33 HOPE, GO TO HELL.
I hear the waves crashing against the shore and the chug chug-chug as the ferry approaches. I see passengers standing on the upper deck and as the boat comes closer, I can see they’re torn clothes and bloody, dead eyes staring out at us.
And something else is wrong. The ferry isn’t slowing down. It’s shooting straight in towards shore as if there’s no one at the helm. It completely misses the pier and slams into the rocks, launching bodies from the upper deck like stuntmen in a horror movie.
People start vaulting over the sides and running towards us because they’re being chased by a mob of dead bastards. As they get closer, I can see most of them have horrendous wounds. Their clothes are drenched in blood, some are missing limbs. A man in a tracksuit has half a head; how the hell he’s still moving, I don’t know. One woman’s intestines are exposed, but she’s running as though she thinks she can still be saved, not realising that she’s not even human anymore. None of them are.
There’s no time for the islanders to flee as the seething mob hurl themselves at everyone in their paths. Biting, ripping, tearing into human flesh, and although we grab our weapons and get ready to fight them, there’s little we can do but retreat. There’s too many of them and they’re still spilling off the ferry like a river of giant, swarming ants.
Doyle’s got his gun out. Standing his ground he’s firing away, blowing holes in foreheads.
William’s trying to protect Mary, but he’s pounced on by two male zombies. They drag him to the ground and set about him tearing off his beard and biting his lips; I’ve never heard a man scream so loud.
Mary tries to pull the feeding freaks off him, but she’s quickly swarmed by the advancing horde. Zombies leap on her like a pack of wild dogs.
Fresh blood drenches the snow.
“Mum, Dad,” Scott cries out.
I have to stop him from running over to try to save them. “It’s too late,” I tell him, tears stinging my eyes. “They’re already bitten.”
“Bastards.” He swings his axe and splits a zombie down the middle. Its head falls both ways, left and right. An ear on each shoulder, it topples to the snow.
Two of Mary’s neighbours, a beefy middle-aged man and his skinny pal, disappear in the feeding frenzy. I see their bloody insides being flung about and being fought over by those hungry monsters.
There’s so much going on I barely see a waker coming at me in time to crash my baseball bat down on his skull, but somehow the thing’s still grabbing at me. I hit him again, but he keeps coming even though his brains and a foul smelling fluid are leaking down his neck.
Backing up I shout, “Die, you bastard,” and hit him again. That’s when Scott splits its head down the centre. It flops to the ground, staining the snow red. There’s no time to thank him because more of them are coming our way.
It doesn’t take them long to overpower the other islanders. Most of them are paralysed by fear, and it’s not until it’s too late that they try to run. Some fight back.
One man grabs a dead bastard by its jaw and twists until it snaps. It’s all in vain. He’s bitten in the process, and the people he’s been trying to protect end up under a scrum of zombies who tear into them, teeth grinding and jaws chomping. Zombie spit drools red with blood, and strings of human flesh dangle from their teeth.
A woman jumps on the back of a zombie wearing a ferryman’s high visibility jacket. He’s attacking a man who might be the woman’s husband. Her hands claw at the zombie’s eyes, but she’s thrown off, and the waker leaps at her and bites into her face as she howls. Other zombies latch onto her limbs, teeth bared, and I watch transfixed as one of them, a child wearing a Superman t-shirt, bites into the woman’s chest and gorges on her still beating heart.
“That’s disgusting,” Mustafa yells and takes off the kid’s head with a swing of his sword. The head rolls upright in the snow, the heart still beating between its locked jaws.
An explosion rocks the ground. I look up in time to see zombie body parts, heads and arms and legs, spiralling through the air. Doyle had lobbed one of his grenades into the advancing horde. But they just keep coming.
Another dead bastard’s hand sweeps at me but misses. I spin around just in time to whack a zombie woman over the head with my bat, and as she falls, sickly green grunge spews out of her mouth. I stomp on her head, hear something snap. But I keep on going. I wanna make sure she’s dead.
Behind me, Kenny rams his poker into the back of the waker’s skull who’d taken a swipe at me, and I swivel to bash another bastard over the head.
Mustafa’s at Kenny’s back now wielding his sword, hacking off grabbing hands, and skewering eyeballs.
Above the cacophony of screams, Doyle shouts “Retreat. There’s too many. Retreat.”
With a sinking feeling I realise he’s right.
We join together and move in a single file formation with Doyle bringing up the rear. All the time our weapons are striking out, hitting any of them coming towards us. Despite having its legs separated from its torso, one zombie crawls towards me, and I have to bash its skull in to get it to stop moving.
Doyle kicks one in the stomach and it knocks into the two behind it and they fall like Dominoes. As they scramble to get up, he drills a bullet into each of their heads.
Mustafa scalps another zombie right across the eyeballs. Brain matter sloshes over the guy’s ears as he goes down.
Kenny rams his poker into another’s eye socket, and there’s a suction sound as he pulls his poker out. Then he goes onto the next one…
We’ve almost made it to the Jeep when Kenny trips over a stone and falls. Mustafa drags him to his feet. Scott who’s leading the way, comes back in time to smash his axe into the head of a dead bastard who’s made a grab for me whilst I’ve been distracted by Kenny and Mustafa.
“For fuck’s sake, Emma,” Scott spits out the words and grabs my arm. “Watch your back and keep moving.”
Doyle and Kenny dispatch a zombie in a turban and one wearing a policeman’s uniform.
We make it to the Jeep. Doyle is shooting any zombies that come too close. He shoots one right through the eye. Mustafa’s sword is dripping with blood and something green and disgusting.
We scramble into the Jeep, Mustafa behind the wheel, Kenny riding shotgun, Scott and I in back. I leave the door open for Doyle, but he’s just standing there looking at the mob coming at us.
“Doyle, get in.” I’m shouting it.
He just stands there.
“Doyle,” spits Mustafa, “what you waiting for?”
It’s no use pleading with him; I know he’s not coming with us. He’s holding a button device in his fist. I see wires running from it to the flap of his coat.
At first meeting him, I had despised him for what he was, a suicide bomber, until I came to realise we had to set aside the past. We all had our special talents that would keep us alive.
“You don’t need to do this,” I tell him. My voice sounds strangled and I’m trying not to cry. What use are tears?
Doyle turns to face me, his eyes void of emotion. “Aye, I do. I always thought I’d sacrifice myself for Allah, but I’m doing this for you guys.” Then he flashes a tight smile at me. “This is still jihad, but now it’s not against the infidels, it’s a zombie jihad.”
He tosses his gun to Mustafa. “Careful, I’d hate to see you shoot yourself. There’s more bullets under the seat.”
With a final glance and a brief smile, he strides towards the advancing mob.
“Doyle, no.” The words are screaming inside my head.
Kenny, Scott, and Mustafa say nothing.
How can they let him do this?
“What the fuck is wrong with you guys? Back me up on this. He’s going to kill himself. We’ve got to stop him.”
“He’s doing what has to be done,” says Mustafa and I want to break his jaw then grind his face into the ground so I won’t have to look at him anymore.
But in my heart, I know he’s right. I close the door.
At first, I think Doyle’s going to be okay as I watch him lob a grenade and blow a bunch of them to smithereens. They’re coming at him from every direction, seems like all of them from the ferry are circling around, hands clutching and jaws gnashing.
He’s throwing grenades further, the explosions driving the zombies towards him, and I see what he’s doing, getting them within range of his bomb blast.
And when he’s out of grenades, he drops to his knees. I want to look away but I can’t. The horde swarms him.
There’s an almighty explosion.
The bright light of the blast seers into my eyeballs as though someone’s shining a laser in my eyes. Then the Jeep’s thrown into the air.
In my muddled brain, it feels like I’ve been caught in an earthquake. The Jeep slams into the ground. Our bodies are tossed around like popcorn in a microwave.
Then everything stops. I no longer hear the waves lapping against the shore or the wheezes of the undead coming to make a meal of us. Instead, there’s a buzzing noise in my head.
Hands grab me. I've raised my bat, ready to turn brains to mush, until I realise it’s Scott pulling me out of the car that’s now lying on its side.
His lips are moving but I’ve no idea what he’s saying.
Why won’t he speak up?
I glance back to where I’d last seen Doyle. The scene belongs in a disaster movie. Dead bodies litter the beach, some body parts still moving. There are arms and legs twitching, heads dislodged from bodies, and there’s blood and guts everywhere I look. I don’t see a single zombie left standing. I can hardly breathe, and this damn buzzing in my head won’t shut up.
When Scot puts his arm around me, I don’t try to break free. Right now it feels as though we’re the last people left on earth, and I don’t want to be alone, so I cling to him.
Mustafa limps towards us, eyes wide with panic, darting between the carnage and us. He embraces us both at the same time, and I don’t push him away. Something has changed between us. We're a family.
Where’s Kenny? The thought of him being dead rips a hole in my heart.
When he comes stumbling over to us, with one leg of his glasses broken and his face covered in blood, we’re all hugging him before he can utter a word. Then he’s finally able to say, “We have to make sure there are no survivors.”
There’s no respite, no time to mourn. We get to it, walking among the carnage from Doyle’s bomb, separating the few heads from bodies that are still intact or bashing in skulls. Men, women, and children, what choice do we have? Thanks to the bomb and the grenades, Doyle’s done most of the work for us, but we need to be sure that not a single one survives.
Once we’re done on the shore, we begin searching the ferry. Bodies with missing parts litter the deck. Organs have been gouged out, and we have to step over the slime as we check the entire vessel. We can’t risk even one of them dead bastards getting onto the island.
One bite is all it takes to kill us.
We’ve given up any hope of finding anyone who’s alive and not infected when Scott and I discover a snarling woman in the boat’s small galley. Her arm is a bloody mess where she’s been bitten, and she’s screeching at us like a demon straight out of hell. I’m about to beat her to death when I see her swollen belly - she looks ready to give birth any day now. No wonder she’s raising such a fuss. She’s trying to protect her baby, or so I like to think.
Of course, I can’t kill her, not with a child inside her. I touch my stomach and wonder if her baby will survive. Will it be normal like mine, or will it come out a monster like her? In the fate of her baby, I see the fate as my own.
To find out what will happen, I’ll have to see her baby born.
Mustafa steps in and levels the gun on her. “I got this one.”
“No.” I push his arm down. “This one we’re keeping.”
Mustafa shakes his head. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
My mind's made up. “We’re not killing that baby until we know for sure.”
This time nobody argues. They’ve learnt not to mess with me.
We use a fishing net to hold her down, and we wrap chains around her. She bucks, spits and shrieks as we wrestle her off the boat.
Kenny’s found another car. We lift her into the boot and slam the door shut.
Nobody talks in the car on the drive back to Scott’s parents’ house. Doyle’s absence has left a gaping big hole and I can’t believe that Scott’s parents are gone. We’ve lost so much.
A day that started in celebration has ended in utter despair. But, we're all alive and right now, that's what I cling to.
34 WHAT WE LOST IN THE APOCALYPSE
The chains rattle the second I enter the bedroom. In the soft light, I see the zombie woman chained to the bed, a basin of water and folded towels on the dresser, and Kenny glancing up at me from his chair at her bedside. He’s made himself at home and has draped a tartan shawl across his knees. He’s in it for the long haul, watching our pregnant zombie woman. The air stinks like a slaughterhouse. The woman must have fed before we found her.
In spite of the monster lying so near, I’m relaxed. Kenny has everything under control. He’s a zombie expert, a rare commodity in this bleak new world.
“How’s she doing?” The way I chirp, you’d think she was a normal pregnant woman and I was a kindly midwife.
“Fine for a seriously cheesed off pregnant baby mamma.”
I have to laugh. The sound’s music to my ears. It was hard to remember the last time I laughed.
“Are they finished out there?”
He’s referring to the chore of gathering up all islander’s remains and zombie parts onto one huge funeral pyre and setting them alight. We have to make sure.
I’d been helping but Scott was worried about leaving Kenny alone with the zombie woman, so he asked me to come back to the house in case the baby comes. Kenny knows a lot of things, but he doesn’t know how to deliver a baby. Neither do I.
“Do you think we’re doing the right thing, Kenny?” I know I can be direct with him.
He doesn’t answer straight away. Instead, his eyes rest on the ungodly creature that’s straining at the chains binding her to the bed. I know she’s hungry, but it’s not as though we can feed her. She’s only interested in human meat, and she’s not getting any from us.
“Aye, we’re doing the right thing.” Kenny peers up at me through his broken specs. “If we start killing unborn babies without giving them a chance, what does that say about us?”
He's right. “Do you think her baby will be normal?”
“I honestly don’t know. If the mother’s infected, it stands to reason the baby will be infected too because it uses the same blood as its mother’s.” He pushes his glasses back up his nose. “But, we’ve no way of knowing. I’ve never heard of the undead giving birth. Heck, I didn’t even know they could outside of the movies. This is unchartered territory. We’re making history here. A new species may be coming, one we know little about.”
There’s a glimmer in his eyes. “Hey, even a zombologist such as myself doesn’t know everything about zombies.”
He’s given this a lot of thought, but there’s one question I know he can’t answer. None of us wants to mention the baby and what we’ll do if it comes out infected. Who’s going to kill it? How will we kill it?
“What puzzles me most,” Kenny says, focusing his attention on the thing writhing on the bed, “is why you're so curious about this baby?”
I pull up a chair and sit beside him. For a few minutes neither of us speaks. I look at the zombie momma's enormous belly that dwarves her short frame. She looks malnourished, almost skeletal, and I worry that the baby is starving to death as well.
“You’re pregnant, Emma. Aren’t you?”
The air goes out my lungs. “What makes you say that?” I know I’m not showing yet. How can he tell?
“You’re taking this zombie’s pregnancy personally...because you want to know if your own baby will be okay.”
He knows. He bloody well knows.
There’s no point in trying to bluff my way out of this. I sink further down into the chair, relieved that I can talk about this with someone. “Yes.”
Kenny smiles. “I won’t tell anyone. If that’s what you want.” He looks at me serious now. “Does Scott know?”
I shake my head and try not to look at him because I don’t want to see the judgment in his eyes.
“Why haven’t you told him?”
“If I do he’ll treat me as though I’m an invalid. Wanting to protect us, me and the baby.”
Without even realising it, I’m patting my belly. I long for the day the baby starts kicking so I’ll know it’s okay and garner some hope that life goes on despite this crumbling mausoleum of humanity. “Besides, if something goes wrong, it would kill Scott.”
Kenny stares at me over the rim of his glasses. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
And I believe him.
His eyes return to the woman on the bed. Her breathing has deteriorated, she’s no longer struggling against the chains, and her eyes are closed. She must be exhausted. It’s not as if she’s had any pre-natal care.
I go to the basin, soak a towel in cool water, and wring it out. I’m leaning over the bed, placing the damp cloth against her forehead when her eyelids snap open, startling the hell out of me. I drop the cloth and step away from the bed. She eyes me greedily and hisses through spiky teeth. Even Florence Nightingale wouldn’t have wiped that fevered brow.
Amusement spreads across Kenny’s face. “Even in chains they’re dangerous.”
I punch him gently on the arm and he fakes an ouch then goes back to watching the zombie woman.
“Kenny,” I say.
“Aye?”
“Don’t let this happen to me. If I get bitten, assume the baby’s infected too and kill us both.”
He looks unsure.
“Please. I need you to do it. Scott will hesitate and Mustafa, well...” I give a wee smile, “he’ll enjoy it too much.”
Kenny shifts uneasily in his chair, but keeps his eyes focused on the bed. For an instant it’s as though someone has taken away his life-force, the light that is the wonderful, brave Kenny McIntyre, and he’s as clueless and scared shitless as the rest of us.
“Promise me.”
“Okay, I will,” he finally says. “But Emma, just don’t get bitten.” He flashes me that amazing big grin of his.
Despite the morbid topic we’ve been discussing, I smile back. “I’ll try not to.”