ZOM-B 11 (6 page)

‘
if that’s what you want . . .
’ Holy Moly says uncertainly, worried about me now.

‘It is,’ I say firmly. ‘You guided me to safety. You’re a good boy . . . or girl . . . or whatever the hell you are. I’ll be fine on my own.’

‘
ok mummy
,’ Holy Moly says and sets off across the bridge, moving with its characteristic eerie smoothness and speed.

‘Wait!’ I call the baby back. ‘Where are you going?’

‘
there
,’ Holy Moly says, pointing at County Hall. ‘
i want to be with the others. they look like they’re having fun.
’

‘I’m sure they are,’ I say bitterly, finding it hard not to hate the baby right now. ‘But will you do me a favour?’

‘
of course
,’ it squeals, excited to be of service.

‘Will you go the other way?’ I ask. ‘Back underground, to wait for the rest of them in Daddy’s den?’

Holy Moly stares at me, its pale forehead wrinkling. ‘
but i’ll miss the fighting mummy.
’

‘That’s not a bad thing,’ I tell it. ‘I don’t want you to fight.’

‘
why not?
’

I pause, wondering how to explain the difference between good and evil. In the end I decide it’s a hopeless task, that I’d only confuse the poor thing if I began lecturing it.

‘I’m worried you might get hurt,’ I say instead.

The baby giggles. ‘
silly mummy.
’

‘Silly as they come.’ I smile stiffly. ‘But please, do this for me. I’ll be happy if I know you’re safe.’

‘
ok mummy
,’ Holy Moly sighs, and sets off in the other direction, back the way we came. The baby stops at the lift door and stares solemnly at the button. Turns and looks at
me. ‘
can i use the stairs instead of the small room? i didn’t like the small room mummy.
’

I nod. ‘The stairs will be fine.’

‘
thank you mummy
,’ Holy Moly says, trotting to the top step.

‘Wait.’ I stop the baby again. It looks back questioningly. I’m tired and I don’t want to think about the future, but I must. I know that Dr Oystein would want me to
fight on, even when all else seems lost. There’s not much I can do by myself to thwart the forces of wickedness and madness, but maybe I can throw a spanner in the works, or at least cause
them a few sleepless nights.

‘Come here,’ I call to Holy Moly, crouching down and leaning back against the bars which support the railing that runs across the bridge. ‘I want to make my last will and
testament, and I’d like you to be my executor.’

‘
i don’t understand mummy
,’ Holy Moly says.

‘I know,’ I laugh softly. ‘But it won’t take me long to explain . . .’

I rest on the bridge after Holy Moly has slipped away, listening to the roars, screams and crackle of flames in the near distance. The mutants have started fires inside County Hall, hell-bent on
burning the place to the ground. I don’t think they stand a hope of doing that, but they can certainly gut a lot of it if they carry on as they’ve begun.

As I’m gathering myself for my final push, I think about Dr Oystein and the Angels, Ciara and Reilly, Master Zhang. Are any of them alive? Did some of them make it out before the net closed? If so, how many will survive the next few challenging weeks, robbed of their base and support?

I could easily stay where I am and brood, but since I don’t want to be discovered by a stray mutant or baby, I crawl to the lift (in my state, the stairs would be too much of a challenge)
and return to ground level.

I limp along beside the river, heading east simply because that’s the most direct route out of here. I stick close to the buildings on my left, hugging the shadows, making sure no one on
the South Bank can spot me.

I want to feel worse than I do, have a nervous breakdown, beat the pavement with my fists, howl at the sky and demand justice from God. But I’ve endured so many terrible things in recent
times that I can’t work up to a hysterical high. I’ve lost my family and everyone I cared about, been tortured by one homicidal maniac, and married to another. Ever since I was turned
into a zombie, it seems that all the world has wanted to do is pummel me, cast me aside and leave me to wander on my own through the urban wilderness.

In the past I had hope to keep me going. The hope that I might be able to help the living, that there was a place for me in this savage new society, that I could be of worth.

That hope has been cut away from me. This was one blow too many. It’s not the physical pain that has left me feeling hollow inside, or the loss of my friends, or the fact that I’m
all on my own.

No, the reason I feel like I’m all washed up is that this has happened to me over and over again. The forces of destiny or luck are not on my side. Everything in nature seems to be lined
up against me.

Why push on and fight for a world that clearly doesn’t want me, that has punished me at every well-meaning turn? I’m not dumb. I get the message. I tried to play
the part of a hero, even though it wasn’t in my genes, but some higher power has decided I’m not fit for that role. It wants the glory to go to someone else. I understand. In truth, that’s the way it should be. A hero should be someone proud and noble, not a loud-mouthed girl who was too afraid to stand up to a racist, who threw
an innocent boy to a pack of zombies because she didn’t have the guts to disobey her bullying father.

Heh. It always comes back to Tyler Bayor. I suppose it always should. That’s when I cast my humanity aside. Everything since then has been an attempt to make up for that foul deed, to
redeem myself. But some creeps aren’t worthy of redemption. Time for me to find a hole where I can curl up and die.

Except I won’t truly die, will I? I can lie there, starve and wait for my senses to crumble, but that’s not the same thing. I’ll carry on as a mindless zombie in that case and
maybe kill again one day.

I want out. I
need
to get out. If I could rely on the mutants and babies to kill me, I’d throw myself into the battle at County Hall and perish with my friends and allies, but
there’s a good chance that they’d take me captive and deliver me to their master instead, and who knows where things would go from there. No, if I want this job done properly, I have to do it myself. I’ll find a drill or a chainsaw and bore into my skull. Hell, even a
good, sharp knife will suffice.

Having made up my mind, all that remains is to choose my spot. Most people aren’t that fortunate when it’s their time to pass on from this realm. They simply drop wherever fate
decrees. But, whether I deserve it or not, I have a choice. I can do it somewhere random or I can pick a place that means something to me.

I think about it as I shuffle along. Both options have their appeal. A random location would allow me to do it sooner rather than later, and I think it would be fitting if I died in a lonely,
unmarked place. After all, isn’t that where all failures should wind up?

But at the same time, if there
is
a higher power, one that’s been stacking the deck of cards against me, I wouldn’t mind sticking a couple of fingers up at it before I check
out. B Smith — rebel to the end!

I decide on my old flat in the East End. I’ve had several bases since then, but that’s the spot I always think of as home. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that’s
where I was at my happiest. I had plenty of lousy experiences there too, when Dad terrorised Mum and me, but that’s where I was loved (and bullied), where I was safe (most of the time),
where I was free to grow and learn and live (under the thumb of an outright racist).

Yeah, the flat will be a good finishing point. A neat way to draw a line under my existence. Pick up a sharp tool along the way. Drag myself up the stairs. Crawl into my old room. Lie on my bed,
stare at the ceiling, go to work on my head, churn up my brain and let it all end. Rot away slowly until I’m only dust, a dwindling memory in the dusty database of the universe.

Perversely, I cheer up once I’ve made my decision. I even hum as I plod along. ‘
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to die I go.
’

I have a goal now, and it’s not the sort of epic goal that I’ve been chasing since I linked up with Dr Oystein. No more saving the world for this undead girl. All I have to worry about is making it home and signing off. That’s the sort of challenge I was born to deal with.

Watch out, afterlife — here I come!

The walk east is taking an age. It’s a good job I’m not in a hurry. I doubt any tourist ever went along this slowly in the past, and that’s bearing in mind that sightseers in
London weren’t known for their speed — they used to drive us locals mad if we got stuck behind a pack of them on a busy street.

I’m enjoying the river views. I find the Thames oddly peaceful and calming. I don’t normally pay much attention to it, but it demands my focus today on the long, laborious march
home. Maybe it’s because the serene, constantly flowing water reminds me of the journey my soul is soon to embark on, and I want to believe that my spirit will drift along effortlessly like this when it’s set free from my shambolic form. A fool’s
dream, probably, but a nice image to dwell on while I’m crawling ever eastwards in a fog of nightmarish pain.

I stop when I reach the Millennium Bridge, and on an impulse decide to cross the river to the South Bank. I’ve come a long way from Westminster, so I no longer have to worry about running
into mutants, and it’s a more interesting walk on the south side.

I drag myself across the bridge and step off in the shadow of the towering Tate Modern. If I was in better shape, I might pop in to check out the exhibits, but this most certainly isn’t a
day to be visiting art galleries.

I trudge past the Globe, where I spot a zombie in Shakespearean garb, probably an actor from back in the day, standing just inside the entrance. He’s making odd, jerky movements with his
head and arms, and I realise after a few confused moments that he’s trying to act out a scene from a dimly remembered play. As drained as I am, I stop and clap slowly. The actor’s face lights up with the memory of applause-filled times, and he awkwardly bows towards me. That’s my good
deed for the day taken care of.

I detour down a dark, cobbled street, past an old prison complex that would have been a perfect jail for the likes of Dan-Dan and my other foes. I lose sight of the river for a while, before
linking up with the path again just past London Bridge.

As I make my slow, shuffling way along the riverbank, I think about where I can pick up a decent power tool. I’d like to clock out in style. A really good, strong drill that will arrow
clean through my skull, leaving only the smallest, most discreet of holes behind when I yank it out and drop it while I thrash around and die.

I know this area well, both from my human years and the time I spent exploring here over the past months. I’m trying to remember where the best DIY shops are located, but I’m drawing
a blank, finding it hard to focus in my sorry, stressed state.

‘What a time to develop Alzheimer’s,’ I growl, jabbing at my head with a fist, trying to knock my senses back into place. My fingers brush against the nails which Dan-Dan
hammered into my scalp. I pause, wondering if I can drive the nails in deeper, maybe by banging the top of my head against a wall.

‘It could work,’ I mutter. ‘Puncture the brain, drop me in my tracks, no need to worry about my hand shaking and misdirecting a drill. But what if it doesn’t quite kill
me? I might just scramble my senses, become a wandering moron.’

As I’m picking at the nails and mumbling to myself like a madwoman, I catch sight of a familiar vessel and draw bitterly to a halt. HMS
Belfast
, where I first met Dan-Dan and the
other accursed members of the Board. The cruiser was a popular tourist draw in the old days, but for me it’s a place of painful memories.

I glare at the deserted ship as if it was responsible for the foul crew it played host to, recalling the duels, the zombies I was forced to kill, the torment the humans put me through. I didn’t know it at the time, but worse was to come. That being said, this was where my problems with the Board began, so I hate this place even more than
Battersea Power Station.

The memories make me wonder about Justin Bazini and Vicky Wedge, last seen fleeing from Mr Dowling’s army in Battersea, presumed dead but unconfirmed. And Barnes, the American soldier of
fortune who took me captive, but later turned hero. When he bid me farewell, he was setting off to try and save his son. I hope he made it, that they were reunited and are lounging on the beach of
an island free from zombies. But this world being what it is, I suspect that isn’t the case, that Barnes came a cropper, while Bazini and Wedge are living the high life in Buckingham Palace
or some other suitably stylish spot.

As I’m considering the fates of my old enemies, I spot movement on the deck of the
Belfast
. A couple of people are playing with a ball, throwing it to one another.

I’m instantly wary. Backing up from the edge of the path, I resume my shuffle east. I’m bent over almost double with pain, which is good. That makes me less of a conspicuous target.
I don’t want to be spotted by whoever is on board what should be a ghost ship.