by RR Haywood
In the depths of the night something happened somewhere else. Something she couldn’t see or hear but it was enough to make the people gathered outside all turn and run stiffly away. It was during those hours she learned several things. They all had red bloodshot eyes. They all moved as though they couldn’t bend their knees or control their arms. Their heads lolled side to side and back and forth. They drooled constantly. They groaned, growled, hissed and moaned. They had injuries too. Horrific injuries to necks, faces and bodies and by right several of them should have been dead. One even had a knife stuck in her chest. A large bladed kitchen knife sunk down to the hilt but she moved the same as the others.
Lessons learned that kept her alive and by the time she got out, after pissing with relief in the bathroom, she knew to find somewhere and hide. Just that. Hide. Nothing more. Just hide.
Three
He walks down the road. Twelve days of evolution has changed from what they were on that first night. They no longer walk with stiff legs that don’t bend at the knees. Their heads don’t loll side to side or back and forth. They don’t drool either. Saliva is still produced that drips from lips but the infection has learnt that constantly producing drool causes a more rapid dehydration of the host body.
He doesn’t feel pain. He is not hungry or thirsty. He has no cognitive function other than an immense urge to bite into people. Bite or rake. Rake or claw. Anything to pass what is inside him to someone else.
A person with an active mind has spatial awareness and a notion of where they are in time and space. He does not have that. He doesn’t look at anything in particular but walks on as though completely devoid of all thought. Which he is. A vessel to carry the thing inside but otherwise empty. No emotions. No feelings. No thoughts. No sensations. No memories. Nameless. It’s those things that mark him for what he is. Not that he knows. He doesn’t know anything.
As he walks he heals. Visually he is still torn apart with horrific injuries to his neck and human bite marks on his limbs and torso but the blood no longer leaks. His face is slack. His mouth hanging open to breathe noisily and his arms hang limp from design rather than fault and thus avoid the expenditure of any unnecessary energy.
The healing is inside and the soft tissue of his neck is already knitting to scab and reform. If he had sensation he would be itchy as hell but that too, along with nearly everything else, is suppressed.
He is a host. One of many. One of billions. He is part of the hive mind of the infection but now largely forgotten and left to seek his own way. The infection is busy in a million other places and becoming increasingly focussed on a man called Howie who refuses to die the death he should be having.
Instead he has been brought back to be left to rot and find his own way in this brave new world. His scent receptors have been ramped and honed to seek the smell of blood, piss, shit and sweat. The smells of the living. The smells of fear. Anything that connects to potential new hosts. Go find them and take more hosts for that urging in your head is relentless and unceasing. It will never stop. Find hosts.
So he goes on. Searching without knowing what searching is or the concept of what that word means. He walks street after street unaware of the carnage and devastation all around him.
Doors to houses hanging from hinges or removed altogether. Windows smashed through to let the beasts gain entry. Some of those beasts ended their existence at that point. Lacerated from shards of glass slicing through veins and arteries that sprayed blood everywhere. Despite the signs of violence the bodies are fewer in number the greater distance from the epicentre of the battle he drifts. Cars left in streets. Some locked and left as they were. Others with doors open and thick blood smears across the panels. A child’s bicycle still propped against a garden wall where it was left on the afternoon before it began.
Smoke hangs in the air. A row of houses smouldering from the fierce blaze that swept unabated from one to the other until the materials were all burnt away. He walks past them. Heedless to the acrid stench of burnt chemicals.
It’s hot too. Hotter than it should be for southern England in summer time. The cessation of mankind has wrought global changes to weather patterns and humidity. The instant loss of gasses produced by people, cars, machines, factories, planes, ships and power plants. He doesn’t sweat. Sweating loses moisture and the infection inside knows his core temperature is stable enough. The host is not exerting to the extent it cannot function.
The host reaches a junction and passes straight on over and into the next residential street of more houses, more cars and more doors and windows broken open. More blood too but its old and dried out.
As the day passes on so his stride opens that little bit more with the first sign of renewed strength in his core. His balance regains. Any stiffness he had abates and eases and so he heals from the inside out at an astonishing rate that would simply be unbelievable to even the most advanced medical practitioners.
Miles pass. Miles of walking without thought or idea. One foot after the other with a nose drawing in air to process the scents for signs of potential hosts but here are none in this area that he can detect. Seek. Feast. Bite. Seek. Feast. Bite. The urge is relentless. A singular objective where nothing else matters save the calling to do what must be done.
The road he’s on leads naturally to a main artery that feeds into the local town. The houses get denser. More cars on driveways and at the sides of the road. Commercial premises start to break up the seemingly never ending flow of houses that he passes. A garage forecourt selling second hand motors. Dry Cleaners. More houses. A Kebab House. More houses. A block of flats. A convenience store. All looted and emptied of anything worthwhile. The apocalypse is still so new but already the land is becoming scavenged.
Smells everywhere. Blood but old. Shit but old. Sweat and piss but old. Noise stops him. Noise from an alley on his right side that leads to the back of a fish and chip shop. He waits. Head fixed and red bloodshot eyes staring as the woman walks out. They stare at each other for a mere second as though establishing if the other knows where the hosts are. She turns away first to fix her red bloodshot eyes on the street ahead and ambles off. He follows behind. Two of them now. Both nameless but driven by the same urge. That she is half-naked from the waist down holds no meaning to him. That she has shit down the back of her own legs is not relevant. She stinks. She hums so bad even the flies are concerned but that doesn’t register.
The two move down the road. The half-naked shit covered woman slightly in the lead. She didn’t make it to the battle last night. She was busy shitting on her own legs and the face of a crawler that bit her ankle when she squatted in an alley to relieve the urgent pressing of her bowels. The crawler didn’t make it. She broke his neck when she fell on him.
Another host waits further up the road. Inert yet watchful. Staring at the two coming. The woman gets there first. The child turns and the three walk on. The infection inside the woman knows the child is hers but it suppresses the neural pathways that would sizzle in recognition of one’s own kinfolk and family. Hormonal changes that would produce chemicals that give the mother the urge to protect and nurture, and the child the need for comfort are stopped. They are hosts bound to the infection within. Nothing more. Nothing less. Seek. Feast. Bite. There is only one objective and it is singular.
Without scent or noise to follow they meander aimless but perpetual. A man joins them. Maggots writhe in the wound caused by the chunk of flesh in his right shoulder being bitten away. White maggots that eat into the flesh and grow succulent from the never ending supply of food. The man is fat. Obese. His stomach hangs down covering his groin and wobbles with each step taken. He was insulin dependent until three days ago from self-induced diabetes brought on by an inability to stop gorging. He was sloth-like and almost sinisterly greedy. He lied to the doctors about his food intake and promised everyone around him that he was trying. It must be glandular. It must be a medical condition because I hardly eat anything. They came through his
window. He lived on the ground floor in a specially converted flat paid for by the local council. He was ripe. Nine days without carers coming to wipe his arse for him and the stench of his form wafted into the street that drew the things. He couldn’t fight back. He was too fat. He threw the remote control at one of them then wailed in abject fear as he was bitten in the shoulder.
Now he doesn’t have diabetes and in the past three days he has lost over fifteen kilos of fat from his frame as the infection ramps his metabolism up to keep him moving.
More join them. People from all walks of life. Men, women and children. Elderly who couldn’t previously walk unassisted now walk unaided. Arthritis gone. Heart conditions fixed. Eyesight and hearing made sharp again. There are no irritable bowels. No depression. No stress or anxiety. There are no medical conditions. The infection has fixed it and taken all those things away.
They trickle feed into the small horde. Drawn by the smell and insular hive mind of the other hosts. The collective conscious of the infection doesn’t pay heed to them. They are too few to be of use. The battle here is done and finished. It doesn’t give specific instruction or task other than to fulfil the singular objective.
The man who woke in the garden walks with them. Drool coats his beard, shiny and wet. He doesn’t know any difference between being on his own and being with others, only that he must go with them. They each must go with the others. It is ordained and impossible to do anything else.
So they walk as one. A horde of undead all with red bloodshot eyes and mouths that hang open. From the periphery of the town towards the centre where the greater density of population will be. More humans lived in the centre. There is more chance of finding new hosts.
The man looks ahead as they all do. Something flashes in his mind but is instantly suppressed. A sensation akin to Déjà vu that rears again. Like recognition but before the eyes can sharpen in response to a thing seen chemicals are dumped to deaden the thoughts. A flash of memory that brings forth a fleeting image of running but the image is removed and the flow of chemicals are increased. Serotonin is released. The chemical that aids the feeling of well-being. A tiny amount but enough to quell the desire of a subconscious to seek cognitive recall.
He walks on. Part of the horde that traipses through streets almost forlorn in their endeavour. Left behind and seemingly not part of the great task underway. This place has been scoured already. Whatever potential hosts were here have been taken and turned into the true state of being. The collective consciousness of the hive mind is the mass of the hosts taken. Within that collective there are smaller groups given greater freedom and greater use of intellect and personality to accomplish goals as the infection evolves and learns. Other groups of infected are separate and not part of the overall cumulative. Mutations? Differences? These days are new and the infection still learns what it is but this horde play no such part in the greater mission. They cannot feel sadness or rejection but still, there is a disconsolate manner as they meander on.
Four
Smoke from a fire. A faint brown smudge in the distance. She sniffs the air as though able to detect the fire itself then snorts at herself in disdain. She might as well kneel and run the earth through her fingers while looking pensive and deep about the nature of the world and all the things that grow. She isn’t earthy and she can’t smell a fire from miles away either.
‘Idiot,’ she mutters, blasting air from her nose while stretching her back to ease the straps of the backpack chafing her shoulders. She needs a new bag. One with padded straps. This was ideal for that first night when she got home, grabbed a top, clean knickers and filled her gym bottle with fresh water before legging it out of town. Now it isn’t so good. Several bottles of water, snack food, high energy nutrition bars, a tin opener, multi-tools, a torch, batteries and all things you need to survive the zombie apocalypse soon add up to increase the weight.
She stares at the smudge of smoke in the far distance, trying to gauge distance. She knows there is a town in that direction and it’s towards the town she is heading. She needs supplies and new clothes. She’s starving for decent food and a wash too. A proper shower or even a bath.
‘Oh don’t,’ she chastises herself but the image is there. A bubble bath. A hot steamy bubble bath in a big white tub surrounded by candles. Actually, on reflection, you can keep the candles and the colour of the bath. It’s the bubbles that make the difference. The heat, the depth and the feeling of being truly clean. She’s coming on too which isn’t good as she didn’t think to pack any tampons. Hairbands!
‘Christ yes,’ she rolls her eyes. She cannot forget the hairbands. She started out with seven and is already down to two. Two hairbands in the apocalypse? Not enough. Never enough.
Mind you, washing your hair in the bath isn’t so good. The dream of a bath expands to include a hot shower before the bath. Big fluffy towels too and seeing as we’re now going all out on the fantasy thing we’ll bring back the candles and add a roaring log fire into the mix. Maybe a nice hunky man to stoke the fire, stir the bubbles and hold the fluffy towel. A mute hunky man. One that doesn’t yack on or try and poke his willy in her all the time. One with decency and decorum. The strong silent type but intelligent and capable. Like a builder but a soldier and a fireman and a chef all at the same time. Okay, so we’ve got a big white bath in the middle of a room with a fireman frowning at the many candles burning near the fluffy towels being held by a mute soldier while a chef stirs the bath with a ladle.
She chuckles again. Frowning at the image in her mind. The fireman, soldier, chef and builder all chatting away about football while she gets ignored and grows cold in the bath.
Oh god. Imagine eating a bacon sandwich in the bath. Or a plate of chips. Wow. She hasn’t eaten a bacon sandwich or a plate of chips in years but suddenly the denial to have the things she previously didn’t want or need makes her desire them even more. Music! She misses music and movies. Old movies. Like black and white ones or even the modern Hollywood things or a deep Scandinavian crime drama. Hot baths, showers, bacon butties, chips, music, movies and morose Swedish detectives moping about. Perfect.
‘Stop it Heather.’ These thoughts are no good. Pining for something you can’t have is no good for the soul.
Oh but the idea of it. A kitchen full of pans cooking and simmering with amazing smells. Fresh bread, cakes with cream, jam and a huge massive drawer full of hairbands. Like thousands of them. All different types and colours. And tampons too. Oh and don’t forget the fireman and builder, the chef and the soldier. Actually, they can sod off and wait outside. Or better still they’d be like robots in the cupboard that could be activated when needed. Yep, that’s it. That’s the perfect life right there. Books too. Lots of books. Old books and new books. Any books. Apart from the bible that is. The last few days appear to have extensively proven that God, if said God actually exists, is a bit of a selfish dick. So he can shove His book where the sun doesn’t shine and I’ll stick with my robotmen and drawer full of hairbands thank you very much.
She plods on with one foot after the other down a narrow country lane bordered by gloriously green fields dappled with sunlight and bobbing with daisies and wildflowers. Bees hum by, happy in their work. Butterflies dance on the warm thermals. Birds soar high to swoop and she spots the white button tails of rabbits frolicking in the meadows.
‘This,’ she announces to the world while turning slowly round, ‘is a bloody Disney set on steroids.’
It’s so cheesy, so trite and yet so beautiful all at the same time. The sheer wonderfulness of it makes her want to snarl with cynicism, except this is the real world. You’d think the ending of mankind as we knew it would be misery and abject filth but if anything this place looks positively glowing and abundant in wildlife.
Ah yes. That’s the thing to be cynical about. The vanity of humans. The assumption that the world was ours to do with as we pleased and there was no way it could go on without us. Gosh no. Everything would fall apart if we
weren’t here to run things.
Look at it now. It seems perfectly okay. The air smells gorgeously clear without a trace of carbon monoxide or anything else and look at that butterfly. The selfish bastard should be withering and pining for humans to come back and make him happier but on it floats, doing butterfly things in a wholly butterfly way as though nothing happened.
You get born and then you die. You get born, eat some shit then you die. No hang on, you get born, eat some shit, do some shit and then you die. Women get born, get periods and painful tummies, go through childbirth and have men trying to poke their willies in them, they eat some shit, do some shit and then die. Men get born and waggle their dicks about and then die.
She grunts at the first hint of a cramp in her belly and adds painkillers to her ever growing list of things to get.
Rounding a corner she freezes, back-steps and runs to the side. Furious at her own lack of attention. She should have seen the house or at least the power lines overhead going to it. Maybe if she pulled her head from her arse she’d have seen the tiles on the roof or the chimney stack.
She holds still. Listening intently while running the image captured in that fleeting glimpse through her mind. It was a stone built cottage but quite big. Maybe two cottages together. She saw windows and a door but didn’t pay enough attention to see if they were intact or broken. She looks back down the lane at the direction she came from. High hedges on both sides but there was a gate further back. If anything happens she’ll run for the gate.
‘Okay,’ she whispers, biting her bottom lip. Got a plan now. An escape route. She edges on. Easing out one step at a time while leaning to peer and gain that first view. The building comes into sight. She freezes, listening then moving forward again. One detached cottage. She looks at the chimney stack to see if there is smoke then thinks herself a twat as who would light a fire on such a hot day? Small front garden. Gate in a low wall bordering the garden. Gate closed. She goes further, wincing when she spots the front door is open. That’s not good. Not good at all. She scans the windows, searching for sign of movement but seeing none. What’s that? She sniffs again. Crinkling the skin on her nose while inhaling. Like rotten meat or something. Oh. Of course. She purses her lips realising the smell is a corpse which is something she has smelled a few times now. It must be bad too if she can smell it from this distance.