Like Rats

by Adam Watts

  The guard drops Frida to the floor, grabs her by the hands and pulls her along the floor through the crowd, their route traced by a thick smear of blood.

  I put my arm across Stan’s quaking shoulder. He keeps his eyes fixed on Lawrence, and Lawrence keeps his eyes – and his weapon – on Stan.

  The guard drags Frida out into the night and closes the door on her. All is quiet apart from her screams and the desperate clawing of her fingernails at the door. She begs for help, for somebody to open the door. She calls out to Stan.

  ‘Stan, my darlin’, please! Please! Don’t leave me out here.’

  But Stan stays put, his stare still fixed on his uncle.

  ‘The rest of you better get moving,’ says Lawrence. ‘All that fussing out there will only draw them in. An easy kill is still a kill to their kind.’

  One by one the people stand and move towards the doors; slowly at first, but they soon become frantic, shoving each other, battling to be the first through the door, to find the best places to hide and lay claim to the best weapons. The last one out is Harry.

  ‘Don’t just stand there,’ he pleads. ‘We need to get her somewhere safe.’

  Stan looks right through him, like the only thing he can see is his uncle.

  ‘You know, I heard all about your escapades in town,’ Lawrence says. ‘Quite the resourceful pair, so I hear. I’m almost tempted to say you’ve earnt your place already, but that would hardly be sporting since you had some help from our friend, Wade. So… off you trot… out into the fray once more. A noggin-a-piece to pay your way.’

  ‘There’s only one head I’m interested in pulling from its perch,’ I tell him.

  ‘That’s the spirit. Best of British to you,’ Lawrence calls as we step back out into the night. From somewhere close by, the snarling shriek of the horde punctures the still night air.

  Half an hour ago I’d wondered whether Lawrence had gone mad in the woods and found Jesus. I can’t remember why that seemed like such a bad thing…

  This is much worse than Jesus.

  Round three…

  DOIN’ ‘EM WITH THE COOKWARE.

  ‘Shut that door!’ Harry screams.

  Stan’s trying his best but there’s too many of them. We were followed.

  I grab a knife from the worktop and stab at anything appearing through the gap in the door. They scream and howl as the blade punches down into their grey sinewy flesh, but it does little to hold them back.

  ‘Keep on ‘em! Keep stabbin’ the bastards!’ Stan yells, shunting his weight back on the door, trying to get it to catch.

  Harry lays Frida on the kitchen floor. She screams and screams; her arms rigid at her sides, her jaw prized apart by agony. Harry grabs a cushion from the chair and places it under her head before leaping towards Stan and adding his weight to the door. I continue stabbing the knife down, over and over and with as much force as I can muster until my hand is slick with blood and the blade slips from my grip. The knife skitters across the floor beyond reach.

  ‘Pres! Door!’ yells Stan.

  I brace myself against it and push back with every ounce of strength I can summon. There’s a gristly crunch accompanied by an agonised scream, and as the door finally catches, a twitching hand (removed from its limb) lands with a wet smack on the tile. Stan hastily kicks it away before fumbling the key from the top of the door frame and working it into the lock.

  Harry returns to Frida, inspects the wound on her leg.

  ‘Is it bad?’ Stan says, stooping down and taking hold of her trembling hand.

  ‘Just a graze I think, but I need to get the wound dressed. I don’t want her going into shock.’

  ‘What can I do?’ Stan says, staring down with helpless desperation.

  ‘You can keep those bloody maniacs out of this house, that’s what you can do. Block up the windows and doors and attack anything that gets through.’

  ‘But what about Frida?’

  ‘I’ve got her.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I’ve got her. Now straighten up and secure this building.’

  ‘You’ll be ok,’ Stan says, rubbing Frida’s hand. She manages a weak smile in return.

  ‘The windows. Now!’ Harry says.

  ‘What do we block them with?’ I say to Stan.

  ‘Fuck knows… just pile anything up. If they manage to get in it’ll only be one at a time. Easy pickings.’

  We set about our work, hesitantly at first, but before long we’re heaping anything and everything in front any place they might get in. Books, pots, chairs, cabinets, lamps, cushions. Whatever will impede their entry.

  Stan grabs my shoulder, nearly causing me to fowl myself. ‘Pres! My samurai sword!’ he says, like I should know exactly what the hell he’s talking about.

  ‘What fucking samurai sword?!’ I yell after him as he runs up the stairs and returns seconds later with the weapon in question. ‘And where exactly did that come from?’ I ask as he unsheathes the blade.

  Stan screws up his face. ‘Took it from a house on my first trip out. I thought you’d be annoyed so I didn’t mention it.’

  Glass breaks from behind one of our protective piles.

  ‘That thing better be sharp,’ I say.

  ‘Only one way to find out!’

  Stan dashes to the tumbling heap in front of the window. A hand emerges, clawing blindly through the gap between a couple of stacked up chairs and an ironing board. Stan brings the sword down on the wrist, but to little effect. There’s no clean slice, no arterial spray, no stump withdrawing back through the window.

  ‘That’ll be an ornamental sword then,’ I say, picking up a heavy pan from the floor and swinging it down at the hand with a satisfying crunch.

  ‘Pres! That’s fucking brutal!’ Stan says, dropping his sword and searching the kitchen for something equally weighty and vicious.

  Another window breaks on the other side of the kitchen, more hands push through the pile, trying to clear their way through it. I smash my pan down on the hands, breaking them all at the wrist.

  ‘Hey, Pres! Check these out!’ Stan says, stood in the middle of the kitchen with a cleaver in one hand and metal steak hammer in the other. ‘See this, Frida? Anything tries to get in here and me and Pres are gonna do ‘em with your cookware!’

  ‘Will you please stop pratting about!’ Harry says, doing his best to dress Frida’s wound.

  ‘How’s my best girl doing?’ Stan asks.

  ‘She’d be doing a hell of a lot better if you’d stop posing with that cleaver and put it to some use.’

  Stan gives a brisk salute before turning to the window and chopping down into something I can’t quite see. A hollow thud is followed by a throaty squeal. Stan backs up, looking shocked, his face spattered with crimson. He giggles nervously and wipes at the blood.

  More hands push their way through my window, some already broken, hanging off at the wrist where I’ve struck them already. I close my eyes and bring the pan down again and again, attacking anything that comes through. From behind the window the horde screams and barks as it tries to break through to us. I know I’ve done this before, but the MIDS blocked it all out. I find myself wishing I could do it that way again; go mad, do what’s needed, and have no memory of it… perverse as it sounds.

  ‘I dunno how many there are out there but it seems like a lot!’ Stan yells before delivering a solid smack to something with the meat mallet. ‘Not sure we’ll be able to hold them off all night.’

  Harry is knelt on the floor next to Frida, her wound now crudely dressed with a tea-towel. He strokes her hair and quietly sings a song I don’t recognise. Given the chaos raging around them, both are astonishingly calm.

  A third window breaks next to Stan. ‘Don’t worry!’ he yells. ‘I’ve got this covered!’ An arm stretches through and is deftly hacked off with the cleaver.

  ‘Harry!’ I say. ‘We won’t be able to keep them out forever. Not with a frying pan and a meat cleaver.’


  ‘And a meat mallet!’ Stan says, like he’s suddenly enjoying himself.

  Harry just sings quietly.

  ‘Harry, please. We need a plan…’

  Something clicks. It must be that word. A plan! His eyes come back in to focus.

  ‘A plan?’

  ‘Tell us what to do, Harry!’

  His eyes dart about the room, searching out the answers, weighing up the odds and connecting one idea to another.

  ‘I need to get her upstairs,’ he says. ‘She needs to be comfortable. You two, nail the door at the bottom of the stairs closed, and do a proper job of it too… no half measures. If we can stay quiet upstairs and the door is secure, it’ll give us a chance.’

  ‘Stan! You get that?’ I call over.

  ‘What’s up?!’ he yells back, defending one window, then the other, howls of pain following each wet thump.

  ‘We need a hammer and nails and some bits of wood. Any ideas?’

  ‘Hammer and nails in the cupboard under the stairs, you’ll have to break some furniture if you want wood.’

  ‘Can you handle all three windows while I help Harry with Frida?’

  ‘So long as you’re quick! These goons are coming thick and fast. And don’t you dare whack her head on the way up.’

  Harry and I manage to haul Frida up the stairs and into bed. She screams the whole way; each clumsy step sending a bolt of pain through her wound.

  Harry sits beside her. ‘You still with me?’ he says.

  Frida squeezes his hand. ‘Sing me that sweet song again…’ she says quietly.

  ‘Preston,’ Harry says with a bracing stare. ‘Make sure that door is nailed hard into the frame. You make it so they can’t get up here.’

  ‘We will. But then what?’

  ‘Can you get to my house?’

  I think about the route; how long it’ll take, where there might be some cover. ‘Probably, yeah,’ I say, even though it feels impossible.

  ‘There’s a cabinet in the front bedroom. You’ll find a gun and some ammunition in there.’

  ‘A gun? You kept that one quiet.’

  ‘It was already there. I never intended to use it unless I absolutely had to. Didn’t want it falling into the wrong hands.’

  ‘Jesus… you really are the sheriff.’

  Harry chuckles to himself, closes his eyes and shakes his head. ‘Not the sheriff, Preston. Not even close. Just a ticket inspector on the trains who never found the right time to put the record straight.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I tell him. ‘What we were back then isn’t important now. You keep her safe. Me and Stan will get the gun.’

  ‘Good lad,’ I hear Harry say as I head back down the stairs.

  Stan is covered in blood. The hysterical grin which arcs across his face suggests it’s not his own. ‘We got a plan then, boss?’ he says.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Then you’d better get that door nailed shut because this lot out here are getting mighty angry with me.’

  I count four severed hands on the kitchen floor. It’s concerning how little this worries me.

  RUNNING THE SHADOWS.

  ‘Are there any out there?’

  ‘Hard to tell.’ I press the side of my head harder into the solid wood of the back door and stick a finger in my spare ear. ‘I think we’ve just gotta make a run for it,’ I tell him, turning the key and grasping the handle. ‘You ready?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Well… tough titties, because it’s go time!’ I say, making pretend this is all a merry lark.

  ‘I hate go-time,’ Stan whines, but all the same I push the door open and step out into the back yard.

  Whilst it’s unlikely any of them have gotten back here, it’d be just our luck if some rogue nut-case was lurking in the darkness, ready to pick off a couple of cocky stragglers like us. I strain my eyes against the darkness, but see little. The dull moon picks out only the vaguest of shapes.

  Stan moves past me. ‘The gate’s over here,’ he whispers, then rattles the latch for rather too long. ‘Locked! Why did she lock it?’

  ‘Just climb over,’ I tell him.

  The noise he creates as he scrambles over instantly calls the soundness of my advice into question. Kicking the thing down would’ve been quieter. After what seems like an agonisingly long time, I hear him land on the other side. I begin my own ascent, which turns out to be even noisier than Stan’s. Funny how darkness and the prospect of a grisly death makes everything sound so much louder.

  ‘Keep low and stay on the grass if you can,’ I tell him as we make our way down the gravelly lane that runs along the back of Frida’s garden.

  ‘You reckon they’ve got super-eyesight or something?’ he says, sounding dead serious.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Or maybe they’ll smell us, like wolves or something.’

  ‘Stan, just shush.’

  ‘Fuck… I hope Frida’s ok in there.’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ I tell him harshly, feeling confident that we did a decent job of securing and obscuring the door to the stairs before we left. There’s no way anything’s getting up those stairs. At worst they’ll probably trash the kitchen and move on. Frida and Harry know how to keep quiet.

  Stan and I arrive at the end of the lane where it joins the main street through the village. I can’t see anyone, but I hear them. Not just the horde, with their gnashing and snarling and howling, but people too, people I’ve known and lived with… screaming… just like Frida… pleading for their lives, running blindly through the darkness, not even rightly knowing what they’re fighting for; the privilege of leaving your home on the promise of a man who seems to have lost his soul. Surviving the night only to face untold horrors in the morning. Call me pessimistic, but if this is a taste of how things work in New Paradise, I think I might give the promised land a miss.

  ‘There’s only one way we’re gonna do this,’ I say, taking a firm grip of my pan handle and visualising the route to Harry’s. It must only be quarter of a mile up the road from here. We can jog that in a couple of minutes, easy.

  ‘Oh shit… it’s go-time again, isn’t it…’ Stan says. ‘I really hope one day soon me and you won’t have to run about in the dark being chased by thick hungry bastards.’

  ‘Maybe tomorrow we’ll do a little better at that,’ I say. ‘You ready?’

  ‘This better be a good gun.’

  ‘Run on the grass if you can,’ I remind him, before sprinting into the night. When was it ever not like this? I can barely remember.

  The night whips past me, bleak and indistinct, everything around me looks like it’s running on loop, like in a cartoon where the same house and the same tree and the same set of bins go past the running character again and again and again as they apparently go nowhere fast. My pan drags my right arm back and I wonder whether I’d be better off dropping it. But the idea of letting it clatter in the street behind me seems at odds with my intention to remain stealthy and silent. There’s also the matter of being left with only my bare hands and teeth to fight with. Hand-to-hand combat and defensive biting were not amongst the skills taught at the village school.

  From behind I hear Stan fall. I skid to a halt and turn, but find only darkness. I try to spot him but the houses on both sides block out what scant light that dull low moon provides.

  ‘Stan!’ I yell, only to be answered by his screams and the snarling bay of something no longer human. I dash towards the screaming, then a single dense crack from somewhere ahead stops me dead.

  ‘Stan!’ I call. My voice breaking.

  SHOCK AND OAR.

  Pained screams puncture the darkness. I hear something heavy fall to the floor with a defeated grunt.

  ‘Stan!’ I yell again. But there’s no answer. I inch forward, only to jump back as another solid crack explodes in the pitch black. Then another… and another, and then blow after blow until it sounds like somebody’s pummelling fruit with a hammer. Every wet smack has me edgin
g back like a timid fawn. There’s no screaming anymore. Just frantic breathing amidst the night.

  I peer through the darkness, seeing only the vague outline of a stooped figure.

  ‘Stan?’ I ask, my voice frayed and uncertain. I inch forward, pan raised above my head, trembling. ‘Who’s over there?’

  ‘Who d’ya think it is, numb nuts?’

  ‘Tuesday? Oh shit… Tuesday! You just killed Stan! Oh shit…’ Panic swamps my mind. The pan drops from my hand, and it takes every ounce of strength I have not to fall after it. How could this happen? How could it possibly end like this? Of all the ways to go, how did he end up being beaten to death by Tuesday? He was right all along; she is a fucking numbskull.

  ‘I didn’t!’ she says.

  ‘That was Stan! Not a fucking zombie! Oh God… oh God! You fucking dick! You fucking shitting fucking… moron!’

  ‘It weren’t Stan! Don’t start mouthin’ off and callin’ me a moron.’

  ‘That was Stan! He was right there behind me, and now he’s dead because you, you fucking moron, smashed his head to mush!’

  ‘What’s the difference? Twat was always a mush-head,’ she sniffs, like it’s all just sport.

  ‘Hey! What kind of insult’s that?’ comes Stan’s voice.

  That does it. That sends me to the floor.

  A dim pool of light clicks on and shines at the mess on the ground next to me.

  ‘Jesus, Tuesday… you’ve got some major anger issues. You been on the roids or something?’ Stan says.

  I allow myself another few moments on the floor. To say I’m relieved that the thing with the deconstructed cranium isn’t my best friend would be a gross understatement.

  ‘Gotta kill ‘em proper,’ Tuesday says.

  ‘What is that? An oar?’ Stan says.

  ‘Yeah… from a boat.’

  ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ I ask, still gasping a little.

  ‘Found it in a garage.’