Kate leaned into Alex’s shoulder. She dozed in the odd, alien-like sunlight Ireland had to offer this summer. Alex ran his hand through her light brown hair. She looked up to him with her greyish blue eyes sleepily and her head bobbed up and down with the trains movements.
“It was nice of Cole to let you come this year,” Alex said to her. His green-blue eyes were shaded by his long, emo style brown hair as he looked down to her. She nodded.
“You still ok with this?” he said.
“Well, there’s no going back now,” she smiled. She closed her eyes and started resting. His friends opposite him, Jack and Christian, were nudging each other and looking at Alex with a smile big enough to fill the carriage. Jack’s glasses moved down his face slightly and he pushed them back to place over his greyish eyes. He composed himself and flicked across his windswept-like hair. Christian still smiled at Alex and gave him a mischievous look with his blue eyes.
“Player,” he whispered. Alex was sure Kate had heard him, but she still lay against him silently. These friends were going to Connemara to stay with another friend, Cole, for about two weeks. The boys were 16, but Kate was a few months younger, so was still 15. They were on a train to Galway station that left from Heuston Station in Dublin.
“I can’t believe we were invited for two weeks this time!” Christian exclaimed.
“Me neither, this year is going to be great!” Jack said.
“I bet this will be the best year,” Alex said. Jack and Christian smiled again. Alex drew a line with his finger down the middle of his head, looking like he had a pain in his head. He gave them a look that said ‘not like that’. The two nodded sarcastically and sat back into their seats.
“I’m gonna sleep guys,” Jack said and shut his eyes.
“Me too,” Christian agreed. He shut his eyes too. Alex thought about it, but decided to stay awake. The train kept going at a fairly fast pace.
“How are we doing with time Seán?” the train driver asked his assistant.
“We’re five minutes early and ten minutes until we’re into Galway,” Seán said. They smiled to each other. They had been working together for a couple of years now.
“Let me radio the station,” the driver said, with a gruff voice, “Galway, this is the train from Heuston, Dublin. We will be arriving in ten minutes.”
They waited for an answer. There was only static coming through. The driver cleared his throat.
“Galway, this is the train-“he was stopped short.
“What the fuck!?” Seán screamed. A mass gathering of people stood in the middle of the bridge over the river in Galway. “What the hell are those people doing!?” The driver looked grim. The people had legs and arms missing. Their flesh was rotting. They were surrounding a car that had tried to escape down the track. The man and his family inside were being mauled mercilessly.
“Those aren’t people....” he said, “those are zombies.”
The train shuddered harshly and started to fall off the tracks. Alex and Kate were flung forward and into Christian and Jack. They blacked out.
Alex slowly opened his eyes. He was looking at the floor and there was blood dripping from a cut above his eyebrow. He pulled himself up and stood. Pain throbbed through his body. Thankfully, he could move everything and he didn’t believe that he had broken anything, just bruising. His hearing came to and he wasn’t very happy with what he heard. He heard screams. He looked around. There was a man. And there was a woman. And the man...was biting the woman’s neck. The woman screamed as blood gushed out of her neck. The man moaned and released her from his grip. The woman’s body slumped to the ground.
Alex immediately became on high alert. He decided, stupidly, to quickly shake and scream at Kate, Christian and Jack. The zombie looked up towards Alex and it started to stumble towards him. It had an arm missing and its head was twisted at an angle. Alex cringed and closed his eyes. He heard a slicing noise. He opened his eyes and the zombie’s head had been stricken off. He saw Jack in front of him, a dead serious face on.
“Th-thanks!” Alex stuttered. Jack wielded a machete that he had drawn from his bag on the rack above.
“Let’s go,” Jack said. Christian and Kate had managed to get up. Everyone seemed to be ok, other than a large gash across Christian’s nose. They started moving down the carriage. They saw hordes of zombies outside, ripping apart innocent people. Kate gagged. Alex felt sick too and felt a sudden pain in his chest. They kept walking and got to the end of the carriage.
The door was partially open. Christian and Alex pushed the doors open. They hopped out. Zombies were eating what remained of the passengers. The smell was horrible and Alex was surprised that he didn’t get sick. A few zombies wandered a bit close and Jack cut them down. He was surprisingly confident, it was almost scary. They looked around. The rest of the train had managed to close off the way back the bridge.
“Hmm...” Kate thought to herself, “we’re going to have to jump into the river.” Jack looked worried.
“I can’t swim very well,” Jack admitted.
“I’m a trained lifeguard. I can bring you to shore if you don’t panic,” she said. Jack, still a little sceptical, nodded. Kate made sure she jumped first. She landed in the river and bobbed her head up. Jack jumped next. He landed in the water and fumbled around before Kate supported his back and grabbed his chin and supported his back and dragged him to shore. Christian jumped next as they shook some of the water off. He swam to the edge and Jack gave him a hand up.
Alex knew he was a confident swimmer, but he was afraid of heights. He looked down over the bridge. It was a long way down. He suddenly turned as he heard moaning. A zombie was limping over to him.
“Fuck it,” he swore under his breath and jumped in. He landed in the water, chest first. As he smashed into the water he felt all the breath go from his body. He came up from the water for a breath, but couldn’t breathe. His first thought was ‘try to breathe again’ but after that didn’t work he realised something. His rib was broken.
The sharp pain he felt on the train was the rib, and now it had worsened that he had hit the water. He waved furiously at his friends. Kate, realising he was in trouble, jumped back in. Alex wasn’t sure if he could stay conscious. Kate grabbed him and swam hastily to shore. Now that Alex was on shore he could breathe a bit, but he was still weakened from the hit.
“We have to keep moving,” Christian said. Kate looked at Christian worryingly.
“Alex isn’t going to be able to do this easily,” Kate frowned. Christian lifted Alex up and let him put his arm around his shoulder.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Christian shouted. They made their way as fast as they could away from the horrific scene. Jack turned to see if he could see any other survivors. More humanoid shapes, whether or not they were alive, fell from the bridge.
“Come on, we need to go,” Kate urged him to keep going.
“If we get to the outskirts there will be less zombies there,” Kate explained. A stray zombie wandered around a corner that they were coming up to. Jack slashed at the creature. He hacked through one shoulder down through to the waist. The zombie’s head with half a torso including an arm hit the ground.
Jack suddenly took a step back when the arm started to drag what remained along in his direction. He plunged his machete into its head.
“We have to watch out for that,” he said. He pulled the machete out of its head. He looked around the corner.
“More,” he said. Kate turned around as if to go back and see if there was another route.
“Eep!” she screamed. More again.
“We’re surrounded...”Christian said as he looked straight ahead. Alex handed a metal pipe to Christian as he lay to the ground.
“Thanks,” he said, knowing that this was a last ditch attempt. They prepared to meet their fate. Out of nowhere, a Land Rover came racing down the way they had come from. It mowed down the zombies from that route. Everyone looked in surprise. Some zombies started approaching Jack and Christian. Christian started to bludgeon the zombies across the head and Jack hacked and slashed at anything coming his way. A door opened. Gunfire could be heard.
“Guns?” Alex said as he struggled to look up. He saw two people firing shots at the zombies.
“How did they find us?” Kate exclaimed. A zombie managed to get past Jack and was headed for Kate. She screamed. A spear whooshed past her and impaled the zombie. It was dragged past her and to the two heroes. One fired a shot into its head.
“COLE JOHNSON!! DUN DUN DUN!” Cole shouted in triumph. It was Cole and Oisín. Théa, Cole’s twenty one year-old sister, leaned out the window.
“Get in!” she shouted. Everyone turned around and ran for the car. Oisín covered everyone as they did this and hopped into the boot of the car. Oisín and Cole jumped back in and Théa turned the car around and zipped back down the road.
Alex sat with Kate lying in front of him. Christian was inspecting the injuries on his nose. Jack sat on a bench with his head between his knees and machete hanging loosely in his hand. Cole turned around from the front, his shoulder length curly brown hair bobbed as he did this.
“You guys ok?” he asked. Kate looked back over Alex’s shoulder.
“Alex has an injured chest, I think a rib is broken, and Christian has a gash across his nose,” she listed. Cole laughed.
“Did your nose get in the way?” he said. Christian would have normally laughed at this sort of comment, but in these circumstances he just sighed.
“What happened? The train wasn’t in the station,” Oisín asked. He had short spiky brown hair and was fairly tall and muscular considering he was only fourteen.
“I dunno, it crashed on the bridge. That’s where we got our injuries,” Alex explained.
“We can patch you up when we get back to the house, but we have to stop in Clifden to get supplies on the way back,” Théa said. Her dark brown hair was tied up.
“You’ve managed to keep your positive attitude through...this,” Christian said. Cole smiled.
“Yes, of course!” Cole smiled. Alex frowned.
“I’d heard there were riots but....I would have never imagined....” Alex was interrupted by a fit of coughing.
“Yeah, it is pretty bad…” Théa said. Alex stopped coughing.
“Bloody zombies,” he expressed angrily. Kate turned to him and lightly ran her hand across his chest. He winced.
“Is it bad?” she asked.
“I’ll live,” he disclosed. Jack looked up.
“How long until we arrive in Clifden?” he asked.
“About an hour and a half,” Oisín replied. Jack returned to his previous position.
“Does anyone have a goddamn bandage?” Christian asked.
They began to come into Clifden, scarce amount of zombies were dotted around the town. Some attempted to attack the car as they drove past, but to no avail. They pulled up by Supervalu and fought back the one or two zombies that were clinging to the car. They brought out boxes and Théa looked to them.
“Let’s split up to get the most stuff quickly, Jack, Oisín and I will go one way, Christian and Cole go another, and Alex and Kate go to the farthest back,” Théa instructed. Everyone nodded in agreement. Cole grabbed Christian in a headlock.
“Let’s go Cwistchon!” he said in a patronising voice. The duo walked in. The rest of them followed.
“We’ll meet you in ten minutes,” Théa told them. Alex and Kate headed for the back of the supermarket. Some zombie bodies and some human bodies were lying on the ground. Alex decided to poke bodies to see if they were alive. No life. They arrived at the dairy section near the back.
“Ok, let’s get as much of this as we can,” Kate said. They started to fill their box with loads of stuff they could find. They didn’t get as much dairy because it wasn’t as important as some other stuff. They were getting it near the half way mark when a big muscular man in his mid-twenties approached them.
“This is my territory, get the fuck out,” he ordered aggressively. Kate and Alex looked up.
“We’re just trying to get some supplies, I’m sure you understand the circum-oof!” Alex was interrupted as he was punched square in the chest. He went unconscious.
“Come on Alex. What are you doing?”
“I....I was hit. Am I dead?”
“No, you’re just unconscious.”
“Oh...can I wake up?”
“What are you going to do? There is a big muscle man who is about to smash you to bits. What the hell do you plan to do? What can you do?”
“Nothing really....I’m a coward. I have ended up on relying on the others up until now...”
“You can be brave though. Just get up and you’ll know what to do...”
Alex opened his eyes. All he could taste was blood. He spat and he saw that a pool of blood had formed beside him. The man was holding Kate so that she couldn’t stand.
“Pretty girl you have here. I might take her back to the warehouse for myself,” the man said, eying her up. Kate fought back and punched the man in the face.
“You little bitch!” he shouted and slapped her. Alex was furious. He swiped the crowbar up from the ground.
“Look here!” Alex cried. The man turned to him.
“Fuck you!” Alex shouted as he smashed the crowbar into the man’s skull. The man dropped Kate from his grasp and crashed to the ground, bringing six cartons of milk down on himself. Alex stood over him for a moment, panting. He had killed a person. All innocence that he may or may not have had before was lost. Once he had fully comprehended what had happened he kneeled down to Kate. She had her head in her hands.
“Are you ok?” he asked. She flung her arms around him despite the blood trickling down his shirt.
“I thought you were dead,” she wept. Alex returned the embrace. They stayed there like that for a moment. He suddenly realised that this probably wasn’t going to be the last time that something like this would happen. But next time they all probably wouldn’t be so lucky. Kate stood back up and wiped the tears from her face.
“We just need a few more things, and then we can leave,” she said.
They walked out of the supermarket. Jack and Oisín were chatting when they turned to them with a horrified look.
“What the hell happened?!” Jack blurted out.
“Hard man trying to show off,” Alex said as he wiped some more blood from his mouth.
“Jesus man, that’s really fucking bad you’re in no shape to fight,” Oisín said.
“Fight?” Kate inquired. Théa popped her head around from the car.
“Something’s not working, so we are going to have to defend the car,” she said glumly.
“I know what the fuck it is, but I don’t know how we’re going to fix it!” Cole roared from the front.
“What do we have to fight with?” Alex asked. Christian jumped out from the boot.
“Two hunting rifles, uh, I dropped my pipe, a machete, a spear gun and, uh, your crowbar,” he listed off. Kate frowned.
“That’s not enough,” she stated. Christian frowned now as well.
“No,” he sighed. Oisín pointed across the road.
“There’s a sport shop there where we can get some weapons, but it’s all boarded up...” he explained. Kate walked across the road and up to the shop. She knocked. She could hear whispering inside. She rolled her eyes.
“If I can hear you, the zombies can hear you too,” she said loudly enough to hear. Everyone heard a thumping noise of planks being taken down. The door opened.
“Quickly, get in!” a man with black hair, albeit greying, whispered loudly. Kate beckoned for the others to come. They grabbed the weapons from the car and darted for the shop. As soon as they got in, a woman with long blonde hair was hammering back up the planks. The man who spoke to them first introduced themselves.
“Hi, I’m PJ,” he said, “this woman here is Amanda, the twins there are Hannah and Mark, and the boy in the corner is Thom.” The woman turned around after finishing securing the door. She was tall and she looked like the kind of woman you’d see in a fashion magazine.
“You were just in Supervalu, right? You may have come across my boyfriend,” she said in a Russian accent. Alex swallowed.
“I hoped you showed him a right thing or two, he wasn’t interested in a relationship when hell broke loose, if you know what I mean,” she said.
“Yeah I think I do,” Kate said disdainfully. Elsewhere in the room, two thirteen year-old twins with black hair were throwing a ball to each other, either completely unaware of what was going on, or were trying to block it out with normal things. Well, what used to be normal things. In the corner of the room, a boy around the same age as Oisín sat with his arms crossed dozing. He had dark skin and was shorter than Oisín and was stocky.
“We need to fix up our Land Rover and get back to our house,” Théa said.
“That’s lucky, I am a mechanic!” PJ said cheerfully.
“Really!? That’s great, we can take all of you with us if you want when we get the Land Rover working,” Théa said.
“If the zombies don’t kill us first,” Jack said looking between the boards. There was a pause.
“What weapons do you guys have?” Christian asked. Thom in the corner was up. No one had noticed. He swung a hurl in the air viciously.
“Hurls,” Thom said.
“Hurls? Really?” Christian said.
“Hurls don’t need reloading,” Thom replied as he smacked it into his hand.
The boards had been taken down and they were getting ready to run to the Land Rover.
“Ready?” PJ asked. Everyone nodded nervously.
“Go,” Amanda whispered. Everyone burst out the door, Cole and Christian taking the front line. They were ‘greeted’ by two zombies close to the entrance. They moaned at them, without great meaning. Blood was oozing all over their bodies and their limbs were horribly warped. They were quickly dispatched to two cracks across the head with the weapons they had. Jack shot down a zombie near the Land Rover. With any nearby threat gone, PJ stood in front of the car. He scratched the dark stubble on his face.
“I see...” he said. He tapped a couple of things and then stood up straight again.
“I need some of you to come with me, we need to get to a garage, I know how to fix this,” he said. He ushered for Théa, Thom, Oisín, Jack and Christian to come.
“The rest of you stay by the car, we won’t be long,” PJ said and started moving down the street and back into the main part of Clifden.
Alex lay down with the car supporting his back. He winced, as the pain came back through his chest.
“Hey, you don’t look so good,” Hannah frowned.
“Yeah, it’s just like a bruised rib or something like that,” Alex said.
“How did it happen?” Mark asked, the twins now interested in what was being told.
“Well, as we were coming into Galway city, the train we were on crashed into something. When I came to, I had a really bad pain in my chest, I probably hit the table on my way across,” Alex explained.
“Galway!?” the two exclaimed.
“Um, yeah?” he said.
“You made it all the way from Galway to here?” Mark asked in disbelief.
“Well, yes, but that’s because Théa was able to drive the Land Rover.” Hannah and Mark’s eyes began to sparkle.
“Wow! You guys are really cool!” Hannah shouted.
“That’s what it would seem, but we’re not cool, we’re survivors,” Alex replied. Hannah and Mark’s scintillation disappeared.
“Oh. Well, I see what you mean,” Mark said now with a sense of bitter realisation in his voice.
“Still, it doesn’t make me any less amazing!” Cole beamed. Kate gave a look that said ‘Why? But did I really expect anything else...’ The air was cold, but it was still sunny, typical summer weather in Ireland unless it was raining. Cole went to the back of the Land Rover and pulled out a blanket. He tossed it to Alex. Alex smiled sadly to him and returned to his previous depressed facial expression. Cole smiled to make him smile but his efforts were not fruitful: Alex turned his head so he was facing the ground to the left.
Cole looked to Kate, being hopeful she would comfort him in a way Cole couldn’t. Kate sat down beside him and kissed him lightly on the cheek, laying her head on his shoulder. Alex put his arm and the blanket around her and cuddled her in.
Cole, satisfied with making his companion happier started to walk about to check if there was anything notable. The streets were barren, with only half mauled bodies to give variety to the rubbish filled landscape. He couldn’t see any zombies, as far as he was aware. He sort of wanted to check the buildings for zombies, but as he was the most capable fighter, he didn’t want to leave the others behind. And besides, he wouldn’t want to attract a hoard.