It was thick glass that we had, and I knew that a creature of her size would have trouble getting in. A herd of the things would have been a different matter, however.
I pulled up the blind, a lot quicker than I had in the past, and was face-to-face with my little friend. This time I could see her face and knew, even though she was dead and her face was drained of colour, that she was a beautiful thing when she was human. Like my daughter, she looked around eight or nine … maybe ten, and I could see now that her dirty white nightie was dirty at the front just like it was on the back. Her hair hung above her face, but not enough to hide her eyes. She wore a gold necklace but the pendant couldn’t be seen because it hung underneath the nightie, a few inches below the neckline.
As she pawed at the glass, obviously trying to get in at me, I noticed how wide her eyes were. I guessed that maybe they were blue when she was alive, but now they were milky, as if the poor thing was blind. I couldn’t help but stare, and felt that weight you get in your throat when your emotions begin to suffocate you. I gulped hard and that seemed to get rid of some of the swelling.
I looked at those large eyes once more, like doll eyes, and wondered where she had come from. Her face and body didn’t look too badly injured. I could see the bite on her arm that had obviously made her infected. She hadn’t been devoured, so she must have escaped whilst she was injured. Maybe her parents, or at least one of them, had attacked her and she had fled the house. She must have then turned and had been wandering the streets ever since. Poor thing, I thought. Before she died, she must have been so frightened at the time.
There was no blood around her chin to suggest that she had eaten, but that definitely didn’t mean she hadn’t in the past.
“What’s your name?” I said aloud. “What used to be your name?”
I continued to stare at the poor thing and she, or it, stared back, still pawing at the window. My heart was beating at a steady rate, but I knew it’d be different if it was a male adult. I don’t know why, because if I pulled the door back she’d still stumble in and try and rip me to pieces.
It didn’t matter how small or big they were, the infected had only one goal: To devour human flesh.
Really, I should have put the poor thing out of its misery, but I hadn’t killed a single one yet, and I wasn’t going to start on a girl that looked similar to my daughter. She wasn’t a threat to me, so I decided to leave her be. Maybe killing it was for the best, more respectful, but she was dead. It didn’t matter whether the girl was in the ground or one of them, the soul that used to occupy the body wasn’t around anymore.
“If you’re gonna be hanging around my house for a bit, then you’re gonna have to have a name.”
I stared into those eyes that were as wide as golf balls, trying to think.
“What about Abbie?” I sat and stupidly waited for a response. She was behind thick glass; even if she was human, she wouldn’t have been able to hear what I was saying.
I thought for a second. “My son was going to be called Abbie … well, if he had turned out to be a girl.”
She pawed at the glass, and her face now grimaced, almost snarling.
“You don’t like Abbie? Okay.” I smiled. “What about Annie?”
She continued to snarl.
“Too similar to Abbie?”
She lost her grimace and stopped pawing at the glass.
I had a small chuckle to myself, knowing that the situation was ridiculous.
“Annie it is.”
PART TWO
Chapter Five
It was the next day, and I had realised that the food that I had managed to get from the neighbours wasn’t going to last me till the end of the week. I had decided to try Rena’s house, two doors down from me. She was an elderly lady and unless her relatives had come for her in the first week, I assumed that the frail woman was dead, either from infection or starvation, but I hoped that she was still alive because I knew that her granddaughter lived with her. If Rena was dead, then surely her granddaughter would also be dead.
This time I took a hammer with me, before I went to the attic. I was still paranoid of being seen at the front, so I went over the roof again. With Annie in my back garden, I wasn’t taking any chances.
Rena was a lovely old woman. Sometimes she would talk to me at the bus stop, whilst I was waiting to go to work, and talk about her late husband. He was an old man, and I still remembered every morning without fail that he’d be outside his front garden, scattering breadcrumbs, feeding the birds. One morning he never showed up and an ambulance parked up a few hours later. Poor guy had a heart attack by his front door. In his hand, he had a bag of crumbs. He was denied that one last chance to be out in the fresh air and scatter his breadcrumbs.
Rena was a grey-haired lady, probably quite the looker in her day, but her husband’s death years ago had aged her rapidly. She used to tell me her life story whilst at the bus stop. She only had one son, but unfortunately he and his wife and daughter were involved in a car crash. They were travelling down to Birmingham and a police car that was giving chase to a vehicle had ploughed into the back of them. Her son and daughter-in-law were killed. Both their necks were broken, but their daughter had survived and fortunately received little damage to her body.
Their daughter was only a couple of years old at the time and I remembered Rena taking in the child. She was all that Rena had left. At the bus stop, after she had dropped her granddaughter off at school, she would talk about her. It was Gail this, and Gail that. She told me about how her granddaughter was coping without her parents and that her mother’s necklace that she was wearing when she was killed had been passed onto Gail.
Rena told me that she hoped that the necklace wasn’t cursed, but I laughed it off and told her that she was being daft. She loved that sweet thing. I couldn’t remember how old the girl was. Probably the same age as my daughter, eight or nine. I knew that Gail went to the same school as my kids’, but she was a girl I didn’t remember, because my wife picked the kids up at school whilst I was at work. My wife was a nurse and only worked two days a week, which meant she looked after the kids, the house, and pretty much everything else.
The trip to Rena’s house was unproblematic, and getting through her skylight was made simple with two blows of the hammer that I had taken with me. Again, I took no bags with me; I was certain there’d be some there.
After opening Rena’s latch to her attic, I peered my head through, clocking the bedroom beneath me, and called on Rena. No answer was heard and Rena herself was nowhere to be seen.
I lowered the attic’s ladders and made my way to the first floor, hammer in my clammy right hand. I then checked her two bedrooms and found no sign of life. Both rooms were heavy with a musty smell; I guessed that a window hadn’t been opened in a while. This wasn’t a good sign, I was sure of it. Unless she had left the place with her granddaughter. But where would they have gone? She had no family left, as far as I was aware, and no car. It was just her and Gail.
I took a pee in her upstairs toilet and made my way down her stairs, heading to the ground floor, to the hallway. Her house was the same set up as mine, although mine was bigger, and it was easy enough trying to find my way about the place. I was on the ground floor and looked in the living room. I was greeted with another empty room and bad odour, but no sign of Rena or her granddaughter.
I put my hand on the kitchen door that was opposite the living room, and saw a collection of family photographs along the right side of the hall’s wall. I saw an old picture of Rena and her husband. His face brought the memories flooding back when he used to be out there, feeding the birds.
Another picture had Rena and her granddaughter together. It looked recent. There were others of her son and his wife. I noticed that in every photo of his wife she wore a gold heart-shaped pendant on a gold necklace, probably the one that was passed onto Gail, but the photo that brought a lump to my throat was the school picture of Gail. She had on the same attire as
Thomas and Poppy and had beautiful big blue eyes, blonde hair and a cracking smile. No doubt, she was a good-looking child and I hoped that she and Rena were still around, still alive.
I was about to pull down the handle and open the door, but a noise from behind the door made me pause and my heart giddy-up. I had no idea why, but I opened the door as if I had taken some brave pills earlier, and took a sharp intake of breath when I saw Rena in the corner of the kitchen, by the sink. She had her back to me, and even then I knew she wasn’t herself. She had turned.
I cleared my throat and she turned around, confirming what I had expected.
Her eyes were colourless, her face as pale as snow, and she staggered over to me. I froze, my feet refusing to move, and as soon as she moaned and grabbed my shoulders, I released a scream and tried to get out of there.
Rena was heavier than I had imagined, and once she leaned on me I stumbled, dropped the hammer and fell to the floor, banging my head off of the wall. She snarled and gnashed at me as I desperately placed my hands under her chin and pushed her away. I cried out, tears forming, and couldn’t believe I was being overpowered by a dead elderly woman.
She stunk how most corpses stunk, and once I finally managed to push her off me, I scrambled to my feet to leave the kitchen. A hand grabbed at my ankle as I tried to flee, and I fell back to the floor. She pulled herself along the floor, mouth gaping and lowered her head to take a bite from my lower leg. This action alone forced a scream to be released from my mouth. Now, this is definitely not the kind of thing you’d see the male protagonist do in a Hollywood film. Could you imagine Bruce Willis screaming whilst being shot at in Die Hard? No, probably not, but I did. I’m just being honest with you, reader. I’ve never been a hard man, and I certainly don’t own a white vest.
Anyway, back to being attacked by the sweet old woman from my street. Just the thought of her teeth ripping into my flesh made me release some urine onto my boxer shorts. I brought my right foot back and kicked her in the face, but she was relentless. It took another four kicks before she released me.
Now buzzing with nervous adrenaline, I grabbed my hammer and ran to the stairs. I climbed seven or eight steps and turned around to see her now in the hallway and working out how she could use the stairs to get to me. It seemed that this simple action was difficult for these things. I looked at the corpse and shook my head with sadness. “Oh Rena. What happened?”
One of her feet was placed on the first step, but as soon as she tried to move her other foot she fell backwards and hit her head off of the radiator. She was on her back and snarled and writhed, like a snake on fire, and I took this opportunity to do what any decent man would have done: I needed to put her at rest, out of her misery. I knew that technically she was already gone, but it seemed unjust to leave her like that, even though I couldn’t bring myself to kill Annie. I went down a few steps. I was now on the second from bottom step, still had a height advantage, and was now within striking distance.
I pulled my hammer back and had no idea if one hard blow was going to be enough. Could I get away with hitting her the once, or would I have to bludgeon her, like something out of a seventies horror B movie?
My hesitation was making things more difficult for me as she was beginning to get back to her feet. I gulped and watched as she stood up, closed my eyes and brought the hammer down as hard as I could. I opened them, gasped and released the hammer.
The thing that was once sweet old Rena staggered a little, then dropped to her knees and fell to the side. The hammer had gone through the skull and was sticking out as she fell. I could see the dark stuff oozing out of her damaged skull and gagged at the sight of it. Rena was now out of the way and I still had the kitchen to check.
Then it came to me. What about her granddaughter? What about Gail? Where was she? Rena was the only person in the house, so did Gail escape, or was she elsewhere when the situation kicked off?
I walked past the body, avoiding the pooling blood and still unsure whether it was completely defunct, and stepped into the kitchen. I searched the cupboards and was pleased to come across a lot of tins. It was mainly soup, but I managed to grab a few carrier bags and placed twelve tins in them.
With the weight of the bags, I felt that going over the roof would be a bad idea, and with killing what used to be Rena earlier, my confidence grew and I was sure that I would be able to handle Annie if I went over the back gardens to get to my house.
I didn’t need to kill Annie. I didn’t want to kill Annie. I’m sure if I was quick enough then a quick push would knock her over to give me enough time to get back into my house.
Chapter Six
I had jumped one fence and was now in my neighbour’s garden. I had one more fence to go before I was in my own. I peered over and saw that Annie was mooching about on the decking. She was near a homemade tiny hut that my wife had made months ago for the cats. She had done a good job, and had created the little house with the leftover wood, after the decking job, that was dumped by our conifer tree near the bottom of our garden. At the side of the tree was a set of old play swings, a constant reminder that my kids weren’t here anymore, and the lawn was in front of it. There were two steps that led up to the decking part of the garden, and this was where Annie was. I was surprised Annie had made the steps. Maybe she had crawled up them. I don’t know why she did this. Did she see the cats? Did something else entice her to the decking area of the garden?
With my hammer tucked into my belt, I approached the last fence. I leaned over, placed the bags onto the grass and climbed it. The small noise was enough for Annie to turn around and clock my presence. I landed on the grass and left the bags where they were.
I waited until she tumbled down the two steps of the decking and onto the lawn. I took a few steps backwards as she headed for me, then turned quickly to the right and ran past her with ease. Next stage? Drainpipe.
With both patio and main doors locked, I ran onto the decking and began to climb the drainpipe that led to my roof and, more importantly, to my opened skylight. The plan was to get through the skylight, go downstairs, and then outside, avoiding Annie, then grab the tins of food and get back inside unscathed. Easy. Right?
The climb was easier than I imagined, but it would have been a different story if I decided to try and take the two bags with me. I was forty-two at the time, fit, and had always had a slim build. The climb to the skylight was achieved, and then once I progressed to the ground floor of my home, the tricky bit was next.
I entered my new living room, trainers moving along the dark wooden floor, and reached for the patio door. Annie was nowhere to be seen. I assumed that she was by the kitchen window, a few yards to the left where I was. I kept my hammer in my belt. I didn’t want to use it if I could avoid it. I know it sounds crazy, but Annie was the only company I had had for many months, and with her being so small and similar to my Poppy, the killing of the child was hard for me to even think about.
I wasn’t being stupid. I knew she was dead, but if I could get the bags without harming the walking corpse, then that was fine with me.
I opened the patio door slowly, because it made a noise when opened, and then I took gentle steps on the decking. The decking itself made a noise when being stepped on, and back in the old days, when the wife and I were in bed on a night, we could sometimes hear the cats jumping on the decking from the fence. Those days were gone.
I looked around the corner to see that she had her back to me. I stepped off the decking, onto the lawn, and went over to the two carrier bags of tins that I had placed on the grass earlier. As soon as I picked the bags up, they made a rustling noise, making the female corpse turn her head. She staggered over in my direction and I waited to see how she would handle the two steps down onto the lawn. She made it with a stumble. I was hoping that she was going to struggle and fall on her face, giving me ample time to walk around her and get into the house without having to harm her in any way.
She shambled over to me as I sto
od. I was undecided on what to do, standing with a carrier bag in each hand, and did the first thing that came to mind. I front-kicked her into her chest. I watched as she flew backwards, smacking her head off the wooden railings and then fell facedown on the lawn. I apologised to her, and then made my way over to the patio door. As soon as I was in my living room, I dropped the bags on the leather couch and shut the patio door, then locked it with the keys that were already dangling in the keyhole.
I put the tins away in my kitchen cupboard and decided to go into my old living room that looked out onto the main road of my street. My ears pricked up when I heard the muffled sound of male voices, two in all.
I crept over to my closed blinds and delicately put my forefinger inbetween two of them and created a centimetre gap for me to look out. The voices were getting louder, suggesting to me that the men were about to pass my house. I should have really moved away, but my intrigue on who these individuals were and what they looked like was too strong.
Finally, I saw them pass my empty drive. There were two men, two large, muscular men, and both were carrying baseball bats. It didn’t take a genius to realise that these two were bad news and probably had the mentality to survive at all costs. Maybe, back in the old world, these two individuals were family men but now had lost everything. Maybe they were criminals before the apocalypse kicked off. Whatever their background, I was sure that these were men that were capable and willing to kill a person if they really had to.
I shuddered as they went by and hoped that they wouldn’t be back. My trust in people, especially men, wasn’t great. The breakdown of society had created dangerous people. I had lived a sheltered life for the last six months, but I knew that there were people out there who had lost family members, and maybe even witnessed their deaths. Being killed in a horrific way must have affected them psychologically.
The Z Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 6