Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] (11 page)

Ernest stepped back and gazed up. The bathroom window had been left open.

“You have got to be joking,” said Mrs. Watson.

Ernest grinned and jumped onto the drainpipe. He scrambled up, pleased to find that his old climbing skills hadn’t deserted him. He looked behind him as he climbed above the first floor window. There were four of them trying to squeeze through the open gate, and the girls were preparing themselves to fight. He reached the bathroom window and pulled it a little wider. These new windows the council had installed in all the houses a couple of years ago were far easier to squeeze through than the old metal ones. Ernest dropped into the dark bathroom. He tuned the noise from the outside out and attempted to listen to the house. He used to be able to tell whether a home was occupied by just standing in one room and closing his eyes. His senses told him that this place was empty, but these weren’t normal times. He grabbed a towel, the only available weapon, and opened the door. If anything was out there, he’d at least be able to put this over their head before running like fuck.

The hallway was as empty as the bathroom. He heard Emily screaming for him to hurry and vaulted down the stairs. He grinned when he saw a set of keys hung up beside the outside door, pleased that some things never changed. He silently thanked the residents for being so stupid, and he unlocked the door.

The women were backed up against it. Ernest let them both in quickly before shutting the door and locking it again. Mrs. Watson dropped his cue on the floor and wrapped her arms around him. After a couple of uncomfortable seconds, he returned the gesture.

Emily coughed loudly and tapped Ernest on the shoulder with the cue. “Do you not think we should be checking out the house?”

He nodded, feeling the blood rush to his face. “Have you any idea who lives here?” he asked.

“A young Jamaican couple. I think they may be on holiday, though; I didn’t see their car outside.”

Ernest didn’t know what to think anymore. He felt like his brain had been wrung out. He walked back up the stairs, keeping his eyes fixed in front of him. The layout of this house was the same as his, so the largest room should be the last door. If the Jamaican couple followed the norm, that should be where their bedroom was. If they were anywhere, he guessed that it would be in there.

He reached the door, took a deep breath, and turned the handle. The room was empty. Emily dropped to the floor and looked under the bed. She looked at both of them and shook her head.

“Looks like you’re right,” Ernest said. “The house is empty.”

He walked up to the window and gazed out. The deadies were moving away. He couldn’t believe just how many of them were out there. It looked like a crowd of football fans all moving in one direction. It was eerie and absolutely fucking terrifying. Emily joined him at the window. She took one look and darted to the door.

“Come on!” she cried. “They’re going, that means we can too.”

She was at the landing and running down the stairs before either of them could speak. Ernest looked at the woman in puzzlement before they both hurried to catch her. Emily already had the door open while they were coming down the stairs. It looked as if the deadies weren’t coming back just yet. They reached the garden gate and watched the girl run down the street.

“We won’t be able to catch up with her, you know,” Mrs. Watson said. “Do we let her go?”

He shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll catch up to her eventually. Come on, it’s almost over.” As he grabbed her hand they both heard what sounded like a crack of thunder. They turned to see Emily fall to the ground with the top half of her head missing. Ernest spied a couple of soldiers running up to the prone body. He pulled Mrs. Watson back towards the house.

“What do we do now?” she sobbed.

He clicked the door shut behind them. “Now we hide.”

Chapter Eleven

The ancient color television flickered twice. The static picture that displayed the words ‘Please Stand By’ then vanished, and scenes from a nature documentary filled the screen. As Emma Reynolds turned away from the window the images vanished, and the same words reappeared on the screen.

She hadn’t seen the change in picture, and even if her eyes had caught the transition, her mind wouldn’t have registered it. She dragged her eyes away from the television and studied the ornate wall clock hanging on her living room wall above the gas fire. Its two rusted arms pointed to a quarter past five. They hadn’t moved from that position ever since she’d dropped the clock and smashed its face over four years ago.

Emma tutted loudly, wondering how she hadn’t noticed that it had just struck six o’ clock. Time flew by nowadays, but then again, it had been a busy day. Trouble was that once again the thought of cooking the family dinner had flown right over her head.

“Well, that will never do,” she muttered to herself. “I hope that piece of braising steak will keep until tomorrow.” Emma tried to work out what she had left in the fridge. It shouldn’t be that much of a challenge to mix something half decent together. It wasn’t like she’d bothered to tell her husband what she was making for dinner tonight.

She shuffled over to the television and switched the channel. The test card replaced the ‘Stand By’ message. A little birdy had told Emma that the Grant family had a little device that allowed you to change the channel without having to move from your seat. Now to her, that did sound like a nifty little gizmo. She wasn’t sure about her neighbors though; not one of them was over the age of forty. If you couldn’t get up to change the channel at that young age, what hope was there for them?

The early evening news should be on in a minute. Emma decided to watch that before mooching off into the kitchen in search for food. She settled back in her chair and gazed at the test card.

Why was she even bothering? As per usual, those newsreaders would only concentrate on all the bad news. They never opened with something nice. Wouldn’t that make a pleasant change? Would it be that difficult to devote the programme to showing folks helping out their fellow man? “That’ll never happen,” she muttered.

From her experience, people were too eager to listen to bad news of earthquakes, horrible wars, famines, and murder. Only last night, they wouldn’t stop talking about the shooting of that poor man from The Beatles. So much for ‘All you need is Love’.

Emma frowned—was that from last night? She couldn’t remember now. Her memory was getting a bit flaky recently. Well, even if they did fill the news programme with evil deeds, she’d just have to cheer herself up with the food she had cooking away in the oven.

Emma had bought a lovely piece of braising steak earlier.

It took her a good few minutes of racking her mind to remember the last time they had shown any good news on TV. It must have been the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Emma frowned again. Was that last month or last year? She sighed, it didn’t really matter. The entire event had been so grand. Remembering her Majesty in all her finery brought happy tears to her eyes. They had even joined in with the festivities by organizing a huge party on the street, just like the ones Emma used to attend with her parents. All the neighbors had helped out, bringing tables and chairs, buying balloons, and donating food. She had made up a couple of platefuls of sandwiches. She’d even cut them into triangles just to feel extra posh. All she’d able to find to fill them were tuna and cucumber. It hadn’t been too fancy, but that didn’t matter; after just a few minutes the assembled crowd had turned those piles into a handful of crumbs.

She made up her mind that the news could bugger off. Emma got out of her chair again and changed the channel. She giggled at the sight of the test card. Oh Lord, how could she have forgotten about the Benny Hill Show? She so loved this programme. He was such a silly man.

Emma noticed the cracked blue tea cup that had been sitting on the table next to her for the last three days. Her only son, Steve, had made her the drink the last time he’d popped in to make sure she was okay. She picked it up and took a sip, then winced. This was horrible, there was way too much sugar in it. Had she picked up Arthur’s cup by mistake?

She put the cup back on the table and tried to remember what had been on her mind. Oh, yeah, that street party. It had been an occasion for another celebration. Her best friend, Ethel Morris, had rushed up to Emma and wrapped her arms around her waist, telling her that she would be getting married in a few months’ time.

Emma’s tears of joys had soon dried up when she noticed the profound change in her behavior. The hug had been the only time throughout the day when Ethel had displayed any sort of emotional reaction.

Ethel used to be such an outgoing girl back when they were all single. Always smiling, always laughing, and certainly the best friend anyone could have. Ethel, herself, and Mavis Watson all used to troop into Bradford Centre every Saturday night and get up to all sorts of fun. Her friend was a magnet for the boys. If it hadn’t been for her, Emma would have never met her gorgeous Arthur. Sure, it had been Ethel that the randy devil had been attempting to woo, but Emma had soon put a stop to that foolishness.

There was nothing left of her old friend but a thin shell, now. She acted like a frightened mouse, flinching every time her soon-to-be husband spoke. Emma’s mum had raised no fool; she knew the signs. That new man of hers had chewed up the girl’s spirit. It broke Emma’s heart to see such a sight, but at the end of the day, there was very little anyone could do about it. Whatever happened in that house was their business.

She just wished that they hadn’t drifted apart after she started courting Arthur. If Emma had known that Ethel had been smitten on that Dennis Flynn, she’d have put a stop to that nonsense straight away. Emma could never forget how much of a terror that man used to be when he was just knee-high to a grasshopper.

Good Lord, that boy had been such a nasty piece of work. He was always getting into fights and bullying the other children. He loved picking on the girls. Thinking back, he did that more than bullying the other kids. Dennis Flynn had always been a bad egg, and bad eggs don’t magically turn into good eggs, they just become even more rotten.

Emma hadn’t been the only one at the party surprised to see the return of the unloved Dennis. He and his family hadn’t been the most popular people in Breakspear. She’d been under the impression that the family had flitted over to Huddersfield after all that trouble with Dennis and that girl in the year below him. That evil little boy had almost killed that girl. Everyone in the playground had seen him march up to her and smack her  upside of the head with that rounders bat. Lord knows what would have happened if those two playground monitors hadn’t rushed over. Dennis had been ready to finish the job, but fortunately the adults had pulled him back. He had shown no regret for what he had done.

The rumor that had flown through the classrooms a week later was that the only reason Dennis had tried to kill the girl was because she had fought him off in the girl’s toilets after he’d tried to pull down her knickers.

Emma despised bullies. Not that she herself had suffered any sort of physical or emotional torment. Her father had made sure that Emma wouldn’t be anybody’s victim. His harsh lessons had seen her well throughout her life. She’d made sure that her own son had learned the same lessons when he was at that age as well.

It made the letter that her tearful son had dropped into her hand this morning all the more painful. Steven’s teacher had sent him home, accusing her little boy of picking on that Ernest Belmont again. It had to be a mistake. Sure, her Steven knew how to look after himself, but the boy would never actually start a fight. Unlike the Belmont family, her child had been brought up, not dragged up. Everyone knew that the family was just a set of thieves anyway, especially Ernest’s dad. Nothing good would come of that family.

Her husband hadn’t been as forgiving, and had tried to explain to Emma that there were two sides to every story, that the teachers must have gathered enough evidence before sending their Steven home. His answer was to give the boy a good hiding and send him to bed without any tea. Although she still believed that Arthur had overreacted a little, it wasn’t her place to openly defy her husband. Besides, there were times when you had to be cruel to be kind. Anyway, a good hiding had never done her any harm.

She sighed and got out of her chair. She turned off the television and walked past the urn containing her husband’s ashes. The bronze container had been perched on the end of her mantelpiece for five years now. Emma decided that it might be a good idea to go check on her Stephen; he’d been very quiet up there. Too quiet. If her boy was still awake, she’d fix him up a big plate of dripping sandwiches, followed by a few chocolate biscuits. He liked that. Arthur didn’t need to know.

Emma so wished that she’d had time to go to the butcher’s. She’d been craving a lovely piece of braising steak for the past few days. Now that would have been a pleasant surprise for Arthur, he so loved his food. Oh, Lord, she missed him. How silly was that? He’d only been out of the house for a couple of hours. The poor man had drawn the short straw and ended up working the night shift for the next couple of months.

Emma opened the door leading to the stairs. She couldn’t really blame Arthur for overreacting with Steven’s punishment. The stress from work had played on all their nerves for these last few weeks. The rumors of layoffs circulating around the factory appeared to be turning into fact. Emma kept reassuring Arthur that they were just hearsay; even if the company did decide to cut down on employees, Steven’s job should still be safe. Unlike the idiots who worked in the main factory, he did a highly skilled job, and they’d be foolish to lose him.

Arthur worked at one of the engineering works that supplied car components for three of the major manufacturers in the north of England. Work had been light recently, but she had told him that trade would pick up. People would always buy British instead of all the silly foreign rubbish.

She climbed the stairs and cast away all these ideas of the company selling out; it would never happen.

Emma had used their new car as a perfect example. Arthur had bought a brand new Austin Princess last year. The car was the envy of the street. It was a good solid British car that would probably last them all the way to the year 2000.

She gently pushed open the spare room door and slid her hand upon the wall until her fingers found the light switch. The naked light bulb filled the room with a dim white light, flushing the darkness away. The illumination revealed ancient furniture dating back forty years and dozens of black bin liners packed full of old clothes, shoes, and newspapers.

Emma peered around the edge of the door, looking across at the dozens of full bin bags piled on the rotting bed in the corner of the room and smiled in contentment. Her little darling was sound asleep. Watching his father turn from his usual benevolent self into a raging monster had obviously worn Steven out. She gently closed the door. It would be best to just let him rest until the morning; it seemed like the best option. They could all discuss his father’s worries at the breakfast table. Steven would understand.

She turned around, crossed the hallway, and opened her own bedroom door, oblivious to the stench of rotting meat that blasted from the room. Emma paused by the doorframe, trying to remember what had caused her to open her door. She frowned. It couldn’t be time for bed already, it felt as though she’d just woken up. Her memory was getting flaky in her old age. Still, it wasn’t that bad, at least not yet. She’d always been a bit absentminded. Whatever the reason for coming up here, she was sure it would come back to her in time.

Emma stepped over the threshold and weaved through the dozens of supermarket carrier bags standing next to each other. All the bags overflowed with packets of uneaten food. She stepped over a bag that contained nothing but moldy cheese and stopped in front of her dressing table where she absently pushed a shrink-wrapped packet of thin-cut beef steaks onto the damp carpet. She gazed down at the congealed lump of decomposing meat that had fallen out of the burst packet and nodded to herself while grinning. Of course, she must have come up here for another bag of sugar.

The fallen packet had disturbed the hundreds of flies that were busy laying eggs in the rotting food. Emma pushed her way through the cloud of insects and picked up a bag of sugar from the pile that was stacked eight deep in front of her bedroom window. Arthur would need at least three sweet coffees when he came back from his shift. It must be the reason why she’d come up here in the first place. She hoped that he’d be in a better mood when he came home.

Arthur so loved his sweet tea. At one time, she used to constantly tell the man that too much sugar was bad for him. He would never take any notice of her though. In fact, it just seemed to make him worse. In the end, Emma let him have his own way. It was always the easiest solution.

Just then she spotted movement outside her window. Emma used a couple of fingers to clean a spot in the thick, grease-coated dust, leaned towards the glass, and peered below.

The surging tide of shuffling dead were now right outside Emma’s garden gate. The old woman’s eyes shone. Oh boy, this really was a magnificent surprise. The street party was going on through the night! No wonder she had been feeling so queer. Of course, now that all the children had been put to bed the adults would be able to have a right proper time of it.