Read Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie Online

Authors: Lisa Richardson

Tags: #zombies

Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (9 page)

BOOK: Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie
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A few of the overhead lights were on inside Googies, but mostly the light came from candles scattered about the place on wooden tables and on the bar at the back. The café felt warm, cosy and inviting. The smell of food filled the place. I munched on my burger, enjoying every mouthful. Then someone handed me a plastic cup of wine. Wine’s not my favourite drink. I don’t mind it but I prefer vodka and lemonade. But, under the circumstances, I wasn’t going to be fussy. And it tasted pretty good.

More and more people came into the café, the atmosphere a sort of chilled happiness with a hint of sorrow – if that makes any sense. Then David showed up with a cardboard box full of nibbles and beers. He saw me and kind of smiled, reminding me of a geek in an American high school movie who’s just seen the prom queen (not that I’m bigging myself up, just painting a picture) and then he continued to shuffle his way through the crowd towards the bar.

Sam stood beside me, by a small table in front of the bright orange wall, drinking a beer from the bottle. He grabbed me by the waist and gave me a one handed hug.

‘We’ve done this, Sophie,’ he said.

I nodded down to the bar area where people busied themselves pouring drinks, serving food and putting crisps in bowls. ‘Well, they did all the cooking and –’

‘No, I mean, we got them all here – out, not so afraid of the shitting, fucking zombies any more, you know?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.’

I saw David then, heading towards the boarded up door. I pulled myself away from Sam and darted after him. I put my hand out to stop him from opening the door.

‘Where’re you going?’ I asked.

‘Oh … Sophie. Um,’ he ran his fingers through his dark hair and looked at me with his big brown eyes, ‘I’m off back up to Asda.’

‘Can’t you stay for a bit, enjoy yourself?’

‘Well, I, er … Duty calls …’

‘David. Asda won’t fall down because you spend an hour or two relaxing.’

‘I know, but …’

‘There are still people up there. They’re quite capable of looking after the place, I guess.’

‘I know. Ok, I’ll stay. But I’m going to go outside and keep watch. Someone should do it, eh?’

‘David!’

‘Really. Someone should keep watch.’

‘Well, ok, I guess. But at least take a beer outside with you. And remember we’re all in here if you change your mind.’ David smiled and headed outside. I took a beer out to him. I felt bad leaving him out there, especially as the rain had got heavier, but he practically shoved me back inside.

I know this might sound weird but last night in Googies was one of the best nights of my life. We must have gone through a lot of food, but we’d made an unspoken decision that we all deserved it. I’m getting to know so many great people: Hannah with her knitting needles and Liam, the bloke with the axe, Kay, Terri, Matt, Keith, and many more. (Michael wasn’t there though. I haven’t seen much of him since the raid). We ate, drank, danced and sang. People started playing some of the instruments laying around the place. And then, when we couldn’t eat, drink, dance or sing any more, we slept where we dropped – on floors on chairs and sofas. I woke up early, laying on the floor near the front of the café with my head on Sam’s chest. He had his arm around me. I looked up to see David though a gap in the boarded up window, sat at a table outside. He glanced up and saw me, then looked away. I think he’d been out there all bloody night.

 

6pm Day 29
It would’ve been the first day of the uni Christmas holidays today. That reminds me, I really want to work on that poem I started ages ago. I haven’t really felt all that inspired recently, poetry wise.

I can see through the living window that it’s raining heavily. I wonder if zombies mind getting wet.

 

6.30pm Day 29
Ok, got a little further with the zombie inspired poetry:

 

Living, I thought I was doing that before.
But their transmission carried a deadly message:
I have never been so aware of my beating heart,
or of my breath as it clouds the window pane,
or of my soft skin as it touches cold, hard glass,
or even of the flesh moulded to my bones.
A body is a precious thing when possessed by
a soul, a functioning brain, a pulse.
Take them away and you are left with rot,
and a contagious, all consuming love.
I’ll not let them have me, but I will always
remember how alive they have made me feel.

 

 

I know it’s dumb. But I quite like it. I might do some more work to it if I can be bothered. But I can’t escape the feeling of what’s the point, because who’s going to care?

I’ve not seen much of Polly or Leanne today. Sam is in his room. I’m going to show him my poem …

 

6.45pm Day 29
‘That’s cool, Soph,’ Sam said after he read my poem. ‘You’re the first of the Post Apocalyptic Poets. We could organise an open mic night at Googies!’

‘Are you taking the piss?’

‘No. I love it. Seriously. Would I lie to you?’

He winked at me and punched me playfully on my thigh, and then held eye contact much longer than necessary. Externally I responded with a smile and a playful punch to his arm. Internally I responded in a manner that involved tingling ... Damn!

 

December 13
12.15pm Day 30
Have you any idea how much it rained at 5.40am this morning? Well, I can tell you that it was a fuck of a lot. Windy too. And how do I know? I was fast asleep in Sam’s room when I heard pounding on the bedroom door. I could hear the rain pattering on the skylight above Sam’s bed, and hear the wind howling. It was dark and I felt disorientated. I could hear Polly’s voice yelling at me and I tried to figure out what I’d done wrong now and why whatever it was couldn’t wait until the fucking sun came up.

The door flung open and in marched Polly, her voice even louder and scratchier on my ears now that a couple of inches of wood no longer separated us.

‘What the fuck …’ grumbled Sam, lifting his head from the pillow. I could just see enough in the dark room to know that he was rubbing his eyes.

‘Christ! You fucking deaf bastards! Can’t you hear all that bloody commotion out there?’

‘Out where, Polly? What commotion?’ I asked.

‘Outside on the street. The woman from the house across the road is shouting her head off. She won’t stop. She’ll attract every zombie in a ten mile radius if she doesn’t shut the fuck up.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Polly,’ I said as me and Sam leapt out of bed and started throwing on the first bits of clothing we could find (Sam only managed to get a t-shirt over his Spider-Man boxers, while I got a jumper over my pjs) ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that if she’s shouting her head off, there’s probably a really good reason.’

As I approached the bedroom door I saw Leanne hovering just back from the doorway, her hand on the door frame, as though she would fall over if she didn’t have the support. She wore a pair of Polly’s pjs. Polly’s fairly slim, but the pjs swamped Leanne’s tiny frame. I wanted to smack her in the face for being so fucking pathetic and useless, and skinny. Even her frizzy blonde hair annoyed me. Argh!

Me and Sam bolted down the stairs. I rammed my feet into my biker boots, while Sam shoved his into a pair of Converse. He didn’t bother tying the laces, and they trailed after him as we scrambled to the table to get our weapons and then to the front door. I could hear the woman – I didn’t know her name then, but I do now: Stella, so I guess it’d be easier to call her Stella from here – I could hear Stella screaming outside.

Sam opened the front door. I could see Stella outside her house, clutching one of her children (the middle one, a girl of about four or five) to her side with one arm as she used the other arm to alternate between waving wildly in the air in the direction of the house and grasping her forehead, while screaming and crying and turning her head this way and that as if looking for some kind of inspiration. Occasionally she would move about in random patterns, dragging her little girl with her.

Me and Sam ran across the road. A drinks can clattered down the street in front of me, driven by the wind, and I could see a couple of big green bins had blown onto their sides. The rain fell heavily and soaked my pjs instantly.

‘My boys! My boys are in there!’

‘Are they ok?’ I asked, which was a totally stupid question. I mean, I didn’t think she was just being informative.
Obviously
they were not ok. Duh! What I’d meant was,
Are they human
?

If I’d thought the rain was heavy when we first came out, it now started pouring even harder, so hard that each drop fell like a stone and hurt my face.

‘I-I don’t know. My-my husband … he … he attacked William, then he came for the rest of us. I managed to get Lucy out. But Tyler, he’s … he’s ...’

‘Ok. Tyler. Where is he?’ asked Sam.

‘His bedroom. I told him to get to his bedroom.’

Sam had already darted towards the open front door. I guess we’ve all seen Spider-Man swinging into the burning building to rescue a little kid. Now Sam, Spider-Man boxers and all, sprinted into the zombie infested house to rescue a little kid. You couldn’t make this stuff up … I followed Sam.

I just heard Stella yell, ‘The back bedroom!’ and I was inside.

 

12.30pm Day 30
It surprised me how much smaller the house was than ours, just opposite. We’ve got a three story place, but the houses on this side are two storey. Ours has a living room, dining room and then a kitchen at the back. This house had a living room, straight into the kitchen, all open plan, and no dinning room. The up side of this being that I could easily see from the front door that no zombies lurked down here.

Sam stood directly in front of me. He turned and whispered, ‘Stay down here. I can handle this, ok?’

‘No you fucking can’t. You’re not going to go all hero on me, Sam. I’m coming with you.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ he said, his lips close to my left ear.

We crept to the stairs, knives at the ready. I could hear an intermittent banging and scratching sound, so I knew we weren’t alone. But I couldn’t quite place where it came from … somewhere above us. Have you any idea how it feels when you are as scared as you ever could be without dying from shock. It’s an almost out of body experience. My heart threw itself at my ribcage like a starving lion who’s just spied a juicy steak on the other side of the bars. My stomach had been set on the fast wash cycle. My hand dripped like a melting block of ice as it clutched my knife. My head, well, that felt totally clear. Unnaturally clear and alert.

We edged our way to the landing. The door to the back bedroom was open and I could see two legs protruding from it. I couldn’t see if the legs had a body attached to them. Me and Sam inched along the hall. The legs twitched and me and Sam raised our knives. I could see, as we got closer to the doorway, that the legs belonged to William. He lay on the floor clutching a wound on his neck with his left hand. ‘Mummy,’ he gurgled as we neared him. I lowered my knife and knelt down beside him, stroking his hair out of his face.

‘No, William. Your mummy’s safe. She outside. She sent me to get you. Where’s Tyler?’

‘I … I don’t know. He ran from my daddy.’

Sam stepped over William, checking out the small bedroom. ‘No one in here, he said, looking at me.

The banging and scratching started up again. Above us. ‘We’ll be back for you, ok?’ I said to William and stood up. Sam joined me and we headed to the staircase to the converted attic. As we crept upwards, the banging grew louder. With no landing up there, the stairs went directly into the master bedroom. We paused and peeked over the edge of the stairs into the room. Everyone, meet Daddy Dearest, busy pounding its rotten fists on the doors of a big wooden wardrobe. Every now and then it would stop banging and put its nose to the edge of the door and sniff. Then it’d start scratching at the wood, trying to get its stiff, dead fingers into the door to prise it open. I could hear whimpering coming from within the wardrobe itself. Tyler.

Me and Sam charged into the room, at the same time Daddy Dearest grasped hold of the top of the wardrobe and started to shake it. The wardrobe, being a big, heavy old thing, not a crappy MDMF thing, began to rock steadily forwards, then back, then forwards … and forwards … and forwards … the wardrobe carried on falling forwards, accompanied by a scream from within, knocking Daddy Dearest backwards. It landed on its disgusting zombie body. Only its nasty, gaunt head, with its bulging eyes could be seen poking out the top.

Me and Sam rushed across the room. Daddy Dearest gnashed its teeth silently at us, pinned to the ground. I held my hand over my mouth for a moment as I watched it. Then Sam plunged his knife into Daddy Dearest’s face. The zombie stopped moving.

We pulled the wardrobe off the zombie, and dragged the body to the small en suite toilet room.

It had gone quiet inside the wardrobe and I had a horrible feeling that maybe the fall had killed Tyler. Or perhaps his dad had already bit him and he’d turned in the wardrobe and sat waiting for us to open the door so that he could pounce on us. I needn’t have worried. Tyler was fine, well as fine as he was ever going to be under the circumstances. He’d gone quiet through shock. It actually took us a little while to convince him to open the door, and that Daddy Dearest had
gone.

Once he opened up, I guided him out of the wardrobe and pulled one of his mum’s cardies from the wardrobe to wrap around his little pj’d body. Tyler was the youngest of the three kids, I’d say around three years old. Then I picked him up and me and Sam wobbled on shaky legs to the stairs. We had a little surprise then – William, pale and gaunt, staggering his way up. Shit! Sam stood at the top of the stairs, totally rigid. I ran over to the king size bed and placed Tyler on it.

BOOK: Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie
5.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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