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Authors: Ian Woodhead

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BOOK: Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels]
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The Horse and Jockey was the only pub in the middle of the estate. There were a couple of other pubs within walking distance—the Crown and the Black Bull—but there was no way that he’d dare show his face in either of those two. The locals from the Breakspear Rise estate had claimed them.

Even after all these years, he knew most of the locals in those two pubs, and he knew them because Ernest had done most of their houses over. Somehow drinking in the same places with folk who’d probably knife him if they ever found out would not do his welfare any good.

He jumped back when the door pushed open from the other side, and a young lad wearing a bright orange shirt wandered in. The lad nodded to Ernest, and he nodded back. He didn’t know the lad from Adam. Oh he’d seen him in the pub a few times, but that was about as far as it went, but they both drank in the same place, so therefore they nodded to each other. The regulars in the Horse and Jockey all considered themselves to be part of the same family. It was that fucking Steve Reynolds who didn’t belong. He was the one who ought to bugger off.

Ernest grabbed the door handle and wished for the bastard to get sent down again. He re-entered the lounge and made his way up to the bar to collect his drinks. Ernest noted with great relief that Steve’s bar stool was now vacant. He hoped that the man had pissed off out of the pub, or even better, had a heart attack and died.

He wasn’t so lucky. Ernest spotted the clown in the games room arguing with one of the youngsters next to the dartboard.

“How’s your lad doing?” asked Ernest. “I haven’t seen him around ours for a couple of weeks.”

He didn’t really wish to start a conversation with big Des, but if Steve happened to look over and saw them two getting all friendly, there was less chance of him coming back over. It would, of course, piss Jeff off, too, knowing that his beer was getting warm and Ernest obviously having no inclination to bring it over.

Desmond unwrapped his arms from around the barmaid’s waist and pulled himself another pint. “Well, apart from this bloody headache, I’m pretty good. Hey, our Ashton’s at your place tonight, mate, along with half the teenagers on Breakspear.” Desmond smirked at Ernest’s shocked expression. “Oh dear, I’m guessing that you didn’t know that your son was having a drug-crazed party then?”

He shook his head. No, he didn’t have a bloody clue. He was going to tear Darren a new arsehole for pulling a stunt like this. Bloody hell, they’d just bought a new carpet for the living room as well. The thing would be ruined by the time this party ended.

“Your house is going to be in a right state.”

Ernest cringed, wondering if that was a jibe about the condition of their house. Christ, he sure hoped not. With the pint in one hand and the bottle in the other, Ernest made his way back to his smirking friend. He was willing to put down his next wage that Brenda knew all about this party. Hell, she’d probably helped to organize it too.

“You took your bloody time,” Jeff said.

“Oh I’m sorry. I had no idea that you were timing me. If had have known that, I would have run.”

Ernest placed the drinks down on the table, gave Jeff a mucky look, and collapsed into the seat. “Anyway, it’s about time you slowed down. You’re supping the stuff like its pop. You’re gonna be three sheets before last orders at this rate.”

Jeff grabbed his fresh pint like a starving man reached for the plate of roast beef. His friend was behaving very strangely tonight, stranger than normal anyway.

“Erm, did you know that our Darren was having a party tonight?”

Jeff nodded. “Sure, our Billy took his new bird there.”

“And you didn’t think of informing me?”

Jeff shrugged. “With it being your own fucking house, I had the feeling that you might already know.”

Ernest pulled a lump of foam out of the seat and rolled it between his fingers before flicking it under the table. “No wonder this place is like a bloody morgue tonight, they’ll all be at the party, wrecking my house.”

Jeff put his glass down; he’d already drunk three-quarters. “I don’t think they’ll all be at your gaff.”

He had a point there. The old fellow who propped up the end of the bar at weekends was missing. Ernest couldn’t remember his name, Dennis or David, something like that. Somehow he doubted that he’d be getting down with the kids. That reminded him, he hadn’t seen the guy’s wife for weeks; he wondered if she had passed away.

He scanned the bar and saw that Scary Mary was missing too. She propped up the other end of the bar and never missed a night.

“I wonder where Mary is. I hope she isn’t at my house.”

A foil packet had appeared in the palm of Jeff’s trembling hand. He had four white caplets in his hand already and was busy popping the rest out. “Don’t talk daft, why would she be at your place? The fat bitch will probably be in bed with an electric blanket over her head.” He threw the caplets in his mouth and swallowed them down with the last dregs of his beer. “And that is where I should be tonight.”

“In Scary Mary’s bed?”

“No, you fucking unfunny bastard, I mean in my bed.”

“So why aren’t you?”

He caught sight of Desmond lip dancing with the landlady and turned away, bloody hell! It looked like he was trying to eat her. That sort of nonsense belonged out of sight. It was putting him right off his beer.

“Because it’s Friday night, of course,” Jeff replied. “It’s what we’ve always done ever since we left school; at least it was until you got that bloody job.”

“What are you on about? I’ve had the job at the minimarket for the past six years.”

Jeff’s eyes glazed over. It took another few seconds before he replied. “Wait, did you just say six years. Shit, you sure about that? Thought it was only a week ago. He placed the flats of his hands on the table surface and heaved himself up. “Fuck, look, I’d better get some air. Feel so weird.”

His mate staggered around and stumbled towards the pub door. Ernest looked at the man’s untouched pint and the bottle stood next to the glass. Something told him that Jeff wasn’t coming back. Maybe he should walk him home and make sure the fella got in bed and didn’t decide to sleep in somebody’s shed.

He could always catch up with Jeff. There’s no way he could leave this beer on the table. It could be another week before alcohol passed his lips. Ernest selected Jeff’s pint. After another backbreaking week of working for Mr Singh, even shitty beer would taste like God’s own nectar.

 

The glass slipped through his fingers when an ear-piercing scream shattered the silence. He looked around wildly for the source. His dazed eyes stopped at the bar and refused to move. This could not be happening. Desmond still held the woman tight, but the embrace was no longer a tender one.

She struggled like a fish on the end of a line as he lifted her by the neck off the carpet. Desmond growled, then bit into her face and tore off a lump of flesh; he spat the piece out and dived back in for more.

Ernest’s stomach churned, and he felt hot bile climbing up his throat. No way could this be real. It had to be someone’s idea of a very sick joke.

The screamer let out another blast, and Ernest discovered that Desmond wasn’t the only freak in the Horse and Jockey that evening. He finally tore his gaze away from the big man crunching into the still woman’s exposed skull as if it was a fucking apple and looked over to the dartboard.

Steve Reynolds had pinned a young blonde girl against the wall. She was the screamer. Both her hands were against his head. She desperately tried to keep his snapping jaws away from her own face.

Ernest stood up. “What the fuck are you doing?” he screamed.

The crazed man didn’t react, but Desmond did. He dropped the woman’s body and groaned aloud.

Ernest could see that the girl’s strength was beginning to fail. He looked around the empty pub, frantically searching for somebody else who could help the poor girl. There was only him, and the boy in the bright shirt. That kid would be no use, he was too busy huddled in the corner of the games room, clutching a pool cue as if it were a teddy bear.

He pulled himself out of the seat while watching that man behind the bar. Des kept trying to reach Ernest, not yet realizing that the now scarlet-painted bar was in his way. He blinked and muttered a short prayer before he picked up a beer bottle left on the next table. He ran towards the dartboard and smashed it into the back of Reynolds’s head.

The girl screamed even louder as shards of broken glass showered her face. The bottle had little effect—if anything, it helped to push the man closer to the girl.

“Don’t just sit there,” Ernest shouted at the boy. “Fucking get over here, and help me.”

The young lad didn’t even move his sodding head; he was hunched over his shoes, frantically grabbing at something. Ernest moaned. What was he supposed to fucking do now? In frustration and panic, he grabbed the back of Steve’s collar and tried to pull him off the girl, but it was useless. It was like trying to pull a pit-bull off a puppy.

“Duck!”

Ernest spun around. The boy now stood next to him, swinging a weighted sock around his head.

“Move it, Granddad.”

Ernest let go of the man and bobbed down. He winced at the sharp crack that the improvised weapon made as it impacted against the side of Steve’s head. The man fell to the floor like a sack of bricks. Ernest scurried back before the dark grey slop dribbling from the large dent in Steve’s head reached his fingers.

“Oh Jesus fuck! What the bloody hell’s wrong with him?” moaned the girl. She growled before swinging her foot into the side of the man’s head. “That’s for trying to fucking bite me, you freaky bastard.”

The boy offered his hand; Ernest took it and hauled himself off the floor. “Thanks,” he muttered. “I’m Ernest.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Granddad, we ain’t done just yet.”

Desmond had managed to get out through the serving hatch and was headed straight for them. The boy forced a pool cue into Ernest’s hands.

“Here you go, Granddad, now it’s your turn.”

He looked stupidly at the pool cue, then jerked his head up and watched the huge pile of meat shamble towards them. What the bloody hell was he supposed to do with this? He might as well be armed with a fucking toothpick.

Desmond clacked his jaws together. It sounded like a mousetrap springing shut. Desmond moaned even louder.

“Don’t just fucking stand there, you gormless bastard! Stab him!”

“I can’t!” Ernest cried. “I’m no murderer.”

The boy pulled Ernest back from Desmond’s grasping hands. “It’s self-defense, just look at him, man, he wants to kill you!”

Ernest thought of all those times when people like Des and Steve knocked the shit out of him when he was younger. He remembered all the times when he visibly shook at the sight of them. He gripped the shaft tight with both hands, then charged at Desmond. The big man made no attempt to dodge; it was almost like he welcomed death. Ernest was only too happy to oblige. He drove the point up through the man’s jaw and deep into Desmond’s brain. It surprised him just how easy the cue went in; there was hardly any resistance, almost like pushing a steak knife through a hot Sunday joint.

“Oh God, please take me home, Adrian,” said the girl.

The boy took her hand then led her towards the exit. He looked back at Ernest.

“Are you coming or what?”

“What have I just done?”

“What you had to,” replied the boy. “Now come on, pull yourself together.”

Ernest’s home away from home now resembled an abattoir. Blood running from Desmond’s head pooled around the man’s ear. He watched the last blob of soap drop off the dead man’s lug and land in the scarlet fluid. Ernest distantly wondered why none of this absolute horror had affected his own sanity. Should he not be on his knees about now, tearing out his hair and thrusting his fist into his open mouth to muffle his shrieking?

“Granddad. Are you just going to stand there? We have to shift it.”

Ernest ran over to the bar.

“What the hell are you doing, old man?”

“What do you think I’m doing? We need to phone the police!”

The boy sighed. “Don’t you think I’ve already tried that? There’s no signal.” He pushed past Ernest and snatched the phone off the wall beside the bar. He placed the receiver to his ear before nodding to himself. “It’s dead, just like my mobile.”

Ernest picked up the phone and held it to his ear; the resounding silence shocked him more than killing Desmond.

“Are you ready now?”

He slowly nodded, thinking back to how this irritating kid had first reacted when this madness first started. Maybe it just took some people a bit longer to respond. Ernest then glanced over at his table, still expecting Jeff to be slumped in his chair. He then remembered that Jeff had said he was going home. Bloody hell, he hoped that he had managed to get home safely.

 

Chapter Four

 

The theme music to A Fistful of Dollars played low in the background. The living room lights were off, and the only illumination came from a green tinted desk light, the white light from the kitchen, and the static on TV.

Dennis Flynn had believed that his night couldn’t get any better. He should have known better not ignore Lady Fate and her deck of cards. He grinned to himself. At least this hand was a winner.

He ambled across his warm living room, holding his cup of hot chocolate with both hands, and trying to carefully keep the cup level so none of the liquid would slop over the edge was a harder job than he anticipated. Still, Dennis relished a challenge, and although his cautious hat earlier advised pouring a little out first, he listened to his impulsive hat this time. So what if it was only the surface tension stopping the stuff from spilling over, would it really be the end of the world if the carpet caught a few drops?

I could have at least dug out a damn saucer,” he muttered.

Dennis headed straight for his old coffee table, pleased to discover that despite the movement, not one drop had dribbled down the sides. He was getting better at this. Then again, he’d always been blessed with a pair of steady hands. He leaned over the table and gently placed his cup down on the cork mat.

His favourite chair now beckoned. He collapsed into the soft leather and stared at his concoction beside him, wondering if he dared to taste this one. The chances that this drink tasted just as vile as the last one that he’d thrown down the sink were very high. He could have tried it out whilst still in the kitchen, but where was the fun, suspense, and potential danger in doing that?

“That’ll be the impulsive hat talking there, boy.”

Apart from the occasional slip, Dennis considered himself to be a logical and exact man. Making a hot chocolate should have been as difficult as riding a bike. He had followed the instructions on the side of the box accurately, and yet the stuff still tasted just horrible. He came to the conclusion that the makers of this stuff had no idea how proper hot chocolate should taste. Dennis would just have to experiment with different quantities. All he wanted was to taste a hot chocolate like his late Ethel used to make for him every night. Was that too much to ask for? Then again, his dead wife had never known the meaning of the word ‘exact’. Knowing his absent-minded, now dead wife, she probably would not have even read the instructions on the side of the tin.

He gazed with annoyance at the cup, noting a dribble had run down the side. It looked the same as the cups that she used to make for him. He had even got the shade right with this one. Maybe he should just console himself with that one fact. It was more of a sense of carrying on the routine than anything else.

Dennis turned his attention to the old television which stood in the corner of the room. The test card had now replaced the static. He wasn’t sure whether that was an improvement or not. He hadn’t seen the test card in years. Still, there it was. After what he had witnessed so far tonight, Dennis knew that it wasn’t going away anytime soon. He also knew that if he chose to try his radio again, only white noise would greet his ears.

Still, he did have his vast collection of Westerns to fall back on in case he did become bored. Dennis didn’t believe that would happen anytime soon; besides, he’d been telling himself that staring at the gogglebox for so long wasn’t doing him any good at all.

He picked up his binoculars, brought them up to his eyes, and adjusted the focus wheel to bring the garden across the road into sharp focus. The street next to the garden was quiet now. It appeared that Mr. Harding and the other dead chap had now wandered out of view, probably to hunt for more panicking residents.

He remembered hearing the Harding’s close their front door a few hours ago. His annoying neighbours, Eileen and Donald, were about to embark on their usual walk around the edge of the housing estate. The couple had been following this stupid routine for almost twenty years now, every single night at eight o’clock on the dot.

Watching them play out their sweet, sugar spun life had been irritating Dennis for years. Their happy-go-lucky outlook on life made Dennis physically retch. There had been countless times when he had hoped that at least one of the scrotes in Breakspear would decide to knock the crap out of them, or even better, rape and murder the pair of them. Yet somehow they just carried on following their rainbow-coloured lives, never getting beaten up, not returning home to discover someone had broken into their house and crapped on their bed, and never suffering verbal abuse from any of the kids.

Anyone else stupid enough to try a trick like that wouldn’t have lasted a single night. Wandering around the edge of the estate after the sun had gone down was the same as asking for pain. They would either have testicles the size of footballs or be mentally disturbed.

Their unbroken luck had drastically changed that night when the husband noticed a young, blond-haired youth stumble over a low wall opposite their house and hit the ground hard. Of course, the pair of the idiots had rushed over the road to investigate, to see if they could be of any assistance. Dennis had watched the whole drama unfold through his new binoculars. It almost felt as though he was standing right next to Donald Harding.

Just by looking at the face of that young man still lying on the ground, Dennis knew that the guy had passed on. He’d seen enough corpses in his previous career to know what a dead person looked like. He had trouble containing his excitement when the cadaver opened his eyes. The youth snapped out his arm and grabbed Donald’s ankle. Those two good Samaritans were now in serious trouble. The corpse pulled Donald down, grabbed his hair, and bit a large chunk of meat out of the side of his neck.

Donald smacked into the pavement with his life fluid streaming out of the side of his neck. The blood flowed into the gutter and disappeared down the closest drain. The man’s poor wife had shrieked like a banshee. It must have finally dawned on the silly bitch that their neighbourhood was not made from fluffy white clouds and cute cartoon bunnies. Dennis had seen that the only response to her cries for help was the twitching of curtains. He suspected that half the houses on the road would have locked their doors when she had started up her scream motor.

Her husband’s body had started to jerk and twitch a few minutes later. The woman hadn’t noticed, she was too busy trying to stay away from the other man. Dennis grinned in disbelief when Donald’s hands began to spasmodically open and close. For Dennis, a man so intimate with death, this was the most exciting event of his life. What was happening here? The dead stayed dead, they did not come back to life. Donald should not have been able to do that—he had bled out like a stuck pig—that man was deader than dead. Despite the impossibility of the situation, that dead man had gotten back on his feet. He wasn’t that steady on them, but he was still moving about.

The whole situation got more interesting as each moment passed. The woman had yet to notice that her darling husband had just come back to life. The hysterical woman’s eyes hadn’t left the other man. Dennis thought that all his birthdays had come at once when both men lunged for the woman from opposite sides. She didn’t stand a chance. The men wrestled the screaming woman to the ground, then pulled off her arms like an old rag doll and proceeded to tear out lumps of flesh from her legs and chest. It took her a while to stop screaming.

The walking dead men left the woman’s body slumped against a lamppost on the other side of the street. It had been there for some time, and not one person had passed it save for a mongrel dog who rushed past, stopped, then pissed on the body before running off. Her left arm lay in the middle of the road across a faded white line where the men had dropped it. Most of the road marking was hidden under a congealed puddle of blood.

Dennis hadn’t seen what happened to the rest of the arm; he just assumed that the men had taken it with them. Their behavior brought up so many infuriating questions aside from the obvious—how did the dead come to return? Why had they not finished eating the woman? Why had they left that arm in the road? He so hated mysteries.

Walking away from the fun-packed scenario happening outside his living-room window had been one of the hardest tasks that he had ever undertaken, but Dennis had no other choice. Just as the two men were getting up, he suddenly remembered that he had left a pan full of boiling potatoes on the hob. He could let them boil dry, but it would take him hours to clean the pan.

There were times when he so hated his sensible hat.

Once he turned off the heat, Dennis had attempted to phone the police. He had no real desire to see them anywhere around, but he had to keep up appearances, just in case anybody was watching his movements. Predictably, the line was dead. It didn’t take a complete idiot to figure out that all the events were connected. Something truly earth shattering was happening right here on his doorstep. Dennis hadn’t been this excited in years.

He quickly glanced at the wall clock above the television and saw that it had been seven minutes since those two had mauled the old bag. He zeroed in on her face, eager to see if his prediction would happen. The old man had come back quickly, but he had only sustained a single bite. The woman resembled a chewed-up rump steak. Even so, he believed that she’d still reanimate.

When after another couple of minutes her facial muscles started to twitch, which was followed by the woman opening her eyes, Dennis whooped and gave himself a high five. He kept watching, noting that at no point did she realize that both her arms were no longer attached.

Dead people with no sense of their previous life and no realization of pain were now shuffling around the estate, looking for other residents to eat. Dennis was so happy. His dull nights had become a great deal more interesting.

His dull nights had already been livened up a couple of days ago, but nothing so exciting as biological automatons killing and eating anyone who was stupid enough to stray too close to them. Dennis had noticed, quite by accident, that the young woman who lived opposite his house had taken to stripping off her clothes in front of the bedroom window. He couldn’t remember her name, but his wife would have known it, as well as her parent’s names, as well as her full life history. He did wonder who she was trying to impress. It was no accident, he wasn’t that naïve; the slow erotic dancing gave that fact away.

He’d purchased a pair of binoculars out of his pension money from a second hand shop in Leeds City Centre the next day. He knew that he’d feel like a right buffoon if it had only been a one-off, but she was there the next night, and the night after that. He might have stimulated his long lost libido, but staring through the eyepiece for such a long time played havoc with his eyesight.

Dennis almost felt betrayed when the young woman had failed to make an appearance at her window tonight. Of course, he now knew the reason for her non-performance issue. Dennis guessed that the woman might have suffered a similar fate to Mrs. Harding. The thought that one of those dead creatures had torn that naked girl into tiny bloodied pieces of meat was far more exciting than watching her undress.

He dropped his binoculars into his lap and stared at the door leading to the stairs. The window in the spare room directly above him would give him an excellent view of the estate. The idea was attractive, as he would like to see if this phenomenon had spread beyond the boundaries of the housing estate.

“Maybe in a while,” he whispered. “Once I have calmed down.” He rubbed his eyes before reaching for his reading glasses. It had been such an eventful night. Dennis chuckled to himself. That was one way of putting it. He hadn’t had this much fun since before his wife had died. He looked at his hot chocolate and sighed. After all those years of marriage, her drinks-making was the only thing he missed.

Dennis leaned back against the back of the chair and allowed his eyes to close, recalling the multiple images that had already caressed and fondled his mind tonight. Each one had helped to awaken the beast within him that Dennis had believed to be permanently dormant.

His charged emotions received yet another jolt once those two dead men had stumbled out of the view of his binoculars.

Definitely dead.

He had died ten years ago. Dennis knew this because it was he who had murdered the man and buried his body in the garden across the road while the house was between tenants. Ronald Spinks held a special place in Dennis’s heart. He had been the last person to feel the cut of his knives before he hung up his special tools for good.

From that point on, events just escalated, exhilarating him and scaring him both in equal measures. From the safety of his living room, he watched two old men. He was sure that one of them was Albert Pannier. It was difficult to tell because most of his face was missing. They lurched out of the alleyway between number eight and number ten, stopped right in front of a young mother pushing her pram, and pulled the baby right out of its seat. It took them just seconds to extinguish the child’s light. The mother’s screams were cut short as they both dived on her too.

Just ten minutes later, Rebecca Westwood walked past his window holding her son’s hand. Daniel Westwood was only eight, but he already had a good throwing arm. The little bastard had even tried to put Dennis’s windows out a couple of years ago. Dennis had soon put that little bugger in his place. He had shot him in the leg with his air rifle from the bathroom window. The kid had been very polite to him ever since.

BOOK: Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels]
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