“Bad men outside,” was Britney’s response. “Need to kill them.”
That had been the first time Britney had ever mentioned the crazies. Kylie and Tom had done their best to shield them from her by never going anywhere near the exit doors, where they still pounded relentlessly, day and night. Kylie wondered what else Britney had picked up on during her short life in Meadowside.
Britney was almost two years old, and full of curiosity about everything. Several times now, Kylie and Tom had woken to find her missing from her cot. They had no idea how she got over the bars, and the first time it happened they thought she had been stolen by one of the other survivors. After a frantic search they found her by the war memorial statue. Something seemed to draw her to the bronze soldiers, because that was where she would end up every time she went missing. So eventually Kylie and Tom moved their home into one of the nearby shops, and the area around the statue became Britney’s permanent playground.
After the last of the crazies had been killed, there was the problem of what to do with them. They couldn’t just leave them to rot, the smell would have been too overpowering, and the risk of disease too great. At first someone had suggested burning them in the open space around the food hall, but that idea was soon dismissed due to fears of the fire spreading. Someone else suggested throwing them off the roof, which sounded like a good idea, but nobody knew how to get up there. In the end they had smashed the outside windows of a few upper floor shops and tossed them out to the hungry crazies below, then boarded the windows up.
After that, everyone had gone their separate ways and found their own little corner of Meadowside to live in. Tom and Kylie hardly ever saw any of the other survivors, except the odd one or two while they were out shopping for supplies. They nodded in recognition, but nobody ever engaged in conversation anymore. They knew the only topic would be what they had all gone through, and nobody wanted to be reminded of those days.
“Need a piss,” Britney announced, standing up.
Kylie was about to rise herself when Tom said he would take her. She settled back down into the sofa and smiled as she watched him lead Britney away. Tom had been a great father to the child, and it made Kylie love him all the more for it. He was nothing like Kylie’s own father, who had just been a pissed up waster all her life. She knew Tom would be over the moon when she told him she was pregnant. She had done the test earlier that morning, and was just waiting for the right moment to tell him the good news.
Rapid gunfire came from somewhere in the distance. Kylie jumped up and looked around, trying to locate where it had come from.
“Tom?” she yelled.
When he didn’t reply, Kylie ran to the nearby public toilets and burst through the door. Tom leaned against a sink, watching Britney perched on the edge of a toilet in one of the cubicles, swinging her legs backwards and forwards.
“Did you hear that?” Kylie asked.
“Hear what?” Tom said with a shrug.
Britney climbed off the toilet and bent down in front of Tom. “Arse wipe,” she demanded. Tom picked up one of the stash of toilet rolls they kept in there and wrapped a wad of paper round his hand. He wiped Britney clean, then tossed it into the toilet and flushed it away.
The rapid gunfire came again, closely followed by a loud explosion.
“What the fuck was that?” Tom asked, turning to look at Kylie.
“Bang bang,” Britney said. “Kill bad men.”
“I don’t know,” Kylie said, shaking her head, “but we’d better go and see.”
Other survivors had heard it too, and several were congregated near the north exit when Kylie, Tom and Britney got there. Some of them brandished tools as weapons, and looked at each other nervously. The crazies had moved away from the doors, giving everyone a clear view of the car park beyond. The tarmac was pock-marked with explosions, littered with the charred remains of dead crazies. Some of the living crazies were feeding on them, but most were shuffling away into the distance, where sporadic gunshots still rang out.
“It’s got to be the army,” a man said, excitedly. “Who else would have guns and bombs out there?”
There were murmurs of agreement. “They’ve come to save us!” a woman shouted.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you,” Dan Foster said, leaning on his walking stick. Everyone turned to look at him as he raised the walking stick and pointed at the exit door. “It could be any fucker out there for all we know. All I’m saying is, we shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to welcome them, whoever they are. We should stay out of sight until we know who they are and what they want.”
“Oh come on,” the woman argued, “you can’t be serious? After all this time there’s been nobody, and now when we’re rescued you want to hide away from them?”
Dan shrugged. “Well it’s up to you. If you want to take the risk, you go ahead. Me, I’m going to wait and see. Besides, even if they are army, if you go running up to them they’ll just assume you’re a zombie and shoot you.”
“He’s right,” Tom said. “They’ll shoot first and ask questions later, that’s what I’d do in their position.”
While they were arguing, Kylie heard a vehicle approaching at high speed, its tyres squealing around the bend leading into the car park. She picked up Britney and ran into a nearby shop, closely followed by Tom. The others looked at each other in silence, then peeled away to find hiding places of their own when they heard another gunshot. The last of them was just out of sight when Kylie heard one of the glass doors shatter. She put Britney down and crept to the front of the shop, then peered through the shutters to watch.
A small boy crunched over the broken glass into Meadowside, closely followed by a young woman in army fatigues. She looked around, pointing the rifle in all directions, then picked up the boy and ran toward a nearby escalator.
“It’s the army,” Kylie said. “They’ve come to rescue us.”
Tom joined her at the front of the shop. They watched through the shutters together as another man stepped through the door into Meadowside. At first Kylie thought he was one of the crazies, due to his wild, staring eyes and his dishevelled appearance. But he was overweight, whereas all the crazies outside were emaciated, and he carried a baseball bat and an axe with him.
“What do we do?” Kylie whispered.
“I don’t know,” Tom said, “let’s wait and see what happens.”
But others were already emerging from their hiding places. The dishevelled man stood still and watched them, his eyes flitting nervously between them. He raised his axe and stepped toward them.
“No, it’s okay,” a woman said, palms held out to the man. “You’re safe here.”
The man stopped again, then licked his cracked, dry lips. “Are you, um… I mean, are…” His face turned red and he looked down at his feet. “Are you… um… well?”
“Yes, we all are. But we need to seal off that door before the zombies get in. Is there anyone else with you?”
“Um… no, just me.”
The woman, and two of the men with her, went into one of the nearby shops and came out with arms full of metal display shelving. They skirted around the dishevelled man and headed for the exit door with them, then piled them up around it.
Tom and Kylie stepped out of the shop they were hiding in. Tom went to help the others barricade the door, while Kylie picked up Britney and headed for the escalator. The woman and child stared down at her, open-mouthed. Kylie smiled up at her.
“I’m Kylie, this is Britney,” she said as she walked up the escalator. “Are you in the army? Will the others be here soon?”
The woman shook her head. “No. There’s nobody left out there, they’re all dead. It’s just those things left out there now.” The boy started to cry, and the woman picked him up. “I’m Lynn. This is my son, Tommy.”
“Hello Tommy,” Kylie said, smiling at the boy. “You’re going to like living here, there’s lots of toys to play with and everything. And I
bet you like chocolate, don’t you? Well there’s lots of that here too.”
“Is it safe here?” Lynn asked.
Kylie looked down at the exit door and nodded. “It is now.”
Also available by Marcus Blakeston
Meadowside
The Fall of Humpty Dumpty
Punk Rock Nursing Home
The Meat Wagon
Bare Knuckle Bitch
Punk Faction
Skinhead Away
Table of Contents
Copyright
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Epilogue
Also available by Marcus Blakeston
Meadowside Page 11