Zombie Survival: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller Read online

  “Ohhhhhh... ohhhhh mannnnn – there’s fucking thousands of them.”

  Movement at the edge of his vision. Ted glanced around and saw Jenny remove her hands from her coat pockets, but she didn’t hit anyone. Instead, she buried her face in her hands and let forth a little, helpless moan, “not helping...” she recited the phrase as though it was a prayer, “...not helping... not helping... not helping...”

  Dave, meanwhile, had resumed his pacing, his hands rubbing his head, scouring his scalp, a desperate, wide-eyed expression on his face. A man caught in a trap, a man brought to bay with nowhere left to run. And the hot stench of terror burned strong within the room, stronger even than the stench of death that wafted from those who lurched below.

  Hefting his gun before him, Ted turned and made his way across to the window. It was a good idea to make a recce of what was going on out there. Assess the enemy’s strength, their numbers, and their capacity to attack. And as soon as he peered out, he saw that their capacity was great indeed. What Shaun had said appeared to be correct: there were thousands of them out there. They seethed in a great sea of stinking death, so packed and tight that they looked like a crowd at a football match or rock concert. The farmyard, and the path and the fields beyond the farmyard, had all been obscured beneath this immense mill of staggering, swaying, writhing bodies. They moved in strange patterns, as though they were indeed a sea, and great tides and currents moved through them, causing waves, causing ebb and flow, causing some to rise and others to fall. Ted allowed his gaze to wander from the immediate vicinity of the farmyard and surrounding fields to the land that loomed beyond and toward the horizon, but again all that he could see was this deadly ocean: swaying, moving; inundating the land with its slow and dreadful currents. The woods that climbed the far bank seemed to be alive with them, as though the very trees had awoken and were crawling on the nearby slopes. Ah yes, Shaun was right – there were thousands: thousands upon thousands upon thousands. Christ, would the house itself even survive this onslaught? Of course it would, the walls were constructed from thick stone blocks, built in an age when masons and builders attended to their craft. To think that the house itself could succumb to this invasion, was ridiculous – and yet still... the mere idea was unsettling. That sea, that ocean, that inundation: writhing off toward the horizon... if all the force that those thousands and thousands of bodies could muster were to be applied in the direction of the house... then who knew? It seemed that everything could fall before this catastrophe.

  Ted ran his tongue across his lips. It was like licking parchment. It tasted of fear. It was a taste that he’d experienced before, God knew, but this taste was stronger. This taste said that this time it might really be the end of the road, that there really might be no going forward. No going backward either, or sideways, or in any direction that involved travelling across the land. The land was infected. The land had been invaded. The land was taken by a foe that could not be defeated: certainly not with a single rifle and a handful of courage. No, this would require a new plan, a new approach.

  Ted licked his lips again and again tasted the fear. Then he set his jaw firm, and breathed deeply of the tainted air. He had come to a decision.

  He turned to Dave and the others. “Bring the food and water in here,” he said.

  “In here?” asked Dave with a shrug, “what the hell is that going to achieve?”

  “If we need to barricade ourselves in a single room, then this bedroom would be the best. It’s got a larger window than the bathroom.”

  Dave shook his head, “you’re making exactly no sense mate.”

  “Then we’ll need a sheet,” said Ted, speaking more to himself than anyone else, “a really big sheet and a pen. A big marker pen. I think that I might have one somewhere in here...”

  The perplexed expression on Dave’s face deepened, “man, you really have lost the plot now... you’re talking gibberish.”

  “Come on,” Ted said, starting forward, “we don’t have any time to waste. Let’s get the food and water and bring it in here.”

  Ted started forward, but Dave stepped up in front of him, a hand held out as though to restrain Ted.

  “Woah,” said Dave, “what’s all this shit about bringing the water in here? About us barricading ourselves? I thought that you said that door down below will hold?”

  “It will hold,” Ted replied, but then remembered his previous thought about the house itself falling, before pushing the thought away, “...it’ll hold, but we need a contingency plan. We need to think about what we need to do if the door doesn’t hold. If they make it up here. We need to think about which room would be the easiest to defend, the easiest to escape from.”

  “Escape?” – but it wasn’t Dave who said that. It was Shaun from by the window, “...come on Ted. You looked out just now. You’ve seen how many there are out there. Escape...?”

  Dave pushed past Ted and hurried over to the window, followed by Jenny. Neither of them had looked out previously – maybe not wanting to know just how bad it was. But now curiosity got the better of them and they hurried across to the window and peered through its glass. The pale autumn sunlight kissed their faces, silhouetting their heads and shoulders in front of the window’s bright rectangle. It would have been a lovely autumn day out there – if you could have gone for a walk in the fields and woods...

  “Oh... my... God...” said Dave.

  Jenny said nothing. She just stood there, silhouetted in the sunlight, gazing down upon doom, gazing down upon a world that had changed utterly, and her silence seemed to shout louder terror than any verbal utterance could have.

  Dave turned around and peered toward Ted, “escape...? Did you say escape mate...? If you did, then you’ve lost your fucking mind. There ain’t no escape through that,” he gestured toward the window, though he still peered back into the room toward Ted. Dave’s face was itself rather like a dead man’s.

  “I’m going to start bringing the water in here,” said Ted, “if anyone wants to help me then they can.”

  Ted turned from them and hurried onto the landing. He paced across to the head of the stairs, and peered down into the stairwell, listening. The stairwell was in darkness, the door was holding firm, just as he had expected it to. There came the distant sound of movement from behind the door, the occasional fumble, a scrape, a dull thump as some soft body stumbled against wood. They were out there – dozens, if not hundreds by now, having made their way through the ruptured windows, slithering across the window sill like maggots out of an open wound. And some of them had clearly found the doorway to the stairs now. They were not launching an all-out attack upon it – not yet – but they were exploring it, testing it; perhaps trying to find ways to get through it. That they wanted to get through it could not be denied. No doubt they knew that Ted and the others were up here. Perhaps they could smell them – fresh meat, hot and alive...

  Ted turned away from the stairwell. The door would hold. It would have to. Perhaps they could block the stairwell – throw a bed or a cupboard down there to impede them should they get through the door. But that would be no more than a token gesture. If the door fell, then there would be nothing else to do but retreat further. And if the entire house fell...

  He pushed such thoughts from his mind and hurried over to the bathroom. He seized up the largest bucket of water, and started to carry it to the doorway. He had only gone a couple of paces, when Jenny entered the room. Without a word, she seized up one of the buckets, and they began the transfer in earnest. After a moment Shaun, and then finally Dave joined the task.

  Soon the water and the food were stowed in the bedroom in the far corner. Then Ted opened one of the cupboards that stood against the wall of the bedroom, rummaged within it, and then brought out a sheet. He spread it out on the floor as wide as he could, discovering it was about three meters by two in size. Then he hurried across to a nearby chest of drawers, rummaged inside them, and seized up a marker pen. Then he squatted down nex
t to the sheet.

  “What’s all this?” asked Dave, gesturing to the sheet.

  Ted paused in what he had been about to do. Still squatting by the sheet, he looked up at Dave, glanced at the other two, and then at Dave again. “We can’t escape the house across land,” Ted began, “so our only other alternative is to go up.”

  “Up?” asked Dave, perplexed, “what, you mean go up on the roof? No thanks mate.”

  Ted shook his head, “if – if – something went overhead, something like an aeroplane or a helicopter say – then would you want them to know that we were here? I think I would. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to rescue us immediately, but at least they would know that we are here. Maybe there’s someone out there trying to find survivors, flying around, looking for signs of life. Maybe they could do something - ,”

  Dave shook his head, “you really think that there’s anything out there? You really think that the cavalry is going to come over the hill – in helicopters – to save us?”

  “I don’t know, Dave,” Ted replied testily, “but if there is someone out there – someone, anyone other than those monsters – then I want them to know that we’re here. I don’t want them passing us by. Do you?”

  With that, Ted turned away from Dave, uncapped the pen, and began his work. It took him about ten minutes as the others looked on. At one point Jenny offered to help, but Ted shrugged her offer away. It would be better if it was done by just one person. More consistent. Perhaps more clear.

  And eventually it was done: a single word written across the white fabric of the sheet in heavy, black, marker pen letters.

  HELP.

  Ted stood up and gazed down at his handiwork. Would it be big enough? Would it be visible from the air? He didn’t know, but it was better than nothing. It would have to do for now.

  Chucking the pen to one side, Ted seized up the sheet and crossed over to the window. Doing this would mean having to open the window, which Ted wasn’t crazy about. It would be sure to attract attention from down below. And then what? Would they surge toward the house, a thousand hands grasping, a thousand throats moaning; piling pressure up against the old stone walls until they surrendered? Ted pushed the thought away. There was no choice. The sign had to be visible. And that meant hanging it outside. And that meant opening the window. Whatever else happened would just have to happen.

  Carefully, he undid the clasps on the window. Then he prepared to apply pressure required to open it.

  “Oh man...” said Dave from behind him, “...do you have to? Open it, I mean?”

  Ted paused, a sharp comment rising to his lips. But he bit it down. Now was not the time to be wasting energy on argument. Now was the time for action. Cool, calm, deliberate action. Precise. Effective. In so far as any action that he took could be effective at all in this dreadful situation.

  Carefully, like a man trying to diffuse a bomb, Ted applied pressure to the window. It finally gave with a sharp little squeal of wood against painted wood. Ted gritted his teeth against the sound, froze, and looked down at the throng below: still swaying, still circling, strange patterns still working their way through the masses. But it didn’t seem as though the sound or the sight of the window edging open just slightly, had caught their attention to any extent.

  Still with the greatest care, Ted once again applied pressure to the window. It opened the rest of the way soundlessly. As it opened, the noises from outside were allowed to intrude with greater force into the room. The sound of moaning: imbecilic, monotonous, never ending, an awful dirge as though a thousand broken minds were weeping. And not just noises either...

  For a moment, Ted stepped away from the window, coughing, gagging, his hand held to his nose and mouth, an expression of utter revulsion seizing his face. The smell that burned into the room through the open window was beyond belief. It was the smell of rot, the smell of decay, the smell of a thousand and more corpses out there beneath the strong autumn sunlight. It invaded the senses like a living thing, like a virus that merged with flesh and blood and sputum. Ted coughed, gagging, retching, as did the others.

  “For fuck’s sake, Ted,” said Dave, his voice muffled by his fingers that were clamped across his nose and mouth, “shut the fucking window man... nothing’s worth this... nothing!”

  But he couldn’t shut the window. There was a job to be done, a sign to be hung, a flag to be mounted on its flimsy pole. Not a flag of triumph, but not a flag of surrender either. A flag of hope: a plea to anyone who might see it.

  Taking several deep breaths of the relatively untainted bedroom air, Ted staggered across to the window. He peered out toward the massed horrors below, once again trying to assess if the opening of the window had registered any effect with them. A few faces were turned toward him, the blank eyes staring, hands groping pointlessly, like children trying to catch a sunbeam. Dark children... but other than that there had been no clear recognition, and the hoard still swayed and moved and gyrated just as it had been doing half an hour ago. But still... caution was the watchword.

  The window consisted of two panels, both of which opened outward. Ted had opened the left hand pane, so now he worked on the right hand one. Once again, he worked the latches carefully, and then, with one hand grasping the latch, and the other pressed against the wood of the frame, he applied gentle but mounting pressure. Gradually it opened outward, and once again there came the shrill sound of wood against wood. And once again Ted froze, certain that the sound would have attracted undue attention this time. But again, it did not attract the level of attention that he had feared. A few faces turned his way, a few hands grasping outward at the air, but that was all. Ted paused for a moment longer, just to make sure that there was to be no delayed reaction down below. Then he seized the sheet up and peered down at it. How to fix it so that it hung out of the window? His mind raced, until an idea came to him. Ted turned, hurried over to the same drawer that he’d got the marker pen out of, and rummaged inside it. With a sigh of relief he found what he had been looking for. A pair of scissors and a ball of string.

  “Hey Ted – man - ,” said Dave, “– do you think you could close those bloody windows soon?”

  “Yes,” Ted replied distractedly as he cut two lengths of string, “...soon...”

  Chucking the scissors back in the drawer, Ted turned and hurried back to the window. He seized the sheet up and tied one piece of string to one corner, and the other to the other corner. Then he bundled the sheet up in his arms and lifted it so that it was rested on the window ledge.

  Well – here goes. This is it. Either this saves us – or it dooms us. Attracts the right sort of attention – or the wrong sort. Kill or cure.

  He lifted the sheet over the window sill and allowed its lower edge to fall over. A light wind caught the sheet, and for a moment it fluttered outward, before settling against the side of the house. Ted peered downward, and saw that some of the creatures down there, the ones closest to the wall of the house, had noticed the sheet. Their moaning became louder, and they reached up, their hands grasping toward the sheet. It was some twenty feet above them, so they were not able to seize it, but still the arms and hands grasped upward, faces peering, eyes staring in hungry fascination.

  Tearing his attention away from them, Ted peered down at the sheet, just to make sure that the HELP sign was facing outward and not against the wall. It was. Then he seized one of the pieces of string and carefully wedged it beneath where the window frame was flush with the window sill. He looked for a place to tie it, but there wasn’t anywhere convenient. No matter – the string was well wedged against the window frame, and would become even more so once the window was closed, (something that he fully intended to do at the first opportunity).

  With one side of the sheet jammed in against the window frame, Ted then repeated the process with the other end, once again jamming the string against the window frame. Then, tentatively, he peered over the edge of the window ledge and down at the sign. It fluttered against the wall
of the house, its single desperate word visible enough. Well, visible to him anyway – but would it be visible to a passing aircraft? They would just have to hope so. There was nothing more to be done for now anyway. They would just have to sit tight, rethink, regroup... and hope that the door between the stairs and the landing held firm, and that someone saw the sign, and that eventually, sometime, somehow, this nightmare could be over.

  Ted seized hold of the handles on the window frame to pull the door closed at last – but he paused. Movement caught his attention down there amongst the thronging masses, a faster, strident, more energetic movement than any he’d seen before. He peered downward, concentrating on the main body of the crowd nearest to the house. And then he saw it: arms waving, fingers clutching, a thousand faces turned toward the house like dead and evil moons. They had seen the sign. It had attracted their attention at last, and had attracted it en masse. Their moaning rose like a blizzard wind and then, like some huge freak wave that seizes the ocean and rushes forward to wreak devastation, the crowd surged forward. It began as a single skirmish, a small eddy within the main circulating body of the crowd. But then, tsunami-like, it built and built until it was one single wave of dead and rotting bodies, rolling toward the house with terrifying speed and power. At last the main surge of the crowd crashed against the walls, and Ted felt the house shudder beneath its impact.

  “What the fuck was that?” asked Dave, hurrying up to join Ted at the window. Shaun and Jenny followed on behind, their eyes goggling toward the open window.

  “They saw the sign,” Ted replied through gritted teeth, “it caused them to surge forward.

  Ted realised that his hands were gripping the window sill with white-knuckled desperation, like a man gripping to the side of a storm-tossed ship. He could still feel the shudders working their way through the house as the huge crowd continued to roll against it. He peered downward with sickly fascination, and saw hundreds of pale dead hands groping at the side of the house, clawing at the old stonework, as though in a hopeless attempt to seek a purchase, and then to climb. But such an attempt would be impossible, for those against the walls were being crushed by the force of the crowd who were still surging forward. Even as Ted watched, they were squashed bodily against the side of the house, black blood bursting from gaping mouths, heads crushed into soppy mush against unforgiving stone, the sound of their moaning becoming wet and gargling as larynx, lungs and mouth were compacted. But still they groped, still they clutched upward toward the single white sheet that fluttered nonchalantly above them.