The Z Word (A Zombie Novel) (4 page)

Chapter Eleven

An hour had passed and Clare had decided earlier to go for a nap. Time was dragging and although grateful to be alive, I thought that even if I had all the food and water that I needed and this virus continued, I would still lose my mind with boredom.

I then heard Clare's voice. "John!" she called down. "Come and see this."

I ran upstairs from the kitchen and was expecting to see more bloody carnage. I stood next to Clare and we both watched out of the front bedroom window as a slow moving convoy was driving through the street.

Asked Clare, "Where're they going? Do they know something that
we
don't?"

I had no answers to Clare's questions, and she added, "I wonder if we should flag it down, get a ride somewhere."

I looked at her to see if she was being serious.

She was.

"They won't stop." I then pointed out to the road where a few of the dead were walking. "And if they did, I still don't think it's a good idea, do you?"

"Maybe not," she spoke with a smile on her face, as if she had just realised her ridiculous question.

"Oh, shit. Look at that." I pointed to one of the ghouls who began walking away from the small crowd and walked onto my drive.

"Shit." Clare began to panic. "Where's it going? For the front door?"

I never answered her and remained silent, while watching the lone zombie walk down the alleyway at the side of my house. Now I was panicking! Where was it going? And why was it going there?

I just hoped it didn't manage to force its way through my flimsy gate. If it did, then it would end up in my back garden. And that could end up with a whole bunch of them in there, just yards from behind my patio door in the living room.

I craned my neck to see if I could see it coming back out, but nothing was happening. I then saw the neighbour's cat darting out from the alleyway and guessed that the cat was what drew the thing to my house in the first place. Thankfully, the zombie reappeared and walked back onto the road.

I looked out onto the street and could see that there was more of them, but where were they coming from? "The group is getting bigger." I rubbed my hands across my face and released a defeated sigh.

"Why don't they just go away?"

It was a very good question of Clare's. Why
didn't
they just go away? What were they hanging around for? Did they know there were others still trapped and was just biding their time? There were about twenty of them all shambling about in the street, but not really going anywhere in particular. They certainly weren't leaving the street!

"What's that noise?" Clare turned to me and glared with those beautiful blue eyes. Her brown hair was still tucked behind her ears and I could see a couple of pearly drops of sweat on the twenty-eight-year-old's forehead.

I listened and was tempted to open the window, but fought against it. Within a few seconds, we saw four cars drive down the main road and this alerted the senses of some of the freaks that were out there, meandering around in an almost hypnotic trance.

The cars slowed down a little and the things refused to move out of the road. I could see some of the people inside and could see they were nothing special, just normal people who seemed to be family and friends, I guessed. They were travelling close together so I assumed they knew each other. Their vehicles struggled a little, but they eventually managed to go round—and on one occasion, through—the dead.

Clare and I watched as they eventually drove away to safety—or another new danger, it depended where they were heading—and I almost felt like cheering for them, as all four vehicles had managed to escape with no human fatalities.

Clare drew breath as if she was about to say something, but her sentence had to wait as a scream filled the street. The windows were closed, but we still heard the terrible cry.

A woman ran over the road from her house and stumbled. She was wearing a yellow, fluffy dressing gown, and I assumed wearing the slippers may have been the cause of her stumble. She was running from, what appeared to be, the man of the house who stumbled behind her, but what she hadn't done was taken into consideration of how bad it was outside.

It was too easy for the zombies. She basically ran out of the house, stumbled to the floor, and was surrounded within seconds by the ravenous horde.

Clare looked away, but never moved her body away from the window. I was transfixed. I couldn't help but look as they tore her to pieces, like ravenous lions around an antelope. It was a hideous thing to witness, yet engaging, and I know that may sound a little sick to some people, but I'm just telling the truth how I felt.

Once the 'show' was over, I realised that my heart was smashing quickly and rapidly from the inside of my chest and my legs felt light. Was I in shock? Again? I wasn't sure, but the scene had made my body quiver and I was pleased that there was no feeling of sickness.

We both stood in silence and I suppose this episode had brought this catastrophe to life. I never doubted the TV, and was aware with these things shambling about that it was a terrible situation we were in, but seeing somebody die for real was a reality check for the pair of us. Earlier, with the family in the toppled car, screams were all we could hear, but with this episode, I saw everything.

I looked out to the skies and all I could muster was, "I need a drink."

Clare never said a word, but she nodded in agreement with my statement.

Said I, "Red wine?"

Again, she nodded.

Chapter Twelve

It was nearly seven in the evening, and after another breakdown from Clare we sat and thought that it was mildly amusing that the world was going to shit, but here we were sitting in the living room, blinds down, and watching re-runs of The Inbetweeners—the volume at a low number six, of course.

I knew it wasn't the greatest idea ever, but I cracked open a bottle of Merlot. We needed to keep our wits about us in case they got in, but at the same time, I was sure the house was pretty solid. All we seemed to have done most of the afternoon was peer outside, and it wasn't doing our mental health any favours at all.

A bottle had been quickly drained between us and I asked Clare more about her family. Her explanations were very brief and I took the hint and decided to pursue this interest no further. I got off the couch and walked towards the cupboard to grab another bottle. I turned my head to the right and saw down the hallway a hideous sight.

My stance had frozen and Clare asked what was wrong. I never answered her. She got to her feet and looked in the same direction I was looking. The face of a ghoul was pressed against the frosted glass of my front door.

"Who is it?" Clare asked.

"Well, I haven't paid the window cleaner for a few weeks."

She huffed, "Seriously?"

"What do
you
think? It's one of them, isn't it?"

"What do you think the cunt's doing?"

I winced when she asked me the question, simply because she had used the C word. I hated that word, especially when a woman used it. Does that sound a little sexist? I don't know. For me, it just sounded worse coming from a female.

I never answered her question, because I had no clue what the thing was doing, I just hoped that it was going to go away. I just didn't want the thing attracting others to my house. It slowly moved away, leaving a small, bloody smear on the outside pane. We both looked at one another and I sat back down onto the couch.

"Well, bugger me." Clare was clearly shaken. "That was scary shit."

I stood back up.

"Jesus!" Clare said sharply. "You're like a jack in the box."

"Well, forgive me for being a little on edge, Clare. I've just seen a woman being ripped to pieces in my street; the news is telling me the world's going to the crapper and...I think I may have the shits. So, if you'll excuse me."

"I saw it as well, you know." Clare called out as I began to jog to the downstairs bathroom. She added, "I live in this world too, you know, selfish prick!"

I was about to tell her to keep her voice down, but by then she had finished. I closed the bathroom door behind me. My stomach was doing somersaults and I wasn't sure if it was the days of alcohol, my nerves, because of what was happening outside, or a mixture of the two.

As my backside decorated the toilet pan, I could hear Clare beginning to cuss again. She had more family members to be concerned about compared to me, and she had also seen her boyfriend become one of them. I feel it's fair to say that my outburst was a little selfish and I think I touched a raw nerve.

Once I was finished, I flushed the toilet. I had no idea if that was the right thing to do, but I massaged my mind by convincing myself that it wasn't that loud anyway, and I could hardly leave the stink lying there.

After washing my hands, I walked into the hallway and trotted upstairs. This time, instead of looking out of the front bedroom window that looked out onto the main road, I went to my own bedroom and peered out to see people's back gardens.

I opened my bedroom window slightly to be greeted with a mixture of sounds like sirens, car alarms, dogs barking and human screams. It was horrendous, and I saw people in their bedrooms, waving at me, scared for their lives. It seemed they weren't happy where they were. I guessed there was probably an infected family member inside, or they had zero supplies to keep them going. But what could I do? Take them into my fully-stocked house and tell them to make themselves at home? I wasn't about to embark on a crusade to save people's lives and risk my own. I'm sorry, but that wasn't going to happen.

After finishing with my nosiness, I shut my window and decided to go downstairs and apologise to Clare. I went into the back bedroom and took a peep outside into the main road before going down, and I suddenly heard a knock coming from above me. I remained standing, my breath was held and then I heard a couple of other knocks.

I went over to the stepladders that were still down and led to the attic, and was too scared to look up in case it was one of them. I decided to man-up and climb the ladders slowly.

Once I got to the top, I realised that the attic was empty and released a relieved sigh. I then looked up at the attic window and released a scream of fright and nearly fell down the hatch.

A young, blonde-haired girl glared at me, with her big, blue saucer-like eyes. I immediately thought it was a zombie.

How the fuck did it get on the roof? I thought.

I ran down the stairs to get a hold of Clare and was hyperventilating and struggled to get any words out when I reached the living room to see Clare, on the phone, hopelessly trying the emergency services.

Chapter Thirteen

"What is it?" Clare asked.

"There's something on the roof."

"What? One of...
them
?" Clare shot up and was clearly anxious, thanks to my unwelcome announcement.

"I don't know."

"Shit. What do we do?" She then snapped her fingers at me. "What would they do in the films?"

I looked at her blankly. "Er...depends what films you mean. If it was Home Alone—"

"Don't get smart. I meant—"

"Shoot them in the head."

"Have you got a gun," Clare said excitedly.

I shook my head.

"Oh." Her excitement was short-lived.

We glared at one another and being a man—yes, I know, it sounds pathetic—I felt that
I
should do something. I said, "I'll sort it."

"You want me to come with you?"

I tried to act cool and sighed, "If you must."

I grabbed a steak knife from the knife rack in the kitchen and went upstairs first, with Clare following. It was fair to say that I was scared and although I had gone earlier, my bowels were loosening once again. As I got into the bedroom, I paused and stared at Clare. She made a face at me translating into:
Well, what are you waiting for?

I cleared my throat and slowly climbed the ladders into the attic. I stood in the second floor room and hesitantly looked up to the skylight. There was nothing there. All I could see was the blue sky on this June evening, but no face of a girl that had initially filled me with fear.

"You can come up." I bellowed down to Clare who was standing on the bedroom floor, looking up at me.

"Is it safe?"

"Seems to be."

I looked back up to the skylight as Clare was noisily making her way up to the second floor of the house. She looked around the room and said, "We'll get this cleared tonight so we can use it as a bedroom."

"But if these things can climb," I pointed up at the skylight, "we're fucked anyway."

Suddenly, the face appeared again, and this time both Clare and I released a shriek as we looked up at the blonde girl. The girl then waved at the pair of us.

"She's human," Clare shrieked. "Open it up."

I did as I was told, and then held onto my stomach, and felt my face flush as a small bit of unformed shite left my arse. Clare held onto her nose. "Ew, have you..?"

With embarrassment, I scolded, "Just let her in. I need to go downstairs."

"Well, you know what they say," Clare spoke with a wide beam.

"What?" I was now nearly at the bottom of the stepladders.

"Shit happens."

I then heard Clare welcome the little girl in. During my short trip to the toilet upstairs, I shouted, "Don't forget to shut the attic window!"