Death Plague [Four Zombie Novels]

by Ian Woodhead

She’d tried to explain a few more of her cranky ideas during their lunch at the Rose and Crown. He tried to pay attention, he really did, but his mind kept alternating between needing to hold her large breasts and moving that weed killer that he’d placed under the sink.

  Going to the pub for food had been his idea.

  Despite her assurances that her meat free recipes were just as tasty as anything made with dead animal, George was not convinced. He couldn’t shake the thought of her placing that plate in front of him and he looking down and seeing something that belonged at the bottom of a budgie’s cage.

  George had real difficulty in containing his joy when they discovered the door to Seeton’s only heath food shop shut and bolted. He suspected that the woman’s karma developed stress lines around about that time.

  His thoughts of just how broken her karma was now evaporated when she opened the door. George looked into her tear-filled eyes and knew something serious had happened. He threw back the chair and ran up to the woman, throwing his arms around her shoulders. “It’s okay, Anne, I’m here for you.”

  The woman slowly nodded then gently pulled her head back; George bent his head and kissed her tears away.

  For that second, she calmed, then her face cracked, and when she spoke, her voice was so soft he barely heard it. “You need to turn the TV on.” She drew in deep shuddering breath. “It came over the radio whilst I was in the bakers talking to Mrs. Lyndhurst. It’s spreading. They now say the infection has reached Birmingham.”

  George led her into the living room and sat her down on the sofa. He passed her a box of tissues before grabbing the TV remote control from the coffee table.

  “That’s where my Glen moved to after he finished university.”

  He nodded and sat next to her. He remembered her boy well; even as a kid, he was trouble. The kid was a complete slime-ball; Glen seemed to have a thing for sneaking into the girl’s changing rooms. She may have thought that the world shone out of his arse, but he knew better, and he doubted that he’d have changed in the intervening years.

  “I’ve tried ringing him, but I just can’t get through. I keep getting this recorded message, asking me to try later. Oh, George, I’m so worried.”

  He gently squeezed her hand before turning on the TV, “Try not to worry, sweetheart. I’m sure it’s not as bad as they make it out. You know what these news reporters are like. The beggars thrive on bad news; they always blow every disaster out of all proportion.”

  She nodded and blew her nose. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  They both watched a blank faced female news-reporter reading out a comment from the prime minister regarding the recent scandal involving a senior cabinet minister and another MP’s wife.

  “I’m sure I read that in the Daily Mail last week,” murmured George.

  The news-reporter continued with a bulletin about a car bomb failing to explode near a Scottish railway station. The programme carried on for another ten minutes without mentioning the incident in London. Before the business news started, the woman finished off with an account of a minor oil spill just off the coast of Greenland.

  “There you go,” announced, George. “I said there was nothing to worry about. It couldn’t have been as bad as they made it out to be this afternoon if it didn’t even make the evening headline.”

  She just looked at him, her face unreadable. “George, come on. Are you telling me that none of that rang any alarm bells?”

  He shook his head, “No, why should it?”

  She sighed. “Come on, man, you said it yourself. That affair incident happened last week. We’ve just watched a repeat of very old news. Come on, turn it over.”

  George changed the channel the BBC news. Anne’s voice shredded through his self-denial, leaving him feeling very confused and scared. He had read that article in the paper; he also remembered hearing about that car bomb. Who had heard of them repeating a news programme from last week—unless they were trying to cover something up.

  As he pressed the button on the remote, they were greeted with a light blue screen with the words ‘Normal service will begin shortly.’ George shook his head and switched to another channel, which displayed the same message. He looked into Anne’s fear filled eyes whilst cycling through all the channels and finding the exact blue background.

  “This is getting scary,” she whispered.

  They both jumped as a male voice barked out a stream of words in a foreign language before silence cut the voice off when George pressed the channel button.

  “Turn it back!” she shouted.

  A satellite image of an unknown city filled the screen.

  “Where is that?”

  George shrugged, “It could be anywhere. Judging by the Arabic writing running along the bottom of the picture, I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the middle-east. Do you want me to find an English channel?”

  She shook her head, “No, wait.”

  The picture slowly zoomed in. George couldn’t understand the announcer’s language, but it was obvious that the fellow was either exited or just plain terrified.

  “Oh, fuck,” said Anne. The picture stopped at second floor building height. They both watched in horror as a group of people all attired in nightwear caught an old woman who’d been trying to open a door to a department store. Every one of them tore into the pensioner. Anna thrust her head into George’s chest and sobbed out loud when fountain of blood streamed through a gap in that crowd.

  The foreign announcer was cut off in mid-sentence and another blue screen replaced the carnage.

  “Are you alright?”

  She shook her head, “No. That city was Birmingham. That poor woman died a few streets away the Bull Ring shopping centre.” She looked up. “I recognised the street.”

  George turned the TV off and gently picked her off the sofa. “Come on now, Anne. Calm yourself down. Look, I’ll see if Dean had a mobile phone; even if he hasn’t, the lad may know another way of finding out what’s happening.”

  He left her in the living room and padded into the hallway. “He’s a very bright boy, I’m sure he’ll be able to help you out.”

  As he reached the stairs, George saw Dean standing at the top, and the lad jumped when he saw his father looking up at him.

  “I thought I heard somebody come in,” he said.

  “Have you got a minute, Dean?”

  His son nodded and walked down the stairs.

  “What’s up?”

  “How can he help?” shouted Anne.

  George almost jumped out of his skin; he hadn’t realised that Anne was stood behind him.

  “All this is his fault in the first place.”

  George spun around and grabbed the woman’s wrists. “For crying out loud, woman, calm down. Look, let’s just sit down and talk to each other reasonably.”

  She shook his hand off her—he hadn’t expected that—Anne pushed past him and stormed into the hallway. George saw that Dean stood in the hallway up the stairs, making no attempt to come any farther down.

  “We both heard you, Dean. You practically admitted that this disaster was your fault when we saw you outside the pub.”

  George padded into the kitchen and shut the door. He put the kettle on, then sat down on his chair, and sighed. Gruff gave the back of his hand a single lick.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” he muttered. “This is just like old times, isn’t it?” He gazed up at the ceiling. “Madison, sweetheart, if you’re up there looking down, then I’d just like to say that the irony of this situation fails to amuse me.”

  George took his cup to the kitchen table, wondering why his life had to get so damn complicated. Even in here, he could still hear them going at each other. He knew he should have marched in there and ordered them both to calm down; after all, this was his house. He turned and watched Gruff pad up to the door with his tail down, teeth bared and growling ominously.

  “I’m guessing the noise is upsetting you as well.”

  Th
e dog barked once, then somebody brayed upon the front door, and George almost spilled the kettle water over his hand. He ran over and ordered the dog into his basket. The frantic banging started again. It sounded like a policeman’s knock. He opened the kitchen door to see his son run back up the stairs.

  Anne turned around, wiped her wet face on her sleeve, and then drew in a deep breath before letting it out in one long shudder. “I’m sorry, George, I shouldn’t have taken my grief out on your son.”

  He gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. “Go into the room and wipe your face.”

  George waited until she passed him, then grabbed the door handle. “My disruptive day started with a knock on the door,” he whispered, glancing at the back of Anne’s head. “Will it end the same way?”

  He pulled the door just as the caller was about to bang again. Standing on his doorstep was the one man that he never thought he’d see outside his house. “Ken? What are you doing here?”

  He’d known the old farmer all his life, but the man either stayed on his farm or inside the Rose and Crown, sat in his usual spot by the fireplace. George had never seen him anywhere else.

  The farmer closed his eyes for a moment, and they snapped open when Anne joined him at the door. “George, you’ll need to see this.” He nodded at Anne. “You need to come too.”

  He turned around and marched towards his parked Land rover.

  “Do we go with him?”

  George shrugged, “It must be important, Anne. That’s the most words I’ve heard the man speak in years.”

  Anne grabbed her coat and followed the farmer, leaving George stood on the doorstep. He gazed up at his son’s bedroom window, thinking about black auras and of trouble always following Dean.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Harold Dunbar leaned his former two-wheeled pride and joy against the lamppost outside the shop of lies. He took out the cigarette packet from inside his leather jacket pocket, eased one out, and lit it.

  “You’ve only got three left in there, sonny Jim,” he muttered. “You’d better start slowing down.” He let out a bitter laugh. After his shocking discovery earlier today, it was more likely that he’d be on the cocaine. Well, he would be if Harold knew where to get any.

  He made a move towards the chain and padlock wrapped underneath the seat, then abruptly stopped.

  “What’s the frigging point?”

  That padlock was probably as fake as the fucking bike. Harold sucked greedily on the cigarette and filled his lungs with hot smoke. He desperately needed that nicotine hit to calm his shattered nerves or at least file down a few of those emotional peaks.

  Feeling muggle-headed was a fuck of a sight better than wanting to shove his fist down the next passing stranger’s throat and pull out their pancreas.

  Harold smoked the cig down to the filter in several angry sucks and flicked the end into the middle of the road; he still wanted to twat somebody.

  He stopped himself getting another one out. He’d just have to put up with his non-chilled emotions until he’d sorted that salesman out. Besides, he’d need those for later, and Christ knows when he’d be able to afford anymore.

  “That is one serious habit you have there, sonny Jim.” He nodded back to the reflection of the blonde youth in the shop window. Didn’t he know it. He wasn’t fifteen until next August and he already had the dreaded smokers cough every bloody morning.

  His hand crept into his jacket pocket and this time he let it. Fuck it, he’d find some way of getting some more fags.

  Harold wandered over to the main door, lit his next cig, and tried the handle—locked, of course. He didn’t think it would be that easy. There must be some way of getting inside. If he had to, Harold would put a brick through the window, but he’d rather do this quietly.

  He took one last look at his two-wheeled rip off before turning into the alley that separated Roger Huggins’s furniture emporium and the butcher’s shop.

  It had been almost three months since he’d first laid eyes on the new edition in the fat man’s display window. A passing cement mixer had almost wiped him out in his rush to get across the road to examine this shining steed. As he approached the window, Harold kept telling himself that this had to be a mirage. Goods of this pedigree just didn’t find their way into shitty Seeton.

  The saliva in his mouth took a walk as he read the hand-written card leaning against the tyre. So, it had finally happened. A rare gem had finally landed in Roger Huggins’s lap, and he hadn’t even realised. The man who’d steal candy from a baby and then try to sell it back to their mother had made a whopping mistake.

  Harold Dunbar knew his stuff when it came to bicycles, and he knew a genuine professional BMX when he saw one. It must be worth in the region of six hundred pounds, and that fool had marked it up for only two hundred.

  He had placed his head against the cold glass when harsh reality punched through his sugarcoated fantasy of riding that dream bike. Two hundred may as well be two million. There was no chance that he’d be able to find that amount of money. He was just a fourteen year old boy with a ten pound a week paper-round and a bad smoking habit that took all of his cash.

  After Harold had handed over his hard-earned cash to the smiling man, he pushed the bike through the village, happier than he’d been in years. It had taken him three months to get that money, twelve weeks of constant lawn cutting, babysitting and car washing. On top of all that, he’d managed to cut his habit down to just three roll-ups a day.

  He was almost home when the groundbreaking moment happened. He’d paused by the side of the road to roll another cigarette, when the butcher’s delivery van hurtled past him at what seemed like the speed of sound. He watched in horror as his new bike slowly tipped over and fell into the road. He’d been anxious but not too worried. Every BMX nut knew that the paintjobs on these babies could withstand a sandblasting gun. A fall onto the tarmac shouldn’t have even marked it.

  Harold picked it up and saw the tarmac had scratched off a large jagged strip of bright red paint to reveal a dark blue base and hints of letters coloured in white. He used his thumbnail to scratch off a bit more of the red paint. It dawned on him that he’d been had. This was just some cheap knock off BMX that you could pick up for under eighty pounds in a bargain warehouse.

  Looking back, Harold should have known the bastard wasn’t as green as he was cabbage looking, just by the bike’s weight and the feel as he rode it. Still, he said he’d receive payback and this would be it.

  The alley was a dead-end, and he turned back, but not before picking up half a brick. It wasn’t his fault, the man had left him with no other choice. He should have left his door unlocked.

  He looked up and down the high street to make sure nobody was around, then launched the brick at the window. He jumped at the noise, Harold hadn’t expected it to be so loud. No alarms went off, and he grinned; Harold didn’t think the shop would be alarmed. Most of the gear that passed through Roger’s hands weren’t exactly legal, he wouldn’t want the police anywhere hear his shop.

  He took off his jacket and wrapped it round his arm then knocked out the remaining glass and climbed through the hole. Harold took out the torch he’d brought for this task and switched it on; he wasn’t daft enough to reach for the light switch, now that would have been fucking dumb. When he first found out that he’d been taken for a ride, Harold wanted to come back here and torch the place. Hurt the bastard where it hurt, but then he realised that Harold would lose out too.

  That money what Roger took off him would be gone, that he knew, but he should be able to find something in the building of junk that’s worth a bit of cash. He’d need something small and easy to shift. Now he’d broken the window, Roger would know that someone had been in here.

  The door to his left would take him straight into the main showroom, but that was no good, everything in there was massive stuff like fridges and sofas and other crap like that. Harold passed that door and opened the one next to it; this one took
him straight into a storeroom. At either side of him were huge metal shelves just packed with every type of object imaginable. Most of Seeton’s history must be on these shelves. He opened a random box and found it full of old medals. He grinned.

  “I’ve hit the jackpot on the first go, how lucky am I?”

  Harold emptied the medals into his hand and stuffed them into his pocket, and then he put the box back where he found them. The chances were good that Huggins’s wouldn’t even notice, and even if he did, so fucking what? The bastard probably stole them anyway. He decided that it was time to get out of here, this place was beginning to freak him out.

  Harold lifted the torch and played it along the shelves just one more time. He may get lucky again. The beam passed over an old clock, a pile of paperbacks, and a human mask. Harold shook his head in amusement, you could get lost in here—and then the mask opened its eyes.

  The boy shrieked in terror and dropped the torch, and through his panic he heard it groan and move. When a fingernail brushed against his cheeks, Harold ran for the door, feeling his bladder letting go. He ran through the broken window and out into Seeton’s deserted high street.

  Chapter Fourteen

  He rushed back up the stairs, straight into his bedroom and slammed the door shut. Good god, he was mad. This was something he really could do without. Just who the fuck did that bitch think she was?

  “Have I gone back in time here? Christ, it’s as if my mum has come back to haunt me. Why do I feel like I’m a naughty kid again?”

  He leaned back against his door, closed his eyes, and attempted to calm down. Getting mad at irrelevant rubbish like that jealous old trout being made to feel like gooseberry was just pointless.

  “Don’t you think you have enough on your plate, Dean? Come on, man. Get a grip of yourself. Just be thankful that she didn’t suggest a threesome.”

  He snapped open his eyes and shuddered before rushing over to check on his experiment. He’d moved the bedside table into the middle of the floor earlier on and placed an old hamster cage on the top. He’d found it in the loft a few hours ago, and it put a smile on his face when Dean stumbled over it; he knew it was up here, at least it was the last time he’d looked. He’d banked on his dad’s habit of never throwing anything away, and even if he had, it wouldn’t have been much of a problem getting a new one. The only drawback would have been finding one that would have been sturdy enough. This old thing was constructed decades ago and still stood the test of time, and even he would have had trouble bending the metal bars, let alone the animal that he intended to put inside it.