I looked at her blankly. “Er ... depends what films you mean. If it was Home Alone—”
“Don’t get smart. I meant—”
“Shoot them in the head.”
“Have you got a gun,” Clare said excitedly.
I shook my head.
“Oh.” Her excitement was short-lived.
We glared at one another and being a man—yes, I know, it sounds pathetic—I felt that I should do something. I said, “I’ll sort it.”
“You want me to come with you?”
I tried to act cool and sighed, “If you must.”
I grabbed a steak knife from the knife rack in the kitchen and went upstairs first, with Clare following. It was fair to say that I was scared and although I had gone earlier, my bowels were loosening once again. As I got into the bedroom, I paused and stared at Clare. She made a face at me translating into: Well, what are you waiting for?
I cleared my throat and slowly climbed the ladders into the attic. I stood in the second floor room and hesitantly looked up to the skylight. There was nothing there. All I could see was the blue sky on this June evening, but no face of a girl that had initially filled me with fear.
“You can come up.” I bellowed down to Clare who was standing on the bedroom floor, looking up at me.
“Is it safe?”
“Seems to be.”
I looked back up to the skylight as Clare was noisily making her way up to the second floor of the house. She looked around the room and said, “We’ll get this cleared tonight so we can use it as a bedroom.”
“But if these things can climb,” I pointed up at the skylight, “we’re fucked anyway.”
Suddenly, the face appeared again, and this time both Clare and I released a shriek as we looked up at the blonde girl. The girl then waved at the pair of us.
“She’s human,” Clare shrieked. “Open it up.”
I did as I was told, and then held onto my stomach, and felt my face flush as a small bit of unformed shite left my arse. Clare held onto her nose. “Ew, have you…?”
With embarrassment, I scolded, “Just let her in. I need to go downstairs.”
“Well, you know what they say,” Clare spoke with a wide beam.
“What?” I was now nearly at the bottom of the stepladders.
“Shit happens.”
I then heard Clare welcome the little girl in. During my short trip to the toilet upstairs, I shouted, “Don’t forget to shut the attic window!”
Chapter Fourteen
After going to the crapper for the second time in a day, I left the upstairs toilet and went back up the ladders to see our young, new guest. She was obviously distraught and was being comforted by Clare.
The little girl yelped when she saw me. Clare explained who I was and that I was the owner of the house that she was now in. I sat on one of the boxes in the attic and watched the two girls as they broke away from their embrace.
Clare sat next to the girl, put her arm around her shoulder and asked her a few questions, without making it sound like an interrogation. The little girl was dressed in black leggings and was wearing a Moshi Monsters T-shirt.
Her name was Abbie Thompson, ten years old, and she lived three doors down from me. I knew she existed, but I can’t say that I had ever seen the girl much, and even though it’s fair to say I never really mingled with people from my street, I thought it was kind of strange that this was a girl I had hardly saw over the years, or even had seen playing in the street.
Abbie tearfully told us her story about what had happened. Her father had come back from the shops and had been attacked by some men, or so Abbie claimed, and once he came back he went for a lie down. A few hours later, after lunch, he grabbed her brother and grabbed him by the face. Her mother and Abbie thought the father was attacking him so the mother stepped in and pushed him back. He stumbled forward and took a chunk out of her mum’s neck. Blood spilled everywhere and Abbie and her brother ran upstairs.
Her brother opened up the attic and told Abbie to wait for him on the roof while he pulled the ladders up. She waited and waited, and finally took a peep through her skylight into her attic and saw that her brother had disappeared. After waiting anxiously, she decided to walk across the roofs and take a look in the skylights, and that was when I had first saw her peering in, which gave me the fright of my life.
“You’re safe now,” Clare spoke softly and kissed the frightened girl on her head. Clare tried to explain to Abbie what had been going on, but it didn’t really matter. She had still lost her mother and father in one day.
All of this had happened nearly an hour ago.
“I just want to see Ben,” she sniffed.
I assumed that Ben was the older brother that had gone missing, and then Clare tried to reassure her that he should be okay. She responded, “But he doesn’t know that I’m in here. If he’s okay, he won’t know where to find me.”
It was a good point. Then Clare looked over in my direction and I immediately began shaking my head. “I’m not going into the house.”
Clare sighed, “Just have a look and see if he’s in the attic, then come back. Maybe go in and stick your head through the hatch and shout on him. Maybe he’s hiding somewhere.”
“Not a chance.” Just thinking about it was making my frame shudder with fright.
Then Abbie looked over with her sad, wide, pleading eyes. We sat in silence, while I was being emotionally blackmailed in my own house by the faces of two girls I had never seen before until a few hours ago.
“Fine.” Clare stood up. “I’ll go.”
“No!” I snapped. “I’ll go, for fuck’s sake.” I then placed my hand over my mouth, realising I had released a profanity in front of a minor.
My male pride wouldn’t allow me to let Clare go on her own, so I felt I had been pushed into a corner. Clare gave off a smile, a smile that looked a bit conceited. I felt that she seemed to be a woman that usually got her own way, especially with the opposite sex, which was an easy thing to do when you were an attractive female.
“Will you need a kind of weapon?” Clare asked.
“No,” I spoke defiantly.
“But if he’s in the bedroom—”
“I’ll shout on him from the attic. He can come to me.”
Clare threw her hands in the air and sighed, “Just do what you want.”
“What the hell do you want me to do?” I yelled, ignoring that there was minor in the room. “Go in there, armed with nothing?”
“I’ll get some stuff. Just in case you need to go into one of the bedrooms.” Clare walked over to the hatch, and with Abbie in tow, they both descended out of view into the bedroom to the first floor.
I waited for a while until Clare returned, but with no Abbie. Clare climbed the ladders with a carrier bag full of stuff.
“Where’s the kid?” I queried.
“She wasn’t feeling well, so she’s lying down. I think it’s some kind of delayed shock.”
I sighed and scratched my short brown hair. “Okay. What have you got?”
Chapter Fifteen
“I went in the cupboard under the stairs,” Clare said.
She plonked the carrier bag and I ruffled through the bag. I then looked back at her with confusion. “I also went into your kitchen,” she added.
“Right,” I said, as I pulled out a corkscrew from the carrier bag. “And what am I supposed to do with this?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “You could stab one of them in the eye, I suppose.”
She stood, jabbing her arm, making a stabbing motion. The next thing I pulled out of the bag was a butter knife. I looked at her blankly and she immediately blushed.
I shook my head. “So if I come across one of these things, what do you expect me to do with this? Spread it to death?”
“I just randomly put things in,” she protested meekly.
“No shit,” I replied as I pulled out a spanner from the bag. “Did you pack the cheese grater?”
“No. I’m taking the piss!” I threw the bag into the corner.
She went over to the bag and pulled out a pair of shades I had bought three years ago, before I went to Tenerife.
I asked, “And what are they for?”
“In case you get blood in your eyes.”
“I’ve already told you, I’m not going in, especially on the ground or first floor.”
“But if you need to go in and shout after him, if he’s hiding in a bedroom or something, you’ll need to be at least in the attic.”
I looked at the shades and quipped, “Just think, if I went in and got disembowelled, I’d still look cool.”
“Will you go in?”
“He’s probably dead now, anyway.”
“Just have a look.” Clare then responded to my statement about the boy being dead. “What makes you say that?”
I tried to explain, “Well, Abbie said he just disappeared. Maybe he fell down the hatch and broke his neck, or broke his leg and was eaten by his mum and dad.” I then suddenly released a laugh after finishing that last sentence. It seemed really bizarre.
Clare placed both palms on top of her head and scowled at me. “You think that’s funny, you sick fuck?”
“Well, a little.” I then noticed Clare didn’t possess the same sick sense of humour as myself, and I quickly lost my smile and cleared my throat. “Right.” I picked up a knife and put the shades on. I felt, and probably looked, a complete cock. I must have looked like a tooled-up Roy Orbison look-a-like.
Clare begged once more, “Will you go in? She needs to know if her brother’s alive.”
Exasperated, I huffed, “Yes, I’ll go in. Stop nagging, woman.”
Clare produced a smile and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. I added, “You do realise me going may not necessarily confirm whether he’s alive or dead. If I call out and there’s no response, it could be two things: he could be one of them, or he might be alive, but hiding and too scared to come out.”
“Just give it a try, for me.”
“Hang on a minute. I have got something.” I went down the ladders and into the upstairs cupboard and pulled out a crowbar that had been sitting idle for the last few months. I took it because I thought that I would need it to smash or prise open the skylight. I then returned and said to Clare, “Now this should be better than a corkscrew.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little much?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do. I certainly had no intention of doing what I actually did in the end, as I was normally a coward. But on this day, when I needed to step up, I had taken myself by surprise.
Chapter Sixteen
I felt ridiculous, but I wasn’t on public show, and that kind of helped me from being paranoid, but it didn’t stop me looking like a right tit. I was wearing my casual clothes, holding a crowbar and wearing a pair of cheap shades.
Clare kept her face straight and I handed her the crowbar while I pulled myself out of the skylight and onto the roof of my house. It was a beautiful day, but was ruined by the faint screams and car alarms that were occurring. I squatted down and held out my hand. Clare passed me the crowbar and said, “I’m gonna check on Abbie and be right back up to wait for you.”
I nodded, but no words left my mouth.
Clare could see I was nervous, but it wasn’t something I was embarrassed about, as what I was doing was something a lot of men would refuse to do. I was about to check on the brother of a little girl I didn’t even know, and was partly doing it because of the emotional pressure from a young woman, who I saved, I might add, and had only known for a matter of hours. It was madness!
I climbed to the top of the roof and stood up straight to get a good view of the streets of my area. When I say ‘good’, I mean I could see what was happening: burning buildings, crashed cars, and an individual running, four streets away, and being slowly chased by three cannibals.
Trying to put the image out of my mind, I progressed across the roof to the right with baby steps. I passed one skylight. I had another one to go before I got to the girl’s house and I was dreading it.
I passed the second skylight and took a peep to my right. The houses were back-to-back and I could see everyone’s back garden in my street and the street next to mine. I observed that most people had their blinds or curtains drawn, which made me suspect that most had seen the TV by now. I saw one person peep out of their curtains and I gave them a wave with the hand I was carrying the crowbar in and nearly fell off the damn roof, as I lost my balance.
“Bollocks!”
Fortunately, I had managed to stay on my feet. I could see, about six gardens away, two of the ghouls loitering outside and banging on the windows of the house. I don’t know how they had managed to get into that area, unless they were already the occupants of the household and had been contaminated. I didn’t really want to think about it. I had enough on my plate as it was.
Chapter Seventeen
I crouched down to the skylight and held onto the crowbar, wondering if I was doing the right thing. I thought I would need the crowbar to prise open the roof entrance, but it was already open.
Of course it was open!
It was the same skylight Abbie had escaped from. I shook my head. I wasn’t thinking straight.
I finally realised, the attic was pretty easy to get into. The attic, like mine, looked to be some kind of storage room, rather than being transformed into a playroom or another bedroom. It was full of old toys. There was also a dozen black bin liners full of ... I don’t know, clothes or something.
I dropped the crowbar onto the bags. The impact made very little noise. I then pulled the shades on top of my head and wasn’t brave enough to jump into the attic, so I climbed in and hung from the opened window and finally dropped the two-feet that was needed to make contact with the carpeted floor.
It appeared that the ladder was down, and I peered from the hatch into the bedroom before making a noise. At this point I was really nervous and cleared my throat before I timidly called out, “Ben.” I knew I was reasonably safe for the time being because I was in the attic and had a head start on the things if ever they heard my voice and appeared into the bedroom. If it was anything like the films, I knew climbing wasn’t their strong point, and even if they attempted such an action, I was pretty sure that I’d be out of there in no time.
I called out Ben’s name a little louder, two more times, but to no avail. I then sat with my legs crossed, lost in thought. I had two options: I could lie, go back to my house and tell them Ben had turned and there was nothing I could do. Or, I could risk my life and see for myself.
I was a hopeless liar, and I was pretty certain that if I lied, the guilt would eat away at me. But I wanted to live! I certainly didn’t want to be devoured because I was doing something ‘good’ for people I hardly knew.
I remained staring. Wondering what the hell I was going to do. Then something snapped in my head. “Oh, fuck it.”
I took the crowbar and threw it through the hatch, onto the bed, making a soft landing. I then began my hesitant, nervous descent down the ladders to the first-floor bedroom. The house was similar in design to mine, although a little smaller because I had an extension.
My feet eventually stood on the bedroom’s laminated floor. It appeared to be Ben’s room; I could tell by the colours and posters on the wall. I was shaking like a leaf, but I had committed myself now, and decided to look for him thoroughly.
I remembered thinking: What am I doing? This isn’t me. I’m the biggest shitebag that I know, and now I’m creeping through someone’s house, armed with a crowbar.
I checked a bedroom to my right that was obviously the parents’ room, then checked Abbie’s room. I then heard the lazy shuffling and dragging of feet coming from downstairs in the deathly silence. Apart from the incident at the shops, I hadn’t been face-to-f
ace with these things.
I peered down the stairs and could only see the hallway. I knew that downstairs of this house should be a living room, a bathroom and a kitchen, as that was the layout of my own ground floor, until the builders added another living room and reception area downstairs, as well as another bathroom and bedroom upstairs.
I puffed out my cheeks, contemplating whether to creep downstairs. I then thought that if Ben was alive and hiding down below, he probably wouldn’t come to me anyway because he didn’t know who I was, and he might be hiding downstairs in a cupboard or a room where it was impossible to get past his deceased parents without the risk of being scratched or bitten while making his way up.
Once I was halfway down the stairs, I stopped descending. I refrained from calling out Ben’s name as well as progressing further down, and decided to get back to my own home and tell Clare and Abbie that her brother was nowhere to be seen and probably had fled the house, unless he was one of them on the ground floor, shambling about with his parents.
I decided to go back upstairs and reached the landing, crowbar still gripped with my sweaty right hand. I then walked back into Ben’s room, where the ladders were to the attic, and heard a noise coming from the parents’ room.
I stuck my head around the corner, and my vertebrae shivered when I saw the clothes cupboard being rattled from the inside.
I whispered, “Ben?”
A moan came from inside and I assumed that if it was him, he was either in shock, in pain, or both.
I walked into the room and tried the cupboard door. I couldn’t understand how it didn’t open and just assumed that it was stuck. I heard the doors rattle again. My eyebrows furrowed with confusion and suddenly the doors flew open and a pair of icy, rotten hands grabbed me by the shirt. I released a yelp and pushed the thing away, dropped the crowbar in fright, and ran for the bedroom door.
If this was a Hollywood movie, I think it’d be fair to say that the audience would have had their heads in their hands with the response to the lead character. They would have probably expected me to roundhouse kick the zombie into the wall, followed by its brains being smashed with an expert swing of the crowbar, which in reality I had dropped due to fright.
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