Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (32 page)

Kay’s words made no sense to me. None of this made sense to me. Sam – my Sam; gorgeous, sleazy, ladies’ man Sam, who ended up being loyal, soppy boyfriend Sam – had been bitten. We had eight hours left. I raised myself up onto my knees. My brain started to fizz and I thought I’d pass out again, but I felt steadying hands reach around under my arms. I glanced behind me and saw Stewart leaning down and holding me up. ‘Steady, pudding,’ he said. My head cleared a little. I wriggled out of Stewart’s grip and flung myself at the body in front of me.

‘You bastard!’ I screamed as I hit it, pounding my fists against the zombie’s back.

I noticed something then and stopped with my right fist hanging in the air. I didn’t know how I’d missed it before. The bloody mess that used to be the zombie’s head – my knife still sticking out the top of it – oozed blood. Nothing strange there. But the blood was red, not black. I raised myself onto my knees, grabbed a handful of the zombie’s curly brown hair and I pulled its head up and round to face me. I gasped at what I saw.

‘What?’ said Kay. Even Sam had come out of his catatonic state and looked at me.

‘It’s … she’s human,’ I said.

‘What?’ said Sam. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘It’s a fucking zombie,’ said Kay. ‘I saw it attack Sam.’

‘It fucking bit me!’ said Sam.

Stewart crouched down by my side and studied the dead face with me. If you ignored the vibrant red blood dribbling down its/her cheeks from where my knife stuck out of her skull, and ignored the fact she was dead, she looked in perfect post zombie apocalyptic health. Her face was a little thin and gaunt and extremely grubby. But I saw no sign of infection. ‘Sophie’s right,’ said Stewart. He griped the head and turned it round to face the others. ‘See?’ he said.

‘I don’t fucking believe it,’ said Kay. She leaned down to study the dead woman’s face. ‘That is a human.’

‘Then why …’ said Sam, holding up his injured hand.

I let go of the human-zombie’s hair, clambered over its body and flung myself at Sam, landing in his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck. ‘Who fucking cares!’ I said looking into his eyes, just inches away from mine. ‘Sam. It’s a human. A mad human eating human, but, still … Sam, you’re not infected!’

‘We should care,’ said Kay, and I turned to look at her. ‘Another one went running off down the hill. At first I thought it must be someone running away from the zombie. But I was sure it ran down after Sam got jumped on.’ It came back to me now, that I had seen someone running away just before I passed out. ‘And it makes sense now,’ Kay continued. ‘There was two of them.’

‘Shit,’ I said. ‘We’ve got another one out there somewhere.’

‘Is that really worth worrying about?’ asked Stewart. ‘I mean, not such a worry as actual zombies …’

‘Mate,’ began Sam, waving his bloody hand at Stewart. Blood pumped freely from the wound and I worried that Sam might bleed to death if he didn’t let someone dress it soon. ‘I’m glad I’m not infected but this still hurts like fuck, right? She took a chunk out of me. Fuck knows what that crazy bitch would’ve done if Sophie hadn’t of killed her. Could’ve been my throat next.’

‘Or that pretty face,’ said Kay.

‘Thanks for the chilling thought, Kay. The bitch was mental,’ continued Sam. ‘And strong. If I’d been on my own … And if there’s another one of them out there …’

‘We need to find it and stop it,’ I said.

12th August, 7.15pm
A couple of days after our trip into town, me and Sam sat inside the Martello tower at the front of our camp. Not much work had been done to the tower. New windows had been fitted on the ground floor, though one had been smashed, and a layer of dust stopped some of the light coming in. The curved bare brick walls smelt of damp and added to the gloomy feel. A staircase led up to a mezzanine level with large windows that curved all the way around the building. The window frames had no glass in them. Instead they had been boarded up, making it darker still. Me and Sam had removed one of the boards a couple of weeks ago and it was here that we sat cross legged on the bare floorboards, gazing out across the sea towards the French coastline.

‘Why would anyone pretend to be a zombie?’ I asked. I could hear Stewart playing his guitar and singing in the garden below – a Jeff Buckley song. It added to the casual romantic atmosphere me and Sam had going on in our tower.

Sam shrugged, shook his head and looked down into his lap where his bandaged hand rested on his thigh. When we got back to the caravans after Sam got bit by the mad human in town, I searched the internet for information on antibiotics, then Kay and Stewart headed back into town to pick some up from the Asda pharmacy. So far the wound looked clean. ‘Fucked if I know,’ said Sam. ‘Maybe they truly believe they are zombies. I don’t know.’

‘Why would someone believe that they’re a zombie if they haven’t been bitten?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe the zombie apocalypse has driven them mad or maybe they’re just people who’ve always wanted to eat people and now they can.’

‘That’s reassuring. I could understand one freak. But two …’

‘We don’t know how many there are,’ said Sam.

‘You think there could be more?’

‘Who knows? I mean, there could be a pack of them, hunting like wolves …’ Sam must have seen the horror in my eyes because he quickly added, ‘But most likely not. I’m sure there’s only one left out there.’

I rubbed the scab on my forehead, from where I hit the pavement the day Sam got bit, with my forefinger while I stared out the window. Stewart now sang a song I didn’t recognise, but just as soulful as the Jeff Buckley number. ‘Sophie,’ Sam said after a few moments.

‘Yeah?’ I turned to look at him, his features illuminated in the darkness of the tower by the setting sun.

‘Are we ever going to go out on a date?’

I studied his face, his green eyes looked at me imploringly while he bit his lower lip. ‘Isn’t that what we’re doing now?’ I said. Sam went to say something but I placed my left hand on his right cheek, leaned in and kissed his lips gently. Sitting back I said, ‘Sam, this moment – the setting sun, the view, the music – it’s as perfect as it’s ever going to get. We don’t need to pretend things are normal or do anything extra to make up for the fact we’ve never had a fancy dinner, or seen a movie together. This is just perfect right now. Just you and me. And no zombies.’

‘Ok,’ began Sam. ‘Perfect moment. Right here, right now.’ Sam bit his lip again as he stared into my eyes. Without taking his eyes from mine, he put a hand into the pocket of his jeans. ‘I’ve got a confession,’ he said. ‘When we were in Asda, I snuck out.’ He pulled his hand out of his pocket. ‘To get this.’ He held his hand out to me. In it was a small black box. ‘Take it,’ he urged when I failed to move. I stared at the box. ‘Sophie, for fuck’s sake. Take the fucking box!’

I took the box from Sam and opened it with shaky fingers. Inside was a ring, a beautiful white gold ring, a single princess cut diamond, not too small and not too big. The perfect ring. ‘You have such long skinny fingers, I got the smallest one … Sophie say something …’

19th August, 12.55pm
On the evening that me and Sam sat in the Martello tower, I held the box that Sam gave me in the palm of my hand and looked at the ring. ‘I never would’ve had you pegged as the marrying kind,’ I said without looking up.

‘Is that totally unromantic response your version of a yes or a no?’ said Sam.

‘Ah, yeah, why the fuck not?’ I said, looking up at Sam and grinning. ‘Either one of us could die tomorrow. Our flesh stripped from our bones as we cry out in agony …’

Sam grinned back. ‘Sophie Richardson, you old romantic you, you are definitely the woman for me,’ he said. I flung my arms around his neck. He did the same and we kissed, a long, wanting to disappear into each other, would’ve-steamed-the-windows-up-had-there-been-any-glass-in-the-frames kind of kiss, while Stewart played guitar in the camp below. I clutched the box containing the ring. After a moment I pulled away, my excitement to see that ring again outweighing my desire. I pulled it out of its little white satin bed and pushed it onto my ring finger, surprised and happy when it fit perfectly.

‘You know, it might be a bit a of bugger finding a vicar alive –’ I began to say, but a scream from somewhere outside the Martello tower cut me off. The music stopped.

‘What was that?’ said Sam.

‘I don’t know.’ Another scream, long and definitely female.

‘I think we’d better go take a look,’ said Sam.

28th August, 8.35pm
At the sound of another scream, me and Sam hurtled down the stairs in the Martello tower. Outside, I saw Stewart opening the padlock on a section of the metal fence. He had his sword clamped under one arm, looking like he’d been stabbed in an amateur dramatics play with a low special effects budget. The others stood behind him, all tooled up, eyes forward. My initial reaction at seeing them all was,
Thank fuck it wasn’t one of them that had screamed
, but that left the question of,
Who the fuck did
? I dashed to the caravan and picked up a knife and a claw hammer from just inside the door.

Back with the others, I passed the claw hammer to Sam, while Stewart lifted the leg of the tall heavy fence from the breeze block that kept it in place and shoved the section outwards. We all darted through the gap. Me and Sam paused to shut the fence by replacing the leg into the breeze block, but I left the padlock off just in case we needed to get inside quick. We paused outside to listen. To our left the track curved round before sloping down to join the main road, and to our right, it sloped down to the Warren where Misfit hunted.

Another scream.

‘That way,’ said Kay striding off to the left, taking the bend that went down towards the main road, her axe held before her. The rest of us followed. There, in the field across the track, about halfway up, I saw a young girl, perhaps thirteen/fourteen, long dark brown hair, crowbar in one hand and what looked like a crumpled orange carrier bag in her other. She crashed through the chest high weeds, grass, shrubs, bushes and brambles heavy with ripe blackberries, and headed roughly in our direction, towards the top right hand corner of the field. Around twenty zombies, maybe more, pursued her, coming from the direction of the open gate at the bottom of the field where the track leads out onto the road. The zombies lurched through the brambles and weeds, not bothered by the thorns that lacerated their dry, dead skin.

‘This way!’ I shouted to her. ‘Quick!’ Without stopping, she looked up – wide eyed and gasping – and saw us watching her from the other side of the waist high fence, then she glanced back, over her shoulder towards the zombies – the front runners not much more than a metre behind her.

‘Watch out, sweetie!’ yelled Charlotte. But the girl turned her head forwards too late to see the thick bramble bush before her, and she plunged deep into it, crying out as she fell into the thorns.

‘I’m going in,’ said Misfit, and he dived over the mass of brambles and tall stinging nettles entwined in the wire fence, slashing at them with his five inch hunting knife. I could see the thorns tear his tattooed skin and pull at his clothes. Then he was over and smashing through the dense undergrowth. The girl pulled back from the brambles, her t-shirt stretching where the thorns snagged it. She’d lost the carrier bag, but had kept hold of her crowbar and she hacked at the brambles with it. I could see bloody scratches on her skinny arms, hands and face as well as purple stains from the blackberries. She’d almost freed herself, but six zombies loomed up behind her. ‘Please don’t let me have to watch her die,’ I said under my breath.

September

2nd September, 1.50pm
The day we heard the girl scream, Stewart and Charlotte sprinted down the hill, aiming for the gate into the field, while Kay chopped at the brambles and nettles woven into the wire fence to clear a way in that didn’t involve torn, stung flesh. Sam, claw hammer held firm in his bandaged right hand, didn’t bother to wait and hurdled over an overgrown section of fence, heading after Misfit.

The girl had pulled herself free of the brambles but was trapped between them and the zombies that lumbered up behind her. She looked small and skinny, a waif-like child, as she turned to face them.

Misfit and Sam used their weapons to smash and slash undergrowth out of their way. Misfit headed to the right of the brambles, and Sam took the left. The girl raised her crowbar and smashed it into the head of the closest zombie with more power than I would have expected from her. The zombie’s skull caved in, black blood seeping from the wound, and it crumpled to the ground. She backed up as far as she could into the brambles as five more zombies staggered towards her.

Kay climbed over the cleared section of fence into the field. I followed her. Stewart and Charlotte had made it through the gate. I saw Stewart slice the top off a zombie’s head with his sword, while Charlotte high kicked a zombie in its half eaten chest, flooring it, punched another in the jaw, knocking its jaw clean off, before spinning and delivering a kick that sent it flying into a bramble bush, and planted her cleaver right between the red, sunken eyes of another.

Me and Kay followed the path that Sam and Misfit had trodden through the undergrowth. As we approached, I saw a zombie wrap its crusty fingers around the girl’s left elbow. She raised her crowbar and struck it on the side of the head, and the zombie went down. But another grabbed the wrist that held the crowbar. The girl shrieked as another lunged forwards and grasped her left shoulder.

‘No you don’t,’ said Sam tearing in from around the brambles on the left. He swung his claw hammer at the back of the zombie’s head, just as it lowered its decomposing jaws towards the girl’s shoulder. Black blood spurted from the zombie’s head and it fell forwards into the girl and knocked her back into the brambles. The zombie that held her by the wrist was pulled forwards and on top of her as she fell, back first, into the bed of thorns. Sam sprang forwards but was too late to catch her. She screamed. The zombie pinned her to the thorns and opened its jaw to bite, but Misfit dived towards it and grasped a handful of its gore matted hair. He pulled the zombie’s head back, before sliding his knife through its ear. Misfit pulled the zombie off the girl by its hair, while Sam helped her up, carefully untangling brambles from her skin and clothing. Misfit turned to fend off the zombies that lumbered up through the overgrown field, his knife swiftly stabbing and slicing.