by Craig Jones
The train was getting ready to leave for the last time.
“We need to move it,” I said, then had a sudden thought. “Jenny, hop up on that truck bonnet. See if you can spot a clear route through.”
I felt Robbie tense as his mother leapt from the bike and ran to the truck, boosting herself up. She looked ahead for a few seconds and then jumped down and sprinted back to the bike.
“Do you see the red van, just there?”
She pointed about thirty yards ahead. I nodded.
“Swing right just before it and we’re in the clear,” she instructed. “You could ride the bike right through the terminal doors and onto the train.”
“Hold on!” I said and engaged first gear.
Something growled at me from my left, and I turned just in time to catch a glimpse of something moving towards us, quickly and aggressively. It leapt at the bike and before I could move us out of the way, it smashed into us, sending the already perilously unbalanced motorbike, me, Jenny, and Robbie to the ground.
49
Robbie and I were thrown clear of the bike, both of us landing with painful grunts. Jenny had not been so lucky. Her right leg was trapped under the back wheel. With my muscles screaming at me to just stay still, I dashed across to her and tried to lift the motorbike.
“No!” she yelled. “Look! Behind you!”
I turned slowly, suddenly aware of the heavy panting that permeated the night. In between the raspy breaths, whatever it was that had smashed us from our seats was almost chuckling with ghoulish glee.
“Matt!” Robbie wailed from his place on the ground, and I feared for the boy’s sanity. Blood dripped from his lower lip, and the hands he held out to me were scuffed and scratched from the fall.
Finally, with the train engine reaching a crescendo just a few hundred yards away, I made eye contact with the zombie that had thrown itself at us, halting our escape.
General Rogers stood ten meters away from me. His cap had been knocked from his head and his scar shone, reflecting the glare of the spot lights. His lips were wide and trembling. His tongue flicked out of his mouth from side to side as if he was the hungriest man in the restaurant and his prime steak had just been delivered to the table. His face was purple with rage, his neck muscles tense and taught, his fists clenched. His blood-soaked Army uniform was torn halfway up his left leg, and I could see where something had gnawed away at his thigh until he’d changed into one of the undead. He stared at me with those eggshell eyes, dead, yet still able to see me for what I was to him. Food. . He tilted his head back and roared at the clouds above us.
My hand moved instinctively to my waistband, towards Rogers’s own gun, but it was no longer there. It must have been thrown aside when we crashed. I didn’t know what I’d expected to be able to do with the weapon. If Rogers was capable of tackling a moving motorcycle, then he was clearly going to be too quick for my feeble gun skills. I began to circle away from Rogers but also away from Jenny and Robbie. If I could draw him away from them, then I hoped Robbie would be able to free his mother. If nothing else, I wanted that little boy to make it onto the train. Rogers lowered his head and glared at me once more. I swallowed, eyes shooting left and right, looking for an escape route, a weapon, anything.
Rogers bent his knees and paused, teeth bared. Then with a primeval bark, he launched himself at me like a cheetah at a gazelle. The gap between us was closed in seconds, and I brought my hands up to protect my face. As he bounded, he dropped his right shoulder towards me and planted it firmly into my chest. The impact knocked the air from my lungs, and I was lifted off the ground, flying backwards a few feet before landing in a crumpled heap. I tensed, expecting to feel the cold bite of his infected mouth tearing the skin from my bone but nothing happened.
I looked up. Rogers had backed off and paced from side to side. Once again, he was ten meters away. He reminded me of the prisoner zombie on the bridge in Usk.
“Robbie!” I called. “Help your mom. Get out of here!”
Robbie’s paralysis broke, and he ran to Jenny. The pair of them used all of their strength to try to lift the heavy motorbike. The pain in my ribs left me feeling like I’d been hit by the train we were chasing, and blood tricked down my face from my nose. Grimacing through the agony, I managed to get back to my feet and once more tried to draw Rogers’s attention away from my friends.
And they were my friends. At last I had people in my life that I cared for more than myself. After Danny died, I’d been selfish, arrogant and ignorant. Now I was going to do something for someone else.
“Come and get me,” I shouted at Rogers. “What are you waiting for?”
His shoulders rose and fell with every breath he took, and each exhalation became more animalistic, more enraged. He charged again and at the last second, I tried to jink out of his path, but he matched my motion and I was flung backwards, across the bonnet of a parked car. I rolled and fell to the floor, my back against the now dented car. Rogers backed off again, paced from side to side, and then he looked back over his shoulder at Robbie and Jenny. Somehow they had managed to lift the bike just enough for Jenny to pull her leg out.
Rogers took his hands out to his side, filled his lungs with air and bellowed at the top of his voice.
“Run!” I shouted. “Before others arrive. Get to the train station.”
“No,” Robbie cried. “Matt, we can--”
“Jenny!”
Jenny grabbed her son by the arm and began to drag him in the direction of the channel tunnel. Rogers watched them as they went. Robbie struggled against his mother’s grip, and then the general turned back to me. I used the car to help drag myself back up onto my feet, and now that Robbie and Jenny were on their way to safety, I limped towards Rogers.
“I’ve never been afraid of you,” I lied. “And I’m not afraid of you now!”
Rogers tilted his head to the side. His index finger touched the scar on his forehead and slowly and deliberately, he crouched. Knowing he was about to launch himself at me for the final time, I dug deep into my reserves and began to run first, right at him.
He shrieked, a sound that made my heart almost stop in my chest, and rushed forward. I swung my left hand in a wide punch, hoping at least to hurt him before he ripped me to pieces. But he saw it coming and blocked it, grabbing me by the shoulder and twisting me in towards him. My wrist exploded in pain and silver spots danced across my line of vision. I could feel my consciousness slipping away as he wrapped his massive arms around my chest and began to squeeze the life from me. Just as the world began to turn to black, he let me go, lifted me up and threw me to the floor.
I landed flat on my back, and that was when I knew it was all over. Rogers stood over me, drool dripping down from his grinning mouth. My left wrist was useless, damaged beyond repair. I rolled onto my left side, freeing up my right arm to defend myself one last time. I wasn’t going to give up without a final fight, no matter how desperate my situation was. I owed it to Danny to keep trying, to Nick, to his daughters. And I owed it to Robbie and Jenny to keep Rogers occupied for as long as I could.
“Matt!”
I looked up, stunned. Robbie ran from behind two trucks ducked to pick something up from the floor and then skimmed whatever it was across the tarmac towards me. Rogers’s gun slid along the floor, right into my chest. I snatched the gun up as Rogers, preoccupied with Robbie’s return, snarled at the boy. I checked that the safety catch was off and placed the muzzle against the zombie’s right knee.
I fired and quickly swung the barrel towards his left leg, squeezing off a shot that shattered his shin bone. With a furious growl, he fell backwards to the ground. Holding tightly onto the gun, I pushed myself up, cradling my left arm against my side. Rogers clawed at the ground, trying to right himself but his legs no longer wanted to do as they were told.
Not even I could miss such a simple target. I put the bullet into his forehead, just below his scar.
“Let’s go!” Robbie urged
as Jenny ran out into the open.
“Robbie!” Jenny shouted, her voice angry, terrified and relieved all at once.
“You can scold him later,” I said, limping towards her. “Right now we need to get onto that train.”
50
Jenny put her arm around me, taking some of my weight and we began to move slowly towards the train terminal.
“Wait,” I said, shook Jenny’s arm off me and walked back to Rogers’s corpse.
“We don’t want to forget this,” I said and plucked the case containing the cure from his top pocket.
“But that means the end for Jayne and Sally…it means the end for everyone,” Robbie said, mournfully.
“No,” I said firmly. “That’s what Rogers wanted to use it for. If we can get it safely to France, then someone over there, a scientist, might be able to use it to produce a proper antidote.”
I jammed the cure deep down into my trouser pocket and paused. Except for the sound of the train, the night had finally become silent. There was no more machine gun fire. No more banshee-like howls from the living dead. All we had to do was traverse the last few hundred meters to the train terminal and we will have made it.
“We have to hurry,” I said. “After all of this, I don’t want to miss our ride.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Jenny said. “We’re going to--”
The silence was broken by the arrival of the dead. They roared as they charged. I couldn’t see them but from what I could hear, I reckoned we had about thirty seconds before they were on us. Rogers’s cries and bellows hadn’t just been macho zombie bravado. He’d been telling his flesh hungry friends exactly where we were. Walking was no longer an option.
“We need to get the bike upright,” I said.
“But what about your wrist?” Robbie asked.
“We just need to get bike into first gear, and you can help me with that,” I said, hobbling across to the motorbike. The three of us were able to lift it up in seconds, and Robbie boosted himself up into his position, leaning over the gas tank.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Jenny asked.
“I have to be,” I replied, biting my lip with pain as I swung my leg over the saddle. Jenny climbed on behind me.
I pressed the engine start button. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing.
I looked down and saw that the ignition key was still in the off position. I cursed myself and shook my head. The simplest tasks were becoming complicated.
“Robbie, turn the key.”
He reacted instantly and the bike purred to life.
“Now pull in the clutch,” I told him. “Good…now slowly release it.”
His left hand released the clutch lever carefully, and we began to move forward. First gear would have to do, and I twisted the throttle with my right wrist. We accelerated away. Just the movement of the bike made my left arm throb with discomfort.
“There are three of them on our tail,” Jenny shouted.
I twisted the accelerator once more, and the bike leapt forward. In the side mirrors, I could see three Remakes running at us. Their mouths were open, their white teeth shining in the darkness of the night. The bike wobbled from side to side, and I focused on the narrow slice of tarmac ahead. I was having trouble controlling the course of the bike with my left hand hanging uselessly at my side, but I was able to swing it right just before the red car, just as Jenny had advised earlier. She had been right. The rows and rows of cars, trucks and motor homes opened up into a wide plaza, free from traffic, that ran right up to the main entrance doors of the train terminal, less than four hundred years away.
The doors were shut.
“Robbie! Jam your finger on that switch!”
Robbie did as he was asked and the horn of the bike blared out.
“They’re still coming,” Jenny yelled, the panic in her voice growing with every second. I hadn’t realized how much I had eased off the gas when I’d seen the shut doors, but the heavy footfalls of the dead chasing our tail encouraged me to gun the engine.
“And there’re more of them over there!”
From across the plaza, ten more Remakes ran out into the open, spotted us, and changed their course to cut off our escape.
I glanced once more at the closed doors. They were wide, big enough to drive a car through, and made of clear glass. I couldn’t see any movement beyond them. The last of the soldiers, it seemed, had boarded the train. They were giving up on us. They were giving up on Rogers and the cure too.
Instead of swinging the bike left towards the doors, I veered right, away from the advancing undead. Robbie kept his finger pressed down on the horn, and the noise was cutting a swath of pain through my brain.
“Where are you going?” Jenny asked. “We need to go--”
“The doors are shut,” I shouted, hoping she’d hear me, hoping she’d understand. “We can’t just smash through on the bike, we need to get a car or--”
But I knew I was running out of time.
“Soldiers!” Robbie yelled triumphantly.
I looked over my shoulder and the glass doors had slid open. Ten or more soldiers, each wearing the blue helmets with the UN symbol, sprinted out into the spotlights of the plaza and began to rain machine gun fire down onto the zombies. The three that had been right on our tail were the first to fall, initially blasted in a spray of shots to put them to the floor and then carefully picked off with accurate head shots. Next, they turned their attention and their guns on the undead that were sprinting across the plaza towards us. Feeling confident that the soldiers were going to do their job, I spun the bike around and headed right for the doors.
Bullets whistled past as we sped towards the troops, and I felt Jenny tighten her grip around my waist. One of the soldiers waved his arms at me, as if I needed any further encouragement, and pointed for me to drive between the riflemen and right into the station itself.
I heard a bullet make contact with one of the undead seemingly right on our heels. I avoided using the wing mirrors to check. None of us wanted to look back over our shoulders now. All we wanted to do was look forward.
51
I rode the bike through the doors and immediately had to slam on the brakes before we smashed into the ticket offices and the turnstiles that led out onto the platforms. The bike skidded, black smoke rising from the tires as we left a layer of rubber on the tiled floor. The bike stopped with just inches to spare, and I wished Danny had been there to make one of his witty quips.
“Too close for comfort,” Robbie said with a nervy laugh, and that was good enough for me. I snapped down the side-stand, and we all clambered off the motorbike. I hit my wrist on the fuel tank, and I almost blacked out from the pain. The soldiers ran in behind us, and one of them pressed a large silver button that slid the doors shut.
“There’s no lock!” one of them shouted.
“Then we’d better move it!” another shouted, and they ran towards us.
“Come on!”
Jenny again helped me stagger towards and through the turnstiles.
“Platform three,” one of the troops directed, but it was pretty obvious where we had to go. There was only one train in the whole terminal. It was painted bright red--a color that represented the amount blood that had been spilt during our mission from Cardiff.
From behind us, the undead began to pummel on the glass doors, slapping their hands and their faces into the only barrier that stood between us and death. Within the confines of the cavernous terminal building, the monotonous noise of the train engine echoed around us but failed to drown out the hungry horde as they tried to smash their way inside. The soldiers moved towards the train, only one door in the final carriage remaining open. As we approached, Captain Bateman stepped down onto the platform.
“You made it!” he exalted. “I don’t know how, but you made it!”
“Get on,” I told Jenny and Robbie, stopping next to Bateman.
“What about you?” Robbie asked.
“I’ll be there in a second,” I told him, tears springing to my eyes.
Jenny guided Robbie on board as the glass doors behind us cracked.
“They’re breaking through,” one of the soldiers shouted.
“Your turn, Matt,” Bateman advised, gesturing towards the carriage door.
“I can’t,” I said. “General Rogers was turned. He attacked us.”
I lifted my left arm and pulled up the sleeve of my shirt. I turned my hand over to show Bateman my forearm, just below my wrist.
“He bit me,” I said.
The skin was broken in two half-moon cuts. They weren’t deep, but they burned like nothing I had ever experienced before. I could feel the heat working its way up my arm. I guessed that once that reached my brain, my amygdala, that I’d change too, become one of the undead.
The last of the soldiers to board the train heard my words and lifted his assault rifle towards me.
“Oh, Matt,” Jenny cried from the door. She ran towards me, ignoring the orders of the soldier to stay away from me. “Not after all you’ve done for us. Not like this.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I said I’d make sure Robbie was okay, and he is. I failed Danny, but I kept my promise to Robbie.”
“We’ll never forget you. Everyone will know the good things that you did.”
I heard her emphasis on the word “good” and I knew that my secret was safe with her. She’d never tell anyone that it had been me who had caused the second outbreak.
Tears ran down my face as she hugged me. The soldier kept his gun aimed at me, unsure of what to do and Bateman had drawn his own pistol. Then I gently pushed Jenny from me. I cared for her too much to allow her to be close to me when I turned into one of them.
“Go to Robbie. Don’t let him see me like this.”
With her own tears in full flow, Jenny gave me a final, painful smile and got back onto the train. I could hear Robbie’s voice asking what was wrong and then his cries, his shouts demanding to be let go.