Free Class Four: Those Who Survive by Duncan P. Bradshaw

before the outbreak, and had been waiting for a chance to try it out. The squat, square, blunt point connected just below the armpit. Given the zombie’s level of decomposition, it smashed into the mushy remains of organs that called the ribcage home and completed the process of turning them into pulp.
    The only resistance the impact faced was when it smacked against the spinal column. The zombie was cleaved in two. As the torso separated, the pulverised remains exited the gaping hole like a grisly sluice gate. Both halves slopped to the floor with a wet shucking sound. The lack of firm resistance caused Dean to brake and skid, flipping over to one side.
    Slightly dazed, he still had the forethought to stand up and plant the fence post through the zombie’s skull before it had a chance to slither across the ground.
    Brain matter—decayed away to a grey, gone off minced-beef colour—sprayed up the white fence post before dribbling down in a thick gravy. He looked down at the multi-coloured gore tableau, retched and added to the paste with his own concoction of stomach lining and partially-digested hot dog and beans.
    Paul, witnessing the unorthodox and slightly ungraceful way his mate dispatched his allocated zombie, opted for the safety first approach. He brought his bike to a controlled stop. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
    He dismounted and casually slipped the length of chain from his sleeve. It dropped two foot and then bounced up as it reached its limit. Paul stalked towards Exxon Valdez and swung the chain towards its face. Attached to the last link was a titanium hook which swished round the circumference of the zombies head, sinking inside its ear canal.
    Paul tugged gently to ensure that it was secure, and as it reached its sallow appendages towards his face, he yanked on the chain as if he were spinning a top.
    The hook opened up the top three-and-a-half inches of the undead skull as if it were a carton of chopped tomatoes. The creature stayed rooted to the spot, arms outstretched. The bottom half of its head remained, but the top half came apart in a seam of black slime and doughy tissue.
    As he tugged, the skin sloughed off the bone and plopped to the floor with a loud squelch. Paul spun the chain round his fist and in a move, well-practised since the undead started to walk, smacked the zombie square in the face.
    The metal-encased fist ploughed through the exposed, brittle nasal cavity and came to rest somewhere just past the medulla oblongata. The cadaver twitched involuntarily and slowly slumped to the side. “Timber!” Paul shouted triumphantly.
    Invigorated by the graphic violence which had happened either side of him, Thomas jammed the pipe into the gaping hole where Lofty’s mouth used to be. As it rested in-between broken jaws and cracked teeth, he remarked to himself how it looked like the zombie dwarf clown was puffing on a metal cigar.
    He chuckled to himself and brought the palm of his hand down firmly onto the pipe. It acted like a crude face-jack and split the clown’s skull into two distinct and very separate hemispheres. Lofty crumpled to the ground. The top of his skull, sans hat, rolled round on the floor like a hairy salad bowl, bereft of brain.
    Thomas retrieved the pipe and slid it back into his belt. He went to walk away and then remembered something. He crouched down by the dwarf’s body and began to rummage through his clothes.
    “You alright, Deano? Look like you lost your lunch there, mate. I knew I should’ve had that can, bloody love those little hot dogs.” Paul reached his hand inside his jacket sleeve and pulled the chain back up into its housing.
    He cast a glance over to Thomas, who was rooting around in the dead clown’s costume. “Erm, mate, what are you doing? Isn’t opening him up like a Kinder Egg enough for you to get your kicks on Route sixty-six?”
    Thomas ignored him and continued to search. His hands fell onto a tough square object. He shouted, “Ha ha,” and