I hunched my shoulders. “I suppose I could do that.”
Emma was making sense, and she also had experience of killing those things. More than I did.
She wasn't finished there. She also added, “And what happens when you smash that prick like whack a mole and finally put it down on your tenth strike, if you're lucky, and find that you have blood in your eye?”
I scratched my head in thought. “So what?”
“You do realise, cockwomble, that you can get infected if blood goes in your eye, on open cuts or—”
“Really? I had no idea.”
“Didn't you watch the television all those months ago?”
“Of course I did. It was a while ago now.”
“Well, trust me,” she said. “Before you go out there, hammer or knife, put a pair of shades or goggles on, if you’ve got any.”
“But you never wore goggles.”
“Just do it this once, please.”
I paused for thought. I wondered where I could get a pair of shades or goggles from, and then it came to me. I went over to the leather footstool and had done something I hadn't done in months.
I lifted it up and saw the brown blanket that was always there. I pulled out the blanket, ignoring Emma who was asking what I was doing, and saw two pairs of swimming goggles. My heart sank when I saw them.
There was a pair of pink goggles and a yellow and black pair of Batman ones that my boy used to wear. Every Sunday I'd take them to the swimming when their mummy was working her twelve-hour shift at the hospital. Most of the times I'd take them to the big one up the road called Bellahouston, but they also liked the one near the Silverburn shopping centre. That one wasn't as big as Bellahouston, but it had a wave machine.
I picked up the Batman goggles and was reluctant to put them on at first. Emma could see this and she was beginning to understand why I was so hesitant.
“You're wearing them to keep yourself alive,” she said. “It's for a good reason.”
I put the hammer into my pocket and nodded in agreement and put them on.
“Now, are you sure you still want to use the hammer?” Emma wasn't being patronising; she looked genuinely concerned. “A knife would be quicker and less messier.”
“You’re right.” I nodded.
I left the new living room to get to the kitchen, ignoring the slapping hands from the dead ghoul outside as I went by the frosted glass door. I kept the hammer in my pocket for added insurance, in case anything went wrong, and pulled out a steak knife from the wooden block. There were much bigger knives to pick from, but I thought that something sharp and thinner than the average knife would go through the eye easier.
That was the plan: Stab it straight through the eye and penetrate the brain. A thicker knife would struggle to get past the bony eye socket and it’d be difficult to push it further in. Or at least that's what I thought at the time.
I was unsure whether to go out the patio door, sneak down my alleyway and 'surprise' the thing and kill it from behind. But then I thought: If I wanted to stab it through the eye, I'd have to be face to face with the diseased fuckwit. I changed my mind, and I decided to use the hammer and placed the knife in my pocket. I could hear Emma sighing, but this time she kept her mouth shut.
“Stay there,” Emma said to Jane, and pulled out the knife from her pocket and walked towards myself. She closed the living room door and it was now Emma and I, alone, standing in the reception area.
“I want to do this myself,” I said to her, slightly offended that she was by my side. “This is my house.”
“I know.” Emma nodded and gave me a wink. “I'm just here in case you mess it up. I know what men are like.”
“I’m not stupid, you know?”
“Yes, you are,” Emma snickered. “You’re a man, but you’re not as stupid as my ex.”
“What was up with him?”
“Well, let’s just say he was a waste of a perfectly shaved vagina.”
I began to laugh, and was certain that she was trying to settle my nerves. “Not all men are stupid, Emma.”
“No they’re not.” She nodded in agreement. “Some are dead.”
I shook my head with a scowl. “Why are you so anti-men?”
“I’m not. I’m anti-stupid. Now, are you gonna open that friggin' door or what?”
“Okay.” I blew out a sharp breath and looked at Emma Rowley. “On three?”
She nodded the once.
“One...” I placed my hand on the door handle. “Two...” I took a deep breath in, clutching the hammer. “Three! Come on!” I yelled at the top of my voice, trying to motivate myself, pulled on the handle and tried to pull the door open. It wouldn't budge, so I tried it again.
Nothing.
I snarled and pulled at it once more, then I looked down and saw the key dangling and realised that it was locked, like it usually was.
“Shall we try again?” Emma bit her bottom lip, trying to hide a smirk. “But this time with the door unlocked.”
“Alright, alright.” I was so nervous that I wasn't thinking. “So I wasn't thinking straight.”
I took a hold of the key, as the DC was banging its hands on the pane of the frosted glass, and turned it with my shaky left hand. I turned to Emma. “On three again?”
“Just open the fucking door,” she sighed.
So I did.
A growl from the hideous-looking beast made me cry out, I'm ashamed to say, and I hesitated for a couple of seconds. Its face was a strange blue colour, milky eyes, and its bottom lip had been torn away, showing its yellow and rotten bottom teeth.
Finally, I struck the thing with the ball of the hammer, hitting the top of its head. But it wasn't enough. It stepped into the reception area and I released a cry and hit it in the middle of its forehead this time. It staggered back outside and came off the doorstep that was twelve inches in height, and fell over.
The beast landed on its back, making its demise easier for me.
I stepped out and then bent down and smacked it in the same place, and this time the hammer went in its skull. I pulled the tool out, but it was a struggle to do so. I reached for the knife in my pocket and stuck it into the area where the hammer had exposed a small part of its diseased brain.
I left the knife where it was, grabbed one of its legs and dragged it off of my drive and left it on the pavement, behind my privet hedge that desperately needed cutting.
Despite what had just happened, my body didn't seem to be in a great rush to get back inside the house. I gazed down at my drive that had cost me 3k and could see the unevenness in the work that was done.
There were bumps and a couple or cracked tiles, but this wasn't wear and tear, it had been like this since the job had been completed. It had been done in January, five months before that announcement was made on the news, and a hopeless guy called John, who represented a firm called Osprey, did the job. It took him over a week to do and would turn up at 10am and then disappear two hours later. The alarm bells were ringing already and the wife and I just wanted it done so we could see the back of this useless cunt.
Once the job was done and the man was paid, we noticed as the months ticked by that some parts of the drive were collapsing, so we had to contact the company but we were being fobbed off. This continued for months, and whilst this was going on we decided to dip our hands in our pocket once more and get the roof done.
It had been a stressful year, despite it only being a few months old, and around March I was beginning to feel unwell. Things weren't working properly downstairs, and I'm not talking about the old pork sword, I'm talking about my bowels. I hadn't taken a shit in days, very unusual for me as I'm usually a first thing in the morning kind of guy, and felt some severe discomfort down the left side of my stomach where the colon is based.
It got that bad that the wife came back from one of her shifts and I was given an enema. Very uncomfortable. I went to the GPs and all he did was put me on a course of Laxido during the April
period. I was taken to see a colon expert and had a finger up my anus, followed by a camera. I had a blood test and the expert suggested that I should go for a CT scan, then after the scan I would need an endoscopy and colonoscopy just to make sure I was okay from a health point of view.
The wife drove me back to work from the hospital on this Thursday morning, but the whole magnitude of what had just happened, and what else was about to happen, hit me, and I had a mini breakdown. She turned the car around, we went home and she called my work for me and told them I wasn’t coming in.
The CT scan was next and this occurred during mid-April. The wife and the two kids went to Austin, Texas to visit my sister-in-law. There was no point them hanging around. She was thinking about cancelling their holiday, which I wasn't going on anyway, but I told them to go.
I went to the hospital and found out that the machine wasn't working, so I was told to go upstairs where they would put me on the other one. I stripped in the changing room and put on the gown, and then I waited for a while. I was then asked by a nurse to join her in the room where the CT scan was, lay down, and was told that I'd be given some liquid that would make me feel warm, so that they could see if there was anything untoward.
It went fine and I went to work.
When my wife returned with the kids from Texas, I had two weeks before I was due to go to the hospital for my colonoscopy and endoscopy. I was dreading it.
I was probably dreading the result more than the procedure itself, as I was told that they would tell me there if they had found anything sinister.
The time had come and I was reasonably calm about the situation. I went into the waiting room with the wife. My name was eventually called out and they told the wife to come back for me in two hour’s time. The whole thing was a nightmare. I asked to get sedated for the colonoscopy and wanted throat spray before the endoscopy. They had forgotten to give me both.
I was wheeled into the area, had a tube put down my throat and down into my stomach. It felt like I was being tortured and spent the whole five to ten minutes, at least that’s what it felt like, retching. Of course, there was nothing in my stomach because I had to fast and take four packets of klean prep the day before, so by the end of the day I was only passing water out of my back passage.
After they had finished looking in my stomach and had taken a few biopsies for further research, the tube was slowly pulled out. I was given a minute to recuperate before flipped over and had a long tube put up my arse. The tube was so long that it felt like I was being mounted by a moose. And then they pumped me with air and I felt like my stomach was going to explode.
Once that was over and the tube was taken out, I was told that everything looked okay and that I would have a confirmation letter in a few week’s time after they had checked the biopsies taken from my stomach. It was a weird afternoon, after coming back from the hospital. I was neither relieved or overjoyed. I was just shattered and slept on my bed for three hours.
A couple of weeks after this event, me and the wife focused back on the drive and tried the claims court to see if we could get compensation for the shambles of a job that had been done to the drive. They got into contact with the main man from Osprey and were told that the business had now folded and didn't exist. Surprise, surprise. There was nothing that could be done. We gave up and then a month or so later a piece of paper was put through our door.
It was from John. The guy that did the drive. The useless cunt.
The note said: Had a look at your drive. Noticed the front needs repaired. Be back and squeeze you in next week sometime.
A few days after it came through our door, the wife and kids went out shopping on the Saturday, leaving me all by myself. It was the last time I saw them. Hours after they'd left, the infection had been announced and it dominated the media.
*
“Shaun. Shaun.”
I was pulled out of my daydreaming, stopped looking down at the drive and gaped to my left. I was brought back to a harsh reality and saw Emma Rowley standing in my doorway. It wasn’t the wife, or my two kids, but a woman I had only met a few days ago and hardly knew.
“You were miles away,” Emma said.
“What?” I snapped, took off the goggles and began to rub my eyes.
“You were staring at the ground for ages. I thought you were having a breakdown.”
“I'm fine.”
“You sure?”
I nodded.
“Right,” she beckoned. “Come on in. If any DCs enter the street and clock you...”
“I know.”
She didn’t have to say anything further. I stepped into the reception area and Emma shut and locked the front door once I was inside.
Chapter Sixteen
I took a drink of water and winced once the liquid went down. My throat was as dry as a nun’s snatch, and I could feel a lump in my throat as if I was emotional about something. But I wasn't. I was convinced that I was coming down with something. Maybe just a twenty-four hour bug. I would rather have a sore throat than sickness and diarrhoea.
I had a cheek to complain, considering what was happening.
I took another swig of water and looked into my kitchen cupboard to see what there was to satisfy my stomach. There wasn't much.
I went on my tiptoes and tried to see if there was anything on the top shelf. I could see a blue wrapper. I reached in and managed to pull out what was sitting at the back. It was a croissant that could be served hot or cold. A small smile emerged under my nose and I could feel the water in my eyes increasing.
I used to get up every morning with the kids and make them breakfast. Whilst they ate their breakfast, Thomas always used to have Weetabix, I would get their lunch bags ready. He would have a jam sandwich, a packet of chicken satays and a packet of salt ‘n’ vinegar Hula Hoops crisps. The girl would have a ham sandwich, a pepperami, and would also have a packet of Hula Hoops crisps. Same flavour. That was for their lunch, but they also required a mid-morning snack, which would be an apple and a croissant. I had no idea there were any left and just holding this blue wrapper in my hand made me feel nauseous with grief and brought the memories flooding back.
I looked at the back of the wrapper and could see it was two months out of date, but I still unwrapped it and ate the thing in seconds. It tasted all right to me and it wasn't something that made me sick.
I put the wrapper in the bin and stared out of my kitchen window that looked out onto my back garden. I looked to my left, gazing at the six-foot fence that was put up years ago after a dispute with the neighbours. Then my eyes looked down onto the lawn. It was shabby-looking, overgrown, and then my eyes moved right and gazed at the conifer tree.
Shit.
I glared at the tree trunk for a few seconds to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me. Annie had gone. I could see the loose rope on the grass, but no Annie anymore. I then heard a scream coming from the back room. The scream sounded like it belonged to young Jane.
“Shaun!” Emma cried out.
I ran out of the kitchen, down the hall, passing the bathroom and living room, then made a sharp left into the back room. I could see Emma standing at the right of the room, next to the defunct LG TV that was attached to the wall, and was comforting the little girl. Both females were staring at the patio doors. I could see Annie on the other side. I don't know how she had come loose, but she had. She had made her way over the lawn, managed the steps up onto the decking and reached the patio doors without any of us hearing a sound.
“Jane heard a noise,” Emma began to explain, without looking at me. “So she pulled up the roller blind.”
“And got the fright of her life,” I sighed.
“So what now?” Emma asked. “You want me to kill it?”
“It’s already dead.”
“You know what I mean, smart arse.” Emma asked again, “Well? Do you?”
I shook my head, but I think Emma already knew what the answer was going to be. I don't even know why she aske
d in the first place.
“'So ... what now?” Emma was becoming impatient. “Tie it back up? Give it a friggin’ head massage?”
“I don't know. Can't we just leave her there?” I suggested. “She's doing nobody any harm, is she?”
“Apart from scaring the life out of Jane.”
“She won’t get in, will she?” Jane cried.
“No,” I sighed with impatience. “She doesn’t have a key.”
“Shaun,” Emma groaned. “Don’t be such a dick.”
“I thought you’d be desensitised by these things, Jane,” I said, “with what happened to your parents and your brother. Anyway, there’s no way Annie can get in, unless you let her in.”
Jane looked at me with puzzlement. “You’ve given it a name?”
“Er … yeah.” I flushed red.
“That’s … weird,” Jane said, making Emma smile.
Emma pulled down the roller and huffed, “I suppose she’s doing no one any harm there.” She then turned to Jane and said, “Whatever you do, never open this door unless one of us are around, understood?”
Jane nodded. “Yes, of course.”
Emma sat down on the leather footstool and put her arm around the frightened Jane. Emma looked at Jane and said, “Maybe having Annie there may help you get used to the things. It's been six months since it started. Need to get used to this new world if you want to survive in it. Maybe one day I’ll show you how to kill one of those things.”
Jane looked frightened once Emma had finished her sentence and said, “I’m not sure about that.”
“You’ll be okay.”
“I was crapping myself when I made my first kill,” I said to Jane.
“That’s right.” Emma nodded. “And look how you handled that dead thing on your drive. You were like a fanny.”
“That was my third one. I have killed before that incident, you know.” I thought about Rena. Poor Rena.
“I didn't accuse you of not killing before. I saw you kill Jane’s mum. All I’m getting at is that you just lack experience. If we're somehow thrown into the deep end and have to go out and come across a horde of these DCs, then we may have to hack our way through.”
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