by Wood, Rick
Donny stuttered, unable to figure out whether that was meant to be reassurance. But before he could protest, Eugene continued.
“Gus Harvey, ex-military, has been tasked with the mission of going into London and retracting her within the allotted time.”
“But what good am I?” Donny inquired.
“You are the only person I have left on my staff competent with media equipment. I need you to be my liaison. I need you to update me on Gus’s progress. I need to know my daughter is going to be safe.”
“But… I wouldn’t survive in London…”
“I daren’t disagree.” Eugene looked over Donny as the incompetent fool Donny felt like. “Very well. You accompany him to London and you wait outside the quarantined zone. You can let me know when he’s in, and when he’s out.”
“I…”
“Get yourself ready, Donny. You leave in ten minutes.”
Eugene turned and charged out of his room.
Donny looked back at the office. What he’d give to shut those curtains and get back to his game.
He had a feeling reality would be different.
Minus Two Days
Chapter Seven
Gus found it strange to be behind the wheel of a powerful automobile. For so long, he had been used to driving a people carrier, forced to listen to children’s nursery rhymes for most of his journeys. Though it always made him smile as his girl sang playfully along in the back…
He shook his head.
Shake it off. They’re gone.
He revved the engine, providing a loud distraction. The Ferrari responded with a tumultuous roar, the whirs of the engine growling back at him. He shifted the car into gear, readying the accelerator, craving the smell of burning tyres against the road surface.
The passenger door opened and a young, scrawny man took the seat next to him. He looked boyish, with thin and gangly limbs, a greasy mop atop his head, and ill-fitting clothes hanging off his bony arms.
Gus sneered at the sight of a tattoo across the inside of his forearm that read ‘DONNY’ in Courier New. Why the hell did this guy have a tattoo of his own god-damn name? In case he forgot it?
What a knobhead.
“Hi, I’m Donny!” he sang out with a cheerfulness that made Gus shiver. As soon as he clipped his seatbelt in, Donny turned his huge, beaming smile toward Gus and held out an eager hand.
Gus glared at the hand.
After a few awkward moments, Donny retracted it.
“So, this is great, huh? An adventure! I’m well excited to get on the road and see some zombie action!”
Was this guy on acid or something? Was he happy the world had gone to hell? What was wrong with him?
“Fruit pastel?” Donny offered, holding out an open pack of sweets.
“Shut the hell up, Donny,” Gus instructed, pressing his foot harshly against the gas and screeching the car across the road.
“Rightyo!” Donny replied, again, way too cheerfully.
‘Rightyo?’ Who talks like that?
Gus relished the numbing silence that ensued for the next twenty minutes. They were setting off from Yorkshire, and they had a long drive ahead of them before they reached the death pit that was London. Gus knew he’d have to drive at a cautionary speed to avoid any hidden infected, and that the length of the journey would grow more and more tedious if Donny’s incessant happiness persevered. He was not prepared to spend the next two days making pathetic idle conversation with a guy who has his own name tattooed on his arm and replied with “rightyo” when told to shut up.
Gus’s mind drifted off to tactics. He had loaded the boot up in preparation with all the weapons he may need. Grenades, rifles, shotguns, Uzi, sniper, night-vision. Anything that could give him an advantage over the undead.
He was making no mistake about it – he was going to war.
And he wasn’t sure he’d make it out.
In fact, he hoped he didn’t.
He imagined himself finding this girl, showing her the way out of London. She would run out to Donny, awaiting her next to the car. Then Gus would hang back and allow a mass of zombies to overcome him, tearing him apart. He would use his final bullet to shoot himself in his head, finally finding his salvation, and going down as a martyr.
His heavenly thoughts were interrupted by a loud sucking sound in the seat next to him.
He slowly rotated his head toward Donny and gave him a grave stare, which went completely unnoticed.
The bloke was peeling the outer layer of the fruit pastels off with his teeth. He was sucking and nibbling until the spongy inside of the small sweet was left, eating the remains a bit at a time, then licking each of his fingers clean. As soon as he’d finish his mind-numbingly infuriating way of eating that sweet, he’d get started on another one.
Gus had seen less annoying eating habits in the undead.
“D’you mind?” Gus grunted.
“Hm?” Donny responded, turning his guiltless face toward Gus.
“Could you stop that?” Gus demanded. “And it’s not ‘hm.’ It’s ‘pardon.’ Learn some bloody manners.”
Donny began sucking on the next sweet.
“Oh, sorry, is this annoying?”
“Yes it’s soddin’ annoyin’, didn’t I just tell you? Stop it.”
“I didn’t realise.”
He finished that sweet, then peered into the bag.
“Well, I only have six more to go.”
“You what?”
“I said I only have six more to go, so you won’t have to put up with it much longer.”
Gus turned onto the motorway and accelerated the car to eighty miles per hour, hoping the speed would give him an outlet for his sudden spurt of anger, all the while glaring with an open mouth in Donny’s direction.
“Are you fucking kidding?”
“You what?”
“I said to stop it. And it’s not ‘you what’ – it’s ‘pardon.’”
“I promise, after these six sweets.”
Gus couldn’t believe that this kid was going to dare suck on another one of those sweets.
As Donny lifted the next one to his mouth, Gus shot out his paw and clamped it around Donny’s wrist, holding it tightly.
“If you suck on another sweet, I will break your legs.”
“That’s not very polite.”
Gus’s eyes narrowed intently.
“What?”
“You told me to mind my manners, well, maybe you should mind yours.”
Donny used the hand not held captive by Gus to select another sweet and place it in his mouth.
He began sucking.
“I said quit it!”
Gus roared and threw his beefy hand forward.
Before he could halt any further sucking, Donny cried out and Gus abruptly turned his attention back to the road.
A row of cars in front of him immediately took his attention.
Instinct took over, and he couldn’t hit the brakes quick enough.
But it was too late. They weren’t going to stop in time.
His brain worked quickly. There had to be a way out of the inevitable crash. There was a gap in the long line of cars – a narrow one, but big enough to fit the car through sideways.
There was a manoeuvre he knew. He had used it in Afghanistan to escape a number of landmines he saw at the very last moment. A handbrake turn. Just a little pressure on the lever, and the right amount of acceleration.
He lifted the handbrake slightly. Placed his foot on the accelerator.
But as soon as his foot applied any pressure, the bullet lodged in his calf forced him to think of nothing but the pain. His foot thrashed out and hit the pedal with far too much strength.
He’d mistimed it.
The manoeuvre failed.
The car turned to its side and veered toward the line of cars. The side of the Ferrari smacked into them and went spinning into the air.
The seatbelts did nothing.
Gus was flung
about the carriage, and hit his head against the roof.
It all went blank.
He came around in flashes. At first, he felt the impact of the car pounding against the floor.
Secondly, he felt the car turn once more.
His vision blurred.
A gunk of blood slid into his eye.
His eyes closed again. His mind vacant, his thoughts absent.
He came around later to the sound of multiple zombies groaning.
Chapter Eight
The dull evening glow cast a luminescent dark grey over the horizon. Trees rustled with a slight nudge of wind, and rain clouds grew closer.
Still, Sadie purred at the sight. A beautiful evening sky was one of the few pleasures she could still conceive, and she treasured it.
It was one of the only things she could still understand.
A distant hum grew closer.
Her feral paws scurried across the ground as she made her way to the cover of a tree, darting her eyes back and forth, seeking out the source of the sound.
She peered into the motorway that sat, normally deserted, down a steep drop and beside the wooded area Sadie had made her home. Her eyes widened, her senses growing alert. A potential danger made her skin prick.
Within seconds, a Ferrari had sped across the middle lane and smashed into a row of static vehicles. Sadie watched with amazement as the car spun multiple times through the air, whirling in circular motions like a wild cog, and landed upside down. The roof crashed inwards and the glass of the windscreen shattered. Once the car had stopped spinning, it slid across the surface, leaving dark skid lines behind it before coming to a gradual stop a long way from where it had crashed.
Groans grew closer.
She could smell them. Reacting to the sound. Instinctively meandering toward any potential food.
She knew that’s what they were doing, because it’s what she wanted to do too. To hunt. To feed.
But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
Her head lifted, listening intently.
The groans grew closer, and closer still.
Sadie watched the distance beyond the wooded area where she took shelter, remaining motionless as the silhouettes of a line of limping, crouching, debauched figures emerged. They were running.
Flight or fight pounded against her skull. The infected grew rapidly closer. A safe space was needed, and needed fast. She couldn’t be sure of how many there would be.
She ensured her knives were secure behind her back. She clutched them tightly, relishing the feel of their smooth leather handles, seeking that extra reassurance that her weapons were there should she need them.
She leapt onto a tree trunk, wrapped her arms around it, and scurried upwards. Once she reached the branches, she made a few slick movements that took her to the top of the tree, allowing herself to watch the chaos from higher ground.
A horde of at least twenty contorted beasts stumbled over the fence separating the grass from the road, each of them staring intently at the upturned car. Some of them fell over the separation, only to be trampled on by the stronger and less incapacitated undead, prying forward at the sight and smell of fresh meat.
Each one of them was foul. Pale, skin hanging off their bones, limbs veering off in skewwhiff directions. Despite their obvious deformities they were quick, and they descended upon the vehicle with a sick desperation to feed and maim.
Sadie’s curiosity piqued. She could smell something. Amidst the smell of rotting flesh, she could smell something different. Something like…
Fresh meat.
People were alive in that car. Living souls were at risk of death.
What of those souls?
It would be inhuman for her to let them die.
She wanted to kill them too. To eat them.
No. Save them. Save people.
They didn’t have long.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Sadie leapt back down the tree trunk.
Flight turned to fight.
She used her two arms and her two legs to surge forward like a gazelle, nearing the mass of hungry fiends with hostility in her eyes.
Some of them heard her. They even turned around, casting their yellow pupils on the approaching warm-blooded creature.
One of them ran for her. She lifted out her claw and shoved it through its chest, then retracted it, allowing blood to spray over her face.
She did not blink.
A few more moaned in acknowledgement of new flesh, directing their yellows in her direction.
She made her way through them in a swift succession of movements, dicing and slicing their heads from their necks and their limbs from their bodies.
One unexpectedly approached behind her. She landed her bare foot into its knee, forcing a loud crack as it bent backwards, then grabbed its throat in her hand and pulled it apart, throwing its loose oesophagus into the hungry crowd.
What used to be an old man swung its arms toward her. She dove her head forward and sunk her teeth into the side of its neck. As she pulled away, she threw the various pieces of bloody flesh from her teeth to the floor.
She withdrew her two knives she kept tucked in the back of her trousers and charged forward, venomously screaming as she ploughed her blades through a succession of the creatures. She tore her knives through their faces and ripped her hands through their bellies, leaving a line of legs and torsos across the road.
Decapitated heads snapped their jaws and chests without legs dragged themselves forward, their eyes reaching for nearby flesh.
With a few swift swipes, Sadie slashed their heads, ending their pathetic unlives with the same violence in which they’d entered it.
Twenty fast, strong creatures, taken out by one. It was almost too easy.
She turned toward the car.
Two men watched from within. One big and intense, the other small, scrawny, and startled.
She growled at them, holding her knives in each hand, breathing heavily. Her panting persevered as the adrenaline continued to run through her body, ready, watching intently with rogue eyes, waiting to see their next move.
Chapter Nine
She looked up to her father with eyes of adoration.
Gus looked back at her.
His daughter, in his arms, hugging him tightly.
God, I love this girl.
“Daddy, can you stay here?” she asked. “I mean, stay here forever?”
How he wished he could.
How he wished he could say yes.
But something told him he couldn’t. Something afar, speaking in the distance of his undisclosed thoughts.
“No, Laney, I can’t.”
“But, Daddy!”
“I know, I know, I want to stay too,” he told her, wrapping his arms securely around her torso. “But this isn’t real.”
“What?” she asked, bemused.
“This–” Gus spoke, tears in his eyes. “This isn’t real. I have to go back.”
She faded, and his mind turned back to reality.
Chapter Ten
The smell of burning asphalt hit Gus first.
Followed by the deafening thump of a broken wheel making its escape from the overturned car.
Then the groans.
He reached his arm across his body toward the seatbelt, his muscles aching upon each movement. Wincing through the pain, he undid the strap and allowed himself to drop to the floor – which was now the roof of the car.
A sharp bite of broken glass stung his neck. He rolled away from the crushed windscreen and wiped the pieces off himself.
He saw the unmistakable legs of the undead marching toward the car. They had evidently heard the sound and came running for fresh meat.
For a moment, he contemplated letting them kill him. Just relaxing, closing his eyes, withstanding the initial pain, then sinking into death.
But no.
He had to wait.
After the mission. I can die after the mission.
He turned
to his side, where he saw Donny starting to come around. A long streak of blood decorated the centre of his face, and his arm was twisted away from his body.
As Donny became more aware, he panicked.
“Cool it,” Gus urged him. “Cool it.”
Donny looked at Gus with wide eyes. His face showed sudden fear, followed by an instant of clarity illuminating his mind with the information of what had happened – followed just as quickly by an expression of dread as the hands of zombies reached into the vehicle.
Gus remained still and calm.
Donny didn’t.
He winced, pulling himself away from the hands, doing all he could to stop them from even scraping his skin.
Gus relaxed. Allowed the hands to brush against his face, knowing that they couldn’t reach far enough in.
“Chill,” Gus instructed Donny.
He was ignored.
Gus reached out a hand and grabbed Donny’s non-injured shoulder.
“Chill!” he demanded. “Relax, or you won’t think clearly.”
A growl announced itself clearly from behind the zombies, and with a sudden movement, the hands retracted.
The growl was animalistic, without a doubt – but it was different to a zombie growl. Gus couldn’t put his finger on it, but knew it was different. Not zombie, not quite human. It was something else.
A quick succession of violent sounds accompanied the sight of legs giving way to spilt blood. Gus watched intently as he listened to flesh being ripped, followed by the slick movement of knife through bone.
Gus knew Donny wouldn’t recognise such sounds for what they were. Donny would just think they were sounds of battle.
But Gus knew the sounds well enough to recognise each and every one of them.
Within seconds, the zombies were turned to remnants of bodies, covered in blood and limbs.
A girl crouched and peered at Gus and Donny.
The girl growled.
Her appearance took Gus by instant surprise. She didn’t look human enough to be human, but didn’t look unhuman enough to be anything else. Her hair was scraggly, twisted into greasy knots and pointing in various directions. Her face was covered in dirt and her eyes looked feral. Her teeth were dirty, and subtly pointed. Her clothes were messy rags hanging off her bony flesh, dark and muddy.