The Gate 2: 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair

THE INDIAN ROPE TRICK by D.P. Prior

Mum was thump, thump, thumping on the door. It was raining cats and dogs out there. The rat-tat-tat on the windows made the sound of a gazillion BB guns shooting the glass. Thunder cracked and rolled away like angels dropping coal. Inside, the TV was chattering and Dad was nailing planks across the windows. My breaths were raggedy gasps and my heart was bouncing in my chest. Under it all I could hear the groaning of the zombies, and the screaming and the sirens, and the bang, bang, bang of the policemen’s guns. I couldn’t help myself. My fingers fumbled with the door chain.

“Don’t!” Dad dropped his hammer and shoved me out of the way. He checked the latch to make sure Mum couldn’t open the door from the outside, and looked through the peephole.

“It’s her,” I said. “You have to let her in.”

He snarled as he turned and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“It’s not. Don’t you get it? It’s not. Oh, Christ, I’m sorry, Wes. I’m not…I mean…I’m not angry with you. We just can’t let her in, is all. She’s bit.”

“Then make her better.”

He pinched the top of his nose and screwed his face up. I thought he was gonna cry.

“I can’t, Wes. I fuckin’…I can’t.”

I ducked under his arm so quick he couldn’t stop me.

“Wes—”

I pressed my face up against the door and squinted through the peephole. Mum looked sickly and grey, and there was stuff coming out of her mouth, all foamy and disgusting. Her teeth kept snapping together like she was saying something, but all I could hear was her growling.

“You little…” Dad yanked me back and squeezed my cheeks with one hand so I had to look him in the face. “She ain’t speaking, Wes. Don’t you see? If it was really her, don’t you think she’d be yelling or screaming? She’s bit, I tell you.”

My face felt like it was on fire. I stared him out, but couldn’t think of anything to say. I slapped his hand off me and went to look through the gaps in the planks covering the window. I could see the side of Mum’s coat. There were carrier bags on the driveway next to her. Back a little way, there was a policeman all in black with one of them bulletproof jackets. He had a rifle gun pointed at her and was shouting the same thing over and over, only I couldn’t make out what it was, what with all the other noise. Something shambled past the window. There was a shot and a spray of red on the glass.

“Get away.” Dad’s voice cracked, like he was crying. “Get back from the window. You don’t want… you don’t want them to see you.”

Mum hit the door real hard just then, thump after thump after thump. The frame shook and Mum’s growls turned into angry screams. All I could do was cover my ears and shut my eyes tight, really, really tight. The policeman called out again, this time from closer by. Mum must’ve thrown herself against the door, ’cause the frame split. Thunder rolled, rain pattered, things moaned, the TV chattered. Someone else shouted, “The head, you tosser!” and there was a deafening bang. I screamed and fell to my knees, trying to breathe. Trying, trying to breathe. I felt Dad’s arms around me; heard his sobbing; felt his warm tears on my neck.

“It weren’t her,” he said through sniffs. “She was already gone, Wes. It weren’t her.”

He didn’t try to hold me back when I stood and looked through the peephole. It was smeared with blood and I couldn’t see out.

“Wes…”

“I might be nine, Dad, but I’m not stupid. Got it?”

I pushed past him and headed through the lounge into the kitchen. I tried the back door. It was locked. I could see out into the conservatory through the kitchen window. I knew that was locked, too. We’d checked it earlier, after bringing the planks in from the shed. I heard Dad behind me as I took the key out of the lock.

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

“They break the window, they might reach in and turn the key,” I said.

He nodded at me. “Too clever for your own good, Wes. Good boy. Should be safe now. Front’s all boarded up and there’s no sign of them out back.”

“We need to barricade the doors,” I said. “You know, with chairs and stuff.”

“I’m on it,” Dad said, going back to the lounge and upturning an armchair.

“… still no official word on where it came from,” a reporter was saying on TV. He’d been saying the same thing for hours, and they kept showing a clip of zombies lumbering after a cameraman before they cut to the studio where they asked a bunch of stupid people the same stupid questions and got the same stupid answers. While Dad dragged the chair to the front door, I watched another scene of blue-grey zombies walking all stiff and creepy-like along a London high street. People were screaming and running from them. Then there was a shot of pigs and birds and it was back to the studio.

“Professor Worsley,” Will Turner was saying. “We’ve had dozens of emails asking whether the virus—that is what it is, isn’t it?”

“Possibly,” said a little round man with a silly beard and glasses. “It’s still early days. It could be a bacillus; it could be a freak manifestation of a latent mutation; it could be terrorists. No one knows.”

“But do we know if it’s spread by animals?” Siobhan Smith asked.

“It could well be.” Professor Worsley took off his glasses and rubbed them on his jacket. “But it might not be, as well.”

“Richard Dawkins said it was an act of God,” Will said.

Worsley huffed at that and put his glasses back on.

“Professor Dawkins was being ironic.”

“What do you say to the people who claim it started in a Verusia Labs facility? Do you think it’s fair to blame Dr Otto Bligh—”

I switched the TV off.

“What’s ‘ironic’, Dad?”

“Haven’t the foggiest,” he said, walking into the lounge and looking like he’d forgotten what he was doing, same as Granddad John used to.

“The back,” I said with a tut.

“Oh, yeah, right.” Dad dragged the other armchair through to the kitchen.

“Fuck!” he yelled, dropping the chair as the cat flap banged shut and Watson hissed. His fur was standing on end like he’d seen a ghost, and his eyes were all white and milky. Dad let out a sigh and bent to stroke him.

“You scared the crap out of me, kitty-cat,” he said. “Ow!” He snatched his hand away and covered it with his other hand. “Fuck,” he swore again. “Shit. That really hurt.”

Blood was seeping between his fingers and pooling on the floor. He grabbed a tea towel to wrap around the bite, but Watson hissed again and pounced. Dad fell backward into the armchair and the cat was on top of him, biting and scratching.

“Get him off me!” Dad cried, thrashing about with his arms and legs. “Wes, get him off!”

I half screamed, half cried as I grabbed a bottle of wine from the rack and clubbed Watson with it. He turned and snarled at me and I hit him again, right in the face. Blood sprayed onto the cabinets, and Watson flopped to the floor. Dad pushed himself out of the armchair and crunched his foot down on Watson’s head and kept it there until he stopped moving.

I put my hand to my throat as sickness burned its way up my windpipe.

“Go upstairs!” Dad shouted.

His face was all scratched up, and his neck and arms were bleeding.

“But he’s dead.” I looked down at the cat’s splattered head and dry heaved.

“Now!” Dad yelled, and shoved me back into the lounge.

I stumbled at first, but then turned and ran upstairs. He followed me, and he had that look about him you didn’t want to argue with. When we reached the landing, he fetched a chair from his room to stand on. He reached up and unbolted the trapdoor to the attic, then pulled the wooden ladder down.

“Up,” he said.

I did as I was told while he threw the chair aside.

“Dad—”

“Just go!”

When I reached the top, I looked back and saw him head downstairs.

“Are you coming?” I called, but there was no answer.

I paused in the opening, straining to listen. Dad was crashing about in the cupboard under the stairs by the sounds of it. When I heard his heavy footfalls returning, I crawled into the attic and lay on my tummy so I could watch. He appeared on the landing with the big hammer he’d used to break up the decking last winter, when it went all rotten and slimy and someone might have slipped on it and broke their neck. When he reached the ladder, he didn’t start to climb up like I’d thought, but he took a swing with the hammer and went right through the wood. He swung again and again, cracking and splintering the ladder until the bottom half fell away.

“Dad, please!”

He kept on bash, bash, bashing till there was a pile of broken wood in the middle of the landing. Then he righted the chair and climbed on it.

“Love you, son,” he said with tears in his eyes as he started to close the trapdoor. “Stay still and keep real quiet. Everything’s gonna be OK.”

In that moment I realized what he was doing. Dad, my daddy, always said he’d protect me from everything. He knew what was going to happen. I did, too, only part of me didn’t want to believe it. It was like when I kept trying to believe in Father Christmas even after everyone at school said it was just my parents pretending. As the trap shut and he slid the bolt across, I was left in the dark.

The air was dusty and smelled of woodchips. I heard Dad jump down from the chair, then there were more bangs, cracks, and snaps. He was smashing the chair so he couldn’t climb up. Making sure I was safe.

I did as he said and kept as still as a statue, not even daring to breathe. I could hear him moving around for a bit, but then there was a loud thud and nothing more. I sat back against something soft and giving. It rustled like a plastic bag. I lay there for a while, my mind all horrid pictures and no thoughts, body shaking so much I had to hold my knees tight to my chest and rock myself to make it stop. I kept seeing Mum’s crazy face, those empty eyes like puddles of milk; the dribble running down her chin. I imagined what it must’ve looked like when her head exploded all over the door. My brain wouldn’t stop playing it over and over, as if I’d really seen it. Bang. Splat. Bang. Splat. Bang.

I became aware of the rain crashing against the roof. There was still the odd gunshot, muffled and far off. People occasionally cried out, but the moaning and groaning never went away. I went from only hearing the sound of my breathing to being deafened by the noises from outside. I wanted them to stop. I needed to hear what was happening indoors. I needed to listen out for Dad. I got back on my tummy and pressed my ear to the trapdoor.

“Dad?” I called out in a shaky voice. “Daddy, are you there?”

My heart started flapping about in my ribcage like a bird in a chimney. I sat up and tried to suck in some air, but none came. I squeezed in a tiny breath, then another, and another till I was panting like a dog. As my breaths got faster and faster, my heart sped up, too. I could hear it inside my head, big sloshy whooshes, like when you’re underwater. What was happening to me? Was I ill like those people on TV? Had I got Watson’s blood on me? Was I gonna turn into one of them? I needed to see. Had to see. I tore into a plastic bag, spilling its fluffy contents. I rummaged about, looking for anything that might help me see, but it was useless. They were just teddies. My old toys that Mum had put out of the way. I recognized them all by touch, ran my hands over them, worked out who they were by the feel of their fur, the size of their eyes. Mr. Penn! I found Mr. Penn, my old green dog teddy and hugged him tight. I let out a big sigh and felt my eyes tearing up.

“No time for crying, Mister Penn,” I said. “We’ve gotta find some light.”

There was a light switch somewhere near the entrance. I’d seen Dad turn it on when we came up here to play treasure hunt once. With Mr. Penn tucked under one arm, I crawled back toward the trapdoor and felt around in the dark. I found the cold brick wall and ran my fingers along its rough surface until I found the switch. I flicked it and felt a moment’s panic when nothing happened. But then the two strip-lights in the ceiling started to flicker and hum, like they were grumpy about being woken up. With a ping and a flash that had me blinking, they snapped on, casting a dirty yellow light over the piles and piles of junk that we’d hidden away up here.

Apart from my teddies, it was mostly boring stuff near the entrance—bed linens, pillows, ugly patterned blankets. Stacked baskets ran down each side of a central aisle, all brimming with odds and ends that no one would ever use.

There was a canvas wardrobe halfway along, bursting with Mum’s old clothes she wouldn’t throw away. She said they might fit again one day, once she’d lost a bit of weight. I used to think it was a TARDIS when I was little. That all seemed ten thousand million years ago now. Nine was so much older than eight. ’Specially when the world was going mad and the grown-ups couldn’t help you anymore. I still felt the tug of the TARDIS, though. Part of me wanted to believe I could squeeze in amongst all those clothes and escape to another planet. Better still, I could travel back in time and tell Mum not to go shopping so she wouldn’t get bitten and turn into a zombie. I could tell Dad to tape up the cat flap. Then they’d both still be with me and we could hide away indoors till the police killed all the zombies and told us it was safe to come out. Kids are stupid like that. I started to feel warm and cozy. Everything I daydreamed about was real, right up until I gave the TARDIS a good look and saw it was just make believe. I turned away from it and dropped Mr Penn. I had to be tough to get out of this. Ain’t got time to be scared, Dad used to say when I thought there were monsters under the bed. Too busy trying to sleep. Ain’t got time to cry, he’d say whenever I grazed my knee. Too busy playing.

Toward the far end of the attic there was a big fluffy donkey we called Oswald. He was standing guard over the fake Christmas tree, the one we used to bring down to the lounge every year. My tummy twinged when I thought about it. We would have been doing that in a week or so. Now it would just lie there gathering dust.

I made my way along the aisle, careful to keep to the boards so my feet didn’t go through the ceiling. Something squeaked and I stopped, holding my breath. There was a rustle of plastic bags, and I turned to stare as a stack of full black bin liners tumbled down. I strained and strained, but couldn’t hear anything else above the drumming of the rain on the roof tiles.

My eyes were drawn to something glinting behind where the bin liners had been stacked. I grabbed a plastic sack and heaved it out of the way, and then stepped carefully between the others. The glint disappeared as I drew nearer. When I craned my neck to look back, it was obvious why. The strip-light in the ceiling was now behind me. It must’ve been reflecting from something. I pressed on into the shadows with one foot on either side of a load of foamy stuff between the beams. I was never allowed to play near the edges of the attic because they hadn’t been boarded over. One wrong step and I’d break my bleeding neck. Least that's what Dad always said.

Just thinking of him was like a punch in the guts. I felt all mangled up inside. The tears wanted to come, but I wouldn’t let them. Times like this you need to be strong. No one was coming to save me now. I knew that as sure as I knew Mum would never be stepping through the door and telling me to carry the shopping bags. Dad and I would never form our little chain gang so we could put the tins away in the cupboards while Mum fixed the tea. A sniffle escaped, but I ignored it, peering into the darkness until I could make out a shape blacker than the rest. I reached out and my fingers found something cold and hard. It felt like metal. I crouched down and ran both hands over it. It was a box of some sort, with a lid and handles on either side. I took hold of one of the handles and gave it a tug. The box shifted easier than I thought and I fell backward. I threw my hand out behind and struck foam. My heart jumped into my throat and I shut my eyes, waiting to fall through the ceiling. I must’ve got lucky ’cause nothing happened. After a few raspy breaths, I inched back onto the beams and found the handle again. This time, I took little steps backward as I dragged the box into the light.

It was painted black, but was chipped all over. It looked a thousand years old. Maybe a million. There was a tiny key in the lock, with a ripped brown tag attached to it. Wesley J. Harding, it said in swirly joined-up writing. Except for the J., that was my name, but I’d never seen the box before in my life. Then I remembered something Dad had told me when I was really little. I was named after his great, great, great granddad, but my middle name was different. That was Xavier, after this saint Mum liked. Dad once told me he was eaten by cannon-balls. But Wesley J. Harding was real famous in my family. He was in India, they said. In the stories Dad used to tell, he was always doing magic stuff, like rope tricks so he could escape from the evil tiger-men. He could even lie on a bed of nails without getting pricked to death.

I turned the key and lifted the lid. It fell back on its hinges with a loud clang. There was an answering growl from below. It sounded like those things from outside, only it was definitely closer; right underneath me. I closed my eyes to listen better. Someone moaned, and there was a noise like Darth Vader breathing and Dad gargling TCP all rolled into one.

“Daddy?” I said, too softly for him to hear. Then a little louder, “Dadda?”

There was a snarl, then lots of smashing and crashing, like someone was throwing furniture about. There was a heavy thud right beneath the attic, and more moaning and groaning that sounded even closer. I yelped in fright as something bashed against the trapdoor and then roared.

My eyes snapped open and I was staring at an old yellowish photo of a man in a white pointy helmet standing with his foot on a tiger. He had a big gun in one hand, and was smoking a pipe with the other. I knew whom it was from the dangly moustache: Wesley J. Harding.

There was more pounding on the trapdoor. It bounced in the opening, and the bolt rattled. I knew I was still safe, though. The trapdoor opened outwards, so no amount of hammering was going to help. If it was Dad, he’d know all he had to do was unbolt it and lower the cover. But maybe it was him, only he might be like Mum had been. She’d looked the same as normal, except for the dribble and the milky eyes. Maybe them things weren’t too clever. Maybe they were too thick to work a bolt. Even so, I knew I couldn’t take chances. I had to think, and think quick. I needed a weapon.

Next to the picture of Wesley J. Harding there was a wad of cloth all tied up with string. I lifted it out, surprised at how heavy it was. I nearly dropped it when the banging got louder and the wood of the trapdoor started to split. I fumbled at the string, pulling it over the edges of the bundle because I couldn’t untie the knots. As I began to unwrap the material, it suddenly went quiet below. I heard the bolt being turned; heard it snap back. Acid came up my throat, almost made me sick. I dropped the bundle and something heavy thudded against the boards.

A gun.

It was pistol-like thing with one of those chambers like I had on my Nerf gun. It looked really old. Really, really old. There was a strange thrill as I curled my fingers around the handle and lifted it with both hands. How do you open it? I thought, trying to remember what they did in those cowboy films Dad made me watch. I fiddled with the chamber but couldn’t budge it. Would it still work? Did it have any bullets? Would I be thrown back through the wall if it went off, ’cause I was only a kid, and kids don’t fire guns?

Light beamed up from below as the trapdoor fell open. I scrambled back on my bum, holding Wesley J. Harding’s gun so tight my knuckles went white. I inched back further, never taking my eyes off the entrance, my heart pounding so loud I couldn’t hear anything else. A hand reached over the edge, then another. It was Dad, I knew it. I could see his wedding ring glinting in the dirty light. When his head popped up, I nearly dropped the gun and went to him. My whole body ached to be held. Dad must’ve killed that thing down there; must’ve come to rescue me. But then his head turned toward me and I saw his eyes. They were just like Mum’s—all white and empty. He roared and sprayed spit and slobber everywhere. He started to drag his body through the opening, hissing and growling. My arms were shaking from holding the gun; my head was bursting with tears and fear and sadness and loneliness and-and-and—

Click.

Nothing happened.

I pulled the trigger again. Just another click. Nothing. There were no bullets. There was no magic. I hate you, Wesley J. Harding. I hate you!

I screamed and threw the gun with all my strength. It smacked into Dad’s head and splatted it like a melon. He dropped back through the opening and there was a thud, a crack, and a slosh. I had to see. I had to see what had happened. So I crawled on hands and knees to the opening and peered over the edge. Dad was lying in a sprawled heap on top of a smashed up chair. There was blood all around his head, and his legs were twisted at a horrible angle. Then I was sick, really sick, when I saw the bone poking through his jeans, the chair leg sticking out of his chest, drip, drip, dripping blood. A stream of my yucky brown puke rained down on him and he growled. His head twisted to glare at me with dead eyes, and his fingers scratched at the carpet. He reached a hand up and clawed the air, roaring at me and gnashing his teeth.

I drew back from the edge and stood. I knew he couldn’t get up, not with his legs all broken like that, but I didn’t want to chance it. I took hold of the canvas wardrobe at the top and pulled. It was real heavy, so I tried again, using more of my bodyweight. It rocked and then tipped right over the opening. Clothes fell out and flopped down below. Dad growled some more, but he was muffled now, buried under Mum’s cast-offs. The wardrobe sagged, but covered the opening good enough.

I noticed Wesley J. Harding’s gun up against the wall where it had bounced off of Dad’s head. I narrowed my eyes at it and screwed my nose up. But then I sighed and gave it a nod of respect. It might not have worked, but it had saved me anyway. Maybe Wesley J. Harding was on my side after all.

I decided if I was gonna get out of this alive, I needed to do some rummaging. Maybe there’d be some rope so I could do that rope-trick thing Wesley J. used to do. Dad said the rope would go stiff and Wesley J. would climb right up into the clouds. I started going through some old suitcases that were stacked along the sides, but they were mostly filled with more of Mum’s old clothes. She had so many clothes, my Mum, but most of them didn’t fit anymore. She did lots of silly things, Dad said, like going to Weight Watchers and then ordering Chinese; or telling Dad to hide the scales so she couldn’t weigh herself every day, and then messing up the whole house trying to find them. She’d moan about having all this junk food in the cupboards because she couldn’t stop herself from eating it, even though she was the one who bought it in the first place.

Tears were pouring from my eyes and snot ran over my lips and onto my chin. I missed her, my big silly Mummy. I really missed her. And Daddy, my best friend in the whole world. I needed him now like never before. If he were here, everything would be all right. We could find a way to beat these zombies. I know we could.

“Shut up,” I said to myself. “Ain’t got time to whine. No one’s gonna save you, so stop acting like a baby.”

That reminded me of something Dad used to say to me if I was blubbing for no good reason. “Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about,” he’d say. It always sounded mean at the time, but I’d have given anything to hear him say it now.

There was a groan from down below, and this time it was answered by growling from outside. I got closer to the low part of the ceiling and tried to listen. It was still raining, but it had slowed to a steady pitter patter. The thunder had rolled off into the distance; there were just occasional rumbles, and they were getting further apart. I couldn’t hear the policemen shouting anymore; couldn’t hear their gunshots either. Just the horrid wails of the zombies. No one was even screaming now.

I pulled myself together and moved on past Mum’s clothes. I brought down a cardboard box that had been sealed up with tape. As I did, something squeaked, and I heard the trip trap of tiny feet. Ain’t got time to worry about mice, I thought as I ripped the tape from the box and looked inside. It was crammed full of toys. Old toys I’d never seen before. Perhaps they were Dad’s childhood things that he’d kept in case I wanted them. Maybe he was secretly collecting stuff to give me for Christmas. He’d done that last year, when I got all these really cool Cylons, and a phaser from the original Star Trek.

I pulled out an action figure. He had on a red suit and trainers, and he had a see-through eye. I squinted through it and saw things a little bigger. One of his arms had rubber skin over it. It was a bit split and hard in places, but I managed to roll it up. There were colourful pretend electronics underneath, like he had a robot arm or something. Dad had a real robot arm. He got it when his old arm was bit off by a great white shark, he said. Bionic, it was. Looked just the same as a normal one, only it was super strong. If Watson had bit that one, Dad might still be OK. He could’ve used it to clobber down the zombies, no matter how many came at us. With that arm, he’d have picked them up and thrown them so high in the air they’d have hit the moon.

I put the figure on the floor and lifted another box. This one rattled a lot, and when I opened it I saw it was full of Lego bricks. I was about to put it to one side when I remembered building this enormous castle in the living room when I was five or six. Dad helped me, and it took days, it was so big. Mum kept complaining she couldn’t do the Hoovering while it was there, but I think she must’ve liked it because she let us keep it for a week or so.

I took out a block and set it on the floor. I hummed a tune to drown out the groaning from the street, and began to stack brick upon brick. It was odd, ’cause I didn’t really know what I was making. I just kept piling the bricks up, one on top of another, and as I worked I heard words in between my ears, getting louder and louder—songs Dad used to play on the stereo.

Guess who just got back today. It was his voice, all scratchy and kind of silly.

Them wild eyed boys that had been away.

Mum’s voice cut across the singing. It was that screechy way she yelled “Dinner’s ready.” I half stood, started to call back, but there was a lump in my throat that slowly sunk all the way down to my belly.

Haven’t changed, haven’t much to say, but man I still think them cats are crazy.

My hands moved faster and faster, stacking the bricks higher and higher as the song built up to the chorus. That was the bit I used to sing along to, and me and Dad both would dance around playing air guitars.

The boys are back in town.

The boys are back in town.

The boys are back in town.

We were always the boys who were back in town. We’d do this thing with our Nerf guns where we’d jump out of the car and lock and load. I could see it in my head, me and Dad fighting off hundreds and hundreds of monsters—you know, Magog or Cybermen; Daleks or the creepy Borg.

A crash from downstairs startled me out of my daydream.

Glass.

Breaking glass.

Then I heard angry growls and the sound of wood snapping and splintering. I knew if I could just keep focused I wouldn’t get scared. I watched my fingers picking up blocks of Lego and placing them on whatever it was I was building like they had a mind of their own. I worked quickly, brick upon brick, Dad’s silly songs running ’round my head and making me laugh and cry, and miss him and Mum so much it felt like my organs were all dropping out of my body. I cried and cried, but they were someone else’s tears, and the people I saw—Nanny and Granddad, Aunty Paula and Uncle Del, even my best friend Joe Molloy, they all looked like they’d been cut out of a comic.

Kings of speed, we’re gonna make you kings of speed, Dad sang. Smash, crash, bash went the creatures downstairs.

The ace of spades, the ace of spades. Moan, groan, moan, groan.

The thing that used to be Dad roared, and the things downstairs roared back. I cried out loud then. I still wanted to go to him, even though I knew he was gone. I didn’t want to be on my own. I didn’t want them to get me.

Something squealed and I looked up. Two beady white eyes were watching me from the shadows. I threw a Lego brick at them and they vanished for a second, only to reappear a few feet away. I picked up another brick and placed it on whatever it was I was building. Somehow I knew it was finished. I pushed back and stood so I could see it better. It was a rectangle, like a doorframe for a dwarf. It stood on a chunky base of stepped bricks and had a shiny piece like a lamp on top. I was about to see if I could walk through it when more beady eyes lit up beyond the doorway.

I stepped away and looked around for something I could use to frighten them off. The yellow plastic of one of my old Nerf guns caught my eye. I pushed past some boxes and grabbed it. It was the one with the revolving chamber and a full load of foam darts. I cocked it, spun round, and fired at the first pair of white eyes. There was a squeak and they disappeared. More and more eyes were appearing all over the attic. Some of them scurried out into the light and I kept turning to make sure they didn’t sneak up on me.

Rats.

Dozens of them, all filthy and frothing at the mouth. They were squealing at me, staring me down with milky eyes just like Watson’s. Just like Mum’s. Just like Dad’s.

There were heavy footsteps on the stairs and more moaning and groaning. I fired off another Nerf dart and one of the rats scarpered. The others kept closing in, hissing and baring their yellow teeth. Something roared below on the landing and then light spilled up through the trapdoor opening as the canvas wardrobe was pulled down. Fingers grabbed the edge of the opening, but they slipped away. There was a thud as the thing must’ve hit the ground, but straight away more fingers took hold of the edge. I’d taken my eyes off the rats, and when I looked back they’d got even closer. I shot one right on the nose, but I could see it was no good. More and more were crawling over the attic junk and coming at me from all sides. I fired again and then threw the gun at a pack of them.

A head appeared through the trapdoor opening and the most evil face I’d ever seen snarled at me. Long ropes of drool dangled from its chin as it thrashed about crazily and started to drag itself into the attic. More hands appeared behind it, and below I could hear so much moaning that I knew the house must be full of zombies.

I kicked a rat that had got too close and turned, looking for somewhere to run. They were everywhere, spitting and hissing, squeaking and scratching. The first zombie was finding its feet, while the next was halfway into the attic. I screamed, whirling around desperately and knowing one of the rats was gonna bite me any second. There was no more being grown up, no more being brave. I wanted Mummy. I wanted Daddy, and there was no one. Maybe there was no one anywhere. I tottered and nearly fell, and when I steadied myself I saw a strange violet glow. It was coming from the Lego doorway. I stared at it, openmouthed, even as cold fingers touched the back of my neck. The rats swarmed toward me in waves, and the fingers started to dig into my skin. I screamed again and broke away, tripping on a big rat and falling headlong through the doorway. I hit my head hard and it all went black.

There was a buzzing in my ears, like someone had stuck me in a wasps’ nest. Everything itched and prickled and ached and burned. I was cold, then hot, then cold again. Mum was standing in the doorway, holding out a bag of shopping for me to take.

“Chain gang time,” Dad said, leaning over my shoulder to kiss Mum on the lips. The second they touched, it all went fuzzy. My head spun like I was in a washing machine and I ended up face down in bed. Bad dream, I thought and tried to pull the covers up, only there weren’t any covers.

I let out a whimper and tried to move. There was something gritty in my mouth. I spat and raised my head to see what it was.

Dirt.

I was lying face down in dirt. There were trees all around me; tall scraggly trees with no leaves. Heavy clouds hung in the sky and big birds flitted in and out of the treetops. I started at the sound of crunching footsteps getting closer and closer.

“Steady now, old chap,” a man’s voice said. It was so gruff it sounded like he needed a good cough to clear his throat.

I twisted my head to look up at him. At first he was just a blurry blob of white, but as I blinked, a pointy helmet came into focus. He bent down, resting his weight on a rifle. I rolled onto my back and sat up. I smelled something whiskeyish on his breath, and there were crumbs of food on his dangly moustache. His eyes were sparkly blue with magic, and his cheeks were red and blotchy.

“Good show, old man,” he said. “Good show.”

“I… but… I… omigosh! Wesley J. Harding! But this can’t be… This isn’t real.”

Wesley J. Harding’s brows knitted together and his eyes lost their shine for a moment.

“You could say that, I suppose. Yes, you could say that.” He twiddled his moustache and the sparkle returned to his eyes. “Come on, laddie. Can’t dally. Tiger-men on the tail, what, and you don’t want them to catch you in the open, mark my word.”

He took hold of my elbow and led me off through the trees toward the red disk of the setting sun. I had a zillion questions, but he started to run and it took all my breath just to keep up.

“Tell me, laddie,” he called over his shoulder. “Have you ever tried a bed of nails? Look like you could use a good sleep, what.”

“Sleep?” I said. “I can’t sleep.”

He stopped and took me by the shoulders, nodding and frowning.

“I know, laddie. Forgive an old codger. Course you can’t sleep after what you’ve been through.”

I pulled back from him, all tensed up and ready for a fight.

“No, it’s not that. I’m hungry, is what. Really, really hungry. Starving.”

“Ah,” Wesley J. said, slapping the barrel of his rifle. “And I think I know just what you need.”

I was already licking my lips, somehow knowing what he was gonna say. It felt like someone had lit a fire cracker in my tummy and filled my veins with pepper. My mouth was all squelchy and full of spit that dribbled down my chin. There was a hole in my stomach the size of the Grand Canyon and nothing was gonna make it go away.

“Come on, laddie.” Wesley J. turned around, sniffing the air and raising his rifle to his eye. “Let’s go hunt ourselves some tiger-men.”

D.P. Prior is an author and editor working in the South of England. He has a background in the performing arts as an actor, director, and playwright. He is a founder member of the legendary rock band Sergeant Sunshine and has written and recorded countless songs. He has extensive experience as a mental health professional and has studied theatre, film, classics, history and theology at bachelors and masters levels.

He runs his own editing service with his wife, Paula: www.homunculuseditingservices.blogspot.com

He is also the author of the Shader series, which includes Cadman’s Gambit and Best Laid Plans. He has also written The Chronicles of the Nameless Dwarf—including The Ant-Man of Malfen and The Axe of the Dwarf Lords. Also in his library is Thanatos Rising from The Memoirs of Harry Chesterton.

For all things Shader please visit: www.deaconshader.blogspot.com

For The Nameless Dwarf, please visit: www.namelessdwarf.blogspot.com

Facebook page: www.facebook.com/derek.prior1