Dreams of hell
The events in this book occur before the events in The Enemy, when the outbreak of the infection occurred. It follows the events of an individual, known as Tom, or to his friends, 'the shadow'.
I wake up at the crack of dawn, with the first beams of light gleaming through a small gap between the curtains. I clambered out of bed, still partially asleep, and threw some clothes on whilst opening the curtains. It was a crisp autumn day; the leaves on the trees had turned into vibrant shades of yellow, brown and auburn, whilst the sky was clear of any clouds. It was going to be a cold day. Full of surprises, yet still as boring as usual. It was just a Saturday, and there was a paper round that had to be completed in yet another record time. I smiled to myself, knowing that it would end up being the same sort of round that I had completed many a times.
My parents haven't woken up yet, which is strange, as it was only quarter to seven, but hey, they had fallen ill around two days ago, they should be on the mend and recovering in their sleep. But fuck it, I've got a paper round to do, as it won't do itself. I walk, downstairs, grab my bike and collect the papers, preparing myself for another hour of delivering things to people who don't even show their faces and say thanks. But hey ho, it's off to work I go.
An hour later, I cycle back home, and enter via the back gate. I place my bike in the shed, close the door, and walk towards the back door, and then pull the handle down, but it's locked. This may not seem weird to you, as people always forget to lock or unlock doors, but the back door is always open. Always. I feel a slight shiver run down my spine. Something doesn't feel right. I may just be feeling exceptionally paranoid, but I noticed something else which was weird. There was nobody driving their car this morning, which is normally a common sight. The only people that I saw were the occasional adult, and they were stumbling around as if they were in a daze. Something was definitely not right. I ran round to the front door.
I pulled my key out, and unlocked the front door, hopped in, and closed the door behind me. The house is still and silent. From in the kitchen, I hear a soft, knocking sound, as if someone was knocking against the worktop. I slowly walked through the hallway, expecting something drastic to happen, when in reality it's just my step father, tapping on the back door. I smile to myself, and relax, thinking that he's just playing around. I chuckle, and then say "The doors locked you know, you have to unlock it first". He slowly turns round, and I expect him to say something like 'no, you don't say', or something equally sarcastic, when what really happens is far more sinister.
He slowly turned around, and I immediately knew that something was wrong. His nails were chipped and layered with dirt, his lips were curled back to reveal his yellowish teeth, and the most obvious difference, was that his skin had taken a sickly green colour. His eyes were ringed with bruises, so it looked like he had black eyes, and his clothes were loosely hanging from his shoulders. He looked like what you would call a zombie, only that he hadn't raised from the dead, he was still alive. He took a step towards me, and made a slight growling sound in the back of his throat. He looked hungry, and it felt like I was a steak on legs.
He started towards me, reaching out to grab me, when my instincts took over. I grabbed a knife out of the knife stand in my right hand side, and slashed across his hand. I cut through the palm of his hand, and he stuttered backwards, as if he wasn't expecting such a reaction. With blood dripping from his hand, he moved forward again, only reaching out with his left hand. I repeated the same action, but instead of slashing across the palm of his hand, I sliced through four of his fingers, rendering his hand useless. He didn't move back this time, but instead jumped forward, hoping to land on top of me. I sidestepped the attack, and he slammed against the wall, his nose shattering against the blunt surface. He slumped to the floor, leaving behind a trail of blood and pus. I stepped back, trying to force myself to believe that this wasn't happening. He then growled some more, and started to stand again. "Fuck this shit", I said to myself, and quickly planter the knife into the side of his neck, ripping it out quickly afterwards. Blood gushed from the open wound, and he fell to the floor. He seemed to be dead, yet I planted a couple of kicks to the side of the head to make sure.
I stumbled back towards the door, and slumped against it, adrenalin leaving me, and realisation of what just happened was setting in. Before I could do anything else, I heard a hissing sound from the end of the corridor. My mother, or what was left of her, was slowly walking towards me, in the same condition as my dead step father. I knew that she would have to die, or she would be feasting into my stomach. I grabbed the knife, and launched it towards her head, hoping that it would distract her. It did more than that. The sharp blade managed to pierce through her eye, and straight into her brain. She fell hack, and cracked her head on the wooden floor. Blood slowly flowed from the wound, making the wooden floors dark red and slippery.
My morning was going well. I had successfully murdered both of my parents, after they had tried to eat me. It couldn't get any worse, right? Of course, I was wrong. It was about to get a lot worse. That's just my kind of luck. After a couple of minutes, I got up, and cautiously moved both of their bodies into the garden, and hid them behind some bushes, and then walked back inside the house. I was fairly shaken up already, but I then jumped out of my skin when my phone started ringing. I checked the time – it was 08:30, and I wondered who would be ringing me at such a time. I checked my phone, and it was one of my friend, Luke. I answered.
"You alright mate?" I asked, and as bad as it sounds, I was hoping that he had gone through a similar experience.
"Erm, not really", he replied, "Both of my parents have gone completely ape shit, and attacked me, and I managed to fend them off, but then… then…" I could tell that he was trying to hold it together, like me. "Then I ran downstairs, and I got a knife…" I knew what he was going to say.
"Wait," I interrupted, "Did they turn into one of them?" He paused, almost shocked to find that he wasn't alone.
"Into something like a zombie? Yes."
I sighed with relief. I wasn't the only one that it had happened to. "Thank fuck." I said. "Not that it happened, I mean, It's just that the same has happened to me, and I had… to you know… Dispose of them." I could hear that he had also sighed with relief.
"Thank fuck" He said. "I tell you what we need to do – meet up, cus you know, safety in numbers and everything." I nodded with agreement.
"I tell you what, pack up everything that you think you'll need, and I'll do the same, and I'll come down to yours and meet up with you". I could tell that he would like that plan. "Great, I'll see you soon". With that, he hung up.
"Right" I said to myself, "Time to get to work." The next half hour was a blur. I went around each room in the house, and took everything that I feel that I needed, from food to clothes, and various pieces of equipment, from gardening tools to deodorants. I piled everything into my mother's black Prius, thanking God (if he exists) that I had received around five driving lessons before all of this had happened. My stuff had only taken p around half of the storage space in the back of the car; after all, I was exceptionally good at packing things into small places. Finally, I picked up some weapons. Two small axes, which can he wielded in each hand, for some dual wielding awesomeness, as well as a war hammer. Don't ask me where I got it from, but it a potent weapon in its own rights.
I backed the car out of the driveway, and started my journey towards Luke's house. Things started to go wrong almost immediately. The adults had started to wonder onto the streets, and it was hard to try and avoid them all, as I didn't want to take any risks damaging the car. I got to one stage, where I couldn't avoid one, so I hit hard on the speed and rammed through it. The body hit the car, and got shoved about twenty metres away. It left a massive splash of blood and pus on the bonnet of the car, but other than that, nothing had really happened. The body lied still on the side of the road, and other zombies had started to walk towards it, as well as towards me and the car. I sped off, and around ten minutes later, I had arrived at Luke's place.
I got out of the car, stuck the two small axes to my belt, and picked up the war hammer. I started to walk towards the door, when two zombies dragged themselves towards me, hissing. Before I could even think what to do, by arms and legs were already in full swing. I stepped towards them, and swung the hammer into one of the zombies heads, caving it inwards with the heavy metal end. Then, before I could attack the second one, a dart flew past me ear, and stuck itself into the second zombies left eye. I squealed in pain, and span round. A second dart flew past me, and stuck into the zombies other eye, rendering it blind. I stumbled round in circles, trying to figure out where it was being attacked from. Then from my left hand side, a chainsaw whirred into action, and started to carve through the zombies' neck, causing blood to fly everywhere. Then the chainsaw stopped, and the person turned around to face me. I took a step back, and then realised that it was Luke. I took a step forward again and said, "My nigga" with a smile.
"TOM!" he says, with a smile on his face. He drops the chainsaw, and I drop the war hammer, and we tackle each other with a massive hug. "Thank fuck you're alive!" he said, as if I would be one of the first people do die in this sort of scenario.
"Fuck yeah, being alive is good!" I say. "Ain't no zombie gonna take me out."
We picked up our weapons, aware that zombies had probably heard or seen us, and we made our way inside his house. He had collected all of the equipment he thought would be necessary, thankfully including loads of bottled drinks and canned or dry food. It would take some time loading it into the car, but at least we will survive for a while. We started to load it all into the car, when he started talking.
"You know, I always dreamed of a zombie apocalypse, but I never thought it would be like this. I expected it to start when I was with a group of friends." He stopped loading things into a car to take out a zombie which had crawled over our way. "I never expected it to start whilst I was alone."
"You're not alone." I replied. Knowing that he would pick up on the fact that I was there, as well as the fact that we had always talked about what we would do in a zombie apocalypse. There was a plan. A few others knew this plan, and I was hoping that it would be followed. Without them, I know that we won't survive, but until then, I knew that my day going to get a lot worse.