ZOM-B 11 Read online

  ‘silly mummy,’ Holy Moly beams. ‘i don’t need a reward. i love you mummy.’ But the baby comes with me anyway, to humour me. I’ve a feeling it would go anywhere I asked it to go.

  A railway line crosses the river here. There are footbridges attached to both sides. I limp across to the one that faces Westminster. Steps lead up to the bridge, but there’s also a lift. I say a little prayer that it’s working and, what do you know, the gods are smiling on me for once.

  ‘Going up,’ I laugh as we ascend.

  Holy Moly looks the teeniest bit scared. I don’t think the baby has been in a lift before. I tickle the little one’s belly to distract it and it laughs with utter delight.

  The lift stops and we shuffle out. I pick up Holy Moly and stagger to the rails, to point towards the Houses of Parliament, then across the river to the gleaming London Eye, County Hall lying just behind it.

  ‘There,’ I tell Holy Moly. ‘That’s where Mummy and her friends live. Isn’t it the most wonderful place you’ve ever . . .’

  My words tail off. It’s a sunny day in London. The rays pick out the Eye and the building to its rear. The pair of landmarks shine majestically, as if the daylight was created to highlight their glory.

  But, with the help of my contact lenses, I can see other things just as clearly — mutants, zombies and scores of babies, each of the infants an exact replica of Holy Moly, only without a hole in its head.

  Mr Dowling’s troops, gathered in their grisly might, have formed a ring around County Hall and are in the process of overrunning the complex. As I watch with stunned horror, they dash in and out of the entrances, smashing windows, killing anyone they find.

  The clown and his lethal posse have launched an attack on County Hall, the home of Dr Oystein and his Angels. And, by the look of things, the battle has already been decided. The good guys have lost. The bad guys have won.

  I think of the vial inside my stomach. I stare at the sickening scenes across the river. I lower my head and make a weak keening noise, not cursing this twist of fate, not mourning those I’ve probably lost, just thinking numbly — who the hell can I turn to now?

  SEVEN

  Several corpses have been heaped in the middle of Jubilee Gardens, a small park between the bridge and County Hall. Furniture has been stacked nearby, and many mutants are adding to the pile, racing in and out of the building with tables, chairs and bedding, which they deposit on the growing mound.

  As other mutants soak the pyre with petrol, one lights a torch, then steps forward and shouts a warning. The rest of them scatter and the torch is hurled on to the primed furniture. A bonfire explodes into life. The mutants cheer and applaud.

  Then they start tossing the bodies of my slain comrades on to the flames.

  ‘toasty,’ Holy Moly murmurs approvingly, but I don’t react, reminding myself that the baby’s been brought up to see nothing amiss in atrocities like this.

  Despite my improved vision, I can’t see from here if the Angels being fed to the fire were some of my room-mates, Shane, Ashtat, Carl, or others I felt close to. And I don’t want to know. Better the corpses remain faceless. That way I don’t have to mourn them.

  I spot an Angel climbing on to the roof in an attempt to get away. It looks like a girl but I can’t be sure. She stumbles off in the direction of St Thomas’s Hospital but doesn’t get far. Babies follow and launch themselves in a deadly swarm at the helpless revitalised, dragging her down and ripping into her.

  I spy another Angel, a boy, in a pod on the London Eye. He must have been on watch when the attack commenced, so it can’t have been more than half an hour ago, which is roughly the time it takes for a pod to complete a revolution.

  The Angel is gazing down on a group of mutants. They’re packing all sorts of weapons and howling gleefully, waving at the trapped boy, making crude gestures. Some begin to climb up to the pod, impatient, eager to strike the first blow.

  As mutants scrabble across the top of the pod and try to smash through the glass, the Angel makes a crude gesture of his own, then drives the bones sticking out of his fingers through his skull. The mutants screech spitefully, but he ignores them and digs around inside his head. Moments later he drops to the floor of the pod, set free from the torment which would otherwise have awaited him.

  I hate being a helpless observer. I want to dash across the bridge, cut through Jubilee Gardens, fight and die with those who have become my family over the last few months.

  But I don’t have the energy for a stylish finale. If I start limping across this walkway, I’ll be spotted long before I reach the other side. Mutants will flood the bridge and either kill me or haul me back for Mr Dowling to deal with.

  So I hold my ground and watch numbly as County Hall falls to its foes. I’m surprised they were able to take it so easily. I thought the Angels would have offered more resistance. Master Zhang trained us to be clinical fighting machines. We should have been able to at least trouble the mutants and babies. But it looks like they took this place as swiftly and casually as they took Battersea Power Station.

  I wonder if Dr Oystein has been killed. There aren’t that many dead Angels outside the building, so most must be lining the corridors inside. Dr Oystein’s corpse almost surely lies among one of the groups, unless he happened to be at his secret lab when Mr Dowling surged up out of the depths.

  If the doc was here when the invasion began, how did he react? Seeing that the end was upon him, did he uncork his vial of Clements-13, figuring Mr Dowling wouldn’t have attacked unless he’d been robbed of his sample of Schlesinger-10? Maybe ultimate victory is already ours, despite the casualties and the loss of our base. Perhaps this is merely Mr Dowling’s compensation prize, annihilation of his most hated enemy before he falls foul of the unleashed virus and drops dead in a matter of days.

  Then again, Dr Oystein never told us where his vial of Clements-13 was stored. I’m sure he has some in his hidden laboratory, but did he keep another vial on him, or tucked away in a safe nook in County Hall? I’m guessing he did, in order to be ready for a surprise attack like this, but I can’t be certain.

  Mr Dowling can’t have been certain either. That’s why he never struck the first blow. But now, robbed of his ultimate deterrent, he’s had to gamble. I left him with no other choice.

  Understanding the clown as intimately as I do, I knew that his first task would be to find me and retrieve his vial of Schlesinger-10, to re-establish the status quo. He likes things the way they’ve been since the world fell, the war between the living and the undead, the chaos and disorder.

  But I didn’t consider what he’d do when his mutants failed to track me down. He must have decided to strike immediately before I returned to County Hall. He probably figured that he was definitely dead if he waited. At least this way he had a chance.

  I should have anticipated this. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have acted more swiftly, made for the surface as soon as I could, maybe sent Holy Moly on ahead of me to warn Dr Oystein and tell him to clear out. I thought I had time to play with. I was wrong.

  ‘It’s a bloody mess,’ I sob, turning away from the carnage, sick of it all, not wanting to torture myself any further.

  ‘mummy?’ Holy Moly asks, surprised by my sadness. The baby doesn’t understand why I’m miserable. The slaughter across the river is nothing more than a jolly piece of theatre as far as it’s concerned, par for the course when their father is abroad. ‘what’s wrong mummy? don’t cry. we don’t like it when you cry. we love you mummy.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ I lie. ‘Just sad because my friends are dead.’

  ‘everything dies mummy,’ Holy Moly says.

  ‘Is that supposed to comfort me?’ I snap.

  Holy Moly nods sweetly. ‘yes.’

  I suppress a grimace. ‘I know you mean well, but I’d rather be by myself right now. Will you leave me, like you were going to a while ago?’

  ‘if that’s what you want . . .’ Holy Moly says uncertainly
, worried about me now.

  ‘It is,’ I say firmly. ‘You guided me to safety. You’re a good boy . . . or girl . . . or whatever the hell you are. I’ll be fine on my own.’

  ‘ok mummy,’ Holy Moly says and sets off across the bridge, moving with its characteristic eerie smoothness and speed.

  ‘Wait!’ I call the baby back. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘there,’ Holy Moly says, pointing at County Hall. ‘i want to be with the others. they look like they’re having fun.’

  ‘I’m sure they are,’ I say bitterly, finding it hard not to hate the baby right now. ‘But will you do me a favour?’

  ‘of course,’ it squeals, excited to be of service.

  ‘Will you go the other way?’ I ask. ‘Back underground, to wait for the rest of them in Daddy’s den?’

  Holy Moly stares at me, its pale forehead wrinkling. ‘but i’ll miss the fighting mummy.’

  ‘That’s not a bad thing,’ I tell it. ‘I don’t want you to fight.’

  ‘why not?’

  I pause, wondering how to explain the difference between good and evil. In the end I decide it’s a hopeless task, that I’d only confuse the poor thing if I began lecturing it.

  ‘I’m worried you might get hurt,’ I say instead.

  The baby giggles. ‘silly mummy.’

  ‘Silly as they come.’ I smile stiffly. ‘But please, do this for me. I’ll be happy if I know you’re safe.’

  ‘ok mummy,’ Holy Moly sighs, and sets off in the other direction, back the way we came. The baby stops at the lift door and stares solemnly at the button. Turns and looks at me. ‘can i use the stairs instead of the small room? i didn’t like the small room mummy.’

  I nod. ‘The stairs will be fine.’

  ‘thank you mummy,’ Holy Moly says, trotting to the top step.

  ‘Wait.’ I stop the baby again. It looks back questioningly. I’m tired and I don’t want to think about the future, but I must. I know that Dr Oystein would want me to fight on, even when all else seems lost. There’s not much I can do by myself to thwart the forces of wickedness and madness, but maybe I can throw a spanner in the works, or at least cause them a few sleepless nights.

  ‘Come here,’ I call to Holy Moly, crouching down and leaning back against the bars which support the railing that runs across the bridge. ‘I want to make my last will and testament, and I’d like you to be my executor.’

  ‘i don’t understand mummy,’ Holy Moly says.

  ‘I know,’ I laugh softly. ‘But it won’t take me long to explain . . .’

  EIGHT

  I rest on the bridge after Holy Moly has slipped away, listening to the roars, screams and crackle of flames in the near distance. The mutants have started fires inside County Hall, hell-bent on burning the place to the ground. I don’t think they stand a hope of doing that, but they can certainly gut a lot of it if they carry on as they’ve begun.

  As I’m gathering myself for my final push, I think about Dr Oystein and the Angels, Ciara and Reilly, Master Zhang. Are any of them alive? Did some of them make it out before the net closed? If so, how many will survive the next few challenging weeks, robbed of their base and support?

  I could easily stay where I am and brood, but since I don’t want to be discovered by a stray mutant or baby, I crawl to the lift (in my state, the stairs would be too much of a challenge) and return to ground level.

  I limp along beside the river, heading east simply because that’s the most direct route out of here. I stick close to the buildings on my left, hugging the shadows, making sure no one on the South Bank can spot me.

  I want to feel worse than I do, have a nervous breakdown, beat the pavement with my fists, howl at the sky and demand justice from God. But I’ve endured so many terrible things in recent times that I can’t work up to a hysterical high. I’ve lost my family and everyone I cared about, been tortured by one homicidal maniac, and married to another. Ever since I was turned into a zombie, it seems that all the world has wanted to do is pummel me, cast me aside and leave me to wander on my own through the urban wilderness.

  In the past I had hope to keep me going. The hope that I might be able to help the living, that there was a place for me in this savage new society, that I could be of worth.

  That hope has been cut away from me. This was one blow too many. It’s not the physical pain that has left me feeling hollow inside, or the loss of my friends, or the fact that I’m all on my own.

  No, the reason I feel like I’m all washed up is that this has happened to me over and over again. The forces of destiny or luck are not on my side. Everything in nature seems to be lined up against me.

  Why push on and fight for a world that clearly doesn’t want me, that has punished me at every well-meaning turn? I’m not dumb. I get the message. I tried to play the part of a hero, even though it wasn’t in my genes, but some higher power has decided I’m not fit for that role. It wants the glory to go to someone else. I understand. In truth, that’s the way it should be. A hero should be someone proud and noble, not a loud-mouthed girl who was too afraid to stand up to a racist, who threw an innocent boy to a pack of zombies because she didn’t have the guts to disobey her bullying father.

  Heh. It always comes back to Tyler Bayor. I suppose it always should. That’s when I cast my humanity aside. Everything since then has been an attempt to make up for that foul deed, to redeem myself. But some creeps aren’t worthy of redemption. Time for me to find a hole where I can curl up and die.

  Except I won’t truly die, will I? I can lie there, starve and wait for my senses to crumble, but that’s not the same thing. I’ll carry on as a mindless zombie in that case and maybe kill again one day.

  I want out. I need to get out. If I could rely on the mutants and babies to kill me, I’d throw myself into the battle at County Hall and perish with my friends and allies, but there’s a good chance that they’d take me captive and deliver me to their master instead, and who knows where things would go from there. No, if I want this job done properly, I have to do it myself. I’ll find a drill or a chainsaw and bore into my skull. Hell, even a good, sharp knife will suffice.

  Having made up my mind, all that remains is to choose my spot. Most people aren’t that fortunate when it’s their time to pass on from this realm. They simply drop wherever fate decrees. But, whether I deserve it or not, I have a choice. I can do it somewhere random or I can pick a place that means something to me.

  I think about it as I shuffle along. Both options have their appeal. A random location would allow me to do it sooner rather than later, and I think it would be fitting if I died in a lonely, unmarked place. After all, isn’t that where all failures should wind up?

  But at the same time, if there is a higher power, one that’s been stacking the deck of cards against me, I wouldn’t mind sticking a couple of fingers up at it before I check out. B Smith — rebel to the end!

  I decide on my old flat in the East End. I’ve had several bases since then, but that’s the spot I always think of as home. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that’s where I was at my happiest. I had plenty of lousy experiences there too, when Dad terrorised Mum and me, but that’s where I was loved (and bullied), where I was safe (most of the time), where I was free to grow and learn and live (under the thumb of an outright racist).

  Yeah, the flat will be a good finishing point. A neat way to draw a line under my existence. Pick up a sharp tool along the way. Drag myself up the stairs. Crawl into my old room. Lie on my bed, stare at the ceiling, go to work on my head, churn up my brain and let it all end. Rot away slowly until I’m only dust, a dwindling memory in the dusty database of the universe.

  Perversely, I cheer up once I’ve made my decision. I even hum as I plod along. ‘Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to die I go.’

  I have a goal now, and it’s not the sort of epic goal that I’ve been chasing since I linked up with Dr Oystein. No more saving the world for this undead girl. All I have to worry abo
ut is making it home and signing off. That’s the sort of challenge I was born to deal with.

  Watch out, afterlife — here I come!

  NINE

  The walk east is taking an age. It’s a good job I’m not in a hurry. I doubt any tourist ever went along this slowly in the past, and that’s bearing in mind that sightseers in London weren’t known for their speed — they used to drive us locals mad if we got stuck behind a pack of them on a busy street.

  I’m enjoying the river views. I find the Thames oddly peaceful and calming. I don’t normally pay much attention to it, but it demands my focus today on the long, laborious march home. Maybe it’s because the serene, constantly flowing water reminds me of the journey my soul is soon to embark on, and I want to believe that my spirit will drift along effortlessly like this when it’s set free from my shambolic form. A fool’s dream, probably, but a nice image to dwell on while I’m crawling ever eastwards in a fog of nightmarish pain.

  I stop when I reach the Millennium Bridge, and on an impulse decide to cross the river to the South Bank. I’ve come a long way from Westminster, so I no longer have to worry about running into mutants, and it’s a more interesting walk on the south side.

  I drag myself across the bridge and step off in the shadow of the towering Tate Modern. If I was in better shape, I might pop in to check out the exhibits, but this most certainly isn’t a day to be visiting art galleries.

  I trudge past the Globe, where I spot a zombie in Shakespearean garb, probably an actor from back in the day, standing just inside the entrance. He’s making odd, jerky movements with his head and arms, and I realise after a few confused moments that he’s trying to act out a scene from a dimly remembered play. As drained as I am, I stop and clap slowly. The actor’s face lights up with the memory of applause-filled times, and he awkwardly bows towards me. That’s my good deed for the day taken care of.