Year of the Zombie (Book 8): Scratch by David Moody Read Free Book Online

every door and window.
    But it was another house
which caught her eye. Directly opposite. The infected there were clamouring
around the front door, scratching at it, appearing almost to be squabbling with
each other to get inside. And as she watched, she saw it was because the people
in the house were reacting. Panicking. An elderly man was visible through a
downstairs window. He was brandishing a golf club, ready to use it as a weapon.
‘That’s Derek,’ Gary said, startling her. She spun around and saw him standing
behind her, dressed only in a pair of boxers, carrying Holly. He handed her
over to her mum and Jody turned back to the window.
    ‘He’d better not be
about to do what I think he is,’ she said.
    ‘He’s an arsehole.
Proper angry bastard.’
    Jody scowled at his
language, but she had to agree. Derek certainly seemed to be an arsehole or at
the very least incredibly stupid. He was outside now, having climbed out
through his dining room window so he could get behind the infected bodies
converging on his front door. Jody covered Holly’s eyes and looked away herself
as he started swinging his golf club at the nearest of them, hacking it down.
    Neighbour Derek appeared
to be venting all his considerable frustrations on just one of the undead. Think
about the blood, you idiot, she silently warned him, but it was too late.
The figure was on the ground at his feet now, and what was left of its head was
like a deflated football, concave. Contaminated blood was splashing everywhere,
soaking Derek’s slippers and his pyjama bottoms.
    The other infected were
responding now. It was as if they shared a hive mind, but there was no complex
connection between them and no real communication, just the shared instinctive desire
to spread their foul disease as far as possible. While Derek was distracted
with one of them, four more surrounded him. He realised at the last possible
moment. Using the head of his bloodied golf club to push another one of them
out of the way, Derek tried to fight his way back to the dining room window.
The way through was blocked. His wife – ‘Sandra,’ Gary whispered, ‘a real
busybody’ – watched helplessly from inside, desperately wanting to help
him get in, but at the same time knowing she couldn’t risk opening the window.
She gestured furiously towards the front door and, in the midst of the bodies
and the sudden madness, Derek ran for it, shoulder-charging more of the
creatures out of the way as he did.
    He almost made it, too.
    He reached for the door
handle and opened it, just as one of the infected struck. With one outstretched
hand, a hideous, loping thing which used to be a woman of similar age and build
to Jody grabbed the collar of Derek’s dressing gown and pyjama top and pulled
them down. With the other hand she dragged her claws down his back, carving
four deep red furrows in his pale and flabby flesh.
    In the end, the fact
Derek was now infected didn’t really matter. It was all academic as far as the
rest of his family was concerned. He managed to get the door open and half-ran,
half-fell inside. He tripped up the step and lay sprawled in his hallway,
unable to get up because a veritable flood of crazed dead creatures were
trampling over him to get to the others inside.
    Jody turned away, sick
to her stomach.
    ***
    It was only seven am, but it felt much, much
later.
    This uncomfortable,
unnaturally extended family had already exhausted all options for the day. Jody
found it increasingly difficult to keep up the pretence. Everything’s going
to be all right... Mummy and Daddy are getting along just fine...
    Like fuck.
    At least there were
promising signs on the news. The fight against the infection had continued
overnight, and the spread of the disease had been virtually halted. It was a
question now of clearing the infected zone (as they were calling it on TV).
Gary and Charlie’s house was smack bang in the middle of the zone, Jody’s house
was just on the clean