The Undead. The First Seven Days by R R Haywood Read Free Book Online Page A

over safely.
  I walk across the field and the uneven ground is hard, after the smooth surface of the motorway. The field looks to be pasture; I think that’s what they call it… the type of land that animals graze on. I realise that I have no idea what different types of land there are, or what different crops look like, or even if they can be eaten or not. I work in a supermarket, selling produce all day. We get training on certain things so that we can sound convincing to the customer and increase sales, but I can’t remember anything useful.
    The field borders a lane, which I follow into the village. The first few houses are detached and large, but gradually they get closer together, until a pavement starts running down both sides.
  I reach a junction and realise this is the village centre, I have been here a few times before, when the motorway has been closed off, or my Dad wanted to take the scenic route. I remember that there is a
    garage workshop at the end of the main road, so there should be cars there in for repair; the keys will be with them.
    I move off, keeping to the middle of the road and looking all around me as I walk. I can see some of the houses have open front doors, which is very creepy.
  I am looking left and right and fail to see the massive blood stains on the pavement and road until I am walking through it. The road surface is dark, which makes it harder to see the wet and sticky blood.
  There is a large stain, like someone was brought down here and bled out. There is too much blood to have just been from one person, but then the human body has something like eight pints of blood in it. I try to imagine what eight pints poured onto the floor would look like. The blood stains go on for a few metres.
  There was action here and recently too, the blood is hardly dry. A white UPVC door has bright red hand prints up high, smearing down into a large blood stain at the bottom of the doorway.
    This was a mistake. I should have stayed on the motorway.
    Up ahead and off to my right is a small selection of shops. I know there is a café here that used to serve really nice cream cakes, and there was a newsagent too.
  The shops on the right are opposite a small, village square, and that is where we used to park to visit the cake shop.
  I can’t see the square yet, but, as I get closer, I get a feeling of impending doom, and, as the row of houses on the left end give way to the square, I start to see people standing about.
  As I get closer, I correct myself. They are not people.
  They are undead.
  Lots of undead.
    I stand completely still. There must be thirty or forty of them dressed in differing styles of night wear: pyjamas; nighties; pants; knickers and bras - some are naked. All of them are covered in blood.
  I can’t understand why they are all here, standing in the village square. Maybe they are drawn here, by a type of zombie intelligence.
  I slowly back away, one step at a time, watching for any sign that they have seen me.
  Behind me, I hear glass bottles being knocked and shattering. I spin round and see an undead male coming out of a doorway, kicking the milk bottles with his feet, making them spin them off to shatter on the road. This one is only a few doors down from me, if I move quickly I could get past him, but another of the undead comes out of the house opposite, staggering into the road, heading my way.
  They are on equal sides of the pavement now; almost like they had planned the ambush. The village square undead have sparked up - hearing the glass shatter, they have all turned towards me.
  ‘Shit, shit,’ I murmur quietly.
    They are slow moving, shambling with their stiff-legged walk.
    The village square undead are spilling out onto the road, heading my way.
  I turn and start back, thinking that I can still make it through the middle of the two behind me, but there are more now, emerging from houses further down the road. The road is not