Free Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] by Ian Woodhead

he meant all the rubbish had been pushed to the edges of the room, but that would have been in the distant past. Torn supermarket carrier bags spilling their contents of old newspapers and puzzle magazines competed for space with discarded clothes and DVDs.
    He figured out what the spicy new stench was when he located several piles of dried cat shit layered between a horse racing pullout and an old TV listings magazine. Jacob stood on the head of a broken vacuum cleaner and dove onto the bed. There was no way he was standing on that carpet.
    As he bounced across the bed, Jacob weighed up the pros and cons between going it alone or joining a group. Judging by how his zombie mum was acting, these buggers were the slow type. He smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d be so fucked if they were sprinters.
    “Up yours, Dawn of the Dead remake.”
    Racking up a decent kill count shouldn’t be that much of a problem. God, he so wished that he could get hold of a shotgun. That thought made him smile, considering that he lived in one of the roughest housing estates in the North of England. It wouldn’t be that hard to find an empty house with a couple of weapons hidden under the floorboards.
    He stood still in the middle of his parents’ bedroom, thinking about this. In Dead City Rising, they always hid the weapons under the floorboards. He supposed that was the advantage of it being a British game. If it was American, finding guns and spare ammo would be easier. Jacob had never been to the States, but from what he’d read, you could pick up assault weapons over the counter in any shop. He grinned. How cool would it be to go to Tesco, buy a packet of doughnuts, a can of Pepsi, and stop off at the gun aisle to grab an AK47 and enough banana clips to fill a trolley?
    That was decided then, his first priority once he’d fucked his mum over would be to find a gun.
    As more unfortunate souls joined the ranks of the dead, their swelling numbers would present a major predicament. He had no desire to go the same way as his game character, thank you very much.
    Joining the nearest band of survivors would probably be his best chance of surviving the apocalypse. The social barriers that prevented him from interacting with the rest of the people on Breakspear would now be gone. Everybody would work together in order to defeat the common adversary. Any group would, of course, welcome Jacob with open arms. Everyone on the estate knew that he was the resident zombie expert. For the first time in his life he would be accepted and loved. They’d love him even more if he was armed to the fucking teeth.
    Jacob kneeled down at the edge of the bed and pushed his arm through the black metal railings on the footboard, reaching towards the lava lamp. As soon as he’d finished taking out his zombie mum, Jacob could get on with enjoying his new life. His future had never looked so bright.
    The boy squealed when a hand snaked out from under the bed and fastened around his wrist. He tried to pull away, but only succeeded in dragging the owner of the appendage out.
    “Oh God no, Dad, let go please!”
    His father regarded him with dead eyes, then opened his mouth and like a cobra, darted forward. The searing pain exploded through Jacob’s body when the man bit into his bicep. He reared back with a lump of his son’s arm still in his mouth; only then did he release Jacob.
    The boy fell back clutching his damaged arm, moaning and sobbing, gazing in disbelief as his scarlet life fluid spurted through the cracks in his fingers. He was so fucked. This was so not fair! Jacob didn’t want to become a fucking zombie! He looked up, whimpering when he discovered that his mother had found her way up the stairs. He sobbed one last time as the dead woman lurched up to the edge of the bed and fell onto  him with her mouth wide open.
     

 
    Chapter Six
     
    That last screw had somehow managed to defeat every tool in Kevin’s modeling box. Even the butter