6 ALWAYS PLAN A QUICK GETAWAY
“What do we do now?”
In the absence of a proper plan, (doing battle with the undead scrambled our brains) and with darkness descending, we agreed to go with Kenny to his place. It doesn’t seem wise to split up, besides, right now, it felt good to be with other people and Kenny has a car.
When I mentioned Kenny's car, Mustafa sneered. “When he says car, he really means decrepit rust bucket. Anytime it rains I swear the car will disintegrate cos the only thing holding it together is rust.” He addresses Kenny. “I take it your heap of junk is still capable of moving?”
Kenny nods. “Aye, but don’t let me put you out, pal. You can always take your own car.” He put his hand on his head. “Doh, I forgot you don’t have one.”
“Ha, ha,” says Mustafa, his face brightening.
“And,” continues Kenny, “I’ve got a CB radio. I'll crank it up. See if we can't get onto the police channel.”
At last, someone who knows what they're doing.
Kenny leads the way down a series of small back streets. All the time we’re walking, we’re poised for action, full of trepidation, but ready to brain anyone who gets in our way.
When we stop dead at an abandoned store next to a boarded up cafe, my first thought is that this can’t be the place. There's a rusted
TO LET
sign on a window with an out-of-date phone number. I can tell because it has an old area code. The store’s boarded up at the front and looks like no one has set foot in it for years. Part of the name on the old store sign is visible:
VIDEO
.
Kenny’s car is parked out front and is exactly how Mustafa described it. It reminds me of a car my dad had ten years ago before he retired to Spain. Every morning the car needed a shove to get it moving.
“You live here?” Scott's comment echoes my own thoughts.
"Aye," said Kenny.
“How can you live here?” I say as he lifts up one of the boards to reveal a door.
Kenny wrinkles his nose. “The video store I own was once part of a chain. This is the first store they had, and there’s a living area out back. So, I stay there. Its rent free.”
As he leads us all through the dusty store with shelves full of video cassettes, I can’t help but think that time has stood still in here just like in Kenny’s video store. The proof was in the cobwebs and dust. I half-expected Lady Havisham to appear. A rat the size of a cat scuttles across the floor.
When Kenny opens the door behind the counter that leads into the back of the store, the transformation makes me feel as if we’ve stepped through a wardrobe into Narnia. The walls have been painted white, and light streams in through the skylight. There’s a modern sofa and two gaming chairs in front of an enormous plasma TV. The only things predictable about Kenny’s pad are the movie posters on the wall and the PlayStation consol next to the TV along with a video player. Nobody uses video players these days – we’ve all gone digital, DVD or Blu-ray.
I can’t resist smiling. “Wow, this is amazing.”
Kenny blushes and peers at me through his thick glasses. “Aye, it’s no bad. No rent to pay and a pal hooked it up so I could leech electricity from across the street.” He flips on a light switch, but the lights don’t come on. “Not like that helps us now. No electricity. But...” He heads through a doorway. “I’m used to it going off, so I’m prepared.” He reappears with a gas stove and a few cans of beans under his arm.
Apart from Kenny, who I suspect, doesn’t have so much as a speck of dirt or blood on his glasses, the rest of us resemble extras from a bad B movie. Mustafa’s wearing the Incredible Hulk’s t-shirt: it’s ripped right down the middle, so he can be the girl in peril running from the monster while showing way too much chest. Scott looks as though he’s been attacked by a bull fleeing a slaughterhouse, whilst I look like I’ve been filming a slasher movie. I have globs of blood, guts, and brain matter in my hair.
Soon we’re all cradling cups of tea made from water Scott boiled on the stove, and it’s so quiet we can hear a pin drop. With no power, all of the nifty gadgets we take for granted are now useless junk. If it weren’t for the fact people were turning into zombies and eating us, Greenpeace would have been pleased.
Kenny’s bustling about his home, opening cupboards and looking under things to try and find his CB radio. None of us has the heart to tell him the battery will probably be flat, and even if it isn’t, he’s unlikely to make any contact. Does anyone even use them any more?
Scott’s being the sensible one, planning what to do next whilst the rest of us sit in stunned silence, wishing this wasn’t real as we tuck into our meal of cold beans and crackers. Kenny has a lot of crackers; he says they last for years and don’t go stale.
I want to close my eyes and wish all this was just one long, vivid nightmare. Archie will come over to our flat and be the big lummox hogging our couch, and Mustafa will be the guy in our local convenience store who I’d exchange a few words with every morning, whilst Kenny will be back in that time warp shop of his, nose stuck in a comic book, reading about The Walking Dead instead of trying to figure out how to survive them.
“Well?” Mustafa nudges Kenny who’s sitting next to him. “You’re meant to be the expert. What do we do now?”
Mustafa droning away makes me realise a conversation has been going on without me.
My gaze rests on Kenny who’s shoving his glasses up the bridge of his nose. This unconscious gesture is starting to bug me. Why couldn’t he get new specs that don’t need to be held together by sticky tape, ones that would sit properly on his nose without all that footering about?
When Kenny speaks, his face brightens. “We kill all the dead bastards we can find and burn their bodies.”
Mustafa puckers his lips and blows out some air. “Great plan. How do we manage that exactly? There’s only three of us.”
Three? Fucking three? What am I, fucking invisible?
I almost choke on my anger. My tea and cracker crumbs shoot past my lips when I shout, “Who saved your neck back there, you ungrateful bastard?” I can’t believe Scott counts this sexist pig as a pal.
Mustafa has the sense to look apologetic, in a kicked puppy dog sort of way. “Sorry, I meant four of us,” he says, avoiding my glare because now he now knows better than to antagonize me.
He's not counting me because I’m a girl. Yet I helped save his life. Twice.
“I should have left you to Marie the zombie and Tam the Bam. Next time you’re on your own.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Fuck you.”
Kenny steps in. “First off, we need to contact the authorities. They should have a contingency plan for this kind of emergency. One that might involve some form of containment for the infected and a safe place for the rest of us to go. Most communications are down, so I need to find that radio. He stops to look around the room. “If I can remember where I put it. Been a while since I’ve used it. There’s too many geeks on the airwaves.”
Scott and I exchange a wee smile. Some people would call Kenny a geek.
Scott’s listening intently. “Sounds sensible. But, there might not be any authorities left. We need to consider that possibility.”
I figure Scott’s been doing a checklist in his head. He’s always been analytical; our weekly shop is planned with military precision.
Mustafa chooses that moment to slam his mobile phone against the wall. “Nae signal. Bastard. It’s still no fucking working. I can’t reach my folks.” He sinks to the floor, grumbling to himself like an old woman. He mentions Mohamed a few times.
I don’t think the prophet can help him now, but I don’t say so. His Muslim faith might be the only thing that gets him through whatever’s coming.
After rummaging about, Kenny’s produces his CB radio with a flourish and is fiddling about with it. “CB radios are great, and you can even use this one to listen to police chatter.” He beams. When his head drops and I see he’s frowning, I know that the radio isn’t working. “The battery’s dead,” he says. “Haven’t used it in so long there’s no juice left.”
“Even if you got it working, Kenny, I don’t think we’ll hear anything that will help us," said Mustafa. "The whole world’s gone to hell. Nobody’s in charge. If they were, the first thing they’d have done is gone into the power stations and got the electricity back on.”
As much as I hated to agree with Mustafa, he was probably right.
Kenny’s disappointment doesn’t last long, and he starts outlining the rules of dealing with a zombie apocalypse, as if they’re written in some book somewhere and he’s the person with sole access.
Sitting here listening to what he’s saying, something obvious has been niggling away at me because no one has mentioned it. They’ve been talking as though everyone else in the world is already dead.
“Aren’t you overlooking something more important?” I say.
“What’s that?” someone says. I don’t know who because I’ve been thinking about Fiona and how scared she must be. She’s in that house alone, and she won’t leave. I’m hoping her agoraphobia will save her. If you don't go out and don't let anyone in surely they can't get you?
My eyes sweep the room. “I don’t know about you, but I’m on my way to check if my sister’s okay. She needs me to survive. Don’t you guys have any family who might need you?”
Kenny removes his glasses and wipes his eyes with a sleeve, then does the same thing with the specs before putting them back on. When he speaks, his voice is clear and free of emotion. He could be reciting a walkthrough for a video game. “I don’t think we should look for our families. It’s always how they get killed in the movies. We’ve got to assume that if they live in a heavily populated area they’ve already been killed or turned into zombies.”
Scott eyes Kenny as though he’s an imbecile. “I’m not ready to give up on my family, write them off as already dead. How can you say we should? Don’t you care about your family, whether they are dead or alive? Or are you as soulless as those dead things out there?”
I jump in. “Fiona’s worth the risk.” And I meant it. Since our parents moved to Spain, it’s been just her and me. Five years ago, her handbag was snatched in Glasgow city centre. She’d held on to the strap and was dragged along the pavement and kicked and beaten. The thug broke her jaw in two places. She lost her faith in humanity. So there was nothing in this world that could stop me from trying to help her.
Mustafa eyes me wearily and nods. “I agree with Emma. I’m gonna go to my house to see if my parents and sister are okay.”
Kenny waves his hands like he’s trying to stop a train. “It’s suicide to split up because we’re weaker without having each other watching our backs.”
Mustafa’s eyes drift towards Kenny and linger on him as though a secret message has passed between them. I think it’s weird until realisation dawns. Kenny hasn’t mentioned any family.
“What about your family, Kenny?” I ask him gently.
He doesn’t say anything.
“You do have family here, don’t you?”
He swallows. “Of course I have family.”
“No you don’t,” Mustafa says.
“I do.” For the first time since we met him, he seems agitated. Kenny closes his eyes. When he opens them again, tears are reflected in his glasses. Scott and Mustafa do what men always do when another man cries. They focus their attention elsewhere. “I just don’t know where.”
“He’s a care home kid.” Mustafa just belts it out like it’s his job to reveal the facts.
Kenny’s face reddens. “Why did you have to go and tell them?”
“Because it’s the truth,” says Mustafa. “So don’t tell Emma what she shouldn’t do for her family. Let them go. You can come with me. From now on, my family is your family.”
Kenny gazes down at his feet. “Count me out.”
“Fine,” Mustafa says with finality. “You can stay here by yourself, take your chances with the dead bastards on your own.”
Kenny eyed Mustafa wearily. “You wouldn’t just leave me?”
“I would. You’re useless in a fight anyway.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Scott’s outburst makes me flinch. “You two are un-fucking-believable.” It’s not like him to let loose like this or to swear.
All eyes are on him.
“First off, Muzz, don’t be such a pain in the backside. If Kenny wanted to tell us he was raised in a children’s home, that’d be for him to say, not you.”
Mustafa bristles. “I’m just trying to help him. Why’s he got to get all righteous on me?”
Scott ignored him. “Next off, we’re leaving nobody behind. Kenny can drive us to your parents’ place then we can go to Fiona’s—”
“No way,” I shout. “We go to Fiona’s first.”
“Like hell,” Mustafa jumps in. “My parents’ house first.”
“Scott, that’s not fair.”
He looks at me, nods. “She’s right. We’ll take our pal Dan's car. It’s only a few streets from here. Kenny, if you don’t want to be left alone, I suggest you drive Muzz to get his family.”
Kenny glares at Mustafa. “He’s no getting in my car.”
“Come on, man,” says Mustafa. “It’s a long walk—”
Kenny’ shoulders slump. “All right, I’ll take you.” He turns to me and Scott. “Will you two be okay on your own?”