by Rick Wood
The smell of decay, of rotting meat, plunging themselves toward him, coating him in their abhorrent odour. It was all he could smell. The sound of growling and snapping accompanied it, constant, desperate, chattering jaws of those eager to rip his flesh apart with their mouldy, sharp teeth.
He kept them as blurs. Vague figures out of his vision. Ensured his eye line focussed downwards, at the bag, watching his hands fill it, padding it out with every bit of gun and ammo he could fit. Trusting Gus to shoot them before they got to him. Trusting Gus so he could concentrate.
He zipped up the bag.
Something felt wrong.
It had gotten eerily quiet. The sniper shots weren’t particularly loud, but he could usually hear the rapid succession of the flight of bullets whistling through the air, followed by a definite splat as the shot landed perfectly in the cranium of an oncoming zombie.
Now it had stopped.
The bullets, the splats, it had all stopped.
He finally allowed himself a glance upwards. He peered over his shoulder, toward the top of the hill.
Gus wasn’t firing any more.
Why wasn’t he firing?
He was shouting something. Screaming at the top of his voice. Donny couldn’t tell what it was, but he knew it wasn’t good.
“Why aren’t you firing?” he cried, but he couldn’t linger any longer.
They were coming from all directions, getting closer.
Death was in his reach.
It was a morbid thought, but it was how it felt. The stink of it grew stronger still, the sound turned into a bombardment of hunger.
He had to do something.
A zombie came within arm’s reach, diving toward him. He held out an arm, tried pushing him away, but it was too strong. It was forcing him back.
Another one came over his shoulder.
He ducked.
The car. The boot.
He threw himself into the boot of the upturned car. Closed the door.
A zombie put its hand in the way, and its head appeared in the small gap.
“No!” Donny wept, tears streaming down his face. He felt like less of a man, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to live.
Using both hands, he pulled against the arm of the zombie, shoving the boot closed. The last thing he saw before he was trapped in the enclosure of the boot was the zombie’s arm ripping from its body.
He was safe. But he didn’t feel it. He could still feel the arm thrashing around in the boot with him, but he couldn’t see it.
He hated it.
If anything, this was worse.
Pitch-black surrounded him. The feel of the rough, flaking skin of the open palm ran over his face. Something wet left a residue and he wiped it straight off with the back of his t-shirt.
He vomited.
He couldn’t help it. The arm was still dangling against his face. He held it out, pushing it away from him, but it continued to reach.
Then it stopped. Flopped as it died. Without the brain, it must not be able to continue.
A piece of good luck.
Almost as soon as he celebrated that good luck, he bemoaned the bad. He could see nothing in the darkness of the boot, nothing at all, but he could hear everything. The taps against the car, the continual smacks of the dead arms with more strength than they should be afforded, ploughing against the divide between him and them.
One thudded so hard he could hear the metal casing dent.
Were they really that strong? So much so, they could get through to him?
He was trapped. Alone. Laying in his own sick, with a dead hand beside him, and an onslaught of the undead battering against his only defence from them.
He leant his head against the side. Another fist landed against the boot, and he felt the indent pound against his skull. He flinched away.
He had the bag of weapons.
But so what? He had no idea how to use them. And what, was he going to take on a whole horde by himself?
He wouldn’t last a second.
That’s when he realised.
Gus wasn’t coming back for him.
Gus didn’t care.
Gus had a mission.
Gus didn’t even like him.
Sadie, she had a point. She had skills. He was just there to get in the way. To communicate with the prime minister – and even that he could no longer do, since most of his equipment had been trapped in the wreckage.
This was it.
He was trapped and alone.
Completely, and utterly, isolated.
“Gus… Please…”
He closed his eyes, clenching his eyelids together, and prayed to a God he knew would never listen.
18
Just leave him.
Gus hesitated.
He’s just getting in your way.
He would be an arsehole for doing it. But Gus could live with being an arsehole.
Hell, he’d been living with being an arsehole for a long time.
The kid might even survive. He’d trapped himself inside the boot. Maybe the zombies would get bored and eventually leave. Maybe they’d forget he was there. Gus didn’t know much about zombies – they may have short attention spans. Like goldfish.
He stood. Watched as a crowd of zombies surrounded the car, scraping at it, plunging their fists into it. They were already making some progress, having planted a few dents into the car.
What could Gus do?
There were too many of them. If he tried to save Donny, then he’d die too. Then the girl would die. And the mission would be failed.
And whatever Sadie is, whatever potential there was to change the world, would be gone.
Could he live with the decision?
Hell, he didn’t have to. In a few days he’d be dead. His suicide would be gloriously enacted, and he would be on his way to the pits of hell.
Fuck it – all the best people are in hell. Maybe he’d have a conversation with the evil dictators of the past, find out what their deal was. He’d have a game of chess with Kim Jong-un and breakfast with Genghis Khan.
He bowed his head.
And what if it was his daughter? His wife?
No.
They are dead.
He watched them die. He watched them…
“Sorry, kid,” he muttered, turned, and walked away. Slowly plodding down the field to his next destination – somewhere he could get a car.
He was stopped.
Something had his leg. Was it a zombie? He readied his fist.
He turned around. Sadie was still on the floor, and she was grabbing hold of his ankle.
“What?” Gus demanded.
Sadie pulled the puppy-dog eyes. A look of vulnerability that was in such contrast to the bloody-lipped killer of the previous night.
“Get on your feet,” Gus told her. If she was what he thought she was, he needed to protect her. “We need to go.”
She shook her head assertively and jabbed her finger at the wreckage on the motorway where Donny was trapped.
“He’s dead, Sadie.”
She shook her head, her nose curling up into a defiant frown. She pointed her jabbing finger at the wreckage with more aggression.
“You dropped the bullets, Sadie, it’s no good. He’s dead. We need to go.”
She folded her arms in a huff.
Screw it.
It wasn’t his job to save the world. Whatever she was, he could do without the burden. He didn’t need it.
“Fine,” he barked, then turned and walked the other way.
Bloody puppy-dog eyes. She thinks they could work on him?
He has no heart.
There was only ever one person who could work those eyes on him.
And when she did, she would get whatever she wanted. Chocolate, late bed time, an extra story – whatever. He couldn’t help but fall for them.
And whenever Sadie did that, she looked just like–
No.
He stopped walking.<
br />
Sadie is not my daughter.
He fought tears from his eyes. Willed them away. Pushing them back in, refusing to let them out.
She wasn’t his daughter.
His daughter was…
Got to stop thinking about her. Can’t keep thinking about her. Can’t keep doing this.
He allowed himself a hesitant glance over his shoulder.
There Sadie still sat.
She looked so much like her.
Innocent, helpless eyes. Eyebrows lifted. Watery corners. Helpless, naïve expression.
Don’t fall for it.
But he would.
He always did.
“Fine!”
He turned back and put his hand on his hips.
How the hell was he going to do this?
That’s when he remembered.
Next to the tree where he’d left the sniper rifle.
The burnt-out jeep.
19
It was a black, sooty wreck.
Shame, really, as it would have been a really nice jeep once.
Gus ran a finger along its side, leaving a trail of cleanliness amongst the dirt, some of which now poised on the edge of Gus’s finger.
He opened the boot, looking for weapons.
His eyes lit up.
He lifted a cricket bat from the car and twisted it, examining it.
It was practically Christmas.
“Right, get in, and get ready,” Gus told Sadie.
Sadie opened the passenger door and slid in.
Gus opened the driver’s door and reached for the handbrake.
“You in?” Gus asked.
Sadie nodded in confirmation.
He placed the handbrake down and took the jeep out of gear, wiping the mould from the inside of the window via his sleeve. He didn’t get in yet, instead running at the jeep’s side as he pushed, using all his strength. He felt his right leg buckle, struggling against the bullet forever lodged in his calf; but ignored the pain and attempted to run.
Eventually, the jeep budged, slowly edging forward.
He pushed and pushed and pushed, forcing the jeep to gather speed. Its wheels turned quicker, picking up pace.
Once it started rolling along the floor at a big enough speed, Gus jumped in and closed the door.
“Put your seatbelt on,” Gus demanded, clicking his into place.
Sadie looked back, confused.
“Your seatbelt!” Gus repeated.
He saw the steep edge of the hill getting ever closer.
He reached across to Sadie’s seatbelt, but she hissed at him and scratched out at his arm.
“Right, you do it then!”
She took the seatbelt and tried to put it in place. As she found that she couldn’t figure it out, she looked to Gus expectantly.
“Right, now you want my help!”
Gus clicked it in place just as they reached the heavy vertical drop. He held onto the steering wheel, doing all he could to avoid it waving out of control from left to right
He couldn’t help but scream as the jeep picked up speed, bumping and clattering from side to side as it hit the divots and bumps on the way down. At first the scream was out of fear, then it was out of excitement. He missed the adrenaline of a crazy notion recklessly put into plan, and this was right up there with his wildest ideas.
“Right, get ready Sadie,” Gus prompted her. “Wind down your window and get ready.”
She wound down her window, leaned out, and rolled up her sleeves.
“And… go!”
Gus leant out of his window and smashed the first zombie with the cricket bat. As the jeep soared down the drop and onto the bank of the motorway, the zombies became distracted from the upturned car and began running toward them.
Just as Gus had hoped.
He simply held out the cricket bat, knocking it into the heads of the zombies that passed. He laughed manically as he did, enjoying the explosion of their skulls upon impact. Their brains smacked over the side of the car, their eyeballs flew in every direction, and their teeth clattered to the floor like an upturned tub of pins.
Sadie was having just as much fun. Her nails were long and curved into claws, which allowed her to scratch through their throats, decapitating them one by one at rapid speed.
They were strong, they were fast, they were in far larger numbers – but damn, they were stupid. No sense of danger as they continuously fled toward them.
By the time the jeep had leapt onto the road, they had removed the heads of so many zombies it felt like Easter, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, all rolled into one. The rotting blood sprang into the air like fireworks, heads flailing in every direction.
The jeep clattered into the side of the upturned Ferrari, the impact forcing the jeep to skid into another abandoned car and send the upturned Ferrari spinning in circles that were sure to make Donny vomit.
As soon as the jeep came to a halt, Gus was out of the car door and continuing his celebration of destruction by clattering his cricket bat into the heads of further helpless undead. There were only a handful of them left after their plan – their genius plan, if Gus did say so himself.
Sadie dispatched the rest with fluid ease as Gus ran to the boot of the Ferrari. He opened it, watching Donny clatter and fall to the floor. A zombie’s hand and enough sick to fill a bowl fell out with him.
Gus lifted his hands in the air and cheered.
“Woo!” he celebrated. “What a rush, what a God damn rush!”
Donny leapt to his feet, ready to run from further zombies, then stumbled to the side, falling from dizziness.
Gus dropped the cricket bat and reached for the sports bag, feeling it, and determining that it was full of weapons.
“Good lad!” Gus exclaimed.
“I thought you were going to leave me,” Donny whimpered.
“Er… Would I ever do that?”
Gus opened the sports bag and sifted through it.
Donny picked up the cricket bat, alert.
“There’s one more!” Donny cried.
“Well get it then,” Gus told him, continuing to sift through the weapons.
Donny’s hands quivered, shaking manically, and the cricket bat dropped from his sweaty palms, landing on the floor beneath his knocking knees.
With a face of bemusement, Gus took the cricket bat and smacked it through the head of the final infected.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Gus demanded.
“I… er…”
“Why didn’t you bloody kill it? It could have got us!”
Donny went red. Realisation crept over Gus.
“You’ve never even killed one of these things before, have you?”
Donny remained silent.
“You fuckin’ liability.”
“I… I… I got your weapons…”
“Yeah, you did.”
Gus shook his head. Pathetic.
He looked over his shoulder at Sadie. Her face was completely drenched in blood. She appeared to be happily licking the blood off her palms as if cleaning herself, completely unaware of the state she was in. She looked immensely proud of herself.
“Right,” Gus decided. “I’m going to go see if I can hot wire one of these cars. How about you find yourself a nice frilly dress while I do that?”
Gus wandered toward the line of cars, muttering to himself, holding the bag of weapons securely in his hand.
20
One’s meal is often judged by the level of silence which accompanies it.
Should you find yourself waving your food around on your fork as you divulge in some loose manner of small talk, chances are that meal is not rewarding enough for you to devote your time to.
If you should, however, find yourself preoccupied by your meal with such dedication and haste that you find yourself rendered incapable of sentences with multiple clauses, then luck may be that you have found a meal adequately prepared and executed to your liking.
Such was the atmo
sphere in the Simons household. Although James, his wife, Trisha, and his beloved ten-year-old daughter, Stacey, loved to engage in conversations looping in various directions, before frolicking in the drawing room whilst James enjoyed his post-meal cigar, they found that conversation was at its minimum. James didn’t mind, as the meal was delightful enough that its exquisite taste could satisfy their senses. The delicate squeeze of the tenderly cooked meat, pushing juices into the corners of his mouth, was accompanied by the aroma of a peppercorn seasoning that only made the perfectly prepared main course all the more welcoming to his salivating mouth.
“Well, I say!” James declared, placing his fork down upon his empty plate and rubbing his hands over the stomach area of his dress suit. “That was rather delicious. For one to not only have such a brilliant hunted slab of meat to work with could have been enough, but no – my brilliant wife succeeds in her cooking abilities once again.”
Trisha gushed as she finished her last few mouthfuls. She removed the napkin from her lap and placed it upon her vacant plate.
“I do appreciate the kind sentiments, my dear,” she responded. “Though I should say, I shan’t have been able to create such a tasteful piece of meat, if it weren’t for the skilful hunting achieved by yourself.”
“Ah, well. We all enjoyed it tremendously. What would you say, Stacey?”
Stacey wiped her mouth with her napkin, then placed it triumphantly upon her plate.
“I would say that was gosh darn impressive, Mummy!”
James and Trisha laughed at the forward nature of her borderline taboo language. She was a succinct, articulate young girl, and she knew how to get her feelings across.
“Oh, well I never!” Trisha joked as she stroked her hand down the back of her daughter’s neatly groomed hair.
Stacey smoothed down the creases of her cream dress, ensuring the buttons of her elegant cardigan were done up and that the bow around her neck was still in place.
“I say, would you like a sherry, my dear?” James asked his wife.
“Oh, you are going to end up quite amorous.”
“Oh, well, to heck with it. You only live once!”
James stood up from the table and walked over to the bar, where he moved the decanter of red wine out of the way – a Faustino 1 Gran Reserva 1964 Roja that smelled divine – and filled his tumbler up with sherry. Barbadillo Palo Cortado VORS NV. His favourite.