Blood on the Floor: An Undead Adventure

by RR Haywood

  My parents have a detached house in a nice, quiet area. They always go to bed early and I know they lock the doors, so maybe they’re okay.

  My mind is made up … I’ll head across town to my parents’ house.

  I look at my watch. It’s almost 4.30 a.m. Being mid-July, the sun will be up in half an hour or so. I need to get moving while I’ve got a chance. I don’t own a car, so unless I can find something to drive, I will have to walk.

  In the hallway I stand staring at the barricade; I don’t know if any of them are left out there. I think about removing the barricade, but I’m too scared of what I might find.

  I go into my bedroom and pull the sheet from the bed, then another sheet from the airing cupboard, then tie them together with a duvet cover. I go to the window and look outside to make sure it’s still clear.

  The lounge window overlooks the main door, so if I climb out the lounge window I won’t be able to see if they are in the communal hallway. The bedroom window is a few feet away and will give me a chance to run if they come out of the front door.

  I tie the bed sheet onto the leg of my double bed and drop the sheets down. They reach to a couple of feet above the ground.

  Weapon, I need a weapon if I’m going out there. In the kitchen I root through the drawers to find my biggest carving knife with a nice sharp pointed blade.

  I put this into my belt, with the blade resting against my leg. Then an image of me lying on my back with the knife sticking in my leg fills my mind. I need a sheath, but kitchen knives don’t have sheaths. I find the small rucksack that I use for work and put the knife into the main compartment, leaving the top open, and I try to wedge the knife into the top zip so that the handle is left out, with the blade in the bag.

  I put the bag on my back, but it hangs down too low – I can’t reach the handle. I tighten the straps and raise the bag further up my back so I can reach back with my hand and grasp the handle.

  In the kitchen drawer there is a claw hammer and I put this into my belt; at least I have something that I can use. I think back to the man in boxer shorts hitting them with a baseball bat. He hit them hard and they got knocked away, but they came back. So I know that hitting them won’t kill them, but maybe it will buy me a few seconds to run.

  I go back to the bedroom window and start to climb over the sill, grasping the bed sheets with both hands. I wait, sitting astride the window ledge, listening and looking up and down; no noise and no movement. The night’s veil is just starting to lift. Only a few minutes until sun up. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not.

  I need to go but I’m bloody terrified.

  The final act of leaving the safety of my home is almost too much for me to contemplate. Then I look down at the still smouldering remains of the undead; blood and carnage everywhere. A few bodies are lying still. They must have been the ones I knocked down when the crowd was pushing forward – they have been trampled to death, but then they were already dead, so they have been trampled to death again … what do you call that? How can they be killed twice?

  I guess that maybe the injuries were too much for the bodies to keep functioning. The spine? It must be that the spine was broken as they went down. Maybe their necks were snapped by all of the undead feet driving down on them.

  I have to go, staying here isn’t an option. Hesitancy steals over me again. The news said this was everywhere.

  Shaking my head, I clamber over the ledge until my feet are hanging down, then I start to lower myself with my hands.

  I feel extremely vulnerable now with my legs dangling beneath me, and I keep looking around as I lower myself, imagining that one of them will come out of the door and bite my ankle to drag me down to my death.

  As soon as my feet touch the ground, I move away from the building into the road, the hammer out of my waistband and in my hand.

  At ground level, I get a close-up view of the frenzied attacks. Blood stains are everywhere and a white car is parked just a few feet away with bloody handprints smeared across the bonnet.

  A crash occurs behind me and I see one of the undead stagger out from my front door, slipping on the wet blood, but coming straight at me. That’s enough for me, I’m off giving it billy big legs. I glance behind me to see that he’s dropping away. As unfit as I am, I am outrunning him as his jerky, uncoordinated motion means he cannot keep up. I keep sprinting until I feel my lungs will burst and my legs are hurting. I slow down and look back, but he is gone from sight.

  I keep walking fast, sticking to the middle of the road, looking left and right, my ears straining for any noise. The quickest route is straight through town and down the High Street, then off onto the main road.

  A few minutes later I reach a side street that feeds into the town centre. I edge forward slowly until I reach the building line. The sun is almost up now, as the night sky gradually ebbs away.

  Birds are singing and seagulls are flying overhead. I move cautiously, one step at a time as the High Street comes more into view.

  To the right is clear, but the left isn’t, and my heart sinks as I see an enormous crowd of them gathered around the armoured security van that had led them away from my house.

  The van is in the middle of the road, but I can’t see why it stopped – it doesn’t look like it crashed. The van is surrounded now; maybe there were just too many bodies to drive through.

  I watch as a roof hatch opens and a man climbs out. He stands on the roof of the vehicle looking down at the crowd of undead as they swarm around him, some raising their arms up like fans at a rock concert.

  He looks over to me and I stand still, unsure of what to do.

  ‘RUN,’ he shouts at me.

  I take a step forward and he shakes his head. ‘NO, RUN … RUN NOW.’

  I don’t know what to do. He saved my life but he is trapped now and I can’t get to him. I can’t just leave him to his death.

  The man is still shouting at me to run and his voice is loud but calm, his movements steady and controlled.

  How can he be so calm? Looking around, I’m frantically trying to see something that will give me inspiration. Maybe I could get a vehicle and do the same as he did – lure them away with the sound of a horn.

  I look back at the van and can see that there are hundreds of the things surrounding him, spread out in a wide circle, all pushing forward. The man is high up on the top. If the undead at the front get trampled down, that will give height to the next row as they push forward. I must hurry.

  There are a few vehicles parked up nearby and I move towards them, keeping to the building line, my movements slow and guarded.

  I get to the closest car, but it’s locked and secure. This is the town centre and no one in their right mind would leave a car unlocked here. I check other cars nearby, but they are all locked too.

  The sky is now much lighter; the sun is almost up. Another few minutes and it will be daylight. With a jolt, I see the pizza restaurant further up the road and remember the conversation I had with fat-bloke just a few hours ago.

  He was right there, chatting to me like normal as we ordered food. Dressed in his smart suit and getting ready for a few drinks. The images of his torn flesh flood through my mind, of the blood loss, the arteries opened up, of the horrific noises they made.

  I just watched people being killed right in front of me, hell I probably just killed a few myself with that bottle of brandy.

  The pizza delivery moped is lying on its side outside the building, the distinctive white delivery box on the back. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m running over and wrenching the thing upright, wincing at the sticky blood on the handles.

  With the moped up I turn it around to face the undead crowd. This is an old style twist and go moped. It has no gears to keep it simple for the students and teenagers who use it to earn a few extra quid. Thank fuck the key is still in the ignition.

  The bike is wheeled out into the road. The van is a few hundred metres away and I wave at the man stand
ing on the top. I try to point at the moped and gesture that I’ll drive away and try to get them to follow me. He shouts back and waves, maybe trying to tell me something but the distance is too great to hear the words.

  I get on the moped and turn the keys to the off position and then back on. Pressing the start button, the moped splutters noisily to life. The loud noise from the exhaust is so familiar to me from all of the times I have had take-away delivered and heard the moped come up the street.

  As the sun rises and daylight fills the street, I look back to the things, expecting them to be already coming for me. My hand is on the rubber grip, ready to twist and pull away.

  Something is different; the outer ring of undead have turned and have started towards me, but they are moving slower, much slower; shambling and dragging their feet in an awkward shuffle, barely at a walking pace.

  They were fast before, not quite at running speed but they moved quickly and with purpose – like predators after prey – relentless and sustained.

  Now they are stumbling, as if they are walking through deep water, each step a struggle. I look all about, fearing some kind of trap, but they are all the same. Some are turning and heading my way, others remain standing round the van. Whereas before they had a menacing aura and an evil fast motion that was fuelled by a hunger for human flesh, now they are a stumbling mess. The steps they take are thudding with straight legs and arms hanging limp with heads lolling about. They keep knocking into each other, bumping away and going off course, seemingly unable to follow a straight path.

  The man is still standing on top of the van. I raise my arm to him, palm up, the international signal for ‘… what the fuck?’

  He raises two arms, palms up, the international signal for ‘… fuck knows,’ then starts doing something else, waving and gesturing but I can’t get what he means. The things aren’t growling like they were but they’re still groaning like a deep rumbling noise that still fills the air.

  I step off the moped and push the stand down with my foot, leaning the bike over to rest in situ, engine still running and ready to go.

  Taking a couple of tentative steps towards the mass crowd of undead, I watch them move and shuffle. What’s happened? Why have they changed? Just a few moments ago they were frenzied and savage.

  The crowd is still too thick to attempt a rescue; there are hundreds of them. About half are now turned in my direction, the rest are still surrounding the van.

  I go back to the moped and press the horn. A feeble warble sounds out, but I keep my finger pressed down on the button. This appears to focus the direction of their stumbling and I notice more of the crowd turn away from the van towards my direction.

  I keep pressing the horn and twist the accelerator grip, thinking that I will rev the engine, forgetting the bloody thing is twist and go.

  The moped shoots forward, pulling me along. In my panic I twist the grip more and the moped pulls away faster with me still hanging on. The kick stand bangs into the road surface, propelling the moped off to the right. I slip and fall over; the moped veers off for a short distance before crashing into a parked car with a loud bang. I hear the tinkling of glass as the headlamp is smashed. The moped clunks down to the ground, engine spluttering for a few seconds before it dies out. Still on my arse, I twist around to see the horde is still shuffling slowly.

  The man on the van is standing with one hand covering his face, and even from this distance I can see him shaking his head.

  ‘I’m okay,’ I call out while grinning like a bloody fool; I hope he can’t see my face burning with embarrassment.

  I run over to the moped and lift it up again. It starts first time and I wheel it back into the road, pressing the horn and waiting until they get closer.

  There is one undead out front, maybe twenty years old, still in his designer jeans with his t-shirt muscles bulging from his tight top and his all hair gelled up in the middle in that messy-on-purpose style that I hate. At least his face has improved with a massive, ragged hole where his pouty sneer would have been.

  A torn ragged wound in his cheek flaps open to show rows of teeth and there is dark red blood all over the front of his once white t-shirt and down his arms. There is also a dark stain across the crotch of his blue jeans, but it doesn’t look like blood. He must have pissed himself when they got him – which makes me feel better. I was terrified, but at least I didn’t wet myself.

  I’m not much older than him, but I’ve always hated the weekend town centre crowds. Preening, strutting fuckwits. My hair is curly and always messy, without the need for gels and sprays.

  I think back to the times when I had been out in the town at weekends, getting barged into by idiots like this who flared up with their arms puffed out while shouting: ‘… wot? D’yawantsomedoya …’ while texting away on Facebook.

  I’ve always worked. Maybe it isn’t the best job, but I’ve held it down and made duty manager and I know that if I do the hated night shifts there will be a chance for promotion.

  No, there was a chance for promotion, but that’s gone now; it’s all gone … everything has gone.

  A deep sense of sadness fills me. I’m breathing hard as I think of all my work mates. Most of them were no-hopers but they were an okay bunch. We had a laugh and got on well, shared jokes and wildly exaggerated accounts of women we’d been with, or not, as the real case was.

  I can feel anger building up, with the thought of my mates being savaged by monstrous, preening, pretty boys like this. They were always coming into the supermarket at night, especially after the clubs had kicked out, throwing stuff about and taking the piss out of the staff. I think about fat-bloke and the life he must have led. Maybe he was deeply sad at his obesity, a reject from society like the rest of us but he was polite and friendly, always willing to stop and exchange a few pleasantries and he never looked down his nose at us either.

  I look up and watch the undead pretty boy come towards me and the anger is consuming me, anger like I have never known before. I can feel my breathing becoming deeper and harder, my heart hammering in my chest. He is only a few feet away now and I watch as he shuffles and groans. He is looking at me and I can see the whites of his eyes are completely red and bloodshot. His skin is very pale and his mouth hangs open, with drool dripping down onto his chest. Something in me snaps, a feeling descends with such ferocity it drives my actions without conscious thought and before I know it I’ve drawn the hammer from my waistband and stepped forward.

  My arm extends out to the side then sweeps round to slam the hard metal into the side of his head. He goes down and I am on him instantly, repeatedly pounding the hammer into his head, shattering his face and crushing his skull.

  My arm is a piston, driving the blunt-ended weapon into his head. Blood and brain matter spray up and coat my arms. My hands become slick and glistening, terror and rage mixing into a deadly cocktail, and all reason is gone.

  I stop suddenly, becoming alert to my actions. What is left at my feet is not recognisable. The head is pulped, gone … destroyed.

  I destroyed it. I killed it. I killed the undead. My chest heaves as I struggle for air and stagger backwards.

  A sudden movement to my right, an undead is there, lunging at me. In reflex, I lash the hammer out in a backswing and connect to the face as it leans in with teeth bared. The force drives the undead off to the side, spinning into a female zombie: a young woman wearing a nice, blue dress. She is full-figured with a heaving cleavage and long brown hair, but her face is slack and her eyes are filled with blood. Spittle hangs down from her once pretty mouth.

  She staggers toward me, leaning forward from the waist, head straining from the neck, lips now pulled back – ready for the bite. I feel repulsed and step backwards, the mantra in my head: ‘You never hit a woman’.

  I move further away and keep staring at the woman. She appears uninjured, no bite marks or blood on her – until I see the blood stains down her bare legs; a chunk of muscle in her right thigh has been
gnawed away.

  To my left, another young male is coming at me. This one has black tribal tattoos all over his arms and on his neck. I lash out, smacking the hammer into the side of his face, and he goes down. He keeps moving though, and rolls onto his back before sitting up. As he does so I strike him again, harder, and I see his head snap to one side as he is flung over.

  Within seconds, he is on his back and again sitting up. I spin the hammer round so that the claw end is now the weapon. Stepping forward I drive it down into the top of his skull, cleaving through the bone. The force I use pushes the claw into his skull too hard and it sticks. I try pulling it out, but all I do is pull him towards me.

  I put my foot onto his chest and pull harder, and the strength of my pull forces his body into my foot. I stagger backwards and fall down with the hammer left sticking out the top of his head.

  I get to my feet and realise how close the crowd is now; another minute or so and I will be overwhelmed, trying to glance through them to the van but they’re too close now.

  Leaving the hammer stuck in that blokes head I stagger backwards and remember the bag on my back. I reach my hand down behind my head, groping about, but I can’t feel the knife handle that I left there. I pull the bag from my shoulders as I keep moving in reverse.

  Every one of them is staring directly at me, hundreds of pairs of red, bloodshot eyes watching my every move. The still air is filled with the sound of their shuffling feet.

  The sight of fat-bloke snatches my breath away. He’s right there, waddling along with the rest of them as he staggers towards me. Pretty boy is on the ground right in front of him yet fat-bloke goes straight over him, trudging his big feet into the corpse. Fast, conflicting emotions course through me. Just seconds ago I felt an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt at the anger which drove me to kill that thing yet here he is one of us, one of the rejects and he wants to do the same as the others and kill me.

  My fingers are scrabbling for the zip to the bag’s main compartment. I get my hand in and feel the plastic handle and pull the long kitchen knife out.