Zombies! Read online

Zombies!

  ©Lelanthran Krishna Manickum

  December 2011

  Today ...

  … George awoke on the floor of his bathroom. His head was pounding, his mouth was furry and his eyeballs hurt; in other words, George had a hangover. “What had happened last night? Some big bash?”, he thought. Memory seeped slowly into his brain, fragments of what, from the the way his body felt, must have been one hell of a party. Now that he’d had the time to take stock, he found that it was worse than he thought. His stomach was screaming bloody murder, his head felt like it had an axe embedded in it, his legs couldn’t support him without his hands gripping the basin, purple dots danced in his vision and it felt like there were knives stuck into his kidneys. He checked himself just to be sure - yup, it was only a hangover, no sharp objects at all. Pity; this would mean that he’d have to live through this without even the peaceful rest of death.

  Throwing up into the toilet bowl George screamed a resolution in his head, a resolution made hundreds of times before, all over the universe by every race that had discovered alcohol, “I SHALL NEVER DRINK AGAIN AS LONG AS I LIVE I SWEAR OH GOD IS THAT PURPLE WOBBLY BIT IN THE TOILET MY LIVER I JUST THREW UP PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE LET IT BE A KIDNEY AT LEAST I HAVE TWO OF THOSE OH FUCK THIS I WILL NEVER EVER DRINK AGAIN I SWEAR BUT PLEASE OH GOD MAKE IT BE ANYTHING BUT MY LIVER”.

  His vomiting fit completed, George plopped down next to the toilet bowl and tried to scream his anguish and agony at the world, and then found out why this is not possible after you’ve thrown up bits of lung tissue. Coughing his anguish and agony instead, George once again tried to piece together a few shards of memory of what had happened last night. Office party, wasn’t it? Alcohol was involved, no doubt, although he did seem to have a vague recollection of smoking weed. Wait a minute! Wasn’t one of the effects of weed the loss of short-term memory? Great - that went some way towards explaining things then. He’d obviously partaken of Vitamin Green in copious amounts. “Mary Jane,” George ruminated, “was a bitch!”.

  Finally, having spent five minutes on the floor gathering the courage to trust his legs to hold him, George grabbed the basin with one hand and stood up, steadying himself with the toilet bowl. “Crap!” he thought. This wasn’t any better; he still felt like death warmed over! “Coffee!” his mind almost screamed at him, then added, “and maybe a hangover cure too - where’s the vodka?” George bravely faced the kitchen.

  Yesterday …

  … George silenced the alarm clock and got out of bed. He swung into his regular routine with aplomb, choosing a colourful tie to match his mood and cheerfully whistled a tuneless ditty as he groomed himself for work. His cheer was well-placed, for today was the end-of-year company office party. The good mood was not, however, long-lasting, for as soon as he had closed his front door behind him he was accosted with the rather irate face of Harry The Annoying Git, AKA Harry The Ex-Merc From A Failed North Africa Coup De Tat, AKA Harry The Idiot With A Gun Collection, AKA the neighbour from next door, peering over the shrubbery like some sort of wrinkled urban soldier.

  “Your damn dog went and crapped on my lawn again!” Harry yelled over the fence, annoyance factor clearly close to max, “I thought I told ya to tie the mutt up? It’s the third fucking time this week, and we’re only on Wednesday YOU FUCKING IDIOT!”

  “Oh no!” said George, attempting (and failing) to appear sincere, “Are you sure it was my dog? Did you see my dog actually, uh, do the deed, so to speak. I’m pretty certain I saw a stray going by yesterday … so … if you’ll excuse me …” George jumped into his car before Harry could get another word in. In any case, Harry was beyond words now, made speechless and slightly purple with the turn of events.

  The last thing George saw as he reversed the car out into the street was Harry miming the pumping and firing action of a shotgun. “He won’t be so thick as to shoot the dog?” George thought, “After all, even an ex-military quack couldn’t be that thick … could he?”

  Today …

  … George spat the mouthful of coffee out of his mouth, cursing horribly. However, it had done it’s job in bringing him some awareness. He realised that the power was out. Hence, the fridge was out. Meaning, the milk had turned. Ergo, coffee with milk in it would taste like … like … well, exactly like how his mouth now tasted. First things first, he had to establish whether it was the entire neighbourhood out of power or just his house. If it was just his house, then he just had to reset the breakers. If it was the entire neighbourhood, then he … well, he could go back to lying curled up on the bathroom floor in agony. He opened the front door and stepped out into gunfire.

  Seconds later he was back inside, the gunfire having done the work that the coffee had failed to do, namely sobering him up completely and instantly. Harry The Annoying Git, AKA Harry The Madman Who Tried To Shoot His Neighbour, had taken one look at him, pointed a shotgun in his direction and pulled the trigger. George’s memory, triggered and primed by the display of Harry The Murderous Bastard, threw up the events of yesterday morning. In light of his recently resurfaced memory, George’s opinion was that Harry The Loon From Next Door was taking the issue of doggie-dumps on the lawn to a whole new level.

  Yesterday …

  … The newscaster on the radio as George drove to work seemed to be somewhat confused; the major news item appeared to be stories of Zombies. If the news were to be believed, there were Zombies (allegedly) showing up in various suburbs in Johannesburg. They were (allegedly) attacking people. They were (allegedly) eating human flesh. Also, some high-ranking politician was (allegedly) involved in corruption. George didn’t believe that last one; South African politicians were never allegedly corrupt.

  Once he got to the office he got more details on the Zombie stories, this time without all the unnecessary allegations. He was told that Zombies were overrunning the city (probably true), that Zombies eat human flesh (probably true), that it was only a matter of time before everyone will die (definitely true) and that the politician was cleared of all corruption (definitely not true). This being the day of the office party, it was obvious that some of the wilder party animals had already started in on the booze, and so George fully understood how they could believe that the politician was innocent of all allegations.

  He settled down at his desk on the third floor and got started on all the duties that a senior HR officer, as he was, had to do. Five minutes later, all duties completed, he joined the water-cooler brigade for more chit-chat. The only topic under discussion seemed to be about Zombies, as by now there were further reports of the invasion and much corroboration from independent sources of actual dead people getting up and walking around, eating actual live people …

  Today …

  … George surveyed the collection of weapons he had assembled on his dining table. It wasn’t looking good, he had to admit. His further recollections of the stories from the office yesterday morning had spurred him to look for weapons; all he could remember from yesterday was that zombies were out and about. Peeking through his lounge window he had spotted Harry The Armed Moron walking the street with his pump-action shotgun, talking to a few of the other residents of the street.

  Although George wasn’t an anthropological expert, and would have needed at least two tries to even spell it correctly, something about the stance and poise of the armed figures patrolling the streets clearly didn’t look right to him. They looked … odd. They looked human, true enough, but some instinctive part of George reviled at the idea that they were the same as him. There was something he couldn’t quite put his finger on that disturbed him about the creatures walking in the street. All his instincts told him that they were different in some unidentifiable way. His conscious logic took over and informed him that these must be the zombies that
everyone was talking about. His recently recovered memory only went up to yesterday morning though, so he had no more information on what to do next.

  He had to get out; get out and escape. He peered through the window again and regarded the patrolling creatures outside. He watched the group huddle in the centre of the road, then he watched them break up. He watched two of them go to the house opposite the street and flank the front door, while a third one pulled out a shotgun and sighted along the front door. He watched as yet another creature went to the side of the house and lobbed a rock through it. He watched in horror as the front door burst open and Gunther, the owner of said house, stumbled outside and was almost decapitated by the immediate shotgun blast.

  In spite of the horror, George’s mind worked rapidly. Weren’t zombies supposed to be stupid? These creatures seemed awfully smart. They had figured out how to work pump-action shotguns, how to flank an enemy, how to startle prey from hiding and how to work as a team. How long before they realised that George was still around? After all, if they worked as a group, that meant that they could talk to each other, and that meant that Harry