by Ian Woodhead
“And you can drop that fucking hammer. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
The soldier waved them out from behind the counter and pushed the end of his gun into Ernest’s back. He marched the pair over to the freezers. “Put your hands face down on the glass.”
Ernest received a not so gentle prod in his ribs when he hesitated.
“How the hell have you two managed to stay alive throughout all this? You don’t really strike me as survivor types.”
Ernest watch him put the gun between his legs, he knew that he’d be able to get out of the shop before this clown knew what was happening but what about Mavis? He couldn’t leave her here.
“Deja vu.” She muttered.
“Shut your face, grandma.”
Mavis sighed; she lifted her hands off the glass and turned around. The man fumbled with his gun, he finally brought it up and pointed the muzzle at the woman.
“Turn back around!” he shouted, “Or so help me I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” she asked. “Shoot a defenceless old lady in the face?”
She placed both hands on the barrel of the gun and pushed it down. “Let us go. You’ve already radioed in that the building is empty.”
She smiled at him. “You see, you really are going to have to kill us before we go with you. Now do you really want that on your conscience? What would your mother say?”
Ernest took his hands off the fridge and faced the soldier. He saw fear and indecision in his eyes. Was he really going to let them go?
“Why not just pretend you didn’t see us and go look in that till.” She looked over at Ernest. “If you get stuck, I’m sure Ernest will help you. He used to work here.”
Would naked greed win out over orders? Oh Christ, he fucking hoped so. Then Ernest remembered something that might help to win him over. “There should be over three grand in the safe.”
That got the bastard’s attention.
“Do you have the combination?”
Ernest nodded. Mr. Singh trusted him with the numbers a few weeks ago when the man had to rush home due to a family emergency. He hoped he hadn’t changed the bloody numbers.
He tapped the side of his head. “They are locked up in here mate. Are you ready to see some serious cash?”
The man nodded. Ernest hoped that he wasn’t laying it on too thick, he had to get the guy hooked, and if he was distracted then it would be a lot bloody easier to lay the fucker out. He had no intention of letting him walk out with that money; he’d helped to put those notes in there.
“Come on then,” he said. “Is the safe in the back room?”
The man didn’t wait for Ernest to answer; he raised his rifle and aimed it at his head. “If you’re lying, I’ll blow you in two. I’ve decided that I don’t like you, you’re a bit too slimy, a bit weasely.”
Mavis suddenly stopped and stared at the back room; Ernest looked too and groaned when he saw another figure climbing through the broken window. Oh shit, the man must have got back-up. There was no way they’d get out of this now.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the man behind him grind to a halt. Ernest wondered what he’d do when he found out about the money. Then he saw the man point his rifle towards the back room. Ernest’s instinct kicked in, he dived on the Mavis and pushed her down, narrowly missing cracking her head on the metal shelf stacked with eggs.
A single shot rang out, Ernest glanced back to see the soldier drop to the floor. An uneven spot of dark blood appeared on the man’s stomach and rapidly spread across his chest. They heard unhurried footsteps coming towards them; Mavis grabbed Ernest and pulled him around the corner out of sight just as the figure came into view. The figure paused before darting into the aisle. The man looked down at them and smiled.
“Hello again,” said Dennis. “It’s a small world.”
He ran over to Mr. Singh and lifted his head up. Ernest heard the old man mutter something but he couldn’t hear what it was. Dennis then walked over to the soldier and checked his pulse; he nodded to himself before coming back over to them.
“I’ve got most of the pieces in place now,” the man suddenly burst out laughing. “Oh God! I can’t put into words just how fucking alive I feel. It’s ironic really, to think that it took a total catastrophe for me to realise that I should never have given up what I love the best. I bet you don’t know what I mean by that do you, Ernest?”
He kept silent.
Dennis crouched down and nodded to Mavis. “You were pretty cute when you were younger lass. I almost chose you instead of instead of Ethel.” He giggled. “You’d be in the van instead of her.” He grinned. “Not that it matters, you’ll be in there pretty soon.”
Dennis stood up and looked back at the fallen soldier. “I want you two to carry him outside and hurry up; I don’t want him dying on us just yet.”
Mavis looked at him, her eyes full of fear, she then glanced at the gun Dennis had in his hand. Ernest could see the madness in the old man’s eyes as well.
“Well come on!” urged Dennis, there’s still loads left to do tonight.”
Ernest got to his feet and padded over to the man on the floor, he didn’t look very alive to him. He put his arms under his shoulders, waited for Mavis to grab his legs then attempted to lift him up, he was surprisingly light.
“It’s all down to us and them in the end.” He saw Ernest look back at his ex boss, he started to laugh again. “No, no it’s not about whose alive or dead.”
He rested the body on the edge of the sofa; it didn’t look as if Dennis had noticed that he’d stopped.
“There’s us, me, you, Mavis and a few others scattered around. We are potentials. If those things out there catch us, we’ll join their ranks. Then there are the others, they’re the competitors.” He grinned. “Now if they get caught, they’ll get ripped to bits and chewed up. Now why do you suppose that is, eh? I mean, it’s not like they get any nutritional value out of the flesh, I mean how can they? Their bodies have effectively shut down.”
Dennis waved his gun at Ernest; he got the message and lifted the body back up.
“I’m not sure just yet why this is, although I suspect that our dead friends are scared of the competitors, you see I reckon that if a competitor survives a bite then they’ll change but perhaps into something else?” he shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.”
This mad man was going to kill them both; they had to get away from him. Mavis managed to get the man’s feet out of the window, Ernest heaved and shouldered the rest of him through the hole, he landed on the grass below in an untidy heap, if he wasn’t dead earlier,Ernest suspected that he was now.
“Right then dear, you first, out you get.”
Ernest hoped Mavis that the woman would climb out from the window and just make a run for it; he wouldn’t blame her if she did.
“I think it may have something to do with tribes you know. In the future, this planet will be ruled by the dead, it’s inevitable, but I don’t think that the dead will be one big harmonious group. Right, you wait there. After I climb out I want you to be right behind me. If you take too long, like have strange ideas about running back into the shop to grab a knife or some other weapon, you’re going to find the Pretty Mavis cut up into several bloodied lumps.”
He watched Dennis climb through the window, he wanted to break down and weep, he felt like he’d failed everyone. Ernest knew that this was not going to end well and he couldn’t see a way out of it.
After he heard him drop down, Ernest looked wildly around the room looking for something, anything that he could use to protect himself and Mavis from that fucking lunatic. Potentials and competitors? Oh Christ, what a fucking loony toon.
Oh fuck, there was bugger all here, then he remembered the soldier, the lad must have a knife on him somewhere, Dennis was bound to make them carry him to wherever to was going. Ernest nodded and grabbed the window frame, it was better than nothing he supposed.
As he hit to the ground the f
act that the soldier had dropped his fucking rifle in the shop hit him like an express train, Ernest couldn’t believe he had been so God damn stupid. He slowly turned around expecting to see the face of the grinning old man leering at him.
He saw Mavis, a teenage boy and a young woman. The boy held a long knife; Dennis was at his feet with a pool of blood spreading out from under him.
Chapter Seventeen
He held the bolt-cutters in one hand while tucking the handle of the hammer down the back of his trousers, he’d tried pushing the handle through one of his belt hoops but the hoop was too bloody small.
Going back into that place was probably one of the hardest things he had ever done, he was left with no choice though; Ernest needed those bolt-cutters.
Despite his earlier idea about grabbing the soldier’s gun, he left it on the floor, they were fine until the ammo ran dry or it jammed. He’d stick with the hammer; you didn’t have to put bullets into that. Ernest missed his trusty pool cue; it was one item that the minimarket had never stocked though.
The soldier had begun to stir; Ernest had gained enough experience tonight to understand what that meant. He leapt through the smashed window, put the bolt-cutters on the ground and pulled Dennis’s shotgun out from beneath the old man’s body.
“Life’s a bitch ain’t it,” he said. “Welcome to Breakspear.”
He took hold of the barrel and brought the stock down hard on the man’s head. His movements ceased.
“Live by the gun, die by the gun. I’m sorry but you didn’t deserve the hammer.”
He looked over at Dennis and wondered how long it would be before he started to move again. Ernest didn’t even know if he was dead yet. He lifted up the barrel of the shotgun, well if he wasn’t, he would be in a second.
As he lifted up the shotgun, a single cry echoed through the night air, followed by four gunshots. He dropped the weapon and spun around.
“Oh, Jesus.”
He’d forgotten that the strangers said they were going to do that. The other three stood beside a blue van opposite the square, and there were four bodies lying at their feet.
The soldier had commented on how he and Mavis didn’t look like the types to survive. Ernest wondered what he would have thought if he saw their new friends, especially the boy, he didn’t look strong enough to fight his way out of a wet paper bag.
He picked up the bolt-cutters and jogged towards the van, hoping these two would be able to fill the boots left by Emily and Adrian.
“So you got them.” Mavis said.
Ernest nodded, trying not to look down at those four chained up corpses between him and the other three. In the end, he gave in to his morbid curiosity and stared in disgust at what Dennis had done to them. He had no idea who three of them were and it took him a while to recognise Dennis’s dear departed wife. The poor thing looked like she’d been dead for a couple of weeks before she’d succumbed to whatever the fuck had happened to their estate.
Having his wife rise from the grave, even if she actually made it there, wasn’t good enough for the old man. He’d manacled her legs together and done the same to her hands. He saw rectangular strips of flesh cut out of all of them. Jesus, he’d been experimenting on them too. He noticed a dark haired woman with a large number of facial piercings lying next to the remains of a man that looked like it had definitely been dug up. The woman’s lips had been sewn together; he shook his head at the madness of it all.
“This is Emily,” said Mavis.
The girl smiled and nodded, he nodded back, unable to trace her. Ernest thought he knew everybody in the estate, so either he was wrong or the girl was a stranger. If she was, the poor lass picked the wrong bloody day to come visiting.
“And this is Kevin.”
The boy stepped over the bodies and shook Ernest’s hand, it was obvious that he wasn’t used to the gesture.
“Thanks for looking after him.” he said.
“That’s okay,” Ernest replied, not knowing what the hell he was talking about. He hadn’t realised just how bad the lad smelled; he stank of gone-off meat. The stench was coming off that dirty, tattered jacket he wore over his sweatshirt. The girl had one on too, what the hell had they been doing?
“Kevin here is Adrian’s younger brother.”
Ernest immediately dropped his eyes to the floor, “Oh Christ, lad. I’m really sorry.”
Kevin sighed, “It’s okay, I accepted that he was gone a bit back, I’m just glad that he took a few of those filthy bastards with him.”
Well, he sounded tougher than he looked. He gazed back to where Doctor Death had fallen; suddenly remembering that he intended to smash his skull in. “Thanks for saving our lives, both of you. I reckon that if you hadn’t turned up, we’d have both ended up like those poor bastards on the floor.”
The boy shrugged, “Yeah well, we were seconds away from shouting out to the old man until…” he paused and took a deep breath, “…until he opened the van doors and those things spilled out.”
Kevin turned and padded round to the front of the van. Mavis hurried after him.
“That young girl there is Kevin’s sister,” said Stephanie.
Oh Jesus, talk about a double whammy; that kid would be in therapy for the rest of his life, if they lived through tonight that is. He quickly searched around to find something to cover her body, he had to make do with half a bed sheet he found in the back of the van; it was covered in bits of God knows what but it was better than nothing.
“Mavis says that you may be able to get us out.”
Ernest nodded at the girl, glad that she had changed the subject. Mavis returned with the boy, he waited for them both to draw near before he answered. He reckoned that the lad ought to hear this too; he looked like he needed cheering up.
“Yeah, I can get us out. There’s a tunnel that leads all the way from…” he trailed off when he saw the colour drain from both of their faces.
“It’s under the old graveyard isn’t it,” muttered Kevin.
Ernest nodded, “Yeah, how did you know?”
The hardened fighter disguise fell away to reveal a very frightened looking boy. Mavis hurried over and put her arm around him.
“We’ve just escaped from the cemetery,” said the girl.
“What do you mean by escaped?”
“There were thousands of them coming out from every house and shuffling through the streets.”
“We saw that happen as well.” He decided not to mention that Adrian didn’t live through that, the lad looked traumatised enough.
“Yeah well, we were with this other lad who led us into the cemetery. See if you can guess where that vast swarm of people were heading?”
Ernest looked into the girl’s eyes; he couldn’t imagine what kind of terror she must have felt when she saw that swarm of ravenous things coming towards them.
“How did you escape?”
She picked at the decaying fabric covering her clothes then looked at Kevin and smiled at him before walking over and grabbing his hand.
“We wore a disguise. It was Kevin’s idea.”
“There were a load of people hiding in the old church; those dead people just tore into them. I thought that we might be able to slip past them if we smelled as bad as they did.”
The old woman had a very funny look on her face; as though she’d just found God.
“We took these rags off a couple of dead people and hoped for the best. I mean, we had no other choice.”
“Potentials and competitors,” murmured Mavis.
Stephanie stared at her “What does that mean?”
“It’s something that Doctor Death was going on about in the shop,” said Ernest. “He said that was how those things saw the human race, if you’re a potential then they’ll take a chunk out of you and you’ll end up turning into one of them but if they see you as a competitor, then those bastards will rip you apart and eat the bits.”
“A bit like a paper shredder,” whispered Mavis.
“I think that’s why you were able to get past them; a competitor will take priority over a potential.”
“This is bullshit,” said Kevin, “you’re not buying into this crap are you Steph? I mean, you’re repeating some twisted theory that a fucking homicidal maniac came out with.”
“Come on Kevin, you’ve got to admit that it does sound plausible, they just pushed us out of the way to get to those other people.”
Ernest gazed at that badly decomposed body next to Ethel, not believing what he was thinking. He swallowed down his fear and turned to the others. “We need to go into the cemetery, personally I think it’s the only chance we have.”
Kevin staggered back, shaking his head. “I’m hearing things.”
“You got out;” said Ernest, “we’ll be able to get in.”
“Are you having a laugh?” cried Kevin. “We barely escaped with our lives. If those things hadn’t been distracted we’d have had no bloody chance. Those poor souls will all be dead now.”
Ernest shrugged, “Well in that case that swarm will move on then, because you can guarantee that they’ll be more refuges like the church, scattered about the estate.”
He held his breath and leaned over the corpse. He grabbed the shoulder, cringing when his forefinger pushed through into the soft flesh; it felt like he’d just stuck his finger into a rotten pear.
“Ernest, you really do believe Dennis’s ideas don’t you,” said Mavis.
He looked at her and nodded, trying to ignore the troubling frown and those warning bells going off in his head.”
“I do know that Dennis was empathically dead and had no conscience, but he wasn’t insane.”
“Well what about these dead things inheriting the planet? Will he be right about that bit too?”