Class Four: Those Who Survive (8 page)

Thomas made an involuntary, “Huh.” He peered closer at the sign. Next to the name of the company, he could make out a large cherubic figure made out of a stainless steel lattice frame. “Tell me, Deano. Why is there a man tied to that angel up there?”

Chapter Ten

The lock crunched and the door swung inwards. Andy looked inside the small ex-janitor’s cupboard. Thomas was sitting on the middle of a foldaway bed, supping on a bowl of soup. “The hospitality has been pretty lousy, but this onion soup is not too bad.”

Andy grimaced. “That bloke you came in with…”

Thomas stopped mid-slurp and gulped. He rested the spoon on the bowl’s rim. “Is he?”

Andy shuffled his feet and looked down. When his features were visible again, he was wearing a cheeky bastard smile. “Ha, nearly got you. He’s fine, on the mend, doesn’t remember much about what happened, but he does remember that you tried to save him from the chompers. Means The Gaffer is satisfied that you’re not some Patrick Bateman. Finish off your lunch, I’ll show you around.”

In one motion, Thomas tipped the dregs of the soup down his throat, ran a sleeved hand across his lips and jumped up. “Let’s rock and roll. There were some rats in here that were starting to give me the eye.”

Standing to one side, Andy let Thomas leave his gaol. He kept one hand on the rapier’s handle. “This way, mate,” he said jovially.

The two men walked to the far end, by the concrete dais and the metallic staircase. “Up there is The Gaffer’s office and personal quarters. You really do not want to go up there without an invite, otherwise Grimm, one of his lackeys, or
me,
will politely remove you.”

Thomas stood on the raised floor and looked at the bottom of the stairs, where one of the armoured guards stood watch, statuesque. At the top of the stairs, he could hear a heated discussion between two men, but the words were indiscernible. His gaze swept the floor, noticing some brown spots flecked on the monochrome concrete. He knelt down and ran a finger over them. “Nice place you got here,” he mumbled to himself.

“Look here, mate. We learned the hard way that without order you have nothing. Without rules, you have nothing. If you do your duties and your fair share, you won’t get any problems; that’s a Netzach’s guarantee.” Andy offered a smile. Thomas cocked his head to one side and took in the man’s features.

He was around six foot tall, well-built, and he wore thick padded clothes, not too dissimilar to those favoured by martial artists. His receding hair was bordered by a pair of glasses. His hand seemed to be glued to the sword hilt. “Nice toothpick,” Thomas quipped, nodding towards Andy’s weapon.

Andy chuckled and, with a grace and speed which surprised Thomas, whipped the rapier out and held it en garde in the time it took the average mayfly to pass through puberty. “Toothpick maybe, but while you’re wasting energy flailing around with whatever piece of crap you’ve foraged from a bin, this little stinger will have already lobo’d the chomper that disturbed you. In. Twist. Out, and rinse, obviously.”

“Fair play, mate. Though I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen you in action. Met enough people who talk the talk, walk the walk and who think they’re some kind of undead killing badass. It’s only when they’ve been turned into finger food by a group of those bastards and are begging for mercy, whilst drowning in their own fluids, that they tend to admit that perhaps they were a little on the over-confident side,” Thomas chided.

“C’mon, this here is the floor where the public Remedials take place and any announcements. If you don’t fuck up, you won’t be standing there looking out at the rest of the camp. Over here…” Andy walked past Thomas to a large noticeboard, where pictures and graffiti were haphazardly laid out.

Thomas pulled himself to his feet and followed. As he got closer he could see that each picture was of someone unique. Under most were scrawls and messages. “What is this?”

“This here is the memorial wall. Not everyone we’ve lost is on here, but most. Since we got this place set up, we’ve lost eleven men, women and children. The worst was seven in one night. Trust me, don’t ask about the Night of Douglas, you really don’t want to know.” Andy looked over the wall; his eyes rested on one picture longer than the others. “Let’s go,” he said brusquely.

They walked around. Andy pointed out the toilet blocks. With no running water, they consisted of a number of buckets filled with sawdust, rubber gloves and bleach.

They walked past the kitchen and a motley collection of plastic furniture which formed a makeshift dining area. “Does everyone have jobs here?” Thomas asked, eyeing up the chef who was skinning a squirrel.

“The Gaffer tries to get people to do what they’re skilled at. We’re lucky that we have a couple of decent cooks. A few ex-army types, they make up Grimm’s guards. Most others though were office workers, shit, we haven’t actually made anything in this country for twenty odd years. Everything was offshored. People here are skilled at photocopying and bitching at the water cooler.” Andy pointed to various people. Some were sweeping, others helping to clean clothes and pick up the used paper plates from lunch.

Thomas looked around. “So what duties are there then? If you don’t have a very particular set of skills?”

Andy picked up a snapped plastic fork and put it in one of the drone’s bin bags. “Mostly tasks around here. Bit of gardening, though being winter, it’s more about preparation for spring right now. Otherwise, it’s sentry duty on the main roof, and two on the sign, by the angel.”

“Ahh, the angel. The one that doubles as some kind of punishment crucifix, yeah?” Thomas retorted.

Andy looked Thomas in the eye. “Yes, that’s right. Strike Two, ten lashes and a day on the angel. If you don’t learn to do your duty, you’re on the slippery slope to Strike Three.”

“Which is?” Thomas enquired.

“We’ve only done it once, no need to tell you. Most people learn after Strike One and a week in the coal scuttle out front.  One hundred and sixty eight hours feels a lot like a lifetime or three when you’re in a six-by-eight box. Especially if we get real popular with the locals and chompers are banging on the lid. Trust me.”

Thomas rubbed his stubbled chin. “So what else do you have as duties around here. Sitting and looking out for trouble don’t really float my boat.”

Andy turned and walked towards the foldaway beds, arranged in equidistant rows. “Well, there’s always Heads-Up detail. Pairs walk the perimeter and deal with any build-up of chompers. Sure, we’ve got a lovely metal fence here, but if those dead bastards congregate in any sort of numbers in one place, it’ll be as much use as a cocktail dress on a pig. There’s some sharp bits of broken rebar we use to deal with them. Once in a while, we go outside, drag the bodies into a heap and burn them. Gets them out of sight; unfortunately, not out of smell.”

The pair walked over to the nearest bed. “This one here is yours, mate. Just make sure before you sleep, you put this on your arm.” Andy held up a looped rope, pinched in a slipknot. The other end ran to a metal loop embedded into the floor at the head of the bed, where it was firmly tied.

“Didn’t realise I’d walked into Camp Kinky. What’s next? We all rub each other down with baby oil and tug ourselves off to the strains of Kumbaya?” Thomas toyed with the rope. Andy shot him a look of disdain.

“Tell me something, champ. It’s the dead of night, everyone’s asleep, and old Mister Heart Attack croaks it. Except, these days, people don’t stay dead do they? So he gets up, walks over to his neighbour dreaming of better days next to him and starts to have himself a midnight snack, and so on, and so on. Before you can recall Pi to two hundred decimal places, most of the people in this place would either be reanimated or a human feedbag.”

“Hmm, not a bad idea. Sounds like you guys have thought of everything,” Thomas said, testing the reach of the rope and seeing that it provided ample room to sleep, but not to wander.

Andy nodded. “As I said, we’ve learnt the hard way. C’mon, let’s go see your pal.”

They trudged over to a long narrow room, which was contained behind a door to one side of the factory. Ten immaculately made beds were laid out, each with a loop of rope by the pillow. Only one was occupied. A woman, dressed in blue scrubs, was standing with her back to them, leaning over the patient.

“Chopper, this here is Thomas. He was the one who made sure Bartholomew here was still breathing,” Andy called across. The woman reverently placed her patient’s arm back on the bed and turned around, removing her surgical mask as he did so.

The woman was around five and a half foot tall. She had shoulder length curly black hair, olive skin and a face that made her look like she had just finished her child labour shift for Cucci or Bolex.

“Charmed.” Chopper extended a limp-wristed hand towards Thomas, who shook it vigorously, just to see if it would fall off.

Thomas shot Chopper a look of utter bemusement. His mouth gawped open. Chopper rolled her eyes and said in a posh accent, “Yes, yes, I have the demeanour of a choirgirl, but the handshake of a serial killer, and let me guess. You want to know why a woman of such standing is called Chopper, not Doc, or Bones, hmm?”

Thomas nodded absently. His jaws chattered against each other. “Os…gwelwch…yn…dda…fyun”

“You’ll like this,” Andy said, and rested back against the wall.

“In the early days, when people weren’t too sure how the virus was transmitted, we believed that in order to arrest the development of Necro-Activation, the afflicted appendage had to be removed. Immediately. Post haste. Usually with something as delightful as, say, an axe. There was one chap back in Ingleby, I had to remove his leg with a length of cheese wire. Barbaric perhaps, but it was a work of art,” Chopper simpered, stroking hair from her eyes.

“But, everyon—” Thomas started to say.

Chopper raised a hand topped with French polished nails to stop him mid-flow. “Yes, yes. As I said, this was in the early days. Andrew here and
him upstairs
found me knee-deep in hands, legs, arse cheeks and a few,
ahem,
old chaps, if you know what I mean. Not sure I wanted to know how it came to pass that their…
Johnson
, had happened to be exposed to a zombie’s mouth. Ask no questions. Hear no lies.”

Andy nodded towards Bartholomew. “Chopper, how’s he doing?”

Chopper turned to her patient, smiled and then looked back. “He’s doing rather well now. A few hairy moments in the first few days, some confusing contusions which would simply not go down. But most disappointingly, nothing to chop orf.” She flashed Thomas a big perfectly toothed smile.

“That’s good. Least I didn’t get locked up in a broom cupboard for nigh on a week for nothing,” Thomas added. Spotting something unusual on a tray of surgical implements, he asked, “Hey, what’s that triangle thing?”

The sound of rapid clapping filled the room. “Oohhh, Andrew, he is simply divine is he not, a real keeper. You sir, have a good eye. This is a little invention of mine; hoping to patent it, when…well, the world sorts its bloody self out. This, my learned friend, I call a vert-chock.” Chopper picked up a palm sized plastic plectrum with a blunt metal tip. “Please, I implore you, ask me again what it does.”

Thomas shifted uncomfortably. He looked across to Andy, who was trying to stifle a laughing fit. “Okay. Chopper. What does it do?”

Chopper closed her eyes and emitted a sound like an octopus was using all of its tentacled arms to pleasure her in a way she had never experienced. “Mmmmm. That’s good. Well, as you know, if you die, then you come back as one of the untreatables, those blasted cads out there. Well, we had a chap in here a while back who was terminally ill. The Gaffer fretted for ages as to the most humane way to stop him coming back. So, I made this. The chap passed one afternoon, Andrew here rolled him onto his front, and I applied the vert-chock between the fifth and sixth vertebrae. With a firm strike from a hammer, I was able to sever the spinal column and prohibited him from coming back. I was exultant.”

Andy coughed. Chopper looked down nervously. “Yes, okay, so it wasn’t a complete success, the head did regain some…motor function, did become a bit bitey, but I’m sure Bill Gates didn’t strike it lucky with Gates-box number one, or whatever he did first time round.”

“We best finish up. See ya later Chopper.” Andy pushed away from the wall and bid the doctor farewell. Thomas followed quickly.

“Zan,” she said loudly. Thomas turned around with a puzzled look on his face. She smiled sweetly. “Doctor Eva Zan, pleased to make your acquaintance.” The two men walked back out onto the factory floor.

“She’s…erm…”

“Yes. Very,” Andy agreed, and the two headed towards a door beyond the beds.

“What’s in there, mate?” Thomas asked.

Andy stopped and peered through the window into the storeroom. “Ahh, this is the new group The Gaffer started up, for some of our more…mentally delicate brethren. Sure you’ll meet them later on. Come on, I’ll show you around the perimeter.”

Thomas looked into the room and nodded slowly. “No worries, I can see you and your toothpick in action, let’s go. First off though, are the bogs over there? Need a quick piss first.”

May 14
th
2014

19:51

The car edged into the bay slowly. Francis just managed to brake in time to stop it clunking the one opposite. He was still transfixed by the sky. It had begun a few minutes ago; he guessed it had started in the east, a wave of red sweeping across the sky. The clouds took on a pinkish hue, and everything was bathed in a blood-soaked glow.

Given the hour, the hospital car park was relatively empty; with the day visitors gone and simple procedures completed, the only residents now were those called here through accident or tragedy.

“Do you work here?” the receptionist asked, pointing a chewed biro at Francis’ security badge.

“No, ma’am, just came straight from my work. I’m here to see my partner, Diane Webber. Can you tell me where she is please?” Francis asked gently. The lady disappeared within the PC, tapping out the name with her index finger in a slow, rhythmic beat. Her lips moved in mute sync to the letter she was typing.

“Says here that Diane Webber is in Maternity and Neonatal, that’s Beatrice Ward. Take the stairs to level one, turn left and it’s signposted from there on in sir,” she said, pointing to a stairwell behind a set of doors.

Francis nodded his thanks and followed her directions.