Ace of Spades Chronicles : Book One (15 page)

Swing left, step and swing right, then turn and swing hard left. Low right, snapping a knee; swing up golfer style, snapping a jaw. Turn swinging horizontally left, sending a flaming head over mine. By the time I had finished my Conan the Barbarian routine with a spade, there were thirty or more smouldering, decapitated bodies scattered around the empty parking bays.

And I never felt more alive...

I placed all the severed heads on top of the fence; one by one I skewered them on high for all to see. I enjoyed the cabbage coring sensation. After a while, Jonny B and Rinko gave up trying to stop me, or ask me why I was doing this. As Jonny B carried all the looted supplies to the top of the kitchen steps, his pace slowing with each journey; Rinko silently assisted my macabre task by handing me more heads for my apocalyptic installation.

***

HINT # 3
:

Do not set zombies/infected/Septix on fire. Sure, if they burn long enough, they will collapse, but in the mean time, their fucked up brain is still alive some how and they are extremely mobile; a crawling or walking torch. Use only as a last resort.

***

Time means nothing in a zombie apocalypse. You're not governed by the clock, just night and day.

Is it safe or is it not?

You're not thinking about work tomorrow, or whether you can get home in time to watch your favourite soap opera or that national geographic special on super volcanoes. You're not watching the second hand ticking away, sat in the confining cubical of your life, counting down the hours until you can finish your shit job and get down the pub until they shout last orders.
Time please... How much time do we have? Is it time for my close up... Time for the news... Time waits for no man... No time like the present... Time on my hands... Hard times... I'll do it when I get the time... It was the best of times; it was the worst of times... He timed his intervention perfectly... Time's table... Times arrow... Have you read The Times? Have you seen the time? What's the time, Mr. Wolf? Time is on my side... Yes it is... Time for a quick one? Timeless... Time Lord... Time warp... Time bomb... You built a time machine... out of a Delorean?

Time to go...

Time to go…

Time to go...    

Where does the time go? 

How long have I been here?

***

Rinko's gone into the kitchen. The smoke has dissipated but left a light fog, everywhere I look. The air is warm; there is no or hardly any wind. The police cruiser continues to burn, belching out black fumes and molten shrapnel. I breathe in deeply through my nose, smelling the strangely intoxicating mixture of a sunny September afternoon and the acrid flavour of gasoline and burnt flesh.

I study my handy work.

Thirty four cabbage heads, skewered in a row.

Thirty five; if you include my first, Moya's killer.

You never forget your first.

I shall have to name them…

SLEEPY
,
DOPEY
,

GRUMPY
,
MICKEY
,

MINNIE
,
GOOFY
,

PENFOLD
,
Mr. MAGEE
,

JOHN
,
PAUL
,

GEORGE
,
RINGO
,

HOLLY
,
LISTER
,

RIMMER
,
1812
,

Ms
FUGGLY
,
DEL BOY
,

RODDERS
,
TRIGGER
,

STELLA
,
ARTOIS
,

BRIAN BLESSED
,
Dr. McCOY
,

KIRK
,
DATA
,

FOZZIE
,
BENNY THE BALL
,

TWO FACE
,
Mrs. BROWN
,

FATHER TED
,
NORMAN
,

STANLEY
,
FLETCHER

= 34.

Moya's killer doesn't have a name.

2.8

Ace of Spades

(bN)(S/N)Z = bSZ

'There are times when silence is a poem...'

John Fowles... The Magus.

Heads on spikes notwithstanding, I'd like to think I handled myself pretty well through all this shit. I'm losing it a bit now, as I write this, but that's understandable; all things considered, wouldn't you say? Sure thing boss.

I mean here you are, talking to yourself as you scribble in your little book. I'd say everything was peachy.

F.A.B... No one knows what F.A.B stands for. Not even Gerry Anderson. It just sounds cool.

Five by Five... Trying to think of another word for lurch.

LURCH
v
roll, rock, pitch, sway, stagger, reel, list.

...
Stagger...

STAGGER
v
1
LURCH
,
totter, teeter, wobble, sway, rock, reel, falter, hesitate, waver.

At some point, Jonny B had turned to me in slow motion and said "Fuck me man! We blew up a police car!"

And I think I chuckled and said "Yeah... "; to which Jonny B replied in his usual, dead pan manner...

"Let's do it again."

How we laughed...

***

We all stood in the kitchen, gloating over our spoils and revelling in the audacious means of attaining them. But like a bad cocaine bender, the highs of our achievement were short lived, and the reality of our situation hit us hard when we realised that scavenging for food was only going to get harder. I could go on to list everything we were able to emancipate from rotting in the streets on our various sorties, but that would be pointless. Suffice to say; from the fourteen bags we were able to balance on the wheelbarrow; and the loose tins we collected from the road surface on our maiden foray, we had enough food to last us

for about two weeks.

I wondered how many people had been planning summer garden parties, purchasing mouth-watering eatables to be enjoyed with family and friends, work colleagues and neighbours; little knowing that their day would become a living (dead) nightmare.

...Teeter...

TEETER
v.i., & n.
1.
v.i
totter; move unsteadily.

There were loaves and rolls of bread, cartons of milk, boxes of cereal and snacks like biscuits, crisps and ready to eat pasties and salads. We put any food that was past saving to one side and put all the tinned stuff (baked beans, soups, canned fruit, corned beef, tuna etc,) into the cupboard above the kettle, along with a jar of hot dog sausages, (that mechanically recovered chicken seems to last forever;) and all the fresh stuff on the counter top. There were things none of us would eat; like a bag of sprouts. And there were things that we had to throw away, like the milk and the bread, which was curdled or rock hard after sitting on the back seat of a car or lying in the road, cooked by the hot September sun. Plus we had to eject the pasties, salads and all the packed meats like the bacon, barbeque burgers and sausages. A whole chicken that was on the verge of getting up and walking out all by itself, was given a quick send off and launched skyward in a plastic bag over the palisade defence to land in the car park with a splat. A couple of the infected wobbled over to investigate and fell onto it like drunks on a ten pound note. Of the remaining fresh food, we were able to save some carrots, a bag of apples and a net of oranges. There were teas and coffees. Daily staple stuff. We wouldn't win any awards for dietary content or variety, but at least we wouldn't starve.

Not yet.

We were lacking in one area, though; medical supplies. On checking the contents of my family sized first aid kit, we had one large wound dressing, two small wound dressings, a triangular bandage, two melolin dressing pads, a tube of eye wash, deep heat, nurofen gel, a resusciade, some latex gloves and a few plasters. We
needed
antibiotics, disinfectant, surgical tape, pain killers... In short; we needed a small pharmacy. So that was next on our list of required items.               
(One bag did contain some nappies, some wet wipes and a large tub of sudacrem; so if Jonny B shat himself, at least he could clean himself up.)                                
On the plus side; we had plenty of booze. A box of Merlot plus six bottles of white wine, two bottles of red wine, two bottles of Pimms, fifteen small bottles of Stella Artois, eighteen cans of 1664 and a four pack of Carling. Standard Bar-B-Q refreshments.

...Tilt...

FUCK
v. & n. (
vulg.) As in… oh fuck, holy fuck, what the fuck?

We put all of the booze into the dark and silent refrigerator and threw everything else out, leaving us with a cupboard full of tins and various items that would keep for at least another day or two; maybe a week if we were lucky. 

We needed a way to boil water and a safe and practical way to cook...

The camping stove that I had taken from Rinko's garage hissed and spluttered out a pathetic flame before farting itself to death, so I hauled the remaining 25kg bottle of butane up onto my good shoulder and carried it into the kitchen, and after much careful surgery on the opposing hoses, we spliced the two together and bound them with gaffer tape and superglue. We left it for a half hour to bond, as we three bonded over a can of Carling each; then we lit it. The initial flame was immense, so I dialled it down to a whimper and test cooked some baked beans, which we ate with spoons, communally from the pan.

We didn't speak again until we were all sat up stairs. I can't speak for the others, but I was happy to eat my beans in peace. I wasn't even that hungry. But the action of us all gathered around that sauce pan of beans, silently taking it in turns to share our hot victory meal was poignant and at the same time, a little hopeless. But the conversation soon started flowing as soon as I passed around our first joint of the evening.

As is often the case.

Rinko had never smoked weed before, but she was open to experimentation; and Jonny B was a light weight when it came to
Asian Relaxation Techniques
. So we took it slow.

The sun was going down; I closed the curtains, and by the light of a few candles, we got stoned and released the cork of conversation. Primarily, it revolved around our need for a plan. We could stay, gather more food, and make this place bullet proof. There were still a number of cars we could try. Gathering more food would eventually mean straying further from the compound, to cover a wider area of opportunity. We'd be putting ourselves at risk with no guarantee of success. So we ration what we have. We go house to house if necessary, and we stock pile as much food as we can find over the next few days and take pleasure in our one hot daily repast. In the mean time, we fortify this place and equip ourselves for an escape to the country. We would need a vehicle and enough fuel for say, two hundred miles. We had water. For now. We couldn't use or flush the toilet, so we would have to find a means of relieving ourselves that would not stink up the flat. We also needed a way to bathe; because
we do
stink.

The room below the front bedroom, on the ground level; used to be a shop. It's got a big window. If that goes, they could get through the back and down into the workshop. And then into the compound; we need to block the shop off from the workshop.

How do we get enough fuel for a two hundred mile journey?

We siphon it from the abandoned cars.

How do we secure the car park?

We use some cars to barricade the entrance; add obstacles, make it difficult for the fuckers
.

And the boiler cupboard will make a good panic room if, for whatever reason, they get in somehow. At least we can lock ourselves in or get up into the loft before they get up the stairs. We should put some supplies in there.

Good idea. Good weed. Roll another one! Just like the other one.

I cracked open the box of Merlot and proposed a toast; we drank to those we had lost and we drank to our good health and we drank to our continued survival; and we drank to Chief Brody and to Matt Hooper and to Captain Quint and we drank to our legs. The increasingly slurred conversation turned for a while towards the infection and its origins and that feeling of hopelessness returned. We narrowed the source down to the following; man made (the favourite.) An ancient and recently awakened germ or wicked outer space

alien micro organism. After a few more drinks, we came to the understandable conclusion that we will almost certainly never know how this all started. Public Health Officials would obviously get kicked in the balls, and rightly so, for allowing this to happen in the first place.

Or... some military scientist will secretly be awarded a medal for engineering a powerful new bio weapon; and another for successful human trials. What if the whole thing
was
planned or some long over due evolutionary mutation? What if this is it? What if this is happening everywhere? Then we fight on for as long as we can. Damn right we do. It's a brave new world.

“And what will you do with that freedom?” A stoned Jonny B said doing an impersonation of Mel Gibson doing William Wallace. Funny as fuck.

Where is Wallace? Guarding the compound. I'm laughing so much; I hope that's sweat dribbling down my leg.

Rinko gets a coughing fit and passes me the roach. We laugh and quote lines from Withnail & I. I roll another joint, but not quite a Camberwell Carrot. We light another candle. My shoulder is killing me. I roll it to relieve some of the tension and the strangest thing; Rinko gets up, kneels behind me where I'm sat crossed legged on the floor, and starts to give me a massage. Jonny B smiles, snorts and his head lolls back against the sofa, fast asleep. Rinko rubs and kneads my shoulder with her finger tips and whispers in my ear, "Japanese massage is very good..." I close my eyes and have to agree. "Have you ever heard of the Wolf's Dilemma?"

I shake my head; no, what's that I ask.

"You have twenty telephone boxes all standing in a line and you're in one of them. But there's no phone, just a big red

button. All the phone boxes have them. So you're in one, and there are nineteen other people in the other boxes, okay?"

"Okay, I’m with you."

"You have to stand in the telephone box for ten minutes without touching the button. If everyone stands there for ten minutes and no one touches the button, you all get ten grand."

"Sweet..."

"However, the first person to touch the button within those ten minutes gets two and a half grand all to him self, and the rest get nothing; not a bean."

"So if I touch the button, I get two and a half grand, all to myself?"

"Yes..."

"Or I can gamble that no one else will touch the button and we all win ten grand?"

"Yes..."

"Sounds like a kind of an emotion over logic thing?"

"Exactly. I read it... In a book."

"That's very interesting, but why? What's your point? Or are you just stoned?"

"I think you're both stoned and talking bollocks," Jonny B interrupted as he shook himself awake and coughed. "Bloody hell I'm wrecked." Rinko laughed and stood and announced that she was actually very stoned and could she crash out; I said sure and she disappeared into the bedroom. After about ten minutes of silence, Jonny B passed the joint to me and said through a yawn, "So what do you think of Rinko?"

"Well, she saved your sorry ass at least twice today. She's a good little splatter punk."

"Yeah, but what do you think of her?"

"I'm thinking I'm just old enough to be her granddad, as are you."

“But you’re both so skinny! You’re perfect for each other.”

“First of all, we’re not skinny, we’re fit. You’re just used to hanging around with fat people. Or looking in the mirror,” I sniggered through the smoke.

"I think she was coming on to you! All that talk of pushing buttons. Push my big red button; she so horny for you... do you long time."

"Shut the fuck up."

"Only two dollar."

"Shut the fuck up..."

How we laughed.

***