Fever (Flu) (25 page)

Something stepped out from the shade, and Martin fired immediately, his shaking hands upsetting his normally good aim to clip the thing’s shoulder. It fell back with the impact, lying for some moments before getting up again. Its arm was hanging by sinews, blood rushing from the wound.

“Jesus Christ,” Martin muttered, just as yet another one stepped into view to his left.

He raised the gun, before realising it was empty. He brought his aim down.

Several other bodies were closing in on him from the right, their infernal sniffs and grunts loud and obnoxious. Martin swore loudly.

Damn stupid coming out like this! What was he thinking?!

He turned tail and ran back towards the garage, stooping under the partially opened door. He rested the gun against the wall. Closed the door down quickly. Locked it, his jittering hands struggling with the mechanism, then checking twice to make sure it was tight.

Martin lifted his gun again, moved through the garage, into the kitchen, pausing to lock the door leading to the garage from the inside. He stared at the locked door, decided to lean a chair from the table against the door handle.

He moved past Shaun, taking Jamie by the hand and leading him upstairs to Lize. The child started to weep, running to the arms of his mother, Lize’s own eyes damp as she embraced him.

“Close the blinds,” Martin said to Lize, moving to his own bedroom where he did the same. He came back into the hallway. “We need to be quiet. They’ll move on if they forget we’re here. They always do.”

“What’s happening?” It was Shaun, coming up the stairs, his voice loud in the enforced silence.

“Shut him up!” Martin half-whispered to Lize.

He was on the floor now, beckoning to everyone else to do likewise and lie low. Both hands still clutched the rifle.

“Shaun, there’s more of them out there,” Lize cried.

Shaun moved to the window, looking down upon the road at the front of the house.

Martin looked to Lize, his face incredulous and panicked, “Tell him to get out of sight!”

Lize left Jamie and went to Shaun, tugging on his arm. “Get down! Daddy says to get down!”

Shaun shook his wife’s hand away. How dare she treat him like that in front of the boy? How dare she talk down to him, talk to him like he was a—

He remembered a family day out, when Jamie was very little. They’d gone to the park. Fed the ducks, played on the swings—did all the things a child liked to do in front of his parents and grandpa. Shaun went to buy some ice cream for them all. He’d come out to see Martin talking to Lize.

“Why did you have to marry that—?” he’d been saying.

That what? That dummy? That spastic?

And the worst of it was Lize just accepted it. Let that bastard talk like that about her husband.

Shaun’s inner pop psychologist wasn’t stretched to guess the reasons why, of course—entering this world by taking the life of her mother was bound to take its toll on a girl. The doctors called it a miracle birth but for Lize, it was more of a curse.

Maybe that’s why she’d had the affair.

They still hadn’t talked about it. Yet in the heat of this moment, the image of the photo he found in Lize’s travel bag came back to him. The words scribbled in the card, with the Eiffel Tower on the front, now ingrained within Shaun’s memory:

Love always...

Alan

And then it suddenly clicked as to why Shaun had recognised the dead man walking in that lab footage they’d been playing, over and over again before the TV shut down. It was the man from the picture. The man his wife was having an affair with... he was sure of it!

Lize went to tug his arm but Shaun shook her off.

“Alan,” he said to her. “The man you were seeing behind my back. Where did you meet him?”

Her face creased in disbelief. “
What?
”

“Where did you meet him!” He was shouting now. He watched as Jamie leaned in closer to his mum.

“What does any of that matter now?” Lize protested. “Shaun, please. You’re scaring the child. And you’re shouting! And those things—”

“Your Alan is one of
those things
,” Shaun cut in. “He was on that video footage. He attacked the doctor, and they cut his head—”

“Don’t,” Lize cut in. “Please, Shaun. Not now.”

“Why not?! What was it about him? Go on, I want to know.”

Martin rose to his feet, faced Shaun. “Shut up,” he said. “Shut up, or I swear to God I will
shut you up
.”

Shaun stared at him. “Have a go then, old man. See how far it gets you.”

Lize looked at Shaun incredulously. “Why are you doing this?” she asked him. “
Why?
”

Why indeed?
Shaun mused.

Was it because this was the end, their swan song, and they needed to talk this thing out? Or maybe he’d just had enough: all that pent up rage due to blow any day. Being locked up with a cunt like Martin for weeks only sped up the process.

Martin went to grab Shaun, but the younger man pushed him away.

He went to follow through, but Martin’s gaze moved to the window, his attention suddenly drawn away from Shaun’s angry glare.

Shaun looked to Lize and Jamie, both of them looking similarly spooked.

“What is it?” he asked, shaking the older man by the collar. “Tell me!”

Martin turned, looked him square in the face.

“I think they’ve broken into the house,” he said.

“The kitchen,” Lize said.

Martin looked to Shaun. There was fear in the other man’s eyes.

He pulled away from Shaun, went to move, but Shaun grabbed him again.

Martin looked up.

“I can help,” Shaun said to him.

Martin seemed to think on that for a while and then nodded.

Shaun released him.

Martin unsheathed the knife from his belt. Checked the blade. Handed it to Shaun.

He grabbed the gun.

Both men went to go down the stairs, but Martin hesitated, looked at the gun before setting it against the wall.

“What are you doing? You’re going to need that!” Shaun said.

“Empty,” Martin replied, his voice raised.

They descended the stairs, Shaun letting Martin go first, despite being unarmed.

They reached the hallway.

Martin reached for the living room door. Nodded to Shaun then opened it.

Shaun was first through the door, his knife ready. In the corner he noticed Fred, the dog barking angrily at the dining room door.

Martin followed him in, the older man’s eyes searching the room.

He called to Fred, and the dog wagged his tail enthusiastically but continued barking.

Shaun grabbed Fred by the collar, pulling him back. “Go on,” he said. “Get out of here.” But the dog wasn’t for moving, struggling back towards the door.

“Leave him,” Martin said.

The old man’s eyes were drawn to the fireplace, finding a brass poker discarded in the ashes. He grabbed it, weighing it up in his hands. Looked to Shaun, then to the dining room door, and nodded.

Shaun reached for the door handle, pulling it open.

He stepped back, looked through the doorway.

The kitchen was jammed full of the dead. Through the dense crowd and plague of flies filling the air like smoke, Shaun noticed the back door hanging off its hinges.

“Fuck!” the younger man said.

He turned the knife in his hands, wondering just what the hell he was going to do with it.

Fred acted first, leaping into the crowd, snarling. Martin was next.

As one of the dead struggled to make sense of the vicious dog, the older man grabbed it by the collar, pulling it through the door with one hand and then bringing the poker down across its head with the other.

It reacted, eyes alert, reaching for Martin, but the old man was quick, turning the poker skilfully then ramming it through the dead thing’s open mouth, pinning it against the dining room wall. He held it there, the creature’s arms flailing, trying to grab hold of its attacker.

“Do something!” Martin yelled at Shaun.

Shaun stepped forward, taking the knife and jamming it into the dead man’s left eye. Through gritted teeth, he watched the thing scream as he twisted the blade deeper, blood and flesh spitting out from the wound, Martin still holding the creature firm with the poker. Finally, its hands fell by its side, and Martin released it, allowing the body to fall to the floor.

Another two were on them immediately, lunging from the kitchen, arms reaching aimlessly.

Shaun wasn’t ready for them. His knife was on the floor, still buried in the first cadaver’s eye. He grabbed his attacker by the shoulders, fought to keep its snapping jaws from his face.

Martin stepped back, busting his attacker’s head wide open with his first swing then finishing the job with his second.

Shaun called out for help, all the while struggling to keep his attacker’s rotten teeth at arm’s length.

Martin brought the poker down heavy on the thing’s head, splitting it like an overripe melon, blood soaking the younger man as he turned his face away.

The blood was in his eyes. Shaun couldn’t see. Silence rang as ever in his head.

His sense of smell was all he had now, the fetid breath of his attacker replaced by the overpowering stench of the whole damn pack.

Shaun was terrified, heart almost exploding from his chest.

Both arms shot out, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He staggered about like an old drunk, eyes still smarting, squeezed tight against the contaminating blood. He struggled against the onslaught of flies, swarming around his face, nose and mouth. He tried to catch his breath despite the obnoxious invasion clogging his airways.

Tears ran down his face, diluting the blood. Shaun opened one eye, just in time to dodge the affections of a rather scantly-clad girl, lipstick and blood spread across her face like jam.

She reached again for him, baring her teeth, the perfectly aligned veneers chomping down.

But Martin brought her flirtations to an end, swinging the brass poker down hard on her once pretty head, spilling her brains against the dining room wall.

The old man grabbed Shaun, shook him.

“Get it together!” he yelled. “I need you!”

Shaun nodded.

He looked back to the kitchen spotting Fred ripping at the throat of a felled cadaver, his tail wagging.

But still they came, driving once more through the dining room doorway. And still Martin battled, smashing through their mass with his poker, spreading blood and bile and brain alike, steadying himself and then striking again.

“I’ve no weapon!” Shaun yelled, but that wasn’t enough for a man like Martin.

“Your fists,” came his reply.

Shaun clenched his teeth, stepped forward, belting the nearest of the pack, following through with a left hook, sweeping the thing from its feet.

Martin finished the job, spearing the felled cadaver with the poker.

The older man was tiring, his hands shaking with exhaustion, sweat lashing off his face. But this was no time to stop. They needed to beat their way through to the back door, secure it. Despite the odds stacked heavily against them.

Just when Shaun thought all was lost, a hand fell against his shoulder. He looked around, finding Lize. “Get out of the way!” she screamed.

Both men moved.

Fred looked up at her voice, spotted the gun then made himself scarce.

Lize fired, her first blast ripping into the chest of an approaching dead man. Her second shot, equally as cavalier as the first, took the head off the next cadaver, spreading it across his undead mates.

She looked to her father, smiled.

“I found another box of shells in the spare room,” she said.

Martin patted her back. “Let
us
finish it,” he said, looking to Shaun.

Lize stepped back obediently.

Martin rushed the remaining dead, his poker swinging. Fred followed suit, reappearing from whatever hiding place he’d found, tugging at one of the dead men’s legs, another tripping over him, sprawling across the kitchen floor.

Their numbers were seriously depleted.

Shaun spotted the first one he’d felled, unsheathed his knife from its eye then jumped into the action, slicing a confused looking woman’s throat with his first swing, finishing her with his second.

They were winning.

But then he saw Jamie.

His son was somehow in the kitchen.

His mother reached for the boy, screaming, but Jamie was too quick, heading for the back door, trying to push it closed.

Martin went to help secure it, but a sudden grab from one of the few remaining dead connected, the damn thing’s mouth curling around the boy’s hand.

“No!” Shaun screamed.

6th August

The three remaining survivors at Martin’s house sat around the kitchen table. Not a single word had been spoken for over an hour. Each of them had cried, sometimes on their own, sometimes together, the hollow sounds of their sobs all but mirroring the low moans from outside.

The dead were brutally persistent, still pushing and beating and crying against the back door even now, despite the heartache they had already caused.

Inside, the corpses of their slain brothers and sisters remained on the floor where they’d fallen. After twenty-four hours in their company, the place reeked of their infection, but none of the survivors had the stomach to move them.

Shaun slammed his fist on the table.

“Fuck!” he yelled, fresh tears breaking from his eyes. He still couldn’t believe it. Jamie—
his only son, for Christ’s sake
—had been quarantined. It was too dangerous for him to remain among them. He could turn at any time, day or night, so they’d been left with no choice but to lock the boy in the garage. They were to leave him to die in there alone. And that didn’t seem right.

He was still alive. Shaun could hear him crying even now.

It wasn’t fair.

Sure, the risks to all of their lives were obvious, but Jamie seemed somehow exempt to Shaun. Immune, even. But when the dead broke into the house and Jamie—
his little soldier—
tried to help repel them...