This is the eighth of a series of short stories I am writing this December.
Click here to read the explanation of why I’m writing them.
Interview of ‘Sally Rivers’, Mar 14th 2034. As follows:
I was driving home for Christmas, listening to ‘Driving Home for Christmas’, is that ironic? Traffic on the M25 was not unusual, but it was unexpectedly crap for Christmas Eve. Normally it was roughly a two and a half hour drive to my boyfriend’s house, and I was about half way there before the traffic came to a complete halt.
No stranger to a traffic jam, I pulled out my phone to text my other half I was going to be late. I was technically parked, so it was fine. It’s fine. The odd part was that I had no signal, like nothing. Normally you have a bar or two without data, even in the middle of a forest, but I had nothing. At the time I didn’t really give it a second thought, but in retrospect it was the first sign something was wrong.
When I watched the news, like, the week after I think, they mentioned a pretty big explosion which was how they escaped the ‘containment site’, I think they called it. I didn’t hear anything, however; the radio was turned up loud and the heaters were on full to stop the windscreen misting over. You know how it gets in winter.
I think it was about three songs later, after ‘Last Christmas’ they played ‘Fairytale of New York’ and I was busy being bummed out by it when the man ran past my car. From in front of me to behind me, so could see his face. He looked white as a sheet, but I only saw him for a second because he was sprinting. He was gone before my brain really processed it, I think.
People in the cars around me were starting to open their doors and get out, to look down the motorway. The lady next to me, she was about 50, pointed down the road and made a face like she was screaming, but I couldn’t hear it; they had got to the fluty part of the song and the music was quite loud, did I say? I looked down the road in the direction she was pointing but, I couldn’t see past the van I was sat behind.
You know, I don’t really know why I didn’t get out to look to start with. I was more focused on it being cold, and I didn’t want to go outside. Anyway, how often does something like this happen? They tell you to not get out of the car on a motorway, you know.
Then more people were running past the car, one of them knocked the lady next to me over. When I look back on it, this was when I realised something was super wrong. It was way too late, however, because when I tried to open my door the people running past would just push it closed again. I think I tried like five times before I left it to try opening the sunroof.
That was when I saw the first zombie. Oh, sorry. I know you didn’t want me to call them that. Reanimated Infected Person, was it? RIP? Cute.
Where was I? Yes, reaching for my sunroof, I saw the first RIP. Jesus, really? Anyway, they ran up onto the roof of a car ahead of me, and my eye was drawn to it immediately. It was wearing a high-vis jacket, its face covered in blood. I remember freezing and just staring at it, people literally flooding around my car. It was sniffing the air, or something, like this.
Note: Witness tilts their head back and imitates sniffing the air.
It jumps off the car onto one of the people running past, pinned them against my car and bit them. Like, I’ve seen some nasty videos online, we all have, but this was messed up. There was blood all over my window. Then there were more of them, jumping over the cars on top of everyone, biting them. God, they were everywhere!
‘Walking in the Air’ was on the radio at this point. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to it again. They told me when they found me that freezing, and not running, in a car with the heater on full and the radio up loud, was what saved me. They didn’t know I was there. I think I’m fine with freezing, you know, all things considered.
One of them jumped on the roof of my car; it was bald, and was wearing a suit. I could see blood running down its face, a clump of hair clenched in its fingers. I think I was breathing really hard because the windscreen was fogging up again. It was looking at me, and I thought that was it. Maybe God does exist because it looked up and jumped after a guy running behind my car.
They said later there were 50 of them to start with, but it felt like they were running past forever. After a while I realised my eyes hurt; I had been trying to stay so still I had forgotten to blink and my eyes were super dry.
Then I remember crying. Everywhere I looked, there were bodies. Everything was covered in blood, man; it was like those Hitchcock movies my dad used to show me.
I just sort of sat there until I heard the helicopters in the sky.
Account Ends.
This one is in the style of World War Z, which is a great book, but an even better Audiobook!
