The Indie Collaboration Presents: Tales From Darker Places Read online

Dead. Dead today, dead yesterday and dead tomorrow. Not easy being a zombie. Okay, it’s pretty easy, just move around and look for some warmies without losing your head. Literally. At this moment, me and the guys were hanging around the Distribution Centre, same as always. Couldn’t feel anything, not even the tarmac under my feet or the gooey stream of blood trickling down the side of my face. The promise of food kept us coming day after day. Without any warning, I fell to the floor. Damn Achilles heel!

  “Ouch! That hurt!” It didn’t. Nothing did anymore.

  “Whatever.” The ‘guy with the big feet’ who always stood next to me shuddered. His whole body moved in rhythm with his resonating laugh. I picked up a piece of wood broken from some long-gone window frame and shoved it into his shin. He stopped his laughter and stared at his new appendage.

  “Look!” Another guy pointed towards the opening main doors of the Centre. I watched from street level, sideways. Three fast warmies with weapons ran out, shooting this way and that, moving up the street away from the river. Their bullets sprayed across the crowd, hitting some of the guys and girls waiting for their daily snack. The ‘guy with the big feet’ got a bullet in his forehead, the force knocking him down next to me.

  “Better view down here, eh?”

  The guy didn’t reply. Seeing the danger pass, I got back up and looked around. The street was full of the fallen. I wasn’t one of them- that was a plus. Maybe. I didn’t know.

  “Hello? Anyone?” No one. I started to walk slowly back to my place by the river wondering when I’d get my next meal.

  “Morning,” Another soloist appeared.

  “Morning,” Not much small talk, who needs it? This guy had only one hand, and a hole in his face the size of a golf ball. “Got any warm stuff?”

  “No,” And that was it, off he went, down the street, shuffling along. He didn’t look much of a fighter with that one hand, but I wasn’t chancing it. However, he did look well past his best-before date. Note: somewhere between the Centre and the river, I lost a finger. Must look for it later.

  Standing by the river, I picked up my trusty spade which I’d leaned against the bridge foundations and held it up above my head. Standing, waiting. Waiting. More waiting. Zombies do a lot of that.

  Many hours later, some scurrying small bits of black fur nibbled at my feet and I let them have it. Rat meat for lunch again.

  “You! Hello! Any for me?” The ‘guy who always sat at the river’ turned towards the noise I was making.

  “Yeah, ‘course.” I picked up the two least squashed and carried them over to him. Sitting down together, we devoured the rats, fur and all. He never ate the tails.

  “Heard the latest?” This guy always heard something from someone.

  “No,” Then again, maybe not. A rat bone was stuck in my teeth. It wasn’t doing any harm.

  “Warmies in the old pub next to the market,” he mumbled.

  “The old pub?” I wasn’t from here, I’d walked from somewhere else. Couldn’t remember where.

  “Yeah, the one with the Hummer sitting outside,” He threw a rat’s tail into the river and watched the fish fight for it. I remembered seeing a Hummer driving around recently. Whenever recently was. Zombie time is screwed up.

  “Over the bridge?”

  “Over the bridge. I don’t go over the bridge.”

  “Then what do you do?” I asked. He sat and stared at the river in reply.

  Sometime later, I got up and walked over the bridge. There was as much nothing on this side as there was on the other. I spotted some groups moving in one direction, they could smell the warmies. I followed them.

  “Hey! Where’s the old pub?” One girl from a group close by stopped and turned what was left of her head.

  “Where the Hummer is.” She slumped back to her group who disappeared round the corner.

  “Thanks.”

  Look for a Hummer. One of my feet dragged, as I roamed the streets searching for the vehicle. It didn’t take long to find, everyone was going one way. And there were sounds of shooting. Poking my head around the next corner, I saw the Hummer and shots from a building. The old pub. I fell over.

  “Ouch! Stop doing that!” The ‘guy with the big feet’ was back again, the hole in his head, nor hadn’t the wood in his leg stopped him from following me. He ripped out the wood and stuck it in my side. Zombie revenge. Couldn’t feel a thing. Might come in handy later.

  “Warmies over there!”

  The guy’s attention diverted to the crowd outside the old pub and he hobbled over. I got up and raced to the old pub at a steady 3 miles per hour. I’d caught up with him by the time he’d got there.

  “Me first!”

  I pushed my way past him and a few others to face a warmie brandishing an axe. It made a few swings with the weapon and I was pushed forward by the crowd, forcing it to drop the heavy thing in surprise. I grabbed the warmie by its arm, only to hear the sound of a shotgun and watch my arm fall to the floor, still squirming. The warmies disappeared into the old pub, and I fell to the floor with the others pushing me down. I heard a few gunshots, breaking of furniture and then nothing. The group came walking back out over me some time later, empty-handed. The warmies had left, with the promise of food gone with them.

  It was dark when I bothered to get up. With one arm missing, I limped back over the bridge. As I moved over to the ‘guy who always sat at the river’, I stepped on my lost finger and squashed it.

  “Damn,” I picked up my spade with my remaining arm and waited.

  “Get one for me, will ya?” Nibbles at my feet brought my spade into action.

  Copyright 2014 Dani J Caile

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