Blood on the Floor: An Undead Adventure (12 page)

Fourteen

If the transition from town centre to residential streets was profound, the move from urban to rural is more so. Markedly more so. The houses get bigger and the gaps between them increase until they are passing more hedge than brick.

So too the smell eases. The noises of nature return. Birds singing and things mooching about in undergrowth snuffling and freezing as they hear the footsteps of Heather’s new shoes and Paco’s dragging feet.

The human mind is an incredibly complex thing that constantly assesses the needs of the body and now the perception of immediate safety has been gained so she processes what she needs next. Water, food, shelter. Water and food can be taken from houses or farms. Whatever they pass. Now that she has Paco it should be safe enough to grab what’s needed. He’s just killed like hundreds of them so the odd infected farmer won’t be anything to worry about. What about shelter? She could head for the church but if truth be told she has no clue as to what direction that is. She went in the town one way and came out another. She never did have a good sense of direction and the overwhelming barrage to her senses since last night have robbed any idea of where she is in time and space.

She rules the church out and forms a loose decision to look for somewhere
like
the church. Somewhere quiet. Rural. Detached. A good view all round. Running water. Has to be strong. What about Paco? She thinks to the night ahead and the prospect of spending the hours of darkness in the same room as him. God no. That isn’t happening. For a start he stinks, he might also get hungry and decide to nibble on her leg or something and besides, everyone knows Paco Maguire is a womanising git. Just because he’s infected it might not stop him trying to poke his willy about. Where will he sleep? He needs to be close but not too close. Maybe like last night? He can stay outside while she sleeps inside, behind a locked door, with a knife. She flinches inwardly at the thought of using a weapon. The shotgun was bad enough and even that she ditched and chose to run instead. Thank god she did too. What if she had tried to reload and shot Paco? She’d now be in the digestive tract of several infected people and become zombie poo. Do they poo? Are they even alive? They’re zombies so they’re undead right? What determines life? A heart? She’s seen enough blood since last night to know they bleed. So in order to bleed they must have beating hearts. A beating heart means they are alive. What about their brains? Maybe they’re brain dead. Well obviously they’re brain dead but not completely brain dead. The brain controls everything. Without a brain there can’t be anything. Patients can be kept alive on life support machines but without brain activity they’re effectively a goner. You hear it all the time. People in vegetable states. Or is it vegetative states? States of vegetation? Anyway, the point is that without the brain you shouldn’t be able to move or do anything. The infected don’t have fine motor skills. Like they can’t eat with a knife and fork for a start but they can bloody well run about and compute sensory input like vision and hearing. Okay, so they aren’t brain dead or heart dead so they ain’t dead. Deadish. Like a bit dead. A bit brain dead. She fixes on the grand picture of life now and the unanswerable issues instead of facing with the harsh reality of what she just went through. That is too big, too recent and too damaging to hold in her mind. Instead she flits from one random subject to the next while walking down a new country lane bordered by high hedges and surrounded by rolling fields, meadows, thickets, copses and woods all wilting under a blistering sun that seems to be drawing moisture from every pore in her body.

She huffs, sighs and blows air out through her cheeks and makes another life affirming decision that she is going to stop at the next house and find water. Definitely. For sure. For real. This is fact.

She’s hit from behind. Not hard but enough to scare the wits out of her so much she yelps and bursts away with the absolute knowledge that she is about to be killed. After a few strides she risks a glance back at the attackers to see Paco stumbling across into the middle of the lane. He stops, looks up to find her then sets off with an adjustment of aim. There’s nothing else there. No other infected. While her heart tries to beat out of her sweat soaked chest she watches him closely and stays ready to flee. He looks different. He’s moving differently. Slower. His head is drooping and he veers off again into the middle of the lane before once more stopping to gain the proper direction. What’s with his legs? Why is he dragging his feet so much?

‘Come on,’ she urges softly. His head lifts at her voice and he seems to respond with an increase in speed while keeping his eyes locked on her. He must have tripped or snagged his foot on a stone. This she decides while ignoring the obvious fact that Paco is about to collapse. She sets off, still ignoring it. She walks on, blithely refusing to acknowledge that it must have been a couple of hours since she last turned to look at him and in that time he has deteriorated massively. He looks worse than ever. His eyes are swelling. His lips are cracked and dried. His skin has become tight to his skull making his eyes look sunken and deep. The cuts and bites look raw too. His throat is a mess and he stinks. He really stinks.

Heather bites her bottom lip and slows down to let him catch up. When he does catch up she sets off again but the pace is slow. Painfully slow and his breathing is getting more ragged by the minute. She glances again but looks away from the terrible sight and the even more sudden and terrible prospect of losing him. What if he drops? He’s too heavy to carry and there is no way she’s even touching him with all that blood and gore on his body. Plus he stinks. He really stinks. She wouldn’t even be able to drag him, not without tearing his skin to bits on the road and he must weight a ton. Far heavier than her anyway. What if they get attacked again? He can’t fight like this. What if she finds a house and it’s got an infected inside? What then? Will he ping back to the guard dog or just keel over?

Life was better in the church. She should have stayed there and let Paco be a zombie with his zombie friends. She glances to see he’s dropped back again. His head sagging down and his shoulders slumped.

‘Paco,’ she keeps her voice soft, watching as his head lifts and his eyes find hers. She even smiles. Weak and wan but again it gives him a fresh burst that brings the puppy dog expression back. He catches up and this time she stays at his side. Her thumbs hooked through the straps on her bag as she walks slowly while looking at him slumping again. He veers off into her path making her step away quickly for fear of being touched. ‘Paco,’ she calls his name and he responds. His head coming up and trying to walk straight.

The more she becomes aware of the state of him the more she believes he will drop any second. He’s lost a lot of blood. She saw that for herself. He was injured and hurt last night and went down in the cinema and he’s been standing out in the sun all day plus killing anything that came near them. ‘Paco.’ His head lifts, his feet step and on he goes. ‘Keep going,’ she says after another couple of minutes. Her tone soft but falsely so. He will drop any second. There’s no way he can keep going. Not like this.

‘Hey,’ she says sharply, darting back when he veers off course towards her. ‘You can’t touch me,’ she points out and falls into step with a greater distance between them. ‘Just keep going.’

He doesn’t drop. He veers constantly. Slows, sags and falls back but he keeps moving. She calls his name constantly, forcing her tone to be soft and ignoring the pressure building up to find somewhere before night comes. As she gets stressed so the pains her stomach come back with fresh cramps. In alarm she remembers the kitchen roll still inside her being used to soak the blood up. When did she last change it? It’s meant to be every four hours. It must have been in all day and it’s not even a tampon but flimsy paper that will disintegrate. The urgency grows and she checks the sky as often as she looks at Paco now walking with his right eye swollen closed.

She looks round for power lines or any sign of a house nearby. The thirst builds. The heat gets worse. Paco gets slower. She considers ditching him then remembers the worry of meeting infected without him. There’s too many in this area to risk that. Worst case scenario if they do attack is to run and let them eat Paco. She bites her lip again and winces at the cramp, or is it just hunger and stress? She can’t tell which but only that he needs to hurry the hell up and stop going off course.

‘Paco,’ she whispers sharply. He comes back but almost straight away he fades again. Slouching back ready to drop. It’s no good. She looks round for a stick or something to poke him along with. Like a branch but they’re all annoyingly attached to bushes and trees. ‘Paco, come on,’ she whispers again. He gargles a sound and tries to focus but flounders and staggers to the side. She rushes in then stops before she actually touches him. An idea comes to mind and she slides the bag off to pull one of the sports bras out. Perfect. She lets it hang from one strap and looks at the other loop then at his left wrist.

It takes valuable time. The muscles in his forearms are big and taper down to his wrists which makes the strap slide down. She tries to lasso his hand then aims for the crook of his elbow until she finally tells herself to stop pissing about and goes in close to gingerly place the strap while leaning back from the gag inducing smell.

‘Come on,’ she clicks her teeth, encouraging the stubborn dog to go for a walk. He comes forward and stays on course while she walks backwards to keep the tension on. ‘That’s it…keep coming…good zombie…’ she pulls harder feeling the weight of his arm that lifts from his side. Too much, she slackens off and uses it to guide rather than to drag and that tiny touch of pressure is enough to keep him focussed. For a few minutes anyway. After that even the brassiere-leash doesn’t do any good. He slouches, slumps and sags with eyes rolling in the sockets.

‘Paco,’ she urges. ‘Come on,’ the softness in her tone drops away. ‘Move…come on…just keep moving…’ she snaps and harries him verbally and he tries, he tries to focus and go forward but she can see his body is giving up. ‘Move,’ she demands, injecting force into her voice to order him in the vain hope a harder tone will work. It gains another few steps before he shuffles to a swaying stop.

She turns on the spot with hands to her head in desperation wondering why she ever stopped wearing a watch. What time is it? It’s got to be early evening. Maybe another two hours at the most before the sun drops. She stares again at him, at his filthy blood covered body and the many open wounds. Actually, they’re healing over already. So that’s good, at least he’s not actually bleeding now. Must have thick blood. There’s nothing for it. She drops her bag again and pulls out two simple vest tops and looks at them with reluctance of what needs to be done. They’re so new though and they’ve got that new clothes smell. She presses them to her face and inhales deeply.

‘So nice,’ she murmurs into the material then huffs as she wraps them round her hands. She checks them for gaps to make sure her skin is completely covered. Right. She gets the bag on, walks round behind him and stares at his broad back with an air of resignation. What has to be has to be.

She touches softly at first. Extending her hands out until they’re braced against his back. Arms stretched out. Head leaning away in an effort to breathe clean air. The first push is gentle, more to guide and usher and he responds. He shuffles forward on feet that drag and scuff the road. They start making progress with Heather subtly adjusting the increments of pressure to prevent him veering off. Distance is gained, slow and difficult but distance nonetheless. She tries speeding up after a few minutes but feels his body becoming unbalanced and eases off to keep a slow but steady pace. It doesn’t take long for her arms and shoulders to start hurting and as they do so she leans more into him so his form absorbs more of her weight. On they go. A woman pushing a zombie down a country lane while a sports bra dangles from his wrist. He’s so heavy. Just so bloody heavy and just…just heavy. Despite the wraps she can feel the solidity of his back. It gets harder with Paco slowing and Heather exerting more force to keep him going. If he didn’t smell so bad and wasn’t covered in gooey zombie blood she’d get her shoulder into him. Sweat pours down her face to drip annoyingly from the end of her nose. Shoulders burning and legs starting to ache from being used more to drive the heavy weight on. The cramps come back. Her lower back starts aching. Why didn’t she bring water and the Nurofen?

‘Oh my god,’ she wheezes behind him. ‘Use your legs…PACO! Use your bloody legs…’ she feels the surge of weak energy as he tries valiantly to walk properly but it’s like negotiating with a drunk bear. She snorts at the thought. That’s exactly what it is. Paco is a drunk bear. She’s trying to push an intoxicated bear home. The thought lodges with a nice mental image adding to the surrealness of the moment. The moment? The whole bloody day and last night too. All of it is surreal. Should have stayed in the church.

‘Christ, how much do you weigh?’ She gasps and digs in then snorts again when she remembers some of the gym instructors she’s met. ‘Dig in,’ she mimics in a deeper voice. ‘Dig deeper…’ Who was it that said that? ‘Dig deeper,’ she says again then remembers the Insanity workout with Shaun T or whatever his stupid bloody name was. ‘Shaun T says dig deeper,’ she grunts and pushes. ‘Embrace the pain….Shaun T says feel the burn…Shaun T says push the zombie harder…’

On they go. Heather muttering in a voice that slowly fills with more foul utterances until she decides Shaun T can fuck off. Is it Shaun or Sean? Why is there two ways of spelling it? Stupid people. Like Steven and Stephen. Wankers. Sarah and Sara. Bitches. Anyone with a name that can spelled another way is a tosser. Anyone ever in the world is a tosser.