Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (25 page)

Craig got to his feet. I had reached halfway down the stairs by this point, the others following me, and could see that Craig and Sam were seconds away from being swamped by the hoard of zombies in reception. A zombie grabbed hold of Sam’s other foot and he could no longer hold on now that he had two zombies pulling him. He slipped down the rest of the stairs and into the oncoming hoard. ‘NO!’ I screamed.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and, putting my gun down, I threw myself forwards and managed to grasp hold of Sam’s hands. He clung to me and I pulled. Stewart and Dave reached me and both took hold of a hand each, and together we pulled against the zombies that tried to drag Sam across the floor.

Craig threw himself at the zombies that held Sam, stabbing one in the face, and punching the other with his free hand. One dead, and the other dazed from the punch, the zombies both released Sam. Me, Dave and Stewart all fell back on the stairs as Sam came sliding up. Sam got to his feet, pulling me up with him.

‘Craig. Come on,’ I yelled down the stairs. He’d got himself surrounded. I picked up my gun and started down the stairs. But that’s when I heard him scream.

‘No. Fuck. NO!’ I cried. I went to carry on but I felt a hand on my shoulder, pulling me back. I turned and saw Sam. ‘Let me go. He just saved you.’

‘I hadn’t been bit,’ said Sam.

‘He’s right,’ added Stewart. ‘Let’s move.’

I turned to see Craig engulfed by zombies that pulled him to the ground. I shrugged myself free from Sam and carried on down the stairs. ‘Sophie!’ Sam called after me.

I stopped where I had a view of Craig and raised my gun. For the second time that day I shot a human being.

We ran up the stairs, zombies following us.

‘Shit! Where do we go?’ said Charlotte.

Zombies staggered behind us on the walkway. I turned and swung the butt of my gun at one. The zombie wobbled sideways and fell over the edge of the walkway to land on the remaining hoard in the reception area below.

‘This way,’ said Dave, and he sprinted towards one of the doors off the walkway.

We found ourselves in a classroom. Me and Sam were last in so we closed the door and then we shoved some desks against it.

‘What now?’ asked Sam.

The banging started on the other side of the door. I tried to reassure myself that zombies can’t open doors, but the fact that there were so many out there made shit out of that reassurance. The door rattled. Dave opened one of the large windows.

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ said Gemma. ‘I’m not jumping out of a bloody window.’

I went over to the window and had a look down. We were only on the first floor but it was high enough. One good thing, no zombies on that side of the building.

The door opened a fraction, the desks stopping it from opening all the way. Dead fists pounded on the door, while bony fingers prised through the gap and the desk began to move bit by bit.

‘We’ve got no choice,’ I said. ‘Everyone out the window!’ Zombies had managed to squeeze themselves through the gap in the door and started filing into the room. The choice between being eaten now or jumping out of a first floor window, perhaps sustaining broken legs and being eaten as we crawled home was upon us. ‘GO,’ I shouted at the others as I used the butt of the gun to keep zombies back from the window. Gemma helped out by braining them with her microphone stand. Then Liam joined us. The others dropped any weapons or belongings that they couldn’t stash through their belts out the window ahead of them, then climbed out the window.

Once the others had jumped, me and Gemma headed to the window. I could see that the they had all made it ok – in that they could all stand, though Stewart looked like he was limping a bit on his left leg – and for the first time I noticed the cars parked right under the window, breaking the drop somewhat.

‘Catch!’ I called out below and lowered the shotgun down. Dave caught it.

Me and Gemma climbed through the window and lowered ourselves so that we clung on the the windowsill by our fingertips. Then we let ourselves drop, hoping for the best. I landed on the roof of the car below, and rolled down onto the bonnet, crashing into Gemma.

‘Ok?’ I asked her.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I think so.’

We both climbed off the car, and Dave handed me back the shotgun. Then we all had a nervous wait for Liam. When I saw a sword plummeting to the ground, followed by Liam throwing himself out the window, I realised I’d been holding my breath. He let go of the window and fell onto the same car I had moments before, just as zombies came into view at the open window. Dead arms grabbed at the sky.

30th March, 5.20pm
Our trip to Academy FM ended in disaster … Hmmmm, that’s an understatement. Two people died because of us, and I can’t come to terms with that. We had to abandon the Transit van, seeing as it was surrounded by zombies, and hot wire one of the cars in the car park to get home. Dave and Gemma went their own way. I don’t know where.

Understandably, morale has been low in the house this week. And to top it all, Stewart’s guitar has a huge crack in it from the fall from the window at the Academy. It still plays, though.

Sam continued to avoid me during the week. Yesterday I cracked, well, I couldn’t take any more. I mean, when the person you want to be with doesn’t want to be with you, it really fucking hurts. But when they won’t even explain why …

Last night, I went up to bed at about 12am and waited in my room until everyone else had gone up too. Then I crept back downstairs, to the living room where I found Sam curled up on the sofa under a duvet. He wasn’t expecting me and had nowhere to run.

‘Sam. We need to talk,’ I said, standing in the doorway. All I could see in the dark room was a lump under the duvet. The lump didn’t move. ‘Sam. SAM! I know you’re awake. You don’t fall asleep that fast. Don’t fucking ignore me.’

I walked further into the room and stood beside the sofa. Sam lay facing the back of the sofa, and I could see his dark hair – getting long now from not being cut in the last four months – spilling out the top of the duvet.

‘Can’t this wait until morning, Sophie?’ Sam didn’t move when he spoke.

‘No it fucking well can’t. And do you know why? Because in the morning you’ll go back to avoiding me and ignoring me and acting like we’re strangers. Well, we’re not strangers, Sam. We’re … I thought … I thought … Fuck. Fuck!’ I put a hand to my forehead and started to cry. I had no idea that would happen and I tried so hard to hold the tears back, feeling like a total loser. Sam turned now and looked up at me. ‘You arsehole, Sam,’ I said between sobs. ‘Look what you’ve fucking done to me.’

‘Sophie, I –’

‘Just tell me why, Sam. Why don’t you want me any more? What have I done? Fair enough if you don’t fancy me any more. I’m not going to beg you to take me back. But, for fuck’s sake, just to drop me and not have the decency to explain … Aren’t I worth more than that?’ Sam lay on the sofa looking up at me with wide eyes as I spoke – or ranted like a mad woman. Once I’d finished, he sat up, his legs still under the duvet.

‘Sophie, I’m sorry. Believe me, I’m sorry.’

I sat down on the sofa beside him, some of the duvet underneath me. ‘If you don’t want to be with me any more that’s … I’ll get over it. But –’

‘It’s not that,’ said Sam, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands.

‘Then what is it?’

‘When you weren’t there that morning – the morning you went to the beach and came back with the shotgun – I freaked out. I had no idea where you’d gone or if you were coming back. I went out of my mind with worry,’ said Sam, looking me in the eye.

‘I –’

‘No. Shut up and let me talk. You wanted me to talk so let me fucking talk!’

‘
Ok
.’

‘It scared me. The thought of something happening to you. The thought of not seeing you again. Or worse … you coming back bitten. Having to watch you die. Having to make the decision of whether to kill you before or after …’ Sam pushed the duvet off his legs and stood up. He stood before me in his boxers and a black t-shirt. ‘I can’t love you any more. I can’t love anyone, because everyone is going to die.’

He stormed off. I didn’t follow. I felt too numb.

April

6th April, 4.50pm
‘Is it even worth it?’ I asked as me, Kay and Charlotte stood at the corner of Bouverie Place shopping centre and Sandgate Road. We looked up towards Debenhams, but the street was full of zombies. We’d just loaded the Mazda and the crappy Renault Clio that we hot wired from the car park at Academy FM with supplies from Asda. Now we stood contemplating whether it was worth the risk heading up to Debenhams for new clothes. We were all pretty fed up with our bloodstained tatters that we’d been wearing for months and Polly insisted that she would only wear Topshop from Debenhams. Besides, it was the only clothes store that sold underwear.

It was strange being back in the town centre. We’d been getting our supplies from the Waitrose in Hythe since moving into the house in Sandgate. And I hadn’t thought I could face going back to the town centre with the memories of everyone we’d lost there, especially David. But we needed clothes.

The town was pretty much as we left it … full of zombies.

‘We can go up the back way and round to the side entrance. It might be quieter that way,’ suggested Charlotte.

‘Ok. We’ll try. But Polly should stay in the car. She’ll slow us down,’ I said, and we headed back to the others, waiting by the two vehicles parked outside Asda.

It was 12 weeks ago that Polly broke her leg the night she pushed Shelby into the path of some zombies to save her own neck. 12 weeks since me, Sam and Liam used our non-existent, Googled medical knowledge to set Polly’s broken leg. Admittedly, no one really cared too much about how her leg would mend. After what she did to Shelby we all pretty much despised her. But over the last week she’d started to become mobile again, limping round the house, further and further each day. She had insisted on coming out on the supply mission, moaning that she had to ‘get out of the house with you tossers, or I’ll loose my fucking mind!’

‘Right,’ I began, addressing everyone, ‘Sandgate Road is a no go. Too many zombies. But we think we might be ok to head round the back of the store and then try the side entrance. Just grab some stuff in your size and then meet back on the ground floor. Be quick. We need to be in and out. Oh, and Polly, you stay here in the car.’

‘No way,’ she snapped.

‘Polly, your leg,’ said Charlottle. ‘You need to stay here. We’ll get –’

‘No fucking way. I’m coming with you. Do you really think I’d trust any of you lot to pick my clothes? I mean, come on … not a grain of taste between you.’

‘Polly –’

‘I’m coming. Or I start screaming.’

‘Shit. You would too, wouldn’t you?’ I said.

‘Believe it,’ said Polly.

So, me, Kay, Charlotte, Stewart, Sam, Liam (dressed head to foot in motorcycle leathers, complete with crash helmet – his new zombie-proof clothing. He looked ridiculous, but he was confident that no zombie could bite through the tough leather) and Polly headed up the side road round the back of Debenhams to the side entrance that was, thankfully, clear of zombies. The door that led into the shoe department had been smashed when the Big Guys trashed the town last year, and had been sealed up with a sheet of plastic nailed onto wooden batons at the top and bottom. Stewart sliced through the plastic with his sword and we were in.

The woman’s clothing was on the ground floor, with the men’s in the basement. We walked through the shoe department and round to the front of the store (uncomfortably close to the main entrance on Sandgate Road). A large open staircase led both down to the men’s department and up to the homeware, toy and underwear departments. The boys headed down, while us girls, with Polly limping behind us, dived into the Topshop section.

Polly started moaning straight away that she couldn’t see anything that she liked. For fuck’s sake. We are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. New clothes just need to be comfortable and suitable for general surviving and fighting. Fashion no longer exists. ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in this,’ said Polly, pushing a rail of floral shirts.

‘Polly, keep it down, eh?’ said Charlotte.

‘Yeah, there’s a few millimetres of plastic between us and all those zombies out there,’ said Kay, nodding towards the main doors that, like the side door, had been smashed and covered over with plastic sheeting. ‘Remember that.’

‘Can we all be quick and quiet, please?’ I said, three pairs of skinny jeans and several t-shirts in my arms. Polly tutted and headed off to the Benefit make-up counter. Make up?

‘Guys!’ It was Polly that called out. I looked over and could see four zombies staggering towards us from the direction of the shoe department. They must have followed us in through the slit in the plastic. Polly held her knife in front of her. ‘Some help,
please
?’ she said.

‘Fuck!’ I said.

‘We need to get out now,’ said Charlotte. ‘We can take that four out easily enough, then leave before any more get in.’

‘Ok, but we do it quietly, or we’ll –’ I didn’t get chance to finish before Polly unleashed a scream and lumbered on her bad leg towards the zombies, knife raised.

‘Oh fuck!’ I said, as she slammed her knife into a zombie’s head, knocking it into a display of make-up and perfume.

The zombies outside turned their dead faces towards the store, and rotten legs moved awkwardly towards the main entrance. They pushed against the plastic sheeting, making it bulge inwards. Fingers and dirty nails made scraping sounds as they tried to tear through. I dropped my clothes and ran to the staircase. I lent over it so that I could see down a little way into the men’s department. I couldn’t see any of the boys but I hoped that they would hear me. ‘TIME TO GO!’ I shouted down. ‘ZOMBIES! MOVE!’

I turned back to the door to see the plastic sheeting give way and the zombies staggered in. I grabbed my claw hammer and knife from my belt and held them before me as zombies spilled into the store. ‘SAM! LIAM! STEWART! COME ON!’ I screamed. I heard feet on stairs then, and glanced behind me to see the boys running up to the ground floor.