Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (4 page)

More zombies came now. I was exhausted, most of the food had been lost and my initial adrenaline buzz had worn off. I wanted to curl up on the floor and cry.

Then I saw Sam. He came charging out of the front door with his knife in one hand and the shears in the other, like some crazy warrior charging into battle. Knife and shears met with heads, slicing and dicing nicely. I was pretty in awe of him then, and he looked kind of … I had to focus. Zombies surrounded us.

‘Just clear a path back to the house, Sam,’ I said. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

‘I’m doing that just by being out here.’

He smiled and gave me wink. That’s all it took, just that one lapse in concentration. A zombie snuck up behind him and pulled at Sam’s arm that held the shears. Sam lost his balance, dropping the shears at the same time, and fell backwards onto the zombie, both of them ending up sprawled across the bonnet of a Ford Focus. I could see the zombie as it prepared to bite down on Sam’s shoulder, so I slammed the shopping basket at the zombie near me and launched myself towards the Ford. Sam tried to stand up but the zombie hung on his back. I knocked zombies out of the way like skittles, no time for stabbing. The zombie’s teeth were so close to Sam’s flesh that I could see the glisten of yellow saliva on his skin. He tired to stab it with the knife, but missed. I dropped the basket now, raised the scissors in both hands and leapt the rest of the way. I fell onto Sam as I plunged the scissors into the zombie’s head. It was forced back, the blades coming all the way through its head and denting the car’s body.

I lay on top of Sam, both of us breathing heavy from the shock. He lifted me off him then and put me on the tarmac. ‘Good time to run,’ he said in my ear, and we both bolted for the house.

Once inside we held onto each other for a long time, me still holding the scissors and Sam still clutching the knife. Maybe it was only a few minutes, I don’t really know. Until Polly, her arm wrapped in what looked like one of my shirts, asked, ‘So, how much food did you get, Sophie?’

None. I got fuck all.

November 26
4pm Day 13
Yesterday was the darkest day yet. We pretty much spent the whole day in Sam’s room with the blind down, huddled under our blankets, starving. We hid from the zombies that groaned and pushed against the front door.

They know we’re in here and they won’t go away.

Earlier today I took a careful peek through the curtain in my old bedroom (that still stinks of putrid flesh from when it was occupied by Richard) and I could see the shears laying by the Ford Focus, and, frustratingly, some food that fell from the shopping basket during Thursday’s doomed mission to Sai’s News and Wine – some tins of stuff, beans and tinned spaghetti, I think, and a loaf of bread. So near but yet so far.

All looked pretty bleak until a couple of hours ago when Sam made the miraculous discovery that one of the gardens to the left has an apple tree, complete with apples. How we didn’t notice them before, I don’t know. So he nipped over a couple of fences to get some, and he also found some strawberries, too (I guess due to the weather being so mild or else they wouldn’t be growing this time of year), so we’ve stuffed ourselves with fruit. I’ve got a bit of a stomach ache, but I feel a million times better than I did yesterday.

We’ve hatched a plan. We can’t get out the front way any more, so we’re going to climb over the back garden fences to the right and get out onto the street that way. Then we can attempt round two of mission to Sai’s. It’s not going to be that easy. There are six tall fences to scale before we get to the street, and God knows what’s lurking inside any of those gardens. We’re doing it tomorrow. It’s getting dark now, the black clouds making it darker still. It looks like there might be a storm brewing.

November 27
9.05am Day 14
Today’s the day we head over the fences. I don’t know how long it’ll take us to get over all six, and I’m not a very good climber – pathetic, actually.

Sam went back to the apple tree, a couple of gardens along, but there weren’t any left. I guess the neighbour (Mrs Barton, I think her name is. Moody old cow) is still alive and doesn’t want to share. I can’t blame her, though. Once all her food’s gone she’ll have to go out there too.

3pm Day 14
Going over the fences was uneventful, other than it was hard work and I have now got shit loads of splinters in my hands. Polly acted a complete pain in the arse, moaning the entire way how traumatic this ordeal was for her … ! And when she tore a hole in her t-shirt – OMG – anyone would think that was a greater tragedy than all the fucking lives that’ve been lost during this fucking, shitting zombie outbreak. Let’s get this into into perspective everyone, I mean, anyone who thought they’d had it bad since the crazy apocalypse began, think again, cos Polly just tore a hole in her favourite Topshop t-shirt!

I made the mistake of actually making this point to her and she just wielded her new weapon (the metal curtain pole from the dining room window with a four inch kitchen knife taped to the end of it) at me and said that I don’t understand. She’s right, I don’t understand … her.

Our problems only really started when we got to the shop. The place had been ransacked since we were there on Thursday. Everything edible or useful had gone. I could have cried. No, I did cry.

4.05pm Day 14
Stood by the shop, we started to attract zombies and had to move somewhere. So we decided – due to the total lack of choice – to head into town and go to Asda. I’m glad those fuckers were slow and we lost our little fan club with no trouble. Tram Road was deserted. On the way down, I suddenly remembered the petrol station, or more precisely, the petrol station shop. It would save having to risk our necks walking all the way to Asda.

‘Good, thinking, beautiful,’ Sam said to me with a wink and a smile that, I hate to admit it, did make me feel a little excited (what is happening to me?).

We didn’t see any zombies until we crossed Harbour Way. I could see a big group of them up the hill a bit but, thankfully, they hadn’t seen us. If they had, I didn’t think any of them could catch us, but better not to attract them and risk the narrow one way road being blocked on our way back. We had to creep across the road. I held my breath the whole way. I waited for Polly to moan about scuffing her shoe or something like that and bring the lot of them after us, but it didn’t happen.

The petrol station had been in the process of being redeveloped before the outbreak. I could see the tall metal fence that closed off the area where the petrol pumps had once been, now just big holes in the ground. The shop had been, until the outbreak, still open and running like normal, so it was a good bet for supplies.

We drew along side the metal fence, and I jumped when a zombie, still wearing its yellow hard hat, started slamming itself against the fence, growling like an animal as it tried to get at us. Polly shrieked, waking up the rest of the workers. Five zombie workmen now slammed themselves against the fence in a frenzy. There was no doubting how hungry those dead guys were. So we hurried on until we reached the shop.

‘Shit!’ said Sam as the three of us looked at the busted door and the smashed windows.

I could already see that the inside had been trashed, but I walked up to the door to get a better look anyway, the masochist in me wanted it well and truly rubbed in. There was nothing left, other than the smashed in body of a zombie – I assumed it was a zombie, there was not much left of it to know for sure. I realised then that the town wasn’t ours at all. Someone else, someone not as nice as us, owned this town. And they’d got better weapons.

6.10pm Day 14
Someone had beat us to Folkestone’s food stock. We decided to stick with our revised plan A and go to Asda. But we still had a bit of a walk ahead of us. When we got to Tontine Street I stopped. Sam asked what was up but I couldn’t speak. For me, it had started here, that morning, almost two weeks ago now, when I tried to get to uni to find Laura. So many of my friends had been in the UCF building before it had been sealed up by men in white hazmat suits.

I found myself walking down Tontine Street.

‘Where you going?’ asked Sam.

‘I have to see.’

I walked off without waiting to see if the others would follow. I just knew they would. Polly poked me in the arm. It hurt. But when I turned to ask her why she’d done it, I saw her looking at the newsagents. The place had been trashed just like the others, with its door busted in and windows smashed. I knew there’d be no food inside.

We carried on, stepping over abandoned belongings like handbags and, the most depressing things of all, forgotten toys, some dirty and flattened by many feet. There were bodies, but not many. This is a world where bodies didn’t stay down any more. The blockade was still in place. Police tape hung across the desolate road keeping nothing in or out, looking like the useless piece of plastic it was. Empty police cars sat across the street, one with its bloodstained doors open.

We stopped when we got to the enormous plastic sheeting that had been erected across the opening of the back entrance to the UCF building and looked at each other.

‘What’re we waiting for?’ asked Polly. ‘You want to know, right?’

So we found an opening in the plastic, a sort of overlapped slit that we could slide through. On the other side, the building looked just like it did everyday when I came here for lectures, only deserted, no one outside having a cigarette or sitting chatting at the tables. We walked right up to the glass doors and peered into the café area filled with tables and chairs. Many of the chairs lay on their sides. Food, broken mugs and paper cups littered the floor. Some books and bags. Of course, the doors were locked. There was no way we could get in but I shook one of the doors out of frustration and sorrow and anger. It was noisier than I thought it would be, noisy enough to wake the dead.

The double doors on the other side of the café swung inwards and a mass of hideous zombies staggered into view. More came up the stairs to the right. They lumbered towards us. ‘Fuck,’ said Sam. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

I didn’t move. The doors between us and the zombies were strong. We were safe. And I was fascinated. As the zombies reached the doors and started banging on the glass with their rotten hands that left greasy, bloody smears, I stared at each and every one of them. Their putrid mouths opened as they groaned their frustration at me. I could see their longing and their need as they pushed and shoved against each other, all vying for front row.

I could see Laura. I could see Tate and Anna, and many other faces that I recognised as either friends or just background people, mostly Performing Arts students. I touched the glass where Laura reached for me, my hand pressing against her ravaged one. Her dead eyes contained no recognition.

‘Ah, sweet,’ said Polly next to me. ‘I’m sure we can bust you in if you want to play with your friend, Sophie.’

I ignored her. I felt a hand on my waist and knew it was Sam. He pressed into me.

‘Just come away,’ he said, and he pulled me gently back.

I hadn’t been aware that I’d started crying, but my cheeks were soaking wet. Sam turned me to him and wiped them away with his sleeve.

‘I’m sorry.’ It was Polly who spoke. I looked at her. ‘I’m a bitch,’ she said.

It was then that the mural painted on the wall around the outside seating area caught my eye; a quote from Albert Einstein in big black letters painted onto a white background: ‘Creativity is contagious. Pass it on’. I’d read those words, or maybe just glanced at them, so many times on the way into uni, but they had never made more sense. I started laughing.

We left and headed into town. There were a few zombies about but we managed to avoid them. Polly pulled us into Wilkinsons. Of course! I’d forgotten about Wilkinsons. We didn’t have to walk all the way to Asda. We crept through the deserted store and, thankfully, found food on the shelves. We filled carrier bags with as much food as we could carry. We picked up some long bladed kitchen knives and some claw hammers, anything that we thought would make a good weapon. Satisfied, we headed home.

November 28
1.25pm Day 15
Today’s a good day. I’ve got a reasonably full stomach and I’m listening to Queens of the Stone Age in Sam’s room. He’s sitting next to me, his leg resting casually over mine. Which isn’t that unpleasant at all. Polly’s downstairs making tea. We have milk – yay!

I left some food in Mrs Barton’s back garden earlier. It felt like the right thing to do.

I’ve had an email from my family. They’re ok, thank God. And I’ve caught up with some friends back home on Facebook. Not many though.

November 29
9.40am Day 16
I’m trying to convince the other two that we should get straight back out there and bag some more food. We’ve got enough to last a good week if we ration it well. But I had a thought that we’d be wise to, like, stock up. I mean, there’s not going to be any more deliveries coming. What’s there now is it until … until we learn how to grow it ourselves, I guess. So I think we should get our mitts on as much as we can before someone else does.

I wish we could just go online and sign up for Waitrose home delivery service. That’s what my mum used to do. A whole weeks worth of groceries dropped off on your doorstep. Mum suggested that she arrange a weekly delivery for me when I left home to come here. But I said no. I mean, I would have felt like a right twat, mummy doing my shopping for me. But actually, I think my housemates would have loved it. Especially Richard. That stoner would have been in his element with such service. I can imagine him now, answering the door, joint in hand, ‘Hey, good to see you, Munchies Dude! Um, like, totally awesome, brah. What? No M&M’s, that sucks dude’. Ok, I may be overdoing the Californian surfer dude thing a bit (seeing as he wasn’t from California, or a surfer, or even much of a dude), but … it’s only been two weeks and I’m already forgetting Richard’s voice. How long will it be before I forget how my parents and Jake speak. But they’re ok. Remember, they are ok. But Richard … The last thing I heard come out of his mouth was a whining groan that I took to mean, ‘Dude, it’d be awesome if I could just, like, totally eat your brain.’