“Sam, are you awake?” Braiden whispered in the darkness.
“Mmmm,” Sam mumbled, coming out of his slumber. “What’s the matter?”
Braiden shifted position on the mattress and faced where Sam laid, only the faintest outline visible from the reflected glow of the dying embers in Sarah and Kurt’s room.
“Do you think of that family at all?” Braiden asked.
“I try not to. It’s horrible what happened to them. He must have been really scared to do what he did to his wife and kid,” Sam reasoned, still groggy from the alcohol in his system from the wine they had all enjoyed at dinner time.
“We are scared as well, but would your dad do it to you?”
“Never!” Sam retorted, angry at the question. “Don’t say things like that.”
“My dad would have done it. He liked to hurt people. I think that’s where I get it from.” Braiden was talking more to himself now. “I killed him,” he whispered.
“I know you did, you saved my dad from him that night. I don’t think you…” Sam was fully awake now. He shifted his own position and rested on his arm, looking down.
“No, I mean I killed him. I left our door open for them to get in. I am a murderer,” Braiden interrupted. He was struggling to get the words out, trapped between a feeling of terrible guilt and one of release, of freedom.
“I don’t understand,” Sam was afraid. The conversation was turning dark and dangerous.
“You need to get rid of me, or I will hurt you all too. I’m just like him, just like my dad, I do bad things.” Braiden was lost in his own spiral of pity now. Sam knew the reputation of Lennie from overheard whispers.
“You are nothing like him!” Sam was angry now. He felt the pain of his new brother. “You have saved us all since it first started, me, Gloria, Mum, Dad, John and Hope. None of us would be around if it wasn’t for you. You are a hero!”
“Heroes don’t have bad thoughts like mine. I just want to hurt people all the time,” Braiden said, he couldn’t believe Sam’s defence of his behaviour.
“How many people have you hurt since this all started?” Sam pressed him.
“I used to try and hurt you all the time,” Braiden confessed, looking away despite the fact that they couldn’t see each other’s faces.
“That was before all this, and do you think you were the only one? I can name loads of other bullies at school who were just as bad as you.”
“Go on then.” Braiden was unconvinced. He had always been told he was evil by his dad. That he was the worst son in the world, the worst friend and awful to be around, a ‘wrong un’ as Lennie put it. It must have been why his mum left him.
“Peter Finch, he beat up Carly Hutchins during break because she wouldn’t go out with him. Lloyd Easton, he threw a chair at Miss Phillips in English and fractured her arm. Josie Henstridge, she beats up boys and girls, I got a split lip off her a month ago. I could go on and on.” Sam left it there, let it sink in for a moment and thought Braiden was ignoring him when the quiet dragged on for several seconds.
“Yeah ok, but I was worse than all of them. You tried to be my friend and I beat you up for it.” Braiden felt awful about the incident. Sam had tried to talk to him, but because Braiden was in front of his ‘friends’, he lashed out to impress them.
“Yes you did, and all I was trying to do was talk to you. But I know it was the others that you were showing off for,” Sam explained.
“Huh? Why do you say that?” Braiden was confused, how could he have known?
“Because you kept looking at them when you were hitting me and they egged you on. You wanted approval. It’s what one of my lessons in sociology taught me.” Sam wasn’t entirely sure if it was true. A lot of the grown up stuff he was learning made no sense, but the smile Braiden wore after he looked around as they cheered him on disappeared when he looked back at Sam and threw the next punch. “And what did they do when you got caught? They walked off laughing at us both.”
Braiden laid there thinking. He understood that the other boys weren’t ‘friends’ as such. They would encourage him to do stupid things like press the fire alarm button at school, push someone down the stairs into others and he would get the blame while they got off unpunished. He just wanted to be accepted, to belong to something.
“But I was the one doing it, why have you never tried to hit me back?” Braiden genuinely wanted to know. Any time he had done something bad his dad had reacted quickly, and violently.
“I guess I felt sorry for you. I knew your mum was gone and your dad wasn’t the kindest person.” Sam tried to be diplomatic about his home life. He held his breath, worried Braiden would get angry.
“My dad used to hurt my mum a lot too. She would try and protect me and he would punch her.” Braiden drifted back into memories of his family and the dreadful times they had endured.
“There you go, do you see? Who are you more like, your dad who hurts people, or your mum who protects them? I know which one I have seen in the past few days. You risked your own life to help people you hardly knew. Does that sound like something your dad would do?” Sam was trying to get him to see his acts for what they were, courageous.
“No, I guess not. But I still have angry thoughts and want to lash out,” Braiden persisted. Years of demoralization at the hands of his psychotic parent would take time to break.
“Oh really? And who have you lashed out at, the zombie that was trying to kill my mum and the one who killed his family? Bad people, don’t you see? You ARE a protector.” Sam was not going to let this go easily.
“If I am good, why did my mum leave me?” Braiden’s voice broke in the darkness.
“I don’t know,” Sam answered honestly, caught off guard by the sudden change in the conversation. “But you are part of this family now. I am so glad to finally have a brother. We may even find your mum when this all goes away and we start rebuilding.”
“She’s dead, everyone is dead.”
Sam reached out and felt for Braiden’s shoulder, it was jumping with his quiet sobs. He squeezed it and continued.
“You also realize you brought Hope back, she only responded to you in the end. That means that she sees something special in you, something good and true that she felt safe enough in your company.” Sam hoped that he was getting through but only time would tell.
“I am still a murderer,” Braiden stated.
“He was a very bad man. You stopped him hurting anyone else. That still makes you a protector.”
The talk was over. Braiden gave the hand a squeeze and gently pushed it away from him. They laid there for a while before sleep came again, lost in their own thoughts.
Kurt was dreaming of a hot summer day that he had spent with his parents on Hayling Island. They had eaten a picnic on the beach, waves breaking and foaming towards them as the tide came in. They had taken their pet dog, a border collie called Missy. She had passed away nearly twenty years ago and was buried in John’s garden, surrounded by red and yellow rosebushes. Kurt had thrown the Frisbee down the beach for an hour, the beloved dog barking and giving chase, before returning and begging for another throw, tail swishing through the air madly.
Kurt gradually surfaced from the pleasant memory, emerging into the terrible reality of their new lives. Laying there and looking at the ceiling, he listened to the sounds of Sarah as she muttered in her sleep before snoring quietly, returning to more peaceful dreams. The dawn had taken hold and the light was breaking through the sections of window that they had left paint free to allow observation of the outside world. The barking had followed him from the dream and he could still hear the sound of his long dead friend echoing in his mind. Kurt frowned, the tone was wrong, it was deeper than he remembered her, but over time true recollection is replaced by vivid memories. There it was again! He sat up in bed and shook Sarah awake.
“Honey, do you hear that barking?” Kurt asked, concentrating.
Sarah was struggling to open her eyes; they were still bleary and blinking at the sudden change. The bark came again, but it was close.
“Yes, I hear it. Where’s it coming from?” Sarah asked, sitting up.
Kurt jumped out of bed and went to the small patch of glass, looked this way and that but couldn’t see anything. He left their room and went into the front bedroom and looked to the right and then to the left. There it was! A golden Labrador, its fur was dirty and matted with blood, as it moved around it favoured the front left paw and limped on the other. The dog was focussed on the end house with the killing table. It would bark furiously at it then run away as a zombie approached, after finding a safe spot it would then commence barking again.
“Oh the poor thing, look at the way it’s limping, it can’t keep this up for long. Why is it barking at the house?” Sarah asked.
“I have no idea.” Kurt was at a loss, there were no people in there and it wasn’t barking at the zombies specifically. There were many trying to get it that was being ignored, except when they got too close.
“Dad, what’s going on?” Sam asked coming into the room.
“There’s a dog out there barking at the end house,” Kurt explained, moving aside as Sam took a look through the gap.
“We have to help him. He will get eaten if we leave him out there!” Sam looked horrified.
“We can’t Sam.” Sarah tried to be diplomatic about it. “If we let him in, there is no way to tell if he is trained or whether he will endanger us. There is also the danger that we may get attacked if we open any doors. Look at how many of them there are.”
Sam looked again and knew in his heart that she was right. There were over a hundred spread over the front gardens of their block now. The family had been able to sleep in relative comfort last night after killing the group of zombies in order to get to the mystery house.
“We could always let him in one of the houses that is fairly clear of them.” Sam was desperate to help, but his parents just looked at him lovingly and shook their heads.
“We just can’t risk it buddy,” Kurt said, commiserating with him and wishing they could help. The blood was not a good sign. They had no idea if animals were affected by the change.
“KURT, COME HERE QUICKLY!” John yelled from the hallway.
“What’s the matter? Have you heard the dog too?” Kurt enquired as he reached his father, who was looking up at the attic.
“Can you smell that?” John asked, sniffing.
Kurt stepped forward and in the air flows coming from the attic hatch he couldn’t mistake the smell of gas. “It’s gas! How is that possible, we have no water or electricity…” Kurt was completely at a loss, but then a thought hit him like a hammer blow. “SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!”
“What?” John shouted as Kurt ran into the bathroom and returned with a large saucepan of water.
“THE FIRE!”
Kurt rushed past John and into the bedroom, throwing the contents into the fireplace, the fire exploded with steam as the water instantly boiled, a cloud of warm wet air and flecks of ash surrounded him. Their carpet was covered in filth that had sprayed from the opening and the air was thick with the residual smoke of the dying fire. John had followed him in and was coughing and waving his hand in the air, trying to clear it.
“What are we going to do? We need to turn it off, now!” Kurt made for the ladder and climbed into the attic. Everyone was awake and concerned, wondering when it would ignite and consume them in a blazing maelstrom.
“Shall we open the windows?” Sarah called after him urgently.
Kurt had to think, the gas was building up minute by minute, the open windows would buy them some time but it would attract the dead. The explosion was their most pressing danger.
“Do it baby, but try not to be seen.”
John had joined him and they sniffed the air once more, sensing a heavier odour permeating from the hole that led to the killing table house. They hurried through, coughing at the acrid smell of the gas as it burned their throat. The hole that they had cut in the roof was allowing a lot of the gas to escape. It had obviously been building for many hours for it to spread down through three houses. The dog caught sight of them and barked, tail wagging. A zombie lurched forward and Kurt nearly screamed a warning, but the dog bolted to the side with ease. The undead creature fell flat on its face and left bits of skin on the tarmac where it had landed. The dog stopped, barked, and started to wag its tail again.
“What the hell, do you think it smelled the gas and wanted to warn us?” Kurt looked at his dad quizzically.
“If he hadn’t woken us, we may have been overwhelmed by it, or blown sky high before we had a chance to shut it off.” John looked down at the furred saviour. The mutt had sat down, no longer barking, almost as if it was getting comfortable to see what would happen to the humans next. The dog then cocked his head to one side, as if to say, ‘are you going to stand there all day or get moving?’
Sarah, Sam and Braiden had joined them, carrying weapons.
“What the hell are you doing? Get out of here!” Kurt ordered them.
“Do you think it matters where we are if this blows?” Sarah asked him, sarcasm dripping. Kurt was going to argue, but she was right.
“Dad, what do you think?” Kurt asked while taking his hammer and looking down through the attic hatch. The zombies were still mainly trapped on the lower floor, enthusiastically reaching towards their breakfast. It was clear at least two had made it upstairs and were reaching up at the hatch. They could see a tangle of broken bodies where the missing stairs were, limbs and heads still moving. They had probably used the piles of flesh as a step to reach the intact stair treads. Sam stepped forward and drew his arm back, a steel bearing sat in the pouch, and he aimed at the head of one of the corpses.
“NO!” John shouted and caught Sam’s hand just before he made the shot. He carefully eased the stretched rubber back to the sling and lowered his arm.
“Any spark will blow us to kingdom come, we can’t be sure it wouldn’t ricochet and cause an explosion,” Kurt explained.
Sam’s face went white. He could have killed them all in his eagerness to shoot another zombie head. The rotting zombies were unfazed at their near brush with death, their moans and efforts to seize the survivors increased in ferocity. The hatch was well out of reach and they were in no immediate danger from them. The gas was ever present, the noxious smell overpowering. They could actually see a haze in the air as it rose through into the loft.
“We will have to fight our way through them to get to the gas pipe,” Kurt told them; raising the spear that Sarah had passed him.
“Be careful for God’s sake!” John cautioned, knowing that the pipe could also be the cause of a spark, but was easier to control.
Kurt aimed carefully and thrust downwards catching the zombie in the cheek and tearing the jaw away in one blow. It fell to the floor in a splash of jelly like liquid. The zombie’s mouth was just a row of smashed upper teeth and a large hanging tongue, which slobbered and licked the air now that it was free of the oral cavity.
“Jesus Christ!” John said. This new scene was a fresh nightmare that he was sure would revisit him in the darkness.
Kurt steadied his arm and didn’t miss the second time, the spear smashed through the top of the head, burst through the roof of the mouth and pierced the tongue which was still trying to wriggle and move. A third had joined the fray as the cadaver died properly. They just didn’t know how many were on the upper floor. Descending onto the landing could be suicide by teeth. They hesitated and tried to think of a way to deal with this, frustration quickly grew to desperation as their minds came up blank. A fourth Hellspawn had now appeared.
“I don’t know what to do!” Kurt admitted, defeat in his voice. Had it really come to this, surviving the dead only to be killed by an oversight? None of them had believed the gas would still be running through the pipelines. Kurt sat down, despair taking him.
“I can turn it off,” Braiden told them, standing by the hole.
“We can’t get to it Braiden!” Kurt shouted at him, shaking his head, did he not listen to anything?
“I know where the lever is. If I…” Braiden persisted.
“YOU. CAN’T. FUCKING. GET. TO. IT!” Kurt had stood and was taking his anger out on the poor boy.
Braiden welled up and his face reddened. Sarah had seen enough.
“Shut up and listen to him! What the hell is the matter with you?” she shouted inches from Kurt’s face, the shock almost as bad as a physical blow. She then turned to Braiden, her voice low and soothing, “Sorry honey, what is your plan?” Sarah asked.
“You won’t like it…” he said, wanting to elaborate but knowing they would say no.
“No, let’s have it lad.” John had joined Sarah and Sam as they waited for his plan. Kurt was at the hatch, nursing his bruised ego.
“Ok. Well. Umm, you will need to lower me on the table.” He waited for the shouts and accusations of being stupid. They didn’t manifest, they looked worried but were waiting for the rest of the plan.
“When I am down, I just need to run inside the front door to the utility cupboard where Mr Taylor smashed the fuse. It’s just a lever by the meter in there, the same as in all of our homes. The zombies inside are looking up here and the ones outside are chasing the dog,” he continued, motioning at the events in the front of the house. An ever growing group were falling over each other to eat the poor animal that was weakening by the minute. The limp was nearly stopping him using the leg at all. “Then you pull me back up to safety.” He waited while they considered it.
“You will be in grave danger. We won’t be able to help you down there.” Kurt had stepped forward. “I am so sorry for shouting at you buddy, that is a great plan, I wouldn’t have thought of it. I personally don’t want you to risk your life like that.”
They knew they were out of time and options, any second the fridge back in their home could start up and cause an electrical spark that would ignite the gas. Even pulling the plug out could have caused the spark and the spontaneous combustion of them all.
“Do we have a choice?” Braiden was right.
They helped him to carefully climb on the table top. It was wet and rocked with the shifting weight. Braiden knelt down and clutched the rope for extra stability, his trusty pointed screwdriver in his right hand. They carefully untied the ropes and took the weight as best they could. This time, lowering the table had to be all in sync or he would topple off and break something. Laying there in agony, Braiden would watch while the zombies advanced to devour him. When all four ropes were loose, they let it down inch by slow inch. He was looking at them as he gradually dropped down past the roof height and out of sight with a final smile. They were grunting and sweating, their muscles screamed their pain and the temptation to let go and massage their aching hands was nearly all consuming. Suddenly the weight disappeared as the top came to rest on the pile of festering bodies that they had slain previously.
Braiden picked a spot of grass and leapt from the table, landing nimbly and looking around. None had seen him yet; their attention was totally on the dog. He tried to move away but his foot was caught. Looking down, he saw a rotting hand had grabbed his trouser leg and it held fast. He tried to shake it loose but the fingers were locked tight. Panic gripped him and he suddenly realised how dangerous this was. A face looked at him from the mass of festering bodies, it was crushed and trapped but hadn’t been killed by the nail table. It had fallen with the weight of dead flesh and joined the mound. Braiden closed his eyes and took two deep breaths to calm himself. He knelt down and rammed the point of the screwdriver in through the right eye and into the brain of his captor. The grip loosened at once and he carefully peeled the fingers away, one by one. They were slimy and cold. He wiped the rotting juice from his own hand onto the sleeve of the carcass. Fighting back nausea, he stood and scouted once more before stepping around and looking in the front door.