The Falling Stars (The Vamps and One Direction Zombie Apocalypse)

Chapter 7- Don't Do Drugs, Kids

My Mother always warned me about drugs. Like any decent child, I was taught of the dangers of drugs, alcohol, and smoking. I learned to say no to pot, cannabis, heroine, crystal meths, and every other sort. And I was not the kind of person that lived dangerously.

As a child, I was a wimp. I remember being eight years old when a boy two years above me, Billy, his name was, brought a small packet of Marlboro’s in his bag to school. He grabbed me and some of his mates and dragged us all behind the P.E changing rooms, where it smelt of piss and we certainly wouldn’t be disturbed. I can remember so clearly how terrified I was when he got the lighter out. For some reason I don’t understand, I had this strange primal fear of fire so to me the prospect of a small plastic cylinder which could produce the stuff was petrifying.

I remember he handed us all a cigarette, but I didn’t know what to do, so I dropped it onto the ground as one of his mates was about to step back, and they crushed it under their foot. I pretended to be angry on the outside but inside I was smiling like the Cheshire cat.

I was a good kid. I didn’t do bad things. But even I couldn’t turn away when he shoved the end of his own cigarette into my mouth. I breathed into quickly and choked as he removed it, spluttering so much a foul trail of sicky dribble slurped from between my lips. All of a sudden I couldn’t stop it, and I was sick right there and then, and all I could do was watch as my partially digested school dinner lapped around their trainers in a disgusting pool.

That was my first dip into the pool of rebellion and peer pressure. But it certainly wasn’t my last.

***

The supplies were all loaded into the boot and over head compartments on the van and we needed somewhere to stay for the night, most importantly, with a water source. We had arrived at the supermarket to the all too familiar smell or rotted food- what remained of the fresh produce.

We’d crammed tin after tin into our containment packages, but every water source was yellowed and teaming with algae.

There is a big problem with algae in today’s society. On the one hand, most algae is harmless, and if you were to drink water with it in it would do you about the same harm as it would to eat water with broccoli in. One the other hand, there is a certain breed of algae which is incredibly dangerous, and provides a similar affect to ingesting foxglove flowers. It causes swelling to the face and neck, vomiting blood, and in less than 12 hours, death. The main issue is that we have no way to discern between poison and purity.

Dehydration is almost as quick a killer as the algae. It creeps up on you, and sucks all possible moisture out of your body, draining energy and spirits alike.

The others looked fine, but my head was pounding. My lips were dry, cracked, and my throat was sore. I panted, trying to draw water from mid air. Brad looked at me with concern, and beckoned Benjamin over to us.

“Dehydrated” Brad said simply, threading his arm under my shoulders and supporting my weight, Benjamin on the other side. We drove into town, checking every shop we passed, before we found exactly what we needed- a well.

Now, to make this absolutely clear- there was absolutely nothing unusual about this well. It was a simple water source with a large metal lid with a turning handle, and the water inside was clear and fresh. The well was deep and we filled our canisters, thanking whoever was in the sky for granting us this necessity when we needed it. We drank deeply, savouring the fresh, clean water which was sometimes our only ally. The cool water flowed down my throat, hydrating me and awakening my senses. My headache immediately vanished, my vision becoming clearer and my lips no longer dry.

That was when James, the first of us to drink the water, started to act strange...

“Elephants! Look at the elephants!” He cried, pointing into the air and laughing madly. Confused, I looked around at the others, only to be distracted by the peacocks. At least a thousand peacocks were wandering placidly towards us, tails fanned out in what looked to be a sign of welcome. I reached my hand out to great one, moaning softly, when they took off, transforming into beautiful butterflies, their wings beating so loudly it was painful on my eardrums.

“EVERYBODY INTO THE VAN!” screamed Benjamin so loudly. “THEIR COMING! THE GUMMY BEARS! OH MY GOD THEIR GONNA KILL US!” He grabbed me, against my will and with un-natural strength hurled me into my seat. I looked up, expecting to see Maddy, but was greeted by a skeletal spectre, face drawn and bony, eyes sunken into hollow pits. I cried out, hiding my face but only Maddy was left behind when I looked back. She was looking out of the back window

“Don’t let them leave the unicorn” she whispered tearfully “It will die if we leave it” But Brad was already driving, slamming thousands and thousands of badgers out of the way with the van, their hairy black and white bodies flicking off the windscreen like bugs.

A beautiful dragonfly landed on the headrest of Alex’s seat, and I watched it quietly flutter its wings, before landing on a large button on the wall. The room immediately started to fill with water, the liquid pouring through the windows in long streams

“WERE GOING TO FUCKING DROWN!” I yelled at the top of my voice, and it disappeared, leaving my clothes completely dry. Suddenly, there was an explosion so violent that the van swerved a different way, and onto a different road.

All of a sudden, I was quite alone.

I stood alone in an empty studio. The lights in the recording bays were dimmed, and I wandered aimlessly in an almost perfect circle. The floor felt squishy, and bouncy like it was a trampoline, and frogs croaked and jumped in a soothing rhythm on the surface. A light flickered, and there was a breath on the back of my neck. It was her.

“Connor” she whispered, and then we were kissing. It was like no kiss I’d shared in the past. Her lips were cold and tasted of the water from the well, and she used her teeth a lot more than was necessary.

“Stop biting!” I mumbled, and she growled

“Why? Biting is like kissing only there’s a winner.”

Suddenly we broke apart, and fell downwards like we were dropped by a massive hand. We landed in the TARDIS from Doctor Who, and she disappeared. Matt Smith’s doctor was circling the controls, he turned to look at me.

“It’s been fun Connor, but time to be back in your own time zone!” He shoved me through a crack in the wall where I melted and became whole again.

My face was pressed into the floor when I woke up. I felt awful, my head was spinning, stomach lurching, and there was a horrible moaning sound in my ears. The van was in the middle of a field, the others all collapsed on the floor, in similar uncomfortable states. I kicked Jake unceremoniously in the head to wake him up, and he groaned and gagged. The moaning in my ears was louder now.

“That water was....spiked...with. Hallucinogenic.”  He explained, and I nodded. Benjamin and Brad woke at the same time

“Ellie! Oh..uh! What is that horrible groaning noise?!” Brad yelled “It’s doing my head in!”

I rolled down the window for some air, the windows which none of us looked out of. And a hand reached through, and grabbed my wrist tightly, followed by a mouth, which bit my finger before relinquishing its grip.

I held it out, and could only watch as my veins turned grey under the skin...