corpse didn't have the strength to be able to escape from them. Just look at you, he thought as he stared at what was left of his father squirming on the wooden frame like it had been crucified. You used to tell me you were somebody I should look up to, and now look at you. You used to tell me that I should aspire to be like you, to do the things you did and to believe in the things that you believed in. Now look at you. A pathetic lump of rotting meat that's about to be destroyed. Now you look at me. I took so much shit from you because of how I looked, what I did and who I did it with. And why? What was so good about doing things your way? What made your ideas and your values any better than mine? If you were so fucking clever, why aren't you the one who's stood here now? If I was so stupid and so wrong, how come I'm in control?
Skin had edged closer and closer so that he was now just inches away from his dead father's face. He stared deep into the corpse's cold, black eyes hoping, bizarrely, to see a flicker of recognition or memory or emotion. Strange as it seemed, he wanted his father to know what was happening. He wanted him to see and feel everything that was happening and that was about to happen. He wanted him to understand and to be able to admit that Skin was right and he'd been wrong.
Nothing.
Stupid fucking thing.
In a fit of temper Skin picked up a metal-framed chair and swung it at his father's remains. Two of the chair's metal legs dug into the rotting flesh which covered the creature's abdomen and ripped it open, practically disembowelling it. Partially decomposed organs began to slip, slide and ooze from the body and dripped onto the floor below it.
Skin dropped to his knees and watched the bloody thing begin to slowly fall apart.
It must be around here. This is where the bodies are heading. Was this a school or a college or something?
Jackson crept around the outskirts of the school campus. Something had definitely happened around here. There were far too many bodies for them just to be here by coincidence. It couldn't have been looters because this wasn't the kind of place where there'd be anything to take. Most likely survivors had been here. Interesting. He'd only come across a handful of survivors in all the time he'd been travelling. He'd found evidence of them having been around and he'd come across their remains when the bodies had got to them before he had, but he'd seen very few actually managing to survive. He'd done his best to keep out of their way. The more of you there are, he'd decided, the more noise you'll make, the more you'll move around and the more chance you'll have of being caught and killed. Stay alone and stay alive was rapidly becoming his motto.
The nearest door into the school was open. Jackson pushed his way inside and listened carefully to the sounds inside the vast, stinking building. The odd distant shuffle and crash of bodies but nothing too ominous. He decided he could risk stopping and looking around.
Whenever Jackson found a staircase he instinctively climbed it. Stairs give me an advantage over the dead, he'd long since decided. The bodies had trouble climbing (although they'd manage it if you gave them long enough and if they had enough of an incentive) and the higher you climb, the better view you have of whatever's going on around you.
At the top of this particular staircase Jackson was confused. Below him was a grassy courtyard in the middle of the campus which was filled with bodies. In the grim darkness, however, he couldn't immediately see what it was that was drawing them there. He'd come across huge gatherings before which had been caused by the most ridiculous of things ? an open door continually banging in the wind or a broken gutter dripping with rainwater. He stood and watched the crowd for a little while longer, trying to analyse their movements.
Then he saw it. There were bodies trapped in a gym on the diagonally opposite side of the grassy quadrant. Was that really it? Perhaps the noise of them moving around in there was creating enough of a disturbance to keep the hundreds of surrounding corpses close. It was possible, but unlikely. Whatever the reason, he decided that was where he was going to make his attack. Just a very quick run in and out. Enough to cause a little damage and get a decent fire going. And once the building was properly alight he could concentrate on getting himself sorted out. He was starving. He hadn't eaten for more than a day and he desperately needed to get his hands on some food. There'd be shops nearby. There were usually always shops built close to schools. The fire would distract the bodies and he'd go scavenging through the shadows.
How to get close? The buildings which surrounded the courtyard appeared to be connected. He'd work his way around until he got as close as he could to the gym, then he'd cause a minor distraction and make a run for it through the crowd. It wasn't going to be easy but he'd done it before. He took his rucksack off his back and scrambled around inside for the various items he'd need. A small plastic bottle of paraffin and a cigarette lighter. Simple.
The best thing he'd found to use as a distraction was a well dried-out but still mobile body. If he could find one that had been trapped indoors for a decent length of time, that would be ideal. The bodies were always attracted to fire, and if he set one of them alight its random, barely-coordinated movements would add to the confusion and increase the effect dramatically. Although the infection had originally struck before the school had officially opened for the day, he had no trouble in finding the suitably emaciated cadaver of a young boy scrambling around pathetically in the shadows of a second floor classroom. He grabbed the body by the scruff of its neck and carried it back down to ground level.
There's no room for sentimentality any longer, he thought as he soaked the body with the paraffin. Whatever this thing used to be, its character, personality and every other attribute which once made it an individual and unique human being died with it on that Tuesday morning, more than four weeks ago. This thing isn't someone's son, brother or friend anymore, it's a collection of dead flesh and bone. I'll be doing it a favour by destroying it.
Without allowing himself any more time to think about it, Jackson checked that the door to the grass courtyard was open and then lit the body. He gave it a few seconds for the flames to really take hold before he pushed it out into the night. Hundreds of bodies immediately turned and moved towards him, attracted first by the sound of the opening door, then by the brilliant, dancing flames which consumed the figure in front of him. He grabbed hold of one of its arms and dragged it over to the diagonally opposite corner of the courtyard to the entrance to the gym building, and roughly planted the body back onto its feet again. Bizarrely ignorant to the fact that it was ablaze, it staggered towards the mass of bodies which silently converged on it.
Jackson took a deep breath and moved. He ran back to the door he'd just emerged from and waited, wanting to be sure that the decoy had worked before he risked running further from safety and deeper into the bodies. Perfect. It was working like a dream. The entire mass of diseased, decaying flesh was ignoring him and moving towards the bright flames about fifty meters away. Several bodies were burning now. Stupid bloody things, he thought. Relaxing slightly, he crept along the nearest wall towards the entrance to the gym. He tried the door but it wouldn't open. Strange. He looked down at the handle and shook it. Bloody hell, he thought, it had been barred from the inside. There wasn't much left of Dad.
Skin had punched and kicked and slashed and ripped and pulled and spat at the remains of his father until very little still hung from the wooden climbing frame. There was almost as much rotten flesh on him and on the floor and surrounding walls as there was left on the corpse.
If the destruction of the teacher's body had been strangely therapeutic, then this was bliss. Using climbing ropes Skin had flogged his father's corpse. He felt no remorse and no pain. Half-drunk and half-stoned, he ripped and tore at the body mercilessly. For a while nothing else mattered. Years of pent up anger and frustration were let loose in the space of a few perfect minutes of revenge. He forgot about the other bodies in the gym. He was so transfixed by the destruction and disintegration of his dead father that he didn't see the fires outside. Suddenly feeling able to do anything again, he turned his attention to Dawn. Once again he dragged her body over the barrier and out into the gym. He grabbed her from behind (it felt good to do this in front of his father) and ran his hands over her flesh. Her skin felt alternately wet and then curiously dry and brittle, but that didn't matter. He gently caressed her still feminine shape as he decided how he would dismember her. In a state of semi-arousal and drink and drug induced euphoria, he didn't hear the glass smash and the gym entrance being forced open.
`What the hell are you doing, you sick bastard?' Jackson asked as he burst into the blood-soaked gym. He shone a torch at Skin who immediately let go of Dawn's body and pushed it away. Christ, Jackson thought, he'd seen some pretty unpleasant things over the last few weeks, but never anything like this. A stupid little fired-up teenager torturing and molesting the dead. He knew that he'd just done something pretty unpleasant to a dead school boy outside, but that had been different. There had been a reason and a necessity to his actions. What this kid was doing was just sick. Twisted, evil and sick.
