I Dream of Zombies (20 page)

“Really? I used to think that you might!”

“Ha bloody ha,” he responded, feeling the gun in his jean pocket as he got out of the jeep.

Marla followed, grasping her weapon as she pushed the door closed, careful not to make a sound. She glanced at the dog, almost praying that he would stay quiet. The Labrador had his head on Angelica’s lap and the two girls seemed quite taken with him. Therapeutic nature of animals, she thought, as she stepped away from the vehicle to perform a full-circle survey of the area. The scenery was still, apart from the breeze and undulating birdsong, which just did not fit. That rhythmic sound was just too surreal.
Normality breaking into this nightmare.
Leaning against the jeep, she watched Tommy fill up the tank.

Ellen cracked open the door. “Can I get something from the shop?”

“Like what?” Marla asked.

“Something for Angelica.
..”

“We have everything,” Marla replied.

“Not this. We need a pharmacy. She’s diabetic.”

“
Shit,” muttered Marla under her breath. “Okay, get out. We’ll see if it’s safe.”

Ellen closed the door and walked around
to Tommy. “Need to get stuff... she’s diabetic.”

He finished what he was doing and replaced the hand pump.
Rubbing his hands together, he looked at the two sisters. “Guess we need a pharmacy then.”

“There will be one inside,” said Ellen. “Usually, there’s a newsagent, restaurant
, pharmacy, a games place and probably another cafe, and toilet blocks. All these Rest Up places are the same. I know that from working in one to get through college. Angelica and Joanna left everything behind. They saw we were going and just ran – didn’t think first.”

Tommy nodded.
“Guess they were scared.” Opening the nearest passenger door, he told the two girls and Devan, “We’ll be back in a short while.” He then headed towards the building, followed by Marla and Ellen.

“She told me what it looks like,” Ellen whispered. “I can get it.”

Tommy nodded as he took in his surroundings. He did not like this one bit. After checking the area in front of the building, he strode up to the entrance, but it didn’t open automatically. “I think I’m going to have to smash it.”

“Let’s look for a window first,” suggested Marla. “Quieter.”

He nodded and led the way. All of the windows were either closed or did not open because of there being air-conditioning inside. They walked down the side and found one ajar.

“I think it leads to the toilet,” said Marla, “but even Ellen
won’t fit through.”

Tommy sighed and walked further along to where some
thick bushes grew. He squeezed between them and the wall, and glanced around the next corner. The area was clear, so he crept forward, leading them all to the back of the building. They checked every door, but found them all locked. “We’re going to have to break glass to get in,” he insisted in the end. “What do you think, back or front?”

Marla thought about it. “Front – it’s easier to run to the car.”

“Also, I’ve been in these places and the route at the front is going to be easier. Who knows what’s at the back – might be the kitchens,” added Ellen.

“Good point,” Tommy replied, and he led the way back from
whence they came. After scanning the immediate area, he picked up a brick and smashed the glass door at the front. He expected an alarm to shoot off, but there was silence.

“I guess people
abandoned this place,” said Marla, as though reading his thoughts.

“Yeah, that’s not a good sign.
”

“Let’s wait a minute to see if the sound brings anyone or anything.”

After five minutes of inaction, Tommy led the way inside, stepping over the pile of broken glass. “Careful,” he whispered to Ellen.

The girl
nodded. Normally she would have been amused by his brotherly attitude, but fear had flattened her sense of humour. Ellen followed behind Tommy, being sure not to crunch the glass with her feet. She gripped the Glock her sister had given her, although she had no idea if she would actually be brave enough to use it in the event. Remembering what happened by the garages outside the pub, she doubted it.

Tommy led the way, passing signs for the toilets and a cafeteria.
Ellen followed and Marla kept close behind her, checking each and every direction for any movement or shadow flickering along the walls. The next store was full of game machines and that was strange, because instead of the peel of music and flash of multi-coloured lights, all was still. When the corridor veered off to the left, Tommy waved the girls back while he peeked around the corner. Seeing nothing, he carried on with them trailing close behind.

The next store opened up:
a pharmacy. Relieved, Tommy strode in between the cosmetics racks, shampoos and hair dye, and towards the back where a sign saying ‘Prescriptions’ loitered over a clean, white counter. He stopped in front of it and gestured to Ellen to check for the items she needed. Turning around, Marla ran her fingers over the lipsticks and took a couple, along with some mascara, before turning towards the women’s section. You never know, she thought. Then she headed for the tissues and put a stack of them in her bag, followed by painkillers and eye drops, cotton wool, plasters, antiseptic, cleanser and various other items.

“Stealing th
e whole shop, Marla?” Tommy teased.

A smirk
curled her lips. “Why not? I’ve been a good girl most of my life and I can’t see a store detective.”

He
grinned, but then it was wiped clean off his face in a flash by the decrepit thing creeping towards the prescriptions counter. It leered through one eye, the other slipping down towards its rotting chin, dangling as though suspended on a piece of string. Whisking his knife out of his pocket, Tommy ran towards the spot where Ellen was busy removing items from a shelf. Hearing him, she spun around and screamed. It was instinctive and as soon as she’d done it, fear slid over her like the wind rippling the surface of a lake.

Backing away,
Ellen stumbled over something and lost her footing, plummeting backwards on to the floor. The thing hovered above her, blood and bile dripping from its bloody gob, which it could not close, the bottom lip having been ripped off. Trying not to scream again, Ellen scrambled to her feet just as Tommy sank his knife into the back of the thing’s head. She saw what looked like the steely point of it exit through the creature’s forehead, but then she realised it was bone. For some reason, her mind was trying to explain to her exactly what it was. Disgust smacked her like a wave and she heaved, but there was nothing in her stomach to empty. On her feet, Ellen grabbed the basket of items she’d gathered and poured them into a plastic bag. Determined not to look at the corpse on the floor, she pushed the bag across the counter and heaved her body up on top of it. She slid off the other side on to the floor and into the arms of Marla.

“You okay?” her sister breathed, panic written all over her face.

Ellen nodded.

“We shouldn’t have come here...”

“I got everything,” Ellen replied, holding the bag up. “It’s important.”

Marla nodded, but
she did not value a stranger’s life on a level with her sister’s; it was a feeling she could not help. Tommy stepped up to them, gun in one hand and the bloody knife in the other. Marla caught sight of it and he wiped it on the nearest thing, before lowering it where Ellen couldn’t see. “We have to get out of here,” he urged.

“Yes!”
Marla agreed, as if he’d stated the most obvious fact in the world. As surely as the sun rose every morning, it was best to leave now. She walked ahead, protecting Ellen who was visibly shaking, although she could see that her sister was doing her best to keep it together. Tommy checked behind them as they made their way out of the pharmacy and into the main passageway of the store. A line of shadows awaited them, stretching from one wall to the other.

“Hell!” gasped Marla, side-stepping insti
nctively in front of Ellen whose breathing increased. Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted the way was clear and turned, grabbing her sister’s right hand with her left before starting to run. Tommy went with them as the passage eeled its way around, past another cafe and a bookshop. Ellen skidded as they sprinted and Marla let go of her hand so that she could balance.

“I’m o
-okay,” Ellen mumbled between intakes of air.

Marla
peered behind. The dead were following, slow but sure. She glanced at Tommy. Dread was emblazoned on his face.
What lay further on?
Somehow she knew it was going to be an inevitable dead end, but she hoped anyway. When they passed a newsagent, Ellen skidded to a stop and pointed. “It cuts t-through,” she gasped, catching her breath. “E-exit!”

Tommy nodded
as the two girls charged into the shop, straight between the shelves of magazines and towards the other side. After ascertaining how far back their malevolent hunters were, he followed swiftly, but then winced as he saw more freaks coming from the other side. Marla and Ellen stopped abruptly, turning their heads from side to side in a bid to judge the best means of escape.

Marla
whipped out her Glock and shot the first dead-lookers in front of her while Tommy aimed at those approaching from the rear. Three dropped. Ellen stared at the steel contraption in her right hand, which felt cold. It was so heavy, she couldn’t lift it.
Just won’t rise.
The gun felt alien in her palm; it did not belong. Glancing between Tommy and Marla, Ellen wished she could help them, but she felt bolted to the floor, her arms hanging lifeless and bulky. She let the carrier bag slide away. Her breath stuck in her throat and she felt strangely detached, as though she was no longer in her body, but somewhere else; a safe place where there were no splashes of blood.

Gunfire sounded in the distance. Marla glanced at Tommy, who shrugged. She continued to fire as the dead dropped one at a time, but they were getting closer and there were too many of them. Marla paused to reload,
giving the enemy time to steal more space in the store. Looking up, she saw the rancid tide sweeping in and she took down the nearest four. Behind her she heard Tommy reload. The silence in between their gunfire unnerved her, and she only felt safe when she was listening to shots again.

The
crack of bullets continued elsewhere in the complex. Groans filled the air; unearthly cries from another realm almost, not of this world. Marla fired. The mass of bodies seemed to be thinning out. She could hear corpses falling at the back, but it was not her gun taking them down.

Ellen turned
slowly in a circle, taking in what was happening without actually seeing it. Is this what shock feels like, she asked herself, feeling numb throughout her body as her heart pounded in the hollow of her ribcage. Her fingers began to tremble, her hands clenching and unclenching themselves. Released, the gun slammed to the floor. The rattle brought her senses back to the present moment. She was here, they were fighting, and she was doing nothing. Wiping a tear from her eye, Ellen bent down slowly to pick up the weapon, yet she found herself unable to straighten up again. She remained crouched. Marla’s boots looked fixed to the spot as though her legs were growing out of the ground. Ellen stared, mesmerised by them. White noise filled her ears and she closed her eyes.

“Someone’
s shooting near the entrance,” Tommy remarked, noticing the number of freaks declining.

“I know,” Marla replied
as she reloaded, “but I’m going to be out of bullets soon.”

“
Aye. Me too,” Tommy agreed. “Do you have a knife?”

“Yes, as much good as that’s gonna do
me.”

Firing a few more shots, he silently prayed, like never before. Glancing around
the store, he noticed something on the counter to the side. “Ellen?” he said. There was no reply. Turning, he realised she was crouched on the ground. “Ellen!” he called out again, but louder.

The girl jolted out of her reverie and
glanced up, fear drawn across her face, her eyes staring wide. “What?”

“I’m nearly out of bullets,
” Tommy stated.

“
Take mine,” she offered.

“See that counter
over there?” he asked, pointing.

She nodded.

“It’s safe to get there. I can see lighters. See them?”

She nodded again.

“Get me some, along with a pile of magazines and newspapers.”

Adrenalin kicked in. Ellen jumped up and raced across the store while her sister and Tommy tried to
keep back the unrelenting hoard. Grabbing everything he had requested, she hurried back and dumped them at his feet.

“Good,” he said. “Now, listen carefully. Light the end of
one of those magazines and hand it to me. Got it?”

Ellen did as she was told.

“Give me it.”

Trembling
, she held out the rolled magazine that was beginning to burn at the end. Tommy stuck the nearly spent SIG Sauer in his pocket and crept forward, waving the flaming paper at the group of about a dozen freaks. To his astonishment they did not react and kept coming. They lacked the fear of fire that was a basic reaction for most animals. Frowning in frustration, Tommy threw the magazine at them. It struck the first body whose clothes caught fire. He watched in bewilderment as the creature still showed no reaction at all. Fucking rancid freaks, he thought, as Ellen handed him another magazine. He lobbed it, catching another figure alight. The flames spread from one living corpse to the next, yet they kept walking as the skin on their faces flickered, exposing the bone beneath.