Tiredness Kills - A Zombie Tale (7 page)

Ant looked at the scene in
front of him. “We can't kill 'em, Scott” he observed regretfully.

“What do you mean?” asked
Scott, knowing exactly what he meant.

“We both have grandparents;
or at least know some oldies, I'd never be able to sleep with myself again!”
said Ant shaking his head sadly.

“I think you mean you
wouldn't be able to sleep again.......oh never mind. What's the new plan then,
'cos we can't just let them wander around forever can we?”

Both men looked around for
divine intervention; or at least a kinder Plan B
,.
 
Suddenly there it was. At each end of the
opening to the shop stood the concertinaed metal ends of the shop's shutter
doors.

 
Each man ran toward each shutter end and
noticed with great relief that both ends moved freely. No instructions were
needed, and they ran towards each other at great speed, each pulling and
unravelling a door each. They were just about to meet in the middle when Ant
suddenly halted.

 
“What
ya
'
doin
'?” shouted Scott as Ant seemed to nip off somewhere.
“We've almost trapped them in!”

 
“Just this little one, mate” said Ant
returning seconds later dangling the crawling, snarling baby carefully by its
ankle and putting it down gently inside the shop. “He's too young to fend for
himself. The oldies will look after him!”

“This isn't the Jungle Book,
soft lad; but yeah I know where you're coming from!” said Scott, smiling as the
two metal doors clicked together.

“I'm starving Fancy a KFC?”

Kelly's face lit up like a
bonfire when Jon and Josh finally made it through the doors of the Stores area.
However, it did drop a little when she saw the pretty faces of the two rescued
girls behind them.

 
“Oh, great! Dolly birds!” she groaned.

She had already thrown
herself into the role of Alice Abernathy and had twice so far quoted the line
'My name is Alice and this is my world!'- even though
 
Jordan didn't have a clue as to why she kept
saying it as he sat strapping her swollen knee with a roll of duct tape he'd
found.

“Actually we are not.....
dolly
birds you presumptuous cow. And we are more than
capable of doing anything that you can do!” announced Charlie indignantly.

'I doubt that!' grumbled
Kelly to herself, trying hard not to grimace with the pain.

After briefly recounting
their stories of how they had managed to get downstairs, and sadly reflecting
that Scott and Ant had probably not made it through, they set about looting the
stores for food and other handy items.

There was a large tatty
rucksack hanging up on a peg, which was very soon crammed full with biscuits,
crisps, bottles of pop and fags- all of life's essentials. Kelly turned to hand
the rucksack to Jordan, but he was nowhere to be seen. A rustling among the
shelves sent a surge of twitchiness through their bodies until the large frame
of Jordan loomed out from the dimly- lit room. But he looked very strange and
he sounded even stranger.

“What's happened to your
face,
Jord
?” asked Kelly nervously, taking in the
distorted appearance of her friend's face.

“
It'sh
jus'
shumthin
' to
shtop
me
bitin
' anyone if I get bit and become a
shombie
myshelf
!” Jordan struggled to say through the roll of
cling film that he had found and wrapped around the bottom half of his head and
face. Completely unfazed by the caring nature of this gentle giant, Kelly held
up her bunch of safe keys and forcefully jabbed the longest key through the
layers of plastic and into his mouth, making a gash big enough for him to speak
through.

 
“And why are you holding a large bottle of
cooking oil, pray tell?” she addressed him rather sarcastically.

Forming his lips around the
newly- formed gap in his mask, he told them of his plan to cover them all in
the oil to prevent any zombies managing to get a firm grip on their slippery
selves.

“You can keep that plan all
for yourself,” piped up Jon, who was already beckoning the five to follow him
to the maintenance office that was just round the corner.

They moved quietly and
stealthily down the corridor, constantly aware not to take safety for
granted.
 
They soon reached the door to the
maintenance equipment room.

 
Jon, being first to arrive, peered through the
glass panel and quickly honed in on the tall figure of Attila, the Hungarian
maintenance worker seated at his work desk.

 
Although he had his back to them Jon could see
that he was busy taking something apart with a screwdriver by torch light.
 
Power cuts were common in the building, and
Attila was never the kind to take advantage of that and stop working, unlike
some.

 
Obviously his skilled movements were not of
the undead kind, and so Jon banged urgently on the door- which was promptly,
opened permitting the six members of staff to flood in.

“
Vhaat
ze
fuck!” exclaimed a startled Attila not used to
being disturbed in such a way.

 
He listened intently as his visitors jabbered on
excitedly about monsters and military and blood and death and the coming back
to life of the dead and not being able to escape without being shot.

 
Then he demanded sternly “
Iz
dis
one of your stupid jokes?”

“No, no Attila” said Jon
reaching for his phone. “Look, here's a photo of one of them!”

Attila looked at the phone
for several minutes completely devoid of emotion.
 
Then he suddenly stood up, tall and strong,
and spoke the words they did not expect to hear from him, “I '
ave
been waiting for
dis
day to '
appen
for
da
' longest time.
Come!”

Completely stunned at his
cool, calm acceptance of the situation, they followed him to a large heavily-
locked metal cupboard on the other side of the room. They waited while he
unlocked the two heavy bolts that adorned the door, then positively gasped as
he pulled it open to reveal an arsenal of weaponry perfectly designed for such
an occasion.

Heavy metal objects with both
blunt and sharp edges had been skilfully shaped and attached to long sticks.
Spray bottles of many types of chemicals had been collected and stored with
obvious care. A rack of viscous looking knives stood sinisterly on a shelf.

 
“Take your pick!” Attila instructed
menacingly.

Jordan immediately grabbed a
'body bend' chest expander from the back of the cupboard.

“Not
zat
!”
he barked, “I work out
wid
zat
!”
He glared at Jordan, “And
vot
have you got on your
face?”

Kelly butted in “He doesn't
want to bite any of us if he becomes a zombie!” she offered matter- of -
factly
.

“You
Eenglish
are very
veird
. Now come on move it!”

The newly- formed army of
seven grabbed whatever they could carry from the cupboard of death and edged out
of the room. They hadn't travelled far down the corridor when they heard
banging coming from the lift that was not far away. Charlie, determined to alter
Kelly's perception of her, decided to be helpful and check it out.
 
Being sensible, she looked through the glass
panel in the lift door.

 
Upon seeing the large cage filled with
cardboard inside- together with the unmistakable orange hi-vis coat of the
outside grounds cleaner- she announced “
Aaah
, it's
only Clive!”

Before any of the others
could stop her, she pressed the 'door open' button on the side plate of the
lift entrance, which still worked although the lifts wouldn't move with such
little power.

“NOOOOO!” was the combined
response from the others, but it was too late. An obviously ravenous Clive was
on the poor girl in seconds, slobbering over her cheeks and gnawing at her
neck.

“
It's
okay” said Sian “He normally does
th
....!”

“Not
quite
like that,
he don't!” said one of the others.

 
Charlie had managed to pull away, but within
seconds her eyes began to take on an odd appearance.

 
Not relishing the task of killing former
colleagues especially- a pretty one that he'd just rescued, Josh leapt towards
the office door that was mere inches away and punched in the code to unlock it.
Reading his mind, Jordan ran at the unfortunate couple, knocking them headlong
into the large office and slamming the door shut.

Through the glass in the
door, Sian witnessed her best mate struggling to get from under the bright
orange coat of the monster and saw for herself the horrific changes that were
taking place in the poor girl's face and movements. Through eyes bleary with
tears and mascara, she also noticed the frantic movements of a man banging on
the window of one of the smaller management offices that were situated within
the large room.

 
“It's Niall!” she informed the others. “He's
shouting for our help!”

“Ha, he's obviously been
watching his precious security cameras all day again, spying on us and then
being too scared to leave his office!” laughed Josh, as all six remaining
employees waved back at the terrified man, mouthing the words 'Good luck,
Niall' and 'Bye, mate'.

“Surely we can't just leave
him?” the distraught girl implored, still weeping for her friend.

“Would he help anyone of us?
…really?” suggested Jon. “No! Not in a million years. So come on, let's get out
of here!”

Just knowing that a whole
counter full of Kentucky fried chicken (albeit not so warm now) was there for
the taking was the force that was now spurring Scott and Ant on. From behind
one of the wide wooden pillars of the Starbucks lounge, they did a quick scan
of the path that they would take. Roughly about twenty shufflers of mixed
heights and widths were currently inhabiting the route, far less than they
would have expected. Either the zombies were accumulating in other areas or the
battle was slowly being won.

Scott turned to Ant, who was
guzzling the discarded remnants of a fancy frothy coffee. “
Eurgh
!
Ant, you don't know who was drinking out of that!”

 
“I do!” said Ant unperturbed, turning the
paper cup around. “It was Tracey- see it says right here!”

“Give me that!” said Scott, snatching
the cup and downing the sugary contents in one go, much to the obvious
annoyance of the finder. “I shared my Tip Tops remember?”

“Hey, I've just noticed
something! I haven't heard any gun shots for a while. Do you think people have
simply stopped trying to escape?”

“Yeah probably,” answered
Scott. “Well, the odds weren't on their side really, much the same as in here!
God, I can smell that chicken...and we've got no
freakin
'
weapons left!”

“Au contraire,
mon
amie
.
We have brute force, cunning and hunger on our side; they only have hunger.
Plus....” he continued, turning slightly to the right, “I still have my Samurai
umbrella!”

“You Beauty!”

“Plus...” he continued,
holding open the front of his horrendously distressed Tux jacket to reveal the
bulges in his trousers, “I have my secret weapons of mass destruction!”

“Carry on...Explain...” said
Scott with a slight hint of trepidation.

“Well, we both know how
resourceful I can be, don't we? And scrabbling around on the floor in a shop
filled with knocked- over stands can deliver quite a little harvest to a person
like me!”

“So what have you got?” asked
Scott bewildered.

“You'll see,” said Ant
handing the umbrella to Scott, who unsheathed it rather ceremoniously. “Now
let's go get 'em!”

The two men stepped out from
behind the wooden pillar into the 'no- mans- land' that lay between them and
their enemy. Crouching slightly, they edged closer. A couple of more recently
reanimated bodies sniffed the air, their necks snapping quickly to face the
direction of Scott and Ant.
 
With a crazed
madness in their eyes, they began to lumber ungracefully forwards. Trying to
move faster than their toxic bodies would allow, they resembled unbalanced
babies taking their first steps. Determination to consume fresh flesh, however
made them plough on through the clutter and chaos that was once a restaurant.

 
Scott and Ant had also moved forwards. Scott
decided to take on the more heavily- set male who was wearing the bloodied
clobber of a HGV driver and, when the gap between them was a mere three feet,
he threw back his right arm and, with every ounce of strength he possessed, he
launched a brolly strike against the truck driver's head, felling him to the
floor like a knocked- out boxer.
 
Having
learned earlier on that the undead are not dead until their brains have been
well and truly pierced, Scott raised his weapon and with both hands forced it
down and through the eye socket of the former Stobart employee- and another
squishy eyeball was speared.

Ant was waiting for the
second zombie to get a bit closer. This one was tall and slightly built, but
with huge goofy teeth protruding from his disgusting mouth. The thought of
being violated by those nasty
gnashers
made him
squirm, but in his hands he held a can of hairspray and a zippo lighter- both
of which he had scavenged from off the shop floor.