One of Them (Year of the Zombie Book 11) Read online

  ONE OF THEM

  by Matt Shaw

  Copyright © Matt Shaw 2016

  All rights reserved

  The right of Matt Shaw to be identified as the author

  of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters,

  organisations and events portrayed in this novel are

  either products of the authors’ imaginations

  or are used fictitiously.

  First published in 2016 by Infected Books

  www.infectedbooks.co.uk

  @infectedbks

  Cover design by David Naughton-Shires

  www.theimagedesigns.com

  www.mattshawpublications.co.uk

  www.facebook.com/mattshawpublications

  @The_Matt_Shaw

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE

  ONE OF THEM

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE

  ALSO FROM INFECTED BOOKS

  MONTH ELEVEN

  ONE OF THEM

  IMPATIENT

  Please wake up. I’m not sure how much time we have and there’s so much to discuss. Please wake up, my darling. And dinner’s getting cold.

  But she didn’t wake up. The unplanned sleep he had put her in was deep and talking into her ear, even nudging her, failed to wake her from the slumber. Her hands were upturned on the table with bindings round the wrists, the other end of the binding tied to the chair she was sitting on. Her fingers were twitching as though squeezing off rounds of a fully loaded gun. Her face - still pretty - also twitching. Dreaming.

  What are you dreaming of, my darling?

  She was dreaming of better times. She was dreaming of when things had been normal. She was dreaming of when she’d had her little family. Given the state of the world today, all the rot and decay out there festering, and especially given her present situation, they should have been good dreams. But they weren’t. Happy dreams that couldn’t possibly have a happy ending given the fact that, as soon as her eyes opened, the reality of the situation was forced upon her once again. And then, once again, she had to say goodbye to them.

  Her family.

  Gone.

  Not coming back.

  And now this.

  Him.

  The man sitting opposite her. Staring at her intently, desperate for her to open her eyes so that he could show her the world he had created for her. Her? No. Show her the world he had created for them. So long as she wanted it.

  You will want it, won’t you? It might not be perfect but it’s better than what’s waiting for us out there. The man sighed, growing ever more impatient at her refusal to wake, not that she had much control over whether she opened her eyes or not. Hurry up and finish the dream, my darling. I’m waiting for you. Dinner is waiting.

  A WORLD LOST

  Andria knew it was a dream. Sitting on the grass outside her caravan-home watching the three kids playing happily together. The children were all of a similar age in the dream yet, in the real world, only Jack and Becky were close. Becky was twenty-three and Jack was twenty-one. Here though, in this blissful setting, they couldn’t have been any older than ten. Becky wasn’t living with her boyfriend in Amblecote. She wasn’t working with people with challenging behaviour and learning difficulties. She hadn’t yet decided to be a vegetarian. She hadn’t chosen her two cats and she hadn’t started playing her favourite games, Pokémon and The Sims. Also here, in this world, she was smiling as if she didn’t have a care. Her laughter carried across the field to where Andria was sitting. Not a worry in the world.

  Jack was different here too. His voice as he shouted to his sister wasn’t as deep as it was now and his face was so young, missing the beard Andria had grown accustomed to seeing. His dark hair was still mid-length though. Still messy too. It was nice to see him here, in this dream, without his headphones on and a laptop resting on his lap. No games playing up on the screen. No coding for the games of his own he was designing. In the dream there was an innocence to their playing, one which seemed to have gotten lost over the years, lost as the children became exposed to more and more of the world’s cruelness and horrid secrets.

  Please wake up, my darling.

  Andria ignored the voice in the back of her head. She didn’t want to hear it. More to the point, she didn’t want to wake up. She wanted to live in this moment. It was nicer than the real world. More peaceful. More serene.

  ‘Nice to see them getting on.’ Rob’s voice came from behind Andria, making her jump. He appeared at her side and sat next to her on the lush green grass, then set his glass of wine down and lit up a cigarette. She smiled at him lovingly. The kids were younger in the dream but he seemed to be his actual age. Forty-five years old. At this point, they would have been together for ten years or so. People often wondered what Andria saw in Rob: bald-headed and heavily tattooed, he looked pretty tough. She knew the truth though. She knew he was soft as shit. At least he was towards the people he loved. ‘Where’s Oli?’ he asked.

  Without a word, Andria pointed towards the trees to the left of where the others were playing. Oli came crashing out into the open with all three dogs chasing. Oli was younger too, the same as the others but, like Rob, the dogs appeared to be their correct age. Rob laughed as Oli tripped to the ground only to be jumped upon by the dogs. Pippin - a West Highland white terrier, Minnie - a Yorkshire terrier and Douglas, a black Scottie and Yorkie mix.

  ‘They’re crazy,’ Rob said, unable to tear his eyes away from the playful dogs.

  Andria looked at him and wondered whether he knew this was a dream too or whether she was the only one. Surely he must have known something was amiss, given how Minnie was happily playing with the other dogs (and Oli). In the real world she’d been ripping stuffed animals apart. She never played properly like a normal dog. Even ignoring the dogs, Rob hadn’t seemed to notice the fact that Oli had dark hair where, in reality, his head was shaved. He hadn’t commented that he was fully grown rather than the young child they were watching play. Just as Rob hadn’t mentioned their ages or their looks, neither had he picked up on the strangeness of seeing Oli spending time with anyone else. A lad of thirty-one, he much preferred his own company - taking care of his fitness, playing video games, drawing… anything really that didn’t involve other people.

  Rob couldn’t know it was a dream. It was Andria’s secret.

  ‘How long before the peace is ruined?’ Rob asked.

  Please wake up now, my darling. You’ve been asleep for long enough. It’s time to get up. Dinner is getting cold. Come on. Open up those pretty blue eyes.

  Andria tried not to show her disappointment as she realised it probably wouldn’t be very long before she woke. The realisation killed the peaceful dream, threatening to bring an end to its disjointed-but-satisfying playback.

  ‘Shh... Don’t jinx it,’ she said as she cuddled into Rob. If she really was about to wake up, she wanted to make the most of this moment. More so as she realised, given the way dreams worked, she probably wouldn’t be able to recall any of this. But then, maybe, that might be a good thing? Maybe remembering this dream, these brief happy moments, would make the reality of her situation that bit even more unbearable. Tease her with the world she had once lived in, before throwing her back into the harsh reality of knowing that they - her family - were all dead now. Only she had survived. She and...

  WAKE THE FUCK UP.

  ...Him.

  AWAKE

  Andria slowly opened her eyes and let them focus on her lap. She lifted her head up. Grog
gy. Dizzy. Headache. Tired. Restrained.

  ‘Where am I?’ The words slurred as she spoke, making it sound as though she’d drunk a bottle of wine by herself. It wasn’t drink that had made this happen though. It was what he had used to knock her out in the first place.

  ‘It’s okay. We’re quite safe here.’

  She looked up and saw that he was sitting opposite her. An obese man with a missing front tooth. Ugly inside and out. His hair was growing in greasy tufts here and there but he was mostly bald. Even the whites of his eyes weren’t right with a tinge of jaundiced yellow to them. His skin, almost as greasy as his hair, was blotchy around his cheeks.

  ‘I was starting to worry that you weren’t going to wake up,’ he told her. His voice was high-pitched and didn’t suit his heavyset body. ‘Eat up. You must be hungry.’ Only when he spoke again did Andria realise that he wasn’t putting the voice on or that her tired brain had imagined the tone. This was actually his voice. She watched him as he picked his own knife and fork up and start to eat the meal he’d set out in front of himself. She looked down at her own food; a plate of beans and half a slice of bread that hadn’t been buttered.

  ‘I’m sorry about the bread,’ he said, spraying food from his open mouth back onto his own plate as he spoke, ‘the other half was mouldy.’ He continued, ‘They add stuff into the ingredients to prolong the shelf-life but, well, I guess they weren’t counting on this happening, hey.’ He chuckled to himself as he shovelled another forkful of beans. ‘Seems I was one of the only ones who saw it coming.’ He looked up at Andria, ‘Saw it coming a mile off.’

  ‘Where am I?’ Andria asked again. Her voice was less-slurred this time.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. How rude of me.’ He set his fork down for a moment and smiled his ugly smile, beaming at his guest. ‘You’re home.’

  HOME

  Andria had started screaming at the stranger - desperate for him to let her go, even going as far as throwing the plate of beans at him. He had responded with barely-contained aggression, slapping her in the face. Only later, when he had put her in this tiny box room, had he apologised. He’d told her he’d had little choice given the fact that she was hysterical. She had asked to be allowed to leave again but was told that there was nowhere else to go. This was her home now.

  But it wasn’t her home.

  Andria’s home was out in the country. A deluxe caravan, nicer than most houses. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, dishwasher, double-glazing, central heating. She had moved there with Rob once the kids had all grown up and moved to their own homes. An early retirement at fifty years of age, having worked in an elderly care home for most of her life. Peace and quiet, living with Rob and the dogs, pottering around and growing her own tomato plants. Her own slice of quiet heaven, surrounded by wildlife and solitude, despite the occupants of the other caravans being relatively close by.

  The caravan site was Acre Farm Caravan Park, in Bewdley. Her plot was on the edge of the park by a stream, overlooking fields and trees.

  That was her home. Not this. Not here.

  Andria looked around the room in which she’d been abandoned. A small window with bars blocking a possible exit. A door which had been locked - by him - from the other side as he’d left her. A single bed with a small chest of drawers next to it. Nothing else.

  She crossed the room to the door and tried the handle, despite knowing full well that he had locked it. It twisted in her hand but the door didn’t budge, not even when she pushed and pulled with all of her weight. Without worrying about the consequences, not caring if she angering him, she started to punch the door with her fists.

  ‘Let me out!’ She had screamed, not bothered that he would hear her but instead hoping someone else would. Someone else who’d take her away from this nightmare.

  Nightmare? This isn’t a nightmare. This isn’t a dream. This is the world now. A world filled with monsters.

  In the centre of the door was a metal flap. With no warning, it slid across revealing the man’s harsh facial features as he stared in. With nothing else to focus on, Andria couldn’t help but notice a look of frustration in his eyes.

  ‘You didn’t want to talk when I wanted to talk so now you have to wait. You need to go to sleep and we will talk tomorrow and, if you can’t sleep, you need to be quiet. It’s night-time out there now, and they’re more active at night...’

  Andria went to say something but, before she even get the first words out, the metal flap slammed shut and she was alone again. She raised her hand, ready to slam her fist into the door again, but froze. Something he had said stuck in her mind, repeating over and over.

  It’s night-time out there now, and they’re more active at night…

  Reluctantly she lowered her fists. Even if they weren’t out there, she knew the chances of anyone else risking travelling during the night hours was minimal. The only people who travelled after dark were the ones who didn’t want to be seen, the ones with something to hide. The troublemakers looking for not who they could help, but what they could take. She turned towards the bed. She didn’t feel tired, despite the banging headache she still had from earlier, and she knew the chances of falling asleep were slim and yet, despite that, she knew she had to try. She needed strength for the morning. She needed strength for when he came back.

  She crossed the room and climbed onto the hard mattress, her head leaning back on the lumpy pillow. For a moment she stared at the ceiling, her mind all over the place, then she closed her eyes. Sleep might not come easily tonight, but she had to try.

  A CRUEL MIND

  It wasn’t the way it had happened, but Andria knew what was coming. She also knew that she wasn’t in the real world again. She had managed to fall asleep, despite worrying she wouldn’t have been be able to. But now that she was asleep, and walking through her dream, she wished she could wake up again. She even pleaded with herself to do so. Wake up. Please wake up. You don’t need to see this...

  She was standing in a field. Night had closed in around her. A blackness in the sky broken with a vivid shimmering of stars usually only visible with this intensity when viewed from a dark countryside setting, well away from the glow of towns and cities. But she wasn’t looking at the stars. She was looking at the line of trees before her. Specifically, she was looking at the space between the bushes that Rob had gone through, baseball bat in hand at the ready. Brave man investigating the screams from the woods.

  Andria had begged him not to go. She had told him to wait until the morning when he’d be able to see properly. Whatever was happening would be more than evident in the morning. He had refused telling her that if he went in now he might be able to help, even though they both knew that when the screaming started, it was generally too late to do anything but run. Run before you find yourself the next potential victim.

  The only reason she wasn’t running now, instead of waiting on the edge of the woods, was because she knew this wasn’t how it had happened. This wasn’t how he had died. Perhaps this dream - nightmare? - would have a different ending. Perhaps this wasn’t a time she’d wake up, tears streaming down her face having been forced to relive what had happened? She waited there in the dream with hope. Let him survive. Let him help whoever was screaming.

  The bushes rustled to her left. Her head snapped to the side and her heart skipped a beat.

  ‘Hello?’

  Another rustle.

  ‘Rob? Is that you?’

  Rustle, rustle.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  Rustle.

  Andria took a step back as a figure tripped out of the bushes and landed on the field with its arms outstretched before it. As soon as it was able, it pulled itself up from where it had awkwardly dropped and Andria breathed an audible sigh of relief when she realised it was...

  ‘Rob?’

  He looked different.

  Damn this dream. Damn this dream to Hell. This isn’t how it happened. This isn’t how it happened. This isn’t right!

 
Rob snarled. Even in the dim light offered up by the moon high above, she could see his eyes had a reddish tint to them. This wasn’t the Rob that she loved. She took a step back as he took a step forward.

  Why was she imagining it like this? This wasn’t what had happened. It hadn’t even happened at night. It had happened during the day and they had been in the caravan. She had gone in to check on him, as he laid in bed suffering with a fever. Being a bigger man, she had hoped he would have been able to fight the infection, but even he had been consumed by it in the end.

  Her mind kept tossing the questions around in her head - even answering some of them, suggesting that the setting was night because of what he had said to her through the locked door. A thought which had worried her enough to stop her from banging on the door anymore but... even so... why couldn’t she have the dream in the field again? Why couldn’t she...

  Rob lunged.

  UNWANTED INTRODUCTIONS

  The man was sitting opposite Andria at the dining room table again. In front of each of them was a bowl of cereal. Instead of milk, water had been used.

  ‘I used to know someone who used water instead of milk before everything changed. I always thought it was weird until I was forced to do the same when milk became harder to get hold of.’ He spooned a mouthful of soaked cereal into his mouth. ‘Now I know I was right. He was weird. It’s disgusting but...’ He swallowed. ‘It’s better than having it dry, right?’

  Andria didn’t say anything. Neither did she try any of her own breakfast. She was just sitting there, watching this motherfucker, hoping he would tell her why he had brought her here. She had been doing fine on her own. Did he want to help her? Was that it? Did he think he was doing her a favour? She didn’t need his help. She had buried her whole family. She didn’t need anyone anymore.