by Burke, Rowan
Mark took a flashlight and signaled us toward the far wall of the living room where a window was blocked by a thick cut of wood. He yanked it back, blinding us with the penetrating rays of light freed into the room, revealing a window into a small fenced area down the side of the house where the bins were kept. It had a high wall on the back and a high gate on the front with about two metres between them, joined by an even higher wall equipped with a thick hedge. Carefully, Mark lifted the window to an open position. The muffled moans of the outside zombies suddenly become exceptionally loud and the whole thing took a harsh shove into reality. This was really scary, there were lots of zombies out there and even though I knew the actual plan would deviate from the current one significantly, my heart was still pounding hard through my chest. Mark pulled a step ladder from the wall and quietly erected it, before shuffling it outside the window and placed it on the concrete slabs below.
“Phil”
Stated Mark, as he pushed a metal mop bucket into Phil’s hands.
“Can you please throw this out of the upstairs window? Throw it as far as you can, this is our distraction so it has to be good”
Phil grasped the bucket and looked at me.
“Up and over”
Mark whispered.
“Up and over, and then run like Hell”
Placing his foot on the first step, Phil grabbed his shoulder and pulled him backwards, almost throwing him to the ground in the process.
“Me first, and forget the bucket”
He stipulated.
A look of befuddlement shadowed the group, including me as I attempted my best acting of having no idea of his actions.
“But….”
“ME. FIRST”
Everyone took a step back and allowed Phil his request. He got half way up the ladder and looked back to me with a permitting nod. We both turned to face the group and swiftly blurted the plan in its shortest possible form. Before I had a chance to conclude the plan, depicting that Phil was the decoy, that he was the distraction which would hopefully enable us enough time to escape, he shot over the hedge like a soldier over the trenches in WW1.
“Phil is the diversion. He will make it back. There is a car coming to get us so wait with me”
He didn’t emit one sign of fear, just angered determination that cascaded through his body as he propelled himself over the hedge and out of sight. Jon and Derek ran to stop or follow him but I blocked the window, disallowing them any chance of catching up. The looked desperate and tearful, but I knew any change to this plan would completely ruin it. It broke my heart to see them scared for our friend without understanding what was going on, but I had to be strong, I had to keep them back, I had to make them wait until the coast was clear, or all of this was for nothing.
“How do you know there’s a car?”
Tina barked.
“That doesn’t matter now”
I answered, looking Damian dead in the eyes. He knew now that I had heard him, adopting a sheepish and shameful expression before averting his gaze to his feet.
“Please just trust me, wait ten more seconds and then we go”
I held the fort with all my might as the zombie anthem faded off into the distance.
“Ok, Now!”
I pulled myself up the ladder, the adrenaline disguising a majority of the pain in my foot as I hurdled over the hedge and landed in a heap on the street. Derek came over next and helped me up, closely followed by the others one by one, hurtling the fence like horses in the Grand National. We ran out onto the road, the outline of the zombie wave still visible but what seemed a hundred or so metres away already. It made me think they really were quick, and made me ever so much more anxious for Phil’s safe return. Derek threw my arm over his shoulders and aided me to run in the opposite direction just as a Silver Citroen Saxo shot up the hill and screeched to a halt a few yards ahead. I could see the outline of someone in the car who started waving his arms frantically in a ‘come here’ motion, signaling a significantly faster approach was necessitated. In his frantic motion, the silhouetted driver managed to sound the car horn; it was only once and only a quick stab of sound through the air, but the resonating noise fired into the atmosphere. All of a sudden, the moans pointed back in our path; we froze in our tracks to look back at the wave and with terror recognised the horn had drawn the attention back to us, and the wave was headed back in heavy, hungry force.
“Go!”
We ran as fast as we could, Jon throwing my other arm over his shoulders too in order to speed me up. We hurtled with intense panic toward the car, soon revealing the driver’s face who had a sincere look of bafflement occupying it. Mark approached the car first; unsuccessfully attempting to open the car’s locked doors and frantically pulling at the handles.
“Open the fucking doors!”
He demanded, punching the windows with frustration in the process.
“Open the fucking doors NOW!”
The driver looked at Damian, who shamefacedly nodded in approval. The car locks clicked as Mark opened the back door and pushed Tina and Kate in, before diving over the back seats to lie in the boot. Jon dove in beside the girls as Derek opened the passenger door for me before diving in across the laps of those in the back. I pushed the back door shut as Damian approached me and signaled to make way so he could pile into the front. As he did I grabbed his wrist and held him back. Staring into my eyes I saw his fear, but I also saw his remorse. Yet I knew it wasn’t remorse for what he had done, for which he was now well aware Phil and I had found out, it was remorse that he had been rumbled, his plan had been foiled and he was now facing the ramifications of his actions. I knew the fearful look through the watery glaze of his eye was because he felt he should have done more to keep his plan under wraps, to execute it with the same conviction he planned to execute all of us. And with that, I didn’t need to deliberate; I used my good foot to propel him backwards onto his arse on the tarmac of the road. Damian scrambled to all fours and looked back at me again.
“Fuck you”
I said through angered expression.
Damian shot toward the car but not before I could pull the door shut and lock it. Throwing myself over the driver I hit the central locked button, then grabbed a knife from Kate to hold up against the driver’s throat.
“Drive.”
My instruction was effectively backed up by my threat, as the driver hit the accelerator pedal on the floor with his foot. The wheels span and created smoke from the road as the back of the car whipped out to turn the vehicle back to whence it came. I took one final glance at Damian as he slowly stood to his feet, all the while staring at us, refusing to turn to face his fate, to face his comeuppance for what he had done, or attempted to do anyway. The wave was fast and aggressive, crashing around him like he was a rock on the beach with an incoming tide. Retaining the stance of facing us, the wave engulfed him, and as soon as it approached, Damian disappeared forever.
The screams of disbelief from the fellow passengers sounded loud and prominent, trying to figure out the source of my actions. I appreciated to them it just looked like I had played Grim Reaper, taking Damian’s choice to live away from him, then pushed the cold blade of a sharp butcher’s knife against a stranger who had ostensibly come to rescue us. I couldn’t face their screams all at once, each noise tearing through my brain as I mentally attempted to justify what I had just done. Yet as I began to reply to their intensified questioning, I noticed a figure running through the trees to our left, with an undescriptive army copying the same action a few metres behind.
“It’s Phil!”
A smile adopted my face, both of ecstasy and disbelief.
“Quick, stop the car!”
The driver took a look in his rear view, and despite the copious back seat residence he managed to see through the window and make out the wave, clearly unsatisfied with Damian as they were still hot on our tail. He also looked out the passenger window to see Phil running towards us but could no
w make out a few dozen zombies right behind him too.
“Stop the car!”
I reiterated my request from the clear dismissal of my first one.
“I can’t”
He replied, mumbled slow, quiet, and gingerly.
“They’ll catch us. And when they catch us, then we’re all dead”
I looked over toward the driver, averting my observation from Phil in the adjacent woodland. I couldn’t believe the words that escaped his mouth. Granted I didn’t know the guy, I didn’t know if he was a good person or not, but right now his reply and his actions repulsed me.
“He took the risk”
Another voice piped up, this time Mark.
“He knew what he was getting into and he was prepared to give his life for us. We’re safe now; you’ll have to let him go”
The driver pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator as if to confirm my acceptance of the group decision. As he did, the feel of my blade against his throat met that of another pushed up against his crotch, this time the sharpest point piercing the thin jean layer covering his most prized body part in a fencing like action. Jon had wrapped his arm around the driver’s seat and pushed his knife into a position that had potential to poise some grim pain, doing so in order to further accentuate the seriousness of my already apparent threat.
“I suggest you fucking stop, mate”
The driver, presumably acting with fear-induced spontaneity, hit the brakes hard, ceasing our motion with immediate effect. Unfortunately, his sudden and unwarned action disallowed us time to remove our threat-inducing weapons, meaning my knife sliced into his neck and Jon’s through his genitals. Our threats were intended to an extent, but only on the basis we thought he’d do just what we asked of him with the implements provocatively placed, it wasn’t our intention to actually harm the new addition. After all, he had turned up with a car to save us and probably didn’t know the full extent of Damian’s plan, so we certainly didn’t have any envisioned conviction behind our hostile actions. This was far from our intent, yet now blood spurted across the wheel and dashboard whilst the driver started gasping desperately for air.
I didn’t feel like I had fucked up with Damian, but now I really did; I had really fucked up with the driver and I instantly knew it. As far as I was aware, and probably as far as I’d ever know, this guy was completely innocent; he had tried to help Damian, and now inadvertently had helped all of us by risking his life to drive into zombie infested areas. From the single digit minutes I had known him, he seemed like a good guy drawn into a bad, intense situation that he would have been far from expecting. Now, only moments after he thought he was picking someone up and playing the hero, he was squirting thick fountains of blood from his neck and his dick, and was in both serious pain and trouble.
I ripped off my hoody and held it on his neck in futile attempt to stop the escaping gallons of blood as Jon did the same to his other penetrated area, both of us frantically trying to cover up the mess we knew we had made. A parade of pointless pleading and anxiety induced curse words filled the car from every mouth, until eventually the driver door flung open to reveal Mark who had escaped the boot to find his way up to the front line of the action. Batting Jon and my hands away, he reached round and undid the driver’s seatbelt, before pulling him out of the car and dumping him on the tarmac of the road. In the panic, we had failed to realise the driver had ceased moving, ceased breathing, ceased doing anything at all really. Are attempts had been in vain and now he was dead. Being the sensitive type he was, Mark had noticed this and took the decision of removing the body from the situation as felt it to be a complete waste of time to continue trying to help a lifeless corpse in the front seat. Throwing the driver to the ground, Mark proceeded to take the driver’s seat and subsequently the helm. During which time, Derek had flung open the back passenger door to grab the fast approaching Phil and pull him into the car. With a quick screech of the tyres on the tarmac we zoomed off, leaving behind us a fast approaching zombie wave which clawed and banged at the back of the car momentarily before we could escape their grasps. We had unintentionally left them a ‘snack’ to tide them over in the form of the driver, and I felt fucking awful for it.
9.
The zombies became a distant figure as we viewed them from the back of the car. Only getting this far from them and actually having a moment to stare back at them without the need to run in panic in the opposite direction permitted us the opportunity to comprehend just how many of them there were. It seemed like hundreds had made their way to become part of their clan, rather frighteningly suggesting that fresh meat was getting increasingly hard to come by, or at least in the suburbs anyway.
I was so happy that Phil had made it back; I had tried to plan how I’d tell Bri and any other surviving members of his family how I had let him go, how he had taken my plan, my risk, and burdened himself with it. But seeing him sitting in the back of the car, with Kate and Tina now moved into the boot, filled me with sincere relief and happiness, both because he had returned and also because I no longer had to have that conversation.
Phil seemed understandably shattered, panting exhaustingly for oxygen and now sporting a few scratches on his face and arms courtesy of running through the trees. There were no signs of zombie damage though, which was another relief as none of us would have been able to make the decisions we did back at the flat with Stacey, or face leaving him behind like we had to with my brother. If he had turned I don’t know what we would have done; I personally wouldn’t have been able to deal with it if the time came where one of our friends had to be killed instead of them kill us. It was an impossible thing to imagine and I prayed the time would never come where the unimaginable came into reality. We had left Lance, but for all I knew he was in that wave behind us. I was just happy I didn’t have to face him or now Phil in the undead counterpart’s form.
However, I did have blood on my hands, as did Jon, from the driver. I didn’t even know the guy’s name, yet had carjacked him and then slit his throat. Whether or not I meant to was completely irrelevant, the fact of the matter was that I had done it; I had pushed a knife against his neck to scare him and only moments later used the blade to cut through his skin. I’d intentionally used a sharp, threatening object to scare someone I had never met before, and when he did what I asked him to do I spilled his blood, and then did nothing to interject when he was thrown to the wave.
The girls were still in hysterics; I suddenly remembered that no-one knew why I had told Damian to fuck off and then heartlessly kicked him to his inevitable death. As it stood, they had seen me send Phil off with the zombies on what seemed like a suicide mission, disallow Damian his opportunity to live, then threaten and subsequently murder someone we didn’t even know. I looked dangerous and unstable even to Derek and to an extent Jon, let alone people that had only met me earlier that morning. Before anyone got the wrong idea and decided to take matters into their own hands by taking me or even all of us out, I turned to the group to hush their panicked cries of fear and curiosity by explaining exactly what happened.
The empathetic thoughts toward Damian subsided to the same ones Phil and I had in the forefront. Mark and Derek agreed that however savage his ultimate demise was, Damian deserved his dramatic conclusion, and although the others didn’t say those words, I could see in their expressions that they thought exactly the same thing, whether they admitted or not. We probably could have crammed everyone in the car, telling the group the whole story at a later time and deciding Damian’s fate as a team. The reality was I didn’t actually have to tell them at all – we (bar Phil at the time) would have all been safely in the car, so I could have just let the whole thing go, perhaps having a quiet word with him on the side line. Retrospectively, for me my decision was right. It was done out of hate, out of redemption, out of shear vengeance, but he had almost killed all of us and my thought process was that a sociopath like that wouldn’t think twice before doing the same thing again. I simply c
ouldn’t have that risk around; I’d be judging every word or action he did, skeptically questioning his intentions and ultimately making clouded decisions that in turn could have been of detriment to both the group and me. The general consensus seemed to be that of agreement, and an acceptance that what happened to the driver was a complete accident helped no end. It was a guilt that would stay with me for the rest of my days, as I imagined it was with Jon too. Plus with the loss of Damian there was no way to find out who he was or who his family were to let them know what had happened. This was tragedy in the first instance and that sunken feeling in my chest of the most sincere levels of guilt was undoubtedly going to remain as a permanent fixture.
We all took a moment to thank Phil for what he did. I have no idea how he managed to escape their deathly jaws, but he did, and did so unscathed. He had little story to tell, just that he ran and ignored any messages from his body that he could run no more. ‘It was either run or be eaten’ he told us, an ultimatum that needed little deliberation if it could be that black and white. I also took a moment to calmly tell everyone that I had heard Damian say the driver knew of a helicopter, yet the hope of finding that was completely impossible now both parties had departed. I had expected more slander and abuse for this, but the group accepted it as they had accepted everything else, scheduling a plan to head to the coast where we had seen the army shipping people out instead.