Dead Bones - Six Pack. The Ultimate Zombie Collection

by Ian Woodhead

  “The floor’s all sticky,” murmured Stacey.

  “It’s just a bit of oil.” Laurence replied.

  Craig crouched down and dabbed his forefinger in the dark substance. He stood up and held it in front of Laurence’s face and said, “Oil isn’t red.” Thick streaks of the stuff spread out across the floor, stopping outside a small stone arch cut into the wall.

  “I can see tiny footprints in it,” said, Ryan. “Don’t know what’s going on here, but we need to fucking leave, like right now.”

  Laurence shook his head and walked away from the group, “Bollocks to that,” he replied. “I ain’t pissing myself with terror over a bit of blood.”

  He dug out his gun and pointed the business end at Craig, but after a moment’s hesitation he switched his target to Stacey. “Come on, you knee knocking jerk offs, there’s work to be done here.”

  Craig looked back at the closed door; sure, that he could hear the sound of fingernails scratching the old wood on the other side. He didn’t need that burger-brained behemoth pointing a pistol at him to know that they didn’t have a bleeding choice. He grabbed his sister’s hand then padded away from Ryan, trying to avoid standing in the lake of blood.

  He suddenly heard a low growl coming from above them, it sounded a bit like a small dog.

  “What the fuck was that?” shouted Ryan.

  Craig jumped, he hadn’t realised that the man was standing right behind them. Laurence raised his gun. Craig then noticed movement on the wall in front of him; it looked like a little boy.

  “I don’t fucking believe this,” muttered Laurence.

  The kid clung to the wall like a spider, it hissed at them before scuttling towards a recessed hole just underneath the ceiling.

  Craig hear the man behind him backing away whilst muttering under his breath. He spun around when Ryan began to shriek. Two more kids had dropped on Ryan’s head. His hoarse screams were drowned out as Laurence fired his gun. Craig saw one of the kid’s legs disappear in a cloud of gore but it didn’t stop the child from clamping his teeth into Ryan’s nose. Ryan managed to pull the other kid off his back and throw the child against the wall. She crumpled to the floor, moaning.

  Craig and Laurence both grabbed a leg and pulled. The kid had pushed a finger deep into Ryan’s eye socket whilst his other hand was right around his ear. Ryan had stopped making any noise.

  They pulled him off Ryan and Laurence pointed the gun at the growling kid. He pulled the trigger, and the kid fell back with a large ragged hole in his chest.

  Craig couldn’t stop looking at the mess those kids had done to Ryan’s face. He looked as if a tiger had mauled him. The room fell silent, only broken by the occasional whimper coming from the crumpled heap against the wall. After a couple of moments she turned away from them and painfully crawled towards that stone archway.

  This just couldn’t be happening, he took a deep breath trying not to gag at the overpowering aroma of hot blood, guts, and shit.

  “Stacey, we’re going like right now.” He couldn’t give a fuck about Laurence or his big friend. As far as he was concerned, he got what he deserved after threatening to do those horrid things to his sister. As for Laurence, just let him try and stop them.

  He turned around, unable to see his sister. “Stacy?”

  Laurence grabbed his head and pointed it at the wall above them. Stacy gazed back at them. She hissed at Craig, then continued to climb the wall.

  “Oh, God, Stacy!” he shouted. “Come back!”

  “Fuck this shit,” muttered Laurence. He raised his pistol.

  “”Don’t you dare!” Craig screamed.

  He ran into the man, pushing him back. Laurence growled at the kid and raised his hand.

  Craig shrank back.

  The man sighed. “I ought to fucking leave you down here with these things.” He then clamped his hand over the boy’s wrist and dragged Craig towards the open door at the far side of the cellar.

  Chapter Seven

  Marcus placed the palm of his hand flat against the Perspex rectangle by the side of the lift doors. A thin green line moved up the panel and back down again. He shook his head in bemusement, the systems they’d installed in this building never failed to amuse him. No doubt this gimmicky crap would have impressed the shareholders no end.

  It would have cost the developers thousands of pounds to use this technology, money that would have been better spent elsewhere.

  “Putting cameras above the doors would have been a start,” he muttered.

  Watching Linda stare at a monitor would have been just as bad, but at least he would have been able to turn the bloody thing off.

  The doors silently opened. “Now, if I’d have designed this system, the doors would have made a whooshing noise like they do in Star Trek. Now that would be seriously impressive.” He set foot into the interior

  Just before the doors closed, he heard someone crash against the apartment door next to the lift. He jumped out and ran to the door. Marcus knocked, “Are you okay in there?”

  It sounded like a wardrobe hitting the door. “Hello?”

  Silence greeted his question. Marcus placed his ear against the door. He realised that this was bordering on snooping but he had to check. He heard the noise of what sounded like wet chewing.

  “Do you need any help?”

  This time he got a response of a deep groan. Marcus moved away from the door grinning; it was obvious what had happened, someone’s had a bellyful of beer, fallen against the door, and thrown up. The noise he heard was probably the bloke’s dog lapping it up.

  He walked back to the lift. Marcus would have to report this, dogs weren’t allowed in the apartments. He didn’t mind dogs but the last thing he wanted was lumps of dog shit down the corridors.

  The lift doors were still open, and he stepped into the interior and pressed the door close button. He’d often wondered why they placed buttons inside instead of another scanner. He leaned against the walls and closed his eyes. That stray thought of swapping that spy hole for a camera gave Marcus an idea.

  Instead of gazing out into the corridor, would it not be more beneficial if all Linda could stare at were fields and cows? Her mother had left Linda everything, including the old bag’s remote farmhouse. If he could get her there, she wouldn’t be able to obsess about their fucking neighbours.

  Marcus vividly recalled the first time Linda had taken him there to meet her mother. It had been his idea, of course; she was dead against the suggestion. Looking back, he understood perfectly.

  What a shock that had been, he had expected some sprightly brown haired woman in her late forties, possibly smiled a lot and made great food. On the journey there Marcus had contemplated whether the woman would be milf material. He hadn’t shared that particular base thought with Linda, he didn’t think she’d find it amusing.

  Marcus certainly hadn’t expected a religious whacko to answer the door, spewing out a torrent of weird crap about fire and damnation. She’d called him the spawn of Satan and slammed the door on the both of them.

  The lift doors slid shut. Linda had warned him on more than one occasion about just how bad her mother was, but at the time he’d just thought she was exaggerating. I mean, Linda was so normal, nobody could have imagined that her mother was the type to march through Bradford centre, shouting about Jesus and the apocalypse.

  He couldn’t begin to think what it must have been like for Linda, growing up in that household. Marcus reckoned that she must have kept all that intense emotional trauma bottled up all her life, and when the woman had died, it all came out.

  “Like a genie in a bottle,” he murmured. Marcus smiled to himself. “Fuck me, since when did I turn into a shrink? Bloody hell, Marcus, that’s a genius idea. I don’t need Bonzo after all.”

  The lift began its descent. Maybe he did need the man, he could buy him a celebratory drink. There was also the fact that if the boss did fire his arse, Marcus would have nowhere to live. It was either his pa
rent’s house or the cottage.

  Marcus was suddenly thrown out of his muse when something very large landed on top of the lift.

  “What the fuck!” He looked at the ceiling. Maybe it was a chunk of rubble or something. He watched, waiting to see if any more would fall down; in the corner of his eyes, Marcus also checked the panel. As soon as that fucking door opened, he was out of here.

  Those fucking cowboy builders must have done a right slap-dash job when they’d put the lift in here. He sighed, wondering if he ought to report that too, but there didn’t seem to be much point if he was going to move out. Then again, if it was dangerous, he’d have to tell somebody.

  The lift stopped and Marcus sighed with relief. As the lift doors began to open, the object above him started to move about. He screamed and dived out.

  He looked back, watching the doors close. He commanded his heartbeat to slow down, then stood up, looking around to make sure that nobody had seen him make a bloody fool of himself. It must have been a kid on there, some brat from that housing estate must have found a way into the mill. Marcus nodded to himself, now that definitely would have to be reported; the idiot could get himself killed inside there with all that machinery. He’d use Bonzo’s phone once he got to the bar to call the supervisor.

  Well, he’d call him once the match had finished. He glanced at his watch, then hurried along the corridor, hoping he hadn’t missed too much of the game.

  The muted sound of unfamiliar rock music reached his ears as Marcus passed the huge glass window of the mill’s gym. He stopped and gazed inside to see if anyone he knew was in there tonight. Marcus looked past the reception desk and noticed the door to the cardio zone stood ajar. Apart from an over weight middle-aged man sweating on the treadmill, the place was empty. Marcus sighed, that man would have to go a bit faster to lose that bulk. Even from where he stood, Marcus could see that the guy had the machine on the slowest setting.

  There wasn’t much rush to get back to the apartment, there would be no point in discussing his plans with Linda tonight anyway. She always got more agitated as the night wore on. It would be better if he just put her in the car in the morning, say he was taking her shopping or something, and just drive her over to her mum’s old house.

  He nodded. Yeah, that sounded like the best option to go about this that way; he could also spend the rest of tonight getting pleasantly pissed with Bonzo. He spun around when he heard the sound of running feet, and Marcus had to jump to the side as two women sprinted past him.

  What the bloody hell were they playing at? What is it with some people? They had a gym here full to the brim of everything an exercise freak could want, and they run around the corridors? Maybe they couldn’t afford the fees.

  “You ought to be doing that outside, you bloody maniacs!” He shouted after them. On second thought, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, they’d probably get mugged by a group of thugs from the estate. Running around here at night was not the best of ideas.

  He hurried past the gym; the bar was in sight. Marcus stopped outside and admired the false oak panelling that Bonzo had fastened against the wall. He’d done a brilliant job in making this place look like a traditional pub. He grabbed the door handle and took a deep breath. He intended to spend the next few hours downing drinks and chilling out. It was going to be a good night, he could feel it in his bones.

  Chapter Eight

  Emma Nelson turned over the page and looked at the first sentence, baffled. Had she turned over two pages by mistake? This just did not make any sense. Not knowing what the first two words meant, didn’t help her predicament. Despite skipping her exams at, Emma wasn’t thick, not by any stretch of the imagination, Even so, she imagined that nerdy brain-boxes would find this incomprehensible period mush dull and bewildering.

  Emma gave this reading malarkey up as a bad job and placed the book on the floor beside her rocking chair. She should have chosen something with a brighter cover, preferably one that had a picture on the front.

  This getting into the spirit of sophistication was seriously hard going. Emma laughed out loud, only stopping when a mouthful of red wine hurtled back up her throat and almost choked her. Emma couldn’t even spell sophistication.

  “Not that it matters,” she murmured. Emma let out a contented sigh and poured a little more wine into her glass; she paused, then filled the glass to the brim.

  The Marriage of Figaro played quietly in the background. Her husband, Jake, had told her last night who’d written this, but she couldn’t remember. Perhaps it was the wine that had buggered up her brain, all she could recall was that he was some fat Italian dude, or was he French?

  Emma giggled and took another swallow, she looked up at the bright pink Barbie clock hanging on the wall that had been her only contribution to the décor in this apartment. Jake would be back in just under an hour. She had plenty of time to get the rest of the cleaning sorted out before then. All that could wait for a bit longer though; this was her chill out period, time to relax and allow the day’s worries to just peel off her. She drained the glass and filled it up once more.

  After the painful confrontation with that cow of a sister this afternoon, Emma would probably need the rest of the week to unwind.

  It was the first time that she’d seen or heard from any of her own family in over five years.

  Looking back at the episode, Emma decided that five hundred years would be too fucking soon. What the hell was Denise doing in Mark’s and Spencer’s anyway? At thirty-one, her sister was five years older than Emma, but she looked old enough to be her bleeding mother.

  It had been the sister who’d spotted Emma, that fact only made evident when the woman screamed across two aisles, calling her a class traitor. Before she could get her wits together, her older sister ran towards her like a big ugly bull wearing lime green jogging pants. Emma dropped her wire basket and fell into the organic ready meal cabinet, not believing that this was really happening.

  The bitch even spat in Emma’s face before store security and two passing PCSO’s managed to pull the woman off. She’d brushed herself down, apologised for crushing their Quorn and asparagus tortellini’s, and rushed to the main doors. It probably would have gotten violent if it hadn’t been for the intervention of those uniforms, mainly to Denise. She may have been larger and certainly more aggressive than her little sister, but that wouldn’t have stopped Emma from decking the brain-dead bitch.

  Watching those pretend policemen escort Denise away, she saw a distorted version of what her life could have been like if she hadn’t been lucky enough to get out when she could. With lank hair, pasty skin, and multiple track marks down her fat arms, Denise’s life was effectively over, it would have been more humane just to have her put down.

  “It wasn’t fair, why couldn’t her family just be happy for her? What had she ever done wrong?”

  She finished off the glass then stood up and attempted to grab the bottle; there couldn’t have been that much left in there now. Emma abruptly sat back down. This stuff was potent. Emma attempted again to grab the bottle and leaning across, Emma was able to snag the neck.

  “Fuck em all!” she said, swigging from the bottle.

  It didn’t take her too long to drain the remaining liquid from the bottle. Emma slowly stood up; she had enough sense not to grab the arm of the rocking chair, knowing that could have been potentially disastrous.

  She’d already uncorked another bottle of the same brand, thinking that she’d need at least two to blank out the taint of seeing Denise again.

  “You didn’t think it would be this strong, though, you pissed up cow.”

  Emma paused by the table and allowed the music to wash over her. It just occurred to her where she’d heard this tune before, it was in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

  “Bugger the cleaning,” she said, She intended to sit right here, drink this scrummy wine, and listen to cartoon music.

  It’s not as if he’d have a go at her for sitting on her arse. H
er Jake would never shout at her for anything.

  Even after five years, she couldn’t believe her luck when he walked into her life. Talk about marrying into money. What that handsome, charming, and very rich man ever saw in a scruffpot from Breakspear estate was beyond her. Not that she’d ever complain about her change of fortune. He has given her everything she’d ever want in life: a loving husband, a place to call her own, and most of all, a beautiful daughter.

  Couldn’t believe how welcoming his family had been. Her own family may have disowned her, not that she gave a shit, but at least Emma still had another family to love. She took a swig from the new bottle; they didn’t even hide the family silver when she first visited their huge countryside house.

  Perhaps she ought to check on Elizabeth before she got too pissed to walk, she had been unusually quiet this past few hours.

  As she staggered out of the chair, the radio suddenly stopped playing. She turned and looked at it. “It must need tuning back in or something.” She’d have a go at that once she got back from checking on her daughter. Maybe they’d play something from Daffy Duck or Porky Pig later?

  As she reached the bedroom door, a wandering thought pushed through her alcohol-fuzzed mind and informed her that digital radios weren’t supposed to go off-station.

  “Bugger it then,” she said. “I’ll shove a CD in instead.”

  That seemed like a cool idea. A bit of extreme black metal would suit her mood down to the ground. There’s be an added bonus of pissing off her neighbours too, maybe they’d even enjoy a bit of Emperor and Dimmu Borgir; it would be far better than listening to cartoon music and reading dull books.

  Emma put the bottle down before padding into Elizabeth’s bedroom. If she was awake, she didn’t want her to see the bottle. It was potent stuff though, still a bit wobbly on her feet.

  She sighed in contentment at their decorating. This was light years away from what Emma had to endure when she was Elizabeth’s age. For a start, she had no choice but to share a room with her two older sisters. Damp walls, peeling wallpaper, constant drunken noise from outside, and often from inside as well, depending on how much her mum and dad had to drink. She felt colour rising to her cheeks when she realised she’d been drinking tonight too.