Barney Thomson, Zombie Killer: A Barney Thomson Novella Page 9

  The horde banged on the doors. The inhabitants of the last bunker stared into oblivion. They did not know – none of them – that there was nowhere that the zombies had not reached.

  The end was upon them.

  *

  The zombie horde had conquered virtually the entire world. In London, only thirteen brave souls remained uncontaminated by the virus. And they weren't even that brave.

  Seven security guards manned the two doors through which the living dead were attempting to break. In the main room of the bunker, four men sat morosely around a card table, playing out the last game of chance they'd ever play. The last Prime Minister, DCI Frank Frankenstein, the PM's principal advisor Logan, and Humphrey Bogart, the high-priced Hollywood talent.

  In another small side room were two others. Barney Thomson, renegade barbershop legend, and his old nemesis, Harlequin Sweetlips.

  Barney had entered the room in darkness, unaware of her presence, wanting just a small amount of space in which he could lose himself; in which he could descend into temporary madness, transporting himself back to the open hills of Scotland for one last time.

  She had waited, and then she had approached him and surprised him with a soft finger run down his cheek.

  Barney froze, but the moment was brief. How could he be surprised? He had known that Harlequin Sweetlips was out there, waiting for him. His fate was not to die at the hands of zombies. His fate was in the hands of the most beautiful killer that had ever walked the earth.

  He could feel her soft breath on the side of his face, and then she held her lips against his cheek and kissed him. Her hands began to entwine around him, then slowly her lips found their way to his and, as Barney took her into his arms, they kissed.

  For, like, ages and stuff.

  Soon she was all over him, her tongue, her lips, her fingers, probing and undressing, caressing and biting and teasing. At last Barney gave into it. The inevitable. Making love to Harlequin Sweetlips, that most dangerous pleasure which had been on the cards for years.

  As the zombies collected outside, as all Hell was let loose above them, he undressed her, he kissed her all over, he eased himself inside her and made love to her on a desk in a small dark room.

  Bonking Barber in Downing Street Sex Shock the Sun might have said the following day. Except there would be no Sun. (At least, in this way, the zombie infestation could be said to be not all bad.)

  *

  Some time later the zombies broke through the final barricades, the doors at either end of the bunker being breached at the same time. The four men around the card table were alerted by the sound of heavy gunfire, the screams of the guards and the general cacophony of moaning, which could only be coming from a giant zombie collective.

  They looked at each other as they got to their feet. This would be their Helm's Deep; except there would be no Gandalf on the ridge above the keep, there would be no grand alliance of men and elves.

  'It's time,' said Frankenstein. 'The end is here.'

  Only Logan looked scared.

  'Let it be such an end,' said the PM stoutly. 'They will sing songs about us, and they will know that we were brave.'

  Humphrey Bogart tossed a machine gun to the PM.

  'I don't know about you fellas, but I promised my kids there'd be a Casablanca 2, and as everyone knows, I don't break promises to my kids...'

  He nodded at them. For a brief moment they shared a Butch and Sundance camaraderie, and then they opened the door and headed out into the corridor.

  Despite knowing what was going to be out there to greet them, the sight of a horde of the living dead, hell-bent on eating human flesh, still froze their blood, made their hearts stop with fear. Nevertheless, realising that he was the star of the show, Humphrey Bogart pushed himself to the front. 'Of all the underground bunkers in all the world, these freaks walk into this one,' he quipped.

  At that moment the door opposite opened and out stepped Barney Thomson and Harlequin Sweetlips, looking somewhat dishevelled. Everyone hesitated for a second. It was nothing to do with Barney. Harlequin Sweetlips had that effect on most men, even the ones contaminated by a zombie contagion.

  'Did you two just...?' said Frankenstein, looking curiously at Barney. A little surprised. Also a bit jealous.

  'Hey,' said Humphrey Bogart, 'I'm the star, I get the women.'

  Barney patted him on the shoulder.

  'Sorry, mate. On this occasion you're more the high-priced cameo role.'

  Bogart looked sternly at Barney, and then over Barney's shoulder at the zombie horde, which looked like it might be about to pick up pace again. The security guards at either end had been swallowed up, there were just the six of them left to fight the day.

  'That means I could get killed,' said Bogart.

  'Yep,' said Barney. 'We all could.'

  'I'm no good at being noble,' said Bogart, 'but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of six little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. It's time we got ourselves some zombies.'

  With that, he turned, lifted his machine gun, and started spraying bullets into the approaching horde.

  The Last Battle for 10 Downing Street was afoot. The six survivors lifted their guns and charged towards the fighting force of the living dead. Barney Thomson, Harlequin Sweetlips, Frank Frankenstein, Humphrey Bogart, the PM's advisor and the PM himself at the back, feeling unusually left out, as if suddenly it wasn't about him.

  At first the zombies fell before them, gunned down where they stood in a bloody sea of bullets, as the six inched forward. Logan was the most feverish, recognising that he was the guy in a red jumper at the start of an old episode of Star Trek. He sprayed bullets around, he lodged the end of his gun in a zombie's head and unloaded, he slaughtered zombie after zombie. Inevitably, however, he was the first to fall, as a zombie bit, massively, a chunk out of his face and he fell back, screaming.

  'Seven!' shouted Humphrey Bogart as he took out his seventh zombie. He wasn't destined to get anyone to join him in a counting game, however. At that moment, having edged their way to the door at the end of the corridor, they had just realised the enormous weight of zombies stacked on the stairs, blocking their exit.

  'Holy fuckoli,' said Frankenstein.

  'Shit,' said the PM. 'It's a Labour Party Conference type situation.'

  Harlequin Sweetlips, unusually, was guarding their backs, taking out zombie upon zombie at the rear. She had almost scoffed at Bogart's cry of seven, as she herself was already well into the 40s.

  The men pushed forward, shooting and kicking and tossing zombies out of the way as if they were small children. In fact, some of them were small children.

  'What I don't get,' said the PM, as he pushed a little girl down a couple of flights of stairs – she wasn't a zombie, he was just carrying out standard Tory party procedure – 'What I don't get is who's behind this whole thing? All along I got the feeling that there was a higher power at work.'

  'Yep,' said Frankenstein, as he smacked a zombie in the mouth with the butt of his gun, knocking its head clean off. 'Harlequin at the back there was killing the junior defence ministers. Who was paying you, Sweetlips?'

  Humphrey Bogart gave him a raised eyebrow, so he added, 'That's her name.' Bogart nodded.

  They had made it halfway up the stairs, blasting bloody lumps out of the zombie horde. The zombies had never known such resistance, yet of course they did not know how to fall back. They pushed on, zombie after zombie hewn down before the avenging force.

  'Fuck should I know?' said Sweetlips. 'I just got the money in an unmarked envelope. I'll kill anybody if anyone asks me to, so long as they pay me enough.'

  With one sweep of the machine gun, she downed another five zombies. She was Lara Croft, but better looking and much, much nastier. And she could have kicked Lara Croft's arse. Suddenly the attack from the rear began to dry up as the slaughtered zombies piled high in the doorway and blocked the advance from behind.

  'The p
oint I would make is this,' said the PM, as suddenly he led the charge, pushing zombies over the bannister and striding into their midst, recognising many of them as former union members. 'None of this makes sense. It's almost as if someone's just been making this shit up as they went along.'

  Barney Thomson came alongside the PM, grabbing a zombie, picking him up and swiping three other zombies aside with one movement.

  'That's life,' said Barney, clinging to some sort of crazy narrative that he didn't believe. 'Real life. Weird shit happens. It doesn't all tie up like some absurdly clever crime novel, you know. Sure, if we were in the middle of some crazy zombie story written by PD James, it might be all nicely rounded off. But Jesus...' He paused, while he unloaded a shitbucket of death into a zombie's head, then pushed the corpse out of the way. 'But Jesus, this is real, this is a real-life zombie scenario. So shut up, stop asking questions, and....' He swung the butt of his gun and decapitated a female zombie intent on chewing a hole in his neck. '...and start making cuts in the zombie population. You should know all about cuts,' he added glibly.

  The PM turned to give Barney a look of rueful disdain.

  'It wasn't our fault,' he said. 'The point I would make is this: the Labour government left this country on the verge of total...'

  And that was that for the PM. There are times for political grandstanding, but fighting your way up a staircase filled with zombies ain't one of them. A zombie grabbed him by the head and bit massively into his previously smug Etonian face.

  The Prime Minister was dead.

  There was no time to stand still lamenting the passing of the great leader. Now was the moment for Humphrey Bogart to earn his keep, as he eased his way to the front and lead the charge.

  They were nearly at the top of the stairs, the attack from the rear having dried up completely, and now the four of them marched onwards, gunning down zombies with panache and verve, style and brio, like they'd been doing it all their lives.

  Soon they were at the top of the stairs, the zombie death count over two hundred. Suddenly a gap seemed to open up in the hall before them, and although there were still plenty of zombies around, it seemed now that they were backing off, as if they were willing the band of four forward.

  'What the fuck?' said Frankenstein.

  They stopped, Humphrey Bogart marginally ahead of the others. Even so, Barney, Frankenstein and Harlequin Sweetlips came up alongside him. They stood, the Four Horsemen of the Azombilypse, the blood of hundreds of zombies on their hands, staring around the collective before them. A sudden calm. The doorway that led to the front of the building – the place they were aiming for, even though it hardly spoke of freedom – was guarded by another great force.

  'This some of that weird shit you're talking about, Mr. Thomson?' said Bogart.

  Barney had nothing to say. Harlequin Sweetlips took a step forward, but found Frankenstein holding her back.

  And then, slowly, the horde at the doorway started to part, and a lone zombie lurched through the midst, hobbled forward, and stopped in front of the last four surviving uninfected humans. His shoulder was stooped to one side, his face was ripped and bloody. Half his teeth were missing. The teeth that were there had pieces of human flesh stuck between them. One of his hands was entirely skeletal. He was naked, but his genitals had been chomped off.

  '2nd Lieutenant Lawson,' said Barney, immediately recognising this leader amongst zombies.

  'What?' said Bogart.

  'The first one infected. They showed us them right at the start, took us to some military base to show off their great new zombie army. He was the first.'

  Bogart nodded.

  'It's the kind of thing you'd get in the movies,' he said. 'It started with him, and so it has to end with him. He has to be the one to finish the human race off once and for all. It's his journey.'

  Suddenly Lawson lurched forward, and with the movement the horde seemed to limp into action. The peace was shattered, as in an instant a hundred of the living dead began to pour towards them, moaning and crying out for human flesh.

  They lifted their guns and fired, and as one discovered they'd run out of ammunition. The end was upon them.

  'Cry havoc!' yelled Frankenstein, as he ran into the midst, but then he added, 'Aw fuck, can't remember the rest.'

  The four embraced the zombie army in hand-to-hand combat. It was brutal and bloody, but the adrenaline was flowing and they were well used to the fight. Barney looked for Lawson, to engage the leader, but he had been swallowed up by the horde and then found first by Harlequin Sweetlips. To be honest, she was getting pissed off fighting zombies and it was beginning to mess up her hair.

  Lawson came at her, his arms outstretched. She ducked low, evaded his grasp, and then sprang up and butted him on the chin with a flying leap from below. With one grotesque and awful sucking, slurping sound, Lawson's head detached, spun up, spiralled through the air and crashed back to the ground with a splattering thump.

  The air had been filled with a cacophony of moaning and screaming and wailing and cries of 'flesh!' but suddenly, in one awful, shocking moment, all went silent.

  An instant hush descended over the large hallway. The zombies involved in hand to hand combat with the other three backed away, although the one fighting with Humphrey Bogart left his head in Bogart's hand, which had an unfavorable effect on his future.

  The zombies did not look shocked, as they could not look anything. Yet the fight seemed to have been knocked out of them, and suddenly they began lurching to the side and a gap opened up between the last surviving humans and the doorway to the outside.

  There was a pause. None of the four wanted to move. Bogart was still standing with a zombie's head in his hands, as if clutching some kind of souvenir.

  'What're we waiting for?' said Bogart eventually, then he casually tossed the zombified head over his shoulder and walked forwards. Slowly, as if reluctant to accept their fate, the others followed.

  *

  Outside the day was bright and sunny, a few white clouds in a Simpsons blue sky. There were hundreds, possibly even thousands of zombies on the cramped confines of Downing Street, but they had all backed away from the door, leaving a narrow passageway down which the four survivors could walk. A low moaning came from the crowd.

  Barney, Frankenstein, Sweetlips and Humphrey Bogart stood on the pavement outside Number 10 and surveyed the crowd. The moaning aside, there was almost complete silence. No aircraft overhead, no traffic on Whitehall. This was a quiet that would have been creepy, even if there hadn't been a thousand zombies rocking back and forth, flesh in their teeth, moaning.

  'We just walk out?' said Frankenstein. 'This your weird shit, Barney?'

  'Not so weird,' said Barney. 'It's like the end of The Birds.'

  Bogart nodded. 'Yep,' he said, 'pretty darned impossible to find anything truly original these days.'

  The four heroes looked at the sky, and then back along the short path to freedom.

  'And what do we do once we get out there?' said Frankenstein. 'And don't give me some shit about creating a brave new world. There are four of us.'

  'I'm going to make Casablanca 2,' said Humphrey Bogart. 'Sure, there are plenty of folks think I oughtn't to do it, but I know if I don't, I'll regret it. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of my life.'

  The others paused and stared at him curiously for a moment, and then continued on their way.

  'Think I'll go back to Scotland,' said Barney. 'Look at the mountains.'

  'Kill more zombies,' said Harleqiun Sweetlips. 'Don't care if they fight back.'

  Frankenstein nodded. He turned and looked at the famous door of number 10 Downing Street, now stained with the blood of a thousand dead.

  He caught Barney's eye and smiled.

  'Weirdest shit I've ever been involved in,' he said.

  Barney nodded. It was certainly in his top five.

  'Mind if I join you on that trip to Scotland?' said Frankenstein
.

  Barney smiled. 'Not at all.'

  The two men led the way as the Four Horsemen of the Azombilypse began the long walk through London.

  'I was thinking that Casablanca 2 might look pretty good in Scotland,' said Humphrey Bogart. 'Ilsa and I could meet up in Cumbernauld.'

  'You reckon there'll be any of the living dead up there?' threw in Harlequin Sweetlips.

  'Should be,' said Barney.

  'There certainly were before any of this started,' added Frankenstein.

  As they began to head off into the sunset, laughing with the casual insouciance of movie stars who know they've survived until the end of the film and can smile about it, despite millions of others having died, Barney's mobile phone started to ring.

  For the first time in a long, long while it seemed, he thought of Monk. Had she made it through the carnage? And then he thought of Harlequin Sweetlips and, looking down, realised that they were holding hands. He self-consciously detached himself from her, reaching into his pocket for the phone. It wasn't there.

  He patted his other pockets, breaking away from the others as they walked on without him. His phone kept ringing, an incessant chirp, picking away at him. He thrust his hand into every pocket, trousers, jacket, back pockets, inside pockets. Where was his phone?

  The ring kept coming, somewhere off to the side.

  Finally his hand fell on it, lying where he had left it, on his bedside table. Humphrey Bogart, DCI Frankenstein and the monster, Harlequin Sweetlips, disappeared from view as Barney sat hurriedly up in bed, and at last the relentless alarm was silenced.

  He wasn't sweating, he wasn't breathing especially hard. The curtains were open. From where he was sitting he had a perfect view of the island of Little Cumbrae, sitting in the middle of a grey, choppy sea, under a familiar canopy of grey cloud.