Year of the Zombie (Book 2): The Plague Winter Read online

  *

  He found Sam crouching at Yost’s door with his head bowed and nodding gently as if agreeing to something whispered from inside the room.

  ‘What’re you doing, Sam?’

  The boy looked at Eddie, startled in the light. Eyes wide and round. He stood and moved away from the door. The torchlight threw his shadow upon the wall. ‘I was just talking to Yost, Grandad. I was just seeing if he’s okay.’

  Eddie scowled. He felt the key to Yost’s room in his trouser pocket. He looked at the door and there was no sound coming from within the room. He imagined Yost peering through the keyhole.

  ‘I’m sorry, Grandad.’

  ‘Go back to sleep, Sam.’

  ‘You’re not going to hurt him, are you?’

  ‘I won’t tell you again. Go back to sleep.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Sam avoided Eddie’s stare as he passed on his way back to the living room. Eddie watched him walk away then turned the torch upon the door and held it there for a while and thought he could hear Yost sobbing in the darkness inside the room.

  ***

  The morning brought rain and a sky of grey slate. The riverbanks were swollen with water. Eddie watched the fields from the window and sipped black coffee while Sam sat at the kitchen table in silence. Out beyond the river, a lone infected woman staggered along, hunched and spindly, occasionally stopping and staring at the ground. Eddie turned away from the window and regarded Sam over the rim of the mug. The coffee was bitter, but it cleared his head and helped him arrange his thoughts.

  ‘What were you and Yost talking about last night?’

  Sam looked up at him then looked away. ‘He was telling me about his son. Yost said he looked like me. He said he missed his son. He said other things too.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Just stuff.’

  ‘Stuff?’

  ‘He’s not a bad man, Grandad.’

  Eddie finished his coffee and put the mug down next to the sink. ‘I believe you, Sam.’

  ***

  Eddie took a plastic cup of water to Yost’s room. Yost was already awake and sitting on the bed, his back against the wall, and he accepted the water and gulped it down.

  ‘I heard the infected last night,’ Yost said. His voice was low, like he was imparting a secret. ‘They were nearby. I heard them calling to one another.’

  Eddie picked up the empty cup. ‘I saw one outside just now.’

  Something changed in Yost’s face. ‘How close to the house?’

  ‘Far enough away that I’m not too worried about it.’

  ‘You should keep watch, Eddie.’

  ‘I always do.’

  Yost went to speak, but he seemed to think better of it, and closed his mouth. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His filthy beard greying at the edges. Eddie could feel the other man’s eyes on him as he left the room.

  ***

  When Eddie returned to the kitchen he found Sam cowering under the kitchen table, staring towards the front of the house.

  ‘Someone’s at the door, Grandad. Someone’s at the door.’ His voice was little more than a whisper. He was rocking back and forth, his arms wrapped around his knees.

  There was a damp slap as something landed against the front door. Sam retreated further under the table. When Eddie turned around he saw the doorknob rattle as something on the outside tried to gain entry. The bolts held. An indistinct shape loomed beyond the frosted glass.

  Eddie held his breath. His hands were shaking as he took the pistol from his belt. He signalled for Sam to stay under the table and went to the back of the house. He froze when he heard scratching at the door. He stepped quietly to the makeshift barricade of chairs and wooden furniture, breathing silently, and had to stifle a gasp when something screamed outside, close to the house. And then there was the scratching of claws upon the outer walls and the boneless wheezing of the infected and he stepped away from the barricade and the door and struggled back to the kitchen on straw legs.

  He joined Sam under the table, and the boy cried as they held each other for a long while and hid from the monsters.

  ***

  Sam checked his watch and told Eddie it had been an hour since the infected had retreated from the house. The boy trembled next to him.

  ‘Do you think they’re gone, Grandad?’

  Eddie put one hand to his aching back. His spine was all crooked and cold. He tried to move his legs but they had gone to sleep when the infected were still scratching at the walls, and now he could barely feel them.

  He looked at the boy. ‘Wait here. Don’t move.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Eddie manoeuvred himself from under the table until he was able to stand. Just the silence outside. Not even the rain or wind. The blood flowed back into his legs and he stretched his back and winced at the small clicks and cracks from his old bones. He pictured the dry joints scraping in their sockets and imagined his skeleton like a structure close to collapse, tilting and worn like a decrepit building. So tired. So sick of survival.

  He stepped lightly and checked the door and it was still secure. The windows were intact. The back door was shut tight, the barricade untouched.

  Sam peered out at Eddie like a small mammal reluctant to leave its nest. Eddie crouched and looked under the table. The boy was humming a slow tune under his breath. Dirty face streaked with drying tears. Eyes collared in grime.

  ‘I have to check outside,’ Eddie said.

  ‘Please don’t, Grandad.’

  ‘I have to see if the area is safe.’

  ‘It’s not safe.’

  ‘I have the pistol. It’s okay.’

  ‘Please be careful, Grandad.’

  ‘Always.’ He touched Sam’s trembling shoulder and squeezed. ‘Stay here.’

  ‘What if the infected get you, Grandad?’

  Eddie took his hand away. ‘If that happens, you stay here and let me go.’

  ***

  It took all his nerve to leave the house and when he stepped outside he did so with a faltering heart and failing courage. The front door closed with a dull thud. Click and scrape as Sam threw the bolts. Eddie raised the pistol and stood with his back pressed to the door, facing the river and the fields. He swept the area around him. The cloth-mask covered his mouth and nose and smelled of dusty linen in shut-away cupboards.

  A fine mist-like drizzle in the air. He swallowed and thought there might be blood in his throat, and that he might be a little mad. He watched the trees and the grass, watched the river and the fields. The sky a pale shroud hiding the truth of dead constellations.

  He went round the outside of the house. Scratches on the doors and walls. Smears of grease and fluid upon the windows. Gouge marks where claws had been busy at the brickwork. There was blood on the grass, and a rotting slipper next to the barren flowerbeds in the back garden. The smell of ammonia and corrupted bodies. He listened. Somewhere out there, across the fields, there was a lowing call from some awful mouth.

  He returned to the front of the house. He looked towards the willow tree fifty yards away, and saw movement on the ground around its pale, aged trunk.

  He swigged from his flask and waited until the whiskey was working in his blood before he moved.

  ***

  Eddie found them digging at the grave of the girl he’d killed by the river. There were two of them, wiry and maggot-white, covered in grave dirt, mud and the stinking filth they’d unearthed. They smelled like shit. Each of them no older than fifteen. He thought of them as two brothers. No more than boys, and they would die as boys.

  Eddie stood watching and waited for them to notice him. He put the pistol away and took the lump hammer from the deepest coat pocket. Felt its weight in his hand. He took a breath and released it. The infected turned to him and snarled through mouths stained with bits of the girl. Her skin, and her hair. Grey scraps of flesh in their teeth. And through the gap between them Eddie could see the torn remains inside the opened grave. The iv
ory curve of upright ribs.

  ‘You eat your own,’ Eddie said.

  One of them seemed to grin at Eddie, and he was the first to attack. He lunged with reaching hands, his mouth yawning wide. His fingernails were long and black and stained with grave dirt.

  Eddie shifted his weight to his back foot and swung the hammer, and it shattered the boy’s cheekbone on impact. The boy fell away clutching his face.

  The other boy was almost upon him, too close to swing the hammer. His mouth snapped inches from Eddie’s face with breath stinking of putrid meat.

  He held him back with raised arms. Pale hands scratched at his clothes and ripped slashes in his coat. He dropped one hand to the left pocket of his coat and pulled the knife out, and just as the boy was bringing his head forward to bite at Eddie’s face, he plunged the blade into his neck. Pushed it in deep.

  The boy faltered and his eyes bulged. His mouth frozen wide and dripping.

  Eddie dragged the knife sideways through skin and meat until it sheared something that felt like rubber. Blood sprayed across Eddie’s arms and shoulders. His gloves were covered. He withdrew the knife then brought it down again. And he stabbed at the boy’s throat until the hands weakened on Eddie’s clothes, and he turned away and closed his eyes, letting go as the boy fell down, gurgling in his throat.

  Eddie stumbled away and fell to one knee, vomiting onto the grass. He spat bile and tears streamed from his eyes. Hot feeling of panic as he checked his face for infected blood. His shoulders were dripping. He’d left the knife in the boy’s throat. Then he rose and stood with his chest hitching and prayed for his heart to slow. He waited until his vision straightened and the ground stopped moving before he took the hammer and smashed their heads in and left their bodies beside the ravaged grave, the rain falling softly upon them.

  When he turned away to return to the house he looked across the fields and his heart sank into despair when he saw dozens of infected emerge from the trees and black thickets.

  ‘Oh God. Oh dear God.’

  ***

  As soon as Eddie got inside the house he pulled off his coat and gloves and dumped them in a wicker basket once used for laundry in that long-ago time. Then he made sure all of the curtains were drawn. He double-checked the bolts on the doors and told Sam to stay away from the windows. They pushed the dining table against the front door and when Eddie saw Sam crying, he put his arms around him and said he was very brave and it’d be alright in the end.

  ‘Pack all the food and water you can. As much as you can.’

  ‘Are we leaving?’

  ‘Just in case.’

  ‘The infected are coming, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes. But we’ll be okay. You have to be brave.’

  Sam nodded, his face wet and loose, shoulders juddering with each breath through his little mouth. Eddie tried to smile for the boy. Guilt nestled in his throat, his stomach, his chest, and behind his eyes. It manifested in the shaking of his hands. He looked down at the boy. His kin. His last reason and hope.

  How much easier would it be to simply use the pistol on Sam then himself?

  Could I do it?

  Would my heart see it through?

  ***

  While Sam packed food and water, Eddie went to Yost’s room where he found him huddled in the corner of the bed, staring at the photo of the woman.

  Eddie closed the door behind him. He stopped short of the bed and stood with the pistol in his hand. Yost looked up from the photo. A distant look in his eyes. The thin line of his mouth within his stained beard.

  ‘There’s a flock of infected heading this way,’ Eddie said.

  Yost nodded. Picked at a patch of skin beneath one bloodshot eye.

  Eddie stepped towards the bed. ‘Were they tracking you?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘I think I know why more infected have begun appearing in the area. I think I know what’s happening.’ Now Yost was staring at his hands. He blinked his damp eyes. ‘It’s because of me; what’s inside me.’

  Eddie stepped back. ‘What’s inside you?’

  ‘Something is wrong with me.’

  ‘Explain,’ Eddie said.

  Yost looked at him. Such sorrow in his eyes. All the pain of the world. ‘You don’t know what it’s like, Eddie. They won’t leave me alone. I can hear their thoughts and see their memories. In my dreams I see who they used to be; the people they once were, before they became monsters.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ asked Eddie. ‘That’s not possible.’

  Yost made a sound that was almost a laugh. But he didn’t smile. ‘I was bitten.’

  Eddie raised the pistol. ‘You’re infected.’

  Yost glanced at the gun. ‘In a way.’

  ‘This doesn’t make sense. If you’re infected, why aren’t you like the others? Why haven’t you tried to kill me and Sam?’

  ‘I would never do that, Eddie. I have a conscience and I have no wish to harm, infect or eat you. I’m still a person.’

  ‘Are you infectious?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How is this possible?’

  Yost shook his head. ‘I’m still a person, Eddie.’

  ‘When were you bitten?’

  ‘Five months ago. I was searching a house near Oxford, and this woman came at me from out of a bedroom.’ He held out his left arm and pulled down the sleeve of his fleece. Eddie kept the pistol up. On the inside of Yost’s forearm, a healed-over bite mark. Scar tissue. ‘I killed her, but she got me good. I was so scared. I thought it was game over. For days I was puking my guts up and passing out, but then it all passed and I woke up and I felt fine and I wasn’t a monster. How amazing is that? I thought I was immune; some kind of genetic fluke. But then I noticed that wherever I went, the infected seemed to be drawn to me. They wouldn’t leave me alone. They seemed to home in on me. And I saw their thoughts and their dreams and I knew their old names. Flashbulb images of their old lives. I wondered if they knew that I could see these things and wanted me to tell them who they once were, because they’d forgotten when they’d become infected. Who knows?’

  Yost rolled his sleeve down. Despondent. Shivering.

  ‘What the fuck are you?’ Eddie said.

  Yost smiled a sad smile and wiped his eyes. ‘I don’t know what I am. There’s no purpose or design. I think I’m stuck halfway between human and monster. Can you help me, Eddie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Eddie shot him in the chest.

  Yost slumped against the wall and his hands fell to his sides. He coughed. Made a sound like there was too much fluid in his throat. He looked at Eddie then his head dropped to his chest and the last breath passed from him like a whisper.

  Eddie lowered the pistol. His ears rang. He looked at Yost and then screwed his eyes up and let out a pained whimper. His heart like faulty machinery. He bowed his head and said sorry. Then he turned away and left the dead man behind, and this time he didn’t lock the door.

  ***

  ‘Did you shoot Yost, Grandad?’ There were tears in Sam’s eyes, and a darkening to them, like distrust.

  ‘He attacked me. I had no choice.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Grandad?’

  Eddie reloaded the pistol. Only seven rounds left; six in the cylinder and one spare, which he kept in his pocket and hoped he wouldn’t have to use.

  ‘Grandad?’

  ‘I would never lie to you, Sam.’

  The boy turned away and dropped two cans of soup into the rucksack. He was trying to stop the tears from falling down his face by wiping them away, and there was a low sobbing in his throat. He put his favourite Transformer action figure in his pocket and followed it with his knife.

  Eddie stood there and felt impotent
. A fool with a gun. ‘Do you think I’m a bad man?’

  Sam looked at Eddie and paused in the entrance to the hallway. ‘No, Grandad.’ In that moment Eddie felt such a surge of love for the boy that he was close to tears. He opened his mouth to say sorry.

  Sam smiled.

  A shape moved in the hallway behind the boy and rose from shadow to show its face. Sam must have heard it scraping on the floor, because he turned around and stood and stared.

  It was Yost, or what had once been Yost, because he was not as Eddie remembered. Black spines and pulsing tumours had split his skin and his bones were bent into obscene angles. Sharp mouths opened on his body. Tendrils burst from his torso and writhed in the air. His clothes fell away from his pulsating form until he was naked and shuddering. He was covered in glistening lesions and cilia, insectile pincers and barbs. A mewling monster with a man’s face. And then that face stretched taut and split down the middle for a long stinger, pale and dripping, to emerge.

  All of it happened in matter of seconds.

  Eddie levelled the pistol at the abomination, but it was too late. The Yost-beast seized Sam with its spindly limbs and lifted him into the air. The boy screamed as those hands and limbs dragged him down the hallway and out of reach.

  Behind Eddie, the front door rattled. The infected had reached the house. Hands slapped and pawed at the walls. The raking of claws. He spoke Sam’s name. Repeated it until it sounded like something different.

  The kitchen window shattered inwards. Glass fell into the sink and across the floor. Eddie shot an infected woman already halfway through the window, and she slumped dead with her head in the sink until the other infected pushed her body into the house and tried to follow. Pale hands and raw faces. Skeletal limbs and black claws.

  Banging on the door. Screams and shrieks. A thin, black tentacle burst through one of the glass panes, and when it sensed Eddie its tip opened into a slick maw with teeth. Awful sounds. The barricade shook. It wouldn’t hold. Nothing held, in the end.