The Restless Dead: A Zombie Novel (9 page)

14 KENNY’S STORY - THE ZOMBIE WHO TRIED TO SHAG ME

Kenny sits like a crumpled crisp pack on Mrs Akhtar’s bedroom carpet, dribbling blood from his cut lip after Muzz turned into Jack Nicolson from The Shining and belted him one. He’s trying to figure out what just happened. One minute he’s saving Muzz’s life, the next he’s got a sore mouth.

He has to straighten the frames of his glasses so they fit right again because they’ve gone all wonky. He should never have missed that appointment to pick up his new specs. Now he was stuck with them. Optometry wasn't a priority in the zombie apocalypse.

Even the next day as they leave the house (it would have been nuts to exit last night in the pitch dark) and clean snow off his car, he still doesn’t know what he did to get banjoed. Since it happened, Mustafa’s been light on the chat.

People might think he was a sci-fi obsessed geek who was a bit soft in the head, but he was the one who’d seen this apocalypse coming. Not that he’s going to keep on mentioning it. But he known all along that it was possible, whilst folk sneered at him and said he’d read too many comic books and watching too much Walking Dead

Muzz says, “I’ll drive.”

Those were the first words Muzz had spoken to him since he’d belted him one. An apology would have been smashing, but Kenny wasn’t pushing for one. His jaw felt out of sync, as though it was a rusty hinge that’d come away at the bolt. One more punch and it might come away altogether.

Kenny starts the engine with the screwdriver, closes the bonnet, and hops in. They’re on their way to Craigen Castle as planned, hoping that Scott and Emma have made it, when there’s this almighty rumble in his stomach that sounds like a sink when it’s been unblocked and water’s swirling down the plug. It’s followed by spasms that make him think his gut is about to explode. He’s in trouble; he’s got a dose of the skids. He can’t help it, but he lets one loose, a fart that smells as though a Rottweiler has dropped a fresh pile in the car.

Mustafa throws him a filthy look. “What the fuck is that? It’s absolutely minging.” He rolls down the window so he can suck in mouthfuls of air like a grounded fish.

Kenny yells, “Stop the car.” Something nasty is making its way down the final strait of his digestive system. He’s about to shit himself. It isn’t his fault the zombie apocalypse followed curry night. Had he known, he’d have stuck to mince and tatties or a salad. Less chance of an eruption.

“I’m no stopping the car,” Mustafa says. “It’s too dangerous. Use a plastic bag.”

“Come on, man, what plastic bag? I’ll shit all over myself and the car, and it’ll reek of the squirts all day.”

“You better not.”

Muzz jams his foot on the brake, and the car screeches to a halt at the entrance to an alleyway.

He jumps out the car and runs down the alley, hauling down his jeans as he goes (the screwdriver in his hand makes it difficult), and he hunkers down in time for a dribbling, putrid mess to splat all over the snow-covered concrete. The plop is accompanied by a stench that would have knocked him out if he wasn’t so busy moaning and groaning because he’s straining and his backside’s on fire.

All the time he’s doubled over the cobblestones, he keeps his eyes peeled and his lugs primed. Mustafa’s sitting in the car with the engine idling, and at the other end of the alley, a bin lorry's stuck between two buildings.

From Mustafa’s end, a big man lumbers towards Kenny with coalminer eyes, all black around the edges.

How the hell did he get past Muzz?

In life, the big man would have been the butt of many a joke: “How’s the weather up there?” He’s dressed in a striped jumper like a cartoon robber, but he’s a magnificent specimen; a colossus amongst dead bastards. These days nobody would be joking about him. No one would be saying anything stupid, period. They’d scurry off like mice from a cat as he loped towards them, snow shovels for hands and gnashers capable of crunching a man down whole in one go.

Instinct kicks in. And panic. Kenny almost trips over his jeans because he doesn’t have time to pull them up all the way as he gets up to run. He’s in a hot sprint towards the alley exit blocked by the bin lorry. In fact, he’s running so fast his lungs are burning, and his heartbeat’s so rapid he’s worried it’s going to burst.

When he makes it to the end, he realises the truck is actually jammed in, wedged between two buildings. This wouldn’t pose a problem if he was eighteen feet tall or there was a window cleaner’s ladder lying conveniently about. Then he could clamber up to the roof, kick the ladder away, and go, “Fuck yi,” at the big man who wouldn’t be able to climb up and get him. Zombies aren’t noted for their dexterity.

Instead, all he can do is dive under the lorry and crawl.

He’s dragging himself through the half-melted snow and ice good style, when a bear paw grabs his ankle and starts yanking him out from under the lorry.

He kicks and bucks and yells and stabs the burly mitt with the screwdriver, but no matter how much he lashes out, he can’t get free. A realisation hits him as hard as Muzz’s fist: he’s well and truly going to be zombie food.

The giant meat eater pulls him free of the lorry, and the heat of rancid breath hits Kenny like a slug to the jaw. Noxious fumes from rotting flesh make him want to spew, but he tries not to gag. He doesn’t want to be sick in his mouth. That’s not the way to die: choking on his own puke.

In a last ditch effort to survive, he stabs the screwdriver into the big man’s left eye. Fluid spits out, but it only makes him hungrier or angrier.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Kenny hopes darkness will ease the agony of that first bite, the pain of giant teeth tearing into his flesh, snapping through muscle and cracking his bones as he’s eaten alive.

He can’t believe this is really happening. The end credits for the intrepid, farseeing Kenny McIntyre, the zombie slayer and proprietor of the last video store in Glasgow. It’s not fair. The zombie apocalypse should have been the pinnacle of his existence, not the end. He knew so much.

The bite didn’t come. Instead there’s a William Wallace roar, the thwack of steel against meat, and a hard, round object smacks him across the coupon. He lunges to the side, landing on snow as his eyes snap open, peering upwards at the wedge of sky between the buildings.

Muzz is standing there with the samurai sword in one hand, and in the other, he’s holding a severed head by the hair. Kenny recognises the slack jaw features of the big zombie, but now its eyes stare sightlessly ahead, any fire in them snuffed out permanently. He’s no the king of the zombies anymore.

Ten feet away, the rest of the body twitches in the snow, looking almost comical like a clockwork toy that’s keeled over, but still carries on moving.

In spite of the fact the big man saw Kenny as dinner, at the moment, he feels bad that such a magnificent specimen of zombie-hood was dead on account of him. He wasn’t worthy.

“I’m getting the hang of this now,” Mustafa says like he’s all proud he cut the big man’s head off with one swing. “Gotta put your shoulder in it, like you do when you hit a home run.” He drops the head on the ground and takes a boot to it as though he’s taking a try at Murrayfield.

“Hoi,” Kenny shouts. “Stop that. I need the screwdriver that’s stuck in his eye.”

The head lands with a soft phump onto the snow, eye and screwdriver facing upwards. Mustafa takes a swipe at it again, like he’s playing a game of kick the can.

He’s chanting, “So fucking easy. That was so fucking easy,” as Kenny hauls himself to his feet.

Only now does the adrenaline rush hit him, like someone’s lit a fire in his bloodstream. He has to hunker back down again so he can spew the contents of his stomach out onto the gutter. Acid burns his throat, and he’s got raging heartburn, but that pales into insignificance when he realises he would have been ripped apart by now without his pal’s intervention.

In the zombie apocalypse, he knows people have to kill in order to survive, even though they may feel their humanity slipping away. Killing becomes a habit and something much more: a thrill. He’d experienced that emotion when he’d killed the dead bastards who'd grabbed Mustafa’s balls.

Those who said they don’t get a wee tingle at the pit of their bellies as they stab, hack, chop, and cut, were lying their backsides off. That’s what Kenny believed. But there were also those who revelled in the killing, for whom the act goes further than a wee thrill, but a burst of an adrenaline rush at managing to kill some monster before it eats or bites them. Kenny thought Muzz must fall into that category now. He was enjoying battering seven bells out of that head. It was his trophy.

Kenny wasn’t surprised to see his pal behaving that way. He’d always got a kick out of the murder-by-numbers video games, whilst Kenny preferred old games like Space Invaders and PAC Man.

But, the trouble with devoting so much time and energy into gloating was that people took their eye off the ball when they most needed to be fit to roll.

Like right now.

A bird in a skimpy negligee had appeared at Mustafa’s back. It’s clear she’s no damsel in distress. Damsels in distress don’t have bulbous eyes as though they’ve been injected with embalming fluid, and rotting teeth sharpened to resemble toothpicks, nor do they have crazy-assed expressions in their eyes or have the stench of decaying meat instead of perfume. Kenny could tell that she was once beautiful, but now her skin was shrunken across the bones and her lips were puckered as though she was smoking a cigarette when she got attacked and never got the chance to exhale.

Her body was smoking hot: legs up to her armpits, backside you wanted to cup in your hands. He can see everything through her see-through negligee, down to the triangle of hair between her legs. The ratty hair on her head is the colour of mud and tumbles down her shoulders, some landing on her full breasts, and for a fleeting second he imagines it swishing against his chest as they get busy. But then her blood-caked negligee takes away some of the allure, and before he’d get his jollies, he’d probably vomit at the look of her face.

He’s so transfixed by this zombie ex-hottie that he doesn’t warn Muzz before she locks her arms around his waist like she’s locking him in a lover’s embrace.

What she does next is unexpected. 

Instead of going straight for the meat on his neck, she bumps and grinds against Muzz, and there’s not a thing he can do about it. One wrong move and this insatiable zombie hottie could end him with one bite, one scratch. 

Kenny’s mesmerised by this display and his glasses are steaming up, but he knows he might miss something if he takes the time to wipe them.

Mustafa’s damn near bawling. “Don’t just stand there, Kenny. Help me.” His voice is like bagpipes being strangled.

One of her emaciated hands reaches down to his crotch and massages him through the cloth of his pants. Despite his terror, Kenny bets Muzz has got a stiffy.

“Don’t just stand there gawking. Help me,” screams Mustafa.

Kenny tries to pull his eyes away and get his feet to move, but he can’t. It’s like he’s watching a bad movie, but with a scantily clad babe in it, so he can’t turn it off. He knows its rubbish, and he could be doing something worthwhile (in this case helping Muzz) but his eyes are glued to the porn show.

Mustafa’s losing his cool. He starts struggling to escape her clutches, a move that could send him straight to zombie hell.

She hisses at him, baring her teeth like a wild mink.

Kenny’s finally snaps out of it. He takes his screwdriver out of the big man’s eyeball and rams it into hottie’s left ear, shoving the shank in as far as it will go. It makes a squishy sound, and he hears bones snap. She falls backwards, freeing Muzz as she lands on the snow where Kenny watches her brain fluid leak out. The stuff’s a dirty green, and he can’t take his eyes away until she stops twitching.

Muzz’s pleading with Kenny not to tell anyone he was molested by a randy corpse.

‘What?’ Kenny says, laughter threatening to break out. “That a zombie tried to shag you?”

“I’m sorry I hit you, mate. But, if you say one word to anyone I’ll belt you again.”

Kenny was too busy filing away the fact that a dead bastard had sexual urges that were more important than munching on brains, to hear what Muzz was saying.

He hadn’t expected that. The zombie apocalypse was full of surprises.

***

It was early afternoon by the time they made it to the castle. Mustafa parked at the foot of the hill next to a Land Rover Kenny assumed belongs to their pals, and they started the long trudge up the hill not knowing what or they’ll find. Maybe there’d be more survivors; people Emma and Scott had met along the way? Kenny liked the thought of that.

15 NEW BEGINNINGS

We’re pouring tea Scott’s made on the camping stove into a flask (yet another task I’ve come up with to delay our departure) when Doyle marches in. “Are your pals a gormless looking guy with glasses and a bloke who looks like Sayid from Lost - after he’s been held captive?”

“Aye,” we say, smiles tugging at the edges of our lips. My heart does a wee skip; they’ve made it.

Doyle carries on. “Well then, they’re alone.”

Scott and I exchanged despairing glances. Why didn’t they bring Mustafa’s family? Something must’ve happened to them. Now we were more alone than we’d thought, but at least Kenny and Mustafa had made it back safe.

When we clapped eyes on the pair, they reminded me of people I’d seen in disaster zones, people who’ve lost everything: torn clothes and eyes that can’t meet our gaze because they’re staring off into the distance, recalling the horrors they’ve witnessed.

Mustafa’s He-Man t-shirt and crotch hugging jeans, are caked in blood, and there’s smudges of what I would have once thought was paint on his face, but I know its body fluids. He’s carrying a samurai sword and even from here, I can see blood on the blade.

Kenny’s hair resembles a wild hedge, and he’s frantically trying to clean his glasses with something that used to be a hankie, but it’s so filthy it looks more like a rag. His top’s riddled with holes, and he reeks of pee, puke, and poo (they don’t show the projectile body fluids in the movies when they show zombie slaying) and he has a fat lip. I don’t ask him how he got it. Instead, I go over to him and give him a hug. His body feels stiff in my arms. For a moment, I forget Mustafa hates my guts and I almost hug him too.

“How did you two get on?”

I needed to ask. To find out how bad it was out there.

Mustafa raised his head and met my gaze. His eyes are dark smudges from lack of sleep, and he glances uneasily at Doyle, no doubt wondering who the hell he is. To be honest, I’m not even sure myself.

“I had to cut off my own dad’s head with a fucking samurai sword and sort out my wee sister and mum. Apart fae that everything's fine and dandy. Youse?”

“Sorry, Muzz.” I shut my trap after that. There was nothing I could say.

We decide to leave whilst it was still light.

We were heading out of the castle when Kenny stopped us. “We need to leave a message telling anyone who comes here where we’re headed.”

None of us has anything to write with. 

“What about your lipstick, Emma?” Mustafa pipes up, scrutinizing me like he’s a judge on the 1970’s version of
Miss World
.

I can’t believe he just said that. “Lipstick. We’re fleeing dead bastards, and you think I’ll have lipstick? Maybe you can use my hairdryer too?”

He wrinkles up his face. “Aye, right enough. You’ve really let yourself go. You’re starting to look like a dead bastard.”

Scott has to put out a hand to stop me from lunging at Mustafa as the others chuckle away. I’m so pleased I’ve provided some comic relief.

“Here’s something you can write with, Kenny.” Scott digs through his backpack and produces a piece of charcoal. 

Doyle stands there looking as though Scott’s just brought out a fluffy bunny

“I’m a teacher,” Scott says. “I usually have art supplies in my possession.”

Kenny accepts it and scurries up the stairs of the castle.

A few minutes later, and with Doyle eyeing his watch, Kenny sprints back into view. “It’s done.” He returns the charcoal to Scott.

“Let’s get going,” Doyle says. He's agitated. ”We should have left two hours ago.”

Mustafa casts a shifty glance in Doyle’s direction. “Who the hell are you?”

“That’s Doyle,” says Scott, nodding his head in the direction of our new companion. “He saved Emma and me when we were surrounded by hordes of those things. We thought it was curtains for us.”

He conveniently left out the bit about the bomb, but considering the circumstances that seemed wise. Things were complicated enough. Besides, Doyle was the one with the car that mowed down zombies with such ease. Kenny’s car looked like it couldn’t mow down a Barbie doll.

As we make our way down the hill, Kenny says, “I need to get some petrol for my car.”

I imagine dead bastards stalking the petrol stations like African lions at a watering hole. Doyle must’ve been thinking the same thing.

“We take my Rover,” he says. “I’ve got extra diesel, and the brush guard on the grill makes it great for running down those bastards.”

Kenny’s about to say something when Mustafa butts in. “Your rust bucket has seen better days, Kenny. It’s likely to break down and leave us stranded.”

Kenny grudgingly agrees. At least I thought he had until we get to the bottom of the hill where the cars are parked, and he opens his car door.

For a second I think he’s not listening, not giving a damn what Mustafa and Doyle are saying, but he tosses the keys onto the dashboard. “In case someone comes by and needs a ride.” He shrugs. “If they can figure out how to start it without a screwdriver.”

His words make me smile. Despite the predicament we’re in, the guy’s still thinking of others.

Mustafa claps Kenny’s shoulder and tosses the sword into the back of the Rover. Moments later, we’ve all piled in: Scott, Kenny, are on either side of me in the back seat and Mustafa’s riding shotgun. I'm wondering where Doyle put the bomb vest when I do something real dumb. I ask Doyle where he put the bomb.

Mustafa turns to face me. “What bomb?”

Scott eyes me disapprovingly as though there was some agreement between us not to mention this. Like Kenny and Mustafa aren’t going to notice if they come across a bomb.

There’s no way to avoid telling them about Doyle.

“He’s a terrorist,” I say, as matter-of-factly as I can. “There’s a suicide vest around here somewhere.”

Mustafa’s temper explodes. “For fuck’s sake, why did you no fucking tell me he’s a mad bastarding suicide bomber?”

His fists are clenched so firmly his knuckles turn white.

Scott jumps in, “He saved us, Muzz. We were gonners. They had us surrounded. He could have left us there, but he didn’t. He stopped to help us; put himself in harm’s way to save us. Now we trust him. We’ve got to.”

“Aye, until he goes all Jihad on your arse.”

Mustafa yanks open the door and jumps out so fast it’s like somebody lit a fire under him. Or in this case, a bomb. “I’m not getting in a car wi’ the likes of him. A suicide bomber? Are you crazy?” He slams the door and stands there looking around.

Doyle sits tight. For all his concern, Mustafa might as well be discussing the weather.

Doyle rolls down the window. “Suit yourself, pal.” He starts the car.

“Hey, give me my sword,” says Mustafa to Doyle.

Kenny opens his door and stuns us all by doing a Krakatau on us. “For fuck sake, Muzz, park your arse back in the fucking car so we can get the hell out of here. I'm no going to let you end up a human kebab, so don’t make me knock you out and drag you in here.”

Kenny spits the words out with so much venom his specs fall off his nose. Doyle deftly catches them without blinking and hands them back to Kenny. “Settle down, pal, or you’re going to break something.”

Mustafa’s standing there with a what-the-hell look on his face.

I’m biting back a giggle. I get a sense of satisfaction at seeing Mustafa squirm while Kenny rants on. Scott doesn’t help by whispering, “And here was me thinking you say assalaam alaikum when meeting another Muslim.”

Kenny carries on. “Muzz, the world has changed. Whatever caused this zombie outbreak has spread everywhere. The few of us left have to work together. We have to stick together. We have to start over, so we need to forget about what’s happened in the past, because it’s them or us now, and I want all of us to survive.” He puts on his glasses. “Now, get in the fucking car.”

Mustafa gets in, his mouth puckered like he’s smoking a cigarette, and he’s muttering away about this being the bomb mobile. He glares at Doyle. “Where’s this bomb?”

Doyle motions to the floor at Mustafa’s feet. “That backpack there.”

“Fuck.” Mustafa lifts his feet. “I could have kicked it. Set it off. What the hell is wrong with you?”

From where I’m sitting I can see Mustafa’s angry expression, yet Doyle remains impassive as he puts the car in gear.

Mustafa turns to look at us. “Can he no at least move the bloody thing? What if it goes off?”

“That won’t happen,” says Doyle. “There’s a small component missing, and it’s in my pocket. You really think that if those mad bastards get me that I’m going to let them eat me alive? The bomb stays. If I have to die, I’m taking out as many of those bastards as I can.” He turns his head towards us in the back. “If anyone’s got a problem with that they can get the fuck out of my car.”

Nobody moves. As Doyle puts his foot down on the gas, I see Mustafa's red face staring at him.

“You need to learn to calm down, Muzz,” says Doyle.

Mustafa glowers at him. “The name’s Mustafa. Only my pals call me Muzz.”

As Doyle puts his foot down I see Mustafa's smacked arse of a face reflected in the mirror.

Ten minutes later, Mustafa’s complaining about his head being “busting” and asking Doyle if he has any painkillers.

Asking Doyle for anything must grate on Mustafa’s ego.

“I’ve got a first-aid kit in the back. There's some Paracetemol in that. Don't worry, though.” He tosses a wee glance at Mustafa. “They're not suicide bomber pills.”

Mustafa scowls.

I lean over the back seat and rummage about, moving the Samurai sword out of the way, so I can find the kit. When I turn back to the front, I see Mustafa is still scowling. I seize the chance to get him back for his earlier jab at me. “You shouldn’t scrunch up your face, Mustafa. It makes you look ugly, like one of those dead bastards.”

He snatches the kit from my hand without so much as a thank you, and I’m about to tell him he’s an ignorant swine, when I notice Kenny’s eyes are sparkling. He has his Eureka face on, the one he gets whenever some nugget of information pops into his brain.

“You know what's interesting,” he says. “I think the dead bastards have headaches too. Have you seen how they hold their heads when they're not chasing folk? It's as if they have the worst hangover ever.”

He’s right. I remember seeing them holding their heads.

Scott grins at Kenny. “You think about these things a lot, mate.”

Mustafa throws Kenny a confused look. “The dead bastards have limbs hacked off and they keep coming at us. They have chunks ripped out of them, eyeballs hanging, guts spilling out and they don't seem to be in any pain. So why the hell would they have headaches? It doesn't make sense.”

He’s right and I decide to file that information away for later. I’m not even sure if it will come in useful, but what harm can it do knowing the dead bastards’ weaknesses?

Kenny eyes Mustafa like he's a complete idiot. “Their central nervous system chemistry is changing and their brains are decomposing. Christ, if that was happening to you wouldn't you have a sore head?”

Kenny’s off in a world of his own, probably trying to figure out a way to save us all.

Truth is we don't know if Kenny’s theory is true, and it’s not like we can look it up Wikipedia, so we take Kenny at his word. He’s the expert.

We manage a few minutes of peace, until Mustafa realises we’re heading for the St. Enoch’s Centre. He’d been too busy blowing his top at Doyle to even ask.

“A shopping centre? We’re going to a bloody shopping centre. How is that safe?”

“No place is safe,” Doyle says. “But, we need supplies.”

“The survivors always head to a shopping centre,” Kenny says. “But, so do the zombies. They congregate there because that’s where they’ll pick up a strong human scent. They might even remember that a shopping centre is where large numbers of humans can be found.”

Doyle chuckles. “Kenny, this isn’t
Dawn of the Dead
, pal.”

“Aye it is,” Kenny beams. “It’s exactly like
Dawn of the Dead
.”

I swallow a lump in my throat. Didn’t everyone die in the end?