The Restless Dead: A Zombie Novel (14 page)

24 WE’RE NO AT LASER QUEST NOW

We buried Laura and Callie in the same grave side by side. It was the last thing we could do for them. We left the two thugs to the dead bastards; that’s if they’d eat human flesh cloying with the stench of moral decay.

Once the job was done, Mustafa told me that all he seemed to do these days was bury bodies. He looked so sad and pathetic that I almost hugged him. Without his quick thinking, we could all be dead or like those two poor girls, I could be trapped in hell at the hands of those two psychos and their freak of a mother. When Mustafa strode off with the spade gripped in his hand and in the direction of the bus I’d no idea what he was doing until I realised that he was lifting something up with the end of his spade. It’s only when he tossed it my way that I realised what was at the end of it: a sock with part of a child’s foot in it. Bile rose in my throat. 

“Hey, Emma, guess they missed a bit,” he shouted.

Sick bastard.

I wanted to batter some sense into him for his crass insensitivity with my bat, but Doyle got there first.

“What the hell are you doing, pal?” The pal bit didn’t sound too friendly.

Mustafa advanced towards him, but Doyle didn’t move. They were within head-butting distance now.

When Mustafa spoke, he threw out the words like daggers. “Don’t know what the fuck you’re looking at, you cunt. You wanted to blow the fuck out of innocent people. See that wean’s leg, that’s nothing compared to the number of body parts there would have been if you’d got your way. At least those fuckers are killing to eat. What were you doing it for? Some sick, twisted political agenda?” His face was twisted with rage. “You’re a disgrace to Islam.”

He had a point. Doyle didn’t have the right to take the moral high ground. He'd lost that right when he decided to blow innocent folk to smithereens. A plan he would have carried out if he hadn’t been turned back at the airport. He’d even admitted that himself.

Doyle’s face flushed, but he didn’t respond as he brushed past Mustafa and marched back towards the car. Part of me was terrified he’ll jump in and drive off, abandoning us in the middle of nowhere, forcing us to make the long trek to safety, so I sprint after him, my heart pounding away like its set to drum roll.

I was relieved when the doors were still open and we all got back in the car.

We travelled in silence until we reached the narrow coastal road coming into Largs at Skelmorlie to find the road was blocked by a jackknifed lorry.

“Fuck. What do we do now?” Mustafa’s words are out before the rest of us have a chance to talk.

There was a glint in Scott’s eye. “Hold on a minute, Muzz, I’ll phone my personal chopper pilot, shall I?”

I don’t fancy getting out and walking either. But winding up Mustafa is way too much fun. 

“Or we could hop aboard our hovercraft.” I chirped. 

“Or flap our wings and fly,” said Scott.

“Or summon up the Tardis,” added Kenny. 

Mustafa threw us all stinking looks. “Ha, bloody ha.”

Doyle’s not in the mood for any carry on. “We need to get our backpacks and haul some ass.” He says it like he’s a sergeant major and we’re his bad lads army.

“Shit, that’s what I thought you’d say,” said Mustafa.

Resisting the urge to point out that he shouldn’t have wasted time asking the damn question then, we got out of the car and saddled up, securing our backpacks. Mine weighed a ton, but I’d never hear the end of it from Mustafa if I mentioned that, so I walked along as though it was as light as a feather. Two minutes later, I had to give up because, one, I’m knackered and, two, he hasn’t even looked in my direction as we make the relentless trudge towards Largs through the snow.

Every crunch had us thinking the undead were on our tail, jaws clenched ready to tear into our flesh. It didn’t help that one side of the road is full of houses. There was no cover on the other side because it was all rugged shoreline or a dead man’s drop into the sea.

Death smashed against the rocks or by zombie; none of us wanted to have to choose. 

As we plodded along the wind gusts tore at our clothes as though they were made out of paper – for all the good they did, we might as well have been wearing hospital gowns with our backsides showing. The freezing cold gnawed at our bones. But there wasn’t a murmur of complaint. We didn’t have the luxury of wasting our ears on listening to each other bitching, not when we need to listen for any incoming. We were all using military jargon now, because if this isn’t a war we’re fighting what is it? We’re no at Laser Quest now.

Finally, we reached the signpost welcoming us to Largs. There was something hanging on the pole.

When we get closer I realised it wasn't a burst football as I'd first thought. It was a human head. The skin at the top had been peeled off and there was a gaping hole on the top of the skull where the brain should be. It may have been a trick of light but the bulging eyes stared at us hungrily.

The grey tongue hung out and I reckoned if it wasn’t well below minus degrees there would have been drool coming from it.

Scrawled across the forehead in what I guessed wasn’t red felt tip, were the words
KEEP OUT
.

Scott summed up what we were all thinking when he said, “What the hell is in Largs?” 

25 THE BATTLE OF LARGS

As we walked through yet another deserted street, Scott asked the question that had been hanging in the air. “Where have all the people gone?”

“Dunno.” There’s an uncharacteristic desperation in Kenny’s voice. “There’s got to be survivors somewhere.” He made it sound like a rule has been broken; that this was not the way it was meant to be in Kenny’s world.

“Aye, of course there is, man,” Mustafa said with forced cheer.

He plastered a smile on his face, and I prayed Kenny didn’t see through Mustafa’s lie. Our resident expert in all things undead needed to keep believing we could survive this hell. His eternal optimism drove us all on. Not to mention his brilliant ideas like the one back at the shopping centre.

“Aye,” I said, wanting to gee Kenny up. “We can’t be the only ones.”

We reached the most populated part of Largs. It was a ghost town. Even in the grips of winter that wasn’t right. It may have been a typical Scottish seaside resort, a bit rundown and in need of a decent coat of paint, but the few times I’d been here en route to visiting Scott’s parents, it’d been a bustling wee place full of old people on mobility scooters and day trippers. The beach wasn’t much to write home about; just a few hulks of rock and hardly any sand, but people still talked about this place with fondness. It had a bowling alley and amusement arcade along the seafront, so there were always unaccompanied kids skulking about, and the seagulls were known for their bolshiness. They’d pluck a sandwich right out of your hand whilst it was still in the wrapper.

Cars usually zipped up and down the wee roads, driven by drivers who were known for their mad driving, but today apart from a few cars that had been ditched in the middle of the road or left parked, there was no traffic.

Scott once told me the invading Norwegians were sent packing by the locals in 1263. They were probably shocked to see what little they were fighting over. At least that was my opinion. Scott loved this place and talked fondly of visiting Nardini’s for an ice cream every Saturday with his parents.

Our footsteps were on stereo as we crunched on snow and glass shards from smashed store windows. Apart from that, it was deathly silent. Even the birds were quiet.

Scott had the axe over his shoulder (his new one courtesy of the shopping centre) and was gagging to use it. I knew how he felt; it was easier attacking than waiting to be attacked.

Kenny had made himself something he called the ultimate zombie killing weapon. It was a big stick with the club end large enough to brain anything and a sharp point to ram through some dead bastard’s eye. He'd covered all bases.

Doyle’s strutted about, being a soldier on patrol with his weapons belt stuffed full of what I’d since realised were grenades - he threw one to save us the first time we met. He had an iron bar gripped in one hand and his gun in the other. He also had the bomb vest in his backpack: his insurance against being eaten.

Mustafa’s sword still had blood on it. He refused to clean it because he said he didn’t want to wash out the good luck.

As for me, my new baseball bat and I were fast becoming bosom buddies. Without it, I’d have felt as though I'd lost a limb.

With a small coastal town made up predominantly of senior citizens, the infected must have made an easy meal of the town. The snow was saturated in spots with frozen blood. We came across body parts: some frozen under the ice, others sticking out from under the snow and a metallic smell hung in the air, so pungent I could taste it.

We passed an old woman in a mobility scooter. Half her head was gone, and her body was slumped over the vehicle. Her chest was just a shell of rib bones devoid of their innards. A carton of milk lay frozen in front of one of her wheels.

Further down we saw a dog’s lead tied to a lamp post outside a shop. No dog in sight.

Mustafa sounded shocked. “Fuck, do they eat dogs now?”

Kenny shrugged and pointed down at the lead. “Naw, look, it’s been chewed. The dog must have escaped.”

Mustafa relaxed. In this new hellish world, eating dogs would have been a step too far for him.

We passed the
Scottish Pride Bank
that had been haphazardly boarded up as if it was done in a hurry. The boards used were the flimsy kind used to temporarily board up a broken window until it could be replaced.

Daubed in blood on one of the boards that was nailed over the window was one word:
QUARANTINE
.

I’d been reciting a silent prayer for the person with the courage and foresight to board themselves in, when there was an almighty thud, and glass shattered. The boards that secured the window were propelled through the air, and dead bastards hurled themselves out of the opening.

We managed to get out the way of the flying glass shards, but there was no escaping the pair of zombies who charged toward us, one woman dressed in a bank uniform and the other a man with a caved in face, wearing a suit with a Manager tag on the chest. They lunged at us, hissing and spitting, the stench of human putrification swamping my nasal passages almost suffocating me.

Doyle leapt at the one wearing the uniform, a bear of a woman with flame coloured hair. He produced a knife from his weapons belt and rammed it right through her eye. She stared at him with her good eye as though she was confused about what had happened to her before she fell to the ground. Mustafa hacked off her head with his Samurai sword, a skill I knew came from bitter experience.

I was swinging the bat at the bank manager when I committed a rookie error. I turned to check on how Scott and Kenny are doing against the other dead bastards pouring out of the bank, and that's when the bank manager leapt at me, hands grabbing for my throat.

Dodging out of the way, I tripped and fell backwards and the baseball bat slipped out of my hands. I watched helplessly as the bat trundled to the ground, landing between me and the bank manager who was staggering towards me.

Left with no choice, I dived for the bat. I landed agonisingly short and winced in pain as I went over on my ankle. I was screwed. Adrenaline and rage couldn't save me now.

The bank manager loomed over me, hands swiping at my face, grabbing for my throat, but every time he almost got me, I threw myself the other way, but I knew I couldn't evade him forever.

One wrong move and he’d pin me, so he could eat me.

I was screwed.

A figure appeared behind him, and at first I thought it was another one of the zombie fuckers, but I was relieved when I saw that it was Mustafa. Surely he’d help me. But why does he have a dirty big smirk on his face? Does he think my dance with death was funny?

The bank manager spotted him but didn't seem to care because he was hungry for me. He’s down on his hands and knees, straddling me, sniffing me as a dog would just before its jaws homed in for the kill.

Mustafa raised his sword in an arc, but instead of bringing it down on the manager’s head, he hesitated. There was panic in his face now, like he was worried he might accidentally slice into me. Like he actually cared.

“Muzz.”

Hearing his name shook him into action. As the bank manager lunged at my throat, Mustafa split the bastard’s head down the middle like a mango.

I hauled myself up, but my injured ankle couldn’t support me, and I fell back down.

Mustafa offered me his hand and I let him help me up. He shouldered my weight. “Can’t have you being eaten by a banker, can I? The shame.”

That made me laugh. Maybe I’d started to warm to the guy.

We turned to see Kenny with a small Asian woman on his shoulders. He was swinging her around and around trying to throw her off, but she was clinging on fast and trying to bite his head at the same time.

Mustafa didn’t dawdle.

“For fuck's sake, Kenny, where's your ultimate zombie fighting weapon?”

“I dropped it,” he shrieked. “Help me.”

Scott and Doyle are busy finishing off a couple of dead bastards, so it falls to Mustafa and me to intervene on Kenny’s behalf.

Bringing up the baseball bat, and steadying myself with my good foot, I whopped the woman on the head.

She flew off Kenny’s shoulders. There was a crack as she landed in the snow, and the bone in her leg jutted out at an awkward angle. She shrieked with fury and crawled towards us, teeth snapping.

Swinging my bat, I’m rewarded with the triumphant splinter of bone. But that woman was still crawling towards us.

Mustafa stepped forward to finish her, but Kenny picked up his stick and went crazy stabbing the sharp end repeatedly in her face, grunting every time he made contact. He kept up the attack: jabbing, sticking, twisting, hitting, until all that remained was zombie mush bleeding out into the snow.

We left him to it and went over to join Scott and Doyle. The blood-soaked snow is a testament to their success, but Doyle was on his knees, and Scott was standing over him holding the axe in the air, ready to kill him.

“Do it, just do it,” Doyle shouted.

“What the hell is going on here?” I screamed.

As they raised their faces to me, Scott said in a desperate voice, “Doyle’s been bitten.”