Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (12 page)

The biggest problem we have is that the machinery the builders are using to make holes in the concrete for the fence posts is very noisy, and is attracting zombies.

I hope that the electricity doesn’t fail any time soon. But I guess people survived perfectly well before electricity, didn’t they? Obviously, or none of us would be here. We can do it again.

December 18
12.30pm Day 35
So, I went to a party at Googies last night, organised by Liam. He figured we all deserved a bit of fun after the whole watch-someone-turn-into-a-zombie-before-our-very-eyes thing. Polly came, though only to moan about the noise initially, but she ended up staying, sans Leanne. Kay sang a few numbers. Then we all sang a version of ‘I’m Dreaming Of A Zombie Free Christmas’.

Talking of Christmas. Liam is organising a big Christmas day lunch for everyone in the safe zone, to be held in Asda’s restaurant. Keith and Matt are going to do the cooking and Hannah is sorting out the seating and the decorations. Then we might go to Googies for a party later. I can’t believe it’s only a week until Christmas day. I’ll miss my family. But maybe I’ll get to visit them soon.

After our sing-song, someone put Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on. I started prancing up and down on the half full dance floor downstairs (my version of dancing. I have no shame or rhythm). Polly gave me an I-can’t-believe-you-are-doing-that look as she strutted past me on her way to the toilet. Then I saw Sam. He waltzed down the stairs with some blonde I didn’t recognise. She was all giggly and hands all over him and he looked to be enjoying it. In our previous life, before the zombies, Sam would always have a girl hanging around his neck at uni, often it would be a different one each week, though he’d had his faithful favourites. He reminded me, right then, of what a sleaze he really is.

Sam and the Blonde stood at the edge of the dance floor flirting like mad. The Blonde kept flicking her hair out of her face and leaning towards Sam just too fucking close. He lapped it up, every now and then putting his hand on her waist and the pair of them moving to the music. I wanted to go over there and slap her up the stairs and right out of Googies. But why, pray tell me – WHY? I was fucking jealous, that’s why. Damn it.

I felt an arm on mine. I looked round and saw David. I realised that I’d stopped dancing (I call it dancing, ok, and I’m sticking to that).

‘You ok, Soph?’ he asked.

I looked at Sam again – with the
Blonde
. He looked up and saw me. The smile dropped of his annoyingly lovely face and we stared at each other. The Blonde carried on flicking her hair and giggling but Sam only looked at me.

‘Soph?’ I turned to David and looked into his temptingly lovely face – Sam who? ‘You want a drink?’ he asked. David put his arm around my waist and spoke the words close to my ear.

‘Oh, yeah. Sure.’

‘Blinding. I, er … what would you like?’

‘Oh, whatever …’

David let go of me and strolled off to get a couple of plastic cups of whatever. I looked for Sam, but couldn’t see him anywhere. I could see the Blonde, right where Sam had left her ... chatting to some other guy.

2.50pm Day 35
Sam’s been a bit off with me today. He was in bed when I got back from Googies last night, either asleep or pretending to be. He’s been out most of today, helping with the barrier. Still a lot of work to do.

Polly’s just been telling me about a safe community in Wales that she discovered on Facebook. They’re well ahead of us, apparently. They’ve got a secure compound somewhere in the Welsh countryside, with generators for when the electricity goes, a well for water, as well as a fresh water stream for fishing. They’ve got animals: chickens, pigs and cows, and have land to farm. They’re totally self sufficient. Pleanne want to go. What’s wrong with our community? I don’t want to desert anyone here, and the idea of going somewhere new freaks me out. I’m shy.

Anyway, I just wanted to grab Polly by the shoulders and shake her. I mean, what a bloody cliché – A team of survivors journey to the ‘safe zone’ they’ve heard rumours of, only to find no one there but zombies and horrible danger. God, have her and Leanne never seen a zombie movie?

December 19
2.30pm Day 36
I got woken up this morning by an alarm going off. I didn’t worry too much. I mean, the lookouts on the roofs quite often set alarms off to warn the ground crew of approaching zombies, especially now that the builders are making so much noise putting up the barriers. The alarms usually cut out after a few seconds. This alarm carried on. Then more alarms started going off. ‘Get up, Sam!’ I said, jumping out of bed. ‘Move! I think something’s up.’

‘Huh … wha …?’

I threw Sam his jeans and then climbed into my own jeans, almost falling in my haste. I pulled a jumper over my pj top. Sam had come round by now and sat on the edge of the bed, ramming his feet into the legs of his jeans. Dressed, we bundled out into the living room to find Polly heading for the front door of the flat with her hammer and knife and stick combo. I was surprised that she’d torn herself away from Leanne.

‘This doesn’t sound good,’ she said.

Me and Sam grabbed our weapons and followed after her, down the stairs, through the communal front door shared by the two flats and out onto the street. It sounded like every rooftop lookout had sounded their alarm. I could hear shouting and see people running up towards Sandgate Road. Keith ran past me from Googies, he had an eight inch chopping knife in one hand and a long carving fork in the other.

To my left, a crowd of zombies had formed on the other side of the metal fence that blocked off Rendezvous Street in the direction of Grace Hill, and they rattled it with decaying fingers. They wanted to join the fun.

Me, Sam and Polly bolted up the road after Keith. We turned into Sandgate Road and I could see a wall of zombies lumbering forwards, attacking the builders at the top end, outside Debenhams. I could see Michael with Peter, his dad, near the top of the hill. Peter crouched on the ground, a hand clutching his chest, while Michael held onto him, a knife in his free hand. He looked from his dad to the zombies that staggered towards them.

‘Fucking move!’ I screamed at Michael. ‘Drag him out of there!’

Peter collapsed fully to the ground, and Michael knelt beside him. Michael grasped his dad by the shoulders and shook him, his knife laying forgotten on the ground next to him.

I’m a runner and so pretty fit, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get to Michael fast enough. The zombies had almost reached them. Michael stood up and tried to drag Peter by his feet. ‘Run Michael!’ I yelled.

I cursed the space between us. Too far. I knew Michael wouldn’t leave his dad.

A zombie placed its rotten hands around Michael’s neck. Michael dropped Peter’s feet and turned and punched the zombie, knocking it back. He fell to his knees and grabbed his knife, turned and thrust the knife into the zombie’s chest. Damn it! Its chest, Michael – really? Its chest? I was almost there, but too late, the zombie bent down and bit into Michael’s scalp. Michael screamed, or I guess he did, I couldn’t really hear over my own scream. Another zombie grasped Michael’s arm and sank its teeth into his flesh. Both zombies bit and tore at him, while another bent down and bit into Peter’s throat.

I stormed over and hit out at the zombies with my claw hammer but more staggered over, overwhelming me and pushing me back. I could hear Michael’s screams now. Fortunately Peter never regained consciousness, and soon Michael fell silent, too.

Sam grabbed my arm.‘There’s nothing you can do,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

We launched ourselves at the zombies, knives and claw hammers raised. I saw Keith stab a zombie through the eye with his carving fork, while Kay impressively brained zombies with what looked like a bottle of Chardonnay. Hannah had her knitting needles, Matt his knives, Liam his axe and then I saw David, baseball bat bashing through zombie’s heads.

So many zombies. People went down like flies. Builders that had been killed by zombies had already defected over to the side of the dead and now rose up to attack the living. Those builders still alive at the barrier attacked the zombies with whatever tools they could lay their hands on. One used a jack hammer to purée zombies.

I stabbed a zombie. As it fell, I saw Hannah a little way off. She plunged a knitting needle through a zombie’s eye, but when she tried to pull it free, her hand slipped on the black, gooey blood and she lost her grip on it. A zombie grabbed her. She put her hand to her stash of knitting needles in her belt, but not fast enough. The vile, ravaged zombie bit her shoulder. I couldn’t hear her cry from where I stood, especially over the sound of fighting around me, but I saw her face contort with pain. She pulled a knitting needle from her belt and rammed it though the zombie’s ear. Hannah collapsed onto her knees like she was praying at an altar. She didn’t move as zombies descended on her, covering her from my view.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I pounded zombie’s heads with my hammer, roaring with anger and hate. I wanted to destroy every last one of the stinking, rotting fucks. I had lost sight of Sam, Polly, Kay and Matt, but I could see Liam splitting heads with his axe, yelling ‘Fuck yeah!’ and ‘Fucking Awesome!’ as brains and skull went flying. Keith was cutting some pretty cool ninja moves with his knife and carving fork.

More zombies lumbered into Sandgate Road, while their numbers swelled from everyone of my people that they killed, the new zombies rising instantly on death. I could feel myself being driven down the hill as I fought. Fucking losing battle or what?

I felt something touch my arm and I immediately turned, claw hammer raised for the kill. I saw David. ‘Shit! I thought you …’

‘This is fucked up, Soph,’ he said. ‘They’re slaughtering us.’

‘We need to get everyone to retreat,’ I said. ‘Fuck this. Let’s get everyone inside.’

The pair of us starting yelling at survivors to take cover. I didn’t know how many people were left alive by this point to even hear us. It was a bloodbath. David pulled me further down Sandagate Road. We’d got as far down as the top of Rendezvous Street. Zombies had us cut off from Sandgate Road and Guildhall Street, so we turned towards my flat. I could see zombies rattling the metal fences at the bottom of the street, in the direction of Grace Hill. The zombies must have found a way through the metal fence down there because a group of five staggered up towards us as we came sprinting down. They had reached the communal door that led to the stairs up to the flat. It must have been left open when we went out that morning.‘Leanne!’

I knew that the door to our flat would be locked (David had fitted us a new lock) but I knew if Leanne got trapped up there, she’d never be able to fight her way out. In a fight, Leanne’s about as much use as a feather.

I raced to the door, David following. A zombie had already staggered over the threshold and I could see it groping its way to the stairs.

We attacked the zombies outside, David bashed the brains out of two with his baseball bat, while I stabbed one through the ear. ‘Leanne’s in there, David.’

One zombie left outside, I rounded on it while David disappeared inside. The zombie had one skeleton arm hanging uselessly at its side, the other decaying one reached for me, while the zombie groaned something like,
Please may I eat you
? I answered it with a claw hammer to the head – my way of saying,
No
.

I followed David into the hallway. I could see him stood on the stairs, the body of the zombie at his feet, laying head first down the staircase. David didn’t move or look at me. ‘You ok?’

No answer. I walked up a few steps until I reached him. I saw the bite on his arm then, small but raw, where a skull tattoo used to be. I slipped on the black gore from the zombie’s smashed head. David shot out an arm and caught me. We held onto to each other, sobs rattling both our bodies. I pulled away from David, turned and began kicking the zombie’s body, grunting and screaming. Its stomach burst open, black crap and splodgy innards oozing out, fucking up my biker boots.

David wrapped his arms around my waist and I went still. I turned and threw my arms around him.‘Fucking sucks, huh?’ he said. And that’s how I get to remember David – with the biggest understatement of all time?

‘David, I …’

‘Look, more zombies are gonna be here any minute, cutting you off. Get up to the flat and stay there.’

‘What-what are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to find Sam for you.’

I heard a noise from above. I looked up and saw Leanne hovering at the top of the stairs. ‘And-and Polly. Find Polly for-for Le-Leanne.’

‘I promise.’

‘Make sure survivors get inside.’

‘I will.’

He turned to go. ‘David …’ I grabbed him, pulled him towards me, and kissed him. He kissed me back, my tears soaking his cheeks. In only eight hours that kiss would be deadly.

I let him go. He jumped down the steps and disappeared out the front door, closing it behind him. I sprinted up the stairs to the flat and watched him out of the living room window, swinging his baseball bat at the swelling number of zombies in his path.

Leanne went back to her room, while I sat on the sofa, chewing my fingernails. I waited, hoped, prayed.

I heard something and glanced up to see the front door of the flat open. In fell Polly, followed by Sam. I sprang out of my seat and darted towards Sam. I had a little look behind him, but couldn’t see David. Sam closed the door and then I flung myself at him.‘Steady,’ he said, loosening my arms around his neck.

‘Sorry.’ I pulled back and studied him; his annoyingly lovely face, his bright green eyes, his floppy brown hair. I ran my hands from his neck, down his arms, across his chest and stomach, looking, feeling …

‘I’m ok,’ he said. ‘I’m not bitten.’

‘Thank God,’ I said and hugged him again.

‘I’m ok, too,’ said Polly. ‘Thanks for your concern.’

‘Good. Good,’ I said, not even looking at her. I couldn’t take my eyes off Sam. ‘Leanne’s waiting for you.’ She marched past me and disappeared into Pleanne’s room. ‘David …’