Categories > Movies > Shaun of the Dead > The Fourth Promise
Part Six--The Last Chapter
3 reviewsShaun and Liz finally go on that holiday that he promised her. It doesn't go smoothly. Not at all. And he still hasn't switched from beer to red wine. Rated M for violence and language.
2Exciting
/Chapter 6:/
Apparently, Chris was very good at rigging up ordinary illegal fireworks to explode. The blast knocked Shaun back into Liz and they both toppled to the floor in a pile of limbs. Shaun quickly scrambled to his feet and helped Liz up by hooking an arm around her waist.
Room 434 had several other students waiting nervously on the tiled floor for the verdict. Shaun dropped the shotgun on the art desk in front of the chalkboard.
"What happened?" Lynn asked.
Shaun wiped perspiration and blood spray off his forehead and grinned. "Got 'em. And the stairs are blocked off now."
There was a collective release of grateful sighs and then a triumphant yelp from one student in particular.
"Lynn! The TV's working!" she shouted.
Lynn whooped and sprinted across the room. She stopped behind her friend and slapped her heartily on the back. "Nice work, Yvonne!" she commended. A very fuzzy signal was cutting in and out, but it was there. The news anchor reporting looks absolutely terrified.
Yvonne nodded her curly brunette head in thanks and beamed. "I do try," she then turned to the two visiting Brits and offered a hand for shaking. "The name's Yvonne. Lynn managed to sputter a few facts about you two before she ran back out of here with the shotgun. You'll have to repeat 'em to us."
Shaun scratched his goatee and shrugged. At hearing the girl's name he had to squelch some inappropriate laughter. What a coincidence... "Well, I'm Shaun and this is Liz. We, uh, were on holiday from London but... Yeah," he cleared his throat.
"We've already dealt with this sort of thing," Liz added.
Chris piped up from his reclined position beneath one of the huge windows facing the convention center across the street. "So is that how you knew how to shoot?" he asked.
Memories came flooding back of his Diane, David, Ed...and his mum. It still hadn't been long enough for them to fade into dull wounds. They were still vivid-Technicolored and painful. He hadn't much cared for David, but seeing him ripped to shreds before his very eyes...
That was a sense memory that didn't just vanish one day. Nor did the one of pulling that trigger to kill what used to be his mum.
Shaun Riley hated guns.
He scrubbed his palms on the front of his shorts to rid them of the feel of warmed metal, but it just wouldn't go away.
Instead of answering, he dragged Liz to the floor with him and they sat in a tangled heap beneath the glow of the television. His girlfriend sighed tiredly into his neck and Shaun just relaxed for the moment. He shut his eyes and let his head drop back against the wall.
Just a little rest. Then we'll try and get someone to help us out of here, /he thought. /I think we'll need another holiday after this. Somewhere closer, though. Like... Florence.
The pair fell asleep like that-on the uncomfortable and not entirely clean floor of a classroom with a gaggle of exhausted college students surrounding them.
*
He awoke to someone's pointy fingernail jabbing him in the shoulder. Eyes still unfocused from sleep, Shaun could just make out the beaming faces of Lynn and Yvonne.
"Wha?" he croaked. Liz jerked against his side and rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes.
"Ben got his phone to work," Yvonne announced.
"He called 911 and got through," Lynn added.
"They're sending rescue squads out to us," Yvonne finished.
"Fantastic," Shaun replied. He crawled off the floor and felt his knees pop when he stood-then had to stamp his foot to get rid of the tingly sleeping sensation in it. Liz stood as well (but made less noise).
"What time is it?" she asked.
Lynn checked her watch. "About six in the morning. You two were out for a long time."
The news, much clearer this time, was on the television still. The very same anchor was reporting on how the "zombie crisis" had been overcome during the night. He looked like he could use a four or five hour nap on a cold hard floor.
While watching the poor, unshaved man stumbled over his words, Shaun and Liz failed to notice that the dozen students in the room were suddenly looking at them with anticipation.
Jessica couldn't take the silence any longer. "Well, what do we do next?"
Not hearing anyone answer the girl, Shaun craned his neck back to see who she'd directed her question at-expecting to see either Chris or Lynn giving the girl the 'I-don't-know' stare or something. He was shocked to see that she'd been asking him.
"W-wha?" he mumbled.
"You've got the most experience with this kind of stuff," said Lynn. "What do we do?"
Shaun just blinked. "Well... Liz and I were picked up by the Army with a few other survivors."
"So we should just wait?" Jessica asked.
"Seems kinda anti-climactic, but yeah," said Shaun.
The group of students seated around Shaun and Liz still looked onward with expectant expressions. They were still waiting, but for what, neither of them knew.
"What is it?" Liz finally asked.
A random student, no older than eighteen, popped up off the floor and posed his questions-the same ones that had been on everyone else's mind since they heard the gunfire. "What was it like? Was it worse in London? What did you have to do? What happened after you were both rescued?"
Sensing Shaun's utter exhaustion with the topic, Liz answered the boy's questions as best she could. "London was worse, no doubt. They were everywhere... Shaun and his best mate had saved his mum and his step-dad... He came to my flat and took me and my two mates all to the local pub. We lost Shaun's step-dad along the way..."
Memories came flooding back, and Liz felt her eyes begin to cloud with tears. "We all made it to the pub, but Barbara, Shaun's mum, she'd been bitten and hadn't told us. There was a rifle above the bar and some shells under it. Shaun held off as many of them as he could, but there were so many. And Barbara," Liz paused. She blinked her eyes several times to clear them and instead released the flow down her shaking cheeks.
"Barbara died. Shaun had to shoot his own mum. Then David got taken through the front window and Diane ran out after him. Somewhere between lighting the bar on fire and hiding behind it, Ed got bit and was bleeding to death. We all hid in the cellar and honestly considered offing ourselves to spare us from being eaten alive. But there was a lift to the street. Then the army showed up and Shaun and I were rescued."
She finished recounting the longest day of her life and looked up to a sea of empathetic faces. She hadn't noticed before, but she'd been gripping Shaun's hand so hard that their knot of fingers were cracking under the pressure.
Shaun found his voice-unsure and husky with thick emotion. "They quarantined us for a week and sent us back home. Liz's flat was demolished so she moved in with me. There's not much to say about it all now. Just... That was the longest Sunday of our lives."
Lynn, abnormally not boisterous, soberly offered up her condolences. "I'm sorry for what you both had to go through, but I'm not sorry that your experience helped us out. If I hadn't picked you up in the street, I'm sure most of us would be dead now. You're heroes."
"Thank you," Liz whispered.
Shaun, for a long while, said nothing. After several silent minutes, he finally cracked a grin. "Guess this means Liz and I'll have to go on holiday again."
"How long were you here before all this shit happened?" Chris asked.
With a wry smile, Liz answered. "Our flight landed at about four in the afternoon on Thursday."
It was six thirty in the morning on what was beginning to look like a lovely Saturday.
"Jesus wept," said Jessica.
Sirens hailed in the distance and the crowd of students lurched to their feet almost as one. "We should wait at the top of the stairs," Ben suggested.
And they did. Fifteen minutes later, the fire department was creating a makeshift bridge out of ladders between the third and fourth floor-carrying exhausted, hungry people over the gaping, bloody hole. Shaun and Liz waited patiently outside behind one of the ambulances, got their scrapes and other injuries checked out, and hitched a ride back to the airport in Lynn's SUV.
They never did make it to Waxy O'Connor's Irish Pub and Eatery.
But they did agree that a real holiday was still in order.
/END/
Apparently, Chris was very good at rigging up ordinary illegal fireworks to explode. The blast knocked Shaun back into Liz and they both toppled to the floor in a pile of limbs. Shaun quickly scrambled to his feet and helped Liz up by hooking an arm around her waist.
Room 434 had several other students waiting nervously on the tiled floor for the verdict. Shaun dropped the shotgun on the art desk in front of the chalkboard.
"What happened?" Lynn asked.
Shaun wiped perspiration and blood spray off his forehead and grinned. "Got 'em. And the stairs are blocked off now."
There was a collective release of grateful sighs and then a triumphant yelp from one student in particular.
"Lynn! The TV's working!" she shouted.
Lynn whooped and sprinted across the room. She stopped behind her friend and slapped her heartily on the back. "Nice work, Yvonne!" she commended. A very fuzzy signal was cutting in and out, but it was there. The news anchor reporting looks absolutely terrified.
Yvonne nodded her curly brunette head in thanks and beamed. "I do try," she then turned to the two visiting Brits and offered a hand for shaking. "The name's Yvonne. Lynn managed to sputter a few facts about you two before she ran back out of here with the shotgun. You'll have to repeat 'em to us."
Shaun scratched his goatee and shrugged. At hearing the girl's name he had to squelch some inappropriate laughter. What a coincidence... "Well, I'm Shaun and this is Liz. We, uh, were on holiday from London but... Yeah," he cleared his throat.
"We've already dealt with this sort of thing," Liz added.
Chris piped up from his reclined position beneath one of the huge windows facing the convention center across the street. "So is that how you knew how to shoot?" he asked.
Memories came flooding back of his Diane, David, Ed...and his mum. It still hadn't been long enough for them to fade into dull wounds. They were still vivid-Technicolored and painful. He hadn't much cared for David, but seeing him ripped to shreds before his very eyes...
That was a sense memory that didn't just vanish one day. Nor did the one of pulling that trigger to kill what used to be his mum.
Shaun Riley hated guns.
He scrubbed his palms on the front of his shorts to rid them of the feel of warmed metal, but it just wouldn't go away.
Instead of answering, he dragged Liz to the floor with him and they sat in a tangled heap beneath the glow of the television. His girlfriend sighed tiredly into his neck and Shaun just relaxed for the moment. He shut his eyes and let his head drop back against the wall.
Just a little rest. Then we'll try and get someone to help us out of here, /he thought. /I think we'll need another holiday after this. Somewhere closer, though. Like... Florence.
The pair fell asleep like that-on the uncomfortable and not entirely clean floor of a classroom with a gaggle of exhausted college students surrounding them.
*
He awoke to someone's pointy fingernail jabbing him in the shoulder. Eyes still unfocused from sleep, Shaun could just make out the beaming faces of Lynn and Yvonne.
"Wha?" he croaked. Liz jerked against his side and rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes.
"Ben got his phone to work," Yvonne announced.
"He called 911 and got through," Lynn added.
"They're sending rescue squads out to us," Yvonne finished.
"Fantastic," Shaun replied. He crawled off the floor and felt his knees pop when he stood-then had to stamp his foot to get rid of the tingly sleeping sensation in it. Liz stood as well (but made less noise).
"What time is it?" she asked.
Lynn checked her watch. "About six in the morning. You two were out for a long time."
The news, much clearer this time, was on the television still. The very same anchor was reporting on how the "zombie crisis" had been overcome during the night. He looked like he could use a four or five hour nap on a cold hard floor.
While watching the poor, unshaved man stumbled over his words, Shaun and Liz failed to notice that the dozen students in the room were suddenly looking at them with anticipation.
Jessica couldn't take the silence any longer. "Well, what do we do next?"
Not hearing anyone answer the girl, Shaun craned his neck back to see who she'd directed her question at-expecting to see either Chris or Lynn giving the girl the 'I-don't-know' stare or something. He was shocked to see that she'd been asking him.
"W-wha?" he mumbled.
"You've got the most experience with this kind of stuff," said Lynn. "What do we do?"
Shaun just blinked. "Well... Liz and I were picked up by the Army with a few other survivors."
"So we should just wait?" Jessica asked.
"Seems kinda anti-climactic, but yeah," said Shaun.
The group of students seated around Shaun and Liz still looked onward with expectant expressions. They were still waiting, but for what, neither of them knew.
"What is it?" Liz finally asked.
A random student, no older than eighteen, popped up off the floor and posed his questions-the same ones that had been on everyone else's mind since they heard the gunfire. "What was it like? Was it worse in London? What did you have to do? What happened after you were both rescued?"
Sensing Shaun's utter exhaustion with the topic, Liz answered the boy's questions as best she could. "London was worse, no doubt. They were everywhere... Shaun and his best mate had saved his mum and his step-dad... He came to my flat and took me and my two mates all to the local pub. We lost Shaun's step-dad along the way..."
Memories came flooding back, and Liz felt her eyes begin to cloud with tears. "We all made it to the pub, but Barbara, Shaun's mum, she'd been bitten and hadn't told us. There was a rifle above the bar and some shells under it. Shaun held off as many of them as he could, but there were so many. And Barbara," Liz paused. She blinked her eyes several times to clear them and instead released the flow down her shaking cheeks.
"Barbara died. Shaun had to shoot his own mum. Then David got taken through the front window and Diane ran out after him. Somewhere between lighting the bar on fire and hiding behind it, Ed got bit and was bleeding to death. We all hid in the cellar and honestly considered offing ourselves to spare us from being eaten alive. But there was a lift to the street. Then the army showed up and Shaun and I were rescued."
She finished recounting the longest day of her life and looked up to a sea of empathetic faces. She hadn't noticed before, but she'd been gripping Shaun's hand so hard that their knot of fingers were cracking under the pressure.
Shaun found his voice-unsure and husky with thick emotion. "They quarantined us for a week and sent us back home. Liz's flat was demolished so she moved in with me. There's not much to say about it all now. Just... That was the longest Sunday of our lives."
Lynn, abnormally not boisterous, soberly offered up her condolences. "I'm sorry for what you both had to go through, but I'm not sorry that your experience helped us out. If I hadn't picked you up in the street, I'm sure most of us would be dead now. You're heroes."
"Thank you," Liz whispered.
Shaun, for a long while, said nothing. After several silent minutes, he finally cracked a grin. "Guess this means Liz and I'll have to go on holiday again."
"How long were you here before all this shit happened?" Chris asked.
With a wry smile, Liz answered. "Our flight landed at about four in the afternoon on Thursday."
It was six thirty in the morning on what was beginning to look like a lovely Saturday.
"Jesus wept," said Jessica.
Sirens hailed in the distance and the crowd of students lurched to their feet almost as one. "We should wait at the top of the stairs," Ben suggested.
And they did. Fifteen minutes later, the fire department was creating a makeshift bridge out of ladders between the third and fourth floor-carrying exhausted, hungry people over the gaping, bloody hole. Shaun and Liz waited patiently outside behind one of the ambulances, got their scrapes and other injuries checked out, and hitched a ride back to the airport in Lynn's SUV.
They never did make it to Waxy O'Connor's Irish Pub and Eatery.
But they did agree that a real holiday was still in order.
/END/
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