Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] by Ian Woodhead Page A

it. Most of the road marking was hidden under a congealed puddle of blood.
    Dennis hadn’t seen what happened to the rest of the arm; he just assumed that the men had taken it with them. Their behavior brought up so many infuriating questions aside from the obvious—how did the dead come to return? Why had they not finished eating the woman? Why had they left that arm in the road? He so hated mysteries.
    Walking away from the fun-packed scenario happening outside his living-room window had been one of the hardest tasks that he had ever undertaken, but Dennis had no other choice. Just as the two men were getting up, he suddenly remembered that he had left a pan full of boiling potatoes on the hob. He could let them boil dry, but it would take him hours to clean the pan.
    There were times when he so hated his sensible hat.
    Once he turned off the heat, Dennis had attempted to phone the police. He had no real desire to see them anywhere around, but he had to keep up appearances, just in case anybody was watching his movements. Predictably, the line was dead. It didn’t take a complete idiot to figure out that all the events were connected. Something truly earth shattering was happening right here on his doorstep. Dennis hadn’t been this excited in years.
    He quickly glanced at the wall clock above the television and saw that it had been seven minutes since those two had mauled the old bag. He zeroed in on her face, eager to see if his prediction would happen. The old man had come back quickly, but he had only sustained a single bite. The woman resembled a chewed-up rump steak. Even so, he believed that she’d still reanimate.
    When after another couple of minutes her facial muscles started to twitch, which was followed by the woman opening her eyes, Dennis whooped and gave himself a high five. He kept watching, noting that at no point did she realize that both her arms were no longer attached.
    Dead people with no sense of their previous life and no realization of pain were now shuffling around the estate, looking for other residents to eat. Dennis was so happy. His dull nights had become a great deal more interesting.
    His dull nights had already been livened up a couple of days ago, but nothing so exciting as biological automatons killing and eating anyone who was stupid enough to stray too close to them. Dennis had noticed, quite by accident, that the young woman who lived opposite his house had taken to stripping off her clothes in front of the bedroom window. He couldn’t remember her name, but his wife would have known it, as well as her parent’s names, as well as her full life history. He did wonder who she was trying to impress. It was no accident, he wasn’t that naïve; the slow erotic dancing gave that fact away.
    He’d purchased a pair of binoculars out of his pension money from a second hand shop in Leeds City Centre the next day. He knew that he’d feel like a right buffoon if it had only been a one-off, but she was there the next night, and the night after that. He might have stimulated his long lost libido, but staring through the eyepiece for such a long time played havoc with his eyesight.
    Dennis almost felt betrayed when the young woman had failed to make an appearance at her window tonight. Of course, he now knew the reason for her non-performance issue. Dennis guessed that the woman might have suffered a similar fate to Mrs. Harding. The thought that one of those dead creatures had torn that naked girl into tiny bloodied pieces of meat was far more exciting than watching her undress.
    He dropped his binoculars into his lap and stared at the door leading to the stairs. The window in the spare room directly above him would give him an excellent view of the estate. The idea was attractive, as he would like to see if this phenomenon had spread beyond the boundaries of the housing estate.
    “Maybe in a while,” he whispered. “Once I have calmed down.” He rubbed his eyes before reaching for his