Dead Bones - Six Pack. The Ultimate Zombie Collection

by Ian Woodhead

  “I’ll wash it down with two cans of Pepsi. Hell, I might even have a can of Lilt.” He intended to inform the other about the find, but not for a day or even two days. Calvin wanted his pick of the best goodies before radioing in for the distributors to pick this place clean. “What if they don’t answer you?” Now that was a good question, if they thought sprinters were still hanging around, they would want to keep quiet for a few days. He shrugged, that suited him just fine. He grinned, “I’m sure I’ll cope.”

  He jumped onto a drum barrel and started to scramble up the compound wall. Calvin knew they would get in contact sooner or later; of course they would. He was now invaluable. In addition, that Zara was just dying for a piece of Calvin’s body.

  “Just the one piece, Calvin?”

  The man shrieked out in shock, he lost his footing and fell back, landing on the pavement beside the drum barrel. Calvin watched a pair of battered Nike trainers stop by his head, and he looked up and stared at a straggly blond haired man in his early twenties.

  He cried out again when someone grabbed one of his ears and pulled his head up. He looked into the grinning face of a man in his early forties. He was completely bald and had an ugly ragged scar running down the side of his face.

  “Well, look what we have here, John. What do you think it is?”

  “It’s food, Luke.” The blond man said. “Can I have his eye? You said I could.”

  The other man sighed. “Can you see what I have to put up with, Calvin?” The man slowly twisted his ear. “Oh, it’s okay, you don’t have to cry out just yet, my friend. I know this must hurt and I know that you do want to scream.”

  Calvin kept his eyes locked on Luke’s and slowly moved his hand down towards his jacket pocket; he tried to think of that tin of corned beef, of how it was going to taste like, mixed up with the peas.

  Luke giggled; he lunged forward and bit deep into Calvin’s cheek. He pulled back, ripping off a chunk of his flesh. The man howled in agony.

  “We’re going to flush out your little band of survivors, Calvin. We are going to eat all your friends.” Luke pushed his finger into the ragged hole in Calvin’s cheek. “I’m going to personally fuck your Zara to death before eating the bitch from inside out.”

  Luke got to his feet, “Okay, John, he’s all yours. Just don’t take too long, we still have to get the other one.”

  Calvin screamed out as the blond man fell onto him. He saw John lick his lips before both the man’s hands rushed towards his eyes.

  Chapter Six

  He was not enjoying his wash, that much was obvious from the glare Darren gave him as Ernest poured two bottles of lime and lemon dilute juice over his head.

  “The evil glower from your beady eyes won’t work on me, son. It isn’t my fault that you smell like shit, nor is it my fault that we’ve run out of water.”

  Was he being overly cruel here? Ernest knew full well that Darren hated any kind of liquid other then lager. “Would you cry like a baby and give me the daggers if I poured special brew over your bonce?”

  Ernest threw the now empty bottle over Darren’s head. It was so tempting to drop it on the floor but Ernest knew damn well that he would only have to pick it up later on. That son of his didn’t know the meaning of cleanliness. He wiped his hands down the side of his trousers and took hold of the trolley. The lad didn’t smell much better, he guessed he would just have to put up with the stench; it was bound to fade eventually.

  “This is a colleague announcement. Can the in store cleaner please come to Aisle three?”

  He stopped walking and turned around so Darren wouldn’t see him smirking. “And can they also bring a tissue? Darren is booing like a big fucking baby.”

  Poor Darren, he’ll be seething for days over that one. Ernest walked away, leaving the trolley in the middle of the aisle. Well, stuff him; he had it coming to him anyway. Let Darren seethe. Why should Ernest give two shits? Darren didn’t care about his old man.

  Ernest stopped beside a large display of play sand and spun around.

  “And I’ll tell you something else. I’m going to fuck up that deadie upstairs and do you know what?”

  He paused just long enough for Darren to give Ernest some abusive comeback but this time, the lad stayed silent. “You, my smelly friend, ain’t going to see the upstairs. You can stay in the gloom and shit while I bask in the sunlight and walk on carpets instead of grotty tiles.” He giggled. “How do you like those apples, son?”

  Ernest hurried away before Darren had chance to give him a gob full back.

  “I should have done this months ago.” Ernest muttered as he jogged up the wines and spirits aisle.

  It must have been the taste of fresh air that put Ernest in this mood for battling another deadie. Of course, that little dipshit hiding his tins of puddings had something to do with it. He pushed open the door leading into the warehouse. Did Darren know he would act like this? That was a little worrying, since when did that thug become a master of reverse psychology? Despite Ernest’s threats, he wouldn’t leave Darren on the shop floor. Oh, he would for a day or two, just to piss him off, but he’d relent eventually. He was his son and Ernest was not a complete bastard.

  “Unlike you, Darren.”

  The door in front of him seemed to be smiling at Ernest; well, it was more of a mocking taunt. Just like his son, this door didn’t believe he was man enough to go through with this.

  “Mock all you want, you wooden fucker.” He could picture his son’s puffed up, sarcastic expression if he turned tail. He shook his head. “Fuck that,” he took a couple of steps forward. He had already said his peace to the little shit, he just had to commit now.

  “Too fucking right, I do.”

  Ernest allowed the anger to drown out the feelings of trepidation. It was all very well, twatting the dead thing outside; all that was spontaneous, he had no other option. This though, this required pre-mediation. The door looked as though it was going to break out in shits and giggles at any time.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ernest, will you get a fucking grip on your sanity? It is just a fucking door. A crappy door, painted in a shitty green colour. It’s not like you or Darren, now come on.”

  He ran over to the door and peered through the glass. As per usual, the deadie wasn’t there. Ernest followed the stairs up to the closed fire door at the top.

  “Deadies can’t open doors. You know that, Ernest.” So why did he have the compulsion to keep looking in every time he passed this door? Habit seemed as good a reason as any other. He tried the door handle, not shocked to find it locked.

  “How the fuck did Darren get inside?”

  He knew that the lad had begun to pick up his old man’s unsavoury habits, but he doubted that the little shit had progressed to lock picking already.

  “Darren must have found a key from somewhere.”

  Ernest looked around the warehouse packed with wheeled metal cages full of food tins, shampoos, and dog food bags. He sighed; Darren could have put it anywhere. Ernest knew he’d be able to get the door open eventually but he would have preferred to go for the easy option. Besides, the longer he stayed down here, the more chance there was of Darren coming back here and laughing at his old man’s pathetic attempt at getting this fucking door open.

  “I wouldn’t live that down.”

  He wandered over to the only other door in the warehouse. The last time he had been inside this room he was lost somewhere inside his head. Ernest did not like it in this room. He had almost lost his life in here back when he first broke in to the supermarket. He had been alone back then; Darren had yet to join him.

  The rest of the ground floor was fine, nothing moved, no other survivors, no wildlife, and definitely no deadies. He heard moving about above his head, but that hadn’t bothered Ernest, there couldn't be much of value up there anyway.

  Ernest had drooled at the sight of all the food just waiting for him to eat as he walked up and down the aisles. By the time he had rea
ched the warehouse, looking back, he had stupidly let his guard down. He had just walked straight into this bastard room without giving thought that it might have been occupied.

  A pair of snapping jaws had launched out of the stygian blackness as soon as Ernest pushed open the door. Only the fact that he’d cried out in shock, slipped and fell backwards had saved him from having his fingers sliced off. The dried up corpse stumbled out of the room and fell towards him. He saw the groaning monster heading towards him and he rolled out of its landing area. He jumped up, turned around, and jumped on its head. His boots smashed through the thing’s skull, sending gobbets of stinking black jelly across the floor.

  Old habits, like deadies, were hard to shake off. Ernest booted the door open, counted to three before cautiously stepping over the threshold. He wrinkled his nose, despite the eight-month gap; it still smelled of death in here. There was another smell in here, something familiar.

  “That’s candle wax.” He murmured.

  He gazed over at the old supermarket price posters. There were a couple of filing cabinets at the back of the room. He walked inside and opened the top drawer, sighing when he saw it was still empty. Ernest opened the other drawer and laughed aloud at the sight of the single silver key lying at the bottom of the drawer.

  “You little shit, Darren, you’ve set me up here, unfuckingbelievable.” He picked up the key and left the room, grinning when he saw what remained of the candle melted across the tiles beside the door.

  Armed with the key, Ernest strode over to the door; he picked up his crowbar and inserted the key into the lock, not surprised at all when the key smoothly turned. Ernest pushed open the door and looked down at the thick layer of dust covering the stairs. One set of footprints had recently walked up the light blue tiles and back down again. He nodded to himself; Ernest knew exactly to whom those feet belonged.

  “So, the little shit did hide my puddings up here.”

  He carefully placed his left boot into one of the prints, a little stunned to find it was a perfect match.

  “What the fuck?”

  He sighed. Bloody hell, it was obvious, that fucker must have stolen his boots while he slept. “Jesus, that boy is becoming more than an apprentice at these mind-fuck games.” Yeah, well, Darren had a long way to go before he became a master. Ernest slowly ascended the stairs, thinking of telling Darren that he’d decided to leave him downstairs forever. That would get a reaction out of the lad.

  The door at the top didn’t have a window embedded into the wood. He tightened his grip on the crowbar and used his ‘kick the fuck out of the door’ technique before running through. There was no point in being all sneaky about it. Ernest wanted the thing to hear him coming. The best way of doing that was to attract its attention and make it come to him. Ernest booted the door one more time.

  “Mohamed needs to come to the mountain or something like that.”

  Ernest pushed open the door and jumped through the opening. He found himself in a bright corridor painted in the same colour as the doors downstairs. A large window halfway along the wall provided enough daylight to show he was alone.

  He didn’t find it all that shocking to see all of his tins of chocolate pudding stacked by the side of a clocking-in machine at the end of the corridor. He saw another fire door beside his stack of tins.

  “Fire doors, what a marvellous invention. I think they should now be called deadie doors.” Ernest giggled. He liked that. “Folks, install a deadie door in your home, one hundred percent walking corpse proof.”

  He wandered past the numerous notice boards proclaiming that this supermarket beat all their rivals, hands down. Ernest stopped at one board that showed pictures of employees, all shaking hands with some grey haired tosser in a suit.

  “Fuck a duck, he’s a big boy.”

  Apparently, the lucky employees had just received a gold star from Oliver, the store manager. He counted twenty-two photos, mainly female and mainly young and blonde. Ernest wondered if this Oliver had a thing for blondes. It saddened him to think that probably all of these gold star employees would be dead now. Some may have even been lucky and managed to stay still.

  “Maybe it’s me who’s the unlucky one?” he murmured. Ernest knew for a fact that if Darren hadn’t shown up when he did, Ernest would have killed himself. Who the fuck would want to be alone in this nightmarish world?

  Ernest tore his eyes away from the photos and walked over to the window. The view overlooked a couple of rows of stone built cottages and beyond them laid the edge of a housing estate. It made him feel quite nostalgic for home. It seemed a little strange to be gazing out of a window after all these months of being cooped up in his semi twilight world. He supposed it would take a bit of getting used to again.

  Strange to think that he had been here for months and until now, he had had no idea who his neighbours were. Then again, he didn’t know anything about the former employees until now.

  On his way to the door, Ernest stopped at the board one more time. He smiled at the photograph of a young woman in the left corner at the bottom. “Janice Bottomley, aged twenty-three and been with the company for two years.”

  He pulled the picture off the board and ran his finger along her long blonde hair. “You, my girl, are beautiful and you’re just the type who our Darren would lust after.” He placed the photo in his top pocket. “Well, I’m not letting that animal cast his beady eyes on your angelic face. You deserve better than that.” Ernest patted his top pocket. “That’s if I even allow him up here.”

  His laugh caught in his throat when a shadow passed by the window in the fire door. “Oh fuck! There really is a deadie up here.”

  He ran over to the door, knowing that if he didn’t get this over and done with, he’d lose his bottle. Ernest pulled the door open; the foul stench of dead meat hit him like a solid wave. The deadie was just an arms length away, staring at the wall, not moving. The poor fucker used to be one of the supermarket employees; Ernest recognised the tattered uniform from the photographs.

  Instinct took over and Ernest raised the bar and smashed it down, pulverising the top of the deadie’s skull. The thing just collapsed. He stood there, panting, just how easy was that? All that fuss for a few seconds of excitement. Hell, he didn’t even break into a sweat.

  His accomplishment, shallow though it was, slivered away when Ernest’s eyes detected more movement further along the corridor. He took his eyes off the smashed skull and swallowed down a shriek of terror when he saw another three deadies shuffling towards him. The stench of rotten meat increased in intensity. It wasn’t coming from those things.

  “Oh fuck!” Ernest spun around and ducked to avoid another deadie reaching out with its parchment like clawed hands. It was the young girl, the one from the photograph. She leaned towards him, her jaws snapping like bear traps. Ernest was trapped. She stood in the front of the door. The others were almost on top of him.

  “Janice, I’m so very sorry!” He turned the crowbar around and thrust the twin prongs up into the roof of her mouth. She fell forward, her weight pushing the prongs into her skull. He whipped his head around; the other three were right behind him. Ernest yelped and dived through the fire door. Something took hold of his trousers leg. “No, no fucking way!” Ernest rolled onto his back. The lead corpse had wrapped its shrivelled fingers around his ankle. Ernest screamed out and smashed his other foot against its wrist. Its hold loosened as the brittle bones broke. He pulled both his feet through the door and slammed his back against the wood.

  He could hear them, just inches from his body, pawing at the door, trying to get to his flesh. “For crying out loud, Darren, why the fuck didn’t you warn me that they were in there?”

  Ernest crawled towards the clocking in machine and picked a single tin of pudding from the pile. There was nothing else for it, he’d just have to come back in a day or two. Those fuckers ought to have forgotten about him by then. He stood up and looked at the fire door, seeing a gaunt face starin
g through the reinforced glass window. “I’ll come back and release you, I promise.” He whispered. He needed to come back anyway, Ernest felt naked without his lucky crowbar.

  “Darren is going to laugh his tits off when I come back with my tail between my legs.” Fuck him. He wasn’t all that bothered at what he thought anyhow. Ernest walked over to the window. God he was buzzing, “Ha! You can’t beat a bout of deadie killing to get the old blood singing in the veins.” He was going to enjoy the rest of his night. Chocolate pudding followed by a nice bottle of scotch sound like just the ticket. Darren could fuck right off; Ernest intended to lock him in the freezer again. “That’ll show him what happens when you mess with the old man.”

  The tin fell from his trembling finger when he saw two cloaked figures running towards his building. Ernest pressed his nose against the glass. Oh my lord, after all this time, there really were more survivors! He slammed his fist against the window.

  “Up here!” He yelled.

  They skidded to a halt. Looked up and waved. He felt a huge grin spread across his face, thinking of finally being able to have a civilised conversation. Ernest would have to share his supplies, but that wouldn’t be much of a big deal, there was more than enough for four.

  Ernest picked up his dropped tin and gazed at the window in the doorway. The deadie had gone. More people meant a better chance of freeing their poor souls. He looked back towards the window one more time, just to make sure that it was no dream. He almost dropped the tin again when he saw a large group of rotting bodies shuffling towards the two figures.

  “What are you two doing?” he shouted. “Don’t just stand there, run!” The lead figure appeared to be laughing. The other figure raced towards the building as he ran over to the advancing deadies. The figure dived into the sprawling mass. He watched the figure rip through the deadies like a lawnmower blade slicing through grass. Ernest backed away from the window, “Oh my Christ. They’re hunters!”