Like Rats

by Adam Watts

  ‘Eve?’ I call. ‘We’re all right here! Look for the light!’ A sick and heavy feeling grows in my stomach as the screams and groans grow louder around us. She may be alive, but she’s on her own, and if they find her… I try not to picture it, but it’s hard not to.

  ‘I’ll get her,’ Charlie says.

  ‘No! I need to do this,’ I tell her.

  ‘Here,’ she says, before shoving something into my hands. ‘Take the gun. You and Stan get to the hall and I’ll get Eve. Probably owe her one anyway.’ And then she’s gone.

  ‘Be careful!’ Stan yells after her, tailing off, just in case it’s a little too obvious that he actually gives a shit.

  ‘Don’t be a twat!’ she yells back.

  ‘We need to go,’ Stan says, grabbing my arm.

  ‘But Eve…’

  ‘Pres, we need to go. Now! I think we’ve already established we’re massively shit at finding Eve, and there’s a certain uncle whose dick wants kicking over his head.’

  He wrenches harder at my arm, nearly pulling me over and giving me no choice but to follow. Though I want to find Eve and know she’s as safe as can be, it seems instead that Stan and I are running through the night with no idea how the hell we’re going to stay alive. I think this is what they call negative cyclical behaviour. I swing my pan wildly, and occasionally it makes contact with something, maybe knocking them back just enough to give us a few seconds. I try not to dwell on the idea that I might be smashing my fellow villagers in the face. I guess only the darkness knows for sure.

  ‘I got one!’ Stan yells from up ahead. ‘Knocked ‘em out whilst running! Jackpot!’

  ‘Never mind that! Just keeping running!’ I yell.

  ‘Running and gunning, my friend!’ he calls back, followed by another loud thump and a startled groan. ‘That’s two!’

  Up ahead I see the dim glow of candle light. The hall. I pick up the pace, spurred on by the prospect of safety (if such a thing exists anymore). I keep swinging the pan but it hits nothing.

  ‘Three!’ Stan calls out, obviously having more luck than me.

  ‘It’s not a competition!’

  ‘So says the loser!’ Stan sounds like he’s off somewhere to my left.

  The dim glow of the hall windows draws closer. I charge on, swiping at the darkness with the pan in one hand, reaching forward with the other. I grasp the door handle, and thinking only of need to get inside, I rattle it violently.

  ‘Twat!’ says Stan, arriving breathlessly next to me. ‘There’s people with guns in there.’

  ‘It’s locked,’ I say, turning to face the night.

  ‘Fuck sake, Pres. Might as well kick it down now they know we’re here,’ he says, turning his back to the door and slamming into it with a barrage of donkey kicks. He relents only to peer in through the grubby window. A muddied light falls across his face, picking out the blood splatters in deep brown. ‘Where is that prick?’ Stan smashes his hammer on the door. ‘Lawrence! Lawrence you bastard, open this fucking door! We’ve got heads! We wanna come to paradise!’

  There’s no response. At least not from inside of the hall. We can’t see them yet, but what sounds like a sizable horde is heading towards us. The light shining on us might be dim, but currently we represent the two most visible things in this village. Maybe I should’ve hit them a little harder on my way through.

  ‘Ah… crap,’ says Stan quietly, summing it up nicely.

  ‘Maybe it’s time to start firing blindly into the dark,’ I say, unshouldering the gun.

  ‘Don’t be a tit, Pres. You’ll just draw more of ‘em in.’

  ‘What then? Because it sounds like all the zombies in the known world are heading our way.’

  ‘Shit…’

  ‘Shit isn’t helpful, Stan.’ But it’s a sentiment I share. The horde draws closer, surrounding us, baying from the pitch black that utterly engulfs us. We still can’t see them, but they see us.

  ‘Never thought I’d die on the steps of a village hall.’ Stan looks down at his bloodied steak hammer and takes a deep breath. Then something catches his ear, as it does mine. There’s a momentary lull in the snarling clamour that shirrs around us as they too register the steady rumble in the near distance; a steady rumble punctuated by the toothsome rattle of whirring steel.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’ I ask. ‘Is that… a chainsaw?’

  ‘Nope. That, my friend, is the unmistakable sound of two chainsaws.’

  ‘Looks like the cavalry’s arrived.’

  OUR CAVALRY, OR THEIRS?

  We put our backs firmly to the door and raise our weapons to our chests; the mechanical growling advances, sending the horde into a frenzy. And whilst I was initially buoyed by the prospect of somebody doling out a little lumberjack-style carnage, there’s now a part of me that wonders whether those saws are in the hands of our cavalry or theirs. Wade said it… they’re not as dumb as they seem; it’s possible they could arm themselves. It’s possible Lawrence could’ve armed them.

  The saws scream and rattle as they draw in, and I don’t know what scares me more; the horde, or the thought that it could even be a couple of Lawrence’s henchmen entering the fray to mix things up a little. I grip my pan handle and wonder what protection it could offer against the snagging bite of a chainsaw against my pliant neck.

  ‘You reckon they’re helpful chainsaws or… y’know… the other kind?’ I ask. I can feel the blood draining to my feet as I speak. But before Stan can answer, a dark figure lunges at him, pinning him to the door by his throat. I stumble back, falling off the step and dropping my weapon in the process.

  ‘Pres!’ Stan screams. ‘Pres! Get it off! Get it off!’

  I leap up at it, piling all of my weight into its back before heaving it away and bringing it crashing to the floor. It thrashes beneath me as I pound my fists down into its face, sometimes landing a direct blow but sometimes missing altogether and pounding the cold earth. I push myself up and back to the door with Stan; the thing hunkers on all fours like a wolf, its bloodied face contorted with hunger, ready to lunge at its prey.

  The saws scream abruptly into the night, and as Stan’s foot makes contact with the crawling wretch’s face, we hear what can only be the sound of a hundred spinning teeth biting into flesh and bone. The noise is soon drowned by screams. The metallic roar wetted by gristle and blood. Stan and I charge forward, lashing out at whatever gets in our way and stamping hard on whatever falls to our feet. The sound is appalling; the agonised howls of the creatures as they’re ripped asunder by the chainsaws, the shriek of the engines at full throttle, the meaty squelch of soft flesh yielding to the churn of hurtling steel. And that smell; hot blood and petrol fumes mixing with the vomit that rises in the back of my throat as the ground turns boggy and thick beneath our feet.

  Soon the saws are all but upon us, and the wall of bodies between us and a very gruesome death has shrunk to a mere handful, so we pull back to the door, still not entirely certain whether we’re next for the chop.

  But as we brace ourselves for what might be a ghastly death, the revving drops back, leaving just the gentle phut-phut-phut of idling machines and the sounds of the last few crazies wallowing in their death-throes on the grass in front of the hall. Stan is on his hands and knees, gasping for breath, and the only thing keeping me upright is the locked door behind me.

  As two figures emerge from the night, the engines cut out completely. Clearly their work here is done. Eve and Tuesday stand before us, drenched in a thick, nearly black gloss. Their faces almost disappear into the night behind them, only their teeth and the whites of their eyes show.

  ‘Well that was a change of pace,’ Eve says, sounding like she’s just enjoyed a jolly round of badminton.

  Breathlessly, Stan pulls himself up and eyes them both for a moment. ‘Where the hell did you find two chainsaws?’ he says, wiping at his bloodied face.

  Charlie shrugs. ‘Tool shed.’

  ‘Silly me…’ Stan says, collapsing
back onto the door next to me. ‘You both look very hot right now, by the way. I realise this is not the time for flirting but it has to be said before I’m eaten alive or something.’

  ‘Reckon we got enough heads ‘ere to buy our way into paradise,’ Charlie says.

  ‘The door’s locked, though,’ I tell her.

  Charlie responds by hurling her chainsaw through the window just to the right of the door.

  Stan looks at me in stunned silence. ‘Why didn’t you think of that?’ he says.

  THE UNBLINKING EYE.

  When I was about sixteen I came to a party in this hall. I kissed a girl called Jasmin who was drunk at the expense of her dad’s liquor cabinet. She tasted awful and my friends took the piss out of me for weeks afterwards because they noticed the bulge in my trousers after she unstuck her face from mine and staggered off to empty the contents of her stomach.

  In the exact spot where I stood and watched her shamble away – apparently sporting a semi and wiping her drool from my chin – there’s now a bloodied chainsaw laying amongst scattered shards of glass and a puddle of petrol. Aside from that, the hall is just as we left it earlier, minus the people. Most of the candles are still alight, but Uncle Lawrence’s chair is empty. Gone are the men with guns. Gone are the villagers. The only evidence they were here at all is the long red smear left by Frida’s bleeding leg as she was dragged from the building.

  Climbing through the broken window, Stan sees the trail she left. ‘I hope they’re doing ok back there.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re fine,’ I say, though it’s impossible to be certain of anything.

  ‘If she’s not ok,’ he says, ‘I’m gonna introduce that chainsaw to my uncle’s stomach via his anus.’

  ‘Hate to tell ya,’ Charlie says, ‘but from the looks of it, he’s long gone.’

  I look towards the empty chair. Behind it are two doors, one leading to the kitchen, the other to the toilets. ‘Better check those,’ I say.

  Stan heads for the kitchen, and after setting her chainsaw down next to the other one, Eve marches towards the toilets.

  ‘Wonder if the water’s working,’ she says. ‘Yuck doesn’t quite cover it.’

  I turn my attention to Charlie. The blood that covers her is starting to dry and crack, turning from a glossy burgundy into a dull brown.

  ‘What?’ she says.

  ‘Nothing… just… thanks.’

  ‘S’alright. Couldn’t leave ya to die. More’s the pity.’

  ‘Not just for taking care of that lot out there, but for bringing Eve back too.’

  ‘Yeah… well I guess I’m even-Stevens with ‘er now. Never got the chance to pay ‘er back properly.’

  From the kitchen I hear Stan opening cupboards, no doubt looking for food.

  ‘Reckon me and Stan should start being a bit nicer to you from now on,’ I say.

  ‘And all I ‘ad to do was save ya lives a coupla times. Hardly seems worth it,’ she says. But she does a rare thing. She smiles. ‘You and Eve need to talk,’ she says. ‘She reckons ya hate ‘er.’

  ‘Oh… yeah… well I don’t,’ I say, feeling a little on the back-foot.

  ‘Not me you should be tellin’.’

  ‘True…’ I say, wondering why she’s staring at me like I’ve completely missed her point.

  ‘No time like the present, numb-nuts!’ she says, gesturing towards the toilet door.

  Am I really going to have this talk with Eve in a dark toilet in a village hall while she scrubs a gallon or so of blood from her body? From the look on Charlie’s face, that’s exactly what I’m about to do.

  ‘Keep an eye on that window,’ I tell her. ‘Anything comes through, use this.’ I hand her the gun, which she accepts with a derisive sigh, like I’ve plonked a rubber chicken in her hand.

  I head over to the door, steadying my breath, trying to compose what I might say and what I might do, but nothing much comes. Nothing clever anyway. Maybe I’ll just tell her I’ve missed her and how glad I am that she’s back. Simple might be the way to go on a night that’s involved dismembering dozens of crazies with a chainsaw.

  As I approach I hear a startled whimper. I stop in the door way, suddenly conscious that she might be naked in there, washing all that blood off.

  ‘Eve… it’s just Preston. You decent?’ No response. ‘Eve?’

  ‘Get back,’ comes the voice. Wade’s voice. I step back into the hall as he emerges with Eve. One hand is clamped against her mouth, the other presses a gun to her head. ‘Get right back!’ he yells. I do as he says.

  Stan’s head appears from the kitchen door. ‘Ah crap, Wade… don’t be doing anything hasty,’ he says, inching slowly towards the back of the hall from where Charlie is aiming the shotgun in Wade’s direction.

  Wade pulls Eve over to Lawrence’s vacant chair and sits her down in it, the muzzle of the pistol still against her temple.

  ‘Get rid of the gun,’ he tells Charlie. ‘Throw it out that window.’

  ‘Always said you were a prize twat,’ she says, tossing the gun back out into the night. Stan and I join her at the back of the hall.

  ‘You know this is loaded…’ Wade says. ‘I always hated this place. Everybody was so happy in their tiny little fenced-off village, blind to anything going on in the real world. Shelling peas, digging around in the mud, pretending that you don’t mind living in cold dark houses. I couldn’t wait to get away from you bunch of wankers. But you two… Stan and Preston. Fucking… Pinky and The Brain. You’re the worst ones here. Couple of over-entitled man-babies. If Lawrence would’ve let me I’d have shot you in your sleep in that bed shop and dumped your bodies with the rest of ‘em.’

  ‘Cut the crap, Wade,’ Stan says. ‘Where’s Lawrence?’

  ‘Lawrence has gone, they’ve all gone. Did you think they’d just sit here and wait for you all to come back? Whisk you all off to paradise because you managed to wrestle a zombie’s head from its shoulders? New flash, morons! It was never gonna be that simple.’

  ‘Who gives a shit,’ Charlie says. ‘We didn’t wanna go anyway.’

  ‘Ok, let’s get something straight here… despite Lawrence’s little rouse, you’re all going to New Paradise one way or another. Dead or alive. Everyone goes. And if you can’t prove yourself worthy, no matter, you’ll make good meat for the grinder.’

  ‘Standards must be pretty low if they let you in,’ I say.

  Wade laughs; a fake laugh. ‘Oh, Preston… I’m not in yet. I’ve still got a way to go. But I’m a couple of steps closer since I helped out with getting you two back in one piece. Couldn’t have a couple of rogue idiots running around in the wild. The boss has a bit of a thing about tying up all the loose ends. I’ve just gotta clear up the excess meat at sun-up and I should be golden.’

  ‘That’s just great…’ Stan says. ‘But you didn’t answer my question; where’s Lawrence?’

  ‘He’s back in New Paradise. And by tomorrow afternoon I should be joining him, as long as you four don’t screw it up for me.’

  ‘Fine then,’ I say, ‘just let Eve go and get on your way. Just tell Lawrence we all died or something. He’ll never need to know.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that. There are rules and I’m sticking to them.’

  ‘Jesus Christ… they promise you a harem of virgins or something?’ Stan says.

  I wish he wouldn’t crack wise when there’s a gun at Eve’s head. I look at her, and she looks at me; she’s trying to keep steady but her eyes are wide and pleading. I want to run over and smash Wade’s face into the back of his head. It’s everything I can do to hold back. I need to keep my shit together and get her through this. Wade was always bad news, but he’s no killer. If we can just talk him round…

  ‘Come on, Wade. We know you’re not a bad guy. Lawrence isn’t here now, so let’s figure something out,’ I say, conscious of how contrived my words sound.

  ‘The weak need to be purged,’ Wade says, pressing the gun harder against Eve’s head
and gritting his teeth.

  ‘So what then? What do you want us to do?’

  ‘I want you to get back out there and fight. Well actually, what I really want is to shoot you all in the head right now, but rules is rules. If tonight’s your time to die, it won’t be by my hand. So here’s the deal, get back out there or I blow this one’s brains out.’

  ‘Lawrence will be pissed if you shoot her,’ I say, trying to reassure myself, if not Eve.

  ‘He thinks she’s dead anyway,’ he says with a sneer. ‘I already broke the rules by lying to him about that, I can’t risk things getting any further out of hand, so you need to get out there now!’

  ‘Then just let her go. She’s no good to you.’

  ‘Right now I’ve got four problems to deal with. With you three back outside I’ll just have the one.’

  ‘Then why not shoot us all?’ Charlie says.

  ‘He won’t shoot us. He won’t shoot anyone. You heard him, it’s too messy and he doesn’t want to break the rules. Plus… he hasn’t got the guts,’ Stan says.

  ‘You don’t know what I’m capable of, not anymore. New Paradise, it changes you, changes everything about you, who you were, what you believed. And you haven’t seen what they do to the rule-breakers. Those bodies in the pit in town, they were the lucky ones. None of that shit’s happening to me, ya hear?! I’ve worked too hard, I’ve done things, I’ve pulled myself up, just like Lawrence said I should. You think I spent six months on the outside playing in the woods and pottering about the shops?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I reckon you’ve been doing,’ Stan says. ‘Either that or cowering somewhere, trying not to soil yourself. Truth is, Wade, you’re a shit bad guy. Even an eye-patch and a moustache wouldn’t make you convincing.’

  From outside the familiar screams and moans of the horde gather once again in the near distance. Wade smirks. ‘They’re coming. If you get yourselves out there now, you’ll have the jump on them. I’ll even let you take the chainsaws.’