Fear of the Dead (Book 1): Fear of the Dead Read online

  Shit! Could the same sort of thing be happening here?

  Jeez – if it is, he thought, I hope whatever it is this bitch has got is not fucking catching…

  From behind her, Harry saw a security guard starting to approach - having no doubt obviously seen him knock the perfume bottle from out of her hand and now coming to investigate the disturbance - and quickly turned around and once more, tried to push his way through the crowd, headed for a nearby escalator on which to try and make his escape.

  As Harry glanced back, he saw the sales assistant swing round violently with her hand at the security guard, opening up the man’s throat with her nails, before jumping on him and lapping furiously at his blood as he fell to the floor.

  Before Harry could even think to react, let alone consider rushing to the security guard’s aid, one of the other shoppers saw what was happening, and burst out into a scream.

  She was not alone.

  As more and more shoppers suddenly realised what was happening, they too began to scream.

  The sales assistant paused in gnawing at the security guard’s throat, looked up for a moment, then promptly leapt up and attacked the first woman who had started screaming.

  “What’s going on?” a woman in front of him on the escalator, laden down with shopping bags, turned around to ask. “What is it?” she asked Harry. “What’s happening down there? I can hear screams. Can you see? Can you see what’s going on?”

  “I think one of the sales assistants’ just fell ill,” Harry said, trying to play down what he’d just seen in an attempt to try and stop the woman in front of him from panicking. “I think she must have fallen, and passed out, and hit her head or something as she went down…that’s why people are screaming. There’s a lot of blood.”

  He didn’t mention the fact that looking back right now, Harry could see the sales assistant repeatedly smashing the head of the woman she’d leapt upon against the floor, trying to smash her skull open like an egg so that she could devour the brains that even now were starting to leak out.

  Hell, Harry had a strong stomach and even he wished he could mentally un-see it.

  First the chugger outside, and now this. Fuck this shit, he thought. Fuck all of this fucking shit; fuck the Christmas shopping, fuck the family, and fuck their fucking presents; something really bad is going down, not just back in London, but here now as well, and as soon as this escalator gets where it’s going, I’m heading straight back down the stairs and out the back entrance to the store and getting the fuck out of here before any more shit can happen to me today.

  He remembered seeing that Spanish horror movie, {Rec} not so long ago – having caught a late-night showing complete with subtitles on one of the 24 hour movie channels - and knew from watching that, just exactly how quickly a viral outbreak could spread in an enclosed building such as this one.

  True, that had only been a film but even so, from all he had seen here so far, Harry could only surmise that something similar was happening here – that there had been some kind of viral outbreak, first in London, and now here and if that were the case, getting trapped in here tonight, in this department store would, quite simply, be tantamount to a death sentence.

  As the escalator approached the top, Harry realised the woman in front of him was still talking.

  “God,” she was saying. “I hope she’s alright – and I hope she hasn’t got anything that’s catching. You know, like that H1N1Z virus that’s been going around? The one they keep talking about on all the news channels…you know what I mean, you must have heard about it. I mean, I know they say it’s not communicable to humans and only affects animals, but I’ve heard stories, you know? Things the Government doesn’t want you to know, doesn’t want people talking about…”

  Harry knew exactly what she was on about. Hell, had probably heard, and read, most of the same stories she probably had.

  H1N1Z was a new strain of avian flu that had somehow crossed species, mutated and begun to affect swine and cattle, causing them to fall ill and turn violent. The Government had insisted that there was no way the virus could mutate again and be passed onto humans, and posed no real threat provided certain precautions were observed, but Harry had dated a nurse a few months ago who worked for the NHS, and she had told him more than a few things she really probably shouldn’t have.

  Like apparently how there had been more incidents of humans contacting the disease than had been widely reported, and how the Government was very keen to keep things all covered up in order to prevent widespread panic; and like how there were fears in Government circles that if the virus did start crossing over to humans in larger numbers, then there was a very real danger of the disease ending up becoming a pandemic like the NORO virus had a few years ago.

  Only this time it wouldn’t be just the young and the elderly, the sick and the infirm, at risk, it would be everyone…

  But there was something else the nurse he had been seeing had told him too; a conspiracy theory that a lot of people she worked with closely believed and thought to be true - that the Government were the ones responsible for creating the virus in the first place, as part of a massive, secret bio-weapons project, and that they were the ones responsible for accidentally releasing it into the general population - hence the massive attempt at a cover-up, and their downplaying of the seriousness of the current situation.

  If any of that actually is true, and this really is a new strain of H1N1Z the government designed as a bio-weapon and it got out, then we really are all royally fucked, Harry thought. He had seen first-hand himself what the virus did to cattle, how it affected them and drove them violently insane, living out here in Norfolk as he did, and had seen, and smelled the piles of smouldering corpses as farmers started burning their herds en masse because there was simply nothing more they could do for their infected livestock but destroy them.

  It was all too easy to imagine those same farmers burning the bodies of infected humans in their place.

  The woman was still jabbering in his ear, talking at him rather than to him, even as the escalator reached the first floor and people started getting off.

  Harry did his best to try and make his excuses so that he could hurry up and get the hell away from her, and out of this store, but the woman couldn’t seem to take a hint and simply refused to shut up and move on.

  “I’m sorry,” he said eventually, when he could finally manage to get a word in edgeways. “I’d love to stay and talk, really I would, but I’m in a bit of a rush, see, and I really need to be going...”

  He attempted to move around her so he could head towards the stairs at the rear of the store that would lead him back down to the ground floor and the back entrance out of the shop, and heard the woman muttering under her breath behind him as he brushed past her.

  “How rude,” he thought he heard her say.

  Fuck you, he thought.

  The first floor they were now on was home to the Homewares section, which was where he’d originally been intending to come in order to buy his presents for his family, but there was no time for any of all that now. He could already hear shouting and screaming, and the sounds of panic coming from behind him, back down the escalator, back the way he’d come, and knew that time was running out and he really had to start thinking about getting the hell out of here asap before panic started setting in up here as well, and people started realising just what the hell was going on downstairs.

  Already, Harry thought, he had probably left it too late. The last thing he wanted was to get caught up in a mass exodus towards the only way out because once that happened, Harry knew, the only exit out of the department store would quickly become jammed up and then no-one would be going anywhere.

  As well as the Homewares section, this first floor was also home to the department store’s Toy department as well. As Harry rushed through the store amongst shelves full of this year’s must-have toys, headed towards the back where he remembered the stairs leading back down to the Gro
und floor were, he saw a great, big, huge chair that looked more like a majestic throne out of one of George. R. R. Martin’s novels, than anything to do with Christmas. A department store staff member, currently dressed up as Santa, was sat on the chair – a young boy of around nine or ten sitting on his lap – listening patiently, and more than just a little bit bored from the look of it, to the young boy’s Christmas list.

  Originally, Harry knew, the department store hadn’t been intending to have a Santa Claus this year. Because they were worried it might cause offence to other races and cultures who didn’t celebrate Christmas, the store had not bothered to build their traditional grotto like they did most years, but there had been such a public outcry, and demand had been so great that, at the last minute, the family that ran the store had finally relented.

  By that time though, it had been much too late to build a grotto and so, this year, Santa had just got a special chair to sit on, instead of the much grander affair the store usually provided him with.

  It was fair to say that most of the parents, many of whom had come here and sat on Santa’s lap when they had still been children themselves, had been more than a little disappointed by this year’s lack of effort, but it was, they supposed, better than nothing and at least the store had gone back on their decision and made some kind of token gesture – indicating that they at least, unlike many of the bigger chain stores, still listened to their customers and were interested in acting on their feedback.

  The department store Santa leant forwards, presumably to whisper something in the little brat’s ear, and then, as Harry and the other shoppers watched on in horror, promptly bit down and ripped the boy’s ear off as he held the boy tight against his body, preventing him from being able to escape.

  The boy screamed, closely followed by his mother - who only now looked up from her mobile phone where she had presumably, until now, been much more interested in updating her Facebook status or checking Twitter for the latest replies to her tweets. Seeing what was happening, witnessing the department store Santa attacking her child, the woman suddenly dropped her phone, Facebook temporarily forgotten, as she rushed to snatch back her child, but it was already too late…

  Two of Santa’s elves were trying to hold Santa down as she approached, even as he thrashed and struggled in their grasp, doing his best to try and bite each one of them in turn, even as the young boy he had been holding on to so tightly before – her son - tumbled from his lap to the floor, blood pouring profusely from what little still remained of his ear.

  The mother swiftly scooped her son up and backed off, holding her son in her arms, even as he continued screaming – more from shock than anything else, Harry imagined, though from the look of it, that bite must have really fucking hurt as most of his ear was now gone.

  Blood flew from Santa’s beard as he flung his head from side to side, droplets flying off to splatter on the faces of his elves.

  Santa turned his head and bit straight into the face of the tallest elf.

  There was a crunch of bone as Santa’s jaws clenched down on the female elf’s nose, causing her other companion to let go and start screaming herself, both hands now swatting and slapping at Santa in a bid to try and make him let go of her friend. Santa swung his head back around to face her, then swiftly vomited up a torrent of blood in her face. The second elf staggered back gagging and spluttering as Santa, no longer being restrained, stood up and finally forced himself to his feet.

  Harry’s attention was drawn away, back to the mother and child, as he heard her suddenly start screaming again, and as he looked over, Harry saw the boy – now obviously infected himself – bite into his mother’s throat, ripping out her carotid artery and sending her tumbling to the floor even as he continued to feed, and gnaw, on her dying body.

  Harry had seen enough.

  He could hardly believe his eyes, could not believe just how quickly this virus – if that’s what it was - appeared to be spreading. How quickly it seemed to take a hold of its victims and infect them; something that, by rights, Harry knew, should not be possible. What he was witnessing in front of him now was some fucked up 28 Days Later/ World War Z shit right there - the stuff of movies not real life. Real viruses simply did not spread that fast, it was impossible - but he could not argue with what his eyes were seeing, the evidence right there in front of him, and Harry knew if he didn’t move, and swiftly, he could well end up being the next victim. He had to get out of here and NOW, before it was too late and the whole department store became overrun with infected.

  Time was running out, he thought, there was no more time to waste.

  As Harry started to head over towards the door to the stairwell that he knew would lead him back downstairs, and out the back of the store, he found himself confronted by the same woman from earlier, on the escalator, her shopping bags pooled around her feet, dropped and forgotten in light of what she, too, had just witnessed. Before Harry could do anything to stop her, the woman flung her arms around him and took hold of him with both hands.

  “Did you see that?” She practically screamed at him at the top of her voice. “Did you just see what that Santa just did to that poor Elf’s face? Did you see him bite off that kid’s ear? Did you? Did you? You have to DO something. You have to stop him. You have to help those poor people…”

  The woman was fast becoming a nuisance, Harry thought. Everywhere he turned, there she was, coming at him, hassling him like one big royal pain in the arse. He wanted to tell her, it was too late – there was nothing he could do for any of those people now. Nothing anyone could do for them – not now they were infected – but instead he just said, “Lady, no dis-respect, but will you just fuck off already.”

  Harry pushed her away, too late realising that they were at the top of the escalators leading back down. The woman pin-wheeled her arms for a moment, struggling to keep her feet, then lost her balance and tumbled backwards down the moving staircase.

  Two more infected Santa, trying to climb the escalator the wrong way, saw her tumbling down towards them and swiftly fell upon her like ravenous wolves.

  Harry saw the woman extend a hand back up towards him as though pleading for him to help her - her eyes staring at him, accusingly as if to say, ‘It was you, you did this, you did this to me…’ and then suddenly she was lost to sight, hidden beneath not just the original pair of Santa who had pounced on her, but more infected shoppers from downstairs who even now, began chewing on her and devouring her as they ripped away huge, great big chunks of her flesh.

  Looks like the escalators are out of bounds then…Harry thought. Not that he’d been intending to use them anyway.

  As one of the infected shoppers looked up, he caught sight of Harry looking back down at him and abandoning the woman he’d been feeding on, started bounding up the still moving escalator trying to reach him.

  Shit, Harry thought.

  More of the infected from down below started following the first one up towards him, their progress only slowed by the downward moving escalator that continued to carry them back down even as they attempted to ascend.

  But, Harry knew, that wouldn’t stop them for long.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, he thought, and turned and fled for the nearby stairwell as fast as his legs would carry him.

  THREE

  There was a pair of elevators next to the back stairwell. As Harry approached, he saw one of them had an out of order sign pinned to its doors, but the other appeared to be still working. As all Hell continued to break loose, all around him, and with more and more shoppers now starting to become infected, Harry dashed towards the lifts, figuring they might be a quicker way of getting back downstairs than the stairs – especially since he could see, from the display overhead, that the lift still working was now approaching his floor.

  Close to panic now, and only just barely holding on to his sanity after all he’d seen so far tonight, Harry jabbed at the call button frantically, trying to speed the lift up.
r />   It was on the floor above, he saw, and slowly coming down – but slowly, too slowly he thought. He could hear the sound of pursuit coming from behind him as some of the infected started heading his way, and Harry was just about to give up and go back to his original plan of taking the stairs when suddenly the elevator doors slid open...

  Harry back pedalled as quickly as he was able as a group of infected Zombie Santa all started spilling out towards him.

  There were too many of them, he noted, all trying to get out of the elevator at once, and this was the only thing that saved him as one-by-one, they all started falling over one another in their frenzied attempts to try and reach him.

  Fuck this, Harry thought, and hopping over their flailing bodies and avoiding them and their outstretched arms trying to grab him, quickly hurried through the door to the stairwell instead - just in time as it turned out.

  As the door swung back shut, Harry heard the sound of the infected who had been coming after him, smashing into the door close behind him.

  Too stupid, and lacking the rudimentary intelligence to realise the door pulled open, the zombies began pounding on the door, trying to push it open so they could get to him.

  There was a small glass panel in the door at about head height, so Harry could look out and as he did, he saw them there, on the other side of the door, beating on the barrier that separated them with their hands and their fists. One of the infected saw him and began smashing its head against the glass panel, head-butting the door, its jaws clenching and gnashing at him as though trying to bite through the glass. Blood and foul, black ichor ran down the panel as the creature slowly beat itself to death in front of him.

  Harry extended his middle finger and flipped the zombie the bird.

  Fuck you, motherfucker, he mouthed.

  As though it could somehow understand him, the zombie seemed to get angrier – smashing its head against the glass a lot harder in its attempt to try and get to him.

  The glass was thick, there was no way the zombie could break through, Harry thought, and even if it did, the square panel was too small for the zombie to get its hand through and grab him, but still, instinctively, he backed away anyway.