Class Four: Those Who Survive (24 page)

The Grey Worm Part-3

The stream of men stopped. You could hear the crackle of gunfire, though. It was mad to think that it was happening in our city centre. All the shops we had gone in. All the places we had bought stuff from. The battle was going on amongst it all.

As night fell so did the amount of shooting we heard. They somehow seemed to be entwined. Casey fell asleep on the sofa in the living room. We put a blanket over her and maintained our vigil in the kitchen.

Any minute now, we thought. We didn’t know what would happen to signal it being won. But we knew it would be
something
.

Something
big
.

Poor Jenny flaked out about half three. The shooting now was pretty sparse. Either it was far away or worse. There weren’t as many soldiers as there had been.

You know when you fall asleep on the train? And you wake up and you’ve dribbled on yourself? You look around and see that it’s a completely different time to you last remember?

That.

I woke Jenny up and I made a cup of tea for us. She grunted a thanks. It was then I realised I couldn’t hear anything. No gunfire. Nothing. That was it. We had won! I was so happy I nearly kissed her. One look at her face, though. That told me it wasn’t an option.

I’m about to get up and get changed. I’d turned my pants inside out so many times that it was like a runway on the fabric. Then I saw him. He was dressed in army camouflage. Limping badly. I couldn’t see that he was carrying a weapon. He was going back the way they had come from the day before. He crossed the road, and I remember he stopped and looked back.

We saw them first. This mass of bodies. All flailing arms and snapping jaws. They looked like they were one great big grey maggot. Then the sound rolled up the street to our window. That moaning. The army guy looked away and disappeared up the road. The grey worm just kept on coming.

That’s when I knew. This wasn’t going to end. Not now. Not ever. It was me, Jenny and Casey. Forever. In this stupid little flat.

Fuck.

I don’t know what depressed me more. Looking at her showed me that she had just had the same thought as me. We smiled like idiots at each other.

Fuck.

Fate usually has the temerity to kick you in the balls. And that it did. The electric went a few days later. No freezer. No oven. No ability to recharge Casey’s batteries for her 3DS. Things became even more strained. I knew that within a day or so, we’d have to go out
there
. Get food. Something. And then it happened.

Another nugget of advice you get when you become a parent? You need eyes in the back of your head. The little devils get everywhere they shouldn’t. Casey had stayed content so far. But when her 3DS died. Well. Never thought anyone could moan that persistently for so long.

I was in the kitchen, trying to work out where I would go to look for food. And how I would get past the zombies. Part of me thought why bother? Would it be so bad coming back as one of them? I wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire so far, was I?

Jenny had just told Casey to stop whinging. Again. She was in the toilet. Shouting about how it wasn’t flushing. Great. Summertime in a little flat with overflowing faecal matter. Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?

Next thing. I hear this giant bang. A crash. A thud. A whimper.

Rush into the living room to see Casey in a heap against the window. The sofa should’ve, in theory at least, arrested her accelerated journey. All it did was spin her through the air. I look across the room and see a fork embedded in a plug socket. This little wisp of smoke was coming off it.

Ha. Reminded me of Willo The Wisp. Do you remember that?

Creepy. But good.

We reckon she was trying to get electricity out of the socket. Get some out to put into her batteries. She had her doll’s trolley with them in it next to the plug socket. Turns out that even with the power out, sockets hold some residual charge. And when you’re four and ten twelfths, that charge is enough to propel you across the room at breakneck speed.

Bad choice of words. I know. It may sound like I didn’t love them. But when you’ve seen them grow up from a grainy black and white picture on a bit of paper, into a proper little girl, then…then when you see them
lying
there. And you know there is absolutely fucking NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

I tried to wake her. She was groggy. Not with it at all. I was frantic. Jenny came in. I’ve never heard any animal make a noise that even closely resembled the sound that came out of her then. It was a mix of every human emotion. She took Casey’s hand, and it was all burned, this little line stamped down the centre of her palm. Like it was her life line. But it wasn’t. That line went from top to bottom. Palmistry would’ve said a long and bountiful life.

Casey left us five minutes later.

Jenny was born to be a mum. I’ve said that. I know. She held Casey for ages. I knew we had to do something. At some point, soon, Casey would come back. But it wouldn’t be her. It would be something else entirely. I thought about going outside again. Let myself be added to the grey worm.

I would’ve done. But Jenny said otherwise. She lay Casey down on the sofa and went into our bedroom. We all had to sleep in one room. She came back with Casey’s skipping rope. Tied one end around the radiator pipe and the other around Casey’s arm. She yanked it to make sure it was tight enough.

Much like the night which ended with all hope walking injured back up the hill, we watched our dead daughter. Waiting for the sign. Waiting for her to come back.

At twenty three eleven, on my watch, the thing that now lived in her dead body came back. Jenny started crying. Tears of joy I think.

I cried too. I know mine weren’t the same kind, though. She wasn’t my daughter. That thing was not of my making.

Jenny tried to hold Casey, but her little mouth kept snapping at her. She put her puffa jacket on and held her again. Those little teeth tried to chomp on Jenny’s arm. Her dead eyes couldn’t work out why she wasn’t getting through. Jenny sang her a lullaby. Did fuck all use, though. Well, not on Casey.

I fell asleep and awoke to find Casey straining at the end of the skipping rope. Trying to bite my wrist. Jenny was in the kitchen. Nothing for breakfast, she said. Tell me something I don’t know. For the past god knows how many weeks I had told her the same thing.

Nothing for me, she says.

Nothing for you, she says.

Nothing for Casey, she says.

I skirt round the My Little Zombie in our living room. Jenny is as calm as I’ve ever seen her. She tells me that Casey is still there. She’s changed, she says. But she’s still our little girl, she says. I try to explain to her that the thing in our house is no longer our daughter. She said one thing.

You’ll see.

You’ll see like I do.

The Grey Worm Part-4

I had an epiphany. I’d go into the flats that were now empty. They were bound to have food, supplies, whatever. I wouldn’t have to get eaten by the worm. I’d be the good guy for once. I told Jenny my plan. She smiled at me. I barely recognised her face making that shape. It had been that long.

I thought I’d start at the bottom. Gary Glitter hadn’t bothered to lock his door. His flat was like a time capsule. Turns out he wasn’t a paedo. At least, I don’t think so. His walls were lined with pictures of him and giant cheques. Money he’d raised for all these different charities.

I got my Bag For Looting out and went through his cupboards. Didn’t have much. But bagged some rice, pasta, pot noodles and the like. Even had some bottled water. Carbonated. Better than nothing, though. I must’ve been gone fifteen, twenty minutes. At most.

Get up to our floor and see that the door opposite is open.

Bad things.

The old couple hardly ever went out. She was pretty much bedridden. We saw him from time to time, though, bringing the shopping back.

I put the bag of food by our door and went in their flat. I could hear Jenny’s voice. It was soft and calm. Like when we first met. When we had everything open to us.

Their flat was the mirror image of ours. I got to the living room door. It was shut. I could hear Jenny on the other side and someone crying.

I pushed the door open and my heart stopped. Laying on the floor with a bruise the size of a fist on his head was the old fella. There’s this big armchair facing the telly just behind his body. I can make out the back of the old woman’s curly hair. She’s sitting down, watching the blackness of the powerless telly.

She’s the one crying. Jenny is stood in front of her. Being kind enough to not obstruct the telly I should add. She looks up at me and smiles, then down to the old woman again. I step over the man. He’s still breathing. Which is something.

Buried in the old woman’s lap is Casey. This bloody knife is lying next to the woman. Casey’s delicate little fingers are rummaging around inside the old lady. You could see her little knuckles under the creased, yellow skin.

Knew you’d be proud of her, Jenny said. She didn’t want to eat anything we had. So I remembered what we saw. Henry got in the way so I had to hit him. And try as she might, Casey couldn’t get into the good stuff.

Could you?

No you couldn’t.

After a starter of a few fingers, Mummy thought I’d better help you out. All I had to do was make a little cut and our clever little girl did the rest.

Who’s a clever girl?

Casey isn’t paying her any attention. She’s too interested in cramming her little inquisitive hands into the innards of the old lady. Reminded me of Han Solo cutting open the Tauntaun in Empire Strikes Back.

You like Jar-Jar, Matt? Says it all really. No. I didn’t. Why? Because he was a fucking twat. Do you mind? Yes. I guess I did interrupt your story. Sorry. May I continue? Cheers.

I’m not entirely sure what happened next. I think I blacked out. The sight of your neighbour being eaten alive by your dead daughter, having been prepared by your wife, is not something you can easily anticipate.

I wake up and I’m looking into the eyes of Henry. The old fella. Jenny has been busy while I’ve been out. The old man has got a sock for a gag and is tied up. He’s proper frantic. His bruise is looking full on nasty, too. I was half expecting to find myself in the same predicament. To my surprise I find I’m able to stand up.

Casey has the same bored look as the man we saw. Chewing on some piece of meat. No idea what it was. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a bit of kidney. She stops chewing and then just barfs all over the floor.

Once she’s finished, she shoves her little hands back inside the old dear. She was slumped forwards now. Either dead. Or very nearly dead. I tell Jenny that while it’s great we still have Casey, I don’t really want to spend my time living with a zombie old lady. She laughs. The last time I said anything that made her laugh was a week before Casey was born.

The first time she was born.

Properly.

Not when she came back.

Jenny checks for a pulse. Then, quick as you like, she grabs the old dear by the throat and slings her over her shoulder. Casey looks a bit miffed, but as Jenny lifts the body up, bits of stuff plop out of the hole. Casey lets out this little moan and got back to eating. She was always a fussy eater. Not so much anymore.

Never had Jenny down as a physically strong person. I always had to do the lifting. But she carries the old woman down four flights of stairs and into Gary Glitter’s, no bother. She reappears a few minutes later. Flashes me a key which she stashes in her bra.

Why do women do that?

Anyway. We get back upstairs just in time to stop Casey starting on dessert.
Henry
. Jenny says that we need to space out the feeding. She pulls on the skipping rope and leads our little girl into their bedroom. She ties the end of the rope to the radiator pipe again, kisses Casey on the head, and then leaves.

I didn’t sleep for two days. Jenny on the other hand slept like a log. When I did sleep I had the same nightmare over and over again. I’d wake up and find myself tied to the radiator pipe. Jenny leans over me. Smiles and then hacks away at my guts. She then steps back. Our little girl totters over and starts pulling out my insides like they’re on special offer.

Jenny cuts off a length of my intestines which are lying on the floor. She ties one end around Casey’s wrist and the other around hers. I wake up just as Casey’s unravelled the lot and is tugging on my pancreas.

Jenny tells me it’s going to be okay. All she wants to do is show me that our daughter is still alive. The same thing I’d seen tuck into the old bird next door. I was somewhere between desperate and shit scared. I know it’s not much of an excuse. It’s all I got. All I had.

What was I going to do?

I don’t think I would have made it to the front door. Not before Jenny would’ve stopped me and turned me into a nice fricassee.

Five days after Casey’s demise, Jenny says it’s time to feed her again. She asks if I want to help. Given the fact that she was wearing an apron and holding a cordless electric knife. I opted to postpone the events of my dream manifesting in real life, and said yes.

Henry was still passed out on the floor. His breathing was soft. The bruise had gone down. But the lack of sanitary conditions had left him a rather unsightly mess. And smell. Jenny turned him over onto his back with all the care of an abattoir worker.

The look in his eyes. He had come to by then. She revved the knife up. Poor sod. She sliced into his side. Not too deep. Then she dragged him into the hallway by his shirt collar. We could hear Casey scratching at the door. Jenny told me to stand back. Opened the door and there she was. Since I last saw her, she had changed. Her skin was grey and lifeless. Her veins were blotchy lines of black.

Something else struck me, though. She was wearing different clothes. Jenny had obviously been back in and changed her. It didn’t really do much. She still looked, well, like a zombie. Just a slightly smarter dressed zombie. With a pink ribbon in her hair.

Feeding time began. When Henry was on the way out, Jenny chopped off a leg to tide little Casey over. Then hauled him down the stairs and into the bottom flat.

That became our life. The stoners went next. They had loads of food. I was happy with that. Jenny lured them in with, well, herself. Never seen her act like that in a long time.

A month later, though, the flats were nearly empty. Except for ours, the now silent Star Trek Tennis Porn man and number one.

I thought I saw a change in Casey. Sure, she didn’t want to play with her dolls anymore. But the more time I spent with her, you could see that something remained. Or so I thought.

Honestly? Looking back? I think I would’ve found a similarity to David Bowie if I’d looked hard enough. It was fair to say my mental health was deteriorating.

Five days after Star Trek Tennis Porn man had been added to the undead waiting-room downstairs, we were out of people. Jenny had eked them out as best she could. Even managed to get a few passers-by that she promised safety to.

Amongst other things.

She had become a bit more rambling by then. Said that she needed more connection with Casey. That it was no good just being her mum any more. She needed to be at one with her.

I should’ve seen the signs.

I’m asleep one night and woke up with a start. This searing pain is lancing through my skull. I try to get up, but I can’t move. I’m pinned to the bed. And not in a good way. Not in a ‘it’s my birthday’ kinda way.

I can feel my cheek is all runny. Out of one eye is darkness. The other is that half-light you get. The pain increases. It’s then I realise that it’s Jenny. She’s trying to
eat
me. I’ve never hit a woman before. Hit a few blokes when they deserved it, but never a woman. My first punch is a testament to that. A mere slap. The second though, when it feels like she is actually going to rip my eye out, well, that one sent her flying.

I was up on my feet straight away. Half expecting her to fly at me. Arms pumping with rage and fury. Nothing. Do you know what I got? That moan. The one I heard from the worm. But this one was in the same room as me. Burrowing into my flesh. She flailed at me and missed.

My face was still hurting like a bastard. Could feel liquid running down the left side of my face. It ran into my mouth and I got that coppery tang. Jenny was dead. Gone. The veil had been well and truly fucking lifted. Nothing remains when you go. Nothing. No vestige of humanity. No spark of ingenuity or enquiry. No impulse to explore and expand your horizons.

Just a desire to feed. A desire to kill. In some respects you could argue that in those final few seconds we had together, the true Jenny was exposed. We’d grown so far apart. We were nothing like the people we once were when we met.

No chance to grow.

No chance to explore.

We had wilted together.

The relationship with the woman I met called Jenny died years before. I watched as she clawed her way across the bed on her belly towards me.

Since the power went I had this torch next to me. Proper full-on security thing. Cheap in Woolworths years ago. I don’t remember picking it up. I don’t remember bringing it down onto her skull.

Again. And again. And again.

I do remember seeing what was left of her after. I shone the light on her. With the blood running over the lens, she took on a peculiar hue. She had these little bite marks up and down her body. Guess that’s the price she paid for insisting on changing our daughter.

I clock the bedside table. Her side. The bottle of Jack Daniels I got on Day One was next to a pile of pills. All the colours of the rainbow, must’ve been hoarding them from the other flats. She wanted to join our daughter. Do it properly. No fucking about.

I couldn’t stand to see Casey again. Not like that. Not after what I had witnessed her doing. I got a length of tubing. Chose one of the cars outside. Drained enough petrol to fill a bucket that we used to put the mop into.

I lay a trail of it from number one to the path outside, lit a match, and watched them all burn. Grey hands pawed at the window. Scratching to get out.

I heard the worm scream.

I saw the worm writhe.

I watched the worm die.

I wandered for days. From one place to the next. Forever onwards. Surviving one day at a time. Trying to forget about my dead family. Eventually I bumped into a patrol. They took me in here. After a few clashes, though, my card was marked.

I don’t mind. It’s better to pick up dirty paper plates than kill
them
through the fence.

Plus. I have a new nightmare.

I’m on Heads Up detail. Walking around the fence, stabbing the zombies in the head with the end of this crowbar. Turn to face the next one and it’s Jenny. Her head is all bust open. She doesn’t moan, though. She just says, ‘I’m disappointed in you’. As well as you can with half a head anyway.

I stab her through the face. She drops and turns to ash. I move onto the next one. It’s Casey. But she’s not a zombie anymore. She’s that little girl I blamed for everything.

I’m crying now. I try to stop myself. But I can’t. I smash the crowbar into her skull. She sinks to the ground. Her little hand holds onto the leg of my jeans. She starts to pull me through the fence.

So strong. Can feel my flesh getting all pinched. Then I get dragged like cheese through a grater.

My legs first.

Then my body.

My heart.

Lungs.

Arms.

Just as my head is being dragged through, I let out a scream. That tends to be echoed by the sound I’m making as I wake up.

I have only one reminder of those months. This lovely scar. This necklace around my eye. I never look in the mirror. I need no reminder of the things I witnessed.

Of the things I lost.

Not just now.