Chapter 6
After the call from Chris, Nan sat on the couch in silence. He was prone to flights of fancy, that was for sure. Not the brightest lad, but something about his voice on the phone had sounded different.
Different in a good way. None of the big talk, the pretending to be someone he wasn’t. She realised what it was - he had sounded like a man. Like her Gerry, may he rest in peace, used to sound.
Even so. Zombie apocalypse? They had watched some film the other week about zombies. All blood and gore and guts. Not really her cup of tea, but Chris seemed so keen, and she would have watched anything if it had meant he was in the flat with her, and not out getting into trouble.
The film had been pretty daft. People coming back to life after being chewed to bits. Daft.
She put on the BBC news. Riots in London, like it had been for the past few days, and a virus. But no one said anything about people coming back from the dead.
Nan stood up, letting out a long sigh as her knees reacted painfully. She walked to the window and looked out across the city. From her high vantage point on the fourteenth floor, she could see right to the new skyscrapers around the docks.
Three columns of smoke were rising from the city centre. That wasn’t normal, thought Nan.
She took her binoculars from the sideboard. They had belonged to Gerry - he had been an avid bird watcher, and had saved up for months to get these ‘bins’, as he called them. She aimed the bins to the streets surrounding the high rise.
She took in a deep and fast breath. Bodies lay on the floor of the car park - she counted seven. But even more alarming was that some bodies had a person crouched over them, seemingly feeding on the carcasses.
She focused on the nearest body. A traffic warden was pulling out the body’s intestines, and eating them.
Nan dropped the bins and ran to the kitchen. She threw up in the sink.
“Bloody hell,” she said. “I need a cuppa.”
She put on the kettle and paced the kitchen. It looked like Chris was right. It was the bloody zombie apocalypse.
Chris ran down a second street, full of people, zombies, and feral kids swinging cricket and baseball bats.
He hefted his extinguisher high and brought it down on the head of a zombie that had got too close. “Bollocks to you mate!” he shouted as he repeatedly pummelled the head of the zombie, who looked like it used to be a milkman. Blood and pieces of skull flew out from under the red extinguisher.
“Hey, watch what you’re doing, nobhead,” shouted a high pitched voice from near Chris.
Chris looked up and saw a kid in a track suit with a baseball bat, wiping a pink chunk of brain off his white tracksuit.
“Shut it,” said Chris.
“Fuck off,” said the kid.
Chris had an idea.
He threw the extinguisher at the kid, aiming to miss, but it was enough to make him flinch.
Chris jumped forward and grabbed the baseball bat.
“Get off!” shouted the kid.
“Give me the bat you little prick.”
They wrestled for a few seconds and Chris managed to prise the bat away from the kid.
“Do one!” shouted Chris.
The kid stuck his finger up, aimed a well placed kick on Chris’ shins, and ran off.
Chris let out a small cry and was about to run after the kid, but then remembered where he was, and what was happening.
He began running again, feeling safer with the weight and flexibility of the baseball bat in his hands. He took a swing at a passing zombie, the connection ringing with a hollow metal clang. The zombie wobbled, and Chris hit him again, caving in the left of its skull. It fell to the ground.
“Nice one,” said Chris eyeing the blood on the end of the bat.
He ran again.
His lungs struggled with the pace. He couldn’t keep it up all the way back home. He would need a better plan.
First, get off the street.
He ran down a small alley in-between two houses into the small back yard of a house. Tall brick walls surrounded the yard. A battered wooden shed sat in the corner.
He looked in the back window, into a kitchen. He saw an old woman, her eyes wide with fear, holding a kitchen knife. She was waving it and shouting at him.
Chris smiled and shouted, “It’s ok lady, I’m just getting me breath.”
She ran out of the kitchen.
Chris took out his phone. He didn’t want Nan to get worried - it was going to be a few hours before he was home. No signal though.
But he had a plan.
He opened the door of the yard that led into the back alley that ran between the rows of tenement houses. He stepped out into a thin, brick floored lane, bordered by the houses.
He ran to the house opposite and looked over the wall. An empty back yard. He went to the next, looked over that wall. Not what he was looking for. He went to the next, and the next, and the next.
Nan sat in the lounge with her cup of tea, changing channels, looking for news. It was mostly the same story, seemed to be on repeat. Riots in London, a virus and the newsman telling everyone to stay in their homes.
Some channels were gone completely.
She turned off the TV.
The picture turned to black and there was a small hum as the set powered down. Once that was gone, there was no sound in the apartment save the ticking of her wall clock. It was an hour since Chris had called. She pushed down the fear that something had happened to him.
She sat in the relative silence. She took a picture of Gerry from the table beside her couch and looked at it. Tall, strong, worked hard at the docks all his life. He had been her rock, until their daughter, Kerry, died. When Kerry died, Gerry had fallen apart. He had doted on her like crazy, did anything for her.
When she went, it was like she took Gerry’s heart with her. He had become a shell of a man.
He died a few months later.
“Oh Gerry,” she said. “You’d know what to do. I hope you’re watching over Chris. Help him Gerry.”
A scream from the corridor outside the flat. She dropped the picture and and it landed hard on the floor, the glass frame cracking.
Another scream.
Nan’s heart beat fast. She held her chest.
A loud bang on the door.
Nan shuffled back on her seat and let out a small cry, “Oh, God save me.”
Another loud bang, “Mrs Benson! Mrs Benson, help, help me!”
It was a woman’s voice. One that Nan recognised. It was Amy, that girl that Chris was soft on.
“Mrs Benson!” The girl’s cry was loud, desperate, “Help!”
Chris had told her not to let anyone in. But how could she ignore someone shouting like that?
She looked at the photo of Gerry on the floor. She knew what he would have done.
She got up and went to the door as quick as she could. She looked through the eyehole. It was Amy alright, her face covered in tears, mascara running down her cheeks. She was banging on the door, panicked glances to her left.
Nan opened the door.
Amy looked shocked, as if she hadn’t expected the door to open.
Nan grabbed her arm, “Get in here girl.”
Nan stuck her head into the corridor and looked where Amy had been looking.
Only six feet away, Mrs Williamson from down the corridor was in her dressing gown, covered in blood. Her chest was pulled open and her heart was hanging down, blood spurting from it, rhythmically decorating the corridor wall red. Her jaws clicked up and down, her hands reached out for Nan.
“Bloody hell,” Nan ducked back in her flat and pulled the door shut. She locked it.
Chris was half way down the alley, and still no joy. The noises from the adjoining streets were getting louder and more violent. More screams, more yells, more bangs, breaking glass, revving engines. There had been an explosion and in the near distance, a few rapports of gunfire could be heard. He wished he had a gun. He fancied poppin’ some zombie’s heads.
He pulled himself over the wall again to check the next house.
Bingo.
A powerful Kawasaki 250cc Ninja sat in the yard. Pristine. With a great big bastard chain locking it to the ground. As he would have expected in this neighbourhood.
He threw the bat over the wall then climbed over himself.
He tested the lock on the bike, just in case. Solid.
The house was a typical two bed terrace, like the one he used to live in with his Mum. White paint peeled off the brickwork.
Next to the motorbike was a kid’s trike.
The top half of the back door was a glass screen.
He used his bat to shatter it.
“Daddy!” It was a young lad’s voice.
He quickly reached through the broken window and opened the door.
A shout came from upstairs, a man’s voice, “You’d better be fucking gone by the time I get down mate!”
Bollocks, thought Chris. This was going to be trickier than he thought.
Chris ran into the kitchen and quickly looked around, hoping to see the keys hanging off the wall but he saw nothing. Heavy steps stomped down the stairs.
Chris tucked in behind the kitchen door, and held the bat high, ready to swing.
Footsteps in the lounge, then towards the kitchen.
A man appeared. A big man. Shaved head, white t-shirt.
Chris brought the bat down hard.
There was a heavy clunk and the man fell to his knees, holding his head, red appearing between his fingers and running down his arm.
“Ya bastard,” shouted the man through gritted teeth. He turned his head to face Chris. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Chris raised the bat again and pretended to swing. The man flinched. Good, he was scared.
“Sorry, mate, I need your bike. Just give me the bike and I’ll be gone.”
The man frowned. “Me fucking head you prick. What am I supposed to do about me head?”
“Look, I just need your bike. I need to get home.”
The man leaned forward onto one hand, the other holding his head and let out a moan. “Think you’ve cracked me skull.”
“You’ll survive mate.” Chris looked around the lounge. Some keys were sitting on the coffee table. “Is that them? Is that the keys?”
“Fuckin’ take them you dickhead.”
A little boy appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He saw the man on the floor and burst into tears, “What have you done to me Dad?”
Chris grabbed the keys. “I’m sorry, alright? I just need the bike.”
“You’ve killed me dad!”
“He’s not dead,” said Chris.
“I’m not dead lad,” said the man.
“You’re not going to die too dad?”
“No, I’m alright lad, I’ll be ok.” The man looked at Chris again, “Just take the fucking keys you bastard, and get out of here. Leave us alone.”
Chris looked at the young lad, could only be about nine or ten. The same age he was when his mum died.
“What does he mean ‘are you going to die too’?” said Chris.
“His mum died two years ago,” said the man. “Now he thinks I’m dying as well. Just get the fuck out of here.”
Chris grabbed the keys.
“I’m sorry.” He ran out into the yard. He unlocked the heavy padlock and sat on the bike. He started it. It gave a healthy throaty purr, and revved into life.
Chris sat on the bike for a few seconds. There was the sound of an explosion, followed by a few screams, from the nearby street.
Chris jumped off the bike and ran back into the house.
The man was sitting on the couch, his T-shirt covered in blood. The young lad was mopping it up the best he could with towels, crying.
They both looked at Chris.
“What the fuck do you want? I told you to go,” said the man.
“It’s not safe here. Come with me,” said Chris.
“What?”
“Come with me, I gotta get me Nan, then I’m gonna get her out of the city. Get to the beach or something.”
“You fuckin crazy?”
“It’s the zombie apocalypse mate! Can’t stay in the city.”
The man shook his head. “You come in here, brain me, rob me bike, and now you want to go on fuckin holiday together?”
“I’m sorry about your head. I didn’t mean to hit you that bad. I’ve had a bad day.”
The man studied Chris’s face. “I guess you have. What the fuck happened to your face anyhow?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Chris ran over to the window and peered out through the net curtains. A zombie stood still by the window, half of its brain and one eyeball hanging on its shoulder. Its head exploded as a woman with a spade cleaved its skull in half. Blood splattered on the window.
“I have to get out of here, get back to me Nan. I reckon we can all go. I’ll ride, you get on the back and the lad can go in-between.”