Death Plague [Four Zombie Novels]

by Ian Woodhead

  Congealed blood and bits of ripped off flesh from Adrian's genitals had turned the back of my head into a solid lump of black hair. I didn't care, I was alive. The Gods had allowed me to continue my existence.

  Judging from the moon's pale light casting a wedge across the floor, several hours must have passed since I dug in to what I assumed would be a fulfilling meal. I still felt weak and most of my body ached, in particular, my guts. I just hoped that I was in the final stages of whatever had afflicted me. I found it unnerving how a brush with death could make me feel so agitated. I didn't want to feel like this anymore.

  Does it annoy you to discover that I didn't die? I think we both know the answer to that little poser. Of course you're pissed off to still find me breathing; okay, so I'm not exactly up to full strength, but even in my weakened state, I'd still be able to find a way to get you on the floor, straddle your struggling body, and use my fingernails to rip a hole through your skin large enough to push my head inside. It's not the best way to die, you know, and just imagine looking down your torso to see my head dipping into your guts, feeling my teeth sawing through your soft insides and …

  Let me start again, you got me a little excited. Look, I can't help what I am, okay? Sure, you see me as one of those nasty hunters, the ultimate nightmare. I feed upon the flesh of the living, just like the shambling dead, and yet I'm more like you than they are. We both know that before more of our species were wiped out, many hunters did indeed find a way to worm into your survivor camps, ripping through the population before being killed.

  Would you believe me if I told you that I wasn't like the other hunters? Don't scoff, I know the evidence doesn't exactly support my claim but believe me, you wouldn't have lived for too long if our mutual now dead friend, Adrian, had found you.

  This is a slave town, you see. This dirty degenerate is (was) a ranger. He was tasked in finding fresh human bodies, taking them back here, and selling them to the highest bidder. It’s how he and I crossed paths. Thing is, these captured slaves didn't do the usual slave stuff, you know, like working in mines, being a house keeper, or any of that quaint nonsense that happened in ages past. The males end up on the crosses outside the town, and the women are sold to the highest bidder.

  Now you can see why I'm rather anxious to find my sister.

  So what happened to your future, I hear you cry. Where are the flying cars, the robots, and all the other bullshits that you were promised? Well, you get monsters instead. Sorry about that. The dead decided to get back up and chomp on the living, who in turn died and then rose up, swelling the ranks and reducing the number of living humans; to make matters even worse for the shivering survivors, somewhere along the line, people like me appeared.

  I'm really not helping myself to persuade you to like me here, am I? Look, as I said, I am what I am, I can't help being this way, and it wasn't exactly a lifestyle choice. People used to care about Tigers and Pandas, and they were both fierce predators. No wait, the pandas ate bamboo. Whatever, my point still stands. Even knowing a tiger would quite happily eat you, people still tried to save the bloody thing.

  And listen, unlike our metaphorical Tiger, I wasn't like the other hunters, I chose my meals carefully; only people who were truly bad got past my lips. Oh, and there are a lot of them in this would. Then again, it's not that surprising, in a world of monsters, some humans found that in order to live they had to become a monster as well.

  Would it help if I told you that Adrian ate puppies and kittens? Sliced off their fluffy little paws as they howled and screeched, munching them down with bread and gravy, their dying cries, music to his ear? There, you hate the bastard now. Well, it isn't true about that, but it is true about me only targeting the evil, though; really it is.

  As for what happened to the world, it must be twenty years now since we woke up to find that our cosy cotton wool coated existence was gone forever. It started somewhere in the North of England, that much I do know. From there, it spread out like wildfire, infecting and changing vast areas of the country in a matter of days. People were waking up to find they shared beds with the corpses of wives and husbands, then screaming out in utter terror as the corpses embraced them before they fastened their teeth around their loved one's necks and tore out their jugulars.

  Our family lived in the outskirts of London. Back then, like the rest of our street, we were glued to the news updates on TV and online, all terrified as the infection moved closer and closer to the capital. It was like being on Death row, awaiting your execution; we all knew what would happen to us, the news reports were all very eager to show the shrinking population every detail of this transformation from human to zombie. To make it even worse, there was nowhere for us to go. Our so called foreign friends made damn sure none of us were getting out. The bastards had corralled us all in, shooting down any aircraft as well as shelling any ship that dared to leave port.

  They left us all to die.

  I was only fourteen at the time, and when the news first broke, it hooked me as well, but I didn't share any of the trepidation given off from the rest of my family; hell, this was better than playing online, this really was happening, right here. The excitement only turned to fear when it did reach the capital.

  A bank of clouds had drifted in front of the moon, blocking out most of its light, and plunging this room into almost total darkness. My vision is so much keener than an ordinary human's now, but even so, I still had difficulty in seeing. I crawled away from Adrian's stiffening corpse, back towards the window. I wanted to get out of here, and continue my search, but right now I had trouble even crawling, let alone walking. I was in no fit state to go anywhere yet.

  By the time the virus reached our street, we had eight people barricaded up in our house. My dad got it into his head that as long as none of us left the house, we'd all be fine, convinced that this mutation was passed only through physical contact.

  Irony crashed into our household in a big way on that fateful morning. I was in my usual spot. I'd made myself a den in the corner of the living room with the sofa and a couple of broken up dining chairs. My collection of kitchen knives and the garden shovel lay hidden under my old Star Wars quilt. Nobody knew that I'd broken dad's specific rule not to leave the house but I didn't care. I knew how much damage you could do with a garden shovel; I'd used one to great effect on the Dead City Rising game.

  I might have only been fourteen, but I believed that thanks to my diet of survival games, I could protect my family far better than my dad could. I'd even sharpened the edge of the shovel and tested it on a few empty coke cans in the cellar.

  The others were all upstairs, I never saw them much during the day now, most of them preferring to stay on the next two levels. My family—mum, dad and my sister— stayed on the top floor, with our guests taking on the floor below. I had the downstairs rooms to myself, although dad checked every morning to ensure all the windows were locked and the two doors were bolted.

  I had gotten into the habit of waiting for dad to bugger off back upstairs before taking my shovel out into the back garden to practice my moves. We had a six foot fence around our property. No rotting dead thing would be able to get through that. As I unlocked the door, rehearsing my new moves in my mind, a shadow passed the frosted window. I gasped and jumped back, the shovel falling from my numb hands, when the back door swung open giving me my first real close up view of a dead thing. I lay there, unable to move, warm piss soaking through my trousers as this vile abomination moved its worm infested head down.

  Oh God! How could this even by happening to me? It must have been in the ground for fucking years. I saw a mound of black soil directly in front of dad’s rosebushes and started to laugh hysterically. No wonder those bastards grow so well!

  A sudden violent shudder sped through its slimy body, spraying me with small pieces of rotting flesh. It was only when one of these chunks hit my top lip and dropped into my open mouth that I found the strength to actually move.

  My
reaction came way too late, though, and the hesitation cost me my life, or at least, that's what I believed.

  That foul creature, still coated in the moist dirt from under our garden, just collapsed its legs like a fold up table, its head and shoulders smacking against my legs. I wasn't a weak boy, and this thing weighed no more than a large, wet bag of sticks, yet even as I scrambled back, my fingers sinking into its spongy flesh, this thing still managed to open its jaws, sink its teeth into my thigh, and pull its head back, the flesh stretching and tearing as it struggled to rip away my meat.

  What a wakeup call! No amount of previously experienced pain could compare to the agony that detonated through my body. I cried out, I howled for my mum as this bastard thing started to lower its head again.

  Primal instinct took over, even though what was left of my rational self had given up all hope. Of course it had; once bitten, you died and rose up to join their ranks. There really was no magical cure. My instinct obviously hadn't been reading the same manual.

  I reached out, my hands finding the shovel just as it opened its mouth again. I lifted the shovel and thrust it forward, the edge biting through its rotting cheeks. It didn't take too much pressure to push it forward. The blade easily cut through the blackened flesh and bones, slicing its head in two. The corpse fell forward, but I managed to get my arms up to stop the body from hitting my face. I pushed it to the side, my stomach heaving when it smashed onto the hard tiles and slime, stinking of decay, splashed against my cheek.

  The house was still quiet, nobody had heard my calls. I lay there quietly weeping, watching next door's cat balance along the fence as it tried to sneak closer to a large crow that had taken an interest in the hole that this zombie had clawed out of.

  Why the hell had none of my family or any of the lodgers run down the stairs? There was something else as well, but it didn't twig until much later. The pain in my leg had calmed down, it now just felt like I'd banged it against the bed. I guess at that time I put the lack of pain down to shock, that my body was doping me up with some natural drugs so I could focus on getting away from the door. I still hadn't shit it and I then saw why the crow was taking a great deal of interest in that hole. The bloody thing wasn't quite empty. I watched, still frozen in horror as another pair of hands reached up from the hole, its fingers curling around the loose soil on the top of the mound.

  I moaned softly, crawling forward to close that door. As the mechanism clicked shut, I took the chance to try to get to my feet. I needed to find out where the rest of my family was, even if it was to say goodbye. The numbness was spreading, even after a couple of minutes; I could no longer feel my lower leg.

  The door leading out of the kitchen seemed so far away. I feared that I'd end up dropping to the floor any moment. My fingers reached for the door frame, knowing that this really was the end for me. My vision was going grey. I was getting to the end of my existence. Tears welled up, knowing that I should have crawled out into the garden and let that other thing that was climbing out of that hole consume me. The pain wouldn't have lasted that long. Now, I knew full well that within minutes my corpse would reanimate, and I'd start to climb those stairs, my lust for warm meat knowing no bounds.

  At this precise time, my recollection got a little bit confusing. I remember managing to reach the bottom step before all my strength vanished and I fell to the floor like a sack of dropped potatoes. An inhuman wailing started up from the floor directly above me, followed by multiple screams. I saw a lot of legs at the top of the stairs. In my spaced out condition, as well as only seeing greys, it felt like I was watching some old 40's horror movie. People whom I vaguely knew were embracing each other, only these were no loving cuddles. Heads dipped, teeth flashed, and skin was torn open.

  My monochromic vision showed me the scenes with the saturation bled from every colour; it tamed my experience of witnessing my first mass slaughter. Looking back, I guess that this was a kind of defence mechanism, allowing the tainted blood now running through my system to allow me to readjust to what I was to become.

  The colours did return but the lines and shapes became indistinct. I saw myself looking down at my fallen body, watching streams of blood waterfall down the stairs as I rose towards the ceiling.

  Paint, plaster, and wood proved to be no obstacle for my new form of existence, I passed through seeing a couple of mice fighting over a pen top, and I even saw a rolled up ten pound note lying on a bed of wood shavings. I found myself grinning as I wondered if that was the same note that Mrs Gillsome accused my sister of stealing out of her purse two days ago.

  The irrelevancies of that stray thought made me wonder if I really was dead, and perhaps I was now going to a better place while leaving my shell down there to murder in my name. I felt no guilt if that really was the case. I felt no guilt over anything now. In fact, I didn't feel much of anything. I carried on rising, past the body of our next door neighbour. She won't be accusing anyone of stealing money now. She laid quite still, the front of her dress ripped down the middle, exposing her generous breast. She only had one left intact as her husband was currently eating his way through the other one.

  I continued to rise, leaving Mr Gillsome to finish his meal in peace. Just before I vanished through the ceiling, the now dead Mr Gillsome stopped chewing off lumps from his wife's left tit. He turned his head and looked directly at me. He growled deep in his throat while stretching his arms out across the body. It sent a tiny shiver across my corporeal shape. This thing could see me, and more to the point, he was warning me off, acting like our old cat whenever anyone came close to his food bowl. I think right there, something inside me began to wake up, whispering that perhaps I might not be dying after all, although the news wasn't treated with any fanfare. After all, if I wasn't going to die, what was going to happen to me?

  My body slid through the plaster and wood, this time I saw no mice or no money. This appeared to be my final destination as my velocity slowed then stopped, leaving me floating four feet from my parent's bedroom floor.

  It felt as though I was caught in amber. I couldn't move anything, not even to blink. Lying there in a prone position with my eyes facing forward, I watched my naked mother pick up her ornate silver clock and fling it to the left of her. Something beside me growled, making a similar sound to our zombie guy on the next floor down. I didn't need to see to know that noise came from my dad.

  My mum dived on the bed, passing within inches of me. I guessed that at least she was oblivious to my presence. My dad though, he could see me alright. This huge slavering lump of pale white meat stopped directly in front of my still form. It lowered its body until Dad's milky blue eyes stared into mine. A moan so loud, it hurt even my ghostlike ears, rumbled from his deep chest.

  My dad had turned. He had changed into this dead thing without being bitten himself. The bedroom lock was still engaged, and until I had rose up through the floor, all he wanted to do was to munch down on my mum. He lunged forward, his head disappearing into my body while his teeth opened and snapped shut on empty air.

  I silently shouted to my mum, telling her to get the fuck out of here, to flee while this thing was busy. Only she didn't, my mum just slid down the wall, grabbing the blue quilt on the way down and covered herself with it whilst crying, big wet tears rolled down her cheeks as she hugged the quilt tight.

  The woman had given up. Unlike me, her resistance had crumbled. It made me wonder why. After all, it wasn't as if she hadn't been given a second chance to escape. Right there, I think another trigger inside my mind snapped shut. My dad had all but given up on trying to bite my spirit and was turning around to face his other potential meal, obviously deciding that at least this one was solid, and by the looks of it, wasn't going anywhere.

  Can you believe that the silly woman started to smile? She dropped the quilt and opened her arms, wrapping them around this monster as he leaned down. Her apparently calm demeanour shattered when her sudden amorous action overbalanced my dad. He fell forward,
his hands landing on each side of her face.

  Her screaming erupted when both his thumbs dug into her eye sockets, his digits pulping her soft globes. Blood and grey jelly streamed out from the ragged holes and slid down her cheeks. My dad dropped to his knees, and while keeping his thumbs hooked inside her skull, he pulled mum's head forward and slammed it against the wall. The cracking of bone could clearly be heard over my mum's shrieking. The dead thing repeating this action three times, each impact leaving more and more crimson mush splattered against the lemon coloured floral wallpaper.

  The scene then faded away, leaving me with the last image of my dad letting the body fall forward before he pushed his mouth into the back of her ruined head.

  When I awoke, I found my sister, the only person who'd lived through the whole encounter, cradling me in her lap while wiping a damp flannel across my forehead. It looked like I really was alive after all. I looked up into those tear-filled baby blue eyes and smiled, actually believing that the worst was now past us.

  Chapter Three

  Feeling a little better

  How had my sister managed to survive through that initial horrifying attack? By rights, she should have been the first one of my family to succumb. I’m not being cruel here, it’s really what I expected. Just like mum, Danielle should have just given up the ghost and rolled on her back like a shivering dog.

  It just goes to show how accurate my judgement was back then. Danielle didn’t just survive, that beautiful girl positively thrived in this terrifying new environment. Right at the start of this nightmare, she became my rock.

  Okay, so maybe I hadn’t spent that much attention watching Danielle, is that so unusual? Come on, only a grade one creeper would do something like that. We both had our own lives, and our own interests. Apart from sharing parents and the occasional breathing space, we were practically strangers. Even so, I had always considered our Danielle to be your typical seventeen year old annoying sister. As I previously explained, she was beautiful. I know what I just said about not being a grade one creeper, but I can't deny the obvious fact that Danielle had the looks that drove men and boys crazy. I include my old mates in that category as well.