Blood on the Floor: An Undead Adventure

by RR Haywood

  He doesn’t tell her if he is being rude or if he simply doesn’t understand what is being asked.

  ‘Hmmm,’ she eyes him suspiciously, ‘turn around then…oh you can do that alright can’t you,’ she chuckles looping her arms round his body to unbuckle his trousers that get tugged down. ‘Right go on then…’ she stands back but he waits. ‘Paco, I know what you’re doing,’ she tries to sound grumpy but chuckles again halfway through. ‘Fine, you dirty sod…I’ll take your penis out for you shall I? There…got it? No you hold it…Paco I am not holding your willy while you…It’s going everywhere! Aim down…into the bowl…right now you take over. Paco, hold your willy…what the hell?’ She bursts out laughing when his hands rise up from his body as though purposefully not holding his own appendage. ‘You mucky bugger…’ he half turns to grin with humour in his eyes at the way she laughs while he wees and she aims. ‘Good job it’s big enough to aim…I never said big…I didn’t…right, I’m going. No, you hold it…don’t look at me like that you…oh for the love of God. Fine, shake it and put it away. Paco, put it away. Wash your hands now. Under here, that’s it. That’s the soap, push that and rub the gel in. Like me? See? Okay, now use the towel to dry your hands.’

  She heads back into the warehouse glancing over her shoulder with a grin as he rushes to catch up. She stops dead on purpose, bracing as he walks into her. His arms going round her stomach as he tries to keep walking. She bursts out laughing again while pushing back to try and stop him. That he can do these things is not lost on her. He has a sense of play and a range of emotional reactions that seem to be improving all the time. She turns in his arms, staring up.

  ‘Hang on,’ she says as he tries walking forward again. ‘Try again…Heather…go on…Heather…’ she sounds her own name out slowly, pronouncing the two sections clearly. His eyes watch her mouth and she knows in her gut he wants to try. She did this last night while sat on his lap watching him eat. She changes tack, ‘Paco…Paco…your name…Paco…’

  She can see he wants to try. His lips twitch and his eyes flicker to narrow and widen with concentration. ‘Ah, you’ll get there,’ she stops after a few minutes, smiling warmly with his arms still wrapped round her waist.

  The morning passes in varying stages of abject bliss mixed with a large dollop of perfection. A small fire on the concrete ground by the door, a wooden chair smashed to kindling to burn steadily. The rain falling outside. The carpets rolled and stacked around them giving a nice soft enclosed feeling. Every now and then she gets a stab of guilt for ditching Subi, Raj and Amna so brutally but then remembers the weapons and threats. She thinks of the things Becky said, about the fort and there being people doing something to try and make it all better. They’re fighting back. That’s what Becky said. Or that old bloke John. Fighting back? Good. Let them. Got a fort? Great. Good for them. Got guns and an army truck. Brilliant. Hope you are all very happy.

  That nagging voice doesn’t go away, no matter how hard she tries to ignore it. The nagging sensation that she should be involved. That anyone alive and functioning now should be doing something decent to help others. She did help. She took those kids from that awful shop and got them somewhere safe. People are bad anyway, and people now have weapons and behave like idiot villagers waving pitchforks at the sight of the monster. The problem is that she heard Becky’s last comment. The fort has doctors. Paco is something different. He is special in the sense of the infection within him. That he might have been savaged by an immune dog might have something to do with it. Should she present him there? Turn up and say oh hi, I found this movie star and thought I’d bring him down. No way. They’ll shoot him or lock him up and then shoot him. Or do tests on him. Or something horrible anyway.

  She’s never had this before. This feeling of comfortability at being with someone else. At wanting to share and spend time with another human being. He doesn’t judge her. He doesn’t paw at her breasts or poke his erection in her hip. He doesn’t ask stupid questions either. He’s strong, dependable and cuddly as hell. Christ, she can’t stop hugging him. It’s like she’s catching up on all the years of isolation by being in constant physical contact with him. Not that he minds. He doesn’t mind one bit. She shifts the equilibrium further and further. He feels loved. He feels peace. He heals from her touch and that soft voice that laughs and plays. He learns too. He feeds himself. Drinks water. He opens the tins. He snaps the wood for the fire. His mind is opening and strengthening as fast as his wounds on the outside are healing.

  Mid-morning and the rain stops with a sudden cessation of noise that makes her instantly stop trying to make him say her name and run to the door. He goes after her to stand and stare out at a world changing in front of them. Colours come flooding back with the sun’s rays beaming down. The view opens showing a concrete hardstanding that feeds into a road bordered by fields submerged under newly formed lakes that glint and glitter in reflection of the light. It’s breath-taking, stunning and sends a thrill through her body with a need to be outside and walking again.

  ‘Come on,’ she rushes back in to get ready. Packing the bag and using a bottle of water to douse the fire. It takes mere seconds before she’s back at the door grinning from ear to ear at the wide open deep blue sky now without a cloud in sight.

  They walk through deep puddles already steaming in the heat. Through streets washed clean with surfaces of standing water that reflect the light so strong she has to squint. It becomes tropical with a stifling muggy air that makes her want to strip off and find a cool river to bathe in.

  Whole roads are submerged under water. Gleaming lakes everywhere. Birds swoop, crying out. Seagulls land and bob in the new rivers or stand on the flotsam and jetsam floating on the surface. She has no idea where they are or what direction they take. Only that they can walk again. Walk all day. Find somewhere tonight. Walk tomorrow. Walk and heal. Sleep somewhere different and wake up to a new view every morning then walk again. She holds his hand without gloves and walks along in the steaming world of water rapidly evaporating. It’s a rebirth. A new start. A fresh beginning of a new era and one that she can see as she walks through it. Storms, floods, hot sun and mundane places made exotic. Eighteen days since this began and already the landscape has changed to become a new land.

  Shouting from somewhere. Raised voices. She pauses, slows and listens with a glance at Paco who shows no aggression. The words distort but she catches next town in the air.

  ‘GOOD IDEA MR HOWIE…THERE ARE NO…THINGS HERE FOR US TO KILL…’ a huge booming voice.

  The gunshot shatters the peace. A sharp retort that makes her flinch as it echoes to roll through the streets bouncing from buildings and seemingly amplified by the sheer volume of water. She comes to a stop. Sudden and frightened with that fragile perception of safety shattered in an instant. It came from ahead. From the same direction of the shouting. Her hand tightens the grip on his fingers with a flood of anger pulsing through that the things of the old world still push into the new one.

  Engines. Big and diesel. Two of them starting up one after the other. With a burst of power she pushes him hard across the road through the gate to a walled garden to squat and hide as the engines sing out. She hears the plumes of water spraying as the vehicles come closer with that echo once again distorting the direction and source. She risks a peek, craning her neck to snatch a view of the army truck she saw a few days ago powering through the street sending waves of water out to the sides. A glimpse of a man with dark curly hair and a woman sitting in the front next to him. It goes past, building speed with a throaty roar that makes her bones vibrate. Another vehicle right behind the army truck. A cash in transit van driven by another man peering out the windscreen and another woman smiling at him as they swoosh past.

  An urge to stand up and shout out. To run into the street waving to be seen and shouting to be heard. She doesn’t. She stays hidden and quiet until it’s too late and the sounds of the engines are fading in the distance. Only then does she run out
and stare after them, biting her bottom lip and cursing her own cowardice. It was the army truck. She’s sure of it. The same one. The one the big bald man had in that town. That was his voice too booming out too. The words he said were mocking as though taunting something. Like over-stated or even silly. She turns back to Paco with a start at the expression on his face and the closest yet to a completely human look in his eyes as he stares after the trucks. His head high, his arms out from his sides but not in aggression. His chest rises quickly and she can almost hear his heart beating from the distance between them. The equilibrium within him shifts, the pendulum swings. Images of the dog swarm his mind. Images and feelings, emotions and an urge that he can’t voice or understand.

  Things happening. People are organising and taking action, doing things. This world is not the old one. In the old world every road would be full of cars full of faceless people that meant nothing to her. Every street and every house would be full of humans she had no connection with. Now it’s different. Other people have become rare and to see the same vehicle twice sends that weird sensation that she should be involved and doing something. Helping them. Banding together to fight back or…she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what but only that this time it was wrong to hide.

  It’s done though and the streets become once again silent save for the water lapping from being displaced by the vehicles going through. She walks on, heading in the direction the vehicles came from.

  They reach a street full of shops that is jarring for the recognition of the brand names that now mean nothing. Spar. Santander. Boots the Chemist. Pet shops. Travel agents. Betting shops. Bakeries and book shops. It’s so familiar but now irrelevant. She spots a set of gates beaten down and a row of parked cash in transit vans in a once secure compound of a bank. She recognises the same make and model as the one that drove behind the army truck. They go on further into a High Street flooded with oily waters filled with litter floating to gather at points of drainage. She pushes on as though searching for something. As though needing to see why they were here. An urge to be a part of her own species fighting back. Like the people yesterday braving the journey to find the fort. They could hide anywhere. Find places to make defensible and strong. Find shotguns and weapons, hide, stay quiet, forage and survive but they don’t. They walk and journey to be with their own for the snatched rumour of some idiots fighting back but she felt it. She felt the thrill of the army vehicle driving past. The sight of it and hearing the name Mr Howie. It meant something. It stands for something.

  The town centre means nothing. Bunting lies draped and broken from a bandstand in the centre made from scaffold poles and planks that speak of a festival or town fete taking place when the outbreak hit. She spots a body lying bobbing face down in the water with the back of the head blown apart and knows instantly without question that was from the gunshot she heard. This is where the big man shouted. He shouted at this infected before they shot him. Next town. There are no things here for us to kill. Why say that? Why do that? Why tell it like they were goading or taunting.

  The next town. Which way is that? She stares the way the vehicle went with that urge growing to become a thing that cannot be denied. She bites her lip, trying to resist and keep to her plan. Walk and sleep. Be with Paco and nothing else but that isn’t right. Not right at all.

  ‘Come on,’ she tells herself they can go slowly and see what happens. Maybe find the next town, maybe see what they’re doing. It goes against every instinct she has but she does it anyway. She has to.

  Thirty

  They go fast. Days of fresh air and constant walking seem to have given her energy and strength she never knew she had. Stamina too that remains high despite the heat. She’s learnt to drink often and replace fluids lost from sweating. They walk side by side, sharing a bottle that gets passed back and forth to slurp and guzzle. Water is poured over faces to refresh skin but they keep on and it’s as though he feels the same pressure in him to keep going. Like they have purpose and objective again. She keeps glancing at Paco, seeing the determination in his eyes and how human he now looks.

  An hour of solid tread on a main road flooded on both sides with standing water dazzling with reflection. She wishes she had sunglasses but squints and suffers the headache instead.

  They go uphill on a long road rising with the land to a crest that heralds the descent down to the next town. She breathes hard, sweating heavily but going on to try and catch up to something that means nothing to her. Gunshots again. Distinct and sustained single shots then a few seconds later automatic fire drifts from the town. The staccato drum like noise drifting on thermals of hot air rising with the moisture heavy air. She speeds up, walking briskly then into a jog with the bag bouncing on her back. They’re in the town ahead of them that looks like something from the cover of a fantasy novel. A town built in a lake of standing water that glistens and gleams. A flood plain wide and far that has filled with rain water but from that place comes those gunshots so loud and clear. She runs now. Running hard for the first time in her life to be near other people, not just people but people with guns. Paco stays at her side. His long legs covering the ground with ease. She knows he can run two or three times her speed but he doesn’t. He stays at her side as watchful as ever. Always watching. Always scanning.

  It takes too long. She can’t run fast enough from the rural to the urban to navigate the streets to get closer as the guns end and once again she hears diesel engines starting, driving and fading away.

  Still she runs. Still she goes to feed an urge she has no understanding of. When they reach the centre they stop and gasp while seeing the results of a massacre. Hundreds of bodies lay slain across a wide plaza. Hundreds of infected shot down. In a sight of awesome power that makes the rumours true. Bullet casings litter the floor in a solid line showing where the shooters were standing. She can even see the distance between them that speak of uniform spacing and discipline held as they were faced by hundreds charging at them. She sees bite marks in necks too. The same injuries that Paco had but worse. Throats ripped out completely with gaping holes left. Arrows shafts stuck in corpses here and there. The whole sight should be sickening and it is but the weird sensation of a thrill at her own kind fighting back is the greater of the two emotions. She glares hard without realising she does. She breathes hard while trying to understand why she feels like this. What did Becky call them? The Living Army or something. Stupid name. It’s a stupid name for a bunch of stupid people that think by shooting a couple of hundred they are fighting back. She finds his hand to hold, seeking comfort in his physical size in this place of death. He takes her hand. His own heart thudding with images and emotions still surging to flit as they try and take root in a mind that is not his own. She feels his fingers tighten and gains the true sense of his awesome strength. He could crush her hand with ease.

  ‘You okay?’ She asks, looking from his hand up to his face. He looks down. His eyes blazing with intelligence that has yet to make the full connection. She looks round, at the bullets, at the arrows, at the throats bitten away then back at him. His red eyes stay on hers. ‘We’ll find them,’ she says without knowing she was going to say it but she means it. She means it more than anything in her life before. ‘We will,’ she reaches up to kiss his cheek, her finger tips brushing softly down his face. His own hands reach her face, cupping to hold in a motion that makes her freeze in surprise. Like he wants to speak, like he’s trying to find something but that confusion comes back, pain too. ‘Hey, we’ll be okay…I promise…come on, we’ll keep going.’ She pecks his lips. An act done from instinct but to show she means what she says. They’ve been sharing a bottle all morning and sharing lives for days. It’s safe. She knows it is but the feeling that comes is still really very nice. She smiles at him, surprised at herself. He smiles back. His whole bearing lighting up at the fleeting touch. ‘Feeling fit?’ She asks with a laugh.

  On they go. Following the main road out of town at a pace that would bring grima
ces to the faces of most soldiers.

  Thirty One

  The bag irritates her. The way it bounces and rubs her shoulders. She finds the chest and waist straps that are buckled and cinched tight. She drinks water on the move. Passing the bottle to Paco who drinks on the move.

  Southern England has become a jungle with a humidity off the chart that makes every pore of her body leak water. The sheer volume of rain that came down now steams to go back up. It’s stifling. She gasps for air. Her face drips. Her hair plastered to her scalp but they push on to keep going.

  She woke this morning with a plan to do sod all. She woke to a faith that neither she nor Paco had any connection to anything else in the world. What everyone else was doing had no relevance to her. They were going to walk leisurely. Sleep and wake to a new view each morning. That was the plan and it was a good plan and had no reason to change, but changed it has and all because she heard a voice shouting a name and an army truck driving past.

  The inner voice that tells her to hide and run away screams to be heard but gets pushed further back to be ignored for the first time in her life. Paco is connected to them. She can see it in him. She can feel it in herself. A pressure that grows and refuses to let her stop and rest. This is too slow. She wants to take a car and drive but is too fearful of missing something. She wouldn’t be able to hear inside a car. She’d miss the small details and something tells her that’s important.

  Uphill again. A long slogging bastard incline that makes her grit her teeth and push on past hedgerows bursting with life. Her airways widen to draw more air. Her sense of smell comes stronger. The town was fetid and stank of dirty water and decay but the countryside is clean with fragrance of earth, flowers and grass. It’s intoxicating and heady. More water is taken in. More fluids are sweated out. Muscles start to thrum but her pace quickens with an energy flowing that seems to bring new strength. Paco doesn’t falter but stays at her side. His eyes no longer just fixed on her but staring round, ahead and then to her. His eyes show emotion but the confusion within his gaze brings a sadness that makes her go faster still.