Though, in fairness, what did we have to fear from the inhabitant of a cottage surrounded by flowers, who drove a bright yellow Nissan Micra? I was pretty confident a Taliban warlord wasn’t hiding out in the Cheshire countryside, driving a car the colour of a daffodil.
Everything was quiet. Deathly quiet. Nate signalled for me to open the little red gate that led up the path to the front door, and I did so. Now wasn’t the time for me and my smart mouth. Do what the big scary soldier tells you, Lockey.
As we ghosted up the path and reached the door, that’s when we both heard the bumping and scraping from inside the cottage. The curtains were drawn on the front window, so we couldn’t see into the little house. Then I heard the high-pitched yelp.
People can go fuck themselves most of the time. In my experience, most people are assholes given half the chance. I don’t trust easily.
But dogs? Man, I love dogs. They are pure, unconditional, excitable love. They’re like an animal version of me, but without the bad bits. They’re role models for how society should be. Dogs are the only things on this shit-sucking earth that will love you more than it loves itself. You know what I really love about them? You can start celebrating and they’ll join right in, wagging their tails and lolling their tongues, when they have no fucking clue what the context is. Dogs are great because they’re just always ready to party. So when I heard that little scared bark-yelp, I started moving.
Now, I know a weakness of mine is impulse control. And no, I’m not doing anything to mitigate that, dear reader, because I am who I am. However, on this occasion, I accept that I made the very grave error of ploughing past Mr Spec-Ops and opening the cottage door, barrelling in and realising all too late that the place smelled like death had taken a shit in there.
I stopped, eyes streaming from the choking cloud of horror assaulting my senses. Then I heard that little muted yelp-bark again and turned to my left.
And promptly squealed at the pitch of a six-year old girl.
Just three feet away was a dishevelled old zombie woman. I say old, but she was probably about Nate’s age in life. Fifty or so. Still, I’m only twenty-six, so that’s two of my lifetimes. Old as time.
She had a little blue cardigan, spectacles on a chain hanging round her neck and hair like Albert Einstein after he’d been electrocuted. Seriously, in that brief snapshot moment, all I could see was this explosion of mangled grey hair, like she’d been banged doggy-style while her head was rammed in a bramble bush. Just all over the place and wild as hell.
She wasn’t moving too fast, slower than a normal shambler, and it was easy to see why. Her right ankle was clearly broken as hell and moving about on it had only made things worse. The foot had all but torn off and sat at a horrible right angle, and she was off-balance as she hobble-dragged herself around. A spur of bone from the shattered ankle was used to rest her weight on, like some messed up pirate peg-leg and—lord above—it was gross. There were bloody smears all over the once shiny oak parquet flooring, and grooves cut by the bone shard, where she’d dragged herself about and slowly torn that foot almost clean off. It made a jarring scrape on the wood as she moved, sending shivers through me like a rusty nail being dragged down my spine.
Agh. Just horrible.
Despite her off-centre gait though, as she neared, the milky-eyed old dear’s lips peeled back, her arms coming up like claws, ready to pounce like some undead predator.
That’s the weird thing, right? Our zombies don’t shuffle about, arms up, moaning and groaning for brains like they do in all the movies. They are silent as a ninja fart and way more deadly, and they smell worse to boot. They’re blank as a mannequin until they’re three feet from you, then their lips peel back, dead expression twisting to this rictus of soul-deep hate for you and they fucking lunge that last gap, ready to make your entrails your extrails.
I’m quick on my feet. But something had me frozen and in that moment, I saw my death. Death that looked like some sweet old lady living in a cottage, who drove a yellow Nissan Micra. The yelp had given me just enough time for a single step back as I squealed, arms up to futilely defend against the grim reaper’s grandma as she lunged for me, but that one step back meant she had to step into the hallway and into Nate’s cone of fire.
Can I just give special mention to—as my first real experience of it—a shotgun going off in a little confined space like that cottage?
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
It was like a god damn army of thunders tearing the air around me. Ho-ly shit.
The world got really loud, then really wet, as I was hit by some of the spray from Nate unleashing both barrels of the shotgun simultaneously. The little old lady’s upper quarter just vapourised in front of me, head and chest just gone, shredded beyond recognition. I think I got some old lady juice in my mouth. Nasty.
I think I was screaming. My throat’s vibrations told me I was, but I couldn’t hear for shit. There was just a dull whistle from the detonated bomb of the shotgun’s blast in the hallway. I was pretty certain I was gonna need to find a new pair of
