“Great, I’ll call her. You mind turning that down a bit?”
William turns down the music, and Janus makes the call. William drives slowly out of the parking lot, scanning the surroundings. None of the people he sees look ill or injured.
Yet.
SIX
As they cross the town limit a few minutes later, Mads has gone quiet.
“I think he’s better now,” Krista sniffles.
Mille turns to look at him. His expression is no longer contorted in pain, and his face is less swollen. However, almost all blood seems to have left him, because he has taken on an unhealthy greyish hue.
“Where hospital?” the Arab asks. “I don’t know town.”
“Take a left here,” Mille says, pointing.
The Arab stops at the red light.
“No, go!” Mille demands. “Just go!”
“Light red,” the man says.
“Yes, but this is an emergency!” She scans the dashboard and hits the button for the hazard flashers. “Go now!”
The Arab rolls out into the intersection. The oncoming cars slow down as they notice, and the Arab makes a left turn.
“Oh, no!” Krista exclaims. “Mille? I think he stopped breathing …”
Mille turns. Mads’s chest isn’t rising or falling anymore. His cheeks have sunk into his face and his whole body seems lax. The skin is even more grey now than only a moment ago. In fact, it appears to have turned slightly green, too.
It’s happening.
“Pull over,” Mille hears herself says.
The Arab looks at her uncertainly. “Hospital here?”
“No. Just pull over.”
“We’ve got to help him, Mille,” Krista whines. “How do you do it …?” She bends over, and for a crazy second Mille thinks she’s attempting to kiss him back to life, like Snow White in the fairy tale. Then Krista starts blowing into his mouth.
“Stop that, Krista,” Mille says, unbuckling her seat belt.
“I think it helps,” Krista cries and blows helplessly into Mads’s mouth.
The car has stopped.
“Krista, stop that! Get out of the car!” Mille opens her door and jumps out. She runs around the car and is just about to open the back door, when her gaze falls on Mads’s face through the window. At that exact moment, he opens his eyes.
It’s no longer Mads’s warm, friendly, hazel eyes with that stupidly charming glare. It’s no longer anybody’s eyes. They’re blank, white, dead.
What happens next plays out in slow motion.
Krista bends down once again to blow into Mads’s mouth, but then gives off a noise of surprise and says: “My gosh, it worked!”
Those are the last discernable words out of Krista.
Mads sits up abruptly and sinks his teeth into her chin. Krista screams and tries to push him off, but he’s clamping on like a Rottweiler and buries his fingers in her hair, pulling her down farther. Then he makes a violent tug with his head, ripping off most of the skin from Krista’s chin. The lower lip tears in two, exposing the teeth in a gruesome smile. The blood gushes out and Krista screams shrilly in pain. It only takes Mads a few seconds to gobble down the chunk of skin, then he shoots up again, this time biting into the soft tissue of Krista’s throat, turning her scream into a croak.
Mille doesn’t see any more than that. She doesn’t hear anything either; not her own drumming pulse, not the Arab’s panicked yells, not even the blaring of the car horns as she staggers backwards out into the road. She simply turns her eyes to the sky and faints.
SEVEN
“Fuck, why doesn’t she answer?” Janus lowers the phone and looks in at the supermarket as they pass by.
William stops at the red light and looks at him. “She at work?”
“Yeah. Do you mind pulling over?”
William puffs out his cheeks. “I don’t know, man. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Time’s running.”
“Five minutes, tops.”
“All right. But you go in alone, I’ll stay here in the car.”
“Fair enough. You mind turning that off?” He nods at the radio.
“Why? I already turned it down.”
“It’s distracting.”
“I find it calming.” Still, William turns it off, interrupting Axl Rose who is singing about a lovely place with green grass and pretty girls.
The lights shift and William is just about to go, when a silvery station wagon cuts out in front of him. Its hazard flashers are on, so William hits the brakes.
“What do you think happened there?” Janus asks, following the station wagon with his eyes as it passes by in front of them.
William gets a glimpse of a Middle eastern man behind the wheel and a teenage girl on the passenger seat. “No idea,” he mutters. “But I guess they’re headed for the hospital.”
He makes a U-turn and is just about to pull into the parking lot of the supermarket, when he notices the station wagon stopping abruptly a little farther ahead. The passenger door is opened, and the girl comes out. She runs to the opposite back door, then stops dead, as though she sees something terrible inside the car.
“What are you waiting for, man?” Janus asks.
William realizes he has stopped in the middle of the road. “Something is going on over there,” he mutters and points.
Through the back window of the station wagon, he sees the driver turning his head and yelling something. Two figures on the backseat seem to be wrestling.
The girl is still standing there, one hand to her mouth, and now she starts walking backwards, right out into the road, her legs looking wobbly. An oncoming car honks at her, but she doesn’t even flinch; she just collapses, as though the horn blew her over.
“Fuck!” Janus exclaims. “What happened to her?”
William is pretty sure he knows what’s going on inside the station wagon, and he also knows the girl on the asphalt only has a few minutes—maybe seconds to live—before someone runs her over. He pulls over, yanks the hand brake and jumps out. He runs to the girl, just as the Arab guy comes tumbling out of the car and opens the back door. He yells something which sounds like: “Stop that! Stop that!” and reaches in with both arms, but pulls them quickly back out with a roar of pain, clutching his right hand, where two of the fingers are clearly missing.
William reaches the car and looks inside. The sight is even more awful than he anticipated—no wonder the girl fainted. Everything is drenched in blood. Most of it seems to come from the girl, who’s lying splayed out on her back, arms and legs twitching. Her throat looks like chopped tomatoes and she’s either dead or a few seconds away from dead. Above her sits a young guy in a bloody T-shirt with his face buried in the crater that is the girl’s throat.
Apparently sensing new prey, the zombie turns its eyes up, fixing them on William. They look exactly as dead and inhuman as the eyes of the girl William met in the basement of the hospital. The guy’s face is shiny red from fresh blood.
William grabs the door and slams it. But one of the girl’s legs gets in the way, preventing the door from closing all the way. William is not about to begin shuffling her around, so he abandons the effort and steps back, looking around for the Arab guy, who’s nowhere in sight. Instead, he sees Janus, who’s come to pick up the girl and is now bringing her around the station wagon.
“She hurt?” William asks. “You see any bite marks on her?”
“No, I think she’s fine,” Janus says. “Let’s get her to the car.”
“What the hell’s going on?” someone shouts, and William darts a brief look around to see another car pulling over, the driver sticking his bald head out of the window and staring in amazement at the scene.
“Get out of here!” William shouts at him, just as the zombie boy comes tumbling out of the car. Behind him, inside the car, the girl sits up.
“Holy shit!” the bald guy shouts and speeds off.
Finally someone with a rational response, William thinks, turning aroun
d to run after Janus, who has reached William’s car. William opens the door, and they help each other place the girl on the backseat.
“Oh, fuck!” Janus exclaims, alarm in his voice.
William spins around expecting to find both zombies coming at them. Instead, he sees them staggering towards the entrance of the supermarket. Apparently, they’ve sensed a much larger selection of prey, and the glass doors open to invite them in.
“Sofie!” Janus roars and grabs William. “Come on, we’ve got to help her!”
William pulls free. “No, it’s too dangerous!”
“Too dangerous?!” Janus glares at him, aghast. “Sofie is fucking in there!”
“And in two minutes the whole building will be crawling with zombies! You saw how quickly the girl woke up.”
“You fucking coward,” Janus sneers and runs towards the entrance.
“I’ll wait for you!” William calls after him. “But only two minutes!”
Janus doesn’t answer, he just runs into the supermarket.
EIGHT
The air is cooler inside the store, and pop music is playing over the speakers. Luckily, not many people seem to have gone shopping this Monday morning.
By the register is a young, pimply kid scanning an older lady’s groceries. Only a few yards away from them is the zombie girl. She’s eagerly trying to get to them, but is held back by a metal bar.
“You can’t get in that way,” the cashier says sleepily, not even bothering to look up at the girl. “You’ll need to go through the store.”
The girl just keeps shoving to get past the obstacle, and her efforts cause her to tip over, producing half a somersault over the metal bar.
“Hey, what the hell …?” the cashier exclaims.
“Look out!” Janus yells.
Both the cashier and the old lady are now staring in silent amazement at the tumbled over girl who’s getting clumsily back up on her feet and is starting to growl.
“Get away!” Janus shouts. “She’s dangerous!”
“Oh, fuck me,” the cashier exclaims as he gets a look at the girl’s face and apparently recognizes the danger. Without a second glance, he turns on his heels and sprints off down the store.
The old lady, on the other hand, is still just standing there, frozen to the spot, holding her purse, mouth open.
“Run away!” Janus warns her once again, and she looks as though she tries to oblige him, at least her feet shuffle a few inches backwards, but the sight of the bloody girl has paralyzed her. Janus can’t do anything but look as the zombie lunges at her, quickly wrestling her to the ground.
His stomach churns and he forces himself to look away, to focus on what he came for. He turns and runs down through the store. Somewhere down the back is a muffled scream.
Janus checks every aisle, looking out both for Sofie and the zombie boy, but he only meets a few early shoppers with puzzled looks on their faces. One of them is a young, blonde mom with her two young boys.
“What’s going on?” she asks Janus as he passes by them, reaching out in a protective manner for her sons. “Who was that screaming just before?”
“Get out of the building,” Janus just tells her and moves on. “Sofie? Sofie, it’s me! Where are you?”
He reaches the end of the store and stops by the dairy cabinets. Still, no trace of Sofie.
Maybe she’s out back …
He’s headed for the door to the employee’s area, when suddenly, Sofie appears from behind a meat dish. She’s wearing gloves and blows away a strand of hair.
“Sofie!”
“Janus?” she smiles as she sees him. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at work?”
Janus goes to her and sighs with relief. “You’re all right …”
“Of course I am.” She frowns. “Is something wrong? Listen, did you hear someone yell out just a minute ago? I was listening to my iPod, so I’m not sure, but—”
Janus can tell Sofie sees something behind him, because her expression changes from mild confusion to utter terror in half a second. Then she opens her mouth and screams.
Janus darts a look over his shoulder just as a bloody hand grabs him. The boy has crept up on him completely noiselessly. Janus attempts a sideway reflex jump, but the kid has too firm of a grip on his shirt. He pulls Janus back and sinks his teeth into Janus’s shoulder blade. The pain is intense. Janus screams and swings at the attacker, connecting with his elbow right under the chin, sending him sprawling.
“Fuck!” he hisses, hunching over in pain.
Sofie comes closer, her eyes large and terrified. “Oh my God … are you … are you all right, babe?”
“Get away!” Janus yells, trying to reach the spot where the boy bit him. To his dread he feels the warm blood already soaking the back of his T-shirt. “Fuck!” he repeats, his voice breaking, glaring at Sofie with a pleading look. “Get out of here, Sofie! Get as far away as you can! You got it? Just run!”
But Sofie never runs anywhere. She tries, though, managing a few, tentative steps backwards while she stares at Janus with a perfect mixture of fright and amazement. Then, the girl steps out from one of the aisles, throwing herself at Sofie and wrestling her to the floor. It happens so fast Janus only has time to blink once. Then he gives off a roar and is about to lunge forward when a couple of hands grab his ankles, causing him to fall flat on his stomach, knocking his lungs clean out of air. The boy pulls Janus’s left leg closer and bites down hard on the bared shin. The pain is even worse this time.
Then, Janus blacks out. He’s screaming but not aware of it. He rips his leg free, losing a large chunk of skin, but no longer feeling the pain. He gets to his feet and begins kicking the boy violently in the face, harder and harder, then he’s stomping, driving his heel down with all his force, over and over, hammering the boy’s head into the vinyl floor until he hears a distinct crunching sound and the boy stops scrambling.
Janus heaves for breath and turns around, suddenly only able to move in slow motion. He sees Sofie lying there, the girl crouching over her. He sees that it’s too late. The floor has already turned red, and the girl is visibly losing interest in Sofie, standing up and sniffing the air greedily, sensing still-alive prey nearby.
Janus just stands there, panting, his mind completely blank, as the girl turns around and growls at him, her face and neck and upper chest all covered in Sofie’s blood.
And as the zombie comes at him, Janus still doesn’t move.
NINE
William stays by the car for what feels like a very long time, but in reality is probably only a few minutes.
He keeps looking in every direction, making sure no one is sneaking up on him. He’s ready to go at any moment, fighting the urge to throw himself in the car and get the hell out of Dodge. He also keeps an eye on the entrance to the supermarket and the girl on the backseat, who’s still unconscious.
“Come on, dude,” he whispers.
He could really use a Kings right now, but he doesn’t want to slack his attention even for a second, in case Janus and Sofie come running out, a mob of zombies at their heels.
From inside the car, Dave Grohl is singing about aviation lessons, and William is not aware that he’s humming along tonelessly. One half of him feels like a coward for letting Janus go in there all by himself. The other half, though, feels like he made the right choice by not leaving the car.
The traffic goes by at a normal, lazy pace. Several of the drivers dart him concerned looks, and one of them—an obese lady—pulls over and rolls down her window. “Hi there! You need help?”
“No, thank you,” William murmurs, realizing how on edge he must look, pacing back and forth, looking all paranoid. He tries to manage a confident smile at the lady, which feels more like an odd grimace. “I’m just waiting for a friend.”
The woman nods, not looking particularly convinced, but seems to accept his explanation.
At that moment, the doors to the supermarket open up, and for a second, W
illiam imagines Janus coming out of the store, carrying Sofie in his arms like a superhero. And he’s right: It is Janus coming out. But he’s not carrying Sofie, and he doesn’t look at all like a superhero. In fact, he’s walking in a very weird and unsteady way, his head tilting back and forth like on a toddler who just learned to walk.
William stares at his friend and colleague, at the white hospital shirt which is no longer white, but red from blood.
Maybe he just fell, a single, stupid thought yells out in William’s mind, desperately wanting to cling on to the hope that Janus might be okay. Maybe it’s not even his own blood.
But it’s nonsense, of course. And the last grain of hope is brushed aside when Janus turns to reveal his left side, where both his T-shirt and skin are reduced to bloody shreds. Underneath can be seen a gaping hole with a couple of ivory colored ribs protruding from the red flesh.
There are also the eyes—Janus’s eyes aren’t human anymore, not by any means; they’re milky white, cloudy and dead. And they’re fixing right on William, as Janus starts to stagger in his direction.
“My goodness!” a voice exclaims from behind William, pulling him out of his trance. “Poor guy, what happened to him?”
The heavyset woman has pulled the hand brake and is now fumbling to get her seat belt open.
“No!” William says, going to her car. “You get away from here! He’s dangerous.”
The woman eyes him like he just spoke Chinese. “What are you talking about? He’s bleeding! He’s obviously—”
“He’s a fucking zombie!” William shouts, shoving the door shut as the woman opens it and tries to get out. She stares at him, blinking in surprise. “Unless you want to get eaten alive, I suggest you get the hell out of here—right now!”
William turns his back to the woman and runs to his own car, not looking bad to check if she got the message. If she didn’t, it’s on her. He’s not going to play hero for the sake of some dense middle-aged hag.
Dead Meat (Book 3): Dead Meat [Day 3] Page 3