Isolation: Stories from the World of the Undead

By David Moody

A stunning survival horror story from David Moody, author of the AUTUMN and HATER novels.

Keith's in his early twenties. No girlfriend, no hobbies, no future. He spends his days working in an office and his evenings, weekends and just about all his free time looking after his alcoholic dad.

And then the zombie apocalypse changes everything.

Suddenly Keith's free. For the first time in a long time, he's got nothing to worry about (apart from several hundred thousand reanimated corpses heading his way).

But then he meets Anna, and everything changes again. Cocky, cool, confident... she's everything Keith isn't. Holed-up together in an isolated bungalow, besieged by the living dead, will they survive, or will they tear each other apart before the dead get anywhere near?

"A gory thrillfest from start to finish." —Wayne Simmons, author of THE GIRL IN THE BASEMENT and PLASTIC JESUS

"An absolute masterclass in devastatingly dramatic character arcs." —DLS Reviews

"A unique peek into the world of the zombie apocalypse." —The Next Best Book Blog

"Moody has the power to make the most mundane and ordinary characters interesting and believable, and is reminiscent of Stephen King at his finest." —Shadowlocked

"A truly superb post-apocalyptic story." —DLS Reviews on THE COST OF LIVING

"A head spinning thrill ride... HATER will haunt you long after you read the last page." —Guillermo del Toro

"Moody is as imaginative as Barker, as compulsory as King, and as addictive as Palahniuk" – Scream the Horror Magazine

THE COST OF LIVING and ISOLATION are available in a combined and expanded edition from Infected Books entitled LAST OF THE LIVING.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Moody
• Release date: Nov 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005783983

David Moody

David Moody was born in 1970 and grew up in Birmingham, UK, on a diet of trashy horror and pulp science fiction books and movies. He worked as a bank manager and as operations manager for a number of financial institutions before giving up the day job to write about the end of the world for a living. He has written a number of horror novels, including AUTUMN, which has been downloaded more than half a million times since publication in 2001 and has spawned a series of sequels and a movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carradine. Film rights to HATER were snapped up by Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, Pacific Rim) and Mark Johnson (producer of Breaking Bad and the Chronicles of Narnia films). Moody lives with his wife and a houseful of daughters and stepdaughters, which may explain his pre-occupation with Armageddon.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Let’s get this out of the way first, I don’t do happy endings. My books are often described as grim, bleak, and relentless, and I make no apologies for that. If you’re looking for feel good stories, you’re probably better off looking elsewhere!

What I like to do is hold up a mirror to society, and the best time to do that is when we’re on the ropes. Many of my novels are dystopian or post-apocalyptic, because it’s in extreme situations that I believe people show their true colours. People stop behaving how they think they should and start acting naturally (and that’s not always a helpful thing).

I write books about ordinary people who find themselves, often through no fault of their own, having to deal with extraordinary situations. The results are not always pretty.

I hope you enjoy ISOLATION . If you do, why not try THE COST OF LIVING next (it’s also available free from where you download your eBooks). Both novellas, along with alternate versions and additional short stories, can also be found in the LAST OF THE LIVING collection.

Please visit www.davidmoody.net to find out more about my books and films, including the HATER and AUTUMN novels. Oscar winning film director GUILLERMO DEL TORO heaped praise on HATER, calling it a head-spinning thrill ride, a cautionary tale about the most salient emotion of the 21st century…. The first book in the long-running AUTUMN series was made into a movie starring the late, great DAVID CARRADINE (but the less said about that, the better!).

You can keep in touch with me on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , and Goodreads . To be among the first to hear about new projects, and to get more free fiction, please sign up to my (spam free) mailing list at https://www.davidmoody.net/signup/ .

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Best wishes,

DAY ONE

It ’ s early. Too early. There ’ s little movement in Ashton Grove save for a cat mooching through a torn bin bag, looking for food. He stops when he hears a car with a knackered exhaust race past the end of the grove. At this time in the morning, with everything else so quiet, it sounds like a Formula One car heading for the pits mid-race. The cat legs it, following a well-worn path around the edge of a wildly overgrown lawn then scrambling over a fence.

Ashton Grove is asleep. Save for the kid upstairs in number eighteen who ’ s still playing Xbox and hasn ’ t yet gone to bed, and the guy who lives on the third floor of the maisonettes who works permanent nights and has only just got home, barely anyone moves.

Except Keith.

He ’ s up and out of bed before the alarm clock, but he ’ s been awake much longer. Keith doesn ’ t sleep so well these days. He ’ d go and see the doctor about it, but the doctor would only laugh or tell him to pull himself together, and anyway, when would he have time to make an appointment? Between his job and everything he has to do here at home, Keith doesn ’ t get a second to himself. Apart from at night. At night he gets all the time he needs and more besides. Too much time, if anything. At night he can ’ t switch his brain off long enough to sleep.

No one ever comes in this room but Keith. It ’ s a bedroom stuck in a moment; frozen still when his life was irreparably changed. His faded duvet cover is from a long-forgotten kid ’ s cartoon movie, and the headboard of his bed is plastered with spare world cup football stickers. Not the last world cup, or the one before that ... these players, with their dodgy, dated haircuts and awkward forced smiles, represented their countries the time before that. Or was it the Euros? Some other championship altogether? Keith can ’ t remember now. It doesn ’ t matter anyway.

He stumbles to the bathroom for a shower, pausing by the door to stick the corner of a handwritten sign back down. KEEP OUT OR ELSE, it says. He made it when he was twelve. He stuck it under the porcelain plaque (which says KEITH ’ S ROOM, next to a picture of a castle) that Mum bought for him on holiday that time, and he ’ s never got around to taking it down.

#

Keith opens the living room curtains and light floods into downstairs. He looks around and surveys the damage. A few crushed beer cans, an empty bottle of scotch ... and in the middle of the debris is Dad. He ’ s facedown on the sofa where he spent the night, dead to the world, zombie-like. Keith tiptoes around his old man, not wanting to wake him because every second Dad ’ s asleep is an extra second Keith has to himself. He puts the bottle and cans in the bin, picks up the framed photograph Dad fell asleep clutching, then checks he ’ s still breathing. It ’ s okay. He ’ s always still breathing. One day... Keith thinks, then he curses himself, momentarily eaten up with regret for allowing himself to think that way.

He ’ s standing in the kitchen now, watching his reflection in the window, drinking tea and eating a piece of toast he doesn ’ t want but is forcing himself to finish. The garden ’ s got overgrown all of a sudden. Mum would have been disappointed, but he thinks she ’ d understand. Keith ’ s struggling to keep on top of everything right now. He makes plans to try and get out there and cut the grass at the weekend if he gets a chance. It all depends on everything else ...

There ’ s a clattering noise and the scrape of a chair on the lino behind him. Keith turns around and his heart sinks when he sees that Dad ’ s awake. He slumps down at the table, looking into space. Keith fetches him a can from the fridge and opens it, then lights a cigarette. Dad smells the smoke and sits up straight, suddenly perked up. Keith puts the cigarette into his shaking hand and fetches him a dish to use as an ashtray.

#

Keith ’ s all done up for work in his suit and tie now. He ’ s standing in front of the mirror by the front door, combing his hair. He straightens the picture of him, Mum and Dad on the beach in Cornwall that time they went away and stayed in Mum ’ s friend Pearl ’ s caravan. Bloody hell, he loved that holiday. It was more than ten years ago now, but he remembers it as if it was yesterday: the sea, the sun and the sand ... the freedom. Back then he could do what he liked, when he liked. Maybe he ’ ll go back there one day. That ’ d be good. You ’ ve got to have something to aim for, haven ’ t you?

He finishes his hair and pockets his comb, then looks back towards the kitchen again.

‘ I ’ m off now, Dad. I ’ ll be back at the usual time. I ’ ll get something for dinner while I ’ m out. Have a good day ... ’

He thinks all this stuff but doesn ’ t bother saying any of it. There ’ s no point. Dad ’ s out cold. Dead to the world.

#

The vast open-plan office where Keith now works is a hive of noise and activity. The company employs more than two hundred staff here, spread out over several floors, each as busy as the one below and the one above. Some departments deal directly with clients, banks of operators taking call after call after call, cross-selling this and up-selling that. Other departments work alongside the field-based national sales teams, providing high-class admin and customer service support to clients with a perceived high net value. Some teams are what the company refers to as ‘ back office processing ’ . They do all the work that has to be done, but which should be invisible to the customers. If the customer knows we ’ re there, then we ’ re not doing our job right , Gloria, Keith ’ s boss, is always saying. It should be like we don ’ t exist.

Keith ’ s job is essentially just data entry. He transposes information from a ‘ Know Your Customer ’ form directly onto the company ’ s core computer system. He has a challenging rate-per-hour processing speed to achieve, and an equally challenging accuracy ratio, but then again, so do the rest of the department. Thing is, he ’ s never going to hit his target today if he carries on like this. All around him his colleagues ’ fingers are flying across their keyboards, but he ’ s just staring into space, watching his inert reflection on his computer screen, following the floating company logo screensaver with his eyes as it randomly drifts around.

A sudden flurry of movement startles him, and he instinctively nudges his mouse to bring his workstation back to life and make it look like he ’ s been working. Darren, a work experience kid who ’ s only been here a week, stops by Keith ’ s desk with his trolley and drops a wedge of new ‘ Know Your Customer ’ forms into Keith ’ s still half-full ‘ in ’ tray, then takes the few forms Keith has processed from his almost empty ‘ out ’ tray.

Keith starts to focus on his work now, prodding his keyboard with his index fingers, wishing he could type faster.

The phone shared between him and the next desk rings. Keith ’ s on a roll now, several fields already completely filled, and the last thing he wants to do is stop, so he ignores it. It rings and rings, and he senses everyone looking at him, thinking just answer the bloody phone , but Shelly ’ s sitting as far from it as he is, so why can ’ t she get it? He ’ s on the verge of relenting, just about to move, when she finally picks it up. He tries to make it look like he was going to answer, but he can tell from the expression on her face she ’ s not buying it.

‘ Good morning, Data Processing Support, Shelly Martin speaking, how can I help? ’

A pause. Keith listens to the gaps, trying to work out who, what and why.

‘ Oh, hi Gloria. You okay? ’

Another pause. Shit. It ’ s the boss.

‘ Yeah, I ’ m not too bad, thanks, ’ Shelly says in answer to another unheard question. Keith ’ s straining to listen now he knows who ’ s on the line. ‘ I know, I heard about that, Gloria. Real shame. You were always saying something like that was going to happen eventually. ’

Keith ’ s still banging away at the keyboard with two fingers, trying to focus on his work but being distracted by the phone call. He feels Shelly ’ s eyes on him and he senses Gloria ’ s getting to the point of the conversation, small talk over and done with.

‘ Yeah, he ’ s here, ’ Shelly says, and Keith ’ s worst fears are confirmed. This call was meant for him. He knows he should have just answered it. Bloody idiot.

Just keep typing ... just keep working ...

‘ Sure, love. I ’ ll tell him now. ’

Shelly hangs up. Keith still doesn ’ t react at all outwardly, though his heart ’ s thumping and his mouth ’ s dry. The pressure too much to stand, he finally relents and looks across.

‘ Gloria wants to see you, ’ Shelly says. Her voice is completely different now. He can ’ t tell if she was sucking up to the boss, or if she ’ s dumbing down to him.

‘ I ’ ll just finish this KYC then I ’ ll —’

‘ She wants to see you now, Keith. I wouldn ’ t keep her waiting if I were you. She doesn ’ t sound best pleased. ’

#

Gloria marches from one end of the seventh floor to the other, Keith lagging behind, struggling to match her pace. This is the walk of shame. Generally, when you see someone being taken this way by their manager, you know they ’ re in trouble.

Meeting room two. Everyone ’ s watching.

She