The Common Cold (Book 1): A Zombie Chronicle (3 page)

“First, we need a plan of action. What have we got that
would work as weapons around here? I’ll be damned if I’m going out there
without something to defend myself with.”

Giving it some thought, Rob replied. “We have some fire
extinguishers; you could use their weight as a club, or fire them at attackers.
It might give us an edge.”

“Anything else?” Danny didn’t like the idea of the
extinguishers, they were a little too clumsy for a real fight.

“A couple of packing knives, some unassembled desks. The
legs are steel, we could use them as bats.”

“Sounds good. Let’s do it.”

Together they collected their makeshift arsenal. It still
felt like a lightweight proposition as far as Daniel was concerned. What he’d
really love to have was a gun, a fucking big gun. And plenty of ammo. They’d
just have to work with what they had to hand. Collecting their limited weaponry
together, they had to pass through the reception area to leave; unfortunately
Marilyn stood in their way, swaying unsteadily.

“She’s alive!” Rob said, disbelief in his tone. “She can’t
be, she was dead a few minutes ago. You know she was, wasn’t she?” he asked,
incredulously. She was staring fixedly at them, standing squarely between them
and their escape route. Drool was pouring steadily down her front, blood was
caked on the side of her face from where she had lain. It had dried in patches
on her cheek and down one side of her chest, the carpet lending its texture to
the dried colouring, giving her a hideous, matted appearance. A slow,
malevolent hiss was escaping from her mouth, her eyes deadpan, her gaze moving
uncertainly between the two men.

“Marilyn,” Daniel said, in a gentle voice so as not to spook
her. “Are you okay?” Stupid bloody question, he thought to himself as soon as
the words were out of his mouth, and for his pains, she began to focus on him,
edging her way forward, arms slack and by her side. He stepped toward her, his
natural concern for a work colleague overtaking common sense.

“I wouldn’t,” Rob said, bracing himself to defend Danny if
the worst happened.

“It’s okay. It’s only Marilyn.” She picked that moment to
launch herself at him, teeth bared. The approach was clumsy, and Daniel easily
sidestepped her attack. Expecting to land on him, she fell to the ground as the
air in front of her emptied. She growled in frustration. Daniel bent down to
help her up once more.

“Get back, Danny!” Rob shouted, “can’t you see she’s
fuckin
’ nuts? That isn’t Marilyn, she’s like a zombie.”

As if to support his conjecture, Marilyn, or the thing that
was once her, stood up quickly and turned on Rob. As she ran at him, he brought
the fire extinguisher up and caught her in the chest. The lads both heard her
rib cage crunch, and she staggered backwards under the power of the blow.

“Jesus! You must have crushed her chest,” said Daniel,
stating the bloody obvious. He was getting good at that.

She looked down at the damage, fingering a rib that was now
protruding through her top, gobbets of lung hanging off it. Looking back at
Rob, her face contorted with rage and she lunged once more at him. Thwack!
Daniel’s fire extinguisher connected with the side of her head. In what seemed
like slow motion, they looked on as her head imploded under this new force, before
finally bursting outwards as if under pressure. Blood and brain matter went
everywhere, most of it seeming to splash back and cover Daniel. Marilyn fell
and was finally still.

“What the hell? She just stood there, ribs sticking out and
everything. How could someone still be standing like that?” Daniel asked no-one
in particular. Today was getting weirder, he thought. And that was no easy
feat. And it was still only just before nine in the morning.

“
Dunno
. Your headshot seemed to do
the trick, though. Keep that in mind, and let’s get out of here before someone
comes and sees what we’ve done.” Both of them were instinctively worried that
they had done something to break the law. Weren’t politicians always going on
about using minimum force, or something? Would killing, if that’s what it was,
count as minimum force, today?

“I don’t need telling twice,” Daniel agreed. “Let’s use the
stairs, there’s some bloke in the lift, and he doesn’t seem to want to get
out.”

Daniel grabbed some tissues off the reception counter and
wiped his face and the fire extinguisher, removing the worst of the muck. It
didn’t help much, the feeling of being unclean remained with him. He didn’t
feel sad at ending Marilyn’s life, somehow doubting he had actually been the
death of her. If he had, then she had died twice.

Janet was concerned by Daniel’s call. She had heard very
little of it; the line was particularly bad, but there seemed to be a nervous
edge to his voice. Perhaps he was stressed by the move to the new office, and
all it entailed. Sometimes Bill Watts, the managing director and owner of the
company, could be a little demanding; on a day like this, their first day in
their new premises, she was sure the man would be a real pain in the arse.
Having met him on a couple of occasions, she hadn’t been impressed by his human
interface, as he called it.
Tosser
.

In spite of herself, and much to her surprise, she had
enjoyed the brains Danny cooked for her this morning. The bacon helped, she
thought. Strange meal for breakfast though, and as for that daft thing he had
picked up from his beloved zombie films, ‘
braaaaiinnzzz
’,
or whatever it was, he was a grown man and she would be happy if, one day, he
behaved more like one. Anyway, zombies weren’t anything more than a fictional
invention. She’d read articles trying to justify their existence, but it was
all claptrap in her opinion.

She finished the pot of coffee Daniel had made before he’d
left for work. Doing the dishes, she stared vacantly at the steamed-over window
in front of her, her actions automatic. Janet hated housework, especially the
washing-up, which was mostly Daniel’s job; he was pretty well house trained.
Looking up, she caught sight of her reflection in the glass. God, there was a
zombie staring back at her, with the dark circles under her red-rimmed eyes,
and her unhealthy pallor; perhaps they did exist after all, maybe they were
just ordinary, everyday people struggling to cope. Wiping her hands, she went
upstairs to try and make herself look more presentable, although who would
notice, she didn’t know.

Finishing up in the house, she picked up her rucksack and
set off to Eltham. It was after nine a.m.; most of the commuters would be gone,
so it was unlikely she would see more than the odd person walking in her
direction. She liked the empty streets. The traffic would also be lighter, so
there would be less toxic fumes to breathe in; Janet had never been convinced
of the benefits of exercise, especially in the London air. All those main
roads, with queuing traffic, just sitting there, burning petrol. Most people
could probably walk to their destinations anyway, especially mums and their
little darlings, who seemed to require to be driven absolutely everywhere these
days. What was it she’d heard recently? A report that said some 95% of primary
school kids couldn’t throw, or catch a ball, by the time they reached secondary
school, aged eleven. As a species, what sort of a population were we
sleepwalking towards?

Crossing the main road and heading up Court Road towards
Eltham, she noticed a couple, attired for the City, walking towards her. There
was something decidedly strange in their gait, slouched, head-down, and arms
slack by their sides. Their movements were completely uncoordinated, awkward
even, and there was something about their faces that didn’t look quite right as
well. Too pale, sick looking; they looked drawn, emotionally hollow. Could they
be drug addicts? The clothes were at odds with this assumption, but who could
tell these days?

Head down, Janet walked briskly past the couple, trying not
to look at them or catch their attention. She glanced in the plate glass window
of the dry cleaners, hoping to see someone familiar, maybe the proprietor,
Miriam, to bolster her confidence. Miriam was indeed standing there, but her
face was vacant, and she, too, looked very pale. Janet waved, smiling. Strange,
although Miriam turned slightly towards her, she didn’t seem to notice Janet at
all, just continued to stand there, staring out of the window.

Feeling unnerved and vulnerable, Janet quickened her pace,
and arrived at the library after her best time yet, of twenty minutes, door to
door. Instead of using the main road as planned, she had taken all the less
familiar back routes, avoiding the high street. People looked really odd this
morning, and alarm bells were beginning to sound in her head. She would have
turned around and gone home, but by the time that option was considered, she
was closer to her destination than to home, and really wanted, no, needed, to
get inside.

She burst through the outer doors of the library, and
collapsed against a wall, grateful to be inside. Her chest hurt, and her throat
was raspy, the effects of the cold unforgiving of her unaccustomed extra
effort. Slowly reviving, she walked through the inner doors and into the
library proper. Walking briskly over to the reception counter, Janet looked
around for a member of staff, even peering into the staff area, hoping to find
someone normal. The place seemed empty. In irritation she rang the little bell
on the counter, and stumbled backwards in fright as a figure suddenly loomed up
in front of her. He’d been crouching down, behind reception.

“Bloody hell, Paul. You nearly gave me a heart attack!” she
admonished.

“Sorry about that. Oh, it’s you Janet. Sorry, I didn’t hear
you come in. I’ve been pretty busy this morning, as almost no-one has decided
to turn up for work. As you can see I’m on my own in here.”

“Maybe they’ve got the same crappy virus I’ve got,” she
replied.

“Or they enjoyed themselves too much in the last few days,
more likely.”

Paul was blushing slightly, reminding Janet of his crush on
her. Recognising this fact early on, Janet had shamelessly used him on several
occasions to get access to material that was not readily available to the
public. Hence the purpose of this visit. He had always gone out of his way to
accommodate her wishes, and today was no exception.

“So how was your Christmas break, then?” Janet asked, trying
to lift his mood a little.

“Not bad, as much as I hate going to my Mum’s, that is. It’s
so boring, and anyway I don’t think she wants me there these days. Hey, I heard
something really interesting on the radio last night. It happened a couple of
weeks ago now, but apparently NASA, along with some private funding group or
other, has captured a meteorite from space, and brought it back to Earth!”

“Sorry, Paul. What’s so interesting about that? They brought
back moon rock in the seventies, and meteorites fall on us all the time.”

“The interesting thing is that because of the way they
brought it back, it didn’t get burnt and sterilized as it entered the
atmosphere. They’re hoping to be able to find living tissue on it, and possibly
some strange new elements.”

“God, the money they spent on that could probably pay off
world debt. And what have we got to show for it? Space snot and a bit of metal.
If you want snot, I’ve got plenty, and I won’t even charge as much as they’ve
spent.”

“Ha, ha, Janet. Well, I think it’s pretty interesting,
anyway.”

“They’re probably responsible for the cold I’ve got right
now. Bloody scientists.”

“Your cold really has killed your sense of interest in
things.” Paul looked hurt and Janet realised she had overstepped the mark.

“I’m sorry, Paul. Perhaps on another day I might find it a
bit more interesting, but today I’m tired, I’ve got a headache that won’t quit,
and I’ve blown my nose a thousand times since I left the house half an hour
ago. Please forgive me.”

“Don’t worry, I understand. Anyway, the good news is that
I’ve got your books for you, and I’ve set them up in one of the reading rooms.
As no-one’s around I don’t even have to sneak you in there.”

They set off to the room, passing the children’s play area,
where a group of toddlers had congregated with accompanying parents, all women.

Janet looked at them, they were unusually quiet for a group
of kids, she thought. Normally they had her wincing and wishing for the days
when silence was what libraries were about. The mothers were sitting in a
circle, facing inwards, their expressions hard to discern. The children sat
within their protective circle. To Janet’s horror, some of the kids seemed to
be playing with small body parts, sucking or chewing on them. Peering more
closely, she decided they were plastic legs and arms from toy dolls, and began
absent-mindedly looking around for the accompanying plastic torsos.

One of the children seemed to have red around its mouth,
probably sucked on a crayon, she surmised. Lost in this thought, Paul quietly
called to her, and they stepped into the reading room.

“I’ve set the books up over there,” he said, pointing to a
large desk on which many thick tomes lay, waiting just for her. She grinned at
the thought.

“Thanks Paul, you’re a treasure, doing this for me.” Sometimes
she felt a right heel for using him the way she did, but she just couldn’t help
it. Paul went back to his work.

The so-called Domesday Book, commissioned in 1085 by William
the Conqueror, was commissioned to determine the land and resources in England
at the time, in order for the Crown to assess the extent of taxes it could
raise. The absolute and irreversible nature of the data collected led people to
compare it to Judgement Day. Although there were more appropriate references to
the end of time, in works such as the Bible, the relevance of the Domesday Book
to how she felt today, with all its associated weirdness, was strong.

Janet, with her cynicism regarding the existence of the dead
arisen, couldn’t help but remember the beautifully spoken lines in Romero’s
film, Dawn of the Dead, ‘
when there is
no more room in hell
, the dead shall walk the earth’. Daniel had played
the DVD so many times over the years that these days she was almost word
perfect line for line as the movie played out. A sign of a misspent youth, no
doubt. Smiling to herself at her husband’s whimsical enthusiasm for that stuff,
she wondered what he was doing right now, probably getting bored to death by
yet another interminable meeting with Bill, no doubt.

Sitting down and getting comfortable, Janet began her
research. Having waited nearly two months for this opportunity, she wasn’t
going to let a stupid virus get the better of her. In fact, with a bit of
positive thinking, her head was already starting to clear a little, and focusing
on this work would marginalise any further ill feeling. Deep in thought, Paul
surprised her by appearing by her side.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

Before she had the chance to reply, they were both startled
by a scream, abruptly cut off, coming from what sounded like the main hall.
Jumping to her feet in panic, she rushed to the door, Paul right behind her.

Peering carefully through the glass window, they saw a man,
dressed in a long grey tweed coat, clutching something to his chest. Janet
thought she saw legs flailing for a moment.

“I think he’s got a child,” she said, as they watched his
erratic behaviour. He had his back to them, and seemed to be talking to
whatever it was he was holding. As he turned around, they could see he wasn’t
talking at all. He looked up, revealing the true horror of what he was holding.
Gasping out loud, Janet ducked down, out of sight, dragging Paul with her.
Unable to believe the evidence in front of her own eyes, she was starting to
hyperventilate. Controlling her breathing, she forced herself to look again.

“What the fuck?” Paul uttered. That was the first time Janet
had ever heard Paul swear.

They were mesmerised by the apparition before them, like
rabbits caught in headlights. In the man’s arms was a child, a boy, or at least
the remains of one. He appeared to have been gnawing at the lad’s throat,
arteries and cartilaginous tubing of the trachea hanging from his mouth, caught
in mid-chew. Janet felt the blood drain from her face; stomach churning with
acid, the remains of her breakfast threatened to make a reappearance. Weak and
close to collapse, Janet fell against the doorjamb in horror.

Distracted from his feast by the noise, the stranger dropped
the damaged body, and began to walk awkwardly towards them. She looked down at
his feet and saw, to her amazement, that the right one was at an odd angle; he
was standing on his exposed tibia, his foot dragging behind, leaving
semi-clotted blood in his wake. Suddenly the boy twitched and groaned, the last
vestiges of his life ebbing away, attracting the man’s cannibalistic attention
once more.

Janet let herself slide to the floor, her legs too weak to
support her any longer. Her vision went grey for a moment, before colour
returned again. Calming her breathing, she realised she was in danger of
passing out. Paul had settled down next to her, clearly not feeling any better.
What the hell were they going to do? With that monster out there, eating that
poor child, they were trapped in here. Crawling across the floor to her
rucksack, she delved into it, looking for her phone. She dialled 999. It was
engaged. What? That wasn’t possible, surely, she told herself, and tried again,
only to be met with the same insistent tone. Giving up and dialling Daniel’s
number, it went to voicemail. She wanted to scream in frustration, but didn’t.
The sod was probably in a meeting, lucky bugger, she thought.