Blog of the Dead (Book 3): Lost (12 page)

‘Ready, Soph?’ I turned to see Clay, his spiked gloves hanging around his neck, step through the front door. Mark followed, his pickaxe held by his side – much too much of a big clumsy weapon for me – and his backpack on his shoulder. I held my knife in my right hand, my hammer through my belt.

‘Yes, ready,’ I said. I bit my tongue to stop myself from commenting on how it was me stood out there waiting for them so of course I was bloody ready but sarcasm can get you into trouble.

Clay kept pace with me and Mark – the two of us were familiar with the area but it was completely unknown to Clay – and we headed to the end of my road and onto Guildford Park Road. As we strode past the hair and beauty salon on the corner, we jumped at the sound of a thud. We each turned to see a zombie inside the salon, slamming its putrid palms against the bay window, its eyes on us.

‘Not the best advert for their services, like, huh?’ said Clay. I responded with a snort. I couldn’t laugh. I recognised the zombie. Vanessa Wright. I had gone to school with her. She used to be a lovely girl, before she became a zombie. I remember she’d been really into horse riding and she had a houseful of pets. I saw her feeding a squirrel bits of sandwich out of her hand once, and she told me once she had tamed a fox. She fed it scraps and dog food and it used to waltz right into the house if anyone left the kitchen door open. When she wasn’t in school uniform, she would be dressed in old battered jeans with holes in the knees and an old t-shirt and would usually be covered in mud. Even when she was in uniform, her tights would have mud on the knees. In the summer when it was too hot for tights, her knees would be covered in mud or scrapes. She always seemed to have a plaster somewhere from where she’d fallen out of a tree or been ripped to shreds by blackberry bushes or thistles from playing out in some wild bit of land. I always imagined she’d be a vet or park ranger or something, rather than a hairdresser. Now she’s a zombie.

‘So, you from around here?’ I asked Mark as we walked.

‘No. Well, I’m originally from Kent but I’d been living in Manchester for a few years before the outbreak. My family were all down in the South, so after things calmed down a bit I made my way back to Kent to look for them. I just found them too late.’

‘Sorry.’

Mark shrugged but said nothing.

‘How long have you been in Guildford?’

‘Not long,’ said Mark, rather quickly. ‘After I left my parents’ place in Staplehurst, I travelled around the South for a bit and ended up in Surrey a few months ago. I go off now and then but I like my… your place, so I tend to come back. I’ll probably head off somewhere new soon – keeps the ideas fresh.’

‘The ideas?’ asked Clay.

‘My artwork.’

‘Yeah, I noticed you like a bit of drawing, man. What’s that about?’

‘I’m a comic book artist.’ We had reached the Co-op on Madrid Road. A few zombies staggered around outside. ‘I used to publish one on the web, a new section each month, weirdly enough about the zombie apocalypse. But it broke out on this huge cruise ship. It was called Ship of the Dead.’

‘Sounds cool,’ I said.

‘Yeah, it was pretty popular, had a big following. There was a group of survivors in it that had to battle all the other passengers on the ship that’d turned into zombies. Once they’d managed to secure the ship, they had to start heading off to islands and stuff to get supplies and they’d run into other survivors and zombies and shit. And I’d kill off some of the characters, just to keep the readers on their toes… no one was safe, not even their favourites.’

‘Awesome,’ I said. ‘So you still write it, even now?’

‘Not that one, no,’ said Mark. ‘It’s a new series and I use what I come across myself in the actual apocalypse to inspire the narrative.’

‘Cool,’ said Clay, slipping his gloves on as we approached the zombies that were lumbering towards us now they had seen us coming. I pondered on whether it was ‘cool’ and decided that it wasn’t. The zombie apocalypse was not remotely cool. And the fact that life wasn’t just imitating art but art was imitating life did my head in. ‘Does that mean we’re in it?’ Clay continued.

Mark shrugged. ‘Yeah, you’re all in it.’ He raised his pickaxe and drove it through the top of a zombie’s head.

I stabbed one of the zombies, while Clay skewered the last three –
BAM BAM BAM
!

‘You’ll have to let us have a look,’ I said. ‘Seeing as we’re the new stars.’

Mark shrugged again. ‘Maybe.’ He shrugged once more. ‘It’s more of an illustrated diary, I guess. Not really meant to be shown to anyone.’

The inside of the food store was gloomy and every bit as cold as outside, maybe colder. My breath came out in little puffs of white. It was a small local store so it didn’t take long to check the place was clear. I always make a point of double checking behind the counter in small stores like this, what with having watched many zombie movies where one always leaps out from behind a counter to bite someone, just as the survivors thought they’d got away with it. But I found nothing other than a murky, dusty, musty stillness and a pair of old slippers amongst the carrier bags.

I slid my knife though my belt to free up my hands while Clay slid off his gloves and hung them around his neck. Mark had no choice but to hold onto his pickaxe. I glanced around the store. The shelves were not far off being empty.

‘This is why I started breaking into houses,’ said Mark, noting my dismay. ‘Less and less food left out here. I hardly ever see other survivors, other than the occasional gang with big enough numbers to be cocky. Most regular people – including me – tend to stay out of sight these days. But they are there, scurrying about like little mice. The emptying shelves are testament to that.’

‘Well, it will have to do,’ I said, pulling the reusable shopping bag from my back pocket and unfolding it. ‘Breaking into homes is time consuming and you never know if what’s in there is worth the effort.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Mark. ‘I get shit all some days. But it’s all inspiration.’

I could hear the dragging of feet and groaning from outside which was all the
inspiration
I needed to hurry the other two on. We had two shopping bags but found enough to barely fill one. I wasn’t too worried. I knew Misfit would have enough luck hunting to make up for our shopping inadequacy.

We were just heading for the exit when the first zombie stepped over the threshold, cutting us off. Mark was just ahead of me and Clay. He had his pickaxe raised already but, even so, I pulled my knife from my belt while Clay slipped his gloves on – we could see more zombies behind the first one, all heading for the store. Mark stepped forwards and swung his pickaxe up and over. The pointed tip embedded into the top of a zombie’s head. It remained standing for a moment, its faraway eyes almost managing a look of bewilderment then it slid down, off the pickaxe tip, to crumple at Mark’s feet.

Gripping the shopping bag in my left hand, I strode forwards, wanting to meet the next, bigger wave of zombies out on the street, rather than inside the small store where we could get trapped. I estimated around twenty or so zombies waiting for us in Madrid Road – totally manageable between the three of us – but a larger crowd – and I had no idea what had attracted them as we hadn’t been making much noise – were heading our way from the street directly opposite the store, as well as more staggering our way from further up Madrid Road to our right.

I slammed my knife through the heads of zombies directly outside the door, feeling cumbersome and slowed down by the shopping bag that I refused to let go of. I wasn’t too worried, Clay and Mark were doing great job at clearing the way. The three of us headed back in the direction of the house, keeping close to the shop fronts as we inched forwards.

A bang made me stop and I turned to see around six or seven zombies crowded at the window of a carpet shop, trapped inside. They slammed and banged and clawed at the glass. Morbidly, I moved closer and lifted the hand that clutched the shopping bag, touching the fragile barrier with my fingertips. A zombie pressed its face on the opposite side and opened its mouth wide. I could see yellowed, rotting teeth and saliva like thick green puss as the disgusting creature tried to bite through the glass to get to me. The other zombies sniffed at the air and surged towards me, drawn to me like ducks hoping for a bite of bread held out to them.

I jumped as something caught my eye from the right. I turned to see a zombie lurch from the alley between the carpet shop and the pharmacy next door. As it lumbered towards us I saw Mark raise his pickaxe. He swung it with force and I cried out, wanting to warn him. Too late. The pickaxe smashed through the zombie’s skull and carried on and into the floor to ceiling window of the carpet store. Even before the glass had settled, the newly freed zombies lunged forwards, out of the carpet store, their feet crunching on glass as they staggered out onto the street. It happened so fast that a zombie caught my arm before I could get away. I swung my blade into its head and pulled myself free.

Something yanked my head back. From the corner of my eye, I could see the grey, withered arm of a zombie and knew it had me by the hair. I strained to keep my head upright, even though my hair was ripping from my scalp. I dropped the shopping bag to the ground and lifted my arm, readying to swing round and stab the zombie. But before I could, another of the zombies from the carpet shop grabbed my knife arm by the elbow. I was stuck. I glance to my left to see Clay fending off the zombies that had now caught up with us from Dunsdon Avenue, slamming his spiked gloves through their skulls. I yelled to him for help. He glanced my way and fell back, the zombies in danger of swamping him as he turned. One grasped his shoulder and another, his elbow, both zombies holding him back.

As I struggled against the zombies that held me, I saw Mark slam his pickaxe through the head of one that lurched at him. More gained on him as he paused to pull the pickaxe tip from where it was embedded deep in the slain zombie’s head. Another one grabbed me, its filthy feet kicking the shopping bag so a couple of tins rolled out onto the street. The zombie behind me moved closer, its mouth seeking out the flesh of my neck. My violent movements were keeping them all back for now, but I knew I couldn’t keep it up for long.

Mark used his pickaxe to push a zombie away from him before plunging the tip into another’s head. He was the furthest along the street. Ahead of him was now clear, give or take a zombie or two. Me and Clay weren’t so lucky. The undead swamped us both. I glanced at Clay as he struggled, driving his spikes through the rotten heads he could reach. I waited for the scream that would indicate game over for him. My eyes darted back to Mark as I waited to see what he would do. I mean, me and Clay were lost causes, pretty much.

Mark’s eyes locked onto mine. I imagined his brain like a fruit machine in full whirring mode, waiting to see what it would settle on – three cherries or a lemon – then
DING DING DING
! A look of absolute determination struck and he leapt towards me. It didn’t take long to cover the ground between us and his pickaxe slammed through the brains of the undead that stood in the way, then into the head of the one holding my knife arm. That freed, I was able to stab the one on my left arm, and with the blade still in its head, spin and kick back the one about to bite my neck. Yeah, I lost a bit of hair, but I didn’t get bloody bitten. I stabbed the zombie as it came back for another go.

By this point, Mark had also freed Clay and in the absence of any spine-chilling screams, I guessed Clay was as bite free as me. I watched as Mark and Clay dealt with the zombies closest to them, then they fell back in line with me and the three of us turned and fled, not before I grabbed the shopping bag off the ground.

We dodged around five zombies that lurched out from Ridgemount, and sped into Guildford Park Road, not stopping until we reached my house. Inside, the three of us stood panting in the living room, sweat dripping from us despite how cold it was outside.

‘Nice time?’ said Kay as she appeared from the dining room.

‘It was awesome,’ I said.

‘Shame I missed it.’

‘Yeah. You would have loved it,’ I said. I still had the shopping bag gripped in one hand and my knife in the other as though letting go of either of them would be letting go of my sanity for good.

11pm

By the time Misfit returned with a bundle of rabbits and a couple of pigeons, the rest of us were settled around a fire in the back garden. The fence panel had been fixed and, despite the fact that we were in an urban area and with only a wooden fence around us, we were not as secure as I’d like us to be, it felt good to be out in the open again.

Me and Clay had calmed down after our near-death experience. We had both thanked Mark profusely. He had risked his life to save us – strangers to him – and we wanted him to understand just how grateful we were. I made Clay and Mark promise not to tell Misfit about what had happened, how close I had become to being Zombie-Sophie.

Misfit sat next to me around the fire as he skinned rabbits. ‘Can I try?’ I asked him.

‘Hmm?’

Misfit had been lost in thought as he worked but my words pulled him back.

‘Me, have a go?’ I said, nodding to the rabbit on the flattened grass before him.

Misfit half-smiled and passed me a small bladed hunting knife from his backpack. I picked up a dead rabbit, surprised that I wasn’t freaked out by its cool but floppy body. I mean, before the outbreak, I would never have considered touching a dead animal – apart from the pre-prepared ones you get in the supermarket, and even then I used to hate touching raw meat – and here I was about to skin a little bunny. Except I didn’t see it as a cute little fluffy bunny anymore – I saw it as food… fuel… protein… life. Confident I wouldn’t get squeamish, I watched and then copied what Misfit showed me. I felt a surge of something inside me while we worked together – excitement, closeness, an ever developing bond that began, well, longer ago than I even realised.