“Leave it,” Muz said over his shoulder.
The woman paused, looking yearningly back along the bending track. She knew the man was right though. It was dangerous back there, and retracing her steps just to get her mobile would be a stupid idea. Sulkily, she plodded off after the others.
“So, what do you know about all this?” Carl asked the little woman.
Both Muz and Chuck, who were a few feet ahead, turned their heads in interest of the woman’s answer. On this side of the tracks, there stood a tall wire mesh fence between them and some newly built flats. On the other side, there was a wall that was no less than twenty feet high. The two men therefore allowed themselves the small luxury of dropping their guards a moment to regard the woman.
“Not a lot,” was the young woman’s disappointing reply.
“Have you any ideas at all what might have caused all this?” Carl pressed her.
“No.”
“Nothing?” Carl pushed further, sounding more than a little desperate.
Amy made eye contact with him now. All she wanted was to be left alone to walk along in silence, but she could see this man was just as traumatised by all this as she was, though he was trying his best to conceal it. He needed some kind of logical answer to cling to, so that he could at least begin to understand what was happening and not just think the world had gone completely insane for no reason.
“I guess it might be due to some sort of viral epidemic,” was all she could offer him. “But I really have no idea.”
“Tell us what you do know,” Muz said. “Any information you have might prove useful.”
“Okay,” Amy conceded grudgingly. “My colleague and I were called out to a twelve-year-old boy suffering bite wounds. He’d been savagely bitten by his older brother. Reading the details of the call while we were en route, we assumed that we were going to the result of a simple sibling fight and the injury would be minor.
“We were wrong. The boy had deep bloody bite marks all the way up his right arm and shoulder, where his brother, in a frenzied attack, had been apparently trying to work his way up to the neck before the parents had managed to intervene. They had been forced to drag the older boy off and lock him in a bedroom. I could hear him, banging away at the door and walls, as I was treating the boy’s injuries. I kept hoping the police would turn up soon.
“The younger brother wasn’t in too bad a state, quite a bit of blood loss, but nothing to be concerned about. My colleague and I stopped the bleeding and dressed his wounds. It was then that I noticed that his breathing was becoming slow and shallow, as was his heart rate. His temperature was dropping too. I put it down to loss of blood and shock. I wasn’t too worried at first, thinking I would be able to counteract it, but his vitals continued to drop. He was deteriorating rapidly, and nothing I did made any difference.”
Amy paused a second, her brow furrowing with the difficulty of reliving the events. She didn’t want to continue but the eyes of her audience, intently focussed on her, compelled her to finish her story.
“After about fifteen minutes, he went into full cardiac arrest. We tried to use the defib’ on him, but it told me that there was no electrical activity in the heart whatsoever.
“I thought he was dead. The police, who had finally arrived, told us to back away and not touch the boy anymore, as his body was now a crime scene. At that point, the parents went mental. The mother clawed at one officer’s face, while the father tried to fight his way past the other to get to the boy. It was heart breaking.
“Even though other emergency calls were coming over the radio quicker than I’ve ever known, we were told we had to remain at the scene to give statements to the police.”
The young paramedic’s eyes were completely defocused now, as she was completely submerged in her own story. Her face took on a picture of utter confusion and she shook her head, as though trying to deny what had happened next.
“After about ten minutes though, the boy came round. He was alive. The police looked at me as… as though I didn’t know how to do my job.
“That’s when it went really crazy. There must have been something wrong with the heart rate monitor, because the boy was still showing a flat line. So… I was checking the machine, when the boy just suddenly jumped to his feet and attacked an officer and… and…”
The three men looked around at each other with ominous expressions.
“He… he...,” Amy stammered, beginning to lose control of her emotions.
“It’s okay,” Chuck told her. “We get the idea.”
Amy fell thankfully silent, her head dropping so as to hide the tears welling in her eyes.
“See. Zombies,” Chuck concluded, turning to his front again to scan around him with renewed caution.
“What?” Amy said, looking up at the black man, startled by the obscene word. “Zombies? That’s ridiculous.”
“Yeah, it’s currently a topic of debate,” Muz told her dryly.
“How else do you explain that child dying, then coming back to life and attacking a police officer?” Chuck asked the woman, not bothering to look back at her again and not caring for an answer.
“He wasn’t… I don’t…,” Amy stuttered again.
All those hours she had hidden in the crashed ambulance, she had wondered what it was that could have caused all these people to behave in such an inhuman manner, but not once had the notion of zombies entered her mind. Now, forced to contemplate the possible absurdity, her brain seemed to be incapable of coherent lines of thought, leaving her struggling to speak. “Zombies don’t… can’t exist.”
“Who says?” Chuck said, continuing to press her buttons.
Muz wished the man would just let the matter drop. Couldn’t he see the effect he was having on the poor woman? She was already a quivering mess, without him winding her up.
“Medical science says,” Amy fought back, anger growing within her in response to this man’s stupidity. “When you’re dead, you’re dead. Your heart doesn’t beat and without that, the blood can’t pump around the body. Without the blood carrying oxygen to fuel the muscles, you simply can’t move. It can’t happen.”
“That’s a very valid argument. I suggest you back up there and put it to all those wandering corpses,” Chuck said with a smirk. “Maybe they’ll realise the error of their ways and drop motionless to the ground, like any self-respecting cadaver should.”
“Look, I don’t care what they are,” Muz cut it finally, seeing a tear trickle down Amy’s cheek. “All I know is that we need to stay clear of them if we want to stay alive. So let’s stop wasting time and energy chatting and push on.”
As they walked along in the gravel, staying well clear of the tracks, the high wall to their right came to an end and was replaced by a metal fence, through which, could be seen people’s gardens. To their left, the new-build blocks were succeeded by a stretching area of allotments. For quite some time, they didn’t see a single person on either side, alive, dead, or anywhere in-between.
It was only when they crossed over a small bridge that traversed a footpath and the allotments were left behind, giving way to Montrose Playing Fields, that they at last saw another survivor. In those fields, beyond the wire fence and down the embankment, they saw a slim, young-looking man following the path that led under the bridge. He was clearly nervous, his head whipping from side to side as he trotted along, trying to cross the open expanse as quickly as possible without tiring himself out.
As he drew nearer, Muz was able to make out the black epaulettes on his shoulders against the white of his shirt, and the pouches hanging from the belt he wore. He was a police officer.
Just then, the officer stopped in his tracks and stared, terrified towards to trees off to his left. Watching him, the eyes of Muz and the others were drawn to follow his line of sight. Emerging from those trees, they saw what had startled him.
A short, shirtless, obese man came running into view, his huge stomach rippling with every bounding step.
Despite his stumpy stature and the several stones of blubber coating his body, the speed at which he was sprinting towards the lone police officer was formidable. As he too drew nearer, his raging scream could be heard, growing in volume.
The officer looked panicked now and broke into a sprint himself, still heading for the bridge. As he did so, he saw Muz and the others on the tracks above, presented against the near horizon.
“Come on, mate,” Muz called out, realising his colleague had spotted him.
Responding to the call, the desperately sprinting copper changed course slightly, making his way to the embankment and the group.
“Oh shit,” Muz gasped.
“What’s wrong?” Carl asked, unable to take his eyes from the officer’s plight.
“I know him,” Muz told him. Now that he was able to see the young man’s face, and that all too distinctive contrived bedhead hairstyle, he recognised him as one of the new lads on his team. “O’Connell, over here. Come on!”
Muz knew that Mark O’Connell was one of the few police officers who made the effort to keep himself in shape, and was a decent runner. Despite this however, and despite the fact that the fat man chasing him was easily five stone heavier, and his lack of height meant he was almost having to take two steps to the officer’s one, Mark was losing ground. O’Connell looked extremely fatigued, panting and struggling with exertion. His gait was weary and he began to slow, despite knowing that his life was on the line. How long had he been outrunning these madmen?
The fat man cared nothing for the pain of his joints suffering under his bounding weight, or for the burning of his muscles or his lungs. They failed to distract him in the slightest from his goal, drowned out as they were by the agony of the decay his body was undergoing on a cellular level, a rotting that only fresh meat could counteract. What remained of his consciousness was focused on one thing alone, the sprinting bag of meat and blood in front of him.
O’Connell made it to the bottom of the embankment and dared to glance over his shoulder, to see the stubby wobbling man bearing down on him. That sight was more than enough incentive to cause him to throw himself through the thorn bushes at the edge of the field. The branches sliced at his exposed forearms and face, but he didn’t even notice, as he flung himself up the hill with all the energy he had left in him.
“Turkish, thank fuck,” Mark panted gratefully on recognising Muz. “Help me.”
“Climb over,” Muz frantically urged him.
Grabbing at the holes in the wire mesh that stood between him and safety, Mark pulled himself up, his legs flailing beneath him uselessly. Simultaneously, Muz was climbing the other side of the fence in an effort to mount it and pull his colleague up and over. The fence buckled and swayed under their combined weight.
Hearing the obese man’s crazed snarls as he raced tirelessly up the embankment, Mark panicked even more and lost his grip.
Carl pressed himself against the fence and tried to feed his hands through the holes, in an attempt to hold the police officer’s toes and give him something to grip with his feet. As the copper’s booted feet scrabbled at the fence, they hit Carl’s fingers. Hearing a snap and feeling a sudden sharp pain, Carl instinctively retracted his hands.
Muz lost his balance on top of the fence as it swayed left and right. He almost fell over onto the field side, but then overcorrected and slammed down hard into the stone chips by the train tracks.
Had he not given into panic, Mark might have managed the climb in time. As it was however, he lost a handhold again and slipped down the fence, just as the obese man with cold dead eyes fell upon him. The flabby folds of the attacker’s pallid body writhed as he began furiously to feed. Lumps of raw yellow-white fat protruded from various mouth-sized holes torn into his bloated body from where he had been someone else’s victim.
The group stood inches from the ensuing massacre, impotent as the young police officer tried in vain to defend himself from the brutal merciless attack being inflicted upon him. He screamed and swore, his fists pummelling hard and fast into the fat man’s face. The half-naked insane man didn’t care in the slightest about the cartilage of his nose snapping, or his incisors being hammered out of his jaw at their roots. He continued to bite down with what teeth he had left and tear lumps of lean muscle from Mark’s body.
Soon the officer’s screams of rage and pain were replaced by diminishing whimpers, and his cursing obscenities changed to a pathetic begging. Then it was over. Mark’s form fell limp under the weight of the fat man, a dark red puddle of treacle-thick fluid emanating from where he lay.
As the hugely overweight murderer lustily ripped into his kill, Muz was back on his feet and again trying to climb the fence. He had either not yet seen that his colleague was now a lost cause, or he was refusing to accept it. Carl and Chuck stood motionless, watching him, not knowing how tell him that the other officer was dead. It was Amy who stepped forward and grabbed Muz by an arm.
“Get off,” Muz demanded.
Amy maintained her grip and stared silently up at him. Muz held her gaze a moment, the urgency in his eyes fading into resignation. He stopped fighting her hold of him and looked down through the fence at where Mark lay.
“No,” he whispered.
“There was nothing…” Amy began to say.
“You bastard,” Muz bellowed at the fat man, cutting the woman off.
Responding to the sudden noise, feeling that his prize was under threat of being taken from him, the fat killer suddenly leapt face-first at the fence. It bowed dramatically under the impact of all that weight and Muz fell backward to the ground. With his fat cheeks pressed against the wires, the man stood in a challenging stance, flecks of blood and spit flying from his lips as he snarled. His crazed eyes flicked from Muz to stare directly at Amy. His nostrils flexed as he sniffed at the air between himself and the woman. Moaning with desire, he leaned harder against the fence, until the interlinking wires were cutting into his face.
He continued to stare at her for an unnerving length of time, then having decided that neither Muz nor the others here were about to interrupt his meal, he hunkered down again over the lifeless copper.
Muz again clambered back to his feet and now turned his anger on Chuck.
“Why didn’t you shoot him?” he yelled furiously.
“I’ve barely got half a mag’,” Chuck replied coldly. “Yeah, it’s selfish but I’m keeping every round for my own protection from now on.”
“You total fucking prick,” Muz screamed with such ferocity that the fat killer again looked over at him warily. Muz then stomped off along the side of the tracks. Throwing his feet hard against the ground as he walked helped only a little in venting his anger and misery.
Amy now saw that Carl’s face was considerably whiter than before, and he was hissing through his teeth, while clutching his left hand in the other.
“Show me,” Amy said.
Carl reacted by cradling his injured hand against his chest, but Amy took hold of the wrist and pulled it towards her. She saw that the ring ringer was snapped at the second knuckle and bent at a right angle to the side. Her face remained calm as she gently turned the hand over in her own, examining the damage from all angles. Carl held his head over his right shoulder, not daring to look.
“It’s okay, it’s not broken. It’s just…” Halfway through what she was saying, the little paramedic suddenly tugged on the finger and cracked the joint back into place.
Carl screamed and pulled his hand free.
“… just dislocated,” Amy finished.
“What the? Aargh.”
“Sorry,” Amy said, “but it needed resetting as soon as possible before it started to swell up and potentially trap nerves and blood vessels.”
Without as much as a ‘thanks’, Carl mooched off, still cradling his offended hand.
Taking a moment to give Chuck a long stare of unmistakable disgust, Amy then followed the other two men. With a last look at the dead officer, Chuck picked
up the rear, having the good sense to maintain a gap between himself and the others.
Already a good distance further along the tracks, none of them saw the life return to Mark’s eyes and him begin to fight back with a renewed strength against the obese man straddling him. The strength he had not previously possessed arose from his current pain and hunger. The police officer and the fat man rolled in a bloody knot of limbs down the embankment, simultaneously feeding on each other’s flesh.
The three men and the woman crunched along the gravel in otherwise silence. None spoke for some time, partly through a sense of respect for the dead officer, and partly through concern for how Muz might react. It was Amy who broke first, desperately needing to dispel the heavy tension. As she slipped on the loose stones for the third time in what must have been less than a hundred metres, Muz caught her by the arm before she lost her footing completely.
“Thanks,” she said with a forced smile. “I’ve always been clumsy. My father says it’s ironic that my initials are A and E. Do you get it? As in hospital A and E?”
“Just be careful not to make too much noise,” was Muz’s only response, his hard expression carved from stone.
With that attempt at conversation cut short, the four weary walkers trod onwards, again without a word being passed between them.
Chapter 7
Zombie Jesus
Emotionally depleted and physically drained, the four survivors continued to push north. The tracks passed across another larger bridge over a road, which Muz recognised as Montrose Avenue. The road beneath was just yet another example of what was becoming an all too familiar scene. Cars and a couple of mopeds littered both the road and the pavements. Bodies robbed of their meat lay amid them, including the remains of a dog. Wandering aimlessly from one corpse to the next, looking for one with still edible muscle on its bones, were those that refused to die. The collective sound they made, their moaning and wailing, was disturbing to hear. The front half of a cat was dragging itself along the white lines of the street towards the nearest cadaver.
Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel Page 20