Free Meadowside by Marcus Blakeston

we’ve got two choices. We can either stand around like this and wait for some fucker to eat us, or we can go out there and kill the bastards before they get the chance.”
    “What?” Kylie said, wide-eyed. “You can’t kill people, that’s murder.”
    The old man laughed and shook his head. “And what they’re doing isn’t? Wake the fuck up, missy, we’ve got no fucking choice.”
    “But –”
    “No, the guy’s right, Kylie,” Tom said. “We’ve got no choice, it’s us or them. Besides, it would be self defence, and that’s allowed by law. I read about it on the internet once, if someone breaks into your house you’re allowed to kill them. It’d be the same thing here.”
    “And you could do that, could you? Kill someone, I mean?”
    Tom shrugged. “If I had to.”
    “And what about you, Mike?”
    Mike frowned. “I reckon we should find somewhere to hide until the coppers get here. Lock ourselves away until it’s all over. If we go out killing people we’d be no better than they are, and if we’re out here when the coppers come we’d just get arrested along with the whackos.”
    The old man snorted and shook his head. But before he could say anything further, Britney gave out a rasping moan. All eyes turned toward her as she struggled out of the wheelchair.
     

9
     
    “Ow, me head’s fucking banging,” Britney said, rubbing the back of her head. She looked around, a confused look on her yellow face. “Where the fuck are we, and why is everyone looking at me like that?”
    “Oh god,” Kylie said, rushing up to Britney. She threw her arms around her and hugged her tight. “We thought you were going to die.”
    “What are you going on about, Kylie?” Britney asked.
    Kylie broke the embrace and held Britney at arm’s length. She peered into her eyes. “Don’t you remember what happened?”
    Britney frowned and shook her head. Then startled and craned her neck to look down at her injured arm. She spun around, breaking contact with Kylie. “Oh fuck, that mad woman with the baby! Where is she?”
    “Don’t worry,” Mike said, “she’s long gone. But she isn’t the only one like that.”
    “What?” Britney asked, her head snapping to face Mike.
    Mike quickly filled her in on everything that had happened since Britney’s attack. Her eyes were wide in shock as she took it all in, looking from Mike to the television screen and back again.
    “Fucking … hell,” she said, and slumped back down into the wheelchair. “So what do we do now then?”
    “We get out there and fucking kill the bastards,” the old man said. “If it’s right about all the doors being locked, then there’s just the ones inside we need to deal with. Should be a piece of piss if we all work together.”
    Mike wheeled on the old man. “No we don’t, we find somewhere safe to hide until the police get here.” There were a few murmurs of agreement from the crowd.
    The old man laughed. “Yeah, right. Like that’s going to fucking happen. Look at that–” he pointed at the television, showing the scene from Shefferham town centre. “You see any fucking coppers there? The fucking government probably shipped them all out as soon as it started, so they can protect them down in that fucking London of theirs. No fucker’s coming to save us, we need to save ourselves.”
    “And just how do you propose we do that?” a young woman asked.
    The old man turned and looked the woman up and down. He shrugged. “We all get tooled up, then smash their fucking heads in.” He raised his blood-stained walking stick. “I’ve already done a few of the cunts myself, so it’s not exactly fucking hard. If we all pull together we’ll get it done in no time.”
    “My god, you’re actually serious about this, aren’t you?” The woman’s face paled. “You can’t just take the law into your own–” her voice trailed off when a female metallic voice came over the shopping centre’s intercom.
    “Attention. This is