by RR Haywood
‘You really know how to ruin a romantic moment don’t you.’
‘Er, thing is…kissing a woman holding a grenade isn’t that sexy.’
‘Well,’ she takes a step towards me, ‘if Howie won’t go to the mountain…’ she takes another step, her eyes darting left to right at mine, ‘then the mountain shall go to Howie.’
I should run. Leg it. Billy big legs and be away but I don’t. I stand my ground and wait as she sidles up closer and closer with the grenade held gripped in her right hand.
Funny thing is, the really weird thing is that I get an urge to kiss her. Like a really strong urge. She looks sexy as anything, long black hair hanging straight down and still just wearing her bra and knickers. Her lithe body reflects the light, showing the fading bruises and healing cuts. The swell of her breasts and the long expanse of skin on her muscled yet slender legs.
‘Oh this is bad,’ I shake my head, ‘are you doing the pheromone thing?’
‘No.’
I swallow and suddenly feel the heat from her body that edges closer to mine. The supple motion of her, the graceful manner. Her lips so dusky and perfect. The eyes are red but…but I can’t stop myself, she’s Lani, right there and…my right hand comes up slowly to cup the side of her face and those red eyes closer at the touch.
She nestles into my hand, pushing her head harder into my hand. I draw her closer and lean in as her lips open to embrace the most erotic kiss I have ever experienced. Slow, tender and charged beyond anything I have ever known.
The danger of it. Like taunting the devil and getting a kick. The death outside makes the desire to taste life all that stronger. To have lived through all this and not to experience life is the greatest shame of all. I know this is fucked up and every common sense bone in my body is screaming for me to get out, to run and flee but I won’t.
Her lips part. My tongue darts between them. She groans and pushes harder against me and the kissing grows in passion with an insatiable hunger.
My god. What the fuck am I doing? Grab the grenade. Punch her in the face and knock her out. Grapple her to the floor…something…do something.
We move back as one until her backside hits the edge of the table with a dull thud. Grunting, panting and so lust filled we kiss like we have never kissed before. Hot and fuelled by a desire to have life and feel life.
The smell of gun oil, ammunition, brass, and the stench of the cleaning detergent we used to mop the floor fills the room. The air is hot and heavy. Lani is holding a grenade and has the red eyes of the infected but right now we’re tearing clothes off as fast as we possibly can. I reach for the hand holding the grenade and we entwine fingers round the bulbous body of the weapon. Taunting danger and edging forward as I stick one finger up at the devil himself.
Her top is pulled up and off, her jeans tugged down. My trousers are undone so they fall about my ankles. My top ripped off. Bodies press against one another. Her bra falls to the floor and my mouth fills with the soft flesh of her breast and the hardening of her nipple.
A hand to the back of my head pulls me closer into her. She arches and groans, wrapping her legs around my backside while forcing me closer still.
Then I am inside her. A pause as the sensation hits us both with a sudden realisation and our eyes widen at the wonder of it all. At the feeling it gives. At the joining of two that become one.
Stupid. Reckless. Foolish and impulsive but fucking wonderful. I move back and forth with small movements that bangs the table against the floor with an increasing rhythm. Her mouth finds mine with demanding kisses and I cannot get close enough to her. Even being inside her isn’t close enough. Eyes open and staring deep and the redness I don’t see. Just Lani. Lani the woman who has saved me time and again and given everything for me to live. Shame and failure grip almost as strongly as the lust to complete this carnal act. The weakness of man, the weakness of my kind to buckle and falter when the mind should be strong.
Is this wrong? Yes. Yes on every level apart from the one that makes me want to forget everything apart from this moment right now.
The climax builds to the point of no return and her legs wrap harder, grip harder. Her arms reach round to my back pulling me in as I release and shudder with my thighs pressed into the edge of the table.
Her mouth kisses my shoulder and up my neck that only serves to heighten the pleasure as the climax rolls on and on. She nips at my ear lobe and sends quivering ripples down my spine. Her breath exhales into my ear so soft and warm.
‘One race…’
If any other words had been spoken they would have gone unheard. But those two words whispered at this point sends a surge of energy through my brain. She goes to move, to reach round my back to join her hands so she can pull the pin but I’m already opposing her. Pulling back to keep her hands from joining. Her strong legs dig into my sides. Her teeth dig into my shoulder with pressure that tears through the flesh down to the bone. In pain and reaction, and still inside her, I headbutt with violent force that slams my forehead against hers and burst back with a hard wrench.
As I go back so an arm wraps around my neck. I drop down but end up offering myself into a headlock with my face planted into the flesh of her stomach. I grab the backs of her legs and lift before slamming her, and me at the same time, down onto the table that implodes and shatters with the force of the impact.
Stunned and I scrabble for her right hand while she does the same. Her left hand trying to force a way to grab the hoop of the grenade safety pin. Grunts of exertion, panting from sex and now fighting to stay alive. Rolling over and over each other in the worst post coital embrace I imagine anyone has experienced.
She changes tactic and slams the grenade into my face. I yelp in pain and shock and she does it again. Whacking the hard metal ball into my skull again and again.
‘Stop it,’ I hiss the words and get another wallop for good measure, ‘fucking hurts.’
The teeth go at me, biting and tearing while the grenade is used to batter me senseless. Her left hand pinned under my body and I grip the wrist double handed and try to force myself up so I can trap it beneath my legs. She hits harder and straight into my ear that sends an explosion of pain through my head and flashing lights behind my eyes.
With my focus on keeping the left arm pinned she changes tack again the clever sod stops trying to get her left arm free to find her right arm, but instead drops her right hand down to her left. I roll and flatten her completely. Her right arm now trapped between us and her left arm still held pinned.
She bucks and writhes, demented with pure venom to kill me. Our faces but inches apart and it isn’t Lani I see but something else. Something horrible, twisted and macabre.
‘Die,’ she spits fully in my face.
‘Lani…’
‘Die,’ she says it again and starts fighting as though having a fit. Her head slamming side to side, the body bucking and I can’t hold her down. The access she has to strength is awesome, drawing on more power from her small lithe frame than I could ever do. The infection pumping her full of chemicals that whips her into a frenzied all-out assault to get free and kill me and then the right hand is free and the grenade is lifted to her mouth. She grips the pin between her teeth and I’m off, scampering onto my feet with my trousers still wrapped round my ankles. I jump as fast as I can and keep jumping as I hear the pin being pulled spat out behind me.
‘DIE,’ on her feet now and as I reach the door I glance back to see her naked and terrible and beautiful all together as she holds the grenade out to her front.
Out the door and running naked into the fort, a hard turn and I’m following the line of the wall away from the armoury.
‘BOMB…’ The word is shouted and the line in front of me comes apart as every single person decides it’s time to be somewhere else.
Jumping, hopping and running in tiny strides I get further down and realise the grenade hasn’t gone off.
I stop, pausing to turn slowly back towa
rds the armoury. A dull thud, metal against concrete. My eyes widen and those three seconds seem to last forever.
The first explosion is an instant boom of detonation, a split second later and the wall of the armoury blows out from the mass combined explosions and despite the distance I gained. My feet are lifted from the ground as I sail bodily through the air and the last thing I see are chunks of masonry and concrete being sent sailing across the fort with huge licks of scorching orange flame lighting their way and the sound effects of war as the ammunition within the weapons explodes.
My senses assaulted. My body impacts on the ground and my head slams hard into the earth.
Blackness. Pitch blackness and nothing more.
Day Five
The house was a lucky find. Old and isolated yet with views of the surrounding countryside. Isolated. Quiet. Perfect.
Big gardens with high thick walls running the perimeter. One corner was hidden from view by thick bushes that were quickly removed.
A well in the garden with fresh water.
The larder stocked with provisions. Tinned foods and dried goods. Two bedrooms each with a double bed. One at the front and one at the back with the doors opposite each other.
Two days ago they found the house. Two days ago the decision to remain here was made. Not to hide. Not to run and flee. Not to seek refuge.
To learn and to train. To educate.
A battered Ford Transit navigates the bumpy unmade road through the winding fields and pasture lands. Past thickets and copses it trundles slow and steady, laden down with heavy weight but there is no rush so the driver takes his time.
The lane leads to the front of the house and the battered Ford Transit glides to a halt. The engine is switched off and the handbrake applied. The driver and passenger doors open at the same time and the occupants of the cabin drop down to stretch in the beautiful warm sunshine.
‘What do I get?’ The one who dropped from the passenger side asks.
‘All.’
‘Okay,’ he jogs off and into the house as the driver stands still to soak up the ambience of the place. Listening for any noises that shouldn’t be there. Sniffing for any smells that shouldn’t be there but the air is tainted by the load carried in the back of the van.
The passenger walks backwards from the front door of the isolated cottage, dragging a heavy canvass bag behind him he tugs it across the ground and off to the side several metres away from the side opening sliding door of the battered Ford Transit.
He looks up, checking the position is good for the driver who nods once and firm. The passenger drops down and unzips the canvas bag exposing the contents to the sky.
‘Can I choose?’
‘No,’ the driver replies, ‘wood.’
‘We did wood yesterday.’
‘Wood.’
‘Oh not fair, we did wood all day yesterday…’
‘Wood. No argue. Wood.’
‘Gregoreeee, please can I use the knife now?’
‘Wood. We use wood.’
‘Can I use the knife later?’
‘Wood. You make ready. I open now…’
The sliding door is pushed back on creaking runners and the undead strain to get at the ugly man but are held in place by thick dog collars secured by ropes tied to metal hoops riveted into the frame of the van, and they choke themselves red in the face with arms that stretch forward with clawed hands.
Gregori checks the boy still dithering with the contents of the bag. With a rueful shake of his head he whips a knife wielding hand into the van. The blade slices the rope holding the nearest undead in check. The undead staggers and falls from the side as Gregori steps smartly back.
‘I’m not ready!’ The boy whines.
Gregori shrugs and leans back against the side of the van with his arms folded, a statement made that he will not help.
‘Fine,’ the boy huffs and reluctantly hefts the wooden baseball bat from the bag. Taking a two handed grip so remembered from the hours of training the day before he walks steadily towards the target.
‘Boy?’
The boy pauses, thinks for a second then grins at Gregori, ‘sorry, I forgot.’
‘We forget. We die.’
‘Okay,’ the boy nods and stares hard at the undead struggling to get upright, ‘a man…er….he is fat,’ the boy frowns with concentration, ‘and he is bald and…and fat and….he doesn't have his shoes on…’
‘What else?’
‘Er…he’s fat.’
‘You say this. What does fat mean?’
‘Heavy!’ The boy announces, ‘harder to knock over.’
‘Good,’ Gregori nods, ‘the body is thicker…so?’
‘Head,’ the boy says, ‘I should go for the head?’
‘Good.’
‘Come, we go,’ the boy mocks the accent of the Albanian as he stalks towards the heavy limbed undead rising up into a seated position, ‘I BOY,’ the boy shouts playfully. He aims, pauses and strikes with a dull thud as the bat impacts on the solid male adult head. The undead slumps down with a gargle but the boy is ready and whips the bat overhead to slam down with brutal efficiency. As trained by Gregori, he keeps his arms slightly unlocked at the elbows to prevent the jarring effect of striking a solid object.
‘What you do?’ Gregori asks with a harsh tone.
‘Oh,’ the boy steps back and remembers he is not meant to hit the head at the front or the back if a side strike is open and the chance of breaking the neck is offered. He goes back to work, thudding the bat again and again into the side of the skull until the bones cave in.
‘Brains,’ the boy calls out excitedly, ‘he’s dead,’ he steps back panting from the effort.
‘Good,’ Gregori nods again, ‘next…wait for him to be up…on feet…’
‘With a knife?’ The boy asks hopefully then shrugs at the dark look given by the Albanian, ‘no knife,’ the boy sighs.
One by one the undead are taken from the van and released into the garden area. One by one Gregori makes the boy wait until they’re on their feet and mobile before letting him attack. The boy uses the bat. Striking, hitting, slamming and learning. Building strength of grip, dexterity and angles of approach. Learning that different body types take hits in different ways. Learning the reactions of hitting knee joints to make them topple then being in position to strike them as they go down.
Halfway through and they stop for a break. Drinking cool water in the shade of the isolated cottage. Only when they finish will the bodies be moved as the boy needs to learn to navigate obstacles during combat.
‘Knife now?’ The boy burps from the water and looks up hopefully.
Gregori stares down into the blue eyes of the child, so playful, so willing to learn and utterly without remorse or thought of what it means to take life. The boy doesn't have nightmares but sleeps soundly. He eats whatever he is given. Drinks water and asks questions.
‘Okay,’ Gregori nods, ‘small knife only.’
‘Yes!’ The boy laughs with delight, ‘thank you, Gregori!’ He rushes forward to wrap his arms around the Albanians waist before running off across garden, leaping dead bodies and getting to the weapons bag.
Gregori allows a rare smile and sips his water. The same thing has happened that has happened since he met the boy.
Rounding the undead up was hard work. Getting them into collars was hard. Driving back then releasing them one by one into the garden is hard but the same pattern happens again and again. Not voiced. Not spoken about.
The infected hunger for flesh. They are driven with an urge to kill and feast. But they don’t go for the boy, only for Gregori.
As the realisation sunk in, so Gregori knew to watch for it. Not once has one of them turned towards the boy, lunged for the boy, tried to bite the boy or even shown a flicker of reaction at the boy.
What it means the ugly man knows not and with a contented sigh he pushes off from the wall and heads over to change the grip of the knife held by the boy as t
he killing training continues under the beautiful warm sun by the isolated cottage in the wide open countryside.
Table of Contents
The Undead Day Sixteen Part Two
Copyright
All Rights reserved.
The story so far
Day Sixteen.
One…
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Nineteen