Undead at Heart

by Calum Kerr

  Undead At Heart

  A novel

  by Calum Kerr

  plus the bonus extra flash-fiction: ‘Judith’.

  First published in Great Britain, 2012, by Gumbo Press.

  www.gumbopress.co.uk

  Copyright © 2012 Calum Kerr.

  The rights of the above named person to be identified as author of his work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired or otherwise circulated without publisher’s prior written consent in any form of cover or binding other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover and Page design: Calum Kerr.

  For Mum,

  for all your encouragement and support

  and your zombie-hunting skills, of course.

  One

  Nicola gritted her teeth and gripped the steering wheel hard with her fingers. Some mothers had to cope with endless repeats of the Rastamouse theme song, some with The Best of Disney or something equally annoying. For some reason Alyssa, her daughter, was hooked on Bohemian Rhapsody and every time it came to the end of the song she would ask her mother to put it on again.

  This was only a short journey, thank God, but they were already on the sixth repeat and, with another ten miles to go in increasingly busy traffic, Nicola calculated that she had at least another five or six to go. Rock legends they might have been, and Freddie might have been the most amazing show-man ever to grace a stage. But when Galileo was mentioned for the 65th straight time, she could quite happily have strangled the whole lot of them.

  Alyssa’s Christmas request was to be taken to go and see the musical, We Will Rock You. She knew she would have to bow to her daughter’s demands in time, but for the moment she was not engaging with Alyssa’s requests in the hope – no, the fervent prayer – that she would forget and find a new obsession. Reading would be good, origami even better. Or maybe bonsai trimming? Nicola smiled to herself, the muscles of her face softening from their rictus for a moment, as she imagined her six year-old daughter trimming a tree which would be almost the same size as her.

  The moment didn’t last however, as the song reached the end and the voice from the back seat called, ‘Again! Again!’

  Nicola dropped a weary hand to the stereo and hit the ‘back’ button to start the track over and resumed her routine grip and grit.

  In a more relaxed state, Nicola liked to think that she looked pretty good for her age and certainly nothing like her 34 years. Her naturally-curled hair had now grown long enough to hit her shoulders in a way she liked, the weight of the length pulling the curls into soft loops, rather than the tight rings which they had been for so many years. Its mid-brown shades offset her deeper brown eyes and, she hoped, leant her an air of mystery. However, having caught sight of herself in the mirror on journeys like this, she knew that the tightening of her jaw that could now be caused by just the first few piano notes, rendered her skin too tight and called attention to the underlying sharpness of her features.

  She tried to relax, and had a small amount of success, but then the operatic middle came around again and she started to grind her teeth.

  She reached down and turned the sound down a little. “Honey?”

  “Yes, Mummy?”

  “Do you think we could listen to something else for a little while?”

  “No, Mummy! Mohebian Bapsody! Mohebian Bapsody!”

  Wary of a tantrum, Nicola decided it wasn’t worth the effort. There was enough danger of tears and stamping when they arrived at the dentist’s, so she decided she would have to live with the prog-rock classic just a little while longer.

  It was only a routine check-up - at the nearest NHS dentist which Nicola had been able to find on her return from the States – but suddenly she was hopeful for a filling or an extraction. That would make Alyssa docile enough to let her mum listen to whatever she wanted. Or – oh bliss! – maybe nothing at all.

  Of course, this thought was immediately followed by a wave of guilt. How could she possibly wish such a thing on her daughter? But, she reasoned with herself, it was hard bringing up the girl on her own. Never mind the slightly disturbing obsession with a song written over thirty years before the girl was born. Just being six was enough to cause Nicola problems. She blamed Rob, which was, after all, perfectly natural. Bastard. And, she thought, not for the first time, she could also blame him for the musical accompaniment to nearly every car journey she had taken with her daughter in the past two years. It was one of Rob’s parting gifts to her. Who plays Queen to a four year old? Who? Rob, that’s who. Bastard.

  So, if from time to time she weakened and was not the perfect mother but, instead, a weak human being who just wanted a little peace, a little time to herself, then surely that was natural. After all, it wasn’t as though she planned to hit Alyssa till one of her teeth came loose, was it? She wasn’t that bad a mother.

  Just having had the thought was enough to make Nicola feel guilty. She blamed Rob again, whispering the word ‘Bastard,’ quietly under her breath, and turned up the stereo in an attempt to make amends for her evil thoughts. Alyssa didn’t know what she had been thinking, of course, but Nicola doubted she’d mind.

  Eyes focussed back on the road instead of inward to her problems, Nicola was slightly surprised to see a military helicopter flying low over the road. The trees were thick on either side of this stretch of the A34, presumably to protect the delicate Oxfordshire cows from having to look at all the ugly traffic which sped up and down the road each day.

  It was one of those long helicopters with a rotor at both the front and the back. A Sky-hook? Chin-hook? Something like that. It emerged over the tops of the trees on the right like a startled grouse taking flight, crossed low over the road, it’s shadow disturbingly large as it trailed over the traffic in front, and then disappeared equally as suddenly behind the treetops on her left.

  It seemed strange and incongruous on a nice day like today. She might have been grumbling about the musical accompaniment, but she couldn’t complain about the weather or even the view. It was a bright and sunny July day, like the days of the summer holidays that she remembered from before they moved to America. The trees, though thick at the sides of the road, were full and green and reminded her, with a slight pang of not-quite-home sickness, of rural roads she remembered from her time in the States. She made a mental note to come back here in the fall when the leaves would be turning and see how they compared to Maine or Vermont. Her parents had moved to Boston, her father leaving his position at Oxford to take up a Professorship at Harvard, but their holiday home had been in Maine, and holidays had been taken in most of the rest of the top-right corner of the country known as New England. New Hampshire had been her least favourite, probably because most of what she had seen of it had been from the interstate as they drove from Boston to Portland, but she had loved Maine dearly and had hated leaving it. She had to get away from Rob, though, and returning to England seemed her only choice.

  Something else to blame Rob for.

  Her reminiscences were interrupted by two more of the large helicopters flying almost directly over her car. This time she really did jump in her seat as the loud noise of the
ir passage trailed behind them. Should they really be so low? Was that safe?

  Some part of her brain woke up and she remembered that there was a military base nearby. Was it Brize Norton or was that somewhere else. Salisbury Plain wasn’t that far away, she was fairly sure. Was that where they were headed?

  She drove past a long layby, and noticed that it was filled with green army trucks. There was no sign of the soldiers she would have expected to fill them, and the engines appeared to have been turned off. Nicola felt disquieted.

  She found herself staring at the trucks as she drove past them. Finally, as they slipped behind she looked back to the road and saw that she would have to slow as the traffic in front of her had started to bunch up. She watched as her speedometer dropped from 50 to 40 and cursed under her breath. There was a chance that they might now be late, and the dentist was never very accommodating with that kind of thing. If they were she would have to make another appointment, probably at least a month away – partly because they were so busy, but at least partly, she was sure, as a punishment for being late. And then she would have to drive home with Alyssa, un-sedated, calling over and over for her favourite song.

  As if this thought was a mental cue, the song once more came to an end and Alyssa called, “Again! Again”

  Nicola glanced down, hit the back button on the stereo once more, and looked back up. The huge roar which came from the fields to her left made her give out an involuntary shriek, and then she was straightening her leg on the brake, her whole body going rigid as she tried to get the car to stop in time,

  It wasn’t the sound of the explosion, nor the stationary traffic which caused this reaction, it was the sight of an articulated lorry flying through the air, the canvas sides of the trailer flapping in flames, heading for the road and the cars in front of her. Despite her foot on the brake, she was still heading for it, and she didn’t think they would be able to stop. Her instinct was trying to twist her in her seat to protect Alyssa from the impact, but at the same time her brain tried to work out a way for her to avoid the blow altogether. Could she dodge or weave? Could she duck?

  It was with relief that she realised that the truck had been higher than she’d thought when it appeared, like a bizarre echo of the helicopters, over the trees, and was actually heading for the far carriageway. It was bad news for the cars travelling South, especially the sporty silver number which seemed to be on an irresistible collision course with the front of the fiery truck. But she couldn’t worry about that now. Adrenaline had flooded her body, leaving her panting, but they had had a lucky escape and she could just travel home – the long way round – and find out about the casualties, and the cause of the explosion, on the news tonight. It was cold and callous, but she had Alyssa to worry about, after all.

  She turned away, not wanting to watch as the wagon hit the silver car, and so missed the way that it twisted and rolled as it hit the road, the link between truck and trailer snapping. What she did see, when she looked back, was that the trailer, now free of its anchor, metal frame twisted and canvas still aflame, had flipped back on itself and was going to land right in her path. There was nothing she could do about it and, as Alyssa screamed, Nicola did finally turn in her seat to try, with her slight frame, to stop the tonnes of oncoming metal from killing them both.

  Two

  “Damn signal.” Tony cursed at his Blackberry and shook it, as though that would help. He held it up and pressed the small black rectangle against the roof of his car, glancing between the road and the screen, waiting for some indication that his connection was being re-established.

  His car, his pride and joy, his metallic silver Audi TT RS Coupé started to drift out of its lane towards the crash barrier. Tony corrected with a flick of his left hand, his right still holding his phone up by his ear. The car started to swing too far, crossing into the inside lane, and the car he was over-taking sounded its horn, so he pulled back into his lane, gaze still flicking between windscreen and widescreen. “Come on, come on!” he muttered.

  Finally, the small icon showing his internet connection popped back onto the screen, and his emails continued to download. He slowly lowered the device, making sure it was still connected, then slid it onto the ledge formed by the steering-wheel housing, and placed both hands on the wheel.

  He flicked the stalk for the stereo and jumped forward through the tracks till he found one that he wanted to listen to. He discarded The Final Countdown and You Give Love a Bad Name in favour of Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. His friends laughed at his taste in music. They all listened to bands with little or no musical ability, bands that came from X-Fuctor or Britain’s Got No Talent, or bought songs by people they’ve never heard of ‘featuring’ other people they’d never heard of. With that great wealth of musical talent on offer, he didn’t see how they could scoff because he liked good old fashioned eighties rock. He might only be twenty seven, but that still means he was born, alive and aware in the eighties. Just. And the music of the year he was born seemed perfectly good to him. 1985 had even been immortalised in a song by Bowling for Soup. Which reminded him, he’d listen to Whitesnake next. But first he would rise up to the challenge of his rival.

  Anyway, it wasn’t his fault. Eighties rock was what his mother had listened to. He’d been weaned to Huey Lewis and his Power of Love, taken his first steps to Run DMC’s version of Aerosmith’s Walk This Way. Memories of his first day at school came with a soundtrack of Tears for Fears telling him that Everybody Wants to Rule the World. He’d never said it to anyone, and never would for fear that they would laugh at him, but he felt that these songs from his childhood, this body of work that his mother had passed on to him, were his guide in the world. They taught him the life lessons about life that he needed to make himself a success. She had left him a road-map in the form of her music that he could follow once she was gone.

  She’d died when he was only fourteen. Breast cancer. A lump was found, but too late. They took the whole thing away, and its partner, but it was too late, it was already moving. From diagnosis to the end was just six weeks, and after he felt like he had blinked and missed it. He had so many things left to say, so many things to ask, but it was too late. Always too late.

  But he didn’t need her, of course. She’d already passed on everything that she knew through the songs that she left him. And so he listened, and he learned.

  That just left his dad, for what he was worth.

  He didn’t like music.

  A chime from his Blackberry told Tony that his messages had finally finished downloading. He couldn’t believe how bad the signal was out here in the country. He didn’t mind the long drives that he needed to make for his job, but he did object to having to drive on a road like this. Look at it: all trees and fields. Nothing at all as far as the horizon, when you could see that horizon that is; when it wasn’t blocked by more bloody trees. Even if there had been a phone mast in every field, the trees with all their water and sap would suck the signal from the air. He only had one hundred and two new messages, but it had taken nearly ten minutes to download them.

  He reached forward to pick up the phone, and started flicking through the messages, scanning the titles. Every so often he’d glance up, make sure he was not heading for anything solid, and perform small course corrections.

  Most of them were work-related: adverts for MFD conferences, new products that he should really think about telling his customers about, customers with queries, managers with queries, colleagues with queries. Tony wished he wasn’t quite so good at his job. Then he wouldn’t get all these bloody queries.

  He scrolled past most of them, these weren’t the messages he was looking for. Finally, he stopped. ‘Looking forward to tonight’ was the title. ‘redSuse@anymail.com’ was the name. It was from a red-headed woman called Susanne Meddler and, he hoped, would tell him where he would be sleeping that night.

  He gave himself a little ironic smile as he noticed that the mail immediately after Susanne’s
was from last night’s date, ‘gingerKim’. He would read that later, if he had time. Hell, he might even reply. She’d been nice, and a lot of fun, she’d even cooked a decent breakfast. He wouldn’t arrange to see her again, he didn’t think. If he found himself back in Stoke he was sure there were plenty of other red-headed women who might like a nice night out with a young man who looked as good as he did.

  He clicked open Susanne’s message and started to read. Yes, she was okay to meet with him tonight. She gave him a time and a place in Portsmouth where they were to meet. She even mentioned that it was close to where she lived. Her final line was a question. She just wanted to make sure that thirty-nine wasn’t too old for him. He’d already told her that it wasn’t, that it didn’t matter what age she was, she was still a beautiful young woman, but he guessed he would have to reassure her. He pressed the button to reply and started tapping away, his thumb moving from key to key, his eyes once more glancing between road and screen.

  Of course your not to old. Your the perfect age. You would be beautiful however old you were, but I’m glad I’v met you now as I cant imagine you ever being more beautiful than you are right now. I can’t wait to meet you, its going to be wonderful to see you. I just hope you aren’t disappointed with me.

  love Tony xxx

  He hit send and slid the phone back onto his dashboard. For a moment he considered sending an email to Kim. She’d actually been nice and he thought maybe, just maybe, she was worth breaking his rule and seeing her a second time. Either way, she could wait. If he did decide to give her another go then keeping her waiting was definitely the right tactic. And if not, then letting it go cold was always the easiest.

  He wondered what all these women thought about him. He knew it was probably cruel of him to woo them so convincingly, work his way into their lives, and then into their beds, and then to disappear. But, hell, that was what internet dating was all about, wasn’t it? It was just about people looking to hook up and have a good time. No way did he want to be tied down. He’d seen the effect it had had on his dad when his mum died, and he never wanted to be in that position. And, anyway, he was all over the country all the time, who would want to wait for that? He was being kind really.