All the Dead Are Here (4 page)

I look up and at the sentry post over the gate, and Paul’s there just hanging over the wall with his fucking throat cut and not a Z around him and who is stood in the middle of this fucking torrent of zombies that have been let in? The fucking Minister. THE FUCKING MINISTER, I TELL YOU! The Z’s ain’t touching him
. T
hey’re not even looking at him.
T
hey’re just streaming past him and he’s stood there in the middle with his arms in the air screaming about the book of revelation, and the end of days, and all that shit.
N
ot one of those fucking Zombies, NOT ONE, pay him a blind bit of notice. Fifteen years and that cunt arrives. Fucking hell. He’s just stood like he’s welcoming his flock to Church and I realise what he been waiting for all this months. Just for the right amount of Z’s, just for the right opportunity to send us all to the slaughter”.

(Another long pause.)

JW: “Well, they are close to us now, so we go back inside and bolt the door
. Isla and I
get upstairs just as the door is smashed in and you can hear them now, outside
. They’re
ripping flesh and getting all excited, and I grab my rucksack from my room.”

MB: “Your rucksack?”

IW: “He always kept one packed for emergencies in case anything went wrong. It mainly
had
food and some medical supplies in it. We all did
. I
t was one of Dad’s rules. Meanwhile, I’m outside with my sword waiting for them to come up the stairs.”

JW: “I just grab her and run, climb up and up through the castle
.
We g
o
up through the hatch to the roof of the main hall and we just sit on the roof
waiting
to see if we need to drop the ladder down to anyone... b
ut t
here’s no-one left. Just us. Everyone else is dead
. I
t’s just like the beginning all over again.
W
e’re stuck on the roof and all I can hear is the fucking preacher ranting on and on as he turns and walks out the gate, straight through all the Zombies and up the hill, singing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’.
C
an you believe that? ‘All things Bright and Fucking Beautiful!’ And then he’s gone, like your worst nightmare in the morning when you wake up. Just gone.”

MB: “Did you ever find out why they didn’t touch him?”

JW: “Not a clue. He was as alive as you and I.”

(Joe drinks, there is another long pause.)

JW: “Well this has been a lovely, if not emotionally fraught evening, sir, so I’m going to go to bed.
W
e’ll talk about the rest of it tomorrow.”

MB: “Well, I’d better get back to the hotel anyway.”

JW: “What? No, I’ll have Isla make up a bed for you. I’m not sending you out in a storm like that. Not at this time of night.”

MB: “Oh, okay. Cheers.”

/KNOCK

/KNOCK

/KNOCK

JW: “Oh, Isla get that would you, hun? Who the fuck is that in this weather? If its Hamish and he’s pissed tell him to fuck off.”

(Sound of bolts being undone and old wooden door opening.)

JW: “Oh Jesus. Oh God no. No, not you!”

(Isla Screams)

(We can now hear moans, familiar to all those who lived through the War. Sound wave analysis shows that two Zombies are present in the room, a second sound we analysed proves to be dog choke chains being pulled tight and relaxing, although we are only 50% sure about this.)

Unidentified: “Joe... You never did believe that all that time I wuz waitin’ to dae the Lord’s werk
. A
nd I cannae dae the Lords werk with you blabbermouthing to everyone now can I?”

(The next sound is a Zombie wail, the sound of a sword being drawn from a scabbard and furniture being knocked over, screams and crashes)

/tape ends

I submit this transcript of the tape, found at DunDecapitatin’ farmhouse on the Isle of Mull, as proof to the
 Department of Special Circumstances 
of the existence of the one known as
 ‘
The Minister
’
. Up to this point we only had anecdotal evidence of the existence of this man
. I
t is now clear to me (though not actually stated on the tape), that it is the voice of The Minister we are hearing at the end. We have also not been able to locate any of the individuals heard on the tape. We did find the sword-cane mentioned, however, the farmhouse had evidence of a struggle and almost certainly a Z attack of some kind.

It is my recommendation that we assign the maximum amount of resource to apprehend a man who appears not only to be immune to the virus, but may also be a carrier of some kind. Imagine the damage that could be done, at any point, should this individual choose to target a densely populated safe zone. Therefore, I strongly urge you carry out the recommendations outlined in my report CA23/4513.
Please al
so note that I have the sound file available of this recording available on
MP3
, should you wish
me
to send
you
a copy, but be aware that it makes uncomfortable listening.

In anticipation of your reply.

Denzel adjusted the focus ring on the binoculars and stared up the A30 towards the cloud of spray in the distance. The black Land Rover moved slowly round the desolate cars and rubble. It had come down the long, straight road which ran through the spine of Cornwall. It stopped here, at the wall that ran across the peninsula. It was four miles from The Towans at Hayle, to the beach of Long Rock and the wall stretched across it. It occurred to Denzel that it would take the car a few minutes to reach The Breach as the locals called it, so he placed the binoculars on the hook inside the hut, and finished his cold pasty in peace.

“Bloody Emmets,” he muttered to himself.

The hut was a corrugated iron and steel box that sat upon The Breach, a thirty foot high wall of slag from the recently restarted tin mines. The slag was mixed with quarried rock and the general detritus that had been bulldozed up here two years ago when the Zombies first arrived from London. There were only two holes in The Breach, one here at the Hayle roundabout on the A30 and one at the other end on the A394 at Long Rock. Both were closed by a gate large enough to get a bus though, made from a steel sided truck that had a patchwork of thick steel welded to it, usually from one of wrecks found offshore that had been picked clean by the locals over time.

Eventually, long after Denzel had finished his pasty, the battered Land Rover popped and squealed to a stop by the gate, revealing itself to be more blue than black as Denzel had first thought. It was covered in a thick red/black mucus and had both headlights smashed. Long scratches ran down each side, with tufts of hairs attached, and the windscreen had a long crack on the passenger side from top to bottom. It had obviously been a top of the range model at one time but a couple of years in the Z could invalidate even the most generous warranty. Finally, as if in its rattling death throes, a cloud of steam wafted from every orifice of the vehicle with a pathetic hiss. Then the door began to shake violently as the occupant struggled to open it. There was a pause and then it rattled again, even more violently, until it flew open with a protesting squeal. Denzel, in his fifties with greying wild hair and a pudgy, ruddy reflection leant out of the hut. A tall, lean figure dressed in corduroys and a grubby pink shirt stepped, coughing, out into the drizzly day. The man looked like a banker, a banker with a capital ‘W’.

“Awhright?”

Denzel nodded, languidly at the figure bent before him. “Bit o’ car trouble mate?” he shouted.

The other doors opened and out stepped a shorter blonde woman in her early thirties (or late twenties, the ZA had a way of ageing you). She was dressed in ripped Armani jeans, and a faded Angora sweater. She quickly put on a Barbour jacket to protect her from the pernicious drizzle. She was plain looking with a vacuous expression that shouted there was very little going on inside. The next occupant was a stocky, older woman in her fifties, dressed in a faded twin set and hiking boots.

Her mousey hair was tied up in a bun, dragging it back from her face so that her long roman nose had the effect of removing what little chin she had. This meant that she appeared to look sneeringly down her nose. The fact she spent her entire life looking sneeringly down her nose only enhanced the effect. Finally, out stepped a teenage boy with a long floppy fringe and all the bearing of a wet lettuce, a wet lettuce stuffed in a soggy paper bag and thrown down the toilet.

Denzel took an instant dislike to them.

The man reached back into the car and grabbed his jacket before looking up at Denzel.

“Good morning my good man! Miserable day, eh?” he said with an accent that said
‘skinny latte cappuccino double espresso, and do you have wi-fi?’
Denzel shrugged and looked back up the road to see a few squisher fuckers shambling down the road, attracted by the noise of the Land Rover. “Yes, well. Look, we’d be ever so grateful if you could let us in. You see, we’ve had a bit of a time of it.” He smiled a thin smile at Denzel. Humility was obviously a skill acquired only since the world had ceased to see money as a commodity. The others were stretching and walking about disinterestedly.

“Where you come frahm?” shouted Denzel to the figure below. He leaned out through the hut window, resting his elbows on the wide sill, and holding his head in one hand.

“Well we’ve been holed up in the Channel Islands for the past couple of years. Since this all started really.” Denzel said nothing. “Yes well, it all got a bit intolerable. Too many people, you see, not enough land to grow food on, and I was never one for fishing, really. Then after a few months people started to get sick. So we heard about Kernow and...”

“What exactly did you hear about Kernow?” Denzel scowled, cutting the man off mid sentence. Just then there was a low moan from the distant Zombies. Everyone, including Denzel, turned and looked up the road to see a small crowd of the things shambling towards them. The were still a way off but had obviously got the scent of the travellers.

“Look, we just heard there were a few people living in a safe community down here. We heard that it was better than where we were and the few hundred people who came down this way didn’t come back, so we kind of assumed they just stayed.”

“Well I ain’t seen no-one in months,” said Denzel, flatly.

“Oh. Well, those things are getting closer, so be a good chap and open the gate,” he said, with a pleading lilt that Denzel found most satisfying.

“They are beginning to get quite close now, Julian,” said the floppy teenager, backing away behind the older woman.

“Well we got a bit of a problem then ain’t we, Julian?” sneered Denzel.

The four figures turned to look up at Denzel.

“We ain’t exaactly got too much stuff spare ‘ere ourselves, you know.” The travellers looked slightly panicked, as if they knew what was coming but didn’t want to acknowledge it. “And besides, we don’t let Emmets in.”

“Emmets?” Said Julian.

“Well this is just bloody marvellous!” sneered the older woman.

“Shut up Jocasta,” Julian barked. “Just let me deal with this.”

“Emmets?” said Julian.

“Emmets,” said Denzel.

“What’s an Emmet?”

“You, that’s what. All you lot from up country. Emmets,” said Denzel, waving his hand dismissively up the road.

“Ahh!” Julian exclaimed. “Ahh!” he pointed up at Denzel.

“See, that’s where you are wrong!” Julian dived back in the car and started scrabbling around. Eventually he found a scrap of paper and started waving it about at Denzel. “I own a house down here!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, is thaat roight?” said Denzel, amused.

The Zombies were getting closer now. Their moans agitated at their lack of speed to get at their prey. They were a motley collection of Dead, some old and more worryingly, some recently turned. Slowly they emerged from the ditches and hedgerows.

“Oh no, not again!” exclaimed the floppy haired teenager. The blonde girl pointed down at his trousers.

“Julian. He’s pissed himself again.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” said an exasperated Julian.

“Look, my good man. I own a house in St Ives,” he puffed.

“Which one?” asked Denzel.

“What do you mean ‘which one’, you bloody idiot? It’s not going to be St Ives in London, is it?”

“Which house?”

Julian scrabbled with the paper, trying to smooth it out on his leg.

“Number 5. No, number 8. Number 8, Bat Drive. Bat Drive? BAY DRIVE! Number 8, Bay Drive!”

Denzel gazed at the scudding clouds in thought. “Bay Drive. Bay Drive. Is thaat the one with the lovely picture window?” mused Denzel. Julian stared at the fading picture.

“Julian, they are really getting rather close now,” sneered the woman.

“YES I KNOW JOCASTA!” Julian screamed, a small vein popping out through his thinning hair. “Tim. Start the car. And sit on the towel!” Tim jumped into the car and frantically tried to coax the poor thing into life. It protested loudly, sagging on its wheels pathetically. Julian returned to staring at the picture. Finally, he exclaimed, “Yes it has got a picture window! It has!”

“Has it got a red door?”