Ace of Spades Chronicles : Book One (12 page)

I blacked out.

When I woke up, I was lying on the kitchen floor. Jonny B had carried me up the steps. My clothing was speckled with blood and I could smell burnt sausages and caramelised onion. Jonny B was sat next to me, crossed legged and crying. Moya's ripped and battered body was lying on the top step, and the car park was filling up with infected.

HINT # 1:

When defending your self against attack, consider the size of your opponent. Not just height, but weight. A large infected male with no sense of danger or pain has an immense scale and mass; so take them down quickly, or you will get squashed.

2.4

Ace of Spades

PHASE TWO

'My my, hey hey.

Rock and roll is here to stay.

Better to burn out than fade away.

My my, hey hey.'

Neil Young... My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)

Jonny B had left me alone with my thoughts and what remained of Moya, returning up stairs. He didn't want any more weed. With my back to the open kitchen door, the afternoon sun warming my grazed shin through the material of my blood splattered trousers, I drew back on the joint, filling my grieving hole with the smoke.

I watched with puffy eyes as a crow flew from chimney stack to chimney stack, announcing his magnificence with a
frup-frup-frup.
He leaped from the gable end of his brick perch and swooped down onto the road, hopping sideways towards the dead WPC, and pecked her leg. Blue Corsa man had managed to get to his feet and was walking down the middle of the road towards the supermarket. Still from this distance, I could see the dark puddle of blood next to his car where he had smashed his face on the tarmac.

By now, there must have been about twenty five infected stumbling around the car park. A couple brushed by the abandoned police cruiser with a curious familiarity, whilst another tapped one of my kills with his foot. Mr. Cooper had left the car park and was standing in his garden, staring up at his bedroom window. I saw the curtain twitch and wondered about Mrs. Cooper and their daughter Alice; (yes, I know; what were they thinking?) Were they cowering upstairs, or were they also infected? Had he freaked out, just as the female doctor had in the supermarket, sending him self head first through the double glazing before Phase Two kicked in?

The decapitated head of Moya's killer lay in the compound gawking back at me. I couldn't help but stare. For a moment, I thought I saw its upper lip curl as his dead eyes stared into mine. Somewhere in what was left of his brain, was the virus hanging on?              I stood up and stepped over Moya. Using the hand rail to steady my quaking legs, I descended the steps and picked up one of the black recycling boxes, up-ended it, and slid it over to the fence. One of the infected made a grab for it, but it was out of his reach. I walked over to the severed head, pulled it up by the hair and stared into those eyes. They were wide, yellow and streaked with broken blood vessels. I stood on the up ended recycling box and planted the head on top of the fence, forcing the three pronged security spike deep into the brain. The sensation was similar to coring a cabbage, and I found great contentment from it. As I stepped off the box, the car park infected attempted to snag my clothing through the rails, but I was inches away, and a part of me revelled in the fact that they could not reach me. This all seemed perfectly natural to me, and I didn't feel any repugnance at all. It was the new order of things. Of course, I appreciate now that I was on the verge of turning quite mad. I returned to my seated position against the kitchen door, smoked my joint and stroked Moya's still warm head.

The crow flapped its wings and rose up to hover above the female police officer. At first, I thought the down draft from his wings moved her clothing, then I realised that
it was her
that was moving. She sat, dragging her legs up into a kneeling position. I watched as she slowly got to her feet. Her uniform was in tatters around her midriff; her padded anti-stab vest had been pulled apart and her white blouse was soaked with dark blood. She wheeled and bowled her arms into the air, forcing the crow to hover ever higher. I saw intestines flop from her abdomen like sodden rope, and her throat had been destroyed, clawed open all the way down to her breasts, exposing her bony chest plate. A couple of the car park infected cocked their heads in her direction and began to follow her as she staggered off in the direction of the nature reserve, following Blue Corsa man.

My introduction to Phase Two had been far more acceptable for me than most people. It became clear as the days wore on, that the unfortunate majority of that initial week were the first responders; the ambulance drivers and paramedics, the police; concerned relatives. For those that
were
able to actually get to a hospital and report their early symptoms, the virus was able to spread at such an alarming rate throughout the medical establishment, that by the time the doctors and nurses became aware that there even was a Phase Two, they were already dead.

Phase One is the incubation period. As I have said; this can vary from person to person, but the outcome is always the same. Fever, thirst, vomiting, violence and seizure; followed by collapse and death. On no account should the victim be approached at this stage. The virus has worked its way throughout the brain and the body is waiting for a trigger. Once activated, the victim will progress quickly into Phase Two and revive. Touch of any kind will trigger a reflex response and you will be attacked. If you get spat on during Phase One; if you come into contact with infected blood or sputum, you will succumb. If you get scratched or bitten, you will succumb. Infection and death are inevitable. Phase Two victims can activate those dormant and infected by Phase One; as they revive and stumble around their environment, they trigger each other like flowers opening in spring sunshine.

It is my suspicion that this is how the virus made its way to the mental hospital; a patient transfer. I can picture an Accident and Emergency doctor serving time on a sixteen

hour shift, presented with a violent individual; unable to diagnose to any professional level, and forced to relinquish care to a specialised security unit in the suburbs.

Had there been a scientist locked away in a secret bunker somewhere mixing pathogenic mutation after pathogenic mutation to a nasty little RNA strand, not knowing, or even more sinister, knowing full well, that if this virus took hold in a human host, it would spread without hindrance or cure? Would he have been aware that there would be a reanimation stage? Would he even care? How many people went to help friends or relatives only to be attacked and become infected themselves? Take Jonny B; he was lucky. The female doctor in the supermarket must have infected dozens of onlookers. How many did they infect? And so on and so forth. It gave the term ‘going viral’ a whole new twist. I considered myself very fortunate indeed.

I tell you this now, not because I saw the WPC get to her feet when all logical reason told me this was not possible. I tell you this now because as I stroked Moya's head, I became aware that she was twitching. My reaction wasn't to be relieved that somehow, my beloved pet had survived being gutted alive. My reaction was to pull away, to avoid looking at her flickering eyelids; to avoid noticing her tongue as it lollygagged from her blood streaked gums like a worm writhing under a stone. My reaction was to grab a kitchen knife from the draining board and drive it through her skull, just above the eyes.

2.5

Ace of Spades

CLUCK… WENT THE CHICKEN!

'Of all the things I've lost,

it's my mind I miss the most...'

Ozzy Osbourne.

I still see Moya padding around the shadows of my psyche. I still hear her nails tap-tapping on the bedroom door. I can still feel her nudging her snout under my chin for a kiss. I still have pockets full of poo bags; every coat or fleece jacket has at least three. Her food and water bowls still sit on the kitchen floor. We were inseparable for eight years and I miss her more than I miss anything about the old ways, or old friends; even old lovers. That said; her corpse lay unceremoniously on the top step for the rest of the curfew, and for that, I am truly sorry. I hope the top dogs in canine heaven will forgive me for this venial offence.

Curfew...

What a joke
.

We didn't see any police; except for those taken by the virus. I can’t remember the last time I heard a siren, and I never thought I would miss that sound. A helicopter did do a fly over, dropping hastily drafted leaflets about where to go for the evacuation, but even that was a botched job. Infected roamed the streets in packs and every now and then, fellow survivors carrying what belongings they could ran by, nervously checking over their shoulders. To the south of us, lay another crossroads. We saw an SUV come screaming across the junction from the west, completely misjudge the canver and clip another vehicle that stood motionless at the center of the intersection. It hobbled onto two wheels, hit a lamp post and went airborne over a privet hedge, landing hard on its belly in the school sports field. A passenger or possibly the driver got launched from his seat and spooled through the air like a stuffed toy. The other occupants scrambled to escape the mangled people carrier as the infected children and adults from the schools summer fair promptly advanced across the ankle deep grass; but they had no chance of escape, and I turned away.

Jonny B and I discussed
and
argued about our options for hours. Should we stay, stick it out? Should we go, take our chances? The utilities were cut off on the morning of day three of the curfew; seven or eight days after the outbreak began... at least in this area, so that helped make our minds up. There was still water in the pipes, and I spent a couple of hours filling every empty bottle or cooking pan I could find. I had boxes of plastic bottles ready to be dumped at the supermarkets recycle centre; they got filled. I filled the bath and just managed to fill the bathroom sink before the pipes ran dry and the TV screen went dark.

My theory... the authorities wanted us to fend for ourselves; to be without. What better way to whittle the weak from the strong? To observe the infection and assess how it spreads. Test the civilian populous to breaking point and see who comes out on top.

The leaflets told us where to assemble and at what time. There would be coaches that would take us to the local airport, where we would be transported to an undisclosed location for medical assessment. It all sounded very Hollywood to me, and those scenarios never ended very well for the protagonists. I was fully prepared to stay put. How the authorities expected us to get to our nearest rally point with the streets full of zombies is crazy.

There...

I've said it.

…ZOMBIES…

We didn’t believe in ZOMBIES; this was something else. They didn’t claw their way out of the grave or stumble around uttering ‘brains’… This was more like a metamorphosis. If an infection gets into an open wound, it will go septic. Maybe that’s what we should call them…

…SEPTIX…

But we've all seen the movies, read the role playing books; if you decide to stay put, turn to page 204. If you decide to not believe your own eyes or to believe that these events are not really happening and shove your head up your ass, then feel free turn to page
whogivesafuck
.

I prepared a bug out bag that included tin foil, a jumper, a pen knife, a serrated kitchen knife, a rubber torch and what spare batteries I could find; a note pad and a couple of pencils, some nylon rope from the loft and some fuse wire from under the sink; pliers, a claw hammer, (I had two, Jonny B took the other one.) Duct tape, six bottles of water. A Lighter and a box of matches; bin liners, toilet roll and some doggy poo bags. I stuffed all of this into my back pack and shoved the family size first aid kit from the bathroom on top. I also packed a few tins of baked beans and some of Moya's dry dog food. It tasted like gritty cardboard, but was packed with protein. I put on my old skateboard pads under some cargo pants and my leather jacket, hooking my multi-tool onto my belt. I dug out my old motorcycle gloves too; Black Nitros, padded from the finger tips to the knuckles, with reinforced wrist supports, they were surprisingly still a good fit and gave me lots of movement, considering they hadn't been worn in years. I took my wallet and drivers licence incase I had to identify myself to the authorities, and tied Moya's chain lead around my waist. (I would have raided my workshop, but at this stage of the game, we were under the slightly deranged illusion that we would be getting on a cosy bus and flying off to la-la-land.) We should have stayed put. When in doubt, clucking like a chicken whilst sleeping in your dead dog’s bed is always the safer option.

2.6

Ace of Spades

A GIRL WITH BLUE HAIR

'I wanna hold her wanna hold her tight.

Get teenage kicks right through the night.'

Undertones... Teenage Kicks.

Before we left, I pulled all the curtains and closed all the doors. The car park was occupied by three infected, and regretfully, I had to use Moya as a decoy, launching her stiff, cold body over the palisade fence. It broke my heart, but the infected took the bait and I gathered my spade; a portion of scalp thinly covered with hair was stuck to the cutting edge, and I scrapped it off with my boot before carefully opening the side gate. Jonny B went first, claw hammer in hand. I locked the gate behind me and we headed up the hill, passing the place where Jonny B had abandoned his car, now wedged front and rear by other vehicles. The streets were unnervingly quiet; shattered and broken. A handful of infected moved slowly ahead of us. Jonny B paused and fished out his car keys. He reached into the glove box and pulled out another torch. He checked to see that it was working. It was. We moved on, passing a small row of shops that had been raided and torched.

At the cross roads near the local shopping centre, I counted fifteen coaches parked in a line. In front of these, police vans, and dotting the road, traffic cones and highway lights; some kicked over. It was obvious that these shops had also been looted days ago. We could see lots of infected moving between the cones and a single police helicopter hung above the junction at around one thousand feet, a search light scanning the ground. We could see more helicopters in the distance, buzzing other rally points across the city. It was certainly a coordinated effort, but it was too little too late. It looked like the rally point had been overrun several hours ago, and the Phase One types had already passed in to Phase Two. The virus had us by the balls. It was about 8.30pm, and the sky was fast turning a subtle shade of bruise.

The infected we had seen near Jonny B's car were now much closer to the road block. To our left, opposite the shopping centre, was a community sports ground with Bowling Green, tennis court and a small cricket pitch. Each were swarming with the inhuman creatures. Their shadowy forms danced across the playing areas like perverted marionettes as the search light tracked their movements.              

I heard a window smash somewhere from the rear of the coaches and I fell behind a parked car, pulling Jonny B down to the ground. A couple of infected police were moving towards us. One of the coach doors opened and a figure fell forward and landed in a heap, followed by another. Pretty soon, the whole junction was a mass of snarling undead. "What are we going to do?" Jonny B whispered in a shaky voice; I noticed a wet stain building between his legs. But before I could answer, we heard more glass breaking. We looked up and saw a shape drop from the broken coach window. This person was not infected and moved with great agility. It was a young girl. She dodged the vomit covered passengers spilling from the coach and ran towards the traffic lights, then dodging the search light, on towards us. I could see that she was of oriental ancestry and had a mop of manga style hair the same shade as the big blue monster Sully, from Monsters Inc! I watched her run by us in slow motion, her blue hair matted to her forehead. As her almond eyes locked with mine, I realised that she was mouthing something. It was only when I glanced back at the rally point and saw the mass of infected moving our way that the word became clear and my sluggish senses snapped back to

reality. She was screaming.

"Run."

***

She ran ahead of us and led us through tight back garden alleyways until we reached a line of lock up garages. She hopped a low wall and vaulted onto one of the roofs, then beckoned for us to follow before dropping from view. We followed without dithering. I’ve never seen Jonny B move so fast.

Her name was Rinko Aririkashino and she loved zombie films. She had seen them all; from works of genius like the classic Night of - and the original - Dawn of The Dead, plus their remakes, right up to low budget British fluff like Cockneys Vs Zombies and everything in between. She loved Shaun of the Dead the most and had even written her own vampire/zombie mash up sequel called Dead by Shaun. She'd played all the horror based computer games such as Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Soul Reaver and the like, and could kick her older brother's ass on Call of Duty’s Nazi zombie fest’. She would frequent the local ten pin bowling alley and play House of the Dead for hours. She had recently received the Japanese dubbed version of The Walking Dead box set from her uncle in Shizuoka and was wearing a Marvel Zombies Spider-Man t-shirt when we met her. Her entire family came from Japan, but Rinko was born in the UK, seventeen years three months and eleven days ago. They moved here when her brother was three. She was funny, intelligent and sexy as hell; I think the technical term is '
jail bait'
. Her blue hair suited her perfectly, and she chatted endlessly. Not that this was a bad thing. Her voice was soft and very childlike; soothingly hypnotic. She spoke with respect and said please and thank you. She didn't know where her brother was, and when it came to speaking of her mother and father, she was reticent.

Inside the garage, Rinko pushed a hinged piece of wood up into the ceiling space where we had dropped down, clicking it into place with a simple but strong magnet. The interior was furnished with a beat up old sofa and an ornate Japanese coffee table; beneath this, a cardboard box of fizzy drinks. On the floor there was a double mattress with three sleeping bags rolled in neat bundles. On top of a single kitchen unit sat a camping stove and next to this a tin kettle. Supplies of tea bags and powered milk were arranged in an orderly line. Piles of magazines and comics stood in neat stacks. Bags of rice and noodles hung from the ceiling and next to these a large bladder of water. The ceiling joists were draped with oriental rugs and in the corner was a dog basket, but no dog. Hobo the dog, she told us, had run away on the night of the outbreak. I said he had the right idea, and told her about Moya. Rinko was very sorry to hear of my loss, and offered me a warm can of 7-up from beneath the coffee table. I asked if she lived here and she nodded one of those unassumingly polite Japanese nods and shivered. She said that she did not want to go back to her house and that she and her parents spent most of their time here after the outbreak. Their street had become overrun with infected and her mother had insisted that they vacate. Her father took it upon himself to return to the house and gather what he could. She handed me one of the evacuation flyers and explained that they had boarded one of the coaches just as her mother began to complain that she was thirsty. The other passengers wanted to throw her off the bus, but by then it was too late. Her father tried to protect her. When the other passengers became violent, he smashed the rear escape window and told her to head back to the garage. It felt safe, she said; though I disagreed. We would be much better off back at my flat. We would have the added protection of the palisade compound and be on the first and second floors of a solid structure, not sheltering in an asbestos coffin. She shivered and began to cry. I offered her the jumper from my bug out bag and she accepted it with another nod and a quiet thank you. Jonny B complained that he was cold too, and Rinko silently offered him one of the sleeping bags, which he took with no word of thanks. For an age we didn't speak. Jonny B fell asleep, still clutching the claw hammer, and Rinko sat on the edge of the coffee table chewing her thumb nail whilst I stood staring at the dog basket, internally humming the Indiana Jones main title theme quietly to myself.

As the night wore on, Rinko told me all about her fascination with zombies. To hear her speak with such passion about what was until now a mythical, or at least, fictional subject, was absorbing and for a short time, diverting.

We decided that we would take our chances at first light and head back to my flat; but for now, we should attempt to get some sleep. We both curled up on the double mattress with our backs to each other and I spent to next couple of hours listening to the sounds of the streets with my eyes wide and my jaw clamped. I heard groans and screams mixed with breakages, one very large explosion and a series of smaller bangs. Each seemed to be far enough away to be of zero threat to us, but close enough to keep my breathing light for fear my rising and falling chest might attract some unwanted attention. I drifted off and experienced short, dreamless naps; only to wake and resume my frozen position.

Eyes wide; Jaw clamped.

When I opened my mobile phone to check the time, I was disconcerted to find that it was only 11.30pm. As I closed my phone, the battery died.

It was going to be a long night.

***

I awoke with one of those spasmodic leg kicks and for a brief moment, wondered where I was. As my eyes adjusted to the dull, early morning light, I saw that Rinko had resumed her position on the coffee table. She was completely motionless and looked like a wax work. Jonny B was still asleep on the sofa, his chin resting on his chest. I was just about to speak when I realised with sudden terror that there was an increasing amount of groaning and shuffling of feet just beyond the thin, asbestos wall of the garage. I froze. Rinko moved just her eyes to look at me, and I could see that she was petrified. Jonny B shifted his position and grunted. I wanted to dive on top of him, wrap my hand over his mouth, but I dared not move. Rinko carefully lowered her left hand towards the edge of the coffee and, fumbling for a few seconds; she pressed a small, raised, round black section of the carved pattern around its edge. I heard a soft click and then, to my amazement, she pulled out a short sword in its scabbard from a concealed space within the table; then, with her other hand, pointed to the hatch in the ceiling. I nodded and motioned for her to wait, then as slowly as I dared; I moved towards Jonny B and grabbed his face, pushing my palm over his mouth and nostrils. He woke suddenly, his eye lids pulled way back. He got ten out of ten from me for his reaction as he raised the claw hammer above his shoulder, ready to strike. I tightened my grip and shook my head, my eyes just as wide as his. He relaxed and lowered the hammer. I released my hand and gestured for him to be quiet. He nodded and I let him go. The groans and shuffling outside reverberated through the wall and I saw a section move as something bumped into it. I've punched my way through an asbestos sheet before and knew it wouldn't take much for the entire wall to shatter. I watched as the wall creaked and a hairline fracture appeared to snake down from the ceiling. I grabbed my bug out bag and stuffed the camping stove in next to the first aid kit, and a couple of the powered milks, then motioned for Rinko to wait under the hatch. Jonny B rose from the sofa; it creaked from the release of his weight and I sucked in my breath. He crept over to where Rinko stood and I gathered my spade. Rinko carefully pushed the hatch to discharge the magnet. The hatch went up a few inches and returned to its closed position. Rinko tried again; this time the magnet disengaged and as the hatch fell, Rinko caught it with the tip of the scabbard. The noises from outside were now a mixture of mournful textures and animal grunts. Jonny B hoisted Rinko up and onto the edge of the hatch. Even from this angle, I could see her expression sink and the colour drain from her olive cheeks. She beckoned for us to be quick as she jumped out of sight and into the rear garden of the property behind the garage. Just as Jonny B was finding his grip on the ledge, the asbestos wall gave way and a dozen infected fell into the garage like cockroaches bursting out of a decrepit sewer pipe. I shoulder barged Jonny B in the backside and pushed him through the hatch as the first few infected pitched towards me. I was barely up and out when I felt a hand hook my boot lace. I tumbled head first onto wet, dew covered grass, and my shoulder injury screamed bloody

murder. I stood and turned in time to see the entire garage collapse in on itself. The back alley we had rushed down the night before was crowded and the place that Rinko had called safe was now heaving with enraged Septix.

***

There are those who believe a zombie apocalypse will be a fun thing. That it will be filled with an unlimited and ready supply of ordnance and that there will be a chaotic, anarchical euphoria that will empower every geek and nerd from compass point to compass point to break out of their parent’s basement and go out and do heroic deeds, armed with nothing more than a cheap crossbow and their Daddy's handgun, plus a never ending supply of bullets;
and
possessing inexplicable shooting skills that would humiliate a special forces sniper. That pockets of resistance will communicate via two way radios cobbled together from scrap and metal coat hangers, and that the mobile telephone system will be, incredibly, intact. That cars pimped out like tanks will have an inexhaustible amount of fuel and girls with porn star looks armed with Uzi 9mm’s will wear nothing more than a flimsy vest top soaked with perfumed sweat and skimpy cut off denim shorts, displaying a pouting camel’s toe and overtly horny nipples.

But this is not a movie or an HBO or AMC mini-series. This is not America. This is not a gun state. In the UK we do not have rifle stores on every corner. You cannot walk into a Walmart and purchase 50,000 rounds of ammo with your frozen pizza or
yoghurt
. You can't buy a semi automatic off the shelf for home defence. We don't have the luxury of browsing row upon row of 9mm parabellums’ in our lunch breaks, or fulfilling a boyhood dream of buying a second hand eight inch Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum for a couple of hundred bucks, and reciting those immortal Dirty Harry words to an intruder.

Do you feel lucky... punk?

Though it is harder to get a chainsaw license in this country than it is to get a shot gun license; to own a shotgun, you need a damn good reason for wanting one in the first place. And trust me; killing infected hordes with impunity isn't one of them, though, as of right now, it bloody should be.