by Stevens, GJ
Pulling my t-shirt over my head, the cold air sent shivers of sensation across my bare chest. I did my best to wipe my face, but I wasn’t hopeful, the t-shirt already too far from its original colour.
The dead still paid no attention as I walked to the back of the van and I stared, taking a moment to linger on the bare bones at my feet so I could let the guilt rise and remind me why I was still here.
Retching at the detail, the body stripped clean, fatigues shredded, the laden holster at his side, I dragged the mass away from the door and bent double.
Tears welling in my eyes, I pulled the gun from the holster still in the pile. With the muzzle facing my way, I laid it in my open palm and I pulled up the handle, the ambling creatures only taking notice as I tapped a light request on the metal.
Alex’s bleary-eyed reaction paused much less than I’d expected.
“Oh my god, you’re alive.”
Her look went from my face to my bloodied chest and to beyond my shoulders, then settled back on the gun resting on my palm. Her hand went to her mouth as I spoke.
“Take the gun.”
105
“Where’s Jordain?” she said, keeping her hand in place, her eyes locked to mine when I didn’t reply and held my open palm out with the weight of the pistol.
“Take the gun.”
Lowering her brow, she reached out and gripped the pistol with confusion bunching on her face, not able to think of any other words and I reached out, lifting the muzzle of the gun in her hand so it pointed level with my chest. “I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t feel the hunger and didn’t see her as a meal, but I needed to make sure she was safe if that changed in an instant.
Her gaze flicked to behind me and she stumbled back, keeping the gun level where I’d put it. Pushing the door wide, I stepped up and closed the door so whatever she’d seen wouldn’t get near.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said, her voice muffled with her hand.
I nodded.
“Are you going to kill me?” Alex said, and I could see the gun trembling in her right hand as she spoke.
I shook my head.
“I couldn’t control it. I’m so sorry for what I did, but I’ve figured it out,” I said, pushing my palms together and bringing them to my mouth. “Toni made it so I can exist with this thing. It all makes sense now. She wanted me by her side and this was the only way. I couldn’t control it back then but she must have made it so I don’t have to kill.”
“How do you know all this? How do I know you’re not going to feel like that again?”
“I get it now, but just in case that’s why I’ve given you the gun.”
I watched as her hand dropped from her face and the uncertainty in the squint of her eyes. She looked to the door at my back.
I nodded.
“I won’t stop you if you want to get the hell out of here,” I said, stepping to the side.
Alex lingered on the same spot, her gaze moving between me and the door.
“And you feel okay now?” she said, the gun wavering slowly down then up again in my direction.
“I feel fine. I feel amazing. Look,” I said, raising my right hand up in front.
Alex lifted the gun high at my movement, but it dropped again as she stared on at my perfectly proportioned hand.
“I don’t won’t to die that way,” she said.
I nodded again.
“As soon as I feel anything I’ll take myself away. I promise, but I still need to get to Toni. She needs to pay and I have to understand how I can do this without having to take…” I paused. “Without having to take any more lives.”
Alex lingered on my face for a moment, the gun still low at her side.
“I thought you were dead. I thought I was on my own. I didn’t know how I was going to do this by myself. I guess I have to trust what you say.”
I let a small smile fill the silence and she placed the gun on the table at her side and forced her own thin smile as her hands reached to the floor to pull up my red jacket.
Alex had turned away while I dressed, grabbing the pants with both my hands and clenching it hard in my right fist. I took joy in the sensation of working my hand, pausing only a moment before pulling down my jeans mottled with darkness. Turning around, my clothes at least prim and proper again, I saw she was looking back at me, leaning to hand me cleaning cloths and a bottle of fluid intended for the cameras.
The scratch and scrape on the thin metal came back.
“The helicopter,” I said, my voice croaking, her head spinning to the windscreen as she nodded. “She’s getting away.”
“The engine?” she said, with her face in a grimace, eyes wide as they locked back to mine.
“Try it now,” I said, scraping the wet cloth between my fingers.
In moments the engine came to life, Alex gripping hard on the steering wheel as we slid sideways and back again to avoid the gathering swarm.
We’d been quick enough not to let the crowd build. Quick enough to find the gap in the blockade, the small groups easy to avoid as we swerved in and around the cars abandoned in the road, leaving them instead to follow on mass in our wake.
We didn’t stop at the second olive container by the roadside, slowing only to take the slalom of the concrete blocks without scraping the paintwork. The position had long fallen.
As the road rolled under the tyres, the rest of the streets were no surprise. The desolation. Vacancy. Even the lack of dead bodies walking didn’t cause me to look twice. Soon we could see every other panel of the hastily-erected fence had fallen. The outer perimeter had been ineffective and we drove right through a gap, slowing only to stop the skid; no point in swerving the bodies when there was no way to avoid.
Alex drove us toward the white building crowned with the swirled blades of the helicopter, turning away only as I put my hand to her shoulder. She hadn’t been able to completely mask the flinch.
With the view in the mirror forgotten until now, I watched the crowd, so much thicker than we’d already failed to get through.
But it didn’t matter. I’d seen the communications truck Jordain had mentioned and with my heartbeat racing in my chest, I ran into the back whilst the wheels slowed, watching the equipment’s lights flashing green as it picked up the surrounding network.
I straightened my pants and jacket as I jumped to the road, staring into the tall wing mirror, but for the first time ever not caring what I saw, my cheeks red and rosy, with a faint darkness dried into the grooves serving well to highlight and contour.
Energy rose deep from within. I took a breath and with my back to the hospital building, the destruction and carnage all around, I stared out with the morning sun in my face and beamed at the red light shining back from the camera.
106
I’d done it. I’d produced a heart-felt prize-winning piece. The figures, the children, running across the roof in the background were the cherry on top.
I hadn’t told the world of Toni’s betrayal. I hadn’t told them what she’d turned me into so I could be hers forever. I hadn’t told them she was creating human-zombie hybrids. I hadn’t told them the South West of England crawled with her mistakes and they were multiplying.
I’d told them to stay inside. I’d told them to lock their doors. I hoped I’d given people enough information, enough of a chance.
I almost lost it when I caught sight of someone the right size and height, her hair the same colour; the stoop of an injury. I almost stopped mid-recording and looped the video back.
That’s why I’m a professional. I put the needs of the viewers ahead of mine. But now I could see even on the little screen it was her. No doubt. She was in the long line guiding the children to the helicopter.
I carried on talking to the camera, despite the stranger’s words from the day before. I took her words the wrong way when she’d spoken. They weren’t taking specimens from the children. The children were the specimens.
My power
was to let everyone know; to use my words to narrate the story. To tell them what they were seeing in the horrific pictures from our journey. Others could zoom and identify the culprits. They could track the helicopter and end this madness.
They had more time left than we did.
As I thought on, I pushed the play button on the playback machine, used the joystick to zoom and I fast-forwarded, watching what I’d already seen out of the corner of my eye play back in quick time.
As the figure I recognised came into view, I slowed the tape down to half speed, leaning in toward the screen.
It was her. I was sure. A face of perfection, slightly alien with the thick make-up to hide the bruises, but most people wouldn’t know that.
Alex left the camera rolling as I waited for the upload to finish and I switched the screen, showing the live feed of the destruction, only turning away as the automatic reply flashed to tell me the editing team had received the footage.
Now it was up to them to do what they had to do. I had to rely on Stan to make the choice to send it out to the masses, to push out my warning as far as it would go.
I let Toni’s image play on as if letting her go from my mind.
“What now?” Alex said from the open doors of the van, her voice calming my rising beat.
“There’s a thousand, maybe more on their way here,” I said, sighing through my smile.
“So what do you want to do? You’ve done it despite everything,” she said, her eyes wide, face beaming a mirror image of mine.
“We did it. Thank you.”
I let my shoulders fall.
“Do you think they’ll use it?” she replied, her face set in a scowl as she nodded to the images still playing on the wall of screens.
“We’ll never know,” I said with a sigh.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
I nodded. “But what can I do?”
“I don’t think this story is over yet,” she said, raising a smile in the corner of her mouth.
I glanced to the gun still laid on the table at my side.
“I think you’re right,” I said.
Alex squinted and turned her head.
“Toni’s alive. She got into the helicopter.” I could feel the tears running down my cheek, but I couldn’t acknowledge them by wiping them away. I didn’t have to as Alex leant forward and wrapped her arms around me, drawing out the pain.
“We have to find out how to keep you human,” she said, whispering to my ear.
I nodded, but after a moment of relief, the pop of a gunshot came through the speakers, pulling me back to reality. Alex pulled away and together we turned to the screen, watching the wide angle as the helicopter lumbered into the air, bringing back the memory of how the wind had picked up when it happened in real time.
I closed my eyes.
“There’s two people on the roof,” Alex said moments later, turning back toward me from looking out of the back doors. “A dog, too,” she said, uncertainty in her voice. “We should go see if they’re okay.”
I closed my eyes, taking a slow breath.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” I said as I held my hand to my stomach.
Epilogue
The first I knew was the interruption to the police car chasing a joyrider ragged across the streets of London, the banner across the screen turning to words, making me sit up from the sofa.
The warning about the sensitive images made me nudge forward and turn the volume even higher.
The beauty in the centre of the screen, the red jacket and trousers seemed to be all she wore; her features radiating out towards me nearly made me fall to the floor.
The background was a blur. The helicopter with its blades rotating and the people running towards it across the roof were the only details not pixilated.
Her words weren’t censored, the emotion in her voice raw as she spoke of the children. The scrolling message along the bottom of the screen saved the need to rewind.
It had happened. It wasn’t April the first. I checked my watch twice just to be sure.
A virus raising the dead to their feet.
The end of an era, of our civilisation.
I stood, blood draining from my face, but still I punched the air, a wry smile on my lips as I shouted, “Now who’s laughing, bitches,” just as the image cut off, the colourful test card taking its place and I ran upstairs to grab my Bug Out Bag.
To be continued…
After The End
G J Stevens
our way out, if we could make it before they caught us.
Craning forward, I saw discarded stone and greenery, but otherwise the road looked clear and with a sense of relief rising, I knew the gap could be our saviour.
With a backward glance, my optimism rose even more when I saw the pack had reformed. They were slowing.
To add to my delight, as I turned ahead the grass looked so flat and already the suspension had ceased its complaint.
We would make it.
Aiming for the centre of the gap, I concentrated on the ground ahead, hoping an errant pothole wouldn’t trash our growing chance. Peering forward, I watched as two pairs of bloodied trainers pulled up, pushing me back into the seat as I took in the full height of the two tall men, their faces draped with blood, racing towards us through the gap with countless more following as they took the sharp turn from the road.
My stomach sank, realising they’d caught us in a trap I should have seen coming. To do so meant they were so much more than I had ever wanted to admit possible; engineered superhumans who could cooperate with each other. How could we ever defend ourselves from that?
To the squeals and calls from behind my seat, I had no time to weigh up my options. The split-second for thinking had gone, and I’d wasted it scaring the shit out of myself.
Following my gut, gritting my teeth, I jammed my foot hard to the accelerator.
“Down on the floor,” Jess called, as she moved to the passenger seat and grabbed the rifle laid down to my side, twisting it in her hands, ready to club whatever came through the windows.
With my hands clamped tight, I fought the steering wheel as it pulled left, then right, before ripping from my grip as the speed built, sending pressure jolting up from the snap of the wheels. Despite being convinced we’d lose a tyre at any moment, I held our course locked on the centre of the gap whilst I tried to focus beyond the blood-streaked bare chest of the lanky creatures leading the group.
“Hold tight,” I said, then forced my eyes closed as the figure loomed so large in the windscreen.
As it hit the bumper and slapped the bonnet, screams shrieked high inside and out, but the pained calls cut short with each slam of pressure and the bass drum of flesh to the thin metal above our heads. Although desperate not to see the gory detail, I opened my eyes just as a youthful woman, her skin stained dark, slipped below the view.
Beyond the great cracks and spider-web lines in the windscreen, the last of the shadows leapt out of our path, jumping high as we shot through the opening. The tyres clashed hard with the joint, but still in one piece, I corrected our path along the smooth tarmac.
We were through, but my elation was short-lived when I couldn’t see any detail through the wrecked glass. Holding the wheel straight and peering through the windscreen, I tried to make out any shape to give me an idea where the road headed, but movement pulled my attention to my left and the dark hands gripping at the wing mirror.
The call of the feral creatures hadn’t lessened as we’d joined the road; instead, the sound stayed so near I thought the high-pitched chorus would shatter every remaining window.
Jess moved at my side, raising the butt of the rifle high, but I couldn’t see what she was doing. Instead, I searched out through the rear-view mirror as the creatures continued to keep pace on the road behind.
The only thing we could do now was to keep going until they eventually tired, or we hit something unseen throu
gh the wrecked glass. A heavy thump came at the glass to my left, punctuated by gasps from those in the back.
Glancing past Jess, still holding the butt high, I watched a red-raw fist retreat below the window line as the other hand gripped at the wing mirror.
Swapping glances uselessly between the vague colours passing the trashed glass and to the mirror in the centre, hope renewed as the creatures behind us shrunk in the view. The feeling dissolved when I turned ahead for fear the road, bound by dry-stone either side, would narrow or take a sharp turn which I had no chance of anticipating at the speed we were going.
Not able to keep up the gamble with our lives, I wound down my window. Catching only fresh, unsullied air, I pushed my head out, taking delight at the unobstructed view of the road ahead.
Its course took us to the right, and I twisted the wheel just in time to make the long turn, letting the steering wheel pull itself straight so I could stare at the long stretch of dry-stone wall ahead.
“Jess,” I called out as the idea came, and with my head still out of the window, I let the minibus drift towards the left-hand wall. Feeling the light debris at the side of the road through the tyres, I glanced back to Jess as she nodded in understanding.
Drifting closer still, I didn’t need to wait long for her to tell me I’d scraped the creature from its hold and I centred us back in the middle of the road.
About to revel in our new situation, a scream called out from behind my seat as a great force grabbed sharply at my hair. With the sting of pain in my scalp, an upward pressure forced my left hand from the wheel just as I caught sight of a steep left turn in the road ahead.
31
JESSICA
Revelling as the gap decreased, the wall closed in as I watched the creature’s fist pull up for another attempt to break the glass. With a scrape of flesh which should have turned me away, the body clattered against the stone before dropping to the ground and rushing out of sight. I couldn’t help but imagine its impassive look with its teeth bared as it raised itself back up to give chase.