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All The Dead Are Here - Pete Bevan's zombie tales collection


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WARNING: Stories on this site may contain mature language and situations, and may be inappropriate for readers under the age of 18.

LEAVING LIMINALITY by Pete Bevan
September 9, 2009  Short stories   Tags:   

I used to be a metrosexual, one of those men who took too much pride in their appearance. I used moisturiser to prevent wrinkles, aftershave balm; I had back, crack and sacks, and a cupboard full of expensive treatments to stave of my fledgling wrinkles at the grand old age of twenty nine. I used to have a bathroom cabinet filled will colognes and aftershaves from all the top designers, and a regular appointment at the salon. That was before.

The fresh smell of cheap lemon soap fills the room as I towel dry my hair. The first full bath I have had in six months, and the water stone cold by the time I finished scrubbing my fingernails and every other part of my body clean until I could see the pink flesh for the first time in weeks. Metrosexuality seems so pointless now, so vain. I smile at the memory. I turn to drop the towel on the bunk and catch sight of myself in the mirror.

“Jesus!” I say to myself, stunned.

The figure staring at me in the mirror is not the guy I remember. My hair is lighter, changed by the sunlight and stress to a greyer shade. It’s been nine months since I frantically begged my stylist for an appointment to cover up that stray grey hair that made my mortality real. Now my hair hangs damp below shoulder length, longer than I have ever had it, brown with grey streaks running through it like an old hippy.

I realise my face and head are well tanned from spending weeks running in the spring/summer sun from shambling death, encroaching, and imminent cadavers. I have sunglass marks from my trusty Raybans, one of my few original possessions left. Possessions. Stuff. Things. All meaningless now unless you could carry it and it could save your life. Somewhere in the Land of the Dead my flat lies rotting, with my hand built furniture and 50” plasma all waiting for me to return, I picture a Z standing in my flat admiring my small collection of Art, maybe he’s trying on my bespoke Saville Row suit? Just stuff I suppose. Just things.

The crow’s feet I moisturised daily now explode from my eyes like rays of moonlight, contrasted, deep and shadowed.

I look into my own eyes, and my legs weaken and go numb. The doe-eyed financial controller I was doesn’t live in that reflection anymore. There is darkness around them and I’m sure they are a different shape. They have the depth of a Holocaust survivor. I realise with shock, my cheeks are sunken and even after brushing my teeth, flossing and using the mouthwash that they provide in this safe haven, my teeth still look dirty. Packets of sweets and crisps last well, fruit does not. The harsh reality of the apocalypse means I will probably never eat a Curry or Modern British Cuisine again.

The scar is now red from the heat of the bath but its itchy scabs have fallen off to reveal the six inch red welt that runs from above my eye, vertically, to level with the corner of my mouth. On the second night I jumped a fence but dropped too close to it and, what I presume was a loose bit of wire, carved the rune in my face. Covered in blood, I was lucky not to lose an eye. I was even luckier to meet up with a running nurse who crudely stitched the sides together without an anaesthetic in an abandoned people carrier before we were parted on the fifth night. Now its finally clean I can see the nurse did a good job, it’s nearly straight and has healed well. Good God, a scar running right down my face. I trace the line down its full length, feeling every bump and contour. A year ago I would have been phoning the most expensive plastic surgeons I could find, but now I don’t seem to mind any more. Priorities I guess.

The act of shaving was unappreciated in the modern world, my chin feels smooth for the first time in weeks, but makes my facial tan look strange. Like a mountain man returning to society from a winter in the hills. I rub my face enjoying the fresh feeling. It stings and I want some expensive balm to calm the angry heat caused by the old razor.

Looking down I realise I don’t have moobs any more. This makes me smile again. I took care (‘Took care.’ what vanity!) of my appearance, I was never one for the gym and had a belly and moobs that made me look fatter than I probably was. This has changed, now the muscles on my shoulders are tanned and lean, for the first time since I was a kid I can see sinewy muscle beneath. I have been honed by the running, lifting, building and fighting that costs fat and builds muscle. I lift my arm and flex, surprised at the size of the bicep that grows from it and the definition of the pec that lifts the arm. The little kids that found me were skinny wraiths but after so many lifts over cars, railing and obstacles, after so many nights of rocking them to sleep in my lap, my upper torso is defined by toil, and now I know nursery rhymes.

Rubbing down my belly there’s no six pack, and my old self is disappointed at this, but there is no belly. My white stomach is flat, probably from lack of food and the stomach bug that caught me so badly after the first month. This showed me what to eat and what not to eat even if you are starving, and just how vulnerable you are when being chased by the living dead while you have crippling stomach cramps.

On my side, I trace my finger over the fresher gunshot wound, just a nick from someone who finally cracked and shot his fellow survivors before turning on himself. I was the only one to leave that basement alive and some of those I left I had travelled with for weeks. Some of them were closer friends than I had in the five years before. The scar feels bumpy and rough with drying flakes of skin rubbing off. It still stings sometimes but the muscular ache is gone.

It’s probably the first time I have seen my dick in weeks. It doesn’t look any different, just clean and doesn’t stink. It was never much used before and probably won’t get much use now, but after looking after the kids I decide I would like a child of my own. I grew close to them, probably too close, I took risks to rescue them, put myself in danger so that I didn’t leave one behind. Looking back it wasn’t a conscious decision, it was just the right thing to do, but I think the kids knew what I had done and told others their story. Maybe that’s why, for the first time in my life, I get a respectful nod from men here who are older, wiser, harder and stronger than me.

The ‘Plastics’ that my dick thought it wanted are all dead. They couldn’t climb chain link fences with their false nails. Cold rotting hands could grab the hair extensions as easy as pie. Their tottering heels stuck in drain covers, their owners too stupid to leave their precious Jimmy Choos. They tried to save their little toy dogs and died because of it, calling out to their rich fathers to buy their way from death. Their pouting collagen lips ripped of their sneering faces as I watched. The women here are hard, many of them are mothers who have had to decide who lived and who died, this has made them fierce and practical; this has made them demand more from the men, more protection, more ammo, and more food. Strangely this has redressed the balance. Men fight, women protect, as it was in the Stone Age, not saying that the women can’t fight. One petite little girl here, Aileen I think her name is, was seen to rip the head from a Zombie. It went for her girlfriend so she just ripped its fucking head off, sinews and windpipe stretched taught like a drum before the spine released with a ‘pop’. Good girl. Scratch that, we are all becoming hard, what’s left of the human race is changing, and we are warriors now, survivors. Maybe this is what God wanted to show us, what we really were, not the soft corporate metrosexuals and plastics that were obsessed with possessions, reality TV, and vapid fashions, but the survivors we once were. For the first time I realise that it feels right, I’m not only different on the outside, I’m different on the inside.

I look down at my white legs, my calves and thighs are sinew and muscle, vaguely I recall I used to get pains in my knees, I haven’t had those in months, probably from too much time in office chairs. I rub my hands up and down, the resistance of the hairs tugging at the pallid skin and now they just ache from exhaustion. Five days ago when the kids and I ran here, all those miles in the open chased by one, then two, then three, then six, then twenty, then two hundred, then too many to count, the people here behind the gate couldn’t believe what they saw. I was running along holding the twins in my arms with the other kids holding onto my clothes, exhausted and dehydrated but still running.

The twins are three years old, Tommy, my right hand man, five, and Princess Celia, my warrior queen, seven. The Z’s were so close that if we stumbled they would have us, and the people fucking poured out of the gate of this place. They didn’t think about themselves or me just ‘Get the kids inside!’ was all I could hear over the percussive shotgun rounds that split the air around us as the kids clung tighter to me, and as I fell the to the floor the people swarmed around me and lifted me up before sweeping back into the compound closing the gate behind them. The fighting lasted for days apparently, but we won and no one ever questioned the fact that I lead thousands of Zombies here. Not when I had the kids in tow. Three days later I could walk but I ached and when I left the tent that was when the men started to nod to me with respect.

One old guy shook my hand and called me a hero, I was confused and didn’t realise what he meant, Running down the highway with the low moans of the dead like a slow, inexorable tsunami behind us I had resigned myself to dying on the highway with the kids. The car had broken down and there was nowhere to hide. Then, when little Celia walked up to me outside the tent, she smiled at me and I smiled back. Then she looked at the woman whose hand she held and said ‘This is my Mum’. I looked the woman in the eye and she mouthed the words ‘Thank you’. I fell to my knees racked with sobs. These tears weren’t the shocked sobbing that hit me at night when I realised I would never again eat at McDonalds or use a PC, grief at the loss of the things we took for granted, intransigent stuff that mean nothing. Laying in the dirt my soul cried tears at the loss of the world and the randomness of life that allowed this miracle to happen. I had no relatives, no friends except online, and had lost nothing, but to re-unite a girl and her Mum, my fragile mind couldn’t reconcile the odds, it was just impossible to believe that through all this I could help a child find its mother. I thought having nothing had made me immune to the horror around me and standing here now I realise that what I lost was myself, I had become a drifting shell doing nothing but survive and if I’m honest before I met the kids I wasn’t even doing that very well. I mean I’m not stupid or arrogant enough to realise that a lot of my survival was down to luck, Z’s choosing to nom on someone else instead of me.

All of our souls had been cast into the furnace of the apocalypse to be beaten and worked by the each new horror, like beads on a rosary, until the soul either shattered, taking the mind with it, as I had seen so many times, or in my case, to leave the furnace white hot with rage and shock only to be quenched by my tears to form a new thing. A new harder, tempered, soul that stood here naked in front of the mirror.

I realised finally it had taken twenty nine years, a child, and an apocalypse to make me a man.

I started to dress myself in a mix of clean and dirty clothes I had with me. The feeling of elation at my recollections had faded now and I felt slightly numb, but calmer than I had in months, more resolute. Determined.

I pulled up my 501’s I acquired when my designer jeans fell apart in days. I laced up my steel toecap boots and dropped a fresh white T shirt over my head. It occurred to me that maybe I had stumbled over the reason for the popularity of Zombies before the fall. It wasn’t the shooting a Zombie in the face as I assumed, which is a far more gruesome and horrible thing than any of the films ever made out. Perhaps it was the subconscious realisation that living like this freed you from the credit crunch, car payments, mobile phones, social networking and all that crap that means nothing to the instinctual man that evolved in caves and hunted meat. Perhaps it is a secret yearning to return to something simpler where the stress is immediate and decisions have life or death consequences. Where a man has a real role as a warrior, a provider and a protector in a real first person way and not the abstract third person, pay your bills by direct debit and buy your food from a supermarket, kind of way.

As I pulled on the leather jacket I thought about my old life, my old self, and realised that this figure was fading from memory, as were my hang ups. I had convinced myself that Celia’s Mum had asked me to dinner out of gratitude, and the shyness and poor self esteem I tried to cover with my nice possessions and metrosexuality had convinced me not to go. Now I wanted the company of another, just to talk and feel normal for a change and so I resolved to take up her offer, as a friend, and see what happened. She is a beautiful woman under all that muck and not ‘plastic’ in any way. She is a warrior woman like the rest of us. Maybe that was my ‘type’ now.

The bandolier of shotgun shells goes over my shoulder, my Raybans on my face and I pick up the shotgun. I take one final look in the mirror and see an action hero, a Marlborough man, Mad Max. Snake Bliskin. For effect I cock the shotgun with one hand and leave the bathroom. I am a free man, alive in a reality where I could die at any time and should live each day like it’s the last. The epiphany of this makes me smile so hard my scar hurts.

PS: I had dinner with Celia’s mum. She made chicken curry. It was the best I’ve ever tasted.

52 Comments

  1. Brilliant! I really appreciated this one for its raw reality and insight into current cultural norms and trends. The quasi “coming of age” post apoc/zombie short that would be great as a novel. Please expand on this. Its a worth-wile idea that I think would be great to develope further.
    Kudos!

    Comment by Barrett Shuamker on September 9, 2009 @ 6:31 pm

  2. Wow, I love the introspection. One of the best I’ve read.

    Thanks,

    Comment by Dfoos on September 9, 2009 @ 6:41 pm

  3. Excellent distillation of some of the ways things could change. A theme worth expanding upon.

    Thanks

    Comment by Mac on September 10, 2009 @ 8:20 am

  4. Great writing! You show some real brilliance in turning a phrase. I would like to hear more.

    Comment by baddesa on September 10, 2009 @ 8:25 am

  5. Just plain fantastic. Loved every line.

    Comment by Joe from Philly on September 10, 2009 @ 9:02 am

  6. started out a bit shaky but when you hit your stride it sure took off!! Just simply outstanding. Wonderful!

    Comment by Andrew from Sunrise on September 10, 2009 @ 10:16 am

  7. This has got to be one of my absolute favorites, zombie or otherwise. Very well done. The protagonist is flawed, but the reader is able to empathize. I’ll be watching for more from you.
    Thanks again,
    J. Roy

    Comment by J. Roy on September 10, 2009 @ 10:29 am

  8. This was excellent. In this age of recession where people are actually killing their families over losing their houses or jobs, rather than standing together through adversity like they did in the old days: this story really hits home. Possessions can be replaced or maybe not needed Although a good DOG is important!

    Comment by liz on September 10, 2009 @ 11:51 am

  9. in a word – Phenomenal.

    Comment by Taylor on September 10, 2009 @ 1:25 pm

  10. Fantastic! This is how Zombie fiction should be. Good Job Pete!!

    Comment by RedneckZombieHunter on September 10, 2009 @ 2:16 pm

  11. This was great. I loved the character. The transformation from a rich metrosexual into a post-apocalyptic warrior was great. And it didn’t seem he cared at all about it. I am glad he got his curry chicken. Keep up the excellent stuff.

    Comment by Rob on September 11, 2009 @ 11:24 am

  12. I’m sitting here with a big grin on my face.

    Thanks for the comments.

    Comment by Pete Bevan on September 11, 2009 @ 12:00 pm

  13. Fantastic short story. Introspective approach very interesting. Impressed me enough to read it more than once! Keep up the good work…maybe a similar type story about Celia’s mom?

    Comment by Dave on September 11, 2009 @ 2:35 pm

  14. Wonderful characterization, Pete. Loved the description of his changes.

    Now I’m in the mood for some curry!

    Comment by Molly on September 12, 2009 @ 12:01 am

  15. Great read.

    Comment by Doc on September 12, 2009 @ 1:47 pm

  16. Fantastic!

    I completely agree with the assessment that it’s the survivalist instinct that is the attraction factor for zombies. The end of the world arrives and no loans are due anymore; no bills to pay, no rent to meet, no insurance to worry about. That, more than anything, is why people like zombie apocalypse stories – that little daydream of being free to make your own way.

    This was a very well done story. Good work!

    Comment by Christine on September 12, 2009 @ 4:55 pm

  17. very nicely done.

    Comment by jfbranson on September 12, 2009 @ 10:51 pm

  18. @ Christine

    Its a crazy idea tho isn’t it, unconciously people would rather fight for their lives through a zombie apocolypse than carry on struggling through the credit crunch. I think stress/pressure manifests itself in strange ways.

    Comment by Pete Bevan on September 14, 2009 @ 8:15 am

  19. I loved it. Read it again right after I finished it the first time. Gave me a “Fight Club” feeling inside. It is amazing how little “stuff” really matters. Love the Snake Bliskin ref. Please expand

    Comment by Chris on September 14, 2009 @ 10:40 am

  20. That was excellent. One of the best I have read on here. Please can we have more?

    Comment by Zoe on September 14, 2009 @ 11:59 am

  21. If I may quote Oliver Twist….”Please Sir, May I have some more?”

    Comment by Junij on September 15, 2009 @ 1:46 pm

  22. I agree with every comment left by fellow readers. You really did a great job, Pete. Very introspective. I like how you didn’t expand on every little detail of his past (though I think you easily could). Leaving some details out made the whole thing more real and more mysterious. Well done, sir!

    Comment by Chris Rodriguez on September 15, 2009 @ 3:18 pm

  23. That was a brilliant story, very well done.

    Comment by Sam Fisher on September 16, 2009 @ 12:56 pm

  24. Agree with all the other comments. Fantastic story – one of the best I’ve read on this site

    Comment by Shaun on September 16, 2009 @ 3:55 pm

  25. @ Chris Rodriguez

    Minister part 2 demonstrated to me I was going for novels or novellas rather than short stories, but I’ve been reading a lot of Ray Bradbury and this demonstrated to me that brevity is the soul of short stories and you don’t need every detail to make it work. This site is helping me grow as a writer, and its great fun too!

    Thanks again for all the comments, they mean a great deal to me.

    Comment by Pete Bevan on September 17, 2009 @ 11:51 am

  26. Sorry to compare you to another author, (yes, you’re an author,) but this just has a feel of Bret Easton Ellis meets the Zombies. I loved your Minister works, but this one takes the cake, mate!

    Comment by Liam O'Riley on September 18, 2009 @ 12:50 am

  27. if i could write half as well as you do, i would be happy with myself. you sir, are a genius!

    Comment by michael B. on September 19, 2009 @ 12:19 am

  28. This is the greatest story based on zombies i have ever read, you my friend should wright a book. I know i would by one! Anyone else??

    Comment by Rick on September 19, 2009 @ 5:18 pm

  29. This story was amazing! Especially the part about why zombie films were so popular before the apocalypse. Sometimes I feel like “what would I do if that situation ever happened? Would I raise to the occasion or falter and join the shambling ranks of undead.” I know that you may be tired of hearing this, but when is The Minister: Verse 3 coming? 😀

    Comment by Jami Fadare on September 21, 2009 @ 1:35 pm

  30. Great Story, Loved every word.

    Comment by Derek on September 21, 2009 @ 1:52 pm

  31. To Jami, we’ve all thought that at one point or another. That’s why zombie flicks have the ability to do so well in the box office.

    To Pete, loved it. It shows that anybody can rise to the occasion if the time calls for it. I especially liked the main characters transformation from metro-sexual to practical survivor. How the mind will start to recall practicality over popularity. Very well written. I look forward to reading more.

    Comment by Terry Schultz on September 22, 2009 @ 6:25 pm

  32. Fantastic! I really would hope this is an opening retrospective chapter in a novella. The style is great, the world is realistic, the main character so richly detailed. I’ll admit I was sad when the end scrolled up.

    Comment by brycepunk on September 25, 2009 @ 12:02 am

  33. Brilliant, loved it you guys rock in the genre! This is very well written keep going with it, please!

    Comment by hijinxjeep on September 25, 2009 @ 2:10 am

  34. Exactly how I think; Im horribly terrified of zombies, but it frees you from…well, life.

    Comment by Than on September 28, 2009 @ 6:57 pm

  35. This is my favorite story on this site. I re-read it every week or so. I’m no netrosexual, bit I love the transition of this guy from a pretty boy to a real man. I love how you worked the story about running with the children into the story. Verywell written, one of my favorite stories of all time, not just in the zombie genre!

    Comment by Steve on October 3, 2009 @ 12:12 pm

  36. Im speechless! This is possibly the single greaest stories of personal growth and self realization I have ever read, and in a zombie theme to top it off. Only one real comment, KEEP WRITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Comment by Curtis on October 3, 2009 @ 11:49 pm

  37. Good introspection and description, but S.D. “Snake” Plissken is the character from Carpenter’s Escape from New York and Escape from L.A. The factual error at the very end causes an aware reader to stumble.

    Comment by Petey on October 15, 2009 @ 9:16 pm

  38. Loving your work Pete. Your thoughts and views are very close to my own and they are brilliantly interpreted through your nameless hero. Respect X

    Comment by Angie Ager on October 21, 2009 @ 3:51 pm

  39. Well spotted Petey. I know who the character is as thats who I was referring to, however I meant to Google his name before the final draft. Must have missed it.

    Comment by Pete Bevan on November 4, 2009 @ 4:17 pm

  40. This was a great story and really gave me a deeper insight into my own interest in zombies.

    Comment by Cherry Darling on November 24, 2009 @ 9:42 am

  41. I really enjoyed this story. I hope write a sequel to it.

    Comment by L Martin on June 11, 2010 @ 6:16 pm

  42. Great Story Pete! Loved your Minister Series as well. Reading from beginning to end and am up to Sept 09. Always get excited when I see your stories come up for that month!
    KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! JK

    Comment by JKnWWZ on June 22, 2010 @ 3:06 am

  43. Pete i am lost for words,again. i am so glad to have found TotZW, it has been what uhh a little more than a week and i cant stop reading. instead of sleeping i read. im o to the next Tale

    Comment by s.hershie on July 23, 2010 @ 4:36 am

  44. I have been making my way through the stories and I LOVE this one! Can you continue his story! Great! I teared up a little when Celia reunited with her mum! Good job!

    Comment by Erica on August 23, 2010 @ 8:22 am

  45. If this one moved you then the current story I am working ‘Angels with Dirty Faces’ should have more of an effect. The bad news is I’m keeping it back for the book.

    Comment by Pete Bevan on August 24, 2010 @ 1:46 am

  46. Great closing line. Excellent way to end an excellent story.

    Comment by Retrobuck on August 27, 2010 @ 8:48 pm

  47. OMG what a story, to be honest at one point I had tears in my eyes as I thought he had lost the kids.

    Your one of the best writers I have come across Pete, up there with Harry Turtledove and Peter F Hamilton.

    Keep up the good work.

    Comment by George on November 18, 2010 @ 8:31 am

  48. Pete, I read this story shortly after you posted it. I was re-reading WWZ last week and this story popped into my head. I just had to read it again. Well done. I saw something mentioned about you writing a book??? I would buy one this second if you can provide a link. I remember a few other stories you wrote also. Something w/ an evil Minister, and another titled Islands(I think). I really enjoyed both of these stories as well, so if your book is published and contains stories like these, point me in the right direction. Im going to go back and look thru your stories again. Thanks for keeping a US WWZ survivor entertained. 🙂

    Comment by Kevin Da Mick on October 19, 2011 @ 3:54 am

  49. Man im not sure if anoyne will see this but i’ve just found these stories a few weeks ago and i cant stop reading them. I’ve become a zombie for awesome zombie stories.

    This one filled me with a badass “die hard” feeling. I found myself grinning with a “yeah go get em” feel when he cocked the shotgun and walked outta the restroom. loved the whole thing

    Comment by Dejuan on May 16, 2012 @ 1:31 pm

  50. Yeah we see the comments even on old stories 🙂 Thanks for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed it.

    Comment by Pete Bevan on May 20, 2012 @ 12:47 pm

  51. Absolutely Wonderful ! I would love to see this continue. You are a very talented writer as are many of the writers on this site. I have been lurking for quite some time now and had to pop up and say WELL DONE !

    Comment by Susan on August 7, 2012 @ 9:56 pm

  52. I have read this story multiple times over the past years and it still gets to me. We have a lot of metrosexuals here in Amsterdam and I would love to see how they would end up in a Zombie Apocalypse.
    Great story, (still) love it!

    Comment by Stephanie on September 17, 2013 @ 8:49 am

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