Tiredness Kills - A Zombie Tale Read online

  Scott turned to Ant, who was guzzling the discarded remnants of a fancy frothy coffee. “Eurgh! Ant, you don't know who was drinking out of that!”

  “I do!” said Ant unperturbed, turning the paper cup around. “It was Tracey- see it says right here!”

  “Give me that!” said Scott, snatching the cup and downing the sugary contents in one go, much to the obvious annoyance of the finder. “I shared my Tip Tops remember?”

  “Hey, I've just noticed something! I haven't heard any gun shots for a while. Do you think people have simply stopped trying to escape?”

  “Yeah probably,” answered Scott. “Well, the odds weren't on their side really, much the same as in here! God, I can smell that chicken...and we've got no freakin' weapons left!”

  “Au contraire, mon amie. We have brute force, cunning and hunger on our side; they only have hunger. Plus....” he continued, turning slightly to the right, “I still have my Samurai umbrella!”

  “You Beauty!”

  “Plus...” he continued, holding open the front of his horrendously distressed Tux jacket to reveal the bulges in his trousers, “I have my secret weapons of mass destruction!”

  “Carry on...Explain...” said Scott with a slight hint of trepidation.

  “Well, we both know how resourceful I can be, don't we? And scrabbling around on the floor in a shop filled with knocked- over stands can deliver quite a little harvest to a person like me!”

  “So what have you got?” asked Scott bewildered.

  “You'll see,” said Ant handing the umbrella to Scott, who unsheathed it rather ceremoniously. “Now let's go get 'em!”

  The two men stepped out from behind the wooden pillar into the 'no- mans- land' that lay between them and their enemy. Crouching slightly, they edged closer. A couple of more recently reanimated bodies sniffed the air, their necks snapping quickly to face the direction of Scott and Ant. With a crazed madness in their eyes, they began to lumber ungracefully forwards. Trying to move faster than their toxic bodies would allow, they resembled unbalanced babies taking their first steps. Determination to consume fresh flesh, however made them plough on through the clutter and chaos that was once a restaurant.

  Scott and Ant had also moved forwards. Scott decided to take on the more heavily- set male who was wearing the bloodied clobber of a HGV driver and, when the gap between them was a mere three feet, he threw back his right arm and, with every ounce of strength he possessed, he launched a brolly strike against the truck driver's head, felling him to the floor like a knocked- out boxer. Having learned earlier on that the undead are not dead until their brains have been well and truly pierced, Scott raised his weapon and with both hands forced it down and through the eye socket of the former Stobart employee- and another squishy eyeball was speared.

  Ant was waiting for the second zombie to get a bit closer. This one was tall and slightly built, but with huge goofy teeth protruding from his disgusting mouth. The thought of being violated by those nasty gnashers made him squirm, but in his hands he held a can of hairspray and a zippo lighter- both of which he had scavenged from off the shop floor.

  As the monster approached, Ant held up the can of Harmony and aimed and pressed the nozzle, releasing a jet of flammable droplets into the air whilst simultaneously flicking the lighter. Nothing happened. The lighter refused to light. Cursing himself for not being a smoker, Ant frantically flicked and flicked and sprayed and sprayed until finally- just as Mega Mouth was in biting range- the two elements joined together in glorious matrimony and a long thin flame was born.

  The monsters clothes went up in flames immediately, turning it into a thrashing ball of fire. Yet still it moved toward Ant, its flesh dripping off its face like melting candle wax.

  “Oh shit!” cried Ant moving backwards, away from the disaster that he had created.

  Scott however, seeing the debacle unfold, had managed to spot a small fire extinguisher fixed to the wall and grabbed it fast. Having used one before in a lesser crisis, he had the pin pulled out and the lever pressed in barely a second. Before long, the toothy attacker resembled a sinister snowman. Remembering that fire cannot kill a zombie fast, Scott whacked a blow to its messed -up head with the heavy extinguisher, smashing the skull and finally sending it to its original maker.

  “We discussed the whole fire thing a year ago, Ant!” he exclaimed, throwing the heavy red container at a smaller zombie, knocking it clean off its unsteady feet.

  “I've got marbles too!” announced Ant a bit sheepishly.

  “Fancy a game do you, mate!” spat Scott.

  “I'm improvising here with what I've got! Okay?” Ant replied indignantly, emptying a bag of marbles on the floor away from them, presumably to topple the undead.

  “What other amazing objects of ingenuity do you have hidden about your person, Mr Langston?” asked Scott- half sarcastically, half amused.

  “Nothing!” answered Ant, trying to discard something on the floor- but it was too late. Scott had seen it.

  “Ha-ha-ha! Mentos and coke? Fine for a party trick.....but really? That's all you got?”

  Ant was getting madder and madder at this point. Banter was one thing; but he was feeling plainly ridiculed.

  “Right!” he said, picking up an upturned chair. “Follow me, with my umbrella!” And off he charged straight towards the handful of zombies that appeared to just be milling around the KFC outlet, confused by the overpowering aroma of the Colonel's secret recipe.

  Aiming straight for them, he began swinging the chair around him, a bit like you would swing a set of Nunchucks. Slightly unconventional, but surprisingly adequate for this situation; and together with his 'pissed off' frame of mind, Ant set about knocking the decaying brood to the floor whilst shouting “Finish them off with my umbrella!” to a shocked Scott, who was following behind, violently stabbing eye sockets in hapless skulls as they lay writhing on the ground.

  'I should have pissed him off earlier,' thought Scott, but decided to keep it to himself.

  Less than twenty minutes later- and leaving behind a trail of enough blood and gore to feed a pride of lions for a week- Scott and Ant had reached their destination and were on the other side of the fast food counter ripping apart and maniacally consuming the flesh of several poor chickens (the irony being completely lost on them).

  Reunited (and it feels so good)

  Jon, Josh, Kelly, Jordan, and new recruits Atilla and Sian crept up the stairs, although it was not so easy now having been weighed down with a few weapons from Atilla's secret stash. The journey through the long corridor behind the foodhalls- which had previously been a piggy back- slaying for Kelly and Jordan, and a mad trolley dash for the others- was now filled with the stench from Hell as the rancid blood and revolting body parts that lay strewn around the floor began to clot and rot. Gingerly, they made their way to the restaurant. So far not a moving target in sight, but as they rounded the corner of the large Eat-In kitchen that lay behind the restaurant they realised that they still had some work to do.

  When faced with a number of dehumanised creatures shuffling around in a mindless stupor of just hunger alone, not even the hardest of hearts can help but be moved. Josh gave a rather touching but hurried speech about how not to differentiate between sizes of the creatures, but everyone there knew that he meant that they would possibly have to kill children. To make it easier, Josh used the words “We need to release them from their hideous prison,” which bought about a sympathetic nod from the other five. However, he then he followed up with “So let's go kill the bastards before they fucking bite us!” which killed the sombre mood slightly as they stepped out once more unto the breach!

  Sian, having now stopped crying, took her home- made, long handled axe in both hands and summoned up her alter ego (who was a Lara Croft- type character that had previously seen her through a few tough times of her own). Taking a deep breath, she whispered the words 'It's not a party till something gets broken' and ran towards a zombie of similar height t
o herself. Wielding a weapon that weighed almost as much as she did wasn't easy, but the plucky young lady decapitated that slowly- rotting monster in one swift swipe.

  “That one's for Charlie!” she said, wiping blood from her forehead with the back of her hand.

  As she turned round, she witnessed the murderous onslaught between her colleagues and her enemies being played out in the exact same spot where they usually queued for their dinner. “I'm never ever eating here again!” she announced with gusto.

  The final slaying of the final zombie was not brought about by the actions of one of our six, but they did witness it. From high above them came a Tarzan-like yell followed by the unmistakable cry of “Don't get me excited guys!!” They looked up at the high ceiling, and to their great delight another of their colleagues looked down at them.

  “Greg!” they chorused.

  “Watch out!” he shouted back from his position high in the rafters.

  Leaning out far as he could from the small ledge that he teetered on, he picked the strangest looking attachment on his Swiss army knife and sliced through the thick wire that was supporting the huge, heavy ornamental light fitting above them. It came crashing down directly upon the head of the one zombie that they hadn't noticed- even though she was built like a brick shit house and would have scoffed them all in one sitting. As she fell to the floor, her head cracked open like an over- ripe honey dew melon.

  “How you getting down, mate?” called Josh

  “More to the point, how did you get up there?” Asked Jon.

  “Not a clue. It just kinda' happened!” laughed Greg “But I sure weren't getting any of that Zombie shizzle on me threads!”

  “Jump, we'll catch you!” offered Jordan, beckoning the others to form a circle beneath him. It took several shouts of “One, two, hree!” but eventually Greg landed in the arms of his friends with not a speck of zombie shizzle on him.

  Moving around the building like a tribe of nomadic warriors, smeared with blood from battle and holding their crude weapons aloft, they searched each area carefully. When they were convinced that nothing lurked in the corners, they moved on to the next area. It wasn't long before they had reached the KFC unit in the far corner, and as they got closer Kelly, using large arm movements, motioned for them to stop. “I hear something!” she rasped to the others. Sure enough, a low moaning, groaning sound seemed to be coming from the interior of the fast food outlet. “Listen!” she hissed as more slurping and gnawing sounds were heard. “There are Z's in there. We gotta get them Mofos!”

  It was wholly down to the new awareness skills that Scott and Ant had acquired that day that they had secured their survival. Their new, improved hearing ability when it came to deciphering noises that were not of their making, a heightened level in their peripheral vision, and the sudden ability to spring into an action stance that they did not previously possess, all played their part in keeping the twosome alive as the other group of zombie slayers swarmed in and almost killed them as they scoffed and slobbered over their free Bargain Buckets.

  Much merriment was made as the realisation dawned that they had survived the almost un-survivable. A circumstance of epic proportions had been thrust upon them, and they had stood up and been counted. Yes, they hugged and they kissed, who wouldn't?

  They ate fried chicken and slurped gallons of Coke. It was like a medieval banquet as all seven told and retold their heroic tales of valour and near misses. It took a while to free Jordan from his cling film preventative mask, but Kelly managed it with her Rambo-like knife. The ultimate selfie was shown around quickly before the battery finally died, and they all chattered excitedly about the things that they couldn't wait to get back to (wifi being one of the main things, but, of course, loved ones and alcohol ranked pretty highly too).

  “Well, what we waiting here for?” Ant suggested, desperate to get home and change out of the now ridiculous- looking wedding attire and wondering if maybe he could still get the deposit back on it.

  “Ye, let's go home!” added Josh, looking at Sian and wondering just how many man points he was owed.

  Stepping through a sea of spilled blood and chewed bodies and a stench that quite frankly they had now become accustomed to, the mildly traumatised but valiant troupe headed towards the slightly ajar doors of the main entrance.

  They were only feet away from freedom when one of the bodies on the floor began to move. Nobody noticed as the bloody demon slithered like an eel in the bright red lava and grabbed onto Attila's leg. The vicious teeth had pierced the Hungarian's leg, and by the time the others had drawn their weapons in an attempt to kill the bastard and free their friend, Attila knew it was too late for him.

  “GO! GO NOW!” he commanded in his unflappable, yet authoritative manner. Of course, the others tried to argue against him, desperately pleading to free him. Yet deep down they also knew it was too late; they had witnessed on several occasions now exactly what the result of one bite would lead to.

  Very calmly Attila reached into his jacket pocket and took out a hand grenade that he had placed there when they had left the maintenance office.

  “No Attila..... Don't do it!” begged Kelly. “There must be some other way!”

  “There ees no udder way!” he said sadly. “You soppy Eenglish vill argue about who vil kill me and zen none of you vill kill me and zen you vill be sorry and I vill chase you and eet you! Now get ze fuck away from 'ere I am pulling ze pin!”

  As if to prove his point, he held the pin by the fingers of his other hand so that the others needed no more encouragement. They ran for the door, prising it apart and squeezing through the narrow gap with the kind of speed that they had never mustered before, each of them shouting cries of “Don't shoot we are clean. Don't shoot!”

  Atilla sat down on top of his destroyer, who was still gnawing on his leg, and said calmly “Come, my poor friend. Let uz get out of zis nightmare also!” and he bravely pulled out the pin.

  Thankfully, Scott, Ant, Jon, Josh, Jordan, Kelly, Greg and Sian had fled some distance by the time the blast ripped through part of the building, sending several large shards of glass flying through the air, ripping through the heavy curtain of material and landing onto the car park, narrowly missing them all.

  As the debris fell and the huge plume of smoke cleared they looked around, expecting to see the congratulatory faces of the military, the relieved tears of loved ones, and rather a lot of press reporters- all waiting to hear their survival stories.

  “Where is everyone?” Kelly enquired, the first to voice their thoughts.

  They looked around, their hearts filling with dread and their veins turning to ice as the awful truth became clear. It was as much a bloody battlefield out here as it had been in there.

  They made their way onto a slope and from up here they could see the motorway. It stretched to the horizon, cluttered with the remnants of multiple pile ups. Fires had broken out in random clumps for as far as they could see, and smoke billowed into the surrounding countryside. It looked like Hell on Earth.

  “Wait, there's movement!” said Scott. “People are still alive. We need to get to them!”

  As all eyes zoomed in to see the other survivors in the distance, it soon became clear.... they were all shuffling……..