. The fingerless man folded up and quietly died for good.
A pair of hands reached out and pawed at the back of his jacket. Talbot jerked the top half of his body forward then turned and swept a middle-aged woman down to the ground with his outstretched leg. He crawled up to the groaning creature and grabbed its filthy, grey hair then lifted its head, before slamming it back down. The back of the head cracked open like an egg, spilling its foul contents across the tarmac.
“That’s two gone,” he muttered.
The three remaining showed no sign of slowing down despite losing two of their comrades in a matter of seconds. It was as if they welcomed death.
“That’s fine by me,”
Talbot ran up to a young, dark haired girl, she must have only been about thirteen or fourteen. Judging by the amount of makeup and what little provocative clothing she had on, Talbot guessed that the girl had spent the night trying to get past the bouncers guarding the nightclubs. He placed one hand under her jaw, narrowly missing the thing biting a couple of his fingers off and lifted her off the ground, and then he squeezed his fingers together.
Talbot then ran at the remaining two, using the girl’s body as a battering ram. He pushed them back against a plate glass window displaying a selection of kitchen equipment, then pushed the three of them through the glass. Talbot reached down and picked a long shard of glass, intending to finish off the remaining two when he heard Dean screaming out Talbot’s name.
He spun around and saw his companion being dragged under the car. Talbot left them and sprinted to the car. The only visible parts of Dean were his hands. He dropped the glass shard then bent down and grabbed the arms. Talbot, roared then pulled him out from under the car. Two dead kids came with him, one fastened on the inside of Dean’s thigh whilst the other one had managed to bite off two of his toes.
Talbot stamped down hard on both their heads then picked the groaning man off the floor. He weighed next to nothing.
“Oh fuck,” he said. “What a mess you are.”
Dean opened one eye and gazed at Talbot. “My clothes are totally ruined,” he whispered. “I’ve lost one of my shoes as well.” Dean coughed “I’m sorry for letting you down.”
The two he hadn’t yet killed were struggling out of the shattered window display. Talbot then saw that they had yet more company. A dozen of the things had left through the pub’s open door and were making their way toward their location. “You didn’t let me down, mate. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left you. Look, you just fucking hang on. We’re nearly there.”
“Don’t, Talbot. Don’t you lie. I’m dying and we both know it. I’m going the same way as Mark. I can feel my body falling apart. Just drop me and go before the others get you.”
“Fuck no! I’m not leaving you.”
Dean screamed. His body deflated and liquefied. Foul smelling, dark green sludge dripped through Talbot’s outstretched arms. Dean’s clothes stuck to both of Talbot’s arms. He pulled them off him and threw the wet material to the floor, then jumped back and watched in mute horror as Dean’s remains flowed down the gutter.
Talbot waited for the last of his friend to slip into the drain before gazing up at the gathering crowd of foul smelling monstrosities. He couldn’t make any more of his kind, it was just fucking impossible. They would all go the same way as Dean. The only way more of Talbot’s kind could be created was by a bite from one of those fuckers, and they were the only ones w
ho knew which human would make the grade. Talbot said a silent prayer for Dean and vowed to avenge Dean’s death, but first he needed to eat. He growled and ran away from the crowd.
Chapter Eighteen
Ten minutes had passed since Dominic’s encounter with his boss. His emotional state now settled into a comforting rut of apprehension tinged with a dollop of relief. His relief stemmed from the fact that Bernard had left him alone for the moment.
Dominic suspected that his boss didn’t really mean what he’d said when he threatened him one more time with that blade. Bernard was just showing off in front of Marlene by exerting his manliness; either that or it was Bernard’s way of boosting Dominic’s moral, bolstering his troops like an army sergeant. Deep down though, Dominic knew that Bernard was probably just being really horrible to him as per usual.
If his boss did think he was the general, then thankfully Dominic hadn’t been ordered to the frontline.
“It appears my job is to hold Bernard’s weapon.”
Dominic choked back a hysterical sob when he realised what he’d just said.
Looking through the oblong section of reinforced glass set in the door, he watched Bernard weave through the tables heading for the stage. The singer had done a magnificent job in calming down the old folk when the lights failed earlier. He got them to return to their tables and continued to sing. Even without the aid of a microphone, the lad still managed to be heard throughout the club.
He wondered what Bernard was up to. The horrid man wouldn’t tell him. All he told Dominic to do was hold the guns and don’t mess with them. That made sense; if he marched across the lounge all tooled up like Dirty Harry, the club would have a stampede on their hands.