Holiday of the Dead (50 page)

“You guessed it,” he replied shortly. “The same old shit about zombies. I’ve already tried two places here. The last place had a girl behind the counter, only about eighteen. When she started to talk about zombies I got quite annoyed, and a couple of blokes in the queue behind me told me to get out. I was going to kick off but I’m too bloody hungry.”

“Roy, just forget it. I’ll have a battered burger or something.”

“No!” he almost shouted at her. “You’re having fish and chips. I’m having fish and chips. We’re having fish and chips twice if I have to go behind the counter and serve them myself. OK, I can see another chip shop. I’ll call you soon.”

“Don’t do anything stupid and get yourself hurt,” she half-hissed at him.

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” he replied firmly, and hung up. She didn’t care much for his tone of voice. She glanced at her watch. They’d been married for twenty-eight hours and thirty-six minutes, and they were having their first argument.

The phone rang. Answering it only confirmed her suspicion that there would be no one there.

VI

It was dark outside now. Susan stood by the window, looking through the rain towards the shadowy bulk of the hills. She could see lights in the village, though she could not make out the individual buildings. Occasionally a car came down the lane, past the drive of the cottage, and with each new set of headlights she prayed that it was Roy. But it never was.

She was worried. She knew how Roy’s mind worked. He was stubborn. Sometimes that was a good thing. The fact that they were together was largely due to his stubbornness, his refusal to accept that her family’s dislike of him should stop them marrying. He had eventually won them over, even Uncle Ben. Uncle Ben had hated Roy from the start, but something must have changed because by the time the wedding date was announced he had been only too keen to lend them his beloved cottage. But that same stubbornness could also get Roy into trouble. He could be aggressive, and would almost never back down, regardless of the odds. When he said that he would get fish and chips twice, that’s what he would do. She loved him for it, even as she wished he could just back down and get something else. She was hardly even hungry anymore. She was simply too worried.

She had tried his mobile twice, and each time she had got his answer-phone. That in itself meant nothing, she told herself. In these hills, in this weather, the mobile signal could come and go. If anything had happened, if their ageing car had finally given up on life and died on him, if he’d got in a fight, he’d have found a way to tell her. She told herself all this.

It didn’t make her feel any better.

The phone had rung twice more. Each time she had picked it up, wanting to hear his voice in the darkened room. Each time there had been no one there. This time, when it rang, she didn’t answer it, not straight away. She ignored its annoying tinny noise, looking out of the window. There was no moon, she realised. It was heavily overcast of course, but Susan still felt she should have been able to see some sign of it, some faint glow behind the shadow of the cloud. Dark moon, Roy had called it. She had once admitted to a little trepidation when it was a full moon, childhood nightmares of werewolves and demons coming to mind. Roy had told her not to worry, that the moon couldn’t hurt her. It was when there was a dark moon, no moon at all – that was the time to worry.

He’d always been able to frighten her. He’d frightened her then. He’d frightened her in the kitchen earlier. He was frightening her now.

The phone continued to ring.

Another car passed, its headlights briefly illuminating the darkness in front of the cottage, the low rumble of its engine penetrating into the room before fading into the encroaching darkness.

The phone continued to ring.

Susan watched as several drops of rain coalesced into one which slid down the window frame, gathering speed before dashing itself to pieces on the windowsill. A night bird called somewhere in the darkness.

“No,” she lied, sniffing. She realised for the first time that she was crying. A tear rolled down her cheek and dropped onto the phone. “Where are you?”

“I’ve just turned into the lane. I haven’t been able to get a signal until now. I’ve got dinner with me – hope you’ve still got an appetite.”

“Well, no. I just got bored and pissed off and thought enough was enough. Finally I went into this chip shop and asked the guy for fish and chips twice. He starts to give me the usual about I can’t give you fish and chips twice and I interrupted him and said, look mate, I don’t want to hear this crap about zombies. I’ve heard it all before. You’ve all had your little joke and it was very funny, but now I’m sick of it. I just want two lots of fish and chips and I honestly don’t give a flying fuck about the zombies. And that was it. He asks me if I want salt and vinegar, he serves it all up, I pay him and that was that.” He laughed.

“What do you think that was all about then?” Susan asked.

“God knows. Like I said before, maybe they just don’t like the English. Maybe it’s some bizarre local custom. They all look a bit inbred around here, don’t you think? I keep expecting to see some kid playing the banjo. I’m back now, anyway.”

Susan looked up, towards the window, as two shafts of light illuminated the room. The car pulled up into the drive.

“I hope you’ve got those plates warmed and ready,” Roy said. She heard the engine die, and a second later the lights were extinguished. Silhouetted against the faint glow of the village she saw him step out of the car, his mobile tucked between shoulder and ear, two grey-white bundles in his hands. “I’m starving,” he told her. “I could eat …” and his voice stopped abruptly. Through the window she saw him stop moving.

“What’s up now?” she asked him, jokingly exasperated.

“Hey!” he suddenly shouted, and it was a moment before she realised he wasn’t talking to her. “What are you doing over there?” She watched him walk away from the car, disappearing from her view. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”

“Roy, what is it?” Susan said, her voice rising in pitch. She strained at the window to try and see anything, but he was out of vision to the left. In the shadows on the right, something moved. A figure.

“Do it!” he shouted. “I’ll get in the car. Please. Jesus!” There were more figures in the shadows now, moving towards the car. There was something odd about the way they shuffled, limping, advancing as if in pain, shambolic. She saw Roy reappear, his back to the car, phone still clasped to his ear.

“Behind you!” she screamed. She saw him turn, watched the look on his face as clearly as if it were daylight as he dropped the bundles and grabbed the phone in his left hand, his right hand fumbling to unlock the car door. The figures were getting closer. She felt more tears on her cheeks. She wanted to lock the door, but she could not move. She was transfixed as surely as if she were paralysed, her eyes on the scene before her, the phone pressed so hard against her ear that it would have hurt if she had been capable of feeling pain right then.

Roy wrenched the door open and got into the car. “I’m going to get help,” he said. “I’ll be back for you. Lock the doors!”

“Just go, Roy. Go!”

She heard the noise of the car, of the starter motor vainly trying to start the engine. She heard Roy muttering between sharp breaths. The figures had almost reached the car, and for the first time she heard another sound, a sound that she could not recognise. It was a low moaning noise, like an animal in pain, and it was a moment before she realised where it was coming from.

“Roy!” she screamed.

“It won’t start!”

More figures appeared from the left of the car, from the shadows behind it. She could not count them all. She could only watch in sobbing terror as they surrounded the car. The sound of breaking glass shattered the night.

“Susan!” Roy screamed, and then his scream became louder, became shockingly high as the car became obscured from view by the dark bulk of the creatures.

“Roy,” she sobbed. She couldn’t look, turned away and collapsed to the floor. The phone hung loosely by its cord, a series of grunts and wet tearing sounds emanating from it until finally it, like the night, was silent.

VII

She couldn’t have said how long she lay there, too scared to move, too distraught to think. Nothing came through the door, although she had never locked it. Nothing smashed through the windows to take her the way it had Roy.

It took the frantic beeping of the phone to rouse her from her near-catatonic state. Left off the hook too long with no signal left, the alarm had come on. Numbly she picked the handset up and replaced it in its cradle. The phone let out one sharp ring and was quiet.

She could barely bring herself to look out of the window, but eventually she managed it, wiping away the tears that blurred her vision. The car was still there, the last faint light from the village sparkling on broken glass. Nothing moved. No shambling shapes in the darkness. No Roy.

She was still not thinking, not in any real sense. Had she been able to think she would not have gone outside. She would not have turned the interior light on as she left to cast its revealing rays across the driveway. She was on autopilot. The fear that had so completely overtaken her had gone, leaving a void inside her. Only a compulsion, a need to know what had happened, powered her body as she walked out into the night.

The rain had at last stopped. The ground was sodden and thick with mud that embraced her naked feet. She did not notice. The driver’s side door of the car was closed, the cheap plastic of the handle wet beneath her hand as she reached out to open it.

It took her a moment to realise what it was, the dark, unrecognisable shape that tumbled from the car. It lay there in the mud, one limb outstretched, dead fingers seemingly grasping for something. She could see hair but there was no face, not anymore. Something that might once have been called an eye stared blindly up at her from a half-shattered socket. She did not scream. There was no emotion left in her. Her eyes followed the line of the arm as it reached towards two shredded bundles of paper and food, two greasy masses that glistened dimly in the light of the house.

From inside the car came a noise. It took her a moment to realise it was a tinny mobile rendition of
I Just Called to Say I Love You
. She reached into the car, found the phone. It felt slippery and faintly warm as she pressed it to her ear.

“Susan?”

“Uncle Ben?”

“Yes, it’s me. Is everything alright? I’ve been trying to ring for hours but the phone was always engaged. It only just occurred to me to ring Roy’s mobile.”

“Oh, Uncle Ben,” she sobbed, his voice bringing her back from the edge. “It’s, “it’s Roy. They …” She tried to speak but the words stuck in her throat.

Susan continued to stare at the body. She had said the words, she knew he was dead, and yet something inside her wouldn’t accept it. She kept expecting him to jump up and laugh, so that she could scold him for scaring her. That was just the sort of thing Roy would do. Like the thing with the tarantula. It was funny now, looking back at it, but at the time …

She was suddenly cold.

“What do you mean,” she whispered. “You know?”

“They tell me they tried to warn him,” Uncle Ben said reasonably. “Poor Susan. I always said he was too stubborn for his own good. I know you agreed. You always said one day it would get him into trouble.”

“What are you saying?” she said, numb again, knowing the answer.

“You can’t have fish and chips twice. The zombies will get you. But he had to have something he wasn’t supposed to have, didn’t he? Like you, Susan. You were always too good for him. If only he could have just walked away. Still, all’s well that ends well, eh?” He began to laugh. Slowly, other voices began to join him, each laughing, some recognisable, others not. Each new voice added to the cruel merriment.

Susan lowered the phone from her ear and then, as if it were suddenly burning, hurled it away. It landed ten yards away, but the noise seemed louder than ever. Susan screamed, holding her hands to her face, leaving handprints of mud and blood on her cheeks and forehead. Again and again she screamed, trying to drown out the mocking laughter in the darkness.