The Undead. The First Seven Days (24 page)

John Jones is dead, he had crawled most of the way back to the door but the undead got him; two of them are bent on him now, one on his already injured leg, the other on his face.
  ‘He’s almost at the door, why didn’t they come out and rescue him? They could have got him in while we were pinned down.’
  ‘I guess they didn’t want to, Mr Howie.’
  ‘Hmmm… I guess you are right.’
  The door opens and Jimmy gets launched out, still naked. He looks even more battered and bruised now, blood is pouring from his face and there are clear, distinct, welt marks on his back.
  Behind Jimmy, another boy, of roughly the same age, also gets pushed out.
  Several men come out behind them, holding long sticks; one of them has a samurai sword.
  They start pushing the two boys away, beating them with the sticks; hard strikes across the legs and back.
  The boys are screaming out, begging them to stop. Another man then steps out of the doorway, holding a rifle in one hand.
  He looks at the boys being beaten and says something to the men, they stop and all step away from the boys. The man with the rifle looks over and starts walking towards us.
  Dave is over the wall instantly, rifle up and aimed. The man stops and raises his hands up to his sides, then looks at the rifle and seems to realise what he’s doing, he turns back and hands the rifle to one of the other men then starts walking towards us again, arms up and palms facing us, a clear gesture to show that he isn’t threatening.
  He veers around John Jones and the undead who have got to their feet now and have started toward him. Several of the other men are on them instantly, beating them with the sticks, the man with the sword chops down into an undead’s neck, almost severing the head - the undead goes down and he strikes again, taking the head off, which rolls away on the pavement.
  ‘It’s all right, I’m not armed.’
  The leader spits down onto John Jones and carries on walking towards us, stopping a few metres from Dave.
  I start to climb over the wall but the axe handle hanging from my back gets caught and, in trying to keep my balance, I fall backwards. I quickly get back up and walk round the wall; out through the entrance.
  I still have the shotgun, but the barrel is lowered. Dave is standing with the rifle aimed at the man in front of him.
  ‘Easy, Dave.’
  ‘Okay, Mr Howie.’
  Dave lowers the rifle, but keeps his hands in the same position, and I have no doubt that it would take him less than a second to shoot the man, who keeps glancing at the weapon, clearly thinking the same thing.
  ‘So you are Mr Howie? I’m John.’
 
Another John? Carter Street clearly has no imagination when it comes to names.
  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not related to that prick,’ he motions towards John Jones, then looks to the group of males gazing down at him.
  ‘Derek, you’d better finish him off, before he turns into one of them.’
  The man with the sword nods and thrusts the blade into the throat of John Jones, then hacks away, ripping the flesh open. More of the men start beating the corpse; they are clearly angry and are whacking the shit out of him.
  ‘As you can see, he wasn’t well liked around here.’
  ‘What happened?’
  ‘He was always a nasty bastard, throwing his weight around, all the little shits looked up to him though and he had a following - so nobody could really do anything about it.’
  ‘What about the police.’
  ‘They were just as scared of him.’
  ‘His boys must still be in there, what about them?’
  ‘I think your man here did most of them round the other side, he went nuts and sent more after you, but only a couple of those came back. I’ve never seen him so angry; it was bloody great. We took care of the other couple when you lot were shooting each other, and them two there of course…’ He nods towards Jimmy and the other boy; they have moved off down the road and have stopped a few houses down; Jimmy covering his privates with his hands.
  ‘That Jimmy is an evil little shit, untouchable ‘cos of his dad.’
  ‘Who is the other one? Don’t tell me, James? John? Jamie?’
  He smiles,
  ‘Close… it’s Jack.’
  ‘So… what will you do now?’
   Another commotion at the door stops him from replying  - a group of women have got hold of another woman with bleached blond hair and orange looking skin and are forcing her out of the door; she is fighting back at them, thrashing and kicking. They have a tight grip of her arms, but she is screaming abuse and pulling them about.
  A large built woman breaks away and marches up to the men that are standing over John Jones’ inert body.
  ‘Give me that stick, Terry.’
  She walks up to one of the men and holds her hand out.

‘Love, no I can’t.’

He looks at the other men, clearly embarrassed.

‘TERRY, GIVE ME THAT BLOODY STICK.’
  The other men look away or at the ground.

Terry hands the stick to her and the woman snatches it and marches back to the thrashing woman, pulling the stick back and striking at the back of her legs; she goes down to the ground. The other women start kicking at her; blows hitting her stomach and back. The woman starts trying to fight her way back up but is beaten back down and eventually curls up into a little ball.
  The women are screaming at her, spitting down. One of them grabs her hair and yanks her head back, then starts slapping her in the face. Jimmy and Jack start running up, but the men move closer, brandishing the sticks and then they stop still - both of them are crying and putting their hands over their faces, taking steps forward, then backing off again.
  ‘That’s the wife - she was the worst one. Trust me, she had this coming for a long time.’
  I look at the man and he grimaces at the beating the woman is taking. The large built lady drops the stick and grabs at the woman’s feet, then starts pulling her shoes off, the other women grasp the idea and, within seconds, the woman is stripped bare; her scrawny body is orange all over.

John takes a step forward and shouts:  ‘That’s enough, leave her be now.’
  The large built woman spins round and screams back at John: ‘No, you know what she put us through, just cos of her old man. She’s a nasty bitch - so you stay out of this.’
  John raises his hands and takes a step back. The large woman is furious; spittle shoots from her mouth as she screams, then she goes back and pulls the woman onto her feet by her hair.
  ‘YOU CAN FUCKING BEG, GET DOWN AND BEG NOW.’
  The woman drops to her knees and crawls around, sobbing and begging at the women’s feet.
  ‘Look at those saggy tits, no wonder he kept trying to shag us.’
  They all start cackling; joining in with the humiliation.

She’s clutching at their feet but they kick her away, laughing at her. The large woman grabs her hair again and drags her towards the two boys.
  ‘TAKE YOUR FUCKIN’ MOTHER AND FUCK OFF.’
The boys gather the woman up and start walking her away, hobbling and limping from the beating they’ve all had.

John turns back to me, as the women start heading back inside.
  ‘Anyway, Jimmy said what you told him to say. We can leave here if we want to – so we’ll be going – but were to? Where are you from?’
  ‘Boroughfare, it’s near Brighton.’
  ‘Yeah, I know it. Is it the same as here?’
  ‘Everywhere is. I heard a radio broadcast saying that London has gone.’
  ‘Yeah, we heard about that. John Jones said someone told him.’
   He doesn’t mention the other part of the radio message.
  ‘What about the Forts?’ I ask.
  ‘What Forts?’
  ‘The radio message said for survivors to head for the Forts on the coast.’
  ‘That fucking shit! He told us the message said that the cities had gone and we had to wait for help. The fucking wanker… is that where you are going?’
  ‘Eventually, I’ve got to find my sister, then we’ll be heading down.’
  ‘Where is she?’
  ‘London.’
  ‘You said that London was gone.’
  ‘My sister contacted my parents - just before the phones stopped working – and she said that she was locked in her flat.’
  ‘Shit! Well, I was going to ask you to stay with us - we could do with the extra protection - and we’ve got plenty of food - John saw to that.’
  ‘Thanks mate, but I can’t.’
  ‘Well lads, if you change your mind? I guess we’ll stick here for today and see about them Forts tomorrow. Did they say which ones?’
  ‘No, but I guess any of them will do the job.’
  ‘I might see if we can send someone out to check first.’
  ‘Good idea.’
  We all shake hands, awkwardly.
  ‘Right… well, I’ll let you boys get on then.’
  ‘One more thing mate, sorry… but how do we get out of here?’
  ‘To London…? Well, that’s easy enough...’
  ‘No, er, we got to run another errand first, something else we got to take care off. We’re heading towards Salisbury.’
  He raises both his eyebrows and nods knowingly.
  ‘Ah Salisbury – yeah, I understand. Don’t worry - I won’t say anything. You need to head for Southampton.’
  ‘Is there another way, without going through the towns?’
  ‘Yeah, head north on the London road, then work your way over - but it’ll take much longer.’
  He gives directions to a junction, then explains that we have to decide; north through the countryside or west to Southampton which will be much quicker - but will keep us in the towns.
  Dave shoulders the rifle and takes the shotgun in his hands. My shotgun is loaded and ready and I can feel the weight of the axe hanging from my back.

We turn from the barricade and walk away.

‘It will be dark soon, Mr Howie.’
  We are walking through quiet, suburban streets; the signs of devastation are all around us. It look likes a war zone with bodies lying everywhere. I can hear flies and insects buzzing round them; slowly infesting the corpses with disease.
  A few more days and this will be a very dangerous place, not just with the undead but also from the risk of decaying bodies festering in the baking summer sun.

We have walked in silence for sometime; the area is oppressing me.
  Portsmouth certainly put up a good fight, judging by the number of scattered bodies. If they had been victims of the undead they would have turned by now, they must be either undead that have been put down, or people that have been killed - but we don’t get close enough to look.
  In some places, we have to step over the corpses as the ground is too thickly littered with them to go round.
  Coming here has sucked the spirit out of me.

Up until now I had a purpose, a plan and somewhere to go. We still have that plan but the last few hours have taken their toll. Seeing real people being killed, not undead, but real, normal people has left me feeling empty. The world is crumbling at such an alarming rate, everything we know has been taken away and men still want to hurt each other.
  I’m not some naïve dreamer and I know what people are capable off, but seeing it happen and the speed at which it took place has left me appalled.
  There is a great feeling of shame inside me. Shame that we had to do what we did. Shame that I beat Jimmy and made him walk naked back to the barricade; I was no better than them.
  The clear lines of distinction between right and wrong have merged. John Jones was an evil psychopath - of that there is no doubt – but, in his mind, he was providing protection - maybe he felt that he was doing the right thing.
  He wasn’t a James Bond baddie - stroking a cat and laughing evilly - he was violent and nasty but he had the sense to build that barricade and gather food and he offered protection to people who couldn’t defend themselves.
  I guess this was how the world was in times gone by, the strong protecting the weak, but at a cost. The end result was that we took John Jones out but the people that replaced him could be worse, far worse.
  They will get a taste for power and it will corrupt them.
  At the supermarket, it was common for shop workers to be promoted and enter into the management team. Some of them were hungry for it and people could see that they were different, most of the lads always said they wouldn’t change, they would represent the floor workers and do what they could to make it better for them: better hours, better pay, more breaks.
  For the first few days they would keep the banter going and sit with the floor workers, but, within a short time, they changed.
  The money was only slightly better, but just wearing a shirt and tie marked them out and, before long, the gap was there - evident and clear to see.
  I know because I did it, I tried to keep in with the lads, stay as one of them and I swore to myself I wouldn’t change - but I did. I made myself get out on the floor with them.
  When I didn’t have my own duties I would be working alongside them, but then familiarity breeds contempt and some would try to take advantage, which was uncomfortable at times.
  I remember the general manager taking me to one side, just after I was promoted, and telling me to keep a healthy distance from them.

The buildings are pressing in on me; there is hardly any sound.