Frankie fell silent, his pallid brow wrinkling in contemplation. Smithy left the demon to digest what he’d just learned. It really did seem like he hadn’t known.
The road they were travelling was empty, but ahead lay a single-storey building. A row of motorcycles were parked outside – the Hell’s Angels kind with big silver handlebars – and once they got close enough, Smithy spotted a Harley-Davidson sign hanging in the front window.
I would’ve looked great on a Harley. Just another thing I’ll never experience.
When Smithy had first ventured out of the newsagents, it had terrified him to be out in the open. He’d seen things through his bedroom window that he could never unsee, and he fully expected to die the moment he hit the streets. Fear had caused him to run for his car, where he intended to make for the main roads, but he had never made it past the first bend. Snarled traffic blocked every thoroughfare. The roads were impossible to navigate by car.
But on a motorbike, perhaps…
“This place looks untouched,” said Smithy, his eyes wide with surprise. It was rare you found a place still locked up and secure. “You good to check it out?”
Frankie frowned. “Why? It’s just a motorbike shop.”
“There could be food.”
“I’m not hungry,” said Frankie. “Not even sure I need food any more.”
Smithy chuckled. “Well, forgive me, but I still need to eat. I’m bloody starving.”
“We’ll look for food after we find Davey.”
“You’re kidding, right? We don’t know how long it’ll take to find him. I need food now.”
Frankie turned on him, splintered teeth grinding in a foul snarl. “We’re not stopping, you get me? Once we find Davey, you can stuff your ugly face. Till then, we keep looking.”
“You don’t even know where to start! I can’t just wait for you to—”
Frankie lashed out and caught Smithy in the face, causing him to double over and clutch his cheek. His fingers came away bloody. “The fuck, man?”
Frankie pointed a bony, fleshless finger at him. “I’ll bury you if we don’t find my brother by the end of the day. I’ll stamp your skull into the pavement and see what comes out. Don’t fuck with Frankie fucking Walker, blud, because it’ll be the last thing you ever do. You fucking get me?”
Smithy instinctively went to defend himself, but he realised his hands were empty, his hockey stick now in shards somewhere back the way they had come. He wasn’t certain he could take this demon on with just his bare hands, and in fact he was afraid to try. Frankie was volatile.
Smithy straightened, still clutching his bloody cheek, but trying to act like it was no bother. “Okay, man, cool. Let’s just move on then. I’m sure Davey is nearby.”
Frankie’s scowl faded like a dying match, and he reached out, which made Smithy flinch, but he only patted him on the back. “You’re a sound bloke, Smithy. I might have to keep you around.”
Smithy gave a thin-lipped smile. “Sounds good.”
“Now, let’s go find my little bro. Like I said, I want to find him by tonight or I’m gunna lose my temper.”
Smithy walked behind the demon with his fists clenched and his jaw set. First chance he got, he was making a run for it.
Fuck Frankie Walker and his goddamn temper.
Mass knew he should rejoin the line, but he was too angry. Instead, he walked alone in front of the group that Honeywell had ordered into a column. The pile of burnt bodies lay half a mile behind them now, and the men rose out of the valley towards the treeline.
Mass pulled up into a crouch beside the trees. As much as he needed space, he wasn’t dumb enough to wander into the woods without thought. The trees could hide a hundred men.
Honeywell halted everyone and joined Mass in a crouch. “We need to exercise caution.”
“Don’t you think I know that? If you’d let me question that woman longer, we might have had some idea about what we’re facing.”
Honeywell sighed. “She wouldn’t have told you anything.”
“She might have.”
“No.”
“Okay, fine, maybe not, but it’s screwed up. It’s totally screwed up, Rich. We’ve been out here for months and we ain’t ever come across something like that pile of bodies. It’s… It’s sick.”
“You can’t let it affect you, Mass. How many people are alive because of you? Focus on the good we’re doing, not the bad that still exists.”
Mass rocked forward and put his hands into the long grass, letting his head drop. “I can’t! It’s in my frigging head. All of it, not just today but every second of this screwed-up nightmare. I’ve had nine months of this shit. I… I can’t keep doing this.”
“How old are you, Mass? I don’t think I’ve ever asked.”
Mass frowned, wondering where Honeywell planned on taking the conversation. “I’m not sure if I’ve had a birthday. Let’s say twenty-two.”
“You’re a boy.”
“I’m in charge, you fucker!”
Honeywell chuckled. He picked up a twig from the ground and rolled it between his fingers. “And you deserve to be in charge, Mass, truly. You’re as tough as men come, and your courage inspires the men, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a boy. Trust me, when you reach my age, you can spread things out. You don’t have to feel everything all at once. If you did, I would have put this shotgun in my mouth a long time ago.”
“What’s your point, Rich?”
“That it’ll get better. Bottle up whatever you’re feeling and put it aside for now. Dip into it a little each day until it’s all gone, but don’t swig the entire bottle in one go. You need to be the grown-up here, not just the leader.”
“I’d have to be really grown-up to be as old as you, you old bastard.”
“That’s true, so learn from my wisdom.” He patted Mass on his back, leaner these days rather than bulked out. Gym memberships were scarce in the apocalypse. “You’re a good lad. Don’t let this world grind you down.”
Mass nodded. He knew he was being emotional but couldn’t help it. He’d reached a point where he just couldn’t absorb any more wretchedness. “Just give me a minute, Rich,” he said, “and I’ll get my shit together, okay?”
Honeywell nodded and moved away, but he quickly dropped onto his belly when a bang sounded in the distance. Everybody went prone, shuffling around to face back the way they’d come. The bright sun made the flare difficult to see, but they heard it hiss into the sky.
“It’s Gross and Tusk,” Tox yelled from on his belly.
Mass leapt up and started back down the grassy valley. “They’re signalling for help. Come on!”
Honeywell stood and bellowed with his police sergeant’s voice. “All right, double-time. Gross and Tusk have their arses stuck in a bucket and we need to pull them out.”
The men sprinted, but experience kept them together in a line. Each held their shotguns at the ready, but their firearms would be ineffective until they got close enough to see a threat. Only Tox had a rifle accurate beyond a hundred yards. He’d been an army cadet as a kid, making him the only one with a decent, practised aim.
Mass cursed himself for not leaving Gross and Tusk with more men. They’d been doing this for months now and things had become routine. Every day, they would enter a new zone and clear out any demons before setting out in a line and sweeping a grid until they had the whole area secured. Things had got too easy. The threats had become minimal. Still, no need to panic yet. Gross and Tusk were warriors not children.
The line of men raced through the valley and then started uphill. They were machines, functioning on adrenaline and bloodshed. Mass knew of no reason for Gross to fire a flare other than encountering an enemy. Best-case scenario, he’d spotted a pack of demons that were yet to spot him. Worse-case scenario, he’d been attacked and killed. Neither possibility made absolute sense. Why hadn’t he fired?
The four tents the group had set up in the field lay ahead, still erected.
No one had tampered with them or tried to take them down. No threat presented itself, and when they neared the gravel car park, things began to look more and more like a worst-case scenario. The LMG was still in place on top of the brick building, but there was no sign of Tusk or Gross. Where the hell were they?
The line spread out, making itself a harder target in case an enemy suddenly appeared. Honeywell moved up beside Mass. “This doesn’t feel right.”
“There was no gunfire,” said Mass. “How could they not have got off a single shot?”
Honeywell gave hand signals to the line to engage cautiously. They moved forward, spreading out even more and crouching as they went. They tucked their shotguns against their shoulders. Tox sighted through his hunting rifle. Still no enemy appeared, and his footsteps in the grass were the only sound Mass heard. The brick toilet block was the only thing he could see.
The line reached the fence and Mass opened the gate. He scrambled through and scanned left and right with his Uzi. The lorry and BMW were still parked where they’d left them.
Gross? Tusk? I’ll kick your bloody arses if this ends up being a false alarm.
Please, let this be a false alarm.
Honeywell and the other men moved into the car park behind Mass. Their footsteps hit the gravel and raised a crunching cacophony.
“Where the hell is he?” Tox sounded irritable and tense, making his Scouse accent even thicker. “He’s vanished off the face of the Earth.”
“Shall I check the toilets?” asked Addy, aiming her shotgun at the dark opening of the doorway.
Mass thought for a second, then nodded. “Do it.”
Addy moved up beside the doorway and took a moment to listen for movement. Then she turned on the ball of her foot and slipped inside. The men outside waited nervously, and when she came back out, they breathed a sigh of relief. “No one in there,” she told them, “except for an old shite in one of the bowls.”
Tox alerted everyone by kicking the lorry’s rear bumper. “Damn it!”
Mass marched over, his heart beginning to pound. This was all wrong. “What is it?”
Tox pointed to the rear of the lorry. The shutter was still raised from when they’d first set up, but the supplies were all gone. Stolen. A week’s worth of food and water. Weapons too.
Mass kicked up a mound of gravel and sent it scattering against the lorry’s chassis. “Someone is picking a fight with us.”
“They must have taken Gross and Tusk,” said Addy. She started bunching her ponytail tighter as if getting ready for action. When she lost her temper, she was the fiercest warrior on the team.
Mass felt his mouth grow dry. “If Gross had time to light a flare, he would have had time to fire a shot. I don’t understand it.”
Honeywell cursed and redirected their attention once again. The lorry’s front tyre had been torn to shreds. “Someone was here and we missed it.”
Mass turned and looked at the X5. Its front tyres were also hacked to pieces. This was the work of cowards, people who stole and ran.
Addy raised her shotgun and searched for a target. “Someone wants to make sure we don’t follow them.”
“There’s no blood,” said London, the unit’s oldest member after Honeywell.
“We need to find them,” said Mass.
London nodded. “Too right. Gross owes me half a bottle of whisky.”
Addy showed her teeth. “We aren’t going to let this stand. We’re going after these jokers, right?”
“What if it’s the guys who burned all those people in the field?” said Tox.
“Then we’ll make them pay for it all,” said Mass. “Let’s move.”
A hospital lay ahead, which was a bad sign. While the demons had attacked everywhere, devastating entire cities overnight, some hospitals had held out for a while, treating the wounded as they staggered inside. It didn’t take long for the demons to push through the last lines of defence though, and so the surviving hospitals had become deathtraps full of labyrinthine corridors and cramped wards. Whenever Smithy encountered a hospital, he found nothing but bodies.
“We should move away from here,” he told Frankie. The demon had been silent for over an hour now, and it seemed like he was constantly thinking. What was his deal? Did his brother, Davey, even exist?
Frankie broke from his thoughts and shook his head. “No, my brother could be inside. I… I remember a hospital. Something happened at a hospital. I can see Davey in a room with a bed.”
“But they’re nothing but disease pits. Only thing we’ll find inside is the dead, I promise you.”
“We’re checking it out, blud!” Frankie started to snarl, as much animal as human.
A demon. Don’t forget he’s a demon.
“I’ll wait for you out here,” said Smithy, deciding it was worth a shot.
Frankie growled, and one of his teeth plopped out of his mouth and hit the pavement with a soft clink. He didn’t seem to notice. “I don’t want to get nasty, so do what you’re told, yeah?”
Smithy considered taking his chances in a fight. He’d killed plenty of demons before, so what made this one any different? Other than being coherent and insane at the same time, Frankie was just another meat sack spat out of a gate.
Better to wait. Eventually, he’ll turn his back long enough for me to ditch his rotting ass. Frankie might be dead, but he’s still a dangerous thug.
“Okay, Frankie. I’m with you. Let’s make it quick though.”
Frankie grinned and slapped Smithy on the back. It left him feeling wet, and he didn’t want to think about what had been left on his shirt.
The hospital’s large glass entryway had been jammed open by an overturned trolley bed. A desiccated corpse was sprawled on the pavement beside it with a massive hole where its stomach should have been.
Frankie snorted in amusement. “This guy got messed up, yo. Look, you can see the spine.”
Smithy had seen so many bodies it barely affected him any more, but he still didn’t find it humorous. The only comforting thing was that the body was dry. While it was probably superstition, he considered dry things less plague-infested than moist things. He stepped around the trolley bed and hopped over the corpse.
The stench inside the hospital’s gloomy waiting area was a mixture of damp towels and cat urine, unpleasant but bearable. It was a smell that made you gradually nauseous rather than one that sent you immediately into convulsions. It was as good as things got these days.
“I don’t think we’ll find your brother here,” said Smithy, wary of Frankie’s anger. “Don’t you agree?”
Frankie didn’t get angry. He seemed disappointed. “Davey, where are you, bro? I’m right here.”
“We’ll find him,” said Smithy, not actually giving a shit. “We’ll just keep looking.”
Frankie glanced at him. His eyes were wet, but no tears fell because his eyelids were a goopy mess. It seemed like he might have been crying otherwise. A demon. Crying.
Smithy felt bad for a moment. Maybe Frankie couldn’t help being a violent sociopath. Perhaps it was part of his undead condition. Frankie Walker might have been a saint in a previous life.
Yeah, I don’t see it. He already mentioned his love of ‘smoking bud and chillin’’. Although, right now, that sounds like a pretty good way to live.
“You mind if we take a quick butcher’s?” asked Frankie, almost pitifully. “I just have to be sure. There’s something about a hospital…” He batted at his own head. “Damn it, it’s right in there. Just can’t get at it.”
“Okay,” said Smithy. “Let’s look.”
The deeper they got into this dark and hazardous place, the better chance he would have to do a runner and lose Frankie altogether.
They cut a path through the carpet of dust covering the tiles and headed into a narrow corridor that might have been a staff area. Clipboards and folders littered the floor and Smithy had to kick aside a bundle of bloodstained bandages to get past. Several bodies lit
tered the various offices and cubicles, as well as an unexpected pair of demon corpses, emaciated and vile. Somebody had fought back.
Good on them.
“I used to hate these places, even before they were full of dead bodies,” said Smithy as he searched a desk for anything he could eat. His stomach rumbled despite the dead bodies. A paperback book caught his attention and he considered swiping it for a moment – the only entertainment there was nowadays – but then he saw the naked lovers embracing on the cover and decided against it. He tossed the tawdry novel to the tiles and kicked it away with distaste.
Not quite that desperate yet. Although, it’s a tragedy that there’s a billion hours of porn on the internet and no way of watching it. God, I’d love me some proper filth right about now. Even some nasty old pegging would do it.
Frankie grunted. “I hate hospitals too. Mum used to get carted off in an ambulance at least twice a year. She would drink too much Special Brew or snort some blow, then fall down the stairs and crack her stupid head off the floor. One time, she got fucking pneumonia and was in for two weeks. I had to feed Davey with no money and get him off to school every morning. I was fourteen. No, wait, I think I might have been younger.”
“That sucks. Man, I mean, that really sucks. Davey was lucky to have a brother like you.”
Frankie made a face that might have been intended to resemble a smile but was more a grimace. “I tried my best, you know?”
Smithy nodded. Frankie’s story made him miss his own family. His mum and dad had been good to him, and both his brothers were older and protective. Responsibility hadn’t entered Smithy’s life until at least his twenties, and by then he was a happy, well-adjusted individual. Of all the things he missed, family dinners around the table on a Sunday afternoon took top spot.
Ah, Mum’s gravy, and cheesy mashed potato. A nip of brandy once we’re done.
Frankie turned and shoved a door at the end of the narrow corridor. On the other side was a wider area that might once have been a ward. Now it was a mass of beds, wheelchairs, and snarled medical equipment. Bodies lay everywhere. Blood stained the walls in several places.
Hell on Earth- the Complete Series Box Set Page 117