Zombie XI Read online

  ZOMBIE

  XI

  Pete Kalu is a novelist, playwright and poet and has previously won the BBC Playwrights Award, The Voice/Jamaica Information Service Marcus Garvey Scholarship Award and Contact/BBC Dangerous Comedy Prize. Other books in the STRIKER series by Pete Kalu: The Silent Striker and Being Me. Pete lives in Manchester, UK.

  ZOMBIE

  XI

  PETE KALU

  HopeRoad Publishing Ltd

  P O Box 55544

  Exhibition Road

  London SW7 2DB

  www.hoperoadpublishing.com

  First published by HopeRoad 2016

  This edition published 2018

  Copyright © 2016 Pete Kalu

  The right of Pete Kalu to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  A CPI catalogue record of this book is

  available from the British Library

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN 978-1-908446-71-8

  eISBN 978-1-908446-75-6

  Printed and bound by T J International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall, UK

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions and organisations are entirely imaginary and bear no resemblance to actual events, locales, persons or institutions.

  For Naomi

  PART 1

  ZOMBIE POWER

  It’s a bad day. I’m a substitute again. On the bench. And this time there’s a girl on the bench with us. Can it get any worse than this?

  From the get-go I knew it was going to be bad. We were gathered in the poxy changing room, under the mouldy ceiling that dripped green spores and black mould and the shells of dead insects. The cracked floor-tiles were getting the usual pounding from studs being dragged across them. Players were flicking towels, kit was being swapped, shin pads tested. In the air was all the usual howling, shouting and laughter that comes when you know you’re going to be playing in a football match. I was quiet, awaiting my fate.

  The coach, Mr Broderick, strode in wearing his crisp white Nike tracksuit, clutching his favourite blue clipboard. He ran his fingers through his ‘Caesar’ haircut and I watched his eyes flit about the room because that’s what he always does first – check that his first picks are in the room. His grey eyes never sought me out. He preened his hair again, then rubbed his stubbly ginger beard, hesitating. He licked the tip of his pen and his eyes went back to the clipboard. Then he looked up and, above all that buzz, called out: ‘Right lads, gather round, here’s the team for today!’

  We came up to the flip chart where he was standing. Sometimes he has tactics drawn up on the chart. Today it was blank.

  ‘Here we go. The team today is …’

  He named the defenders. Then the midfield. Since I’m a midfielder, when my name wasn’t called there, I sat down and waited for the inevitable. Sure enough, he said the words: ‘And the subs today are Eddie, Leonard … and the lovely Sheba!’

  What? A girl? Everybody’s jaw dropped. I looked around.

  The coach rapped on the steel changing-room door in a drum roll. ‘Everyone got their kit on? All righty. Come in, Sheba!’

  A girl pops her head – only her head – around the changing-room door. Then the rest of her. It’s definitely a girl. Breasts. Huge smile. Long legs. In the team kit. She stays in the doorway, a little nervous.

  ‘Come on, boys, give her a clap. It takes guts for her to walk into the boys’ changing room!’

  A few of the team clap but most of us just gawk. The coach is always bringing new players in, that’s why his nickname’s The Windmill – he constantly changes. But this is a new low. Somebody’s got to say something. When nobody does, I decide I’ll do it myself.

  ‘We can’t play with a girl.’

  The Windmill laughs. ‘Leonard. Always Leonard. You were born with a scowl on your face, weren’t you? Go on. Tell me why.’

  ‘Girls aren’t allowed. And anyway, boys are stronger. We’ll never win with girls.’

  ‘They are allowed, thanks to the new regulations. Up to Under 15s, in fact. And Sheba’s good, she’ll add something.’

  The coach grabs the nets bag. ‘Now everybody out on the pitch and start your warm-up. Subs, take the water bottles and the bench – good lads!’

  There’s a giant clatter of studs and cheering from the boys who are going to be playing as they step outside.

  The sky is blazing yellow. Eddie punches me on the shoulder. Horse feints a high five, then charges into my chest instead. Everybody’s trying to cheer me up. I look down at my shiny old boots, the ones I stayed up all morning polishing in case I played. I pull the zipper right up on my tracksuit so it covers my chin and walk on.

  Carrying the subs’ bench from the changing room to the pitch is the most humiliating thing ever. Sheba tries to help out but me and Eddie don’t let her. We weave the bench through the car park. Then the tarmac’s stony clatter switches to the smudgy squelch of grass. The pitch is a big sea of green. The grass has been cut so one side of the pitch is light green, the other dark. It looks good. Even the burnt-out car that lived behind the far goalposts has been dragged away (there are two big gashes where it was hauled, like the claw-marks of a giant rat). A couple of parents are on the near sideline reserved for the away team. Me and Eddie take the bench over to the far side.

  Our team wins the toss and chooses downhill. The game begins – for everyone but the subs, that is. So it’s Eddie, me and Sheba, rubbing shoulders on the subs’ bench. There’s not enough room for three on it.

  We’re soon losing 4:0.

  Sheba nudges me. ‘Girls can’t play football then?’

  ‘Dead right.’

  ‘Let’s see who can throw a ball furthest then.’ She’s pulling me up.

  ‘No. Keepy-uppy.’

  I figure she must be good at throw-ins, else why would she suggest that? I keep the ball up five times with my feet then kick it hard at her. She kills the ball well with her knee, flips it on to her head, then down to her ankle, then knocks it up again. It’s impressive but it doesn’t count because she doesn’t keep it up with her feet by more than two touches.

  ‘See?’ I tell her.

  Eddie has a go. He manages two, like Sheba.

  ‘I’m the best,’ I declare.

  The coach is waving at us to sit down. He likes us to save our legs. Impact subs, he calls it.

  It’s strange, me and Eddie. He’s my rival for a place on the team yet I can’t help liking him. He has this smile. Eddie didn’t do his homework? One Eddie smile and the teacher doesn’t mind. Eddie late to the canteen at lunch? A two-second Eddie megawatt grin and the shutters roll back up and the dinner ladies serve him. Sometimes I practise in front of a mirror, trying to do Eddie’s smile, but my face can’t stretch that far. Eddie says he likes my miserable face as it is and I shouldn’t try to change it.

  I watch Sheba out of the corner of my eye. I’ve heard rumours about her. Once I saw a girls’ football training session after school while waiting for the bus and there was one girl who swerved and flowed round the orange markers like a skier, ran up the wing like Road Runner and did this crazy throw-in using a somersaulting front flip. She looked like Sheba.


  Sheba catches me looking at her and I look away.

  ‘I’ve got three dads,’ I tell Eddie. ‘Beat that.’

  ‘Whatchutalkinabout?’

  Eddie’s shuffled between me and Sheba and is flicking his tongue at his two big front teeth where there’s something lodged between them.

  ‘I’ve got my official dad, like his name is on my Birth Certificate and he works on an oil rig so I never see him. Then I’ve got my stepdad Mustapha, though I think he split up with my mum last month …’

  I don’t know if Eddie is even listening. He wriggles his nose and sucks his teeth, his eyes on the pitch. We’re defending a free kick. This huge lad is about to take it. The players in our wall are shaking like a tub of slime.

  ‘And then Thierry Henry who’s my actual dad. My biological dad.’

  Eddie smooths the cabbage-y thing out from between his teeth with his tongue, wipes it into his hand, looks at it, eats it, then turns to me. ‘What makes you say that?’ he says.

  ‘Was that a bogey?’

  ‘You want one?’ He’s going into his nose again.

  ‘Nooo.’

  ‘Thierry Henry?’

  So he was listening. I pull out my pic of Thierry Henry. ‘Look.’

  There’s a cheer from the pitch. Our goalie’s fishing the ball out of the net again.

  ‘Nah,’ says Eddie, glancing at the pic then at me.

  Sheba takes the pic and looks. She squishes one eye shut and moves the pic nearer to me then further away.

  ‘My mum used to work at Man United Hospitality,’ I tell her.

  ‘Man U’s got their own hospital?’ asks Eddie.

  ‘Catering. The VIP zone. Where they serve avocado sandwiches.’

  ‘Wow,’ says Sheba, still squinting at the pic. ‘That really is Thierry Henry.’

  ‘Right,’ I tell her. ‘My mum met him there and he fancied her. And, well, you know …’

  ‘Your mum had sex with Thierry Henry?’ Sheba asks, just like that. She makes me laugh, which gets her laughing. That sets off Eddie only Eddie’s trying to control it and so he’s silent-laughing, his upper lip wobbling away.

  Sheba hands me the pic back.

  ‘She says he gave her “a special hug” which is my mum’s word for sex. Look.’ I hand her the pic again. ‘I look like him, don’t I?’

  ‘Apart from the nose. And the mouth. And the chin. And the eyebrows. Yeh, absolutely,’ says Sheba.

  She rests an arm on my shoulder either in admiration or because she feels sorry for me, I can’t tell which.

  ‘He’s talking rubbish,’ pronounces Eddie. ‘Don’t listen to him.’ Eddie gets up, snatches the ball off me and starts flinging his head at it. ‘Watch my headers!’

  Watching Eddie attempt headers is like watching a seal trying to skateboard, but Sheba says, ‘Well done, well done,’ every time there’s any connection between his caveman skull and the ball. Eddie’s weight is weird. He doesn’t eat any more than anyone else at lunchtime – and sometimes he doesn’t eat at all, just sits there chatting while we all eat. Yet he’s really big.

  In the next field there’s a dungeon-like building with girders holding it up. It’s just there, for no reason. The dungeon has a hood thing on top of it that is exactly the shape of a UFO landing craft. The hood floats up and down if you really stare at it. I tell Eddie to watch and it doesn’t get weirder than that, does it? But Eddie shouts back it’s only a gas storage tank, duh.

  I stare and stare. It’s definitely moving. It starts to light up. Suddenly this blinding white flash shoots out of the UFO hood thing and strikes me. Every single cell in my body tingles. It’s a feeling that’s painful and beautiful at the same time. My ears ring like crazy. Drrrrrr Dirrrrrr. Drrrrr Dirrrrr. My eyes have changed. They’ve become X-ray eyes. I can see zombies walking around. I can hear the heartbeat of every player on the pitch. The sensations fade. Everything returns to normal. I look around. Nobody’s noticed. Everybody’s behaving like nothing happened. I shrug it off. Maybe I should have eaten more cornflakes for breakfast.

  I look up. Eddie’s still heading the ball back and forward with Sheba. Sheba. What kind of name is that? It sounds like a cat. She makes all these noises while Eddie does his moves with the ball. Ooh. Ah. Yes. Umm. Right. Ooh. I almost turn round thinking maybe Lionel Messi is visiting our school, Ducie High. I know she’s encouraging him and if anybody needs encouragement it’s Eddie. They’re laughing now. I imagine Sheba’s eyes. There’s a sparkle in them that’s part mischief, part something else. I’m about to turn round when I get a text from my mum.

  Never mind Lenny darling, don’t give up hope. One day you’ll be a match winner! Love you loads. xxxxMumxxxx

  So many soppy kisses. Lucky Eddie and Sheba can’t see.

  ‘There’s a hair’s breadth between winning and losing,’ Eddie’s telling Sheba, like he’s some Philosophy King. The two of them are back on the bench. Half-time’s been and gone. The score is 8:0.

  Sheba nods. ‘That’s so true, Smiler,’ she says.

  She even knows his nickname now. I make a note to find a philosophy book from the library.

  ‘If you’re measuring in hairs,’ I tell Eddie, ‘there’s a hundred wig shops of hairs between us winning and losing.’

  Eddie laughs like I just told a great joke. Which annoys me even more. He always sees the bright side, Eddie. I notice his laugh is higher now that Sheba’s with us. Is he turning into a girl himself?

  ‘Warm up, guys!’

  The Windmill has come over. Mr Broderick always waits till ten minutes before the end of the match, when we’ve lost anyway, before he brings any subs on. Our team’s shoulders are all hunched and they’ve stopped chasing the ball. The other team are strutting around, putting fancy flourishes to their passes.

  ‘Go on, Lenny,’ the coach calls over. ‘Warm up, lad!’

  I can’t be bothered. Most times he doesn’t even give us five minutes’ play.

  Eddie’s running like a hamster in a wheel. Sheba’s doing this wavy-arms-touchy-toes stuff. She says it’s her gymnastics routine and it makes you more flexible. Eddie copies her and falls on his backside, though he tries to style it out by going straight into a press-up.

  Remember that thought I had? That it can’t get any more humiliating than this? It does. The coach sends Sheba on for the last five minutes. Me and Eddie are left on the bench. We lose 9:0.

  ‘See you on the bench next week, Eddie,’ I say.

  ‘Nah. I’ll be playing next week.’

  And I think, Yeh, Eddie’s an optimist.

  As we trudge off, I take a backwards glance. The wining team is throwing their captain up in the air. His head’s so big it blocks out the sun. Behind them, the sun hits the gas storage tank. It looks as if it’s fizzling at every corner.

  Sheba leans her head into my back as we’re walking off the pitch.

  ‘Your time will come to shine,’ she says, then rubs my shoulder. I force a smile for her. Maybe it’s OK to have a girl in the team. She’s about to say something else when Eddie gallops up and bounces a ball off my head. We split at the changing-room doors. She has the girls’ changing room all to herself.

  Our changing room isn’t exactly a bundle of laughs. ‘Only nine,’ the coach goes. ‘Sheba did a great job patching up the midfield. Andrew, nice tries with the heading. Nine is not bad.’

  The changing room is the same changing room that we stepped out of two hours ago. Yet somehow it’s sadder now. The floor-tiles are grottier. The pipes noisier and leakier. The smells stenchier. Horse throws his boots at a wall. Nobody’s cheering and joking like before the match. We’re on the longest losing run ever recorded in the league. The most number of goals let in ever.

  I sigh.

  ‘Lenny, Lenny, before you start, I don’t want to hear.’

  I’ve not said a word and I wasn’t about to.

  ‘I can’t help my sighs,’ I explain. ‘It’s an Involuntary Human Reflex.’

  That gets
a laugh. People cheer up a little. I change out of my kit. I don’t bother showering – after all, I didn’t even play, did I, so I’m spotless – and head for home. I duck into the public library on the way. It’s a really old building and it’s got a sign on it that says it’s about to be demolished. Normally I shoot straight to football books and the Horror section. This time I turn to Philosophy. There’s a book on the shelves called Philosophy Book: Philosophy for the Philosophical. Triple Philosophy, I think. That’ll beat Eddie’s single philosophy. I search pocket after pocket but I can’t find my library ticket. I really need this book. I shove it in my bag.

  As I’m running for the bus and away from the librarian’s shouts, I hear my boots knocking together in my boots bag. They’ll be as shiny as when I pulled them on. I’d love to come home one day with proper dirty boots.

  I’m about to get on the bus when the driver closes the doors in my face. Everybody has days like this, I tell myself. I will enjoy walking three miles home in the freezing cold. Driver, you’ve made my day.

  The bin lorries have just gone so our street pongs. I sling my bag on the sofa and Mum nuzzles my head. I think maybe she’s checking if I’ve been smoking. ‘Look what I’ve got,’ she says when she’s finished sniffing my hair. She picks up this ball of black fluff and holds it in her hands.

  ‘That’s wonderful, Mum.’ So now we have a kitten to go with the two cats. I stroke it once then put it down. It meows and dashes under the sofa.

  My sister is sitting in her corner of the room with a monster new sewing machine that has a huge spindly metal bit coming out of it like the nose of a mutant beetle.

  ‘What’s that?’ I ask.

  ‘Good afternoon, lickle brother,’ she replies. ‘This here is an overlocker. You have a nice day at school?’

  ‘No,’ I say. I watch her running some material through it. She’s good, my sister. She makes costumes for fancy dress shops and events. She has a website and everything. When I say she’s good, I mean at sewing and making things, I don’t mean morally good. Her overlocker’s probably stolen to order from a factory somewhere by one of her many boyfriends.