The Shuffling Dead Box-set

by Ian Woodhead

  Linda reached out and grabbed the whisky from the shelf, unscrewed the top and drank straight from the bottle. The liquid burned its way down her gullet before exploding in her stomach, Linda coughed, almost choking as some of the liquid came back up and dribbled down her chin, she wiped the mess away and took another drink, this time Linda only had a sip.

  The mindless panic receded just enough to remember that she was going to try to get in touch with Richard.

  “Oh, god, I hope he’s alright.”

  She took one more gulp of the whisky before setting it down next to her phone, promising herself that she’d have a bit more once she’d made sure that he was alright. Linda grabbed the handset then stopped.

  “What the hell am I doing? His number’s on my mobile.”

  From where she stood, Linda could now see through her window. She moaned in horror and blindly felt along the table for the bottle. This just couldn’t be happening; it was like a scene from a horror movie.

  That bitten woman had her head buried in the copper’s stomach. Oh my god, she was eating him! There were a crowd of screaming people scrambling over the wrecked vehicles, Linda thought they were fleeing from the woman, she moved a little closer to the window and screamed herself.

  The street was filled with people slowly making their way along towards the car-crash. Linda looked closer, something was seriously wrong with all of them; then she saw the gaping wounds and the missing limbs.

  They are dead! No, this can’t be happening.” She uttered while backing away and shaking her head. “Dead people can’t fucking move.”

  Linda took another drink from the bottle, this time she managed to keep all of the fiery inside her. She decided that she must have not looked properly; they can’t be dead, because that’s impossible. Perhaps they were sick, infected with some disease like bird flu or something. She nodded to herself.

  “Bird flu, it must be that or that other one, swine flu.”

  Satisfied that she wasn’t losing her mind, Linda grabbed her coat and searched through her pockets for her phone. She kept well away from her window though, guessing that a closer view of those people would blow her theory right out of the water.

  Linda fumbled through the phone’s contact list, momentarily feeling guilty for passing over her mum’s number in preference to somebody she hardly knew. His name came up and Linda jabbed her finger against the telephone icon, praying that he’d answer.

  “Linda? Where are you?”

  She almost wept with relief when she heard his voice. He sounded out of breath. “Richard, are you alright?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “A group of old men started following me, I had to jump over a wall into someone’s garden to lose them. Look, something really odd is going on. Are you still in your apartment?”

  “Yes.” She replied. “It’s horrible outside, there’s people eating each other.” Linda felt herself choke up. “I dropped my wine and everything.”

  “Look, you stay there; I’ll be at yours in a couple of minutes and calm down. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  The phone went dead in her hands. She looked at it, wondering if she ought to call him back then changed her mind. There was no point, he was on his way. Linda smiled; everything was going to be alright.

  She’d call her mum as soon as Richard got here, she lived over in Birmingham anyway, knowing her, she probably wouldn’t have even realised that anything was wrong here in London. It’s not like she listened to the news or read the paper, she was way too busy in her garden, looking after her flowers for any of that nonsense.

  Feeling miles better, Linda decided to put the whisky back, if Richard was coming over, she wouldn’t need that any more.

  As she passed her door, she heard someone shouting in the corridors, it sounded like Mr. Roberts, the nice old gentleman who fixed her boiler a few months ago; she grabbed the door handle, intending to check on him. The poor guy sounded terrified; then she stopped, what if he was infected with the flu as well? Is she opened this door then she’d get it too. Linda slowly turned the key and locked the door. Wishing Richard would hurry up and get here, she didn’t know how much more if this she could take.

  “Why did I turn off the TV?” The noise outside was now so loud, she felt as if she was stood beside that smashed up car. Linda placed her hands over her ears, picked the remote off the sofa and turned the TV back on; she caught the newsreader announcing that the infection had now spread into the Home Counties before she flicked through the channels and stopped on Cartoon Network. So, she was right, it was an infection and not dead people walking about.

  Something in the corridor crashed into her door.

  “Richard?” she shouted. “Is that you?” Linda rushed to the door and tried to pull it open; screaming in frustration when she realised that she’d locked the bloody thing. “Hang on a minute.” She turned the key and paused, was it him out there? He hadn’t answered her calls. Then again, who else could it be?

  Linda pulled down the handle and opened the door. Richard lay in the corridor. Linda stumbled back into her apartment, shrieking in disbelief at the sight of Mr. Roberts huge hands thrust deep into Richard’s stomach. The old man lifted his head and moaned. Linda saw pieces of bright red flesh stuck between the man’s teeth.

  He scrambled off Richard and followed the crying woman into her apartment. Linda picked up the bottle and threw it at him, the glass smacked into the man’s forehead and dropped to the floor, rolling into the wine stain. She stared aghast; it hadn’t even slowed him down.

  “Get away from me, you fucker,” she screamed. Linda darted into the kitchen and slammed the door shut, she whimpered when the man hit the door. She watched the wood tremble in its frame and knew that wouldn’t hold him for long. Linda looked wildly around the tiny room, she gone and trapped herself in here. “Oh you silly, fucking cow!” she shouted. Linda looked around the shelves for anything she could use as a weapon. She let out a bubble of hysterical laughter when she noticed an unopened bottle of carpet cleaner right at the front.

  “Eva Kleen tackles all stubborn stains, even red wine and blood. Oh, god someone is really taking the piss.”

  Linda opened the drawer under the kitchen top and picked out her two sharpest knives. There was no way that she was going to die in here. The door panels cracked. Linda raised one of the knives and charged forward, slamming the blade through the thin wood. She heard something on the other side make a ‘gack’ like sound then a heavy weight hit the bottom of the door.

  Linda stayed stock still, panting like a race horse. The only sounds she heard was Sponge Bob asking Patrick if he knew where Gary was. She kept the other knife tight in her sweaty palm and slowly padded over the kitchen door. A globule of dark red fluid had seeped through the knife hole.

  “Mr. Roberts?”

  Linda grabbed the door handle and pulled, moaning as the still body of her neighbour fell through the gap.

  “Oh, Jesus. I’m so sorry.” She warily used her foot to touch one of his arms, jumping back when it flopped to the floor like a dead fish. Linda stepped over the body and ran back into her living room.

  She needed to find somewhere else, somewhere to hide until all this had blown over. Linda then caught sight of a red flashing light on her answer phone. Who could be ringing her up at this time?

  “Oh, god! Bollocks to the phone, she’d forgotten all about her Richard, he’d be bleeding all over the corridor and all she cared about was finding somewhere to hide. Linda ran over to the open door and peered out, she gasped when she saw the body was no longer there.

  “Richard?” Where had he gone? He couldn’t have just got up, he was half dead. “Oh, god, Linda, don’t even think of stuff like that.” Could someone have dragged him away?

  She placed one foot out of the apartment and looked down the corridor, apart from the impossible amount of blood, she saw nobody, living or dead. Linda then sensed somebody behind her; she spun around, the knife already in the air, thinking that
somehow Mr. Roberts had got back on his feet. Linda shrieked in complete terror when the man she was hoping to marry, stood up from behind the sofa. Her mind went into meltdown at the sight of the man’s guts hanging out of his stomach and trailing across her carpet. Richard growled then lunged for the woman. Linda stepped back against her wall and slowly slid to the floor. She closed her eyes, sobbing and hoping that there wouldn’t be too much pain.

  The dead man stopped by her foot, fell to his knees and placed his cold hands on her shoulders. His touch was almost tender until he growled once more then lunged forward and fastened his teeth around her left breast. Linda’s eye snapped open and the woman screeched out in agony.

  Chapter Nine

  He traced his finger down the bronze plaque until he found the name of his Grandfather. As a child, Dean used to be so proud of the fact that his family was the only one in Seeton who had lost men in both world wars. When he grew older he found the very idea of armed conflict abhorrent.

  Dean stepped away from the village war memorial and gazed across the street towards the butcher’s window. It seemed ironic that a pacifist may have been responsible for helping to wipe out the human species. Dean took a deep breath and reined in his emotions. He was a scientist, it was his job to take a step back and look at this disaster with an objective eye. He wouldn’t get anywhere if he allowed irrationality cloud his judgment.

  Then again, considering he couldn’t get in the fucking house, no amount of rational thinking was going to help him. Dean had just come back after finding his dad’s place all locked up.

  He’d climbed the long hill up from here, re-living the times as a kid when he used to free-wheel down this hill straight into the village centre. Christ knows how he’d managed to get himself run over. They’d bolted a metal railing into the wall since he was last here; something for which he was thankful for, Dean had forgotten just how steep this bloody hill was. His old home came into view, Dean had smiled at the sight, it hadn’t changed one bit.

  As had he neared the house, Dean rehearsed the speech that he intended to reel off, hoping it was unpretentious enough to allow Dean to get his old room back and plenty of uninterrupted time so he could get this damn plague under control.

  The dog started to bark as soon as he opened the garden gate, was it the same dog? It couldn’t still be Gruff in there, that animal was on his last legs when he lived here. Dean got the shock of his life when he found that his dad wasn’t at home, he’d even jumped over the wall, to try the back door and received another shock when he saw what his dad had done to the garden.

  Dean waited for a two policemen to walk past him before he crossed over the empty road. He’d lost track of his dad’s social habits when he moved to London. Then again considering just how predictable his dad was when Dean was a teenager, he can’t imagine that he’d changed that much.

  It was obvious what he ought to do, he’d start off in the Rose and Crown and if he wasn’t in there and nobody in the pub knew where he’d be, then Dean would simply come back here and ask around in the shops. It’s not as if he had anything else planned.

  “Why do you need the room anyway?” he muttered to himself. He turned towards the village hall, The Rose and Crown was just behind that large stone building. All he had to do was go over and ask for a room above the pub, there were bound to be a few spare, not many people used to holiday in Seeton and Dean couldn’t imagine that much has changed.

  It did make more sense; there was nothing really in his old room that would have helped him that much anyway. “Besides, Dean, time is of the essence, the longer you procrastinate, the more people will die.”

  Dean walked past the butchers shop and glanced in the window. His old mate, Tom leaned against the counter, chatting to some old dear. Bloody hell, the lad hadn’t changed a bit, well, apart from losing most of his hair and gaining a few pounds in weight around his waist. It shocked him to see just how much Tom now resembled his old man when Dean’s mum used to send him out for three pounds of skirt beef and a pound of kidneys for their Friday pie. Dean picked up a little speed and turned his head away from the window, he did not want Tom to see him; Dean would play friend catch up after he’d gotten himself sorted out.

  His heart almost stopped when two police cars and an ambulance raced past him. He hoped to Christ that the infection hadn’t spread this far. When Dean heard the shop’s occupants scramble towards the open door, he put his head down and made himself scarce.

  Dean speeded up and walked past the remaining high street shops. He didn’t turn back around until he’d reached the front of the village hall. The road and pavement was now devoid of activity, he sighed, figuring that it was probably just a road accident or something. Knowing how boring this village was, the call was more than likely for a cat stuck up a tree. That sudden flurry of activity would probably give Tom and his only customer something else to chat about. It was probably the most exciting event they’d seen all week.

  He walked past the village notice board, proclaiming that the gala had been put back for another week. “Scratch my previous thought,” he muttered. “They’d be yapping about the gala being postponed, that would was far more important than a stupid cat stuck up a stupid tree.”

  One of the village phone boxes, painted in brilliant red stood just outside the hall. He guessed that it still had regular use. He doubted that not many people in Seeton had bothered to get a mobile phone. This place really was the village that time forgot. An ancient Morris Oxford van drove past him.

  My point exactly, he thought.

  “Oh shit, what if they don’t have internet access?” Dean’s head darted around the buildings looking for telltale signs of transmitters, he couldn’t see anything but that meant nothing.

  He stopped outside the pub’s doorway and re-checked to ensure that his wallet was still where he’d left it. Dean had withdrawn over a thousand pounds out of his account before he boarded the train. The wallet was still there, still with the money inside.

  He laughed to himself, realising what he’d done. All that cloak and dagger shit had been all for nothing, all the authorities need to do was check all the employees’ bank accounts. “You’d never make a spy, Dean.” He said, shaking his head.

  Before he could grab the door, an old couple came out of the pub and almost ran into him.

  “Sorry,” he said, ramming the wallet into his back pocket, “He should have looked where I was going.”

  The old man, jerked to a halt, Dean heard the woman, holding the man’s hand let out a gasp of surprise.

  “Dean? What are you doing here?”

  He gazed in surprise at his father, not believing that he had failed to recognize his own dad, he then shot a single glance at the woman, briefly wondering why her face dripped with malice. He looked back at his father and tried to smile, desperately remembering his speech.

  “Hi dad, I’ve just been up to the house but you weren’t in.”

  His dad returned the grin. “No, son, that’s because I’m here.”

  That remark completely threw Dean off balance. Was this really his dad? He’d never know him to come out with a funny, ever! While Dean was growing up, his dad’s dour face was as ever present as that horrible floral wallpaper he’d put up above the mantelpiece.

  Then he noticed they were both were holding hands and it clicked, on my, his dad now a new girlfriend. Suddenly, his pre-prepared speech became stuck just behind his teeth, in the presence of company, his words now seemed stilted and false. He did know what to do; Dean had never been any good at extracting himself out of awkward situations.

  Thankfully, his dad came to the rescue.

  “How odd, that we bump into you, right here and now.” he turned to the woman for confirmation and she just blanked Dean. His dad carried on as if nothing had happened. “It’s all over the news about the disaster in London. We were just on our way to the phone box to make sure you were alright.”

  He nodded, not knowing what to make of t
his new woman. “He put on his best smile and extended his hand. “Hello, I’m Dean, pleased to meet you.”

  “I know who you are, “she replied, her hand stayed by her side. “What are you doing up here?”

  Oh, this was going bad, he had no idea who this woman was, nor did he really care, but her weird attitude did bother him somewhat. “Look dad, the events in London are getting worse. I’m here because I think I can put what’s happened right.” He sensed the woman about to interrupt and moved in between them. “I don’t want to think what will happen if the problem in London gets out of control.” Dean knew for a fact that it already had. The only thing stopping him from screaming out in frustration and guilt was the objective scientific side, keeping everything else firmly under lock and key.”

  “You mean you’re responsible for this?” replied his incredulous dad.

  “A black aura,” muttered the woman.

  “Of course, I’m not responsible,” he replied, lying, “but I did once work with the team who were involved in this disaster.” Dean tried to push past his dad, “I’m going to stay here and sort this mess out, dad.”

  “You mean here, at the pub?” his dad didn’t give him chance to reply. “No way, there’s no way that you’re staying here. Look, here take the house key. Your room as still how you left it.”

  Dean looked at the key then at the pub doorway. He sighed then took the key out of his father’s hand. He nodded at the woman before hurrying away from the pair of them.. He suddenly stopped, spun around and found that they had both gone. “Bollocks, I forgot to ask if he had internet access.

  Chapter Ten

  Common sense gently advised him that rushing out of that nice, warm office may have been a little rash. Billy D’lacey then caught his common sense on the back foot by agreeing with it. Making the hazardous journey through the centre of the city may have indeed have been a fool’s errand.