Blood on the Floor: An Undead Adventure (21 page)

That gentle creature that had his arm over her breast but seconds ago becomes the thing she saw in that town. Unstoppable, unrelenting, an explosion of pure rage fuelled violence that is staggering to see. He seems stronger than he was, faster and more vicious. The first one is met head on and sent flying back to knock two more off their feet. Another is grabbed, turned and the neck broken with the body dumped to be left where it is as he spins for the next. His arm lashes out, a hard fist slamming to bust the nose and dislocate the jaw on a face that will never be able to bite again. That one drops from the sheer ferocity of the punch and finds a solid foot coming down to crush her skull.

He needs stronger boots. She nods frantic and terrified while thinking she will get him some steel toe cap boots as a plume of water goes up into the air from the heavy body being thrown in the duck pond.

Paco snaps another neck with a dull crack that sounds out. She catches a glimpse of a man biting into Paco’s arm as a piercing scream comes from the tea gardens behind the fight taking place. Heather flinches, staring past the melee as though unsure she heard it.

‘MUMMY….’

Christ. Her heart hammers. A child screaming out. She blinks and strains to see as Paco slams another one down into the ground than staggers back from the onslaught of three more ramming into him.

‘BEN…STAY QUIET…’

A woman screams the words out behind her. A window above the shop. She spins to see a face frantic with worry waving across the road and the grass.

‘MUMMY…’ the child screams louder with terror clear in his voice.

‘BEN…STAY QUIET BABY,’ the woman sounds as frantic as the child. Heather spins on the spot to look over at the tea gardens. Just wait. Wait there. Paco will kill them.

‘NO BEN,’

Heather looks up to the window then over at the tea gardens seeing movement at the top of the fence next to the locked gates.

‘BEN GET DOWN…GO BACK…GO BACK BEN…’

Oh Christ. No. Don’t do it. Ben climbs and stares across the green to his flat and his mum waving at him. He came for food, running fast and silent to climb the fence but they saw him and ran from the shop under the flat to chase him. He stayed in the tea gardens crying all through the storm as the infected rammed into the solid fence and gate to get at him while his mother wept in panic with her younger daughters crying in hunger and fear.

‘Go back,’ Heather mutters, her eyes fixed on the child poised at the top of the fence. ‘Go back…’ Paco will kill them. You can get out…not now…shit!

The child drops, an instinct to run for home to his mum. His little body sprawling in the grass from the fall but recovering shakily to start running.

She scans the battle and Paco fighting three or four while the one thrown in the duck pond crawls out unseen by the child.

‘GO BACK,’ she screams, taking a step forward. Paco’s head snaps to her, hearing her shouting out but seeing her unharmed.

The mother screams in the flat over the shop. Her daughters scream. Paco fights, bodies get hit and fall but come back and Ben screams while running. Noise everywhere. An explosion of things happening after the tranquillity of the morning. She sees the infected get free from the pond and rise to stagger at the child.

‘NO,’ she pulls her shoulders back to let the bag slide off and bursts away running flat out with her eyes fixed on the child screaming in fear at the soaking wet infected running at him. ‘PACO…’ Heather bellows as Paco kills another one then turns to see the infected running at the child and Heather running at the infected. He slams a fist into the one coming at him and wrenches free as the remaining attackers lunge on his heels.

There’s only instinct now. Only a gut reaction. The child veers away but doesn’t have the sense to turn back. The infected runs at him, his hands clawed and ready as Heather locks eyes and pushes more power into her run, closing the distance on him as he closes the distance on the child as Paco closes the distance on her while his attackers give chase.

The mother weeps, her hand covering her mouth while her daughters cling to her legs. She had no idea what happened and why they turned on each other like that. She sees the woman running at the one going for Ben. A normal woman. Not one of the infected things.

Heather grits her teeth, willing her legs to be faster as she powers over the ground with her eyes fixed on the back of the thing. The child screams out again. The beast is almost upon him and ready to kill to feed the urge to take another host and pass the thing inside. The beast lunges, his mouth open. Heather cries out, ramming into the back of him to send him flying a hair’s width from the boy who falls in fear. She sprawls, tumbling from the impact. The thing she hit recovers fast, rising and close enough to dive and get the child. Paco lands on his back, his knees driving down as his fists hammer the back of the infected man’s head. Heather runs, scooping the boy up to run but seeing the rest coming at her. Instead she drops as Paco dropped last night and forces the boy underneath her own body to shield him from the bad things that come. She covers him as she was covered. She protects him as she was protected and holds him down as Paco runs in from the side to remove the two that were about to touch her. She holds still, breathing hard. ‘It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay,’ she whispers the words again and again knowing Paco won’t let them touch her and by proxy they won’t touch the boy.

They don’t touch her. They don’t get close. Paco does not allow it. Instead she listens to the snapping of bones and the thump of bodies lifted overhead to be slammed down broken and dead. She listens to the stamps now knowing what they mean. She listens to her dangerous monster killing everything in sight while holding the child in her arms under her body.

It falls quiet. The way it fell quiet in the town before. She waits, knowing he’ll be checking his kills. She waits knowing he will come for her.

He comes. He comes to stand by her protecting her back while she protects the child. He comes to stand breathing hard with arms tensed and fists clenched and his head held high as he looks upon his field of battle then down to Heather.

‘Okay,’ she stands, lifting the child as she goes and pushing his face into her shoulder. ‘Don’t look, stay there,’ she whispers and starts walking with Paco striding behind her. ‘Don’t look, Ben…stay there….good boy…mummy is right here…’

She goes into the shop, heedless of the bodies on the floor and through the store room to the locked door that she kicks hard. ‘Take your son,’ she calls out, holding Ben firm in her arms.

Bolts and locks unfasten and clunk. The door swings in as the mother rushes out with red eyes streaming with tears down her cheeks to pluck her son from Heather’s arms while Paco stands at her back.

‘Oh my god oh my god,’ the mother breaks to sob and hold him close. His little arms go round her neck, his own body heaving with sobs as Heather stands watching with her chest rising to fall.

‘Let’s go,’ she tells Paco, turning to push him gently back into the store.

‘No wait,’ the mother cries out, rushing out then stopping in fear. ‘I…but…I don’t…’

‘It’s okay,’ Heather says simply, ‘they didn’t get him…your son I mean.’

‘Thank you…I oh my god thank you…he was…we were all so hungry but…’

‘It’s okay,’ Heather says again. ‘They’re dead. Get food…the shop’s clear now. Come on,’ she goes to leave, guiding Paco towards the exit door.

‘Don’t go,’ the woman stammers, tentatively creeping further into the shop and balking at the sight of the bodies. ‘I mean…you can stay and…I…that’s my husband,’ she says simply, suddenly, staring down at the remains of a body. Heather looks down then back up at the woman.

‘Sorry,’ she whispers, not knowing what else to say. ‘We have to go.’

‘Go where?’

‘Just…somewhere…we have to leave now.’

‘We’ll come with you…give me ten minutes to get…’

‘No!’ Heather cuts her off, her hand on Paco’s shoulder preventing him from turning to face the woman. ‘We have to go. Sorry…’

She leaves. She goes quickly, pushing Paco ahead to grab her bag and marching down the road as the woman rushes out from the shop for the first time in over two weeks. ‘Where? We’ll come…please…just stay and…PLEASE!’

Heather walks on. Staring ahead with eyes welling with tears that blink to fall down her cheeks while her gloved hand holds Paco’s blood covered fingers.

Twenty Three

‘So,’ she says, holding the tin out for Paco to hold. ‘You had like nine but I got one,’ she grins as she looks down at the cold beans in the can. ‘And that one was like the worst one,’ she adds, glancing back at Paco. ‘Did you see me? Did you? I actually knocked him over…he was big too, like huge and…yeah yeah, I know. You killed nine but my one was still good. Come on then, hold the spoon. Got it, and up we go…yay for Paco feeding himself. So but anyway. Did you see it? Was it good? I ran so hard. Like faster than anything I ever did on the treadmill. Okay, another one? Urgh how can you eat cold beans. Don’t poo yourself later…and up we go, open wide and yay for Paco again! No but seriously, did you see me taking that man down? Was it good? I hope that woman is okay. She must have been in there for like two weeks. I’d have gone mad by now. I was going crazy in the church. You missed a bit…on your lip…there, got it. It felt so good though, knocking him down. Not at the time cos I was like terrified but then I wasn’t? Does that make sense? I was scared but then I think the adrenalin or whatever just took over. You were amazing though, like better than before and you didn’t try and eat that woman or her children which is good. Paco, we’ve talked about this…no that’s too many. Slow down! Oh now look, you’ve got bean juice in your beard.’

She wipes his face, tutting good naturedly as the flames from the small fire bathe the old barn in orange light. They walked fast after the village. Fast to make sure the woman couldn’t try and catch up and fast to be clear of the area and it was more than an hour before she finally stopped to clean the blood off Paco. Now he sits in his boxers while his clothes dry from being jet washed under a hose and scrubbed with anti-bac. She did consider dressing him again but he’s only got one clean set of clothes left and it’s warm enough to dry his clothes quickly. She did wring them out as best she could then tried to get Paco to do it, which ended in farce with her spending half an hour trying to show him how to strangle a t shirt. He got the hang of it in the end and just about squeezed every last drop of moisture out.

‘Okay, now try again and…too much, Paco. Stop being greedy. Take less and get more, that’s my new motto by the way. Do you like it? Take more and get less, no shit. I meant the other way round. Oh it’s on my leg now,’ she tuts again at the cold sticky bean juice dripping on her bare knee. Sitting in her knickers and vest top while her own clothes dry out from being jet washed, anti-bacced and strangled to death. There is no sense of shame. No worry about the flaws of her body being on show. She’s showered in front of him. Urinated, changed her tampon and cleaned the poo from his bum. Where would the shame be after that?

The barn was a good find. Miles from anywhere and glimpsed at the far end of a field that was navigated to get into. Running water connected and a lighter found with a packet of cigarettes inside was used to make the fire.

‘Well I still think mine was the best,’ she goes back to her earlier conversation. ‘I mean did you actually see me? I as like pow and he was like whammo and I was like ha! Kung fu and he was like nooooo and I was like pow pow and he was like…what? Don’t look at me like that. That happened. It did. In my head it did anyway. Oh sod off, you’ve killed like hundreds and I knocked one fat bloke over. Hmmm, so if you could talk what advice would you give me? About how I attacked that man I mean. You’d be all
well ma’am, gee that’s a way to go but,’
she puts on her best deep American voice while trying to look serious. ‘
might I recommend that you let the menfolk do the fighting and leave the little lady at the back…
which is so sexist but then you are a womaniser that’s slept with like six thousand women.’

If Paco could talk, and if he had conscious thought and if he could understand and translate his instincts at what happened today, he would indeed tell her to never ever do that again. But he can’t. So he doesn’t. Instead he tries, with Heather’s help, to load the spoon with beans.

‘Anyway, I hope that woman is okay. That was her husband in the shop on the floor. Do you think we should have stayed? But then she’d have seen your eyes and I left the sunglasses in that clothes shop. I do feel bad…have they all gone? Already? Okay, what do you fancy next? Um…peach slices? Yeah?’ She peels the lid back to reveal the fat glistening segments inside. She looks at him, at his mouth then at his big fingers while concluding that as gentle as he is, there is no way he’ll hook a slice out and get it to his mouth. She tries the spoon first, guiding his hand to the tin but he scoops in like he’s trying to get rice pudding or beans and just sloshes the juice over the edge to join the bean juice on her knee. ‘That’s not going to work,’ she tells him while he carries on jabbing the spoon down into the tin. ‘Really not going to work…but carry on anyway.’ She knows he’d keep trying all night so gently pulls his hand away and uses her gloved fingers to grip a segment that gets pulled out. ‘See?’ she opens his hand to place the segment in his palm. He stares at it, absorbed and fascinated then looks up at her with an expression of
what now
so clear in his eyes. ‘Up…open wide and how did you miss? How on earth did you miss your own mouth? Right I’ve got it, try again…in your hand and up…open wide and…you did that on purpose didn’t you. Now look, no let me do it. Okay just don’t bite me…in it goes,’ she pops the peach segment in his mouth while the thought of hand feeding the lion pops back in her mind.

They need more food, more water and more bandages. His cuts are healing, his bruises fading quickly and the fresh bites he took today are already scabbing. In her mind she sees them walking, finding things they need and walking more. She brings the memory of lying under the oak tree to mind and smiles softly at the feeling it gives her.

She hand feeds him peach slices, smiling and chuckling at the mess they both make with juice dripping down his beard onto his chest that gets wiped away by a gentle hand. The world is over. Millions have perished and there can’t be a person on the planet that hasn’t been affected in some way or another. This is only fifteen days old and humanity is already on its knees. What will be like in another two weeks, or two months from now? What about a year? How long do the infected stay alive for? Is there a cure somewhere? What about those men she saw yesterday with the army truck? There could be so many things going on that she has no clue about but she carries on feeding him peach slices in the glow of a fire in a barn on a warm summer night. These are the darkest of times, the worst of times and they can only get worse but for the first time in her life she feels a connection to another being. An understanding. A bond even. She’ll look after him and he, in return, will never hurt her.

She loses herself in the tiny details. Talking all the time about what she is doing and the thoughts in her head. She guides him to eat and notices that he gets better. She holds the bottle for him to drink and feels the way he is mastering that same thing and the way his lips now form a seal over the mouth of the bottle. The likeness to a child is negated instantly for the sheer remembrance of what he is, what he was and what he can do. He isn’t a child. He is nothing like a child and in that she gives dignity to her care for him.

The clothes are checked and found to be dry. She doesn’t want to sleep in her clothes but she knows they have to. If the things come they’ll need to move fast and he can’t stamp in bare feet.

‘Stand up,’ she speaks softly without inclining her head and he rises swiftly using the power of his legs alone. She dresses him, trousers, socks, boots and his t shirt. She dresses herself and speaks softly to get him to sit and slide down with his body nestled in soft straw and his head supported by an old rug. She re-packs the bag, checks the fire and eases the sliding door closed to prevent the light of the fire spilling out. Everything is done. What now? She looks over, frowning and hesitant, biting her bottom lip. Is this a step too far? Is she pushing it? All she knows is that it feels okay, more than okay.

She walks to him and lowers down at his side, hesitating again as though suddenly there is a fear of rejection of forcing him to be affectionate. ‘I want to sleep there,’ she places a hand on his side, searching his eyes for acceptance. He stares back as ever before. She frowns again, biting her lip with her hand still resting on his chest. He’s warm. He’s soft but firm and she wants to lie next to him like she did this morning. She wants that feeling again.

‘Sod it, budge up a bit,’ she grabs his arm and lifts it up at the same time as sinking down into his side with a deep sigh while wrapping his arm over her. She snuggles into him, pushing her head against his chest, her upper leg going over his. She sighs again, deep and content, hearing him breathe, feeling his heart beating. Warm and safe. She murmurs and shifts to gain that extra millimetre closer and in that second she dips her head to kiss his chest knowing the top he wears is clean. Just a peck. A fleeting touch of her lips and if it infects her then so be it. You take the risk and accept the consequences of your actions and while the world falls apart she falls asleep the happiest she has ever been.