Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel

by James Carlson

  “So how the hell do we get inside?” Chuck asked with justified concern.

  “Dunno,” Muz panted back, suddenly aware he hadn’t actually thought it through.

  “What?”

  “I guess we’re going to have to climb the gate,” the copper told him.

  Chuck eyed the obstacle they were heading for. The perimeter of the site was fairly secure, in that the high walls and metal fences were topped with coils of barbed wire. The closed gate was a weak point though, lacking barbed wire itself, as Muz had clearly assessed. It was however still a formidable eight feet high and didn’t even have any horizontal bars on which to step.

  “No. No way,” Chuck stated adamantly. “I’m done climbing.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Carl asked, pointing over at the roundabout, as they almost reached the barrier to the training school.

  On the circle of road, by the exit for Colindale Avenue, the direction in which the tube lay, there sat an abandoned red Y-reg’ Nissan Micra. The car was rocking on its suspension and though it was not possible to see through its blood smeared windows, the sounds of shuffling and thumping could be heard from within.

  Needing no further warning of what danger might be inside the car, Carl, without so much as even breaking his stride, launched his crowbar over the high gate, mounted the horizontal red and white striped vehicle barrier with one foot, and threw himself upwards to hook his elbows over the top of the gate and pull himself up.

  As the iron bar he slung hit the tarmac on the other side with a loud clang, a head responded to the sound by thrusting itself up through the sunroof of the little car. It was the head of what appeared to Muz and Chuck to be a twelve-year-old school girl. Her face was bloodied and in her teeth, she held what could only be a human liver.

  Seeing the two men, she snarled viciously and pulled herself up through the roof of the Micra. As the girl dragged her carcass down the windscreen and bonnet, the men saw she was in a horrifically bad state. Both her legs were completely missing and all that remained of her pelvis was an empty bowl of bone, picked almost clean of all meat and the intestines it normally held.

  The animated remains of the school girl hit the ground and started to drag themselves over to Muz and Chuck, her bare pelvis clattering uselessly behind her at the end of her protruding spine. Though her green and blue tie still hung from around her neck, her once white shirt had lost all of its buttons, and her prepubescent chest was one huge grit-filled friction burn. The tips of all her fingers were worn down, exposing the bones of the digits, all of which showed she had been dragging herself around in this manner for some time.

  “I think I can handle her,” Chuck declared, contemplating stamping on her head and crushing her skull under the heavy boots he was wearing, which had been an odd accompaniment to his suit and were just as ill matched to the custody clothes he now wore.

  Just as he said this, two more heads appeared through the sunroof of the car. These belonged to two men. One was white, but the other’s ethnicity could not easily be determined, as his head was little more than a skull, lacking any hair and the majority of his skin and facial muscles. One swollen and discoloured ear lolled precariously from the sole patch of flesh still covering the side of his face. There was a prominent crack in the top of his scalped cranium, running from his crown all the way to his right eye socket, with a single incisor wedged within, the root of the tooth jutting out like a little horn. It seemed that someone had tried to bite through his skull to get at the juicy brain within, but had instead, ended up minus one tooth.

  Responding to the presence of new prey, the two men in the car fought wildly with each other in their eagerness to be the first to clamber through the sunroof. Clawing and pushing against each other, they tumbled out and landed together with a single heavy thump on the road.

  Skull-head got to his feet and standing erect, ran for the gated entrance and the two men that stood there. The other, a man of athletic build and little more than a teenager, was one of the many whose buttock flesh had been torn from their skeletons and could therefore no longer stand. Raking at the surface of the road with his hands and feet, he rapidly overtook the other man and the girl, sprinting like a dog towards his next kill.

  There was no point turning and running the opposite way down the long stretching road behind them, Muz and Chuck rapidly determined. The young girl was little threat, but the two men, especially the quadruped, would easily catch them. With no other choice available, they ran towards their onrushing attackers, closing the remaining distance between themselves and the gate. Emulating the more capable Carl as best they could, they hastily climbed onto the cylindrical arm of the vehicle barrier, feeling it bow under their combined weight. With the metal pipe wobbling precariously under their feet, they leapt for the top of the gate, just as the disabled sprinter reached them.

  Both men pulled themselves up and over in the nick of time to avoid the fastest of their attackers from grabbing them, as in a desperate effort to reach them, his run turned into a surprisingly powerful leap and his face smashed hard into the upright metal bars of the gate.

  “Nice one,” Carl praised the men, relieved to see them safely within the training sight with him.

  “You total prick,” Chuck shouted so forcefully that flecks of spittle flew from his pronounced lips. “If you put me in danger like that again, I will snap you in two and leave you to be eaten.”

  “Calm down,” Carl responded, his fear of the bulky man clearly written across his face. “You made it, didn’t you?”

  “We might have made it in here, but we’ve still got to face them on the way back out,” Muz pointed out.

  Leaving the three insane and mutilated people reaching through the gaps in the gate, while gnawing and scratching at the bars, they walked through the site. Passing the petrol pumps and the car wash, all of which could have easily belonged in any fuelling station, Muz headed for the driving school’s fleet depot. Looking over to his right, past the skid pan, he saw the running track and the school’s expansive sports field. The acres of grass were currently covered with olive-green tents that looked military in origin, their door flaps fluttering in the breeze. There was not a person to be seen and pieces of paper, plastic bags, and other debris, wandered between the tents at the whim of the modest wind.

  Muz remembered it being announced that the initial RVP had been comprised and therefore relocated to the training school grounds. It was evident however that the inexorable spread of the epidemic had since forced this base of operations to be evacuated, just as the police station had, and be relocated elsewhere.

  Looking out further beyond the rows of abandoned tents, he could see the tube line that ran along the western perimeter of the grounds. There was no way to get onto the tracks from here though, due to the fifteen-foot high fencing. They would have to brave the streets and probably face being attacked yet again, in order to somehow reach the station.

  Entering a large two-storey building through a drive-in doorway, they found themselves in what was clearly a covered car park. Though between the pillars that supported the upper floor there were numerous parking bays laid out in rectangles of white paint, there was not a single car to be seen. Amid the empty air of the building, the sounds of their footfalls bounced off the surrounding walls and echoed around the garage.

  “Damn it,” Muz cursed aloud.

  He couldn’t believe his bad luck. It made sense that when the grounds had been evacuated they would have taken every serviceable car with them, just as they had over at the police station, but he had been hoping to find something, despite such logic.

  The only vehicle that remained in the whole expanse of the garage was something affectionately referred to as Jumbo One. It was a massive yellow and white JCB digger with a great toothed shovel on the end of a hydraulic arm. There was no wonder this was the sole vehicle that had been left behind. It had a one-man flimsy cab that offered little protection from attack and had to have a top speed
of about ten miles per hour. As Muz had seen, the crazies could run almost twice that speed.

  The dejection he felt clearly showing in his hunched gate, Muz walked over to the garage hand’s office, to see what he might find there. As he stepped through the doorway into the tiny cubicle, he nearly choked on his own welling vomit and staggered back out.

  “What’s wrong?” Carl asked, seeing the officer pressing a fist to his lips and repeatedly swallowing.

  “It looks like they managed to get in here too,” Muz managed to say.

  Carl and Chuck both walked over to where Muz was stood and looked into the office. On the floor, almost hidden behind the desk and partially obscured by a computer terminal, keyboard, and other items he had pulled down from the desktop in an effort to get up, there was what should have been by all rights another corpse. Just like everyone else however, the cadaver hadn’t had the dignity to give up the ghost completely, and what remained of him twitched and lurched feebly.

  Muz had instantly recognised the man, the skin of his face for the most part being intact, despite the rest of him having been reduced to little more than a skeleton. The crazy bastards that had attacked him had clearly been very hungry indeed, and had not been distracted from their feed until he had been stripped clean.

  Hobnob was the only name Muz knew him by, and had no idea why he was called that. He guessed that the man had been more than a little partial to tea and biscuits, but he could have been wrong.

  The man had been one of the IRV, level three, driving instructors here at the school, a tall, older man who had probably been approaching retirement. Though he had always been a gangly character, he had never looked as thin as he did right now. The bones of his arms and legs lolled this way and that without coordination, the last remnants of their muscle and tendons tugging at them, but he was well beyond full reanimation. With a great effort of will that showed across his face, he managed to lift a hand and delve with it into his own empty rib cage, exploring himself with child-like fascination and little concern for the pain he was in. He could not possibly harm the three men observing him from the doorway.

  “Look at him,” Muz said, though he wanted to turn his own eyes away. “He looks retarded.”

  Chuck nodded in agreement. “I’m guessing that none of those affected have the mental capacity to reason greater than that of a four or five year old child.”

  “I’ll tell you why they can’t be zombies,” Carl said out of the blue, feeling the need to try to rationalise the logical absurdity of the living corpse in front of him.

  “What? Just look at him. He’s clearly undead,” Chuck retorted. “And what about that smashed up woman that looked at you?”

  “Zombies don’t run,” Carl murmured.

  He looked troubled – badly shaken. His mind was fighting to the bitter end, refusing to buy into all this. He couldn’t accept that he was living in a world where such a catastrophe could happen. It was too much to take in.

  “What?” Chuck asked, finding himself laughing.

  Of all the logical arguments Carl could have come out with to deny that the people running wild in the street were zombies, all he was able to come up with was that.

  “Zombies don’t run,” Carl reiterated defiantly. “You’ve seen them; those crazy people can run. Shit, they can sprint like I’ve never seen. But zombies don’t run.”

  “Clearly they fucking do. You still think this is some stupid film, don’t you?” Chuck spat, regarding Carl with an incredulous expression.

  “I… I,” was all Carl could now manage to say.

  “Gimme that,” Chuck said, snatching the crowbar out of the man’s hands. “You might want to look away.”

  The big black man stepped into the office and raised the bar over his head, at which point, Carl did in fact choose to look in another direction. He was still able to hear the crunching, the wet mushing, and Chuck’s laboured grunts though.

  When he had finished doing what he felt he needed to do, Chuck returned from the room and thrust the crowbar back at Carl.

  “His suffering’s over,” was all he said.

  Though he tried his hardest not to, Carl found himself compelled to steel a glance into the office. Little now remained of the driving instructor’s head, lumps of broken jaw and skull hanging from ripped flesh. Chuck had managed to hook the brain with the bar and tug it free of its housing in the cranial bowl. Carl saw the grey organ splattered across the floor, having been stamped on by Chuck’s boot. And yet, despite this brutal mutilation, the man’s tongue, lolling forth from the open neck wound, flicked this way and that, lapping hungrily at his own blood clots.

  Suddenly dizzy and feeling that he might faint, Carl turned away and looked with horror at the bloodied end of the crowbar. Holding the iron bar at arm’s length, he hurried over to the sinks in one corner of the garage where all of the car cleaning equipment was kept.

  “Keep your wits about you,” Muz called after him.

  “Look what I found,” Chuck said to Muz, with a huge beaming smile.

  Muz looked down at one of the man’s enormous hands to see a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.

  “They were on the desk,” Chuck said, pulling out one of the fags, putting it in his mouth, and sparking it up.

  Muz couldn’t believe the man. He had just beaten someone to death with an iron bar and was behaving as though nothing had happened. He shook his head when Chuck offered him the packet.

  “Are you sure that’s safe?” Muz said. “Those things could kill you.”

  “Don’t start,” Chuck replied, as he sighed heavily with pleasure, exhaling the first long drag of smoke. “I know exactly what they’re doing to me.”

  “No, I mean we don’t know how all this is spreading,” the copper explained. “They could be infected.”

  “I’m willing to take the risk,” Chuck coughed. After all he had been through, he needed to take a little pleasure from something. “So, no cars. I guess we’re running to the tube station then.”

  “Not necessarily,” Muz replied, nodding over at Jumbo One.

  Chuck followed his line of sight and laughed. “Better than nothing, I suppose.”

  Having found the keys for the JCB hanging in the wall cabinet in the office, Muz jumped into the digger’s cab and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared into life, then settled down to chug more sedately. The noise of this beast of a machine might well attract zombies, or whatever the hell they were, but its huge shovel would be great for fending off any attackers.

  “Climb on,” Muz called down to Carl and Chuck over the rumbling motor.

  He would be safe enough with the cab door closed but there was no space whatsoever to fit a second person in with him. The other two men would have to hang from the outside, but it still gave them an advantage over simply walking. Standing on the engine housing at the rear and clinging to the exterior of the cab would keep them about five feet above ground level, creating at least an element of distance and a height advantage over any assailants.

  “You on?” Muz shouted, as the others climbed aboard.

  “Go for it,” Chuck told him.

  Muz scanned the array of levers, buttons, and pedals in front of him, and selecting what appeared to be the gear lever, pushed it out of neutral. Contrary to the desired effect, the whole vehicle jolted as the digger arm suddenly raised up off the ground.

  “Try again,” Carl called sarcastically into the cab.

  Reassessing the unfamiliar controls, Muz tried another stick and this time, as he raised the clutch, the machine lurched forward.

  “Bingo,” Carl shouted.

  Muz drove them out of the garage and back through the school grounds the way they had come, while Chuck and Carl clinging to the cab tried not to choke on the hot carbon monoxide spewing from the end of the exhaust on the rear of the roof. They passed by the locked gate they had climbed over to get into the site and took a left through a car park to another gate. This second gate was an exi
t only, fully automated ‘airlock’ type system. As the heavy digger rolled over the pressure censor hidden under the tarmac, the first of the barriers opened, allowing Muz to drive into the caged area the twin gates formed.

  “Looks like our friends are back,” Chuck announced, seeing that while they sat there, waiting for the gate behind them to close, the mutilated teenage girl and two men were staggering, crawling, and dragging themselves over from the Micra to the source of the engine sound.

  Once the first gate had clanged closed to their rear, all three men stared in fixed anticipation at the second gate immediately to their front, and the three animated cadavers beyond.

  “As soon as that opens, you floor it,” Chuck bellowed, banging on the little Perspex window at Muz. “Mow them down if you have to.”

  Muz did not respond, an expression of troubled indecision written on his face, as he gripped the steering wheel unnecessarily tight.

  “They’re already dead,” Chuck insisted.

  Though in reality it could not have been more than a handful of seconds, it seemed like an age before the second barrier began to move aside. As it finally did so, Muz pressed the accelerator pedal to the floor, roaring the engine loudly and causing more noxious fumes to plume from the overhead exhaust. The moment he had enough room to squeeze through, he lifted the clutch and the mechanical monster leapt into the road like an enraged bull from its pen.

  The afflicted trio, disturbing to look at, were in the road directly in the way of the vehicle. Muz sounded the loud deep note of the horn but didn’t ease off the throttle in the slightest. The man with the skinned head stepped out of the way of the JCB’s relentless path just in time, but the other two were not so lucky.

  Baring down on the man on all fours and the half girl, Muz looked into their eyes and took some strange solace from their obvious murderous intent. The enormous wheels of the digger drove straight over them, crushing and crunching their bones and bursting the man’s chest and abdomen like a water balloon. Muz didn’t even feel the slightest impact.