Tiredness Kills - A Zombie Tale (8 page)

As the monster approached,
Ant held up the can of Harmony and aimed and pressed the nozzle, releasing a
jet of flammable droplets into the air whilst simultaneously flicking the
lighter. Nothing happened. The lighter refused to light. Cursing himself for
not being a smoker, Ant frantically flicked and flicked and sprayed and sprayed
until finally- just as Mega Mouth was in biting range- the two elements joined
together in glorious matrimony and a long thin flame was born.

 
The monsters clothes went up in flames
immediately, turning it into a thrashing ball of fire. Yet still it moved
toward Ant, its flesh dripping off its face like melting candle wax.

“Oh shit!” cried Ant moving
backwards, away from the disaster that he had created.

 
Scott however, seeing the debacle unfold, had
managed to spot a small fire extinguisher fixed to the wall and grabbed it
fast. Having used one before in a lesser crisis, he had the pin pulled out and
the lever pressed in barely a second.
 
Before long, the toothy attacker resembled a sinister snowman.
Remembering that fire cannot kill a zombie fast, Scott whacked a blow to its
messed -up head with the heavy extinguisher, smashing the skull and finally
sending it to its original maker.

“We discussed the whole fire
thing a year ago, Ant!” he exclaimed, throwing the heavy red container at a smaller
zombie, knocking it clean off its unsteady feet.

“I've got marbles too!”
announced Ant a bit sheepishly.

“Fancy a game do you, mate!”
spat Scott.

“I'm improvising here with
what I've got! Okay?” Ant replied indignantly, emptying a bag of marbles on the
floor away from them, presumably to topple the undead.

“What other amazing objects
of ingenuity do you have hidden about your person, Mr Langston?” asked Scott-
half sarcastically, half amused.

“Nothing!” answered Ant,
trying to discard something on the floor- but it was too late. Scott had seen
it.

“Ha-ha-ha! Mentos and coke?
Fine for a party trick.....but really? That's all you got?”

Ant was getting madder and
madder at this point. Banter was one thing; but he was feeling plainly
ridiculed.

 
“Right!” he said, picking up an upturned
chair. “Follow me, with
my
umbrella!” And off he charged straight
towards the handful of zombies that appeared to just be milling around the KFC
outlet, confused by the overpowering aroma of the Colonel's secret recipe.

Aiming straight for them, he
began swinging the chair around him, a bit like you would swing a set of
Nunchucks
. Slightly unconventional, but
 
surprisingly
 
adequate for this situation; and together with his 'pissed off' frame of
mind, Ant set about knocking the decaying brood to the floor whilst shouting
“Finish them off with
my
umbrella!” to a shocked Scott, who was
following behind, violently stabbing eye sockets in hapless skulls as they lay
writhing on the ground.

'I should have pissed him off
earlier,' thought Scott, but decided to keep it to himself.

 
Less than twenty minutes later- and
 
leaving behind a trail of enough blood and
gore to feed a pride of lions for a week- Scott and Ant had reached their
destination and were on the other side of the fast food counter ripping apart
and maniacally consuming the flesh of several poor chickens (the irony being
completely lost on them).

Jon, Josh, Kelly, Jordan, and
new recruits
Atilla
and Sian crept up the stairs,
although it was not so easy now having been weighed down with a few weapons
from
Atilla's
secret stash. The journey through the
long corridor behind the
foodhalls
- which had
previously been a piggy back- slaying for Kelly and Jordan, and a mad trolley
dash for the others- was now filled with the stench from Hell as the rancid
blood and revolting body parts that lay strewn around the floor began to clot
and rot. Gingerly, they made their way to the restaurant. So far not a moving
target in sight, but as they rounded the corner of the large Eat-In kitchen
that lay behind the restaurant they realised that they still had some work to
do.

When faced with a number of
dehumanised creatures shuffling around in a mindless stupor of just hunger
alone, not even the hardest of hearts
can
 
help
but be moved. Josh gave a rather
touching but hurried speech about how not to differentiate between sizes of the
creatures, but everyone there knew that he meant that they would possibly have
to kill children.
 
To make it easier,
Josh used the words “We need to release them from their hideous prison,” which
bought about a sympathetic nod from the other five. However, he then he
followed up with “So let's go kill the bastards before they fucking bite us!”
which killed the sombre mood slightly as they stepped out once more unto the
breach!

Sian, having now stopped
crying, took her home- made, long handled axe in both hands and summoned up her
alter ego (who was a Lara Croft- type character that had previously seen her
through a few tough times of her own). Taking a deep breath, she whispered the
words 'It's not a party till something gets broken' and ran towards a zombie of
similar height to herself. Wielding a weapon that weighed almost as much as she
did wasn't easy, but the plucky young lady decapitated that slowly- rotting
monster in one swift swipe.

 
“That one's for Charlie!” she said, wiping
blood from her forehead with the back of her hand.

 
As she turned round, she witnessed the
murderous onslaught between her colleagues and her enemies being played out in
the exact same spot where they usually queued for their dinner. “I'm never ever
eating here again!” she announced with gusto.

The final slaying of the
final zombie was not brought about by the actions of one of our six, but they
did witness it. From high above them came a Tarzan-like yell followed by the
unmistakable cry of “Don't get me excited guys!!” They looked up at the high
ceiling, and to their great delight another of their colleagues looked down at
them.

“Greg!” they chorused.

“Watch out!” he shouted back
from his position high in the rafters.

 
Leaning
 
out
 
far as he could from the
small ledge that he teetered on, he picked the strangest looking attachment on
his Swiss army knife and sliced through the thick wire that was supporting the
huge, heavy ornamental light fitting above them. It came crashing down directly
upon the head of the one zombie that they hadn't noticed- even though she was
built like a brick shit house and would have scoffed them all in one sitting.
As she fell to the floor, her head cracked open like an over- ripe honey dew
melon.

“How you getting down, mate?”
called Josh

“More to the point, how did
you get up there?” Asked Jon.

“Not a clue. It just
kinda
' happened!” laughed Greg “But I sure weren't getting
any of that Zombie
shizzle
on me threads!”

“Jump, we'll catch you!”
offered Jordan, beckoning the others to form a circle beneath him. It took
several shouts of “One, two,
hree
!” but eventually
Greg landed in the arms of his friends with not a speck of zombie
shizzle
on him.

Moving around the building
like a tribe of nomadic warriors, smeared with blood from battle and holding
their crude weapons aloft, they searched each area carefully.
 
When they were convinced that nothing lurked
in the corners, they moved on to the next area. It wasn't long before they had
reached the KFC unit in the far corner, and as they got closer Kelly, using
large arm movements, motioned for them to stop. “I hear something!” she rasped
to the others.
 
Sure enough, a low
moaning, groaning sound seemed to be coming from the interior of the fast food
outlet. “Listen!” she hissed as more slurping and gnawing sounds were
heard.
 
“There are Z's in there. We
gotta
get them
Mofos
!”

It was wholly down to the new
awareness skills that Scott and Ant had acquired that day that they had secured
their survival.
 
Their new, improved hearing
ability when it came to deciphering noises that were not of their making, a
heightened level in their peripheral vision, and the sudden ability to spring
into an action stance that they did not previously possess, all played their
part in keeping the twosome alive as the other group of zombie slayers swarmed
in and almost killed them as they scoffed and slobbered over their free Bargain
Buckets.

Much merriment was made as
the realisation dawned that they had survived the almost un-survivable. A
circumstance of epic proportions had been thrust upon them, and they had stood
up and been counted. Yes, they hugged and they kissed, who wouldn't?

They ate fried chicken and
slurped gallons of Coke. It was like a medieval banquet as all seven told and
retold their heroic tales of valour and near misses. It took a while to free
Jordan from his cling film preventative mask, but Kelly managed it with her
Rambo-like knife. The ultimate selfie was shown around quickly before the
battery finally died, and they all chattered excitedly about the things that
they couldn't wait to get back to (
wifi
being one of
the main things, but, of course, loved ones and alcohol ranked pretty highly
too).

“Well, what we waiting here
for?”
 
Ant suggested, desperate to get
home and change out of the now ridiculous- looking wedding attire and wondering
if maybe he could still get the deposit back on it.

“Ye, let's go home!” added
Josh, looking at Sian and wondering just how many man points he was owed.

Stepping through a sea of
spilled blood and chewed bodies and a stench that quite frankly they had now
become accustomed to, the mildly traumatised but valiant troupe headed towards
the slightly ajar doors of the main entrance.

They were only feet away from
freedom when one of the bodies on the floor began to move. Nobody noticed as
the bloody demon slithered like an eel in the bright red lava and grabbed onto
Attila's leg. The vicious teeth had pierced the Hungarian's leg, and by the
time the others had drawn their weapons in an attempt to kill the bastard and
free their friend, Attila knew it was too late for him.

“GO! GO NOW!” he commanded in
his unflappable, yet authoritative manner. Of course, the others tried to argue
against him, desperately pleading to free him. Yet deep down they also knew it
was too late; they had witnessed on several occasions now exactly what the
result of one bite would lead to.

 
Very calmly Attila reached into his jacket
pocket and took out a hand grenade that he had placed there when they had left
the maintenance office.

“No Attila..... Don't do it!”
begged Kelly. “There must be some other way!”

“There
ees
no udder way!” he said sadly. “You soppy
Eenglish
vill
argue about who
vil
kill me
and
zen
none of you
vill
kill me and
zen
you
vill
be sorry and I
vill
chase
you and
eet
you! Now get
ze
fuck away from 'ere I am pulling
ze
pin!”

As if to prove his point, he
held the pin by the fingers of his other hand so that the others needed no more
encouragement. They ran for the door, prising it apart and squeezing through
the narrow gap with the kind of speed that they had never mustered before, each
of them shouting cries of “Don't shoot we are clean. Don't shoot!”

Atilla
sat down on top of his destroyer, who was still
gnawing on his leg, and said calmly “Come, my poor friend. Let
uz
get out of
zis
nightmare
also!” and he bravely pulled out the pin.

Thankfully, Scott, Ant, Jon,
Josh, Jordan, Kelly, Greg and Sian had fled some distance by the time the blast
ripped through part of the building, sending several large shards of glass
flying through the air, ripping through the heavy curtain of material and
landing onto the car park, narrowly missing them all.

As the debris fell and the
huge plume of smoke cleared they looked around, expecting to see the
congratulatory faces of the military, the relieved tears of loved ones, and
rather a lot of press reporters- all waiting to hear their survival stories.

“Where is everyone?” Kelly
enquired, the first to voice their thoughts.

 
They looked around, their hearts filling with
dread and their veins turning to ice as the awful truth became clear. It was as
much a bloody battlefield out here as it had been in there.

 
They made their way onto a slope and from up
here they could see the motorway.
 
It
stretched to the horizon, cluttered with the remnants of multiple pile ups.
Fires had broken out in random clumps for as far as they could see, and smoke
billowed into the surrounding countryside. It looked like Hell on Earth.

“Wait, there's movement!”
said Scott. “People are still alive. We need to get to them!”

As all eyes zoomed in to see
the other survivors in the distance, it soon became clear.... they were all
shuffling……..