Zedlist – Part Thirty Five
Serial Fiction Novel
The helicopter landed more smoothly than it had alighted. The crops were flattened by a strong down draft from the rotor blades. The entire field was empty and appeared to be even more expansive in the dark. Kevin looked back and saw that Alex and Amy were sitting closer than he was comfortable with, causing him to have little pangs of jealousy.
After Kevin and the others had exited the craft, Geoff took off again. Kevin would have stopped him, but it was better this way. Kevin didn’t want the helicopter to be found nearby and give away their location. He convinced himself that Geoff would fly around a bit, get bored and then go and sleep it all off somewhere; a story constructed to alleviate guilt? Perhaps.
Alex made his way a polite distance away from the group, wretched violently and threw up his Fajita, Nik Naks and Dime bar into the darkness.
Kevin pulled some torches out of his bag: One large ‘Ever-ready’ torch, two pencil torches and a little alligator-shaped kinetic torch, which produced power by squeezing the handle. It made a whrrp whrrp whrrp noise as the coil inside was activated. The five figures made their way steadily through the Essex country side, towards Chignal Smealy.
Harrison was whining and scratching at the door as they arrived. Amy greeted him by playfully ruffling his ear. “You must be starving, you poor thing!” She said, going to the kitchen and filling up his bowl with food. She switched the light on as she walked through the house, revealing neutral colours, bad art and family photographs in which the late Colin Reed played a dominant role. Kevin noted the absence of the Reed’s deceased son. Despite the house being full of possessions, it felt profoundly empty to Kevin, the shallow pretence of a home.
Amy let the dog into the back garden, which was enclosed and secure. She left the door open enough for him to get back in.
“Er. Help yourselves to food guys”, she said, meeting Alex and Kevin in the kitchen. Alex had clearly made a recovery from his recent bout of nausea. “Fanks”, he said with a mouth-full of Lucky Charms mixed with some Vimpto he had found in the fridge.
Kevin charged his phone to full power and checked for news updates. London was still being targeted by people in celebrity masks, turning from a protest into a full-on riot. There had also been several more sightings of Celebrities, seemingly risen from the dead, and Tim’s photo was now being plastered everywhere in relation to the Kidnapping.
Kevin remembered that as far as the police were concerned, Mad and Amy were still hostages. Staying in their house for any amount of time could risk them all being found. Tim was oblivious to his recent infamy, as he sat meditating in the front room.
“I’ve been thinking about what happened at the radio station”, Kevin said.
“What?” Amy asked.
“I have a theory. The Demon is trying to possess every celebrity on the planet at the moment in order to control the masses. But it would seem that some celebrities, for whatever reason, cannot be possessed and some people cannot be controlled.”
“Yes…” Amy said.
“Well”, Kevin said, “It makes sense for the Demon to engineer the death of the more minor celebrities and bring him back from the dead. In life they did not reach the level of fame to be inhabited completely, but in death they can be fully possessed.”
“It’s all sounding a bit convoluted.” Amy said.
“Life is convoluted,” Kevin rebutted defensively, “if you have a better theory I’m all ears.”
“I don’t know what convoluted means, but I think I get what you are saying”, Alex said, his mouth still full of cereal. “The demon is using the zombies as a fast track to wipe out us humans. After we’ve all been bitten and turned, eventually rotting out of existence, all that will be left is the possessed and then they will rock the joint”.
“Just one bite, one scratch from these creatures is sufficient. And then, you become one of them”, Kevin said, quoting from Resident Evil, a reference that went completely over Alex and Amy’s heads.
“That explains the guy on the rooftop. It was Dale, back from the dead”, Alex said. “That’s what I thought”, Kevin said.
“We’ve handled them okay so far”, Alex added.
“We’ve had two to deal with”, Kevin said, “What happens when there are hundreds or even thousands of the bastards, then what are we going to do?”
next: Zedlist – Part Thirty Six
previous: Zedlist – Part Thirty Four
all chapters: Zedlist
more by LUCAS HOWARD
photograph by Blair Fraser
