Everything Dies [Season One]

by T. W. Malpass

  Bodies broke the treeline, flattening the undergrowth, each one more foul and gruesome than the next. Men, women and children inhabiting their new transitions. Their putrid flesh hung from their bones like an ill-fitting dress as they ploughed headlong towards the stationary traffic.

  Everyone froze at first, marvelling at the sheer weight of numbers pouring from the woodlands. The people who regained their wits fast enough either fled in the opposite direction or desperately tried to gather their families before making their escape. For the scared and the selfish, a chance remained. The rest weren’t so lucky. The forest edge was extremely close to the road. The dead were upon them before most had a chance to exit their vehicles.

  O.B. ran back to the station wagon, his own weight slowing him down.

  ‘Wait,’ Bruno shouted.

  O.B. managed to get close enough to see the car just as the dead swarmed it and the surrounding vehicles. The windows of the station wagon had been left open – all the invitation the creatures needed. They reached through and clambered inside the front and back. The screams of his family washed over him like a tide of sickness. He watched on, helpless, as splashes of blood coated the car’s interior. The next thing he knew, Bruno had wrapped an arm across his chest to drag him away.

  ‘We have to split, bro. We have to go now!’

  The creatures descended upon the cars right next to them. The rotten net was closing in. O.B. turned his back on the station wagon, and the last thing he saw was The Colonel, trapped and still barking in the rear window.

  His cousin guided him from there. He felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. Bodies ghosted by him. It was unclear whether they belonged to the living or the dead. The sound of screams was muffled. He glanced down to the black woman. She was still lying on the ground, her eyes fixed on the sky, her son’s blood beginning to dry on her skin. Her daughter did her best to snap her out of it, but she was wasting her time.

  O.B. could do nothing for them. Even as Bruno guided him to his board and ordered him to kick away, he was operating on autopilot. Just like the station wagon containing his family, the woman and her daughter fell into the swarm, where they were, devoured by twenty or so hungry mouths. The stumbling stampede dispersed across the highway like the blast from a fire bomb. The two boys weaved between the cars and fleeing survivors until they were clear of the horde. Even so, they kept on skating.

  O.B.’s head cleared enough to hear one survivor call out as he watched the mass feeding frenzy unfold from a safe distance. ‘It’s over. It’s all over.’

  2

  By the time O.B. and Bruno came across the first road sign for Posen village, the dawn had already begun to break. The fact they had been able to use their boards most of the way had saved their feet, but they still needed to rest and find food and shelter.

  Since they’d escaped the swarm, they had not set eyes on any of the dead and this served as a welcome relief. Thankfully, this didn’t change as they strolled along Posen’s main road. Concrete defence barriers were still in place, blocking off every route into the village by vehicle. Without soldiers to man them, they were easily negotiated.

  O.B. placed his hand on an area of one of the barriers, scorched black by fire. Further down the road they came across the skeletal frame of a burnt-out truck. Bullet holes peppered the walls of the village bank on the corner. It appeared that the military had been forced to put up a fight before the evacuation, but it wasn’t clear what they had been fighting against.

  Bruno made a beeline for the car dealership across the street. Meticulously waxed cars were standing in front, and there were others in the showroom behind a broken pane of reinforced glass. He stared in envy at the gun-metal-grey Chevy Camaro at the centre of the display. ‘That’s my ride, right there.’

  O.B. ignored him – too traumatised to take note of his cousin’s trivial desires.

  ‘We should boost this son-of-a-bitch,’ Bruno said.

  ‘Like you know how to boost a car.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, we just need to find one with gas and the keys inside.’

  ‘What we need is food and water and a safe place to sleep,’ O.B. said.

  Bruno admired the glimmering sports car for a moment longer. When he noticed his cousin was getting away from him, he shrugged and jumped on his board to catch up.

  O.B. turned up his nose in disgust at the sight of the half-eaten corpse sitting upright against the wall of Davis Elementary School. It had been chewed down to its waist. At least thirty flies were picking through the open, decaying flesh. He averted his eyes before it made him sick.

  Hundreds of white posters blew about in the cross-wind, rolling from curb to curb. One tumbled in O.B.’s direction and got snagged against his shoe. He crouched down and turned it the right way up. The picture featured a smiling child, messy hair and dimples in his cheeks. The text read ‘MISSING PERSON: Simon Cunningham. 11 years old, white, slim build. Last seen on July 7 2016, wearing blue jeans and a green polo neck shirt. Has distinctive birth mark beneath left eye. If you have any information, please contact Posen Police Department on 0708-385-0277.’

  O.B. couldn’t take his eyes off the boy’s photograph. How happy he seemed – how safe… loved.

  ‘What are you lookin’ at?’ Bruno said as he walked over.

  ‘It’s a kid. He went missing around the time it all started. There’s no one left to look for him now.’

  Bruno smiled. ‘I love you, cousin. You have a big heart. If it’s any consolation, I’m gonna do my best to make sure it stays in your chest where it belongs. Now come, get up.’ Bruno helped him to his feet and they wandered over to the steps of the elementary school.

  The front doors were chained and bolted, but a window close by had already been smashed. ‘Looks like this could have been locked up before the outbreak,’ Bruno said. ‘Schools store a lot of food for the students.’

  ‘The freezers would have powered down weeks ago. It’ll all be rancid now,’ O.B. said.

  ‘Not the canned stuff. We’re bound to find something.’ Bruno wasted no more time arguing. He knocked the remaining glass shards from the frame of the broken window with his elbow. ‘What are you waiting for? You’ll fit through here.’ He climbed inside, leaving O.B. to stare at the opening.

  ‘Just about,’ O.B. said under his breath.

  Although it was getting warmer outside, the gloomy halls of the school were deathly cold. Fortunately, there were no corpses of students or teachers rotting in the classrooms, but there were plenty of echoes of the vibrant hub that it used to be. School bags and children’s jackets hung over the chairs, open books lay on desks, writing had been left on blackboards. It was clear that the evacuation of the school had taken place during class time.

  Bruno nudged O.B. and pointed to the sign hanging from the ceiling in the corridor. It read ‘Canteen’. ‘There’ll be a store room in there. No doubt,’ Bruno said.

  The grinding sound of their skateboard wheels reverberated around the empty, shadowed spaces until they reached the double doors of the canteen.

  Bruno jumped down and kicked the tail of his board so he could catch it by its nose. ‘Canned peaches, here we come.’

  They had taken no more than two steps inside before the smell hit them. They knew what it was because they had smelled it on the highway on the previous night. All the tables and chairs from the room’s centre had been removed, leaving just floor space. Lying there were at least a hundred body bags. Some of them were torn and looked as if they had been clawed open. The contents of the open bags were nothing more than greasy bones, with the odd piece of flesh clinging on. Pools of blood had collected and dried into the Linoleum. Some of it trailed in drag marks leading back to the stainless-steel serving counter and the kitchen behind it.

  ‘We should leave,’ O.B. whispered.

  ‘Yeah, no shit,’ Bruno said.

  They heard a groan from behind the counter and three figures emerged, swaying, their arms limp and their tee
th gnashing. One of them was missing an eye. Its cheek had also been shattered, creating a substantial dent in its face.

  The boys jumped onto their boards and skated back the way they had come. O.B. wailed on the bar of the first fire exit, but it would not budge. ‘It’s locked.’

  ‘Move. Let me try.’ Bruno pushed him out of the way and swung on the bar, lifting his feet from the ground to get more leverage. ‘Fuck!’

  They continued on through the hall, but before they could reach the next exit, another group of corpses stumbled around the corner. The creatures were shoulder to shoulder, completely blocking the way and removing any ideas of somehow slipping by them.

  ‘Up here.’ Bruno turned towards the staircase and began leaping steps two at a time. O.B. took one last look at their creeping, decaying pursuers and followed.

  By the time they reached the second floor, the dead were already clumsily climbing the stairs. O.B. leaned over the barrier and gazed down at them. One creature was pushing on ahead of the others, seemingly more nimble on its feet. The grey-haired corpse managed six steps before it lost its balance, veered left, and then toppled over the handrail.

  O.B. turned around, and was startled by the look on his cousin’s bloodless face.

  ‘We’re in deep shit, O.B..’ Behind him, more of the dead were shuffling along the second-floor corridor. At first there had been none, and now they were everywhere. Bruno ran to the top of the stairs. ‘We’ll have to go back. Fight our way out.’

  ‘Are you for real? There’s too many. They’ll eat us alive,’ O.B. said.

  They headed up the second flight of stairs to the third and final floor. No sooner had they reached the top than they were met by another dozen creatures stalking down the left-hand corridor. They reached out with emaciated arms into the empty space between them and their next potential meal.

  ‘Now what?’ Bruno said.

  O.B. pointed to the other end of the corridor. ‘Maybe there’s a fire escape at the end.’

  ‘And if there isn’t?’

  ‘Then we’re screwed.’ O.B. ran for it, his large belly bouncing from side-to-side as he went. He knew that if more wandered out of any of the doors ahead, of which there were many, it would be over. He figured he would keep running in the hope of knocking them down if any did come out. To his relief, he made it to the window in one piece, Bruno close behind. But when he tried to slide it open, it wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ Bruno said.

  ‘It must be jammed.’

  His cousin stepped up to the frame and they both pulled at once. Even their combined strength didn’t seem to have any impact. It felt like it was nailed shut. Just as they thought they would have to break the glass, there was a snapping of wood and a violent shift that caused them to stumble backwards.

  Bruno shoved O.B. out onto the steel grating of the platform. As he climbed through the window himself, he glanced back at the gathering crowd of undead, who hadn’t managed to get even halfway down the corridor.

  Their shoes clanked down the first set of stairs, but O.B. stopped abruptly when he reached the next platform. ‘They’re gone.’

  Bruno thought he meant the dead at first, but then realised he was looking over the edge. He dodged around his large frame and looked down at their new quandary. Something must have struck the fire escape. There had clearly been an explosion. Just like the barriers on the way in to Posen, the wall on the side of the school building was scorched. The last set of stairs had melted and contorted, and were impossible to use. Even for someone strong and athletic, the distance from the ground was too high to jump.

  ‘There.’ Bruno pointed just below the railing on the platform. The extra emergency ladder was still attached to the track, but because it was drawn in, it had been protected from the blast and remained intact.

  O.B.’s head started to spin at the prospect of climbing over the railings and dangling his feet towards the first rung. ‘I don’t think I can make it.’ Beads of sweat oozed from his face and neck. His hands felt like they’d been smeared in grease as he tried to get a firm grip on the rail.

  ‘You have to make it. Now get over there,’ Bruno said.

  O.B. prayed for courage to suddenly take hold of him, but it never came.

  ‘Buddy, either you climb over that rail, or so help me, I’m gonna push your fat ass over.’

  O.B. turned to his cousin, hoping that he would lose his patience and do what he’d threatened. Just then, the glass of the window behind Bruno shattered, and before he could move clear, a wall of decaying hands reached through the empty frame and caught hold of him. His startled eyes fixed upon O.B. as he was dragged inside.

  ‘O.B.!’

  Bruno’s tone was expectant as well as desperate, but his cousin had no idea how to react. Instead, he watched Bruno get pulled into the second floor corridor almost folded in two.

  ‘Please. Help me. Please.’ His screams coincided with the multiple sets of fingers punching holes into his skin, tearing at his flesh. ‘Pleeeeeease. Pleeeeeease.’

  O.B. coiled into the foetal position, pressing himself hard against the rail and crying helplessly. The last image of Bruno he saw as he disappeared into the belly of the ravenous horde would be forever burned into his memory. His shaved scalp was torn from the top of his forehead by a skeletal hand and peeled like an over-ripe fruit, exposing his skull beneath. Blood cascaded down his face like tears. His screams were soon drowned out by the chewing and tearing as the creatures feasted on everything he had. O.B. froze. His muscles locked in place. At that moment, the only thing he was able to do was to listen to his cousin being devoured.

  ‘Hey, fat boy!’ came a croaking voice from below. He looked down into the street and saw someone standing there with a shopping cart full to the brim. It was hard to tell, but he guessed it was a woman. Her limbs were painfully thin, her skin caked in dirt. A red beanie hat covered most of her greasy, matted hair. ‘You gonna climb down that ladder, or do you wanna end up like your friend in there?’

  He went cold and glanced back to the window. The dead were coming to the end of their meal, and they were just starting to build up an appetite.

  ‘Look, either way suits me fine. There’s enough of you to keep those sacks of shit busy for an hour. Means there’s less of ‘em around for me to avoid. Do what the hell you like.’ The haggard woman began to push her cart away, and O.B. could feel his legs again.

  He clambered over the rail and tentatively dangled one foot down to the ladder. As soon as he put his weight on it, the top section rattled along the track and stopped just above the ground. With every rung, he needed to stop climbing and take a breath, wrapping his arms around the frame, just in case he slipped.

  By the time he got to the bottom, landing awkwardly in the street, the woman was already well on her way, checking for signs of danger as she went. ‘Wait,’ he shouted.

  ‘Why don’t you just ring the dinner bell, dickhead?’ she whispered back.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Home,’ she replied.

  3

  O.B. followed his dirty new acquaintance right across to the other side of the village, but he still wasn’t able to catch up with her. At a distance, he could appreciate just how malnourished she was. Her legs carrying her and her precious cart along were like two twigs. It would have been easy to mistake her for the other type of humanoid now sharing the planet with them. Despite that, O.B. was no match for her stamina and determination. Wherever ‘home’ was, it wasn’t any of the scenic houses in Posen.

  She led him to the outskirts and the one place left. The two-storey building looked high to him, one half fallen away in ruins. A broken sign lay face up on the derelict ground surrounding it. The lettering had faded, but he could still make out what it said: ‘Gilded Paints’.

  The woman battled to untangle the wheels of her cart from the rocks and waste that littered the ground. She managed to push through the furrowed terrain and was entering the bro
ken shell of the factory just as O.B. finally caught up with her. The inside was much the same as the outside – nothing more than an industrial relic, with crumbling walls, dripping with moisture from the naturally cultivated rising damp. The whole place reeked of mould. O.B.’s skate shoes peeled away from the sticky substance coating the floor. He realised that his board was no longer tucked under his arm. He’d left it back on the platform of the fire escape.

  The woman forced her shopping cart to the edge of a ramp that led down to the basement of the factory, and then turned to O.B. ‘Don’t be shy now. Help me with this shit.’

  ‘Help you to do what?’

  ‘To move it down below. Like I told you. This is home.’

  He followed her down the ramp to a cast iron manhole cover surrounded by railings. The cover was flipped open and he could see a set of ladders descending into the darkness of the sewer system. ‘Wait. You’re going down there?’

  ‘Don’t get your panties in a twist. It’s clear. Separated from the rest of the system by a locked gate. It stinks of shit, but what doesn’t these days?’ The woman reached into the cart and grabbed the two blankets from the top, pushing them into O.B.’s chest. ‘Carry these.’

  Now that he was able to get a good look at her, he saw that she was even more haggard than he’d realised. Her cheeks were sunken, her skin covered in red blotches and scabs. She noticed his stare and smiled. The cracks in her blistered lips separated like tiny mouths to reveal raw flesh in between. Her gums were enflamed and her teeth had succumbed to decay.

  ‘Sucks, don’t it?’ the woman said. ‘The only time in your life you might have had a chance with a pretty girl, and you get stuck with a dog like me.’