by Drew Brown
The further we crept into the gloomy basement, the more I wanted to run back to the daylight of the hallway above. And I would’ve done it, too, except that I needed the power on as much as anyone else. I couldn’t fly a plane that was locked in a hangar. And in the maze of passages and rooms that filled the space beneath the mansion, the others would probably take an age to find the generator unaided.
Also, the way that the schoolchildren had attacked the cabin—not to mention the locals from the village apparently waiting for us to get out of the truck—scared me. What if the zombies really had learned to vary their attacks, to look for other ways to follow us? I’d have been much happier had the ugly monsters stayed pressed against the doors from the cafeteria.
Now that they’d vanished, I felt much, much worse…
“What’s your name, little girl?” Andy asked again.
The sobbing had almost stopped and, after inhaling deeply, the little girl answered. “Becky.”
“Hello, Becky, my name’s Andy.”
Budd glanced back but could make out little more than the dim outline of shadows following him in the darkness. The little girl still struggled to escape Andy’s arms.
“Please, let me go. They’ll get you. I have to hide.”
“No, Becky, you’ll be safe with us. We’re going to turn on t’power an’ then fly away in a plane. We’ll take you with us.”
“They’ll catch you,” the little girl repeated. “They’ll catch everyone.”
“Is your family here?”
“They’ve changed.”
“I’m sorry,” Andy said, “but I promise we’ll get you away from here, Becky. I promise.”
“Please, let me go. I know they’re coming. You’ll die.”
What a little bundle of joy. It was non-stop laughs with her around. And to think, I’d felt pretty miserable before she’d started spreading her unique brand of doom…
In front of him, Budd watched as Sanders slowed to a halt. The soldier shined his light left and then right, exploring the different paths that led from an intersection. Above their heads, attached by brackets to the wooden beams, were dozens of varying-sized pipes clad in silver-foil-encased polystyrene. The boiler room was nearby. “Which way?”
“Left, then right,” Budd said.
Sanders did as he was told and then found himself in a short corridor that came to a dead end. Before he reached the white-painted brickwork, however, there were two doors.
“The left one’s the powerhouse.”
Sanders tried the door. The handle moved, but it was locked. A sign beside it read NO UNAUTHORIZED ADMITTANCE. The soldier kicked the door open and, with the flashlight beam leading the way, he stepped inside and looked around. “Who knows about this stuff?”
All eyes fell to Andy.
“Becky,” the maintenance man said, “I’m just going to let my friend Sam hold you for a little while. You’ll be safe.”
The little girl fought in his arms, causing him to hesitate.
“Come on, man,” Budd urged, frustration in his voice. “We don’t have time for this.”
“She’s only a child,” Andy replied, but, nevertheless, the maintenance man still handed her to Sam, ignoring her resistance. “Shine the light this way,” he said, pointing to a board of switches and valves on the side of a large generator. There were two in the room alongside one another, each one sprouting a network of cables and pipes. “Budd, do you know which one supplies the airfield?”
“Not a clue.”
I could toss a coin…
“Then I’ll have to do them both.”
“Just hurry,” Sanders said.
Budd watched as Andy moved from one generator to the other, flicking switches and familiarizing himself with the setup of the vast machines. After a couple of minutes spent working silently, he opened a valve that led to the bottom of each generator, one after the other. He stepped back, rubbing grease from his hands onto his pants. “I think they’re prepared. I just have to press this,” he said, pointing to a large, circular red button, “to get them running.”
A long way off, echoing down the corridors, came the sound of lots of running footsteps. The noise consumed the silence.
“Press them, God damn it,” Sanders said.
Andy did as he was told and the first generator burst into life. The lights of the room and the corridor outside came to life and the machine’s rumble drowned out the footsteps, but Andy didn’t hesitate to push the second button and start up the next generator.
In the basement, nothing changed.
“Come on,” Sanders said, running out the room. He went back to the intersection and glanced in each direction. The first beast was only ninety feet away, coming from the staircase.
In a black business suit but with bare feet, the man-beast was running towards them.
Sanders released a short burst from his MP-5, which knocked the beast to the ground. Despite a bullet-riddled chest, he tried to get back up. “We need another way out,” the soldier shouted over his shoulder.
Budd pulled his chainsaw’s ripcord. “Follow me.”
40
Budd ran straight along the hallway, bypassing the monster-packed option to his right. He desperately tried to remember the easiest way out of the maze of basement rooms and passages.
There were lots of dead ends. And if I got it wrong, the phrase would have a whole new meaning…
From the rear, he heard Sanders unleash another volley of gunshots. He darted down a corridor on the left-hand side, and then followed it around to the right.
He kept running.
Over the pounding of his heart—and the hum of the chainsaw’s motor—he could make out the footsteps of the others behind him. He risked a quick backward glance: Andy was there, running alongside Sam and taking the little girl from the Californian’s weary arms.
Behind them and gaining fast was Sanders.
I didn’t want to think ’bout what was behind him…
“Come on, keep up,” Budd shouted, his voice hoarse. He looked forward again and led them down the left-hand path at a T-junction. He continued on and found himself in a hallway that was not as well lit as the previous one; several of the fluorescent tubes that hung from the low ceiling were still flickering in and out of life.
The corridor was long, more than a hundred feet.
By the time Budd reached its end and took another look back, he saw that that the first of the chasing monsters had already started along the passage. They appeared to be the same businessmen and businesswomen from the cafeteria.
The fast-movers had abandoned the handcuffed door and found another way around. They were no longer mindless slaves to their hunger, but were cunning and devious, undeniably creature-like.
When I accepted this—that they were not just fast and determined, but were thinking and planning as well—the terror took on a whole new meaning. It was exactly as Deacon had predicted.
We didn’t stand a chance.
Any of us…
On the wall, in large green letters, was a sign that read EMERGENGY EXIT. Next to the words was an arrow pointing to the right, and Budd allowed himself the smallest of smiles; he’d remembered the way.
Thirty feet down the passage, the concrete walls spread apart, creating a small chamber that was six feet taller than the corridor it grew from. In its center, a metal ladder rose to a hatch in the roof.
Budd grabbed the cylindrical rail with one hand, the metal cold on his skin, while in the other he held the chainsaw away from his body. He scurried up the rungs, his eyes skyward and looking to the glass panel in the center of the hatch. Through the thick glass, he could see the gray fog of the world above.
He reached the top, secured himself with his chainsaw-holding right arm around the ladder, and then pushed up against a bar that crossed the hatch. The heavy springs opposed him at first, but fear gave him strength, and he heaved the hatch upwards.
He scrambled through the narrow gap and
pulled himself up onto the concrete ground. He looked around the gray-shaded world that surrounded him and discovered that he’d emerged at the rear of the mansion; having come out of the ground nearly ninety feet away from the building, he could barely see the white walls.
He enjoyed his first breath of cool, fresh air, but then bolted to his feet, terrified by the sound of hands and feet scaling the ladder.
Sanders emerged from the hatch and immediately turned around to help pull Sam free. The two of them collapsed onto the concrete in a heap.
“Quickly,” Andy called, his voice coming from the hatch. “Take t’girl.”
With Sanders still untangling his limbs from Sam’s, Budd stepped towards the hole. He hesitated, hoping that some other course of action would present itself, but nothing did, and so he leaned over the edge. Andy was a third of the way up the ladder and had Becky raised above his head. She was a little below the rim of the hatch.
“Take her,” Andy shouted.
Budd threw the chainsaw down, which cut the motor, and then dropped to his knees and took hold of the girl with both hands, hauling her up by her armpits. He dropped her onto the concrete and then looked back to the hatch, watching as Andy’s hand rose above the rim.
The floor beneath the maintenance man filled with bodies: men and women dressed in suits and nightwear, their faces covered with rage and hatred.
“Andy!” Budd shouted, but the warning was too late.
The lower half of Andy’s legs were not high enough to escape the rising tide of beasts and they ripped into him, trying to drag him down. His knuckles turned white as they locked around the ladder’s rail. “Help me,” he cried, struggling to get free.
Budd only watched for a moment.
The creature-people were already climbing over Andy’s body, using it as an extension of the ladder, striving to get out into the open. Budd scooped his right foot beneath the hatch and slammed it closed. He stepped on top of it. The monsters below pushed upward, trying to lift it, but his weight was too much for them to overcome. He kept his eyes away from the glass window between his boots.
Inside the tunnel, Andy screamed.
41
“Dude, what about Andy?” Sam asked in a voice that was wracked with fear. He and Sanders were back on their feet and the young Californian was struggling to regain his breath.
“They caught him,” Budd said. His body shuddered with each attempt the monsters made to lift the hatch. “We’ve gotta weigh this down.”
Sanders looked around, turning this way and that, his MP-5 at the ready. “I can’t see anything to use. How far’s the truck?”
“The other side of the mansion,” Budd said, pointing to his left, which, despite the fact that he could hardly see any of the white-painted structure, was the way he thought would be the quickest.
Sanders looked down at the hatch, and Budd did the same. Pushed against the glass porthole was a woman’s face. She had blood along the valleys of her teeth. Her arms were spread wide, pushing upwards, and so were lots of others, each one pushing from the rungs of the ladder.
“If you get off, can we outrun them?”
Budd hesitated.
While he was playing the question over in his mind, Becky wrapped her arms around his right leg, resting her head against his hip. She was crying. “It’d be tight,” he said.
Sanders took one look at Sam, who was bent over, hands resting on his knees, his hair hanging down with his chest heaving mightily. “I’ll go fetch it,” Sanders said, turning and jogging away. “If I’m not back in two minutes, I’m already dead.”
I’ll be honest, I didn’t want Sanders to go—he had the only sub-machine gun.
But there was no way either Sam or I could still escape the horde of corporate zombies beneath me, and there was nothing heavy enough nearby to take my place. We also had Snot-nose to consider. How could I run with her clinging to my leg? The answer, ladies and gentleman, is not very well, and even I would’ve paused before leaving her behind.
Briefly…
Sanders vanished into the fog before Budd could raise an objection. Sam made as if to follow the soldier, but then he stopped, his lungs still not recovered from their previous exertions. “What if he doesn’t come back?”
The question bolted across my mind, and almost in an instant I had an answer. I’d shoot Sam and use his corpse to weigh down the hatch. If Sanders had still been around, I may even have suggested it.
Ho-hum, live and learn…
“If he can fly to Hope Island, a tiny spec on a wall-chart atlas, in all this cloud and fog, using only instruments, then even I’d take my hat off to him. If I hadn’t already lost it.”
“I don’t like being out here.”
“I’m not thrilled ’bout it either, buddy.”
Becky released Budd’s leg and grabbed his hand. She pulled his arm, trying to drag him away from the hatch after Sanders. “Quickly, we must go now,” she said, her small face animated and her eyes puffy with tears.
“We can’t go yet, Snot-nose.”
“Dude, don’t call her that.”
“She is a snot-nose.”
Becky pulled at Budd’s arm again. “Please, we must go. They’re coming.”
“We’re not going anywhere, Snot-nose. That nice man’s coming back with a truck.”
“They’re coming,” she said again, her voice sad as much as angry. Gradually, she ceased her fruitless efforts to tug him away and wrapped her arms around his leg.
Unnerved by what she’d said, Budd looked up to examine the surrounding area. Beneath him, the struggling of the beasts at the hatch came to a halt. When he looked down, there were none to be seen through the glass. “Keep an eye out,” he said, gulping down his fear.
He looked into the thick fog but saw nothing through the gray expanse except for the vague outline of part of the mansion, a mere dark patch in the uniform blandness. The eerie silence was unnerving. There was no wind and no rustle of leafs in the nearby woods. The fog was acting like a buffer, dampening the sound. There was little to hear, other than Becky’s soft sobbing and the occasional scrape of Sam’s sneakers as he shifted on the concrete.
In the distance, Budd thought he heard a rumbling noise. Sam looked at him and their eyes met. “The truck,” Budd said.
The young Californian nodded, sweeping back his greasy, shoulder-length hair. “I think so, dude.”
From the house came the sound of shattering glass. Budd looked towards it, but whatever had happened was hidden inside the fog. Without warning, the hatch beneath his feet lurched violently upward and almost sent him toppling over. He barely managed to regain his footing and keep the hatch held down. When he looked through the porthole, the monsters were there again, struggling to get out.
“I think they tried to trick us,” Budd said, his heart racing as he looked down. There was a man there now, a red tie visible around his white collar. His lips were pulled back and his teeth were pressed against the glass, his nose squashed sideways. “Do you kiss your mother with that face?” Budd asked the creature flippantly.
“Look!” Becky said, pointing with one hand towards the hulk of the mansion.
At first, Budd strained to see anything, but then he saw a dark, shadowy figure creeping towards them. As he looked on, he saw several others close behind.
“Oh, fuck,” Sam said, fumbling to raise his handgun. “We’ve got to run.”
“Wait,” Budd replied, swinging around his shotgun on its canvas strap so that it was grasped in his hands. He tapped his pants pocket, feeling for his spare shells. “If we start running, they’ll follow us. Maybe they’ll stay back long enough for Sanders to arrive if they think we’re willing to fight.”
“But, like, I’m not willing to fight. I want to run, dude,” Sam said, stepping backwards so that he was standing alongside Budd.
Becky was sandwiched between them. “Quickly,” she said, “we must go.”
“No, Snot-nose, the truck’s comin’.”
The figures came ever closer, their bodies hunched over.
42
Budd risked a glance to his left and found that the truck’s headlights created a wall of reflective light in the fog, which approached them like a giant snowplow.
“He’s almost here.”
“So are they, dude.”
The young Californian was right.
Budd watched the dark figures as they emerged from the fog. The nearest were barely forty feet away, close enough that he could make out the detail and color of their clothes, and see the darkness of their sunken eyes. “Let ’em have a few shots, Sam. Nice and easy, though. See if we can scare ’em off.”
Sam nodded.
He aimed, paused, and fired.
The bullet ripped off, straight and true, piercing the nearest assailant through the center of her chest. She collapsed backwards to land on the grass, her long dark hair fanning out and a mist of blood spraying from her wound.
After writhing and kicking on the ground, the woman climbed back onto her knees. A dark red patch filled the middle of her cream-colored blouse, and blood stained the palms of her hands from where she’d clawed at her wound. With an immense effort, the woman rose unsteadily to her feet.
Others had already overtaken her.
“That one,” Budd said, pointing out a male on the edge of the advancing group. Dressed in nothing more than blue boxer shorts and sporting a rotund belly that overhung the elastic waistband, the man-beast was trying to slip around the side of them. Sam turned and fired, finding his mark and downing the monster.