The author has a first chapter excerpt available, but has agreed to expand it even further with us at FanFiAddict!
British zombie horror comedy set in Stevenage.
Contact: louiswrites2025@gmail.com
Blurb
EVERYONE HAS A PLAN FOR THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE.
HIS SOUNDED BETTER IN THE PUB.
Shaun of the Dead meets The Girl with All the Gifts—except our protagonist has none.
Tom Nowak is twenty-nine, hungover and waiting for his mum to make him a fry-up. She never gets to finish it.
The dead are back on their feet, leaking white fluid from every orifice. Worse, they’re learning. They mimic Tom’s laugh and his mum’s screams. Soon the whole street is crying in their voices.
He calls them: ‘The Milks.’
Tom’s mates have followed the drunken survival plan he confidently outlined the night before. Of all the times to take him seriously.
Now Tom has to cross ten miles of the apocalyptic concrete hellscape that is Stevenage to find them.
If they made it, they’re waiting for him. If he stays home, he’ll die alone in the house where his mum did.
He barely left the house at the best of times.
It took the end of the world for him to start living. It may just be the death of him.
The Milks is a British zombie horror-comedy about grief, growing up, and the consequences of talking bollocks in the pub.
Advance Reader Reactions
Selected excerpts from two ARC readers’ voice notes. Ellipses mark cuts within a quotation.
After finishing the book
“Oh my God, it was gripping.”
“It was a brilliant book. … It was phenomenal.”
“It’s got layers and you’re trying to get your point across in like a subtle way.”
“All your references are brilliant — Benny Hill, Harry Potter, all of it.”
“Anything you write, I will be happy to read.”
While reading
“I’m really enjoying it because it’s just so real and unreal at the same time.”
“This man has thought of everything. I can tell you thought about this in depth.”
“Your voice really does come through strongly in it.”
“Someone knocked on the front door, and I squeaked. … I jumped so bad.”
EXCERPT
1. Home
I’m going to die.
That’s my first thought as a hand touches my shoulder.
My left eye stings as it rolls dry in the socket; the right is crusted shut. Sunlight slips through the blinds, an unwelcome guest, and the moment it prickles my skin, it judges me unfit and unworthy of its warmth. Outside, a pigeon—or whatever it is that froths at this hour—starts up.
‘You can’t hide from the day, my love,’ Mum says, tugging at the sheets. ‘Look at you, such a delicate daisy. Was it worth it? How much did you drink?’
I had four pints. Life isn’t fair.
Okay, and some shots—maybe a glass of wine and a few Jägerbombs. But they’re the drinking equivalent of nibbles; they don’t count. They shouldn’t, anyway. Even drinking isn’t the same as you get older. A Jägerbomb used to be an event, the clink of the shot bobbing in the glass. Now you get a thimble of weak energy drink in a plastic disposable cup. That’s what I am now. Disposable. Weak.
I need to recover. I need sustenance. I need my mum. So that’s exactly why she’s here. I’m a shameless, dependent man-child. A mummy’s boy. This is a pre-arranged standing appointment. She’s here to make my hangover special. A fry-up, a sheet of ibuprofen and a pot of coffee to wash it down. Breakfast in bed for the wounded soldier. A Sunday made tolerable by the love and doting service of my mother.
I would be lost without her. Can’t tell her that, though—I’m British and a bloke.
All this plays out as I let out a pathetic fart.
I do that a lot, take little journeys of the mind. Farts too.
I grunt in reply. I love my mum, but I can’t do words yet. Don’t judge; I make sure the fridge is stocked and I pay for her shopping too.
Clocking a battle she can’t win, she takes the order. ‘Bacon extra crispy, yes? It’ll take longer.’
‘That’s fine. I’m not going anywhere, and yes, please frazzle it. I’m not interested in chewing flabby fat right now,’ I reply, staring down at my tummy.
I’ve engaged in conversation now, though. It was a trap. I have to pay the mum toll.
The small talk flows as she heads for the stairs. Mum is excellent at modulating her volume so you can always hear her, no matter the room.
‘Dawn was telling me … did you see that thing in the Comet? A man died yesterday at Stevenage Day.’
I’m lying flat in bed, the room spinning and my head pounding. The words arrive cryptic.
My mum’s not into astrology. The Comet is our local paper.
A big celebration of our wonderful town is held on a Sunday in early June. This year it was moved to Saturday on account of rail strikes. That’ll teach the locals: prevent people going to a big field for subpar baked goods, shit music and mucky bouncy castles.
Like a general on the battlefield who isn’t sure if his troops are still with him, I command my hand towards the tiny bedside table to pad around for my phone. My little finger makes contact with it and ushers it onto the floor with a loud thwomp.
I’ve definitely cracked the screen. That’s always the thought, isn’t it? I’ll have to buy a brand-new phone. Just like that, I’m committed to the best part of two thousand quid before I even scrape it off the floor.
It’s fine. It’s fine. I groan like an unlucky matador, scoop the phone back off the floor and lie back down. Four fucking pints. Official count.
She continues down the stairs, practically shouting now. ‘It was a right scene. They’re saying it was some scientist. Convulsing and foaming at the mouth, stuff leaking and spraying out of him according to Dawn. She was there; she won the raffle. Can you believe it?’
I sit up.
A scientist?
I ask what Dawn won at the raffle as I find the article on the Comet’s website.
Fuck me.
Some bath smellies, apparently.
It’s Ash.
I placed him at Lumora.
I can’t believe he’s dead, and from the way Mum tells it via Dawn, with the Comet backing it up, it was horrific. You get to know the candidates you place quite well in this line of work, headhunting the best in their field. He was a microbiology superstar, wunderkind, once-in-a-generation talent. That was all the guff I put on the cover email for him, anyway. Full name Ashmik, but we decided Ash would work better for intros. His idea, not mine; I’m not racist. I will sell anyone to anywhere. Class, colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation … all the same to me on the commission slip.
Good point—they best not stiff me on the commission.
I placed him fair and square. It said nothing about him living the full term of his contract. I check my bank account and see that the payment has been scuffed.
Fuck Gary.
I’m sad he’s dead, but I’m angrier about my money.
I’m an awful person.
Surveying my empire, I sigh. It’s Sunday. Britain treats Sunday like waiting to die. Shops are different, people are different and the whole world takes on a shit complexion. A sombre mourning of the weekend as you perilously head towards a Monday you wish would never come.
See, I hate my job—career, rather. Recruitment. I love the money, though, so that’s why I do it. I live alone in a four-bed house in the nice part of a town called Stevenage. I have to specify the nice part, because when people hear Stevenage they think of the slums, thanks to our most famous alumnus, Lewis Hamilton. Other than his lordship, I’d say our biggest claim to fame is we were designated the first New Town after the war. A neat solution for the housing crisis. Get people out of the smog and cramped conditions of London by plonking them on the outskirts in concrete tubs of prefab towns. The selling point nowadays? That we are a whopping twenty minutes from the centre of London by train. Get people out of the city so they can fawn over getting back in.
Come to Stevenage; the best thing about it is that it’s quick to leave!
I could live in a fancy place in London or a big house in the country. Ashmik was prepared to traverse the entire globe for his dreams. I barely get out of the postcode.
I hear pots and pans clanging downstairs, the dishwasher being unloaded. I’m here for Mum. I can’t leave her on her own, or I’m scared to. A few more reasons too. My friends, my house and my commission.
Four pints countered by four reasons to carry on existing.
Before long, my existential pondering is interrupted by Mum’s steps coming up the stairs. As the smell of food gets stronger, my stomach lurches for half a second, but I will power through like the patriot I am and consume my fry-up, as is my right as a British male.
Mum says I should go to the funeral. I mumble a response. I’m thinking about Ash writhing on St George’s playing fields a few minutes from my house. I was chatting crap down the pub and he was already dead.
My head hurts. I need those tablets.
Mum puts the tray down on the floor. I frown because the painkillers are far away. She tuts as she finds the one patch of carpet not covered in joggers, pants, shirts and my other shit clothes.
‘You need to clean this up after. Have a productive day. What about the gym? You wanted to sign up. Or maybe paint the spare bedroom?’
Fitness makes me feel sick and DIY can fuck off. I don’t say that, but my face conveys it all.
Mum smiles and pats my foot sticking out of the bed.
She loads up for round two. ‘I can’t keep making you hangover cures forever.’ She points to the marvellously high Victorian ceilings—the estate agent called them that; I don’t have a clue. ‘This house is too big for you to be alone in. I worry.’
I scratch at my stomach and make a noise like a bemused wildebeest. I don’t need to be guilt tripped into becoming an adult, so I nod and say the cheat code that will skip the melancholic cutscene.
‘Where am I going to meet someone? I’m here or stuck on a train into London. And besides, I’m waiting for the one that’s good enough for my old mum, aren’t I?’
She relents. I am victorious.
She hands me the tray and I dig in after dumping four capsules of ibuprofen into my gob. ‘Yeah, appreciate it, Ma, love you,’ I manage, muffled, gnawing at a rasher.
‘Love you too.’ She stops at the door and turns. ‘Dad would be proud of you, you know.’
Congealed egg mush falls from my mouth as a wave of emotion crests inside. It almost forms into tears. Instead, I let out an involuntary laugh.
‘Thanks. I mean, I still need my mum to baby me at the age of twenty-nine, but thanks.’
‘Well, I think he’d be proud.’ Her face tightens a bit before she heads off downstairs.
I sit staring. The food isn’t as appealing now. I push the tray away and drink deeply from the coffee mug.
Dad died when I was nine. It was a neat and tidy episode of cancer. None of this fighting on for years beyond the prognosis. He felt an ache in his back and kept complaining about feeling tired at work. The doctor sent him for some tests and it was quickly picked up as rampant prostate cancer. I forget all the terminology on the letters now. I just remember Dad’s face when he came home and told me. Like he had let me down. His face was never the same after that day. He went for another three months before … that was that.
Would he be proud of me?
I guess the question I’m really trying to answer is, am I proud of myself?
I’ll get back to you on that.
The last thing he said to me as he lay on his bed at the local hospital floats around my squalor. ‘Look after Mum.’
A loud thump lands on my front door.
I’m not expecting anyone. Certainly not anyone that has the gall to knock on the door like an elephant. On a Sunday of all days. The Lord’s day.
I hear Mum opening the door. ‘Oh my, has there been an accident?’
Then the front door flies open and crashes against the wall harder than anything I’ve ever heard.
Mum screams.
Not her normal scream. Not spider-in-the-bath stuff. This is the scream that changes your life.
I shout. I hear my name screamed back. My heart is pumping as glass smashes below. I bounce out of bed, almost getting a foot stuck in the duvet, and make it to the top of the stairs.
I have what’s known as U-shaped stairs. I don’t care about that, but I was told by the estate agent it’s definitely not a spiral staircase. He also said I have fifteen stairs; most houses only have thirteen. I was bragging about that when I bought it.
Whatever. Mum. Focus.
I peer over and feel as if my brain is cut off from the rest of me. Like I’ve run into a room quickly and kicked the cable loose that feeds the TV. From the banister, I see the stairs U-turn their way down, and resting at the bottom is a body.
That can’t be right.
But it is. Mum’s on the floor. She’s not moving and her eyes are closed. I crane my head to the side and notice something on the walls above her. It’s white, squirming its way down towards the carpet. It looks like heavy cream or milk left out too long, skinning over as it slides.
I’m mouthing for Mum to wake up. The volume kicks back in and no, I’m screaming it.
It’s like I’m watching myself. I want to go down to her. I make my way towards the stairs and get about five steps down before I see them.
Four figures lumber into view by the front door, which is lodged in my wall in a crater-like impact site. I can only see the bottom halves of them. Their legs are covered in the same shit that’s on the wall.
I shout a good Phil Mitchell style ‘Oi!’
One of them takes a step forward—more of a slow-motion lunge, really. It’s a man. I wince as I see his face. He’s a junkie. Well, if a junkie was illustrated by the Daily Mail. Hair that smells more than it looks; a ripped hoodie stained with God knows what. More of that liquid drips from his hands, threading between his fingers like melted mozzarella before snapping onto the floor. They are swollen and milky. He must be off his nut.
My brain catches up to the present and the conclusion I reach is that Mum’s been assaulted and I’m being robbed. It has only been about five seconds since I got to the top of the stairs.
I literally have no frame of reference for this. I’m a middle-class millennial slob with no tangible value. I’m used to comfort, to subscription services, oat milk flat whites, peeing in the shower and Deliveroo for lunch. I’m not prepared to process what’s going on.
Still, that floating feeling continues. I’m aware I’m gripping the banister as I slowly edge forward, tempting a fate I want nothing to do with, yet I creep. I need to get to Mum.
A second person comes into view. The other two are further back by the door, so from my position I can still only see their legs. The second figure is strange. I can’t decide if it’s a man or a woman. They’re small, much smaller than the first guy.
Fuck me, it’s a kid.
That’s the neighbour’s kid, isn’t it?
I go down a few more steps. Six left until the bottom. Until Mum. My fists are clenching. My plan, such as it is, seems to be to throw myself into them. I’m going to have to beat up a child and a drug-addled bum.
The figures bend down to Mum. Their hands snake out towards her.
I let out an angry roar.
They hear it and stop. The kid looks up. The man looks up. The two further back look up. Four pairs of milky, swollen eyes find me.
Click, click, click, click.
A noise emanates from them, like rickety wheels on a bicycle.
I freeze. They stop. We make eye contact. I’m aware of a wave of nausea, the adrenaline overwhelming. The little kid’s eyes are milky and puffy too, bulging and pulsating as they flick up and down, taking me in. The skin around them looks stretched and waxy, like two boiled eggs under clingfilm. The lead junkie does the same. Mum said accident—a car crash, perhaps?
My logical rationalisation of the situation is dispersed as the little kid roars back at me in the exact tone and length of mine.
A sense of dread floods over me. It subsumes me like a rope yanking at my midsection, trying to pull me down. Make me cower in a ball and close my eyes.
Before I’ve had time for so much as a cowardly scream, the women at the back do the same as the kid, then the lead junkie follows.
They’re mocking me.
Something moves to my right.
My goosebumps stand to attention at once and my teeth weld shut with fear. I’m level with the door to the kitchen on the right and my home office on the left. I swivel my head as a blur rushes at me. Another roar, identical to mine. I’m tumbling as something tackles me to the ground. My head hits the carpet of my home office and everything goes a shade darker.
The fifth figure is another man. He looks familiar, but he’s covered in the sticky milky substance. He’s quick to scramble away, on all fours now, towards Mum. Like he’s checking on her.
They’re all like that.
None of this makes sense.
Mum screams in agony.
I want to explode. I want my mum. I want my dad. I grab hold of the doorframe and pull myself up out of the office.
Mum is still lying on the floor and the five of them are on her. The two women pin her arms. The man has her legs. The kid finds a gap between them and is at her torso. I stumble forward, my head still spinning, but the fifth man senses it and sits up. He snarls at me before heaving his arms towards me. I fall back in a panic.
It’s a flurry of movement, a blur of motion. They are biting, pulling, ripping. Creating an aperture, an orifice in her stomach. Using her arms like appetisers, any flesh they can find, they gorge on. Skin stretches and comes away in wet strips. Something pops. Something slaps the skirting board. There is blood everywhere and it mixes with the white liquid, giving a pink hue to everything in my hallway.
Mum’s favourite colour.
I put my hands over my ears, but it doesn’t help, and I can’t close my eyes. Mum’s muffled screams quieten until all that is left is the sound of smacking lips, chewing, and the horrible soft suck of mouths pulling away from meat.
I don’t know what to do.
I am a coward.
‘Look after Mum’ rings around my head.
My dad would be disgusted with me.
Mum is silent now.
Good job, Thomas.
She’s dead. I let my mum die.
No, I let my mum get attacked, beaten and murdered. I watched it all happen in front of me like it was performance art. The tears are flooding out of me, and I’m wailing louder than I’ve ever heard myself.
Something bizarre happens, though.
The sobbing stops them.
It takes me a few seconds to notice, but the clue is the sound of the gorging dying down. I look back at the pile of bodies on the floor and five pairs of milky, swollen eyes stare back at me.
This is it. They’ve feasted on Mum and now it’s my turn.
Good. I deserve it. Come on then, do it.
I try to say it, but the words are choked by tears.
The five … things … sob.
The noise is chilling. The muscles in their faces twitch and contort to match mine. Their milky eyes pulse harder and harder until a solitary tear leaks from each of them, but it’s not a normal tear. It’s heavy and viscous. It’s the same substance as on the walls. It falls to the floor, refusing to be absorbed into the carpet, sitting there like a bubble of yoghurt skin. A product of my emotion born from these foul creatures.
All five stand. They’ve discarded Mum like a disappointing meal. I dare not look directly at her. The lead junkie’s left arm reaches out. The right soon follows and now the other four figures do the same.
Behind me is just my office. There’s no way out.
I used to play rugby. Not well—I was shit. I’d always been big for my age, so I looked the part. But I was a second row that was flimsy and afraid to tackle. Stevenage Under 16s were blessed and lucky to have me, Mum used to say. Because I was a ‘nice polite lad’. I used to scoff at that. I wouldn’t now. Please say it again.
In the half second before the five figures feast on me like a bargain bucket, the only plan I have is to pretend I’m holding the rugby ball and close to the try line.
So I go for it.
I thrash like an unsteady hippo as the top of my head clumsily hits the fifth figure square in the chin. His teeth clack shut with a sound like a cheap toy, and a string of white spit whips across my cheek. He’s knocked back and stumbles into the lead junkie and it starts a comedic domino effect as these disgusting beings slapstick all over each other. Did I mention they’re all still sobbing? I’ve knocked five murdering mutant fucks onto their arses and they’re all sobbing on top of the decimated corpse of my mother.
I told you I fucking hate Sundays.
I head straight for the front door as I half hurdle, half skirt past the melange of limbs and maws on the floor. It’s open. The door itself is still lodged in the wall from the force of the impact that knocked Mum down. I’m a step away when three more figures appear at the end of my shitty front garden path. They emerge from the bay trees that have always been here and I have never once watered. This was called out on the street’s WhatsApp group within the first month of my arrival.
Right, so now I’m fucked.
The sobbing is dying down. They sound angrier, panting and groaning as every movement takes on a wet quality.
My house has a garage with a flat roof over it. I can get to that from one of my many spare bedrooms, this one currently filled with a near mint condition drum kit.
I swivel again and re-enact my rugby barge past the five doddery fucks behind me. I make the first step and then bound up. I am conscious that my testicles have come loose from my baggy boxers, so I’m running away from this pack of mentalists with my balls swinging free.
I reach the top of the stairs and stop. The drum room is to my left, my bedroom behind me. I could go now. Get to the door handle and be out on the roof. But I have nothing, and all I can think about is that I need my phone.
Human beings are nothing without their mobiles.
I grab the banister and propel myself towards the bedroom. My phone is still on my bed where I left it, next to the food tray tousled up with the duvet. Flinging myself towards it, I grab it and stuff it into the elastic band of my boxers before running the few steps back to the landing.
Just as I lunge for the door handle of the drum room, I hear a hurried scrabbling behind me. The kid has made it up the stairs quicker than the rest, and he’s coming at me. Before I can do anything, he flies, launching himself at me like a ball of death. I try to dodge, but I’m still slow and hungover. He clips me on the left shoulder and I stagger back into the doorframe. Something falls down and hits me on the head as I hear the approaching steps of the others.
That’s that, then. I’m finished.
Just eat me, or lick me, or whatever you do. Make it quick.
I sit slumped in my pants with my back to the door of the drum room. Allowing my head to sag, I look down and notice what hit me.
The pole for the loft.
The loft.
THE LOFT.
I have mere seconds to try a last desperate Hail Mary. I pick up the pole and swing wildly at the encroaching kid from next door. I hit him hard in the head and then jab at his milky eyes. To my disgusted shock, one of them pops with the resistance of a yoghurt pot lid giving way, and the kid tumbles back down the stairs, spraying his mates like a milk frother gone wrong.
So I take my chance.
The things on the stairs are coming for me no matter what I do, so I keep my eyes on the prize and block them out. The prize in question is the tiny metal loop that will allow me to open the hatch and unfold the attached stepladder. I yell at myself to calm down.
The footsteps near. The groaning rises. My yell from a few seconds before is mimicked by a couple of them. I notice a horrific smell, like eggs soaked in lemon that have sat in the bin too long, with a warm sourness underneath, like tea towels left beside a radiator.
Juddering, scraping, a third attempt misses. Just as I’m out of time, I make contact and pull as hard as I can. The loft hatch obeys and opens. I grab the folded wooden stepladder like it’s the last slice of pizza. The hatch is acting as a barrier between me and the things, and I have a few seconds to climb up.
I’m nearly at the rim of the loft when I glance back down the main staircase. I see Mum’s face. Her eyes are closed. I can’t see the rest of her mangled corpse, so I’ll just pretend she’s sleeping.
Hands start to rock the stepladder.
I force myself up and into the loft before turning and yanking the ladder back towards me. I’m left with a lasting image of eye contact with the lead junkie as I rip the stepladder out of his bloated sausage fingers dripping with pallid ooze.
‘Get fucked,’ I shout as the stepladder folds and I pull the loft hatch shut.
I am in darkness.
I hear them below groaning and stamping around, bumping into the walls.
I’m safe or trapped. Maybe both.
About the Author
Louis Urbanowski is the best-selling comedy author of The Right Members Club and the forthcoming British zombie comedy The Milks. He writes political satire, short fiction and stories about institutions held together by misplaced confidence.
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