I looked over Danny’s body for the final time. His black boots had thick divots of mud on the toes, the shins smeared and mucky, and his leather trousers were in the same state. The loose waistband had trapped a huge clump of wet, brown earth. His stomach was concave and slight, every single one of his ribs visible through the pale skin. There were no chest muscles to speak of anymore and his left arm was nothing more than skin wrapped tightly around bone. His right arm was no longer there. Only a few inches of the upper arm remained, the skin around it hacked and blackened where whatever blood left in the system had congealed. Smears of mud ran in patches along his skin. The jaw hung slack and loose from when I had been forced to dislocate it and then I simply could not look anymore. This wasn’t my brother. This was a shell in which I thought I could find the lost remnants of the boy who was my best friend, who was my family. My tears fell onto the body as I stood over him.
I laid Danny in the open grave that same night.
Using the banister, I dragged myself up the stairs. I would shower and at least lay down on the bed; even if I couldn’t sleep it would ease the muscles that were currently screaming at me. My hands had blistered again and they had burst. My palms burnt and stung and the skin was raw. I should have gone straight to my room, to the hot shower that my body was desperately craving. But instead my feet led me to Danny’s door.
I turned the handle and pushed the door inwards. Even in the darkness I could see his computer, his shelves, his books and movies. I could see
him
. I stepped inside. The television screen mounted on the wall reflected someone I didn’t know, someone I did not want to know. I stepped towards it and with both hands, ripped it from the wall. It landed with a crash that made me fall back from it. I then systematically dragged his bookshelves to the floor, casting DVD boxes, CDs and novels across the carpet.
A sound stopped me; a deep, resonant scream that terrified me. Then I realised it was me.
The energy sagged from my body and I felt sick. I was crying again as I backed out of Danny’s room and closed his door; only it wasn’t Danny’s room anymore and it never would be again.
My head hurt far more than my back or my hands. The bedside lamp had burnt all night, but now the sun forced its way into my room around the edges of the curtains. I lay naked under the duvet, having shed my shorts and rugby shirt when I’d taken a hot and then a freezing cold shower before falling backwards onto the bed. At some point I must have dragged the covers over me, but I’d shivered all through the night. Even though I could sense the heat under the duvet, the time spent out in the rain and the task I’d finally undertaken had robbed me of any internal warmth.
Acid, brought on by the alcohol, burnt a hole in my stomach. Sitting up was difficult and my lower back screamed at me just to lie down and stretch out. Instead I pushed myself to my feet, the effort making my head spin, and walked with a limp to the bathroom. I cleaned my teeth and rinsed my mouth out. Had I been sick during the night? I wouldn’t have been surprised.
I grabbed the towel off the rail and wiped my mouth, letting it fall to the floor when I was finished. Despite how cold I felt, my body, with such little exertion, had broken out in a thin sheen of sweat and I probably needed another shower. That could wait. Another half an hour in the garden and all of this would, physically at least, be behind me.
I stepped gingerly back into the bedroom, slid the wardrobe open and selected a pair of grey jogging trousers, possibly worn by either Susan or Claire when Danny and I had brought them back here, and a light blue Nike sweatshirt. I threw both onto the bed and rooted around in my bedside drawer for clean socks and underwear.
Getting dressed was a slow and uncomfortable process. Every bit of friction against my hands stung; each lean forward to pull on clothing made already strained muscles tighten and jump under my skin, especially when I put on my socks and trainers. With a final effort, I drew the sweatshirt over my head, my left shoulder particularly sore. I pulled the curtains open, letting the sunshine fully invade my room.
It was not my best move, as the light cut straight through my eyes into my brain, making it bang even harder around in my skull. I blinked a few times and made a mental note that the gate needed to be closed before I finished filling in Danny’s grave. I turned away from the window, switched off the bedside lamp and left.
* * *
I stood at the back door for almost twenty minutes without opening it, my forehead against the cool glass. I finally unlocked the door and stepped out onto the shaded decking. Squinting already, my eyes were drawn to the far right-hand corner where the recent guest to the garden, the little black and white cat, crouched on top of the wall, staring over towards the shed. I followed its gaze across the grass, over the pond, to the hole I’d dug and buried my brother in, where there was clearly something moving.
What?
I moved as quickly as I could towards the top of the steps and tried to take them two at a time. My aching body rebelled against me and my lower back completely locked, stealing my balance from me and I plunged the final six or seven steps. I landed on my right shoulder and rolled across the sodden grass. I finished with my left cheek on the ground, looking down the garden to the top of the hole. Something black appeared over the cusp, rose out of the ground and came bounding towards me. Instinctively I closed my eyes and tried to cover my head with my arms and push myself away as it got closer, panting, feet thumping as it sprinted towards me. It got all but on top of me when I opened my eyes and shrieked.
The black Labrador launched itself onto me and nuzzled into my cheek, leaving a thick blob of drool which ran down into my mouth. I pushed the animal off, spitting onto the grass to get rid of the disgusting taste of dog slobber. The Labrador sat in front of me, trying to give me its front right paw. I could feel my heart banging inside my chest but I took first the right and then the left paw, checking between the nails and mud for any evidence of Danny’s flesh. The dog seemed clear, but even so it was happy to let me push its saggy cheeks back to check its teeth. Nothing. I let out a huge sigh of relief and ruffled its ears, noticing for the first time that the dog wasn’t an ‘it’ but in fact a ‘he’.
‘You’re a bad boy,’ I told him, stroking his sleek black coat.
I quickly realised that this was, of course, Des’s dog. He’d never come inside our grounds before, but then I’d been pretty good at keeping the gates shut until now. I was about to get up and lead the dog safely back to my neighbour’s house when my eyes were drawn to the black and white cat as it leapt from the wall and ran around the pond, launching itself into the hole.
The dog remained sitting and docile as I got up and shuffled as quickly as I could to the edge of the grave. I couldn’t believe what I saw; the dog had obviously dug in the mud but had only found the rope attached to Danny’s left wrist, pulled on it like a chew toy, wrenching my brother’s fingers and palm through the surface. And now the cat was licking the rapidly decaying flesh, even using its paw to scoop some towards its mouth.
‘No!’ I screamed, and the cat looked up at me, startled.
I flapped my arms at it and it responded by jumping up out of the hole and scooting between my legs to the house. The dog spotted it and, with a high-pitched bark, gave chase. Although the dog was more powerfully built, the cat was incredibly agile and skirted from side to side, keeping the Labrador at a safe distance. Like a fool, I tried to join in the chase and was soon on the path along the side of the house, a stiff-legged jog plowing me onto the front driveway.
The dog seemed to have cornered the cat in front of the garage. I slowed to a walk, breath coming in short, ragged spurts, lungs burning, with the intent of stepping around the dog and trying to grab the cat myself. The little feline had other ideas as it first pounced to its right, making both myself and the Labrador move in that direction, and then, having wrong-footed us both, sprang to its left and towards the gates.
I flicked out my right leg, hoping to bring it down but only managing to destabilise myself and bring the ground rushing up towards me for the second time in minutes. I lay facing the gate as the cat sprinted out into the road and a silver car appeared from the right. I heard the thud as it made contact with the cat and the screech of tyres as the driver slammed on the brakes.
As I stumbled to my feet and the Labrador made its own exit, charging out of the gates towards his home. The smell of burning rubber filled the air as I carried myself through the gates. I had a brief flashback to the blue car that had stopped at our gates during the infestation and how two of the occupants had ended up as mush on the tarmac. The car, a silver Ford, had safely come to a halt just before the end of my boundary wall. The driver had already put on the hazard warning lights and was getting out of his car, but talking to the people inside, a single index finger raised in a clear indication that everyone else was to stay put.
The cat lay on the other side of the road. It looked crumpled and broken. The man, tall and wearing jeans, a white shirt and a brown, casual sports jacket started to walk towards it, arms out and palms up as he saw me.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see it, it just…’
I hadn’t taken my eyes off the prone feline. I hardly heard the words coming from the man’s mouth. He’d done my job for me. I couldn’t be sure there was any risk but I’d been intent upon making sure, and now this man, this car…
The cat’s rear flank began to twitch, the hairs all along its spine stood up on end like there was an electrical current racing through its body. The cat’s front right paw extended out like it was stretching after a nap, and then, slowly and deliberately, it tilted its head back, opened its mouth and let out a loud and terrifying hiss, ejecting blood and spittle over the road in front of it. The man jumped a little, his floppy hair bouncing on top of his head, but continued to walk towards the animal.
‘Don’t go near it! Get back—’
‘Hey, it’s okay. I must have only clipped it, stunned it, I guess.’ He bent at the waist and reached out a hand to the cat.
The cat turned and hissed directly at him. It lashed out one of its paws, caught the outstretched hand with several sharp claws and then it bolted off out of sight.
The man hardly reacted. He just gave his hand a look and then collapsed. A blonde woman opened the passenger door of the car and began running towards what I could only assume to be her husband. The faces of two children pressed against the back window of the car.
She got halfway to him when he sprang to his feet. I took an involuntary step back. He, as she froze in position, put his head back and roared, knees bent, arms reaching out for her, looking like a deranged surfer. He leapt at her, tackling her around the waist, taking her to the ground, ripping at her with fingers and teeth, her scream bubbling out of her torn throat. Her red coat had been pulled open, her dress rapidly becoming the same colour as he fed on her.
The yells of the children made him lift his head and he pounced up again and ran at the car, smashing his fist through the back window, the voices of the kids loud and shrill now they were no longer insulated by the glass. I came to my senses; I had to help them.
‘Hey!’ I screamed, waving my arms. ‘Over here.’
And he pulled his arm out of the car, blood dripping from the elbow, his clothes torn and ragged. He licked a line of the red liquid off himself, smiled, and charged straight at me. I backed off behind the gates, gripped the one that was still open and swung it as hard as I could, my back, shoulders and hands stinging in pain.
More due to luck than my own strength, it connected directly with the man’s forehead as he tried to get at me. As I turned and ran towards the front door the burning image in my head was not of the cat lashing out, not the man attacking the rest children in his car, but of the dull, dead grey eyes with which he had stared at me.
I sprinted as hard as I could and halfway to the front door diverted to the path down the side of the house. I had retained enough sense to remember, at the last second, that the front door was locked. I glanced over my shoulder when I heard the thing pursuing me bellow in anger and jump in one single motion from the road to the top of the wall. If it hadn’t been raining, it would have caught me there and then. But it had been and its feet whipped out from underneath it as it landed on the damp stone.
It clipped the wall on the way down, the sports coat fanning out like a cape as it fell inside the boundary, landing on one foot, using the other knee for stability on the chippings. I tore my eyes away and rounded the corner, using my hands to help my own balance as I made it to the top of the steps safely. I heard its snarling coming fast as I slammed the back door closed, twisting the key in the lock just as its first impact shook the door in the frame.
I had to get away, because there was no way I was going to be able to stop it, not like I had with the previous creatures. This one was different.
It was quick, it was openly aggressive and there was an awareness of its surroundings that the dim, shambling zombies of twelve months ago had never shown. Even more concerning was the fact that this thing was targeting individuals while one of the traits of the previous creatures which had helped us to survive was that they were drawn to groups of people and didn’t pick off the weak or isolated. I stuffed my phone and wallet into my trousers. I wrapped my fist around my keys and pushed myself towards the front door as fast as my wrecked body would let me.
I got halfway there and turned, headed back for one of the kitchen drawers, the one place where any kind of rubbish would end up, and I swiftly dug around until I found the business card I was looking for. Leaving the drawer open, I raced back to the front door. Still the thumps came from the back door, and then a smash as what I could only assume to be a fist shattered through. I opened the front door, stepped outside and slammed it shut as more glass broke at the back of the house and scattered across the kitchen floor.