The Way of All Flesh Episode 1

Jody and Chris, runners from Abel Township, take shelter from the zombie horde in a mysterious country house, Gadsen Manor. They have company — who seem friendly at first. But when things turn sour, where will suspicion fall?

Cast[]

Transcript[]

CHRIS MCSHELL: I suppose we should start by introducing ourselves. Someone might be listening.

JODY MARSH: Or we might die here.

CHRIS MCSHELL: We’re not going to die here! Statistically, it’s very unlikely we’ll die here. Hello, anyone listening. Uh, I’m Chris McShell. This is Jody Marsh.

JODY MARSH: Chris was a statistician before the apocalypse. He does mathematical modeling of zombie herd movement, now. It’s really clever. I used to do financial analysis, which is a bit less useful now. We’re from Abel Township, a settlement. We’re not there now because someone said that even though the horde was becoming dangerously large, we should still observe the zombies and gather vital data.

CHRIS MCSHELL: It is vital! And if I didn’t have my field recorder, we wouldn’t be able to go over the evidence now.

JODY MARSH: We wouldn’t need to, because we’d be warm and dry at Abel!

CHRIS MCSHELL: We’re warm and dry here! Admittedly, a murderer is warm and dry with us. Let’s start at the beginning. We were on a field investigation. Uh, can you play Field Note 420, Jody?

[recorder clicks]

[zombies groan]

CHRIS MCSHELL: Oh, now, that’s interesting! That zombie appears to be sniffing the air, even though it has no nose!

JODY MARSH: Can we move now, Chris?

CHRIS MCSHELL: Just a moment. We’ll make our escape via the road to the east.

JODY MARSH: I thought we were heading north.

CHRIS MCSHELL: Oh, no! No, that will have filled up with zoms. East road’s our way out.

JODY MARSH: East road’s full of zombies, Chris.

CHRIS MCSHELL: Oh, but… no, because… ah, yes! Yes, I see what’s happened here.

JODY MARSH: Chris, what’s happened here is that you’ve trapped us between three hordes of zombies, and there’s no way home, and you -

[recorder clicks]

CHRIS MCSHELL: You can fast forward that bit. It just has you swearing at me.

JODY MARSH: Ah, the days when I swore at you just for trapping me between zombie hordes. I’m nostalgic for that, Chris, and it was only yesterday.

CHRIS MCSHELL: Find the bit about the manor.

[recorder fast forwards]

[zombies groan]

SAM YAO: Chris, Jody, you have to find shelter!

JODY MARSH: There is no shelter, Sam!

SAM YAO: Runner Five says she knows somewhere. Uh, explain, Alice. Okay, okay, that’ll work. Uh, see that enormous chain-link fence?

JODY MARSH: Uh, the 10 foot one?

SAM YAO: Yeah, yeah, so climb that. On the other side is a, uh… what is it, Alice? Oh, amazing. It’s a manor house. Gadsen Manor, untouched, Alice says, and protected by the 10 foot fence. If you can get in there, you’ll be safe until we can get you.

JODY MARSH: Okay, we’re climbing.

[fence rattles, zombies groan]

[recorder fast forwards]

JODY MARSH: Oh, wow! This is dead nice, Sam. My mom took us to a place like this once. National Trust. You weren’t even allowed to breath on stuff.

SAM YAO: Yeah, uh, Alice says maybe it’s some tech billionaire’s pad. Solar panels and wind generators keep the power on.

CHRIS MCSHELL: Ah, that explains the automatic doors that opened as we arrived.

JODY MARSH: There’s a cardboard deer’s head on the wall, and like, a chandelier, but made out of wires. It’s like hipster fortress.

SAM YAO: [laughs] Yeah, that’s what Alice said. [static] No, wait, uh, something’s happening to my signal.

JODY MARSH: Sam? Sam? We’re not hearing you.

SAM YAO: [static] Uh, no, I can barely hear you.

CHRIS MCSHELL: Something in the house is interfering with the transmission.

SAM YAO: [static] Look after each other. We’ll come and get you when we can!

JODY MARSH: Ugh, this is all we need. Stuck in a horde, and now no Sam. We could have been safe home by now, Chris!

CHRIS MCSHELL: Oh, come on. It’s all right. We’re safe for now. And look at this place! [opens door] This sideboard alone has enough pâté and brandy for us to sit out a month in comfort and safety.

JODY MARSH: Uh, yeah, if there aren’t some zombies in the house with us.

[recorder fast forwards]

JODY MARSH: There’s definitely something on the other side of this door, Chris.

CHRIS MCSHELL: You’re armed with a poker. I’m armed with a shovel.

JODY MARSH: Shame that ax on the wall turned out to be made out of Lego.

CHRIS MCSHELL: On three, open the door and attack. One, two -

[KEITH]: - three!

[door bursts open, multiple people shout, Mace sprays, CHRIS MCSHELL screams]

MANISHA: Keith! Keith, don’t!

KEITH: Oh my God, oh my God, sorry, sorry!

JODY MARSH: Stop spraying him with that, then!

KEITH: Sorry, sorry!

CHRIS MCSHELL: What - [coughs] what have you done to me?

KEITH: We thought you were zombies.

MANISHA: All we had was a can of Mace.

CHRIS MCSHELL: What did you think that was going to do to a zombie?

KEITH: Well, they must see somehow. Oh God, are you all right? Nish, is he alright?

MANISHA: It’s going to be all right. I’m a doctor. We’ll find somewhere to wash your eyes out.

[recorder fast forwards]

[water runs]

MANISHA: How does that feel?

CHRIS MCSHELL: A bit better. I still can’t see.

MANISHA: Yeah, Keith emptied half a can into your face. Overkill, as usual.

KEITH: Sorry, sorry.

CALLUM: That’s what you always say.

CHRIS MCSHELL: Look, it’s not that I mind being temporarily blinded. It’s being temporarily blinded because of a fundamental misconception about the nature of zombie cognition! I mean, zombies would not be affected by mace!

JODY MARSH: Will he… will he be able to see again?

MANISHA: I’ll bandage his eyes. Should be okay in 72 hours. Introductions. I’m Manisha Plassard. Was a surgeon before all this.

JODY MARSH: Wow, a surgeon!

CALLUM: Oh yeah. She was saving lives in the Third World, weren’t you, Nish?

MANISHA: Yes, Callum, of course I was. I’m a saint. Oh, we all are. You were exposing corruption, and Keith was using his fame to spread awareness of preventable disease.

CALLUM: You are a preventable disease, sweetheart.

MANISHA: At least I am preventable. Nowhere’s safe from you. Callum was a gossip journo for the gutter press, and I was sticking fake tits on rich women.

CHRIS MCSHELL: And… Keith?

KEITH: You don’t recognize me?

CHRIS MCSHELL: I’m blind.

KEITH: I… I’m Keith Carroway. Keith Carroway?

MANISHA: He likes it if you pretend to recognize him.

JODY MARSH: Ah, Keith Carroway! Actually, I do think I remember you. You were off, um, Emmerdale -

KEITH: [?]. I was Trevor. Yeah, I came in for a three episode arc to be Camille the builder’s bit of rough, but my chemistry with Marky and Viv was really popping, so they kept me on. I talked Marsha through the birth after the coach crash. I saved Victor’s life when he needed a blood transfusion after he was allergic to that prawn korma.

CHRIS MCSHELL: You wouldn’t need a blood transfusion after anaphylaxis.

MANISHA: I know! I’ve told him that.

KEITH: And then I was in Celebrity Car Wash, and in Who’s That Famous Baby? Nation’s heartthrob. Oh, I did that interview about playing gay even though I’m straight with Michelle McQueen on breakfast TV.

JODY MARSH: Ah yeah! I saw you in Metro. Didn’t you… didn’t you have a punch-up with that bloke -

MANISHA: He doesn’t talk about it. About the only thing he doesn’t talk about.

CHRIS MCSHELL: I take it you three know each other?

CALLUM: We’ve been together since the apocalypse. I’m Callum Donaldson, journalist. I was interviewing Keith on the day of the outbreak. Nish was there because -

MANISHA: Because we’re friends, me and Callum. Go way back.

KEITH: When that first zombie broke down the door, I thought, “Oh my God! I’m finally back! This is Darren Brown doing one of those candid camera ‘you’ve been framed’ things.”

CHRIS MCSHELL: [clears throat] You’re lucky you found this place.

CALLUM: I heard a rumor about it months ago. We’d been trying to get here for a while. Solar panels, fences. Seemed perfect.

MANISHA: Look! Out the window. Someone else has the same idea.

CHRIS MCSHELL: What? Who? What’s going on?

JODY MARSH: More people scaling the fence from the west.

MANISHA: Two women and a man, heading for us.

JODY MARSH: Aw crap! One of the women has cut the fence. The zoms are after her!

[recorder fast forwards]

JODY MARSH: The four of them are running towards the front door, Chris. [opens door] Run! You can beat the zoms!

CALLUM: Come on! Put your feet on!

MANISHA: That old lady who cut the fence isn’t going to make it. She’s old. Those are kid zombies after her.

CALLUM: She only made a tiny hole. Looks like she tried to seal it, too.

KEITH: Oh God, I can’t watch, I can’t!

MANISHA: Go and stare at yourself in the mirror for a bit, then.

JODY MARSH: There’s only four zoms after her. The rest of the hole’s sort of closed up by the bodies of zoms that have got impaled on the fence.

MANISHA: She can’t outrun them.

CHRIS MCSHELL: We might be able to help her if she gets close enough. Jody, you can do the maneuver we practiced.

CALLUM: What do you two do, exactly? Oh, the old biddy’s gone crazy. She’s making a break for the trees. Over here! We’ve been traumatized enough already. We don’t want to have to watch you die!

MANISHA: Compassionate. I don’t think she is crazy. There’s a tree house, ladder up to it.

JODY MARSH: It’s a tree mansion! Must be the healthiest tree in the place. It’s still got all its leaves even though the others are bare. Chris, she’s going to be all right. The zoms are surrounding the tree but can’t get up there. And here come the others. No one dies today. Come in, all of you, quickly!

[recorder fast forwards]

PROF: Tea’s up, everyone. Beautiful place, here. I’m… Professor Walter Huebner, by the way. Everyone calls me the Prof.

JODY MARSH: The four of you made quite an entrance, Prof. Well, you three and the lady in the tree. Oh, poor lady. Look, I found biscuits. They’re posh ones with chocolate inside and outside!

ROSE: Well, good work, lassie. Ah, they fit with everything else in here. Even the biscuit’s as posh as… posh as… posh as anything! I’m Rose. I don’t see much point talking about what we all did before this. Most of us won’t be alive this time next year, will we?

JODY MARSH: Actually, I’m going to live. Hey, maybe those zombies will get bored and we can get that lady down and give her some biscuits.

GERI: They don’t get bored, unlike us. That’s their advantage. I’m Geri Kim, by the way. Was a student before all this. Philosophy and Computer Science. Hey, has anyone seen the transmission equipment in this place? I’ve got a message I’d like to get out.

CHRIS MCSHELL: We haven’t found anything like that, Geri. Surprising, really. I mean, it’s stocked for quite a long siege, here. Food, books, games.

GERI: Well, it’s a pretty urgent message. I need to let my girlfriend know I’m okay.

ROSE: Oh, we all have people, lassie, but you can’t always talk when you want. At least we’re all right, unlike those brain-dead things outside.

CALLUM: They remind me of you, Manisha.

MANISHA: What, drooling brain-dead stupor? That’s only when I have to listen to your conversation, darling.

GERI: Wow. You two sound like my parents. Are you married?

MANISHA and CALLUM: Long story.

MANISHA: And we’ll have plenty of time to tell it, stuck here. Rose, Geri, Prof, were you all travelling together with the lady in the tree house?

ROSE: I travel alone. A blight has come upon the land. No point making friends when the doom stalks us all. It doesn’t serve to get attached.

PROF: Rose is a ray of sunshine, as you can see. No, the four of us were trapped together last night by the Birmingham horde. The poor dear in the tree house is Sheila. She said she’d spotted a house out this way. Pity, really, that she’s the one who’s ended up without shelter.

KEITH: Oh, I can’t look at her. Someone close the curtains.

[chair scrapes across floor]

CHRIS MCSHELL: The Birmingham horde? Yes, thought it was more zombies than I’d have expected!

ROSE: See, it happens in a lot of big cities. People hole up, think they’ll be safe in their homes. Got food, water, sorted! But the horde grows every day. In the end, sheer weight of the bodies stoves in windows, brings down walls, and each new dead one adds to the pressure. That’s how a city falls.

PROF: Yes, that’s the pattern. You know, I noticed a selection of excellent scotches in the billiard room. Can I get anyone a glass?

GERI: Yeah, I’d like a single malt. And I think I’ll have a look around. There must be something we can use here to communicate with the outside world.

CHRIS MCSHELL: I’ll have one of those biscuits.

MANISHA: What are you a professor of, Prof?

PROF: Molecular biology. Actually, I should point out I have a few rather dangerous chemicals with me. I’ve placed them in their case on this high shelf here. Just wouldn’t want anyone to mistake them for ingredients.

CHRIS MCSHELL: Oh! I have some theories about the microbiology of the zombie plague I’d love to discuss with you -

CALLUM: Hey! This kitchen seems to have everything anyone could ever have stored in cans. Rose, do you want to help me make dinner?

ROSE: Aye, I suppose I will.

[recorder fast forwards]

JODY MARSH: Mmm. I never would have put tinned pheasant together with tinned prunes. It’s amazing, Callum.

CALLUM: Oh, I learned a few things when I was embedded with the Army.

MANISHA: What? You were never embedded with the Army.

CALLUM: I was. Early on, when I thought I could do some good. Remember my story about Pandora Haze?

MANISHA: Remember it? You never bloody stop going on about it.

CALLUM: Pandora Haze, that technology company, poisoned thousands of peoples’ water in Somalia, and I exposed it. Got loads by listening in to their voice mails. You know you can do that? Most people never change their PIN number. I know I don’t. I found out what Pandora Haze had done, and I was the one who told the world. That was the only really good story I’ve ever done in my life.

MANISHA: Pity they never convicted a single person in company management, eh? Passed the buck to underlings, as usual. So your exposé didn’t actually do anything.

CALLUM: I tell you what, I’ve got a few things still to tell. Stuff I couldn’t publish before the apocalypse, but now… you know they’ve started up that new internet system, Rofflenet, between settlements? I’m going to put it all on there. Everyone’s dirty little secrets, out in the open.

MANISHA: That’s more your style. Gossip! Got any footage of coked-up celebrities beating innocent cloakroom attendants half to death?

KEITH: I didn’t beat him half to death. I just broke his nose, all right? [under his breath] I didn’t mean to. And his jaw. And his collarbone. [out loud] He was fine! I paid for all of his treatment, private rooms and everything! It was a difficult time for me.

ROSE: For you? Ah, you’re a danger to yourself and others, are you? Well, it doesn’t mean much anymore to be a criminal, not with the way the world’s going. All debts are paid, isn’t that right, Callum? No one owes anyone anything anymore.

KEITH: I’m not a criminal. It would never have really come out if Callum hadn’t chased down the security footage. I was just tired and emotional, and he got in my way, and I lost it. I paid him compensation, didn’t I? Without being asked. More money than he’d ever see in ten years, working in that bloody cloakroom.

MANISHA: And how was the career going, Keith, before the apocalypse?

KEITH: I was just waiting for the right part to come along.

MANISHA: While doing an interview with Callum about your drug struggle?

KEITH: To rehabilitate my reputation. The same journo who’d shopped me, you know, to show how much I’d changed.

MANISHA: God, it’s a good thing you’re pretty, because you really are thick, aren’t you? It wasn’t going to be rehabilitation. Cal was going to provoke you to take a swing at him. That was going to be the headline. Before the zombies, anyway.

KEITH: No. No. Callum, with me, you weren’t…?

GERI: Oh, look at Callum! My friend Paul used to get that look when he’s hidden his stash before his mom comes around. Corners of his mouth. Busted!

KEITH: Callum! We’ve been travelling together for months.

PROF: [clears throat] I must say this homemade bread is excellent, Rose. Have you ever worked in a kitchen?

ROSE: None of your beeswax!

PROF: Uh, fair enough. Keith, tell us, which famous people have you met?

[doorbell rings]

ROSE: Someone’s at the door.

[doorbell rings repeatedly in background]

GERI: Zombies don’t ring doorbells.

KEITH: What is it? Who’s ringing the bell?

ROSE: We should put our feet on and answer it.

JODY MARSH: But what if it’s… what if it’s the horde pressing on the windows, bringing down the walls?

CHRIS MCSHELL: We’ll all go together. Armed, and not with mace, Keith. Jody, will you take my arm and lead me?

[recorder fast forwards]

[door opens]

CHRIS MCSHELL: What’s out there, Jody?

JODY MARSH: Nothing. There’s no one here. There’s still those four zombies around the tree where that poor woman’s hiding. It’s dark. There’s no light anywhere but this house.

GERI: We’re cut off. Completely isolated.

ROSE: We could be the last people alive in the world.

CALLUM: But would all the debts be paid if we were?

ROSE: I think the debts are paid already. No one owes me anything anyway.

KEITH: What are you two on about?

CALLUM: I don’t know. It’s just a rather peculiar feeling, stuck in here in luxury with all this outside.

MANISHA: Let’s go back in.

JODY MARSH: Chris, take my arm. I’ll lead you back. Keith, you’re standing in the way. Come on, Chris. This way.

[recorder fast forwards]

KEITH: That was weird. I don’t like it.

GERI: Computer systems running the house are probably on the fritz.

ROSE: Or it’s the ghosts of all those poor lost souls pressing on the fence, wanting us to let them in.

GERI: Yeah. Ghosts. I mean, there’s zombies, why wouldn’t there be ghosts? You got any more of that Talisker, Prof?

MANISHA: The bell’s stopped now, anyway.

PROF: Supper’s getting cold. I’ll open another bottle of Château Lafite.

[chair scrapes across floor]

CALLUM: If I do say so myself, [coughs] this stew is absolute- [coughs] -lutely [coughs] absolutely – [coughs] Rose, I’m sor- [coughs, chokes]

MANISHA: Callum!

[CALLUM chokes and collapses onto the table]

KEITH: Oh God! What’s happened? He – he’s fallen into his food. What happened? Nish, do something!

MANISHA: He’s… he’s dead. [ominous music plays] Callum’s dead!

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