The Girl with the Flying Saucer Eyes (A Zombie Tale)

By Shaun Whittington

Set in the Snatchers world, The Girl with the Flying Saucer Eyes tells us the story of Shaun Peterson.

After six months into the zombie apocalypse, Shaun is at the end of his tether, mentally drained and hungry. He hasn't seen his wife and kids since they went out the days it of the announcement

Hiding from the new and horrific world, Shaun decides to scavenge from his neighbours, now has no choice, but with little success. He then comes across a little girl in his garden. She's dead, one of the dead, but being starved of company for months, Shaun decides not to kill her. His life changes a day later when another female turns up, a living one this time, and both get acquainted.

Eventually, after meeting up with another survivor, the painful decision of leaving his family home is something that has to be done. But Shaun Peterson leaving his home turns out to be the least of his worries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shaun Whittington
• Release date: Jul 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370017195

Shaun Whittington

Shaun mainly writes dark tales with twists, not necessarily all out horror, and likes to keep his writing spelling to U.K. English, because it's easier for him.He has written short stories over a number of years for First Publishing and Skive Magazine, before turning to novels.Some of his novels are available for FREE. And he has recently signed a contract with Severed Press for his apocalyptic Ghostland books.Books available since July 2013:DemonsBillyThe Monkey WingMisty FallsBlack HourThe Prison DiariesNutjobThe Z WordSnatchers (a zombie novel)Snatchers 2: The Dead Don't SleepSnatchers 3; The Dead Don't CrySnatchers 4: The Dead Don't PitySnatchers 5: The Dead Don't BreatheSnatchers 6: The Dead Don't FeelSnatchers 7: The Dead Don't YieldSnatchers 8: The Dead Don't PraySnatchers 9: The Dead Don't ScreamSnatchers 10: The Dead Don't CareSnatchers 11: The Dead Don't KnockSnatchers 12: The Dead Don't YellSnatchers 13: The Dead Don’t FearSnatchers 14: The Dead Don’t HateSnatchers 15: The Dead Don't HurtSnatchers 16: The Dead Don't RunSnatchers 17: The Dead Don't MournMonsterlandMonsterland 2Monsterland 3The Girl with the Flying Saucer EyesSome Men are Haunted (Raven Hill)Some Men are Evil (Raven Hill 2)Some Men are Killers (Raven Hill 3)GhostlandGhostland 2Ghostland 3The CanavarsThe TravellersFor more information on new releases or just general questions. You can go to his author's page on Facebook: Shaun Whittington Author or use the link:https://www.facebook.com/WhittingtonShaun

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The Girl with the Flying Saucer Eyes

By

Shaun Whittington

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2017

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The author uses UK English.

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The Girl with the Flying Saucer Eyes

Introduction

To say that this had been a terrible year would be an understatement. As I'm writing/typing this, in a new place, it is now the middle of December, six months after the announcement that the world that I took for granted was going to the shitter, and also six months since I'd seen my family. It had also been a few weeks since I had left the family home for good. It’s when I arrived at this new place, I decided to put my thoughts down on paper.

When the announcement was made, on June 9th, it was fair to say that it had taken a while for me to realise that this was not a joke. I still remember the day, or should I say … evening, when it was announced. It was a sunny evening, around six, and the media had announced that we were all fucked—granted, not their exact words, otherwise that’d be very unprofessional. Could you imagine Stephen Dixon on SKY News or Trevor MacDonald saying such a thing?

With two weeks of riots and attacks in the UK, it had been coming, but I still never saw it, and neither did anybody else. Good old denial. Everybody was in denial. As Mark Twain once said: Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

On the evening of the announcement, after hopping channels and glaring at the TV in disbelief for just under an hour, I received a call from the wife. She wasn’t hysterical; she was quite calm about what was going on.

She had gone out for the day, with her mum and the two kids, to a play-park that was four miles away. She told me in little detail that there had been some attacks and they were laying low for a while. She said that there had been some 'activity' in the play-park and news had spread at what was occurring. She had managed to get the kids in the car and was held up in a hotel.

I did mention that I would come and get them, but she begged … no, that's not correct, she said in no uncertain terms that she would not appreciate it if I attempted such a thing. Well, it was more like: Don't be such a shagwit. You'd be dead within the first mile. And what am I going to tell the kids then, eh?

She had a point.

I tried to phone my own parents and sister who lived four hundred miles away, but had no luck. I tried my father-in-law, but then remembered that he was working. He was a panel beater and worked in a garage in the east end. I then tried to phone the wife's brothers. Two of them stayed local, and the other one stayed in Livingston, and all had families but I tried nonetheless. I wanted to see if they were okay.

No answer, even Facebook was a waste of time.

In desperation, I went outside and knocked the door of one of my neighbour's house.

No answer.

I knew they were in; I saw some curtains twitching from the bedroom window above, but fear was keeping them indoors. At least, that's what I thought.

I stayed in touch with the wife using skype, phoning and texts. She seemed in good spirits and was so brave that it made my heart melt, and even the kids seemed calm being stuck in that hotel. She said that she had met up with two guys and were leaving the hotel and going somewhere else, but she never stated where.

The contact didn't last long. I assumed her battery had died, and two weeks later so did the country's power.

In short, I had been on my own for the last six months, unsure whether my family were alive or… Even after all the time that had passed, I still believed that I'd see them again one day. They knew where I was. I kept on telling myself: When they’re ready, when they're safe, they’ll come back to me. Back home.

I hoped.

In the beginning, in June, leaving my house in Longdon was always a definite no-no for me. The only time I was going to leave, I told myself, was when I had become short of supplies. Unfortunately, that time had come.

Okay, so you're wondering how the hell I survived this long, for six months.

If you knew my wife, then you’d understand.

Friday evening was always her day for shopping, and when she shopped, she filled the fridge and freezer. And more. She would always buy extra crisps, breakfast bars, etc., if they were going on sale. The additional food would then be put in a cupboard in the bathroom, under the stairs. To clear up any confusion to you readers, I had two bathrooms, one on each floor. The bathroom with the cupboard that I had just mentioned is on my ground floor.

Anyway, when the apocalypse was announced I was so worried for my missing family that I didn’t eat for the first couple of days. And whilst I wasn't eating, heart-breaking phone calls and Facetiming—is that actually a word?—were taking place.

When the news sank in, and that took a while, you do what they tell you on the news: You fill every bucket you have, you fill the bath and sinks, knowing that water, power … and everything else we all took for granted, could be no more.

After many months, it came to the point that I was pretty short on food. Water was almost done, and I had to shit in a bucket. Lovely, eh?

In the first week, I used the buckets of water up first, knowing that the toilet would eventually stop flushing, and once they were empty … well, you can guess the rest. Curling one out became an uncomfortable time of the day. With dehydration, those chocolate hostages were getting harder—quite literally—to evacuate from my back passage.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury of having solar power. In fact, not one house in my street had solar power. There were a lot of places in the area that had the panels on their roof, but I'm kind of glad that I didn’t have them now, to be perfectly honest, as the solar panels, especially back in the early weeks of the disaster, would attract trouble from desperados and thugs, I always thought. A house that ran on solar power would be more appealing to thugs, and as far as outsiders were concerned, nobody lived in my house anymore and there was nothing to steal.

So far, I’d been left alone. I didn’t know whether it was because my house blended in with the rest of them in my street and it looked abandoned, or there were no people left in the area. Fled or dead? I didn’t know.

I wasn’t looking forward to going out, although I did miss fresh air, but supplies were desperately low. It was humid for that time of the month, and if I ever did get cold, I’d stick on a coat or a dressing gown.

That was another problem.

Clothing didn’t get washed anymore, and neither did I. The smell was pretty bad, but the body odour I got used to, and the clothing in my cupboard looked reasonably healthy. It was probably because I spent most of my time in my pyjamas and dressing gown.

Apart from the anguish of my family missing, another thing that was killing me mentally was the boredom. I talked to myself a lot, and one of the hardest things over the months was stopping myself from stuffing my face with food due to the monotony. Rationing the food was the reason why I had managed to last so long without leaving the house, but by the beginning of December the time had finally come.

I was still sticking to my theory of not moving, unless I really was starving to death, but I knew I was going to have to get off my arse, even if it meant checking out what the neighbours had to offer. I always used to argue with myself. Some days I was positive and thought my family were alive, other days I used to think: Maybe I’m kidding myself on. Maybe they are dead. I have to believe that they are not.

Six months away from home was a long time. Staying strong and positive was easier said than done. As the weeks ticked by, the less confident I was becoming.

TWO WEEKS AGO

THE FIRST WEEK OF DECEMBER

PART ONE

Chapter One

Like most days, I walked around the empty house, curtains drawn, as they had been for the last six months, and did what I did most days. I talked to myself, pretending I was having a conversation with the wife, then pulled out a board game and pretended to play with the kids. Their favourite board game was Game of Life. Although, when they were around they were more into their game consoles and would have to be dragged away from them after a couple of hours. Thomas was my eldest. Ten years old. My beautiful daughter, Poppy, was just 18 months behind him.

The wife and I used to call our son our ‘specially wecially’ man. We had to wait five years for him. After failed courses of artificial insemination, we had two turns at IVF, and that was it. Adoption was the next phase.

I sat on the couch in my musty-smelling living room, and did what I had been doing every day. I began to think of the past. The IVF story was the one that plagued my mind on this particular day.

The first session had been completed at the Victoria Hospital. I had given a sample, the sample had been ‘cleansed’ and it was time to put my poor wife on her back, legs in stirrups, ready to be ‘worked’ on. We were both told that after a few weeks that we should call the hospital at 1pm—we were given a specific date—and would be told over the phone whether the procedure had been successful or not.

When the day arrived, I did what I did every day during the week: I went to work. I told the wife that whatever the outcome of