by Luke Duffy
“Anything else?” she asked as she turned her attention to his leg, trying her hardest to sound casual and reassuring. “What about your arms and back? Any pain, loss of movement, or feeling?”
“I don’t think so,” he replied as he flexed his fingers and shrugged his shoulders, carrying out his own primary survey. “Help me get this damn helmet off, will you?”
Melanie climbed down through one of the rear doors of the fuselage. While Mike took care of himself and attempted to get his pain wracked body into a more comfortable position, she needed to check the area. There was very little else she could do for him at that moment. His leg was swollen and needed immobilising, and she was not trained to deal with whatever was going on inside him. Ensuring that they were out of immediate danger took priority at that moment.
On the ground, she stepped away from the wrecked aircraft, shining her light in a wide arc over the walls around her. Tables and chairs were lying throughout the room, smashed and scattered in all directions. One of the walls had been completely destroyed as the helicopter crashed down from the upper floors. Through the gap, Melanie could see another room. Her light flitted over a row of toilet cubicles and sinks, reflecting from the mirrors that precariously clung to the heavily damaged walls.
She looked around, pointing the torch into the dark corners and doorways of the spacious room, her feet crunching on the piles of masonry, crumbling plaster, and crockery that coated the floor. She could not hear anything other than the sound of her own breathing and foot movements, joined from time to time by the creak of damaged framework or the drip of water from a shattered pipe. It did not seem that the infected were in the building but still, she kept a tight grip on her pistol and her finger pressed against the trigger.
Plates and cutlery were strewn all over the floor along with broken wine glasses and what she believed were piles of menus and crushed table arrangements. At the far end, behind the wreckage of the helicopter, she saw what she presumed was the remains of a drinks bar. Her light glinted against rows of spirits and liqueur bottles set against a broken mirrored wall and reflected from brass beer pumps attached to the bar’s surface. Judging by the décor that consisted of trellises, oriental fans, and snarling dragon heads, she guessed that they had crashed through what had once been a Chinese restaurant. She looked down and shone her light on one of the menus scattered over the floor.
“Mr. Chan’s Cantonese Restaurant,” she read aloud. “Sounds nice.”
She turned and looked back at their aircraft. The Gazelle itself was nothing more than a twisted ruin. It was almost unrecognisable as having once been a helicopter. The tail section had been ripped away and the rotors had shattered into a thousand pieces as they slammed into the rooftop, leaving just the engine compartment and the cockpit. The fuselage was dented and bent out of shape, and every window had been smashed out. It was a wonder how either of them had survived the crash at all.
“How we looking?” Mikes anxious and strained voice drifted out from the dark interior of the fuselage.
“Not sure yet,” she replied as she stepped away from the Gazelle and moved further into the shadows. “I’m going to take a look around. I’ll be back soon.”
“Be careful.”
“Yes, mom.”
She peered through the gaping hole in the wall and shone her light into the restrooms. The only door that she could see led back out into the room that she was standing in, and she could see no damage to the far walls that she surmised backed onto the street outside. She then turned and headed to a set of doors at the other side of the room.
Inside, her light touched against shining metal objects and appliances and she instantly recognised the area as the kitchen. Again, she paused for a moment and listened attentively. The place was cold and dark, and every surface was coated with a fine layer of dust that had settled there over the months. There was no signs of struggle or of the panic that had engulfed the city during the days of the initial outbreak. It appeared that the place had been abandoned and locked tight before the infected overran the country.
She could not detect any movement within the room but until she had physically checked, she could not be sure. Reluctantly and carefully, she inched her way through the darkness, her light dancing from one shadowy recess to the next as she nervously made her way towards the far side of the food preparation area. There she found a heavy fire door that she presumed led out into an alleyway at the rear of the restaurant. She leaned in close and pressed her ear to the hard cold surface. At first she could detect no sound, but after a few seconds, she began to hear the faint noises of something moving around on the other side. It sounded like scraping footsteps, occasionally joined with the clunk and thud of something heavy colliding with a solid object.
Melanie stepped back and studied the door for a moment. There were no windows, so there was no way of knowing exactly what was on the other side. However, she had heard enough and decided that the fire escape would remain shut. Considering it as a way of escape was out of the question. She could see that it was secure and undamaged, and she wasted no time in making her retreat back into the main room of the restaurant and onto familiar ground, closing the kitchen door behind her.
More rooms were cleared and secured. As she left the manager’s office and headed back towards the crumpled helicopter, she began to feel safer in her surroundings. There was one more door that needed to be checked. Beyond it, she presumed to be the restaurant’s main entrance.
“We need to find a way up to the roof, Mike,” she whispered loudly. “I’m moving to the front. Watch my back, will you?”
“You got it,” Mike replied out of the gloom with assuredness.
She walked to the front of the helicopter and headed towards the large heavy wooden barrier that was decorated with ornate golden artwork, depicting oriental flowers and fire breathing dragons that intricately intertwined with one another and gave no indication of where one began and the other ended.
She came to a sudden stop as something to her right caught her eye, illuminated by the light for just a fraction of a second. She took a step closer and then realised what the red pulpy mass was. She recognised the boots first and then the scraps of a torn and blood soaked army uniform amongst the piles of rubble and contorted steel framework. It was the remains of the soldier they had tried to rescue. The unfortunate man had been decapitated by the rotor, his body being beaten and crushed while the helicopter and tons of masonry fell down upon him as they all tumbled through the collapsing building. She looked away and shuddered before continuing forward.
At the door, she paused and looked back at the room around her, sweeping her light from side to side and letting it linger for a moment on the remains of the helicopter. She could not see him, but she was sure that Mike was staring back at her, holding his pistol at the ready in his weak and shaking hands.
Pressing her ear to the door, she listened for a few moments. Muffled thuds, sounding distant, could be heard from beyond the thick wooden barrier. Holding her breath, Melanie tried hard to distinguish whether or not the noises were coming from the next room or if they were from beyond the outer walls. With her head still throbbing and her mind continuing its slow spin from the crash, it was impossible for her to tell. She was caught in a dilemma. She could choose to leave the door sealed and retreat to the main room, praying for a rescue that may never come or she could risk moving into the reception area in the hope of finding a set of stairs that would enable them to reach the roof and signal any aircraft that were searching for them. She knew that staying hidden beneath the collapsed roof was not an option. Any helicopter circling overhead could easily miss the building and the wreckage of the Gazelle that was nestled within its dark chasm. She had to go through into the next room.
She switched off her light and raised the pistol so that the barrel was just millimetres from the seal of the door. She swallowed hard and then pushed down on the handle, wincing with anticipation of the inevitable click as the lo
cking mechanism came free from its housing. The handle creaked loudly in the silence as the door came free. She pulled gently and felt a gust of stale air blow through the tiny crack between the door and its frame, lightly brushing against her exposed skin. Goose bumps sprang up on her forearms, and her heart began to race. Again, she paused and listened.
The thuds had become louder now and were accompanied by the snarls and moans of the dead as they hammered away at the outer doors. The room of the reception area was in complete darkness, and through the narrow gap between the door and the frame, it was impossible for Melanie to tell if there were any of the infected inside. She bit down on her lip and tried to blot out the haunting wails of the dead in the streets outside. She squinted into the gloom and concentrated all her senses but it was no use, she would need to step through the doorway and possibly use her light. The thought of giving away her presence terrified her, but she could not risk groping around in the darkness and making noise as she stumbled over objects, or worse, collided with any infected that may be lurking within the shadows.
She pulled the door open further, enough to squeeze her body through. Once across the threshold, she instinctively stepped to the left, pushing her back up against the doorframe and crouching down into a squatting position with her pistol held close to her chest and the barrel pointed outwards. There she remained for a while, staring at the wall of blackness that surrounded her, listening, feeling, and tasting the atmosphere. After a few minutes, her eyes began to identify shapes within the room. She could see the delicate contrast between the dark floor and the lighter coloured walls.
Bulky objects that she presumed were couches and coffee tables became visible against the murky backdrop. Then there was the main door. Its frosted glass panels glowed in comparison to the rest of its solid dark frame as the moon continued to barely penetrate the cloud filled sky above. Faint shapes could be seen moving on the opposite side of the reinforced glass as the door continued to rattle and grown from the mass of bodies pushing against it. For now, the sturdy barrier refused to allow them entry.
“Shit,” Melanie whispered with resignation as she reached for her torch. Her hands were shaking, and a wave of nausea surged up from the pit of her stomach.
She placed her fingers over the lens and switched it on, allowing only the tiniest shard of light to pass from between her glowing fingertips. She hoped that it was small enough to remain unnoticed by the prying dead eyes beyond the opaque glass of the door. She took in a deep breath and began to move through the room, remaining in a crouched position and carefully placing each step as she shone the thin beam over the furniture and the walls. Silently, she prayed that there would be a door containing a set of stairs leading up towards the roof. She had seen no sign of a staircase in any of the other rooms within the restaurant, leading her to believe that they must be somewhere near the front of the building, adjacent to the reception area.
On the left was a desk where the maître d would have been stationed, welcoming guests and providing them with drinks and menus as they waited to be seated. Behind the reception desk was a small cloakroom, and on the opposite side was the seating area. Again, the walls were adorned with an abundance of oriental décor, but there was no sign of a door or a stairwell. She suddenly felt deflated as she realised that getting back to the roof was not going to be easy. She wondered to herself if she could have missed the stairs, but she was sure that she had not. Either the building had no internal staircase, which was highly unlikely, or they had been destroyed when the helicopter had crashed through the roof.
There was a sudden thump to her left, and the main entrance juddered violently as a blurred face pressed itself against the glass. Hands appeared and began to pound away at the panes, joined by the cries of the infected that became louder and more ferocious as they battered away at the window and heavy steel frame. Somehow, they knew she was there. They had seen her light or sensed her moving around. However they had detected her, it did not matter. They now knew that a living person was in the building, and that was enough for Melanie to want to retreat back towards the wreckage of the helicopter.
“We’re up shit creek, Mike,” she whispered fearfully as she pushed her head and shoulders back in through the door of the rear compartment. “They know we’re here, and I don’t think there’s any stairs.”
“What do you mean, there’s no stairs?” He gasped, his voice filled with doubt. “What kind of building has no stairs?”
“I think we landed on them when we crashed,” she replied, shining the light up at the hole in the ceiling.
She looked down at the floor around her and saw golden coloured framework and what she believed to be the remains of bannisters and rails.
“Yep, I think we destroyed the stairs when we came through the roof.”
They both looked at one another for a moment. They knew that it would be virtually impossible for them both to climb up through the destroyed floors. With his broken leg, Mike knew that he had no hope of making it to the roof. Their only option was for Melanie to try for it alone and leave him in the crashed helicopter. Their radio was out of action, and their only hope of attracting attention was by using the flares that they had in their escape gear.
“I’m cold, Mel,” Mike said weakly.
“Me too,” she replied, feeling a shiver run the length of her spine. In the light of her torch, she could see her breath misting as she exhaled.
“What are we going to do?”
Melanie shook her head and looked around at the smashed cockpit. She had attempted to send their coordinates before the crash, but she had not completed the message and she doubted that the command centre were able to make much sense of the information she had managed to relay before they lost communications. She reached under the seat beneath Mike and pulled out a small canvas holdall. Inside were a number of flares, a first aid kit, enough food and water to last a day or two, and a blanket.
“Not exactly Bear Grills style survival gear, is it?” Mike remarked with disappointment as he looked down in to the bag that Melanie was busy rummaging through. “You looking for anything in particular?”
“An emergency beacon,” she replied impatiently.
Eventually, she slammed the bag down on to the floor and let out a frustrated snort. At that moment, she wanted to scream and burst into tears, but she needed to keep control of her composure. Allowing herself to fall to pieces now would do neither of them any good.
“Bad news, then?” Mike quipped.
Melanie nodded, her shoulders slumping as she felt that the odds were being deliberately stacked against them.
“They know we’re here, Mike,” she whispered, still staring down into the dark opening of the canvas bag.
“I know,” Mike replied sadly. “And I know you’re not talking about HQ.”
She sniffed back the tears that threatened to blur her vision and took a deep breath in an attempt to control her fear and feelings of helplessness. Mike watched her, sympathising with her and feeling the same sense of vulnerability and hopelessness, but he was determined not to allow it to beat them.
“We should try to get some sleep,” he suggested, not knowing what else to suggest. “We’ll wait till morning and then, hopefully, have a better idea of how things are.”
She nodded and picked up the blanket from the bag. Climbing the rest of the way into the fuselage, she was careful not to trample on Mike’s leg. He let out a grunt of gratitude as she sat herself down on the seat beside him, pushing her body close to his and covering them both with the blanket as she rested her head upon his shoulder.
“What is this building, anyway?” Mike asked with curiosity.
“A Cantonese restaurant.”
“Damn. I could really go for a Chinese, right now,” he replied with a faint smile as he remembered the old days and the things they used to take for granted.
“I don’t think Mr. Chan would be too impressed with what we did to his restaurant.”
“Wh
at do we do now then?” Mike asked, feeling her warm body close to his and savouring the scent of her hair as it brushed against his cheek.
“Indian?” she joked.
Mike sniggered.
“Good one. But you know what I mean.”
“Sit tight, I guess,” Melanie replied, staring at the damaged flight controls in front of her. “They won’t risk losing another aircraft by searching for us in the dark. At first light, I’ll see if I can find a way up to the roof. I’m sure they’ll find us tomorrow.”
“Fingers crossed,” Mike replied distantly and with a clear note of pessimism. “Do you think the doors will hold?”
Melanie did not answer immediately. Her thoughts were on the main door and the piles of corpses pressing against it from the outside. There was no barricade, and the door was held shut by basic locking mechanisms. She had moved some heavy objects up against the double doors leading from the foyer into the main room of the restaurant, but their defences were far from impenetrable.
“I hope so,” she said, finally.
5
Every action they made was slow and deliberate. Even something as simple as reaching up to scratch the tip of their nose had become a painfully slow and lengthy process. They were too close to potentially prying eyes to risk any sudden movement. Their bodies appeared frozen, set fast into the ground with only their eyes moving as they watched the block of flats and scanned the desolate land around them. The three of them had been in position for a number of hours, sheltering in the shadow of a partially destroyed building. They continued to obstinately endure the cold that seemed to be growing more intense by the minute, slowly creeping up from the ground and travelling along their legs, causing their bodies to shiver as their limbs steadily grew numb.