It's Grim Up North (Book 1): It's Grim Up North Page 3

  The zombies, on closer inspection looked, acted and moved like all the zombies I’d ever read about. Slow, ungainly, covered in blood with parts of their anatomy bitten away and all of them emitting that unearthly moan. Apart from Max of course, he had no fucking larynx left.

  And before you start, I know there have been other books and films which contain fast, running and jumping zombies. I refused to ever read or watch them on principle. I like my zombies old school. Romero style!

  The zombies I was now viewing, as they battered away at Alice’s front door, were proper old school. Slow and thick as shit. Just the way I like ’em. So what should I call them? Well, seeing as I’m a Geordie I’ve decided on deedaz (that translates into ‘deaders’ if you’re from daan saaf).

  I began to realise slowly that the deedaz in my street weren’t an imminent threat to me at that moment and would have to start putting one of my plans into action before any more of the clumsy shambling fucks showed up.

  The house was as secure as it was ever going to be. There was no way they could get in from the front, but if enough of them pushed up against my flimsy garage door, it would buckle and may allow them access to the garden through the door at the back of the garage, which had always been the weak point in my plan of staying put. As quickly as possible I moved all of my supplies upstairs, piled them into the spare room and went back into the garage to retrieve some tools, my extendable ladders and some 2 x 4 wood I’d been meaning to throw out.

  My idea was to shore up the back door with the 2 x 4 and then quietly dismantle the stairs up to the first floor of the house. I say quietly. There was nothing quiet about me hammering the 2 x 4 into the door frame and absolutely nothing quiet when it came to demolishing the stairs. I decided to take the first ten steps out and did so with a crow bar after I’d removed the carpet. I was surprised at how easily they came up. Having done that, I stripped away the plaster board from the ceiling inside of the cupboard under the stairs, took the door off and then stood back and admired my handy work. The landlord would go fuckin’ ballistic if he could see what I’d done. He’d have to take this off my bond too.

  Once the dust had settled and the noise abated, I realised the slapping of hands on the van had started again.

  I set the ladders up against the first stair I’d left in place, around two and a half metres from the ground, and climbed up to go and take a look out of my bedroom window to see if Max and his buddies had returned. What I saw chilled me to the bone. The whole street had deedaz milling around outside different neighbours’ houses. Some of Alice’s windows were broken and the deedaz were trying to drag themselves through. Alice was futilely pushing back against the tide with a sturdy garden broom. I looked down towards my van and saw what can only be described as the pit of hell. More wee I’m afraid. I promised myself at that moment, if I ever made it out of there I’d go straight to a pharmacy and purchase some fucking tenaladies. (google it.)

  Chapter 7 The bloodbath

  Before me stood around thirty of them. Mostly dressed in nightgowns and slippers, they started pushing and shoving the van. It was rocking so much on its suspension that it started banging off the wall of the house. Which in turn made noise, which in turn attracted more deedaz towards my humble domicile. The entrance to the street was now full of them. Where the fuck did they all come from? Then I remembered how fast Max had turned into one of them. It felt like seconds but was probably a couple of minutes.

  Now usually, in all the best zombie novels, you got bitten then over a couple of days you got the flu, died and then came back as the walking dead. That usually gave the person a little time to come to terms with his or her inevitable doom. But not the deedaz. You got bitten, you turned straight away. No more, ‘I’m bitten, you go on and I’ll hold them back’ from your fellow survivors. This was a case of, as soon as someone gets bitten you quickly and decisively cave their fucking skulls in. No time for sentiment or goodbyes. Just a good old-fashioned caving.

  My decision to stay at the house was fast becoming the wrong one. The first rule of zombie is mobility. Being mobile is always one of the best ways of staying alive when it comes to the Z.A. No one ever survives in a static location. In all the films and books I’ve watched or read, the tenacity of the dead always overcomes. They never give up and never get tired. I should have known better, what with my vast knowledge of everything zombie related.

  Nothing I could do about that now. By the look of things, half the town was infected and converging on my house.

  A blood-curdling scream echoed down the street from Alice’s house. The deedaz had grabbed her brush and instead of letting her trusty weapon go, she hung on for some reason and was dragged kicking and screaming out of the broken window. I turned away from the ensuing free-for-all and clapped my hands over my ears to blot out the heart-wrenching screams of agony that came from Alice. It was over in seconds. I opened one eye then the other, scanning the crowd in Alice’s front garden for any signs of her. Nothing. She was gone. Literally ripped to shreds by the ghouls.

  Others neighbours in the street must have witnessed this and in panic tried to run from their houses and get into their vehicles. The collective moan from the deedaz was tremendous as they converged on to the panicking residents. They never stood a chance and soon fell the way of Alice. One man actually made it in to his car and floored it towards a large crowd of deedaz who had entered the street, probably attracted by Alice’s last scream.

  The impact was immense. Bodies flew everywhere but there were just too many to plough through and he came to an abrupt stop. He had obviously not strapped his seat belt on and came crashing through the windscreen. Initially unconscious, he awoke to the sight of a hundred hands pulling out his lower intestine. There just wasn’t enough room for them all to get a bite, so hands reached in from the throng that surrounded him and ripped and tore at his flesh. I’m sure he would have screamed if part of his diaphragm hadn’t been scooped out and quickly devoured by one of the deedaz. The agony on his face disappeared and then, as if a switch had been flipped, the deedaz that were feasting on him suddenly stopped and moved away. WTF? Had he died then turned or turned before he died?

  The man slowly rolled from the bonnet of the car and started crawling towards the sounds of breaking glass and moans further down the street. After losing all of his abdominal muscles his only form of locomotion was to crawl. I’d have to think of a name for the crawly ones.

  Things were getting out of hand. None of the drama that had been going on in the street had seemed to deter the deedaz on my lawn. They were still hammering away at my poor van, which was now absolutely covered in bloody handprints.

  Crack! Crunch! Bang!

  It sounded like my fucking garage door had just given up the ghost. I looked to my right where the garage was located and could see a throng of deedaz entering it. Shit. Hopefully the door into the garden from the garage would hold them back. They were one step closer to breaching my meagre defences. Plan B would have to be implemented!

  Chapter 8 The move

  After pulling the ladders up I erected them under the loft hatch. I’d never actually been up there before so didn’t know what to expect. I slid the hatch to one side and climbed up. Something brushed past my face. I screamed and pulled away, then laughed a little when I realised what it was and pulled it. The lights came on.

  To my surprise the loft space was boarded and was fairly large. Enough room to stand up straight in the centre. I quickly began ferrying all of my supplies up the ladder. I added a bucket too for poos. Better safe than sorry. If they did somehow enter the house and navigate up the dismantled staircase I now had another fall-back position and a place to take a dump. I knew that if they did enter the house I was proper, proper fucked.

  Once I was up there I had virtually no access to the van or the gallons of water in the bath tub. The bottled water I had would only last a month and a half or so. I’d think of something. I hoped.

  Once the supplies w
ere moved I took a look out of the rear upstairs window to see if they’d broken into the garden. The good news was they hadn’t. The bad news was the banging from the van against the house reverberated right down to the foundations and was attracting more and more of them. Again, the more noise the van made, the harder they pushed, the greater the noise.

  It was now around lunchtime and the stress of all that had happened was starting to catch up, plus the fact that I’d moved all the supplies up two flights of stairs. Pun alert! I was dead on my feet.

  I decided to change my pissy pants, have a bite to eat using the perishables I had in the fridge, sit on the bed and think about my next course of action.

  How I dropped off to sleep with the racket they were making I’ll never know. Adrenaline is a good thing to have but once it wears off, exhaustion will hit you like a ton of bricks.

  Chapter 9 – The unpleasant surprise

  I awoke with a start, wondering if it had all been a dream. Unfortunately, the sound of the incessant moaning outside shattered that wonder. The banging had ceased, which was good news I suppose. I looked at my watch and realised I’d slept for around three hours. I checked the view outside the front window. No change. They were still there but were aimlessly bumping into each other and going nowhere. I checked the back window. No change there, the garden was still clear. Checked my phone signal. No change. Checked the internet connection. No change. Nothing.

  I pondered at why everything had come to an abrupt halt with regard to the media shutdown. It was probably a government thing. To keep us from panicking while they got things under control. Instead of just being honest and informing everyone of what precautions to take, they kept everyone in the dark and condemned the lot of us.

  I decided to rectify the water problem I would have if they actually did breach the stairs and find their way up to the first floor. I replaced the ladders, lowering them carefully and quietly to the ground floor, and crept into the kitchen in search of pans and vessels to fill with water from the bathroom. The pots and pans cupboard was situated under the kitchen window next to the sink. I crouched down and opened it and silently withdrew the largest ones. With that done I closed the cupboard door and stood up.

  To my utter disbelief, my eyes fell upon a hideously disfigured deeda standing opposite me on the other side of the window in the back garden. At first I think it was just as surprised as me. I say ‘it’ because there were no discernible features that could determine its sex. Its face and scalp had been torn off, leaving only bare muscle and sinew behind. It stood there staring with its white film-covered eyes but soon came out of its surprised stupor when I dropped the pans and pots from fright at the sight of the thing.

  A hideous howl came from what was left of its mouth, to be joined by a chorus of moans from its brethren. They’d breached the fucking garden!

  I slunk down on the floor against the cupboard and hid again. Thankfully I didn’t piss myself this time. I don’t think I had anything left in my bladder after the morning I’d had.

  Seconds later a cacophony of slapping hands against the window startled me into action. I quickly scooped up the pans, ran for the ladders and scooted back to the first floor and pulled the ladders up behind me. A quick glance through the spare bedroom window

  explained how they’d broken into the back garden. The door to the garage was wide open.

  I’d shut it the last time I was in there but didn’t lock it. Stupid.

  They were either smarter than the average zombie or had somehow accidentally opened it. Shit.

  There was a crash from downstairs. It sounded like a window. FUCK! Had I locked the back door to the house? What if they repeated the garage door trick? The 2 x 4s I’d nailed would hold for a little while but would last a lot longer if the door was locked. Should I go back and check? I decided if it bought me some extra time and stemmed the flow of deedaz coming into the house it was worth the risk.

  I know you’re now in the process of saying, ‘NFW, stay where you are you daft Geordie bastard,’ but I had to. I looped the machete sheath through my belt and tightened it. Then did a couple of practice draws in the mirror to check the best position of it and also to see if I looked tough, which on reflection meant nothing to the dead. All they saw was walking raw meat and would not be intimidated by my furrowed brow and curled lip. But for some reason it did give me the confidence I needed to go back downstairs.

  I lowered the ladders and slowly edged my way down, looking through the rungs towards the kitchen. The noise emanating from the back garden was thunderous and there was also an awful smell seeping through the door that separated the living room and kitchen. At first I thought I might have soiled myself, it was that bad. I wouldn’t have been surprised to be honest. My bodily functions seemed to have a mind of their own at the time.

  I would liken the smell that was obviously emanating from the deedaz, to shit mixed with sour milk and rotten eggs.

  I dry heaved as I gingerly walk towards the kitchen and was welcomed by an audience of around thirty faces pushed up against the back door and the kitchen window, which had been partially smashed. When they saw me, they became frantic and looked at me with angry, evil, milky eyes. The door shook on its hinges. If they could remember how to open doors they’d have tried the handle by now so it was only a matter of time before a stray arm did the honours for them. I ran for the door and quickly turned the key to the left to lock it.

  It was already locked. Bollocks!

  I’d found out years ago that another side effect of long-term cannabis use was short-term memory loss. Entering rooms and forgetting what I went in for was a common occurrence with my hash ravaged mind and would annoyingly happen on average around three times a day.

  I about-faced and ran for the ladders just as the back door and the 2 x 4s succumbed to the pressure of the deedaz with an ear-splitting crash. It probably would have held if I hadn’t advertised myself like an all you can eat buffet by going back.

  When I was small my dad, rest his soul, used to pretend to be a monster and chase me round the house for fun. On the odd occasion I would choose the stairs as my avenue of escape. I don’t know if you’ve ever been chased upstairs before, but for some reason it is absolutely fucking terrifying. There’s nothing to hide behind, nowhere else to go but up and nothing to throw at your pursuers. My dad would always let me reach the last step before he would grab my foot, trip me up and proceed to tickle me till I wet myself. Yes, I’ve always had a weak bladder.

  Well now I was having a flashback of epic proportions. Only this time it wasn’t my dad chasing me, and the outcome of getting caught wasn’t a jolly good tickling ending up with wet pants, it was death by a thousand teeth and ending up with wet, shitty and bloody pants.

  I ran as fast as my jelly legs would carry me and scrambled up the ladders. True to form, as I reached the top rung, a hand grabbed my ankle. I turned, lay on my back and kicked at its wrist with my other foot. Luckily, I must have broken something in its arm because it suddenly let go and fell. I quickly pulled up the steps inches from the grasp of a dozen hands then pushed away from the stairs and took a deep breath, gagged on the stench and counted my lucky stars that I hadn’t been dragged into the maelstrom of deedaz down below.

  Chapter 10 – The uninvited

  The living room was full to the brim of the stinking bastards. The malodorous stench that blasted up with venom was akin to pepper spray. I know this because I have been the victim of the supposedly humane crowd control device.

  It was at an away game. The first and last I ever went to. I actually never even made it to the game. My friend and I caught the train and had unintentionally booked onto the same carriage as the local football hooligans. They were called the gremlins. And a bunch of tough looking fuckers they were too. Luckily for us we had our colours on. They seemed like a happy bunch at the beginning but the closer we got to our destination the more the atmosphere started to change. The conductor had stopped coming into the carriag
e, along with the trolley dolly, who’d run out of alcoholic beverages around the same time we passed Darlington, which was probably only twenty minutes from the station we’d left from. This didn’t go down well with the gremlins who took umbrage at this by throwing empty beer cans at the conductor.

  Eventually the train started to slow for our station. As we pulled in, the police presence on the platform was astounding. The conductor must have called ahead so the police were ready for our arrival. As soon as the doors opened they stormed in. The gremlins, realising that their chance of a ruck with the home supporters was at an end, decided it would be fun instead to rumble with the plod. And that was when I was pepper sprayed. Apparently being in the same carriage as the hooligans was reason enough for the filth to mace the whole fucking lot of us.

  It was by far one of the worst experiences of my life. No breath could be had, my eyes stung like mad and my nose ran buckets. This feeling lasted for over an hour and I received absolutely no sympathy from the miserable fucking desk sergeant at the local nick. Eventually we were released without charge or an apology. We were told we should have moved carriages before the police boarded the train. I told them I would have done if I’d known the Iranian embassy siege was about to be re-enacted in front me. He didn’t find it funny. I did.

  And here I was. In my own home, eyes watering, gasping for breath with snot everywhere while evil flesh-eating dead people wrecked my living room. I don’t think the bond will cover this one. Sorry Mr landlord.

  The decision to go straight for the loft came easily. There was no way I could stand the stink. I filled the pans with water and carefully took them up. I also emptied my wardrobe and took as many items of clothing up there as I could. Pillows and duvet followed. Eventually safe in the loft with all my supplies I pulled up the step ladders and replaced the wooden board over the hole. I’d soaked some towels in the bath before ascending and rolled them up to cover the frame of the hatch. Hopefully to stop the stomach-churning stench filtering through and maybe limit the noise of the dead fucks. Maybe without prey in their midst they may forget about me after a while and fuck right off.