Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (5 page)

November 30
9.30am Day 17
We’re going out again today …

December

December 1
11.20am Day 18
We set off after breakfast yesterday. I was fucked if I was going to climb over all those bloody fences again. So, all tooled up, we headed out the front door like a trio of zombie killing machines. Admittedly, a lot of the zombies had wandered off, leaving only four directly outside our house, but, still, I’m proud of our can do attitude.

I took on a mouldy looking zombie that looked like it used to be a middle aged woman with short spiky hair. Its lips had rotted away completely, leaving it with a permanent toothy grin, and yellow puss dribbled down its chin. I had a nine inch kitchen knife in one hand and a claw hammer in the other. I did a quick mental scan to decide which would do the better job, opted for the claw hammer, and whacked the disgusting thing in the head, angry at it just for being so fucking ugly and messed up.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sam bludgeoning a zombie with a hammer, while Polly used her updated curtain-pole-with-knife-attachment weapon (she’d switched the four inch knife for a deadlier eight inch) to stab a hunched up old lady zombie through the head. Just one more zombie outside the house. I let Polly take it; she looked to be having fun – worryingly. This one, male with its guts hanging out and half its face missing, she took out with her claw hammer.

We were off. If the zombies we encountered on the way had had any sense (which of course they didn’t) they would have done a runner (again, impossible for a slow, decomposing zombie) at the sight of the three crazed and tooled up humans, covered in black putrid blood. I felt infallible. Perhaps a dangerous way to feel in such a risky situation. But without that touch of madness pervading me, I don’t think I could have gone out there again.

We left a trail of rancid bodies in our wake along Warren Road and Tram Road. Down Tram Road, the zombie workmen rattled the fence like monkeys at the zoo. You know, one of them would have been really cute before he died and started rotting. Is it wrong to fancy a zombie? Hmmmmm. I’m thinking it probably is. Yeah.

12.20pm Day 18
At Tontine Street I hesitated. I hated the thought of Laura slowly rotting away inside the UCF building. But I could do nothing. We headed up the Old High Street. Nearly half way up, I heard a banging noise. Then, as we passed The Tattoo Shop, I saw the zombie of a heavily tattooed guy inside. He stood at the door banging a tattoo gun on the glass. He snarled at us when he saw us, his banging intensifying. The tattooed zombie looked to be in quite good shape … ok, I know he was dead, but other than looking gaunt with wild buggy eyes, he didn’t have any obvious injuries other than a small bite out of a dragon on his forearm. He had blood around his mouth, though. Lots of it.

When we arrived in town, we weren’t prepared for what we saw. The place had been trashed. In Rendezvous Street, Googies’ and Djangos’ windows had been smashed in, and tables and chairs had been upturned both inside and out. A broken guitar lay half in and half out of one of Googies’ windows. The Cath Kidston bags had been looted from Moda’s smashed window.

We crunched our way round into Sandgate Road where it looked like the floor had been paved with glass, glistening in the unseasonable sun. I couldn’t see an intact shop front at all. Bodies lay among the shards of glass. Quite a few. Zombies, I presumed. Some fucker – or most likely, many fuckers – had done the town over. Every shop had been looted. Wilkos had been cleaned out of any thing useful. All the food gone.

We crunched our way further up the road. Even places like Bonmarche, the Oxfam bookshop, Waterstones and Clarks had been trashed. So, taking this into consideration, I guessed we were on the look out for a gang of literate middle aged women in comfy shoes.

Boots had been looted, as well as the bakers, and the jewellery shops. We stopped when we got to the corner by Shoe Zone, but I could see that the destruction carried on up Sandgate Road: BrightHouse, Superdrug, Debenhams ...

The three of us turned when we heard the sound of running feet coming from Bouverie Place shopping centre where Asda is. I got my claw hammer and knife ready as the two figures ran in our direction. One, I could see, was covered in blood from a head wound. I heard Polly unleash a roar as she charged, weapons raised towards the figures.

‘Polly, stop!’ I shouted. Alarm bells rang in my head as the figures sprinted towards us. Zombies don’t sprint.‘Polly!’

I ran at her and shoved her sideways into Costa to stop her from committing murder. She slammed into the wall with a grunt and a scream of, ‘What do you think you’re doing, you crazy mother fucking bitch?’ just as the two figures reached us. A young guy, a bit beefy, and a girl in a baggy jumper, both no more than about twenty, and definitely human. Polly refused to lower her weapons though.

‘What happened to you?’ Sam asked the new comers.

‘Take my advice, guys, and don’t go down there,’ said the guy, wiping blood out of his eyes, while nodding his head down towards Asda. He held onto the girl with one arm around her shoulders. His grip was firm and I could see how skinny she was under her baggy jumper.

‘Zombies?’ said Sam.

‘No. People with baseball bats and iron bars.’ The guy pointed to the nasty gash on his head.

‘So, you haven’t been bitten?’ asked Polly.

‘No. Hit.’

‘So … who are these people with baseball bats and iron bars?’ I asked.

‘Well, I didn’t get a formal introduction,’ said the guy in a smarmy tone. ‘But I think they’re the new proprietors of Asda.’

‘
What
?’ said Sam.

‘They’ve taken the place over,’ said the guy still holding onto the girl like a ventriloquist holds their dummy. Though this ventriloquist didn’t appear to let his dummy speak.

‘So … you’ve not been bitten,’ said Polly.

‘No he hasn’t,’ I said. She finally lowered her weapons. But she didn’t take her eyes off the guy.

‘No fucking way,’ said Sam. ‘They can’t take over Asda!’

‘It must be the same people who’ve trashed the town,’ I said.

‘You think?’ said Sam. ‘But they’re not going to get away with it.’ He marched off towards Bouverie Place.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ said the guy, smiling in a
you’ll be sorry
kind of way, but he didn’t do anything more to stop him. I ran after Sam and leapt out in front of him. Polly joined me, but Sam ploughed right through us.

‘I’m not letting them get away with this,’ said Sam, his weapons held at his sides. ‘That’s our only means of survival in that store.’

I almost didn’t even notice the girl. She appeared like a wisp of smoke and tugged on Sam’s arm at the same moment I heard the guy call out from the end of the street, ‘Come back here, Leanne. Now! Don’t get involved.’ But she ignored him.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Seriously. Don’t. They said they’d kill us if they saw us again.’

Just then I heard a shout, a big booming shout, from the direction of Asda, ‘Oi! Fucking clear off!’ I could see a big guy, even bigger than Leanne’s fella, striding over to us from the store, iron bar in hand. ‘Bit of advice, you might wanna run now, arseholes,’ he said, slamming the iron bar down in his hand, an action that may well have broken every bone in most people’s hands.

‘Yeah?’ said Sam, holding up his knife and claw hammer.

‘Sam. Stop it. Come away,’ I said. ‘You’re going to get yourself killed.’

‘No, Sophie. They can’t get away with this.’

More guys came out of the shop, not quite as big as the first guy, but still big and holding an array of bludgeoning type weapons. They started running towards us, though they were too big to do anything more than jog.

We turned and ran. Leanne struggled to keep up, but her fella grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him. We ran down the hill, feet crunching on glass, towards Rendezvous Street. I glanced behind us and saw that the gang had stopped. They stood, weapons held conspicuously, on the corner by Shoe Zone.

We carried on down to Rendezvous Street, but zombies now staggered towards us from Church Street on our right. We had time to run past them before they spilled out into Rendezvous Street behind us, and we headed down towards the Old High Street. The guy slipped, taking Leanne down with him. They both went skidding along the ground, hands and knees torn by shards of broken glass. Sam dived over and, stuffing his claw hammer in the waistband of his jeans to free up a hand, helped the guy up, while I did the same with my hammer and grabbed Leanne. I pulled her to her feet. I couldn’t believe how light she felt. I grasped hold of her skinny arm, not wanting to touch her raw palms. Crying, she tried to keep up with me. I could have sprinted all the way home in a flash, but I couldn’t desert any one of them.

Zombies lurched up into Rendezvous Street from the direction of Grace Hill and The Old High Street, cutting us off. We couldn’t go back because the zombies from Church Street staggered along just behind us.

‘The scaffolding!’ said Sam.

We sprinted for the scaffolding around the Oriental Buffet Chinese Restaurant on the right hand corner of Rendezvous Street. The horizontal bars of the scaffolding started low enough down for even a pathetic climber like me to manage. I dragged Leanne there and shoved her up ahead of me while I shoved my knife into my waistband. She cried and winced, having to climb with her cut up hands, but she did good and made it up to the highest level of the scaffolding in no time at all. Polly practically knocked me out of the way while she climbed up. She’d put her hammer in her waistband, but she held onto her makeshift spear, which hampered her ability to climb. I thought she’d never get out of my way. I followed her, while Sam and Leanne’s fella climbed up along side me.

The zombies closed in below us. I had almost reached the top, my elbows on the walkway of the scaffolding, about to hoist myself up, when something grabbed my foot. I looked down to see a zombie of a young guy wearing a pair of green fluffy animal slippers. Funny how your mind works, but I was quite fascinated by what animal they were supposed to be – a frog? Snake perhaps. But then frogs and snakes aren’t fluffy. It really started to annoy me. The zombie tried to pull me down, yanking my ankle towards its open mouth, but I still pondered on identifying the species of its slippers. Arms grabbed hold of my waist from above. I looked up and saw Sam kneeling on the scaffolding walkway. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of my jeans and pulled. I went up, and, still irritated over the slippers, delivered a kick to the zombie’s face. It let go of me and I went upwards to land in Sam’s arms.

We took a peek below. Not good. We found ourselves surrounded.

Thankfully, the Oriental Buffet had a low multi pitched roof, so we could easily climb onto it from the scaffolding and travel over it without too much difficulty. The problem, though, came in the shape of a courtyard that the Oriental Buffet and the other buildings along the street sat around. The roof of the Oriental Buffet connected to the other buildings across the courtyard by a narrow pitched roof over a gate that led into the courtyard. We would have to climb over that. Polly and Leanne went first and cleared it easily enough. I went next, crawling over the narrow roof on my hands and knees. I made the mistake of glancing down to my right into the courtyard. The drop might not have been that high, but I could see three zombies in the courtyard below and the courtyard gate was closed.

Sam went next, followed by Leanne’s fella. Being the biggest of us, he struggled with the narrow roof. I saw him going, but we were all too far away on the roof of the next building. If he had fallen to the left, onto the street he might have been able to outrun the zombies below. At least he would have stood a chance. But he fell to the right – into the courtyard.

Leanne screamed and the rest of us leapt to the edge of the roof to see. The poor bugger found himself in a gladiatorial, lions’ den situation as he tried to dodge the zombies in the enclosed space. Three against one. Man vs Zombie. It all happened pretty quick. Leanne cried out his name – Simon! – and Sam threw down his knife. But Simon had been cornered by the zombies and couldn’t reach it. A zombie grabbed hold of him and another bit right into his head. Simon shrieked, Leanne shrieked louder. Sam lowered his legs over the edge of the roof.

‘What are you doing?’ I said, pulling him back.

‘I can’t do nothing!’

‘He’s been bitten, Sam. You can’t save him. And if you go down there, you’ll get bitten too.’

‘I can’t let him die like that.’

‘Do you want to die like that?’ I asked. ‘Because if you go down there you will. They’ll be no way up, Sam. I’m not losing you over some guy who’s name I didn’t know until two seconds ago!’

Sam tried to wriggle away from me but I held onto him. I could see Polly doing the same to Leanne. Simon’s cries for help ripped through me. They lessened after a while, until they stopped all together. I felt Sam’s body relax so I loosened my vice-like grip. When he turned to me, I could see tears on his cheeks.

Polly had her arms around Leanne who just sat there, silent, numb. Sam gave me a blank look that I couldn’t read.

We sat on the roof of a pizza delivery shop like cats on a night out, licking our mental wounds. We stayed out of sight until the zombies below us quietened down and began to forget we were up there. Then, when they had thinned out a bit – I didn’t time it, but I knew hours must have gone by because I followed the position of the sun in the sky – we climbed across the roofs until we reached as far as we could go, then we climbed down to street level, managing to bypass the remaining zombies.

We legged it back here. Leanne came back with us. I don’t know where she stayed with Simon, she hasn’t really said much. But she’s made no indication that she wants to go back there.

December 2
3.30pm Day 19
Me and Sam have just had it out. He’d been really quiet with me since we got back yesterday. Like what happened to Simon had been my fault. It really pissed me off, so I confronted him about it. He did the whole,
nothing’s wrong, I’m fine
thing for a while. Until he admitted that he got mad at me for not letting him help Simon yesterday, because now he has to live with the sound of Simon’s dying screams in his head. I explained to Sam that I stopped him because I didn’t want to live the rest of my life with the sound of
his
dying screams in
my
head. I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to Sam. I really couldn’t. Knowing that makes everything even worse.