Death Plague [Four Zombie Novels]

by Ian Woodhead

  It did explain why so many were getting sick though. It was the ultimate revenge. “Ellen, why have am I tied up like this, I’ve done nothing wrong.” He waited for her to regain her composure before opening his mouth again. “I’m your husband, for crying out loud!” He saw no warmth in those eyes. She was as expressionless as the dead thing that she was so close to becoming. He thought about Kenny and Diane and how devoted they were to each other. He had nobody close to him. It saddened him to think that his wife probably had never really loved him all that much, even to begin with. “Please, will you let me go?”

  “There isn’t a hope of that happening,” she said, shaking her head. “You see, I know that you’ve been a very naughty boy, Tony. You’ve been holding back on me.” She leaned closer to him.

  He had to hold his breath. Now he knew why she had covered her body in perfume, it was to mask the stench of rot. Her body had already started to deteriorate.

  “How nice of Joseph and Rossini to commit the largest purge in the city since the start of the fucking outbreak! All of my allies are now dead. That fucking maniac even had two of them executed on live TV. Not that you’ll know about that.”

  She stood back and Tony saw that shadow return; it belonged to a hard-faced goon clad in the traditional uniform of a government security guard.

  “Thing is, my darling husband, there’s only a few of us left now, and to stand any chance of getting rid of those two fuckers, we need to know what you know. For a start you can explain to us how the fuck you traveled over to Food World without using the gates.”

  “Get me out of these straps, you bitch. I ain’t telling you shit.” His pleasure at seeing Ellen stunned at hearing her meek husband bawl quickly vanished when the big goon casually backhanded him. Tony felt like he’d been smacked in the face with a lump hammer. He whipped his head back around and through his tear-blurred vision, Tony saw the goon pull his huge fist back. “No, don’t hit me again!” he shouted, fearing that one more blow would probably smash his jaw to pieces. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Just don’t hit me again.”

  The meathead chuckled and winked at Tony before smiling at Ellen. “Yeah, I see what you mean now. The man really does have no balls.” He glared at Tony. “Right, this is your big chance to impress us. Make sure you don’t leave anything out either. I’m not in the mood for silly games.”

  Tony’s stomach turned over when the meathead wrapped his sausage-sized finger around his wife’s slender hand. “No, you have got to be kidding. You and him? Oh fuck, that’s close to bestiality.”

  “He’s just one of many, my dear. Oh, and it’s a good job that he doesn’t have a large vocabulary,” she replied, smiling sweetly. “Now, although I am sorry to see your fragile heart in two pieces, I would prefer you to start talking. Time is running out and we still have a lot to do. I don’t want you to get …” The woman coughed. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “You really don’t look too well, honey.” Meathead’s face was a mask of fury, the goon didn’t like Tony mocking his new girlfriend. As Meathead pulled his lips back to snarl, Tony saw the flecks of dried blood around his mouth. He also heard a quiet cough from behind his head. So, his lovely wife had brought more than the single guest into their apartment? That didn’t surprise him. “Hmm, let me think,” he said slowly. “You see I’m not entirely sure just what you want me to tell you. Considering you already know of the existence of the other two worlds. I don’t want to go over any subject that you already are very familiar with.”

  “He’s making fun of us,” growled the goon. He released Ellen’s hand, then stepped up to the table and raised his fist. “How about I start by pulling off your balls first, you little shit?”

  Tony grinned back at him. “You really don’t look too good, big fella.” The goon paused. “Honey, isn’t it strange how events have gone full circle? I felt similar to the pair of you this morning.” He sighed. “It feels like a lifetime away now, honey, does it not? I’m not a doctor, but I believe that you don’t have that long left. The tablets obviously aren’t working anymore, that much is obvious.”

  “Please, let me kill him. His annoying voice is going right through me.” The man wrapped his thick fingers around Tony’s wrist and squeezed. “I could crush your bones as easily as snapping dry twigs.”

  Tony gritted his teeth, not wanting this brute to see how much pain he was causing him. He then saw beads of sweat rolling down the guy’s face. It took effort, a large amount of effort to keep up the pressure. This man’s strength was failing, failing fast. “Go ahead then, if you think you can do it. Go ahead and crush my bones.” Tony bent his hand up and viciously pinched the flesh on the man’s own wrist, grinning when the man howled out in agony. He staggered back and crashed into the wall, holding his arm.

  Blood spurted out from between the man’s fingers. Tony sighed, watching his tormenter slump to the floor. “You’re all falling apart.” Tony winked at his wife. “You’re all slowly dying.” Two of the other guards unslung their weapons. He laughed as the men pointed their guns at his head. “You’re both shaking. Give it another hour or so, neither of you will have the strength to even hold your big guns.”

  His wife stepped up to the bed and started to unbuckle the straps. “This is what you want?”

  She stroked her fingers along his exposed wrist. It took a lot of effort to stop himself from pulling his arm away. Her touch felt spongy as if she occupied the body of a three-week-old corpse left out in the sun. He was beginning to think that even if they all stopped eating the contaminated food, right now, it was already too late for them.

  “You always said that one good turn deserves another.” She smiled.

  The state of her teeth affected Tony even more than the disclosure that his so-called darling wife had turned out to be a low-life power-hungry slut. Ellen had always been so fastidious to the point of obsession over taking care of her lovely white teeth. Now they looked as though she’d swapped her mouth with a medi-center drop-out.

  “And yet, just two minutes ago, you were quite happy to let your fat boyfriend beat the shit out of me?” He kept the tone of his voice steady, not bothering to allow himself to become angry. He had used up most of his emotions already, just by seeing how his own kind had treated the people in those other two worlds. Tony felt drained of feeling, just dead inside.

  Maybe not quite as dead as his wife and her goons now felt though.

  “Tony, you have no idea what it’s like being me,” she cried. “Look around you. Have you any idea how well I’ve kept you?”

  “You make me sound like a pampered pet,” he growled. His anger wasn’t as extinguished as he’d first believed. “Just listen to yourself. You really can’t see that the people you work for have done any wrong, can you? You think enslaving two entire worlds is somehow an acceptable act?”

  She shrugged. “We were at war, Tony, and our world won. Of course we should reap the rewards.”

  “Why am I even bothering?” Tony slid his body off the bed and walked over to the two men behind the table. He snatched one of the guns out of the closest guard’s hand, not too surprised to find the skin on the man’s trigger finger slid down the digit like a sock.

  “Okay, one good turn, you say?” Tony glanced at the slumped man. Judging from the lake of blood surrounding his large body, he must be close to death by now. It was tempting to hang around, just to see if he would rise as a zombie.

  “It’s probably too late now but I would advise you to change your diet, eat less meat, definitely,” Tony said. He opened the apartment door and stepped out into the hallway. He closed the door, then fell to his knees and shook like a leaf, not believing that he’d gotten out of his apartment unscathed. How on earth had he managed to maintain his cool?

  He yelped at the sudden sound of a single gunshot blasting through the thin door. He scrambled to his feet and ran towards the doors at the end of the hallway, guessing that one of them in there hadn’t been t
oo happy about his helpful advice.

  “What about me?” he asked himself, while pushing open the door. Tony looked down the empty stairwell, not wanting to think that what was happening to his wife and the others would soon be happening to him as well. Surely though, it would happen? He had never gone without food, and all that infected meat – he still refused to think of it as human – that he’d digested must have had some sort of cumulative effect.

  Tony pinched the webbing between thumb and forefinger on his other hand as hard as he could. It didn’t feel like squeezing raw pastry, it felt like skin, just as it should do. “What the fuck is wrong with this picture?”

  The closed doors painted him a similar mental picture of the tower block’s inhabitants all going through the same degradation. The moans and sounds of misery assaulted his senses, making him feel sick to the stomach. The simple fact was that everyone he knew would soon be dead. Judging by the rate of decay he’d seen with the big guy, by the time the sun came up there wouldn’t be much left of anybody apart from a pile of wet bones and scraps of rotting skin.

  “This picture needs to change,” he muttered, trying to keep his equilibrium steady. “What can I do though?” Tony rushed towards the partitioned mesh, having no idea where he was going or what he would do when he got there. The booth was unoccupied, not that this surprised him. He skidded to a halt and looked at the gun held in his hands. “They need to get off this world, every one of them.” Tony turned back around, remembering the words spoken by his wife. How had those soldiers found him?

  “They asked me how I traveled without using the gates.” Tony leaned against the wall. “What fucking gates?” No matter how hard he tried, Tony could not picture those three men carrying his unconscious body all the way along the dark streets and through these corridors, not in their condition. “They must have appeared in our apartment then, it’s the only explanation left.”

  He raced back, hoping to get there before they all turned into puddles of lumpy soup. Tony slowed down when he saw movement. The door next to his swung inwards and his neighbor struggled out into the hallway. Her look of gratitude at the sight of him soon changed to utter terror when her eyes found their way to the large black rifle gripped in Tony’s hand.

  “What are you doing?” she stammered.

  As he took a step towards her, she squealed and jumped back into her apartment. Tony ran forwards and pushed the door wide. He dropped the gun and ran towards the woman, grabbing her around her waist. “Will you please calm down, Mrs. Sykes? It’s me, it’s Tony. I’m not going to hurt you.” He spun her around and wiped the tears from her face. “Come on, try to relax. I want to help.”

  Her eyes flickered over to the bathroom. Tony guided her towards an armchair, wincing when he noticed her television was showing the grisly sight of a bunch of zombies fighting over lumps of meat in a large pit. He didn’t want to think about whom those vile things had just ripped apart.

  He kneeled in front of her. “What’s in the bathroom?”

  “Henry is,” she whispered. “There’s something wrong with him. He crawled in there ten minutes ago and refused to open the door.” She looked down at the ends of her fingers and moaned. “I’ve got it as well. I can’t feel my fingers anymore.”

  Her flesh had already partially melted. Just like all the others, she was going the same way. Tony took her wrist and pulled her up, realizing that there was no way he could leave her here. He then saw a wet trail leading to the bathroom door. He shuddered, knowing that her poor husband was beyond any help that he could give him.

  “It’s time to go,” he said, taking her towards the outer door. “I think I can help you, Mrs. Sykes.”

  Her protests fell on deaf ears and they quickly stopped when Tony retrieved the gun. It felt as though he was dragging a terrified poodle. “Don’t worry about anything. I’ll get you fixed up.”

  “What about Jacob? I can’t leave my husband, he needs me.”

  Tony didn’t answer her. It seemed like the wisest choice. His door to the apartment stood wide open and two bodies were lying in the middle of the carpet. They were both dead. He caught his breath with grief when the one sprawled across the floor in front of a guard turned out to be his wife.

  He stepped over her body, trying not to stare at her liquefying flesh dripping into the carpet fibers. The woman in his grip stopped, refusing to step over Ellen’s body.

  “What are you going to do to me?” she cried.

  Her terrified eyes stared deep into his. All he saw in there was complete fear. She had no comprehension of what was happening. Her conditioned, unsubversive mind saw the bodies and his gun and thought that all this was his fault.

  “I told you to come over here, woman,” he barked, raising the gun. “Don’t make me say it again.” He felt like such a shit for scaring her, even if it did work. Mrs. Sykes gracefully jumped over the melting bodies and allowed him to pull her quivering body further into the room.

  Tony skirted past the table and approached the only figure left in one piece, shaking his head in wonder at the sight of the big man still slumped against the wall. Although he showed more degradation than the others, somehow, the man was still alive; even more astonishing, he was conscious. He opened his eyes and lifted his head when Tony crouched down in front of him.

  “Tell me how you jumped! he demanded. “Come on, I need to know how you did it.”

  The man’s eyes glazed over. Tony fought the urge to punch him, believing that if he did that, his hand would probably disappear into his flesh.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Kill me, Tony. Put that gun against my head and pull the trigger.”

  “Your girlfriend is already dead, you know. So is the overman.” He ran his eyes up and down his degrading body. “Does it hurt?”

  The goon moaned weakly. “Please, just end me, I can’t take anymore.”

  “I think all of you have been very selfish. I mean, have you any idea of the mess you’ve made? You should have at least done this in the bath.”

  “Fuck you.”

  He placed the muzzle of the gun against the man’s temple, his gorge rising when the metal sank into the man’s flesh. It was like pushing a pen into wet clay.

  “Do it.”

  “I will as soon as you tell me how you jump from one world to another.”

  “It’s already in your hand, Tony. The gate is built into the weapon. Disengage the side panel. It’s the grey block directly above the trigger guard.”

  Tony followed his instructions, grinning when the panel slid back to display a recessed compartment with two black buttons next to each other.

  “The one on the left will take you to the Source World.”

  Tony stood back and took hold of the woman’s wrist, keeping his hold firm, without squeezing. Her flesh now felt like warm wax.

  “You promised to end me!” cried the goon.

  “I know I did.” Tony said. He turned the woman around, then raised the rifle and slowly squeezed the trigger. The goon’s head detonated, splattering stinking, wet slop across the wall. “I just didn’t want your mess all over me.”

  “I’m going to be sick.”

  “No you won’t,” Tony said, not unkindly. “Just don’t look.” He had the feeling that if she did throw up, half of her internal organs would follow her last meal as well. “Close your eyes, Mrs. Sykes, and don’t open them until I say so.” He hoped to fuck that this would work. Tony pressed the button and squeezed his own eyes shut as dazzling white light shot through his eyelids. He jerked his head down before tentatively opening them again. He smiled at the sight of bright green grass under his feet.

  They had done it. There had been a nagging doubt in his head that the gun might have self-destructed, a safety measure to prevent unauthorized persons from using the device. He grinned and breathed in a lungful of clean but cold air, feeling the pure atmosphere of this world cleanse the foul dirt that clung to his insides like mud sticking to a wall. Obviously their extr
eme paranoia didn’t extend to their goons. He looked up at the beautiful blue sky. Even so, those people could have flipped over here at any time and just lost themselves in this unspoilt world and nobody would have been able to find them. Was their brainwashing that secure?

  Tony blinked a few times, dismissing the thought. Who cared about them, he had more important priorities to worry over. He turned and watched the woman turn her head from side to side, taking in the landscape of endless green fields. He put his arm on her shoulder and turned her around. “I see you’re lost for words, Mrs. Sykes.” He looked at the clump of tall buildings to the left of them. Even from here he could see how the green had encroached into the city. The closest building had already lost the battle with nature. He squinted, leaning forward and staring at the vine-covered structure, sure that he had seen movement.

  “Have we gone back in time, Tony?” Mrs. Sykes uttered, “back to before all those horrible dead things came to life?”

  He lifted the woman’s hand to examine the ends of her fingers. The flesh had not healed, but it looked like the rot had stopped, at least for the moment. “When did you last take your tablet?”

  “A couple of hours ago, I think.”

  “And when did you have anything to eat?”

  “I can’t remember. I’ve never been a big eater. Tony, please, I don’t understand any of this. What has my diet have to do with any of this?”

  Being away from their vile world must have some kind of beneficial effect. He only needed to look at himself to see that. Perhaps being away helped the tablets to destroy the toxins present in the contaminated meat more efficiently. If that was the case, his sole survivor from his apartment building might even live, if she could get more tablets.