Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (7 page)

December 7
10am Day 24
Archie and Michael are here, ready to head out for some more door to door. Sam reckons that Archie fancies me cos he’s always hanging on my every word. Please – he’s fifteen! He’s cute though. If he was four or five years older … But I don’t think he fancies me, anyway. I think he’s just a nice, bright kid who’s interested in people. He’s had us all in stitches this morning, even Polly. I haven’t really done much laughing in a while and it’s nice to feel normal again.

The laughter has died now and we’re all quiet and contemplating this evening’s showdown. I’m getting used to fighting zombies. But fighting humans … The big guys aren’t going to go because we ask them to. How far are we willing to go to get Asda back? 

3pm Day 24
I can hardly speak. I’m gutted. I feel so guilty. I’m crying while I write this and I hate myself more than you could ever know. We went out this morning – Me, Sam and Archie went one way, while Polly, Leanne and Michael went the other – hoping to round up a few more survivors for our army before this evening. I didn’t know it would end up with one of my best men down.

Shit.

We were knocking on doors in Dover Road when it happened. There hadn’t been a zombie sighting the whole way there. I guess we got overconfident. Archie had started a story about how him and a few of his mates had dared each other to go into the sex shop on Dover Road – I didn’t even know there was one – while he and Sam climbed the steps to one of the houses.

‘They shoved me in there,’ he said. ‘I fell in through the door to come face to face with a display of vibrators …’

I listened to Archie while I stayed on the street to keep look out, my claw hammer in my waistband and my knife gripped firmly in my hand.

Sam, knife in one hand, knocked at the door.

‘I felt so embarrassed,’ Archie carried on.

No reply.

‘I knocked loads of them down …’

Sam knocked again.

‘It made so much noise that everyone in the shop looked at me …’

No reply.

‘I went to –’

BANG! The sound, something hitting the other side of the door cut Archie dead. Then silence. Sam knocked again, and BANG! – BANG! BANG! BANG! Sam and Archie bundled down the steps as the door started to rattle, knocking into me, and we sprinted down the street.

When we stopped we took a moment to recover.

‘Let’s try this one,’ said Archie. Sam followed him up the steps and knocked on the front door, while I remained on the street fulfilling my lookout duties. It was so quiet, I probably didn’t need to. Maybe if I’d gone up too …

While they waited, Archie turned and looked down at me and gave me a huge, cheesy grin. I smiled back, and Sam looked round and all three of us started grinning like idiots. I guess it just hit us right at that moment how scared we had been just then, with the whole banging on the door thing. Then the door behind Sam flung open and something lurched itself at Sam’s back. I tried to scream a warning to him, but I couldn’t get it out fast enough. Sam went tumbling down the steps to land at my feet, the thing clinging onto his back. His knife went skitting out of his hand and along the pavement. I raised my knife, ready to plunge it into the head of the thing on Sam. But then I heard, ‘Help me.’ It had been just a whisper and I almost didn’t hear it at all. ‘Kill me,’ it said again. I looked down. The thing on Sam’s back was almost unrecognisable as human. It had been torn to shreds. Its face nothing but raw meat, an eye missing and it had been scalped. Bite marks covered its arms, huge chunks of flesh missing, veins and muscle hanging out. I could see the white of bone. One bloody trouser leg didn’t have a foot protruding from the end of it. The other foot, I could see, had a couple of toes missing. I couldn’t even tell if the thing was a man or a woman. It was still human.

‘Please, kill me,’ it said again.

I started crying. Sam tried to buck the thing off, while Archie looked down, aghast, from the top of the stairs. It clung on to Sam, hugging him with ravaged arms. I could hardly see because of the tears. Sam had given up trying to wriggle away from the thing, and now tried to reach his knife. I don’t believe in God, but I thought then,
if you do exist, then please forgive me.
I raised my knife and I stabbed the thing through its head. Red blood spurted out of the wound, not the thick black stuff of a full blown zombie. I knew it had been infected and would have changed to become a zombie. But I had just killed a human being.

I just stood there crying. Sam crawled out from under the body and grabbed his knife. He stood and came over to me, and wrapped his blood streaked arms around me. Then I heard Archie scream. I looked up and saw that a zombie had him, its rotten arms around his shoulders. It must have come out of the house. Shit! We’d been so stupid not to realise that there had to be one in there. How else had the thing that grabbed Sam got in that condition? Stupid!

Archie tried to stab it with his knife but, with the zombie on his back, he couldn’t get the angle right. Me and Sam darted up the steps together, knives raised. But too bloody late. I saw the look in Archie’s eyes as the zombie bit him. His eyes didn’t just register pain, but fear and regret … 

I threw myself at that fucking zombie, grabbed it by its manky hair and flung it back against the door frame. I plunged my knife into its head so hard that I pinned it to the wood. I left my knife there and turned to see Archie sitting on the top step, a hand to his neck, blood oozing from between his fingers. I sat down beside him and put an arm around him and I cried. Sam sat down too, his arms around both of us. I felt like a mother that had just been told her child has terminal cancer. I had only just met Archie, but at times like these powerful friendships are formed fast.

We walked him home, to his parents’ house. They cried when they saw him. It was heart breaking. I had broken my promise to his parents; I hadn’t kept their little boy safe.

Telling Michael was horrible. He raced straight home to see Archie. I don’t know exactly how much time he has, Archie that is. When Richard got bit he’d changed by morning, but I don’t know how long it took. I know that by tomorrow morning Archie won’t be Archie any more, and I worry that his family won’t be able to kill him.

December 8
8pm Day 25
As me, Sam, Polly and Leanne walked into town yesterday evening for our rendezvous in Rendezvous Street, I tried to push thoughts about what happened to Archie out of my brain. I had to focus on what lay a head. But the image of Archie at the moment he got bit bore into my retinas and wouldn’t bugger off. I wanted to cry so that I could wash the image away. But how would it look if I turned up to meet the troops crying like a baby?

Even though we arrived fifteen minutes early, a group of eleven men and three women stood waiting for us among the debris from Googies, Moda and the rest of the trashed shops and cafés. They had a variety of weapons ranging from a baseball bat, long bladed knives, an iron bar, a golf club and a few hammers. One man carried a spade, while one of the women had a handful of lethal looking 16 inch knitting needles. Seeing them all there, tooled up, brought it home to me what we were about to do. We were about to have a big bloody fight (or a bloody big fight). My stomach lurched at the thought and I wanted to go home.

It might not come to a fight
, I told myself as my feet crunched across broken glass.
We might be able to sort this amicably
.
Right
?
RIGHT
?

More weapon toting people turned up. By 5pm Sam did a head count – 62 people, mostly men and ranging in age from teenagers up to, I guess, fiftyish. We had to keep them as quiet as possible so that we didn’t attract zombies or give the game away to the big guys up at Asda. Of course a few zombies turned up, but with so many of us, we took care of them quickly and easily.

Mr Green Fluffy Slippers (remember him?) staggered up from The Old High Street. But, lucky for him, he ended up changing course and he lumbered off in the direction of Grace Hill. I don’t know why. Would a single zombie be afraid of a large group of humans with weapons? Would they have any remaining brain power to work out the odds and conclude that they were onto a downer? I doubt it. Perhaps he just saw something or someone else that caught his eye. I don’t know.

Sam had just started explaining our plan to the group – basically, a few of us would go on ahead and lure some of the big guys out, then the rest would steam in, hopefully negotiate a settlement, if not, overpower the ones outside, infiltrate the store and tackle anyone inside – when Michael turned up carrying a cricket bat.

8.05pm Day 25
Michael stood at the back of the group. I pushed my way through the crowd towards him. ‘I didn’t think we’d be seeing you,’ I said.

‘This is important. Archie would’ve …’

‘How-how is he?’

‘Alive. But he’s pretty sick. It’s like he has the flu. He …’

I put my knife in the waistband of my jeans, but kept hold of my claw hammer, and put the arm of my free hand around Michael. ‘Shouldn’t you be home with your family?’ I asked.

‘I need to do this. If we beat those guys, then we’ve got a chance against the zombies,’ said Michael, tears on his cheeks. ‘If we’re fed and strong, then we can fight the zombies. Maybe even get rid of them for good.’

‘But your parents …’

‘They don’t know I’m here.’

‘For fucks sake, Michael, stay safe. I can’t … I can’t give your parents any more bad news, ok?’

‘I’ve every intention of doing that, Sophie.’

Sam had finished his speech. Everyone seemed happy and ready to go. So me, Sam and a couple of volunteers headed off to act as bait. I held my hammer so tightly in my hands that I thought I might well crush the handle. That might be enough to scare the big guys off, maybe?

We strode into Bouverie Place shopping centre with confidence. The two big guys outside Asda spotted us straight away and shouted at us to clear off, raising their iron bars in warning. Me and the other two, a girl about my age called Fiona and a thrity-something bloke called Max, stopped in the square outside the shops but Sam strutted towards them, ‘Yeah? Whatta you gonna do about it if we don’t, eh?’

One big guy stomped a couple of steps towards Sam, iron bar held in front of his chest. I mentally willed Sam to stop, maybe even back away, but he squared up to the big guy, his claw hammer held out before him.

‘You want to know what I’m going to do?’ said the big guy. He wore a sort of leotard thing that body builders wear. I remembered thinking,
isn’t he cold in that
?
It’s bloody freezing out here
, when he raised the iron bar.

‘Sam! Run! Fucking run!’ I screamed.

Sam showed some pretty nifty footwork and he sidestepped the blow that whooshed down towards his head, then he turned and darted out the way. We all ran around the square outside the store, shouting and yelling as we went, hoping to draw out some of the other big guys. It worked. Five more big guys carrying iron bars (did they get a job lot from somewhere?) came out of Asda and, along with the other two, lined up outside the store. Sam gave a whistle, the cue for the others, and our army emerged from four different directions – every street that led into the shopping centre. They gathered outside Asda and surrounded the big guys.

‘What the fuck is this?’ one of the big guys said, eyeing the crowd.

‘We’re taking Asda back,’ said Sam, pushing his way to the front.

‘You’re what?’ said another of the big guys. This one had biceps as wide as his head.

‘We don’t want any trouble, right?’ said Sam. ‘We just want food. There’s enough in there for everyone. We want you to let us in, let us all in and share the food, right?’

‘Ain’t gonna happen, kid,’ said one of the big guys, stepping forward and squaring up to Sam.

‘Then I’m going to do this …’ Sam swung his claw hammer and slammed it into the big guy’s stomach. The big guy doubled up, crying out with pain. ‘GO! GO! GO!’ shouted Sam, and about a third of the group charged at the bewildered big guys, while the rest, headed by Polly, Leanne and Michael, stormed into Asda.

The big guy Sam hit in the stomach recovered remarkably quickly and came at Sam with his iron bar. I dashed over and hit him across the back of his head with the handle of my claw hammer. He fell forwards and skidded across the ground. Sam jumped out of the way, and then, as the big guy went to get up, Sam went for him, kicking him in the stomach and his head. Again and again. I could see that the big guy was well past the point of ever getting up again. ‘Sam. Leave him!’ I said. I ran to Sam and grabbed him by the arms. ‘Leave him,
please.
’

Sam backed off but immediately launched himself at another big guy who was whacking one of our guys with his iron bar, despite the fact that two of our people pummelled him with a baseball bat and a walking stick from behind. The big guy didn’t seem to notice the beating he received, and went psycho on our guy as he cowered on the ground, his head a bloody mess. Sam whacked the big guy in the head with his claw hammer. The big guy went down to land on top of our guy. Someone pulled our guy out, but he seemed pretty unresponsive. I saw four of our people beat another big guy to the floor. I joined in to take down a big guy who was brutally kicking a woman in the stomach after she collapsed. We overpowered the last three big guys. All seven had been reduced to bloody blobs. I tried not to think about whether any of them were actually dead. Emotions had run high.

Before any of us could make our way to the entrance, a few guys (not particularly big ones) piled out of the store. When they saw us, their twisted faces distorted with even greater horror. At the sight of their fallen comrades, terror gripped them and they ran.

8.15pm Day 25
I sprinted into Asda and bombed it up the stationary escalator. The big glass doors that led to the lower level of the car park were shut. I turned right into the main part of the store and saw some of our people. One frogmarched a guy (again, not so big) past me, towards the escalators. A scuffle still raged on further down the store, at the far end of the clothing department.