The second soldier lay across the hood of the jeep. Her head was hanging upside down and looking right at me. There was a huge black rat sitting on her chest and eating from a hole in her neck. The rodent was hideous. Its body was the same length as the soldier’s torso, and its long pink tail swished from side to side as it ate. I put my hand over my mouth and gagged. But I couldn’t look away. I sat with my eyes on the creature whose head was buried in the corpse’s neck. Up ahead in the distance I heard screaming followed by gunshots. I looked right in front of me but saw nothing. When I looked back to the jeep the rat was gone. I had the thought of him being under my car trying to make his way inside.
I shifted into neutral and debated my next move. My view of where all of the commotion was coming from was obscured by an articulated truck and a jeep identical to the one beside me a little further up. I would have made my way around both of them easily if I tried, but the sounds of what lay behind the two vehicles’ weren’t one bit inviting. I decided to take my chances on another road away from the screeching and the popping sounds. I put the car into reverse but froze when I looked in my rear view mirror.
At first I thought they were human. I figured them to be people just like me – fleeing from disaster. Fast. Then I saw the rats running alongside them. The things bearing down on me looked like the corpses at the jeep – only these ones were moving. The closer they got to me the more I could see their disfiguration, and the blood and pus pouring from their mouths. Some looked as if they had been butchered, others like they had been dipped in acid.
They swarmed all around me, beating their bloody fists against the windows and on the hood. The whole car shook from side to side and I bounced around in the seat. One of them pressed its face against the driver’s window and screamed, spitting shards of teeth that stuck to the window with dark matter.
I shifted into first and tried to move – the car lurched forward and then the engine died. I cursed and fumbled with the keys in the ignition. I turned them once – nothing – the second time was the same. My whole body was trembling. Somewhere behind me I heard glass cracking. One of the things pulled the side mirror off and began beating the passenger window with it. I tried not to look at them and wiped my wet hands on my jeans. I then tried the ignition for the third time and cried out in manic relief when the engine turned over.
I drove straight through the checkpoint. I manoeuvred slowly around the jeep and articulated truck. My hands were beginning to sweat on the wheel. My whole skin was cold and crawling. I looked in my rear mirror and saw that I wasn’t being followed. Were it not for the blood on my windows, and the missing side mirror I wouldn’t have believed what had just happened.
Zombies? The living dead?
Bullshit!
But if they weren’t zombies then what the fuck were they?
I didn’t have to wait long to find out. When I rounded a corner I drove right into a massacre. There was a large group of people in the middle of the road and every one of them was screaming and trying to run, but the things had them surrounded. I stopped the car and gripped the wheel. I watched with terror as the dead began to feast on the living. Their attack was inhuman. They bit into flesh, and ripped it from the bone splattering pulpy blood everywhere. I could hear the sounds of ripping fibres and cartilage. The ones who screamed the loudest were treated the worst. I saw a soldier crawling on his stomach trying to retrieve a machine gun sitting in a pool of dark chunky blood. He looked at me with wide eyes and mouthed something to me right before he was swarmed by the rats. There were so many of the vermin that overcame him, and every one of them was grotesquely overgrown.
I moved off again, putting my foot to the floor, as I tried to ignore the massacre. But the dead and the dying were everywhere along the roads. Men and women screamed as they were feasted on by hoards of zombies.
Zombies!
I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. The guards and soldiers I had passed by at the checkpoints were nowhere to be seen. I saw a man standing on the roof of one of the trucks. One of his ears was missing and he was trying to stem the flow of blood with his coat. He kept screaming, ‘they bit my fucking ear off!’ Over and over. When he saw my approach he began waving me down. He begged me to stop and told me about his ear, and how the soldiers had been eaten or ran away. He was so busy ranting that he didn’t notice the rats advancing on him. I passed him by feeling guilty for leaving him to die, even though I knew that if I tried to help him I would have been a goner too.
The closer I got to home the emptier the streets became. My grandmother’s house was in the corner of a twelve home secluded cul de sac. All of the neighbours were elderly, and kept themselves to themselves. The whole area looked devoid of people as far as I could tell – living or dead.
I kept the car in gear, and revved the accelerator while I kept my other foot on the break. I then mashed my fist onto the horn. I darted my gaze to every door and window in the estate, and then over my shoulders in each direction behind me. But I saw no signs of any kind of life. I revved the car again, and pressed the horn for longer the second time. Once again I gave the whole area a 360 degree scan. After a few moments of my noise making I was satisfied that I was alone. I turned off the engine, took some deep breaths and wiped my forehead. My clothes clung to my trembling body, and my hair was matted to my head, even the steering wheel dripped sweat onto my thighs. Somewhere behind me I heard a huge explosion that shook the whole world. I put my fingers back onto the keys and waited. If my own noise hadn’t gotten attention then I was sure the explosion would have. But after what felt like an eternity of waiting I wasn’t greeted by any of the dead.
I looked at my front door. It was only ten feet away but it seemed so much farther. I took the two keys I needed to open the door from the ring and held them in my hand. I braced myself and thought back to everything that I had just witnessed. The whole situation was fantasy. Dark, horrific fantasy, but part of me believed that once I got inside and locked my door behind me, things wouldn’t be so messed up.
I took a deep breath and opened the door. The heat outside was overwhelming and pungent. I put one foot on the ground and kept my other inside the car. I used the door to support my trembling form. My legs were aching from the tension I had been putting them under while driving. The smell of sewerage and burning made my stomach turn and my mouth filled with water. My car had done a pretty decent job of incubating the odours from the outside. I gave the area another quick scan, most particularly under cars, and bushes where I thought the rats might be lying in wait. But I couldn’t see anything even though the air was stinging my eyes and making them water. I stepped all the way out from the car and ran for the front door.
I had just enough time to lock myself in and make it to the bathroom before I projectile vomited. When I was finished, I shambled around the house and made sure that all of the windows were locked. I drew the curtains in each room and took a blanket from my bed and wrapped it around myself. My body temperature had plummeted since throwing up. I then headed back to the sitting room and picked up the phone, but the line was silent. I turned the television on and sat down. The one station that was still broadcasting the news had a still shot of the networks logo on the screen with the words Emergency Updates to follow underneath it.
I began to shiver under the blanket despite the heat inside the house. My whole body broke out in a cold sweat, and I felt the need to vomit again rise up in my throat. I thought that this was how it must begin. The super bacteria. I had been lucky not to have been feasted on outside, but maybe my time for turning had come. I closed my eyes and tried to control my trembling with slow breaths. Soon after, the feeling to throw up passed, but it was replaced by a sudden drowsiness. My eyes began to burn worse than they had outside in the stench and my whole body ached. But I didn’t believe I was turning into whatever those things where outside. I couldn’t. I had to get back to Lauren and my grandmother. This was just an adrenaline crash. Delayed shock.
&nb
sp; My cold shivering passed into hot flushes. I took my blanket off and tried to walk, but when I stood up I fell straight back into the chair. The whole room began to spin, and as the seconds passed I was finding it harder and harder to keep my eyes open. I felt that if they stayed closed then I was fucked. Beads of sweat dripped from my nose like a tap that hadn’t been shut off properly. I became aware that if a zombie made its way into the house, or a rat were to jump into my lap, I would have been powerless to stop them from tucking in to me.
Then the television came to life. I had to strain to keep my eyes open. The man on the screen didn’t look like your typical newsreader. He wore a bulletproof vest and a surgical facemask. He looked as though he was dying. He looked terrified
‘The streets are alive with the dead feasting on the living. No, people of Ireland, this is not the plot to a new blockbuster Hollywood movie, no more than it is a crude joke. According to eye witness reports from our own reporters right before communication was lost, those who were killed by the super bacteria have risen from the dead and are eating people alive in the streets.’
The picture froze for a couple of seconds before returning.
‘…outbreaks have now been reported in the north of Ireland, Europe, and even as far as the USA and Asia…’
Trying to keep my eyes open had turned into agony. The harder I tried, the more sweat ran into them while my head and heart began to pound. My whole body felt as if it was being crushed in a vice.
‘…emergency services and armed forces have met the same fate as thousands of others across the country…’
My head began to hang and the sounds from the television became mumbled vibrations. I gritted my teeth and willed myself to stay awake.
‘…we dug a hole in the ground that opened the gateway to hell. The devils demons and rodents now rule the streets. To those of you still unfortunate enough to be listening to my last ever broadcast – then may God have mercy on your condemned souls.’
That was the last thing I heard before everything went black.
Chapter 3
I was back inside the clinic where I had dropped my grandmother and Lauren off. But this time the place was deserted. I was wearing my work overalls but nothing else. The cold tiled floor beneath my bare feet sent welcome shivers all through my body. I stood opposite the double doors from which the doctor who had me thrown out of the building had come out of.
I walked towards them savouring the cool feeling of the floor with each step. The thoughts of walking zombies and rats were with me, but I didn’t care about them at that moment. All I hoped for was that Lauren and my grandmother would be somewhere safe behind those doors.
When I walked through them they led me onto a train station platform. There were carriages on the track as far as I could see in both directions. They looked like the cars that the circus used to carry their animals around in the old movies. Each one had a small floodlight on top of the cage that cast dim light on the dozens of people jam packed behind the thick bars.
Some people called out to me for help, while others called out to their loved ones asking them were they ok, while telling them that everything was going to be alright. I stood still on the platform listening to the cries, while watching the people outstretch their arms and wiggle their fingers at me for help. But I couldn’t move. The tiled floor of the building had been replaced by soft earth beneath my feet, and when I tried to move nothing happened. I looked up and down the foggy platform and saw that I was alone.
‘Eric is that you?’
It was Lauren’s voice. I recognised it instantly. Her soft soothing tone. It came from my left not too far from where I was standing. I felt a rush of emotions, and willed my feet to move. I pumped my legs hard but I still couldn’t move. The earth was like wet cement.
‘Eric where are you?’
‘I’m coming’, I replied in a whisper that should have sounded louder.
‘Eric please hurry. I need you!’
I pumped with all my will and laughed out loud when my feet rose from the earth. I moved towards Lauren’s voice.
‘Eric I’m down here. Hurry.’
‘I’m coming Lauren, but I need you to be quiet ok?’
I walked slowly as the platform clung to my feet like melted toffee. With each cart I passed people moaned and cried out to me. Some even tried to grab me.
When I got to the cage that Lauren was in I could barely make her out. Her enlarged belly was pressed against the bars, while the rest of her form was obscured in the fog. I had to press my own face against the cold steel to see her clearly. She looked pale and frightened.
‘Eric are you ok? I thought I’d never see you again.’
‘I’m fine. Well, just about, you wouldn’t believe what’s going on out there Lauren. We need to get you out of here somehow.’ I tried to take her hand in mine but she recoiled.
‘No Eric. I’m ok; they’re taking us all to someplace safe. Away from all of… this. You just need to keep yourself alive for me and the baby.’
‘But I want to come with you now. The both of you. Where’s gran?’
Lauren hung her head as the fog began to smother her in a thick grey blanket. I put my arms inside the cage but I couldn’t feel her. I called her name but she didn’t reply. Below me, I could hear the rats squeaking. When I looked down through the gap I saw dozens of big red eyes staring back up at me.
Then the carriages started to pull away, and my hands slipped from the bars. I called out to Lauren again, but the only reply I got was more squeaking from the rats. It sounded as though they were laughing at me. I tried to move with the cart but my feet had become stuck again. When I looked down I saw that I was sinking into the earth and that I was already ankle deep. I heard more moaning, but they sounded different from the ones that came from the cages. They sounded tortured and angry.
I saw the shadows of the dead forming in the fog. They were coming right towards me. The cargo train was gone. The platform had swallowed me up to my knees. The zombies were only a few feet away now. They looked hideous. The lead one was missing a hand, and its left eye hung over its cheek by a stringy retina. The one behind it had no lips or teeth. They took their time in coming towards me. They knew I was trapped. I was easy prey. They smelled so bad. The lead one grabbed me by the throat and opened its mouth. Its infected breath whooshed into my face right before I woke up.
I was in my chair, wrapped up in my blanket. Outside was dark, and the night was alive with screaming and the thud of explosions. I was shivering again despite my hot skin. I tried to get up but I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure how long I had been out exactly, but I knew it was too long. I needed to find Lauren and my grandmother. But I was paralysed. I looked down at my lifeless body and willed myself to move in the same way I did in my dream. But my conscious mind wasn’t functioning.
My whole body exploded with pain and then it was all black again. I was standing in a yard outside an industrial unit called chamber 8a. I was once again in my work overalls, but this time I was wearing steel toe boots and I had a gas mask in my hand. There was a tall man standing beside me wearing a fine suit and a mask identical to mine. He held his hands behind his back, and stared at the chamber. He had a long pink tail that lopped from side to side in the dirt behind him.
‘It wasn’t supposed to happen like this’, he said while staring straight ahead. The only part of him that moved was the repulsive tail.
‘What was supposed to happen?’ I asked looking at the man and then towards the chamber.
‘It doesn’t matter Eric. It’s too late anyway. We are all beyond saving. Our last act is to finish this lot off. And then ourselves of course.’
‘What lot? What are you talking about?’
‘Them’ he replied nodding in the direction of the approaching train. The cab pulled a long line of caged human cargo.
‘It will take a while, but the unit is big enough to fit 3 cars in at a time.’
‘My girlfriend and grandmother
are in one of those cages. I need to save them!’
The rat – man didn’t reply. He kept staring ahead at the halting train. His tail was now upright behind his back in an s shape.
‘I will bring the cages in myself Eric. I can manage that alone. You will have the job of controlling the poison , so you might want to put your mask on. I can’t have you keeling over on me until we get them all taken care of.’
‘You’re fucking crazy.’
The man’s tail twitched at my comment. His shoulders bobbed up and down and he squeaked in laughter. He turned facing me and stared at me with overly sized red eyes.
‘PUT YOUR FUCKING MASK ON!’
I was awake again. Somewhere outside in the dying world the screaming was still going on. I swallowed the taste of bile out of my mouth and wiped my sweating face. I still couldn’t move. But it wasn’t too late. Help was bound to come. The rat man was wrong. I would find Lauren and my grandmother.
I feared falling asleep again but I couldn’t fight it.
Chapter 4
The next time I awoke I was sprawled out on the bathroom floor. My blanket was a stinking rag beneath me. It smelled of dried in sweat and urine. My mouth tasted as if I hadn’t swallowed in years, and my muscles were cold and cramped. But my fever was gone, leaving me with a sore head, and no recollection of how I had made it into the downstairs bathroom.
Daylight shone in through the frosted glass window above my head, and the outside was quiet. I picked myself up from the floor slowly using the walls and toilet bowl as my anchors. My bones ached and creaked as I stood upright. I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink. My face was grubby, pale, and covered in stubble. My eyes had large dark circles underneath them, and my hair was thick with grease, and my head pounded. I brushed my teeth on a dry brush and then rinsed my mouth out with mouthwash. Then I urinated without flushing. As disorientated as I felt, I still knew I had to conserve water as much as I could. I needed to shower and my stomach rumbled for food, but the both of them were to wait. I entered the sitting room and picked up the cordless phone noticing that the battery was almost dead as I put it against my ear and listened for a dial tone, and hoping that the lines had been turned back on. But all I got was silence on the other end. I checked the screen and then froze. I stared at the green digital display and felt my skin begin to crawl. I shook my head, not believing what I was seeing.
The Dust: The Zombie Apocalypse in Ireland Page 2