ZOM-B 11 by Darren Shan Read Free Book Online Page A

up a sharp tool along the way. Drag myself up the stairs. Crawl into my old room. Lie on my bed,
stare at the ceiling, go to work on my head, churn up my brain and let it all end. Rot away slowly until I’m only dust, a dwindling memory in the dusty database of the universe.
    Perversely, I cheer up once I’ve made my decision. I even hum as I plod along. ‘
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to die I go.
’
    I have a goal now, and it’s not the sort of epic goal that I’ve been chasing since I linked up with Dr Oystein. No more saving the world for this undead girl. All I have to worry about is making it home and signing off. That’s the sort of challenge I was born to deal with.
    Watch out, afterlife — here I come!

NINE
    The walk east is taking an age. It’s a good job I’m not in a hurry. I doubt any tourist ever went along this slowly in the past, and that’s bearing in mind that sightseers in
London weren’t known for their speed — they used to drive us locals mad if we got stuck behind a pack of them on a busy street.
    I’m enjoying the river views. I find the Thames oddly peaceful and calming. I don’t normally pay much attention to it, but it demands my focus today on the long, laborious march
home. Maybe it’s because the serene, constantly flowing water reminds me of the journey my soul is soon to embark on, and I want to believe that my spirit will drift along effortlessly like this when it’s set free from my shambolic form. A fool’s
dream, probably, but a nice image to dwell on while I’m crawling ever eastwards in a fog of nightmarish pain.
    I stop when I reach the Millennium Bridge, and on an impulse decide to cross the river to the South Bank. I’ve come a long way from Westminster, so I no longer have to worry about running
into mutants, and it’s a more interesting walk on the south side.
    I drag myself across the bridge and step off in the shadow of the towering Tate Modern. If I was in better shape, I might pop in to check out the exhibits, but this most certainly isn’t a
day to be visiting art galleries.
    I trudge past the Globe, where I spot a zombie in Shakespearean garb, probably an actor from back in the day, standing just inside the entrance. He’s making odd, jerky movements with his
head and arms, and I realise after a few confused moments that he’s trying to act out a scene from a dimly remembered play. As drained as I am, I stop and clap slowly. The actor’s face lights up with the memory of applause-filled times, and he awkwardly bows towards me. That’s my good
deed for the day taken care of.
    I detour down a dark, cobbled street, past an old prison complex that would have been a perfect jail for the likes of Dan-Dan and my other foes. I lose sight of the river for a while, before
linking up with the path again just past London Bridge.
    As I make my slow, shuffling way along the riverbank, I think about where I can pick up a decent power tool. I’d like to clock out in style. A really good, strong drill that will arrow
clean through my skull, leaving only the smallest, most discreet of holes behind when I yank it out and drop it while I thrash around and die.
    I know this area well, both from my human years and the time I spent exploring here over the past months. I’m trying to remember where the best DIY shops are located, but I’m drawing
a blank, finding it hard to focus in my sorry, stressed state.

    ‘What a time to develop Alzheimer’s,’ I growl, jabbing at my head with a fist, trying to knock my senses back into place. My fingers brush against the nails which Dan-Dan
hammered into my scalp. I pause, wondering if I can drive the nails in deeper, maybe by banging the top of my head against a wall.
    ‘It could work,’ I mutter. ‘Puncture the brain, drop me in my tracks, no need to worry about my hand shaking and misdirecting a drill. But what if it doesn’t quite kill
me? I might just scramble my senses, become a wandering moron.’
    As