Don't Be Dead- Heartache After The Outbreak Read online

  I scan the crowd, roughly a third appear to be hunters and fighters, easily picked out from the crowd by the way they stand and the way they are dressed, a small group of around eight children, a small group of elderly and a mixture of men and women, more dishevelled, most clothes ill fitting, they look tired and older than they probably are; the workers that keep the camp functioning while the warriors are out being heroes. I wonder if they are happy for their salvation or if I could start an uprising, my disappearance will no doubt be discovered long before a rebellion could take shape though so I sit and wait and hope for a chance to slip through the gates once the meeting is over.

  As I watch I look over the women, a couple of them dressed in what look like home-made nurses uniforms look like they could be attractive if they weren't so worn down, one of them brushes her hair away from her face and it's a face that I recognise, Rachel.

  Rachel ii

  I'm 25, it's August 2004, the beach is busy today and I'm enjoying the sunshine as I walk along the sand eating a Raspberry Split iced lolly. I pass a group of teenagers playing a game, hitting a ball back and forth between them with plastic bats, they have a radio playing, Wonderful Life by Black, I pass a spot where someone has written that they love Diane in the sand using a stick and it triggers something in my brain that gives me an overwhelming undiluted feeling of misery as a childhood memory flashes through my mind but it's gone before I realise what it was a memory of. I have tears in my eyes and the world around me has changed without warning and now all I can see is that I am the only person on this beach that is alone, everybody else is with a partner, a husband, wife, child, pet dog, and it makes me hate them but I hate myself more and drag my foot through the message in the sand as I walk on, leaving the crowds and the beach behind, climbing the stairs to the cliff top. I find a secluded spot and stand at the edge looking down at the waves crashing against the rocks, I think of jumping off, wonder if it would be better to land on the rocks or water, is it better to be smashed unconscious or drown, hitting the ground from this height must be really painful even if it’s only for a second but drowning doesn't seem very pleasant either, I almost drowned once when I was younger, learning to swim, I didn't feel the tranquil calm that I've heard you’re supposed to feel when drowning, just blind panic and the uncomfortable feeling of my lungs filling with more and more water as my large gasps for breath don't find any.

  I watch the sea for ten minutes, my attention drawn to a yacht in the distance. I fantasise about having my own yacht one day, taking some bikini clad hotties out for a trip around the bay, diving into the sea to retrieve some lost treasure from a sunken pirate ship, fighting off a horde of ghost pirates riding sharks, a storm rolls in and I lash down the main brace while the hotties scream and fall overboard and I rescue them with those rings you throw at drowning people and the cold water makes their nipples hard as nails and I hate doing it but I send them all down below into the cabin to get warm while I battle the ocean until the storm passes and all the hotties are impressed and turned on and we fuck until dawn, the rhythmic motion of the sea matching our sex strokes while Slave to Love by Bryan Ferry plays on the radio.

  The yacht full of hotties passes behind the cliff and I turn away from the ocean and head back towards the ice-cream van. As I stand in the queue behind an overweight man in speedos, the angry red pimples covering his back make me feel nauseous and I have to turn away and look out over the promenade, my eyes meet the eyes of a girl sat eating an ice-cream with her friends, I feel my stomach do a little flip as my gaze turns into a stare and I feel like I should look away but I can't seem to do it and she isn't looking away either so I smile and it feels like it’s a stupid smile but she smiles back and I need to go and talk to her but the woman in the queue behind me starts making little annoyed noises and I have to break eye contact with the girl to get a mean glare from the elderly woman who obviously can't wait for her ice-cream and I turn back towards the fat pimple man but he's gone and it's my turn and I say “Sorry” quietly and step up to the window.

  I was going to buy another Raspberry Split but now I'm thinking about a cornet, the girl had a cornet and it's all I can think of to talk to her about if I go over. “Hi, I notice we both like ice-cream, do you want to go out?” It's stupid but I buy a cornet anyway with a flake and raspberry sauce to make up for not having a Raspberry Split. As I walk towards the girl and her friends I start to lose my nerve, she's talking to her friends again now and I really don't want to start trying to chat her up with lines about ice-cream in front of a crowd but as I get closer and she goes for another lick our eyes meet again and I forget how to walk and every step feels awkward and I wonder if I look as stupid as I feel and a seagull swoops down and snatches the ice-cream from her hand but it's too heavy for the greedy bird and it drops to the floor and she looks shocked but I laugh and then she starts laughing too. I'm close enough to her now to offer her a lick of mine but as I hold it forward for her I tilt it a little bit too much and the ball of ice-cream rolls off the cone onto the floor and we are both left holding dry wafer cones but it gives me a chance to offer to buy her another and she comes to the van with me and we talk and her name is Rachel.

  I’m 27, it’s December 2006 and I'm watching Rachel leave the town meeting hand in hand with Brad. I melt into the groups of people as they walk back towards the camp, snatches of conversation inform me that the next mission is leaving straight away, they've received news that there are people holed up nearby in need of rescue, I don't care about that but it's my chance to get out of here and I duck into a supply tent leaving the townsfolk to go back to their routines.

  I peer through the tent flaps until I see the soldiers grabbing a weapon from a bench and boarding one of the camper vans, I trot over to the back of the queue, grab a weapon of my own and climb aboard making sure to avoid Brad's van, I pull my hat down low and glance around at the other passengers travelling with me, five other men, talking amongst themselves, one other driving and in the passenger seat sits one of the nurses, it's not Rachel but I can't help looking over at the other van to see if Rachel is travelling with Brad; she is. I can't decide if this complicates things or not, do I want to try and win her back? Do I want to get an answer for my list from her? Getting chance to talk to her while Brad is around seems unlikely though so I decide to just play it by ear, getting away from everybody is my main priority so I have to make sure I get away the first opportunity I get regardless of whether I talk to Rachel or not.

  I spend the journey looking out of the window, turned away from the rest of the men as much as I can, scared that one of them might recognise me even though none of them look familiar, Brad must keep his cronies with him in the other van.

  The vans wind through the streets of a small village, rustic looking farmhouses, narrow roads, only wide enough for one lane in most parts, the infected lurk in alleyways and gardens and lurch out towards the road as we pass by. The driver calls out “Alright we're here, let's go people!” and jumps out slamming the door behind him, the back door is opened and the rest of the men file out; the nurse stays in her seat. I look over at the ignition, the keys are still in, I hesitate a second too long and one of the other soldiers shouts at me to hurry up and I have to follow them towards the main group, Brad is shouting orders and pointing at various corners that need defending and then points up at the top of the church tower where a group of women are calling down to us and waving just in case we don't know they are there but we do and I can't help thinking that we wouldn't have rushed out here so fast if it was a small group of men up there. Most of the men have been sent to various strategic positions and are currently protecting us from the infected that are now heading towards the church. Brad is still giving orders

  “The rest of us are heading inside, kill any and all infected in the main room while I ascend the tower and rescue the hostages.”

  The way he talks makes me want to laugh and I can't help thinking that the women aren't really being held hostag
e they are just trapped and defenceless and it's completely obvious that he wants to be the one to actually lead them to safety so he can be their hero and fuck any and all of them when he gets them back to camp. I wonder what Rachel thinks of this, does she even realise what's going on?

  As Brad kicks the door open and one by one the soldiers run past him inside, Brad pats them on the shoulder and shouts “Go!” He gets a confused look on his face as I file past him but by the time he realises who I am it's too late and he just has to go along with it because I'm inside the church now and there's a large group of elderly infected filling the pews. We wade into them swinging our bladed stick weapons, decapitating, spearing and slicing them up as Brad heads up the tower. Once he's out of sight I start backing towards the door until finally turning and running back outside, closing the door behind me and wheeling over the dumpster from nearby, applying the brakes to the wheels, blocking their exit. Then I run towards the VW camper, the one with Rachel in it, I jump in and start the engine, Rachel looks shocked, hasn't realised it's me yet, probably thinks I'm dead.

  “Rachel it's me, Dan, we're getting out of here, I'll explain on the way.” She doesn't know how to react, why we're getting out of here, thinks the plan must have gone wrong and we got overrun, just says “What the fuck?” like she can't process what's happening fast enough for a better response. The church window explodes outwards as Brad jumps through it, spots me and points and shouts something that I can't hear but can guess at. I throw the van into gear and accelerate away, as we near Brad I put my arm around Rachel’s shoulder “see how you like it Brad!” But Brad probably doesn't get the joke as he's just thinking how he can stop me and he's pulling a gun out from behind his back, it must have been tucked into his waistband, and he points it straight at my head causing me to duck to the side and accelerate even more and as I duck the wheel turns in my hands and Rachel screams as we hit Brad and the back wheels crush his legs and one of his arms but his blade punctures the tyre causing the van to swerve violently again. I sit back up straight, narrowly avoid the side of the church and speed down the lane leading away from the church, away from the rest of the soldiers that are now all running around in disarray when they should still be focussing on the infected and I hope the women have run back up the tower again to wait for another band of rescuers as I see the soldiers getting taken down by the infected behind me.

  Rachel's screaming at me “What the fuck's going on Dan, we've got to go back for Brad, why are you here? Why was Brad pointing a gun at you? Stop the car!”

  “I can't st..” she doesn’t let me finish

  “STOP THE CAR!” Her hands punch and slap at me and she grabs the wheel and I have to push her away before she makes us crash.

  “I can't stop the car, we've got to get away from them. Did you fight like this to make them go back for me when you left me at my parent’s house, when I needed you the most you were sat in the back of this van with Brad's arm around you!”

  “What? Yes, yes I did tell them to go back for you but I didn't know what was happening back then, everyone was turning against each other, eating each other, I would have been infected if Brad and the others hadn't come along and saved me. We came back to look for you the next day once we'd had chance to think, figure out what was going on, but you were gone. How did you find me? Have you been looking for me this whole time?”

  I contemplate lying, telling her I haven't stopped looking for her, see where that takes me but if she catches me in a lie it will make her doubt what I tell her about Brad and the others and she needs to believe that.

  “I didn't find you, Brad found me and brought me back to your camp yesterday.”

  She interrupts before I can continue “You were at the camp, why didn't I see you, new arrivals are usually introduced to everyone.”

  “Because I was lied to and got the shit kicked out of me by your fucking Brad and left locked in a hut, waiting to be tortured or killed for all I know, lucky for us I escaped.”

  “Lucky for us? I was happy there, I'm going back there, you're coming with me, we can sort things out.”

  “You're not listening to me, those people are dangerous, rapists, murderers, thieves; they're using people that they rescue as slaves!”

  “Everybody is grateful to be there, they want to help out, Brad protects us!”

  I'm about to protest some more when I see the other camper van in the rear-view, shit! They decided to come after me, I was hoping the infected would keep them busy. I floor the accelerator but the flat rear tyre, the fact that the roads are too narrow and winding to go fast for long, having to slow for sharp bends and steep rises and also the obvious fact that the guy driving the other van seems to be better than me all adds up to them gaining on us fast. Rachel keeps telling me to stop but she's crazy, if I stop I'm dead, you don't chase someone that ran over your friend for miles on half a tank of hard to find petrol if you want to just take them back to camp to work things out.

  They close in and I can count them, three in total, crowding the windscreen, hungry for blood. I know I can't outrun them, my only chance now is to make them crash so I brake slightly, allowing them to pull alongside us and then sharply pull the wheel to the left, the front end scrapes along the side of their van but seems to cause me more problems than them as I struggle to keep control. They hit me back and we push against each other for a while, I risk a glance to the side and notice that one of them has a gun, possibly Brad’s, I shout at Rachel to get down a fraction of a second too late as I'm startled by the bang and showered with glass and blood as Rachel slumps against me. I try to concentrate on driving and don't check if Rachel is dead, another bang; I slam on the brakes and swerve into their back end as they pass, they spin out of control and I see their van roll as I crash through a small stone wall and plummet down the hillside, the brakes are doing nothing, I pump them, I push them as hard as I can, I try the handbrake, but the grass beneath the wheels is too slick and I have absolutely no control as the van starts to slowly spin to one side until it's horizontal and then it flips and we're rolling too. I close my eyes and wrap my arms around my head and wait for it all to stop but it seems to keep rolling and rolling until eventually I'm upside down in a stream wondering if I need to get out and run because I can't be sure if cars explode or not when this kind of thing happens. I undo my seatbelt and fall to the roof, the water isn't deep and actually feels quite nice in a way, I look around for Rachel but I can't find her and I wonder if she's actually ok and she's already got out but I'm covered in her blood so it's hard to keep believing that as I rub my hands together in the water, try to get as much of her off as I can. Figures appear at the top of the hill, looking down at the wreckage, pointing, shouting something and then they are coming so I grab my bag and run through the stream and into the woods on the other side. My feet are wet and my shoes don't quite fit properly and running is causing my feet to rub and blister and they get so sore that it hurts but I can't stop and I'm jumping over fallen logs and bursting through the undergrowth; occasionally I'll pass an infected hiker or camper but I'm away before they have time to react, I push a rambler to the ground and check his shoe size but they are too small so I carry on running until I reach a road and then I finally stop and look around and try to catch my breath. The air is cold and my chest hurts and my gums ache and I feel sick. I need to get back on track to London and that means I need a car, again. Some dry clothes would be nice too and shoes that fit.

  I walk for hours, checking over my shoulder every few steps to make sure they haven't caught up with me, if they are still coming. I'm barefoot now, the ill-fitting shoes, soaking wet, were rubbing the skin raw around my heels and toes and although the road is painfully cold to walk on and I seem to be finding every loose stone and sharp object there is as I walk along the asphalt it's still preferable to those shoes, they dangle around my neck, tied together by the laces.

  An hour before nightfall I climb inside the wreck of a blue Ford Focus Estate, 0 to 60 in 1
0.4 seconds when it still worked, the front end is crumpled to half its original size against a stone wall that separates the road from the fields beyond. I curl up, feet wrapped up in as many layers of clothes as I have and eventually I find sleep.

  I'm in my house, I live with a girl from Mexico, we're in love, there's a knock at the door and Esther from work is outside in the dark, Cecilia, my Mexican girlfriend, opens the door and lets her in.

  “Your boyfriend is cheating on you,” Esther says “I saw him kissing another girl from work in a bar last night.”

  Cecilia starts to cry and turns to me with a wounded look, tearful eyes with a ball of hate swimming beneath the surface. A zombie walks into the room, I'm not scared because it's one of my ex-girlfriends, another ex-girlfriend zombie follows; I start to push them back out of the door, herding them. I lock the door as I turn to go back into the lounge but more ex-girlfriend zombies are making their way into the kitchen towards me, coming in through the patio doors (when did the patio doors get opened?) I'm still not scared but I feel like things could go bad any minute and herd this latest group back out of the patio doors and lock them out. Movement reflected in the glass catches my eye and I turn to find more ex-girlfriend zombies walking toward me and now I'm scared because this is all just too weird and as I push them away more appear from behind me and start to drag me down to the ground and I scream and shout but Esther and Cecilia have gone and there's only me and my undead ex's.