by Aline Riva
“But its a war, it's not over yet,” Vince added as he sat there, looking at her over the clustered petrol cans, “None of us know each time we go out there if we'll make it back. It doesn't matter if the world is crawling with hordes or if most of the undead are gone – as long as they are out there, we are not safe. Nowhere is safe.”
“But I thought it was safe enough, didn't I?” Rick said softly to the child he cradled as he walked up and down the room, rocking the baby as outside, the dead pressed against the boarded window, making the old boards creak heavily. As he continued to speak, he focussed on the sleeping child, trying not to think about the petrol on the floor or the horde, so desperate to get in.
“If there was a way out,” he said in a fatherly tone, “I would take it – if I could be sure you wouldn't be harmed in the process. But there is no way out. I'm so sorry, I should have left you at the village, you might have been okay until help arrived...I didn't know this would happen. I just didn't know, little one...”
David had been staring at the rags stuffed into the petrol cans, sitting there fixing his gaze on them until they became a blur and then he blinked, looking to Marie as his heart ached for all that could have been.
“Come closer,” he said in a hushed voice, and then drew her into his arms, embracing her tightly as he thought about the end, wondered when it would come and hoped that when it did, she would be his last thought.
Then the group fell to silence, wrapped in their own thoughts as the dead pushed at boards and made them groan and Rick continued to pace the room, talking softly to the baby in his arms.
In the barn, Tina was still on the floor, trying the radio and looking out through the hole in the woodwork, seeing the sight unchanged: A horde surrounding the old house as more undead staggered about outside as the fading light dimmed to the approach of dusk and the cold air became sharp and bone chilling.
“Please...” she whispered, trying the radio again.
“This is Captain Swan, with the civilian Arctic team... we are trapped, gas guns running low...horde surrounding an abandoned house, we need back up...We are at the south end of Waterbrook Forest...Please, respond!”
A crackle of static broke through, followed by garbled speech that seemed too distant to understand.
She stood up, eyes wide as she fixed her sights on the radio, wondering if the message had been heard or even if the signal had been correct – had this been a reply, or intended for another unit elsewhere? Communications had been down, and going by what she had heard, were still not entirely fixed...
“Can you hear me?” she demanded louder, “This is Captain Swan...Respond, SOS!”
Then as another distant, garbled voice was drowned out over static, she heard a much closer sound, the snarl of an undead creature....
Slowly, she lowered the radio, turning her head to the small spyhole in the wood. Seeing nothing, she got closer, taking in the sight of the horde surrounding the house and others staggering around near the barn. Then the view was blocked sharply by the dead eye of a corpse meeting her frightened gaze as it snarled again.
She gave a cry of alarm and stepped back, catching her breath as she reached for the scythe on the floor and gripped it in both hands, her heart starting to race in terror as the creature found its way to the front of the barn, pressing against the doors, as others followed, joining the effort as the gap in the closed doors yawned and closed in rhythm as they started to work to break into the barn.
She looked up and around, taking in the sight of the place, guessing this had been built over a hundred years before, when there would have been farmland attached to the property. Since then the place had changed hands, having the wall built around the back of the house and the barn used as a large garage and tool shed, combined with a small area to house some hay for horses. The tools in here were decades old. This barn was ancient...
“Oh no...” she whispered as she looked from the scythe in her hands to the barn doors as they started to buckle and crack and a thought hit her that turned her blood to ice: This place had been standing for more than a century. The horde would tear it apart like it was made of match wood...
Over at the house, the creaking and thumping had changed rhythm as the barn was attacked. Vince had jumped up followed by the others, all peering out of the gap in the boards, looking between the hands of the undead as they rattled the wood and pressed and tugged, through the spaces between they saw the barn and a gathering of corpses pressing against the doors as old wood cracked and groaned.
“They know she's in there!” Vince said in alarm.
“And there's nothing we can do, we're trapped!” David said as they stepped away from the boards as the undead continued to tug and thump, “We can't get to her!”
Vince looked to the barn again, tears filling his eyes.
“I have to try!”
“And be killed? I think that's the last thing Tina would want for you, Vince!”
He glared at David, feeling torn between risking everything and staying put in a hopeless situation, “I have to try!”
“None of us can win this time,” David replied, shaking his head, “It's over. If rescue doesn't come, we can't survive – there are too many of them, just remember that because it's only their sheer number that's brought us to an end, I guess we just ran out of luck.”
Vince stared at him in disbelief.
“Luck? You're the man who fought twice in the Arctic! You're David Harley! Luck has nothing to do with it – you're a survivor!”
“No one lives forever,” David replied.
Rick cradled the baby as he stood watching as the remains of the group began to fall apart, its unity eroded by the inevitable end they were ready to face.
“The horde is too weak to climb the back wall,” he said as the others looked over, “The window in the dining room is big enough to climb through. I don't know about the blast from the petrol but if we make a trail and get out through the window, make for the back of the garden, we might stand a chance when the place goes up. But that petrol will chase in a second once the trail is lit... and even if we take out some of the horde, we won't take them all. That wall is too high and there's nothing to climb on. If it comes down, the rest of the corpses pile into the garden and we still die. But there's a chance... if we can make it to the garden maybe we can take out the last of the stinkers with the gas guns. Maybe. Help isn't coming. Time's running out. David, what do you think?”
As he met Rick's gaze, he slowly nodded.
“It's a small chance,” he replied, “But better than none at all. I'll get that trail started.”
Then as a board burst from the wall with a shower of old plaster and rusted nails falling to the floor, Marie screamed as fading light burst in, along with reaching dead hands and roars and snarls of hungry corpses as the first of the barriers came down.
“Stop them!” David yelled, grabbing a gas gun and spraying the gap as the cloud of chemical burst out, then faded as the cannister emptied. Through the clearing smoke, more were reaching in, and as Marie and Vince fired too, the corpses pulled at the remaining boards, some bubbling and foaming and falling, as others took their place. Further up the hallway another board crashed to the floor as glass shattered.
“Block the window!” David yelled to Vince as he and Marie up turned a sofa to block the gap where boards were loose and corpses were reaching inside, then more glass shattered as Vince ran out to the hallway, blasting the gas gun until it ran dry, then picking up a shard of glass and plunging it into the eye of a corpse that leant in through the window.
He looked about in desperation, seeing nothing left to block the gap with. More dead were coming at him, the corpse he had just taken out had fallen as others trampled it, climbing on to it, reaching in with ease through the window as he raised the empty gun, ready to try and beat them back.
Over in the barn, static was hissing and garbled voices were coming through, making no sense as the poor connection faded in a
nd out. The doors to the barn were heaving and through the hole in the wood, she had seen a glimpse of the barrier breaking and the corpses trying to gain access through the windows. Now the wood was splintering, the bolts that held the doors together were straining as wood snapped and cracked. As the gap in the doors grew wider and a corpse stuck an arm through, she ran forward, raised the scythe and brought it down, chopping off the arm as darkened blood spurted and the hand twitched as the arm shuddered on the ground.
Outside the corpses were now even more determined to get in, seeing the gap widen and the human alone within. As the doors cracked again and a hinge came loose, a rotting head stuck through the gap, snarling and roaring as it fixed dead eyes on her.
Tina hacked at the head, slicing off scalp, then splitting the head, then finally making the target as more blood spurted, coming out of the neck of the creature as the severed head rolled across the barn.
Tina kicked back at the doors, sending the bleeding corpse on the other side of it sprawling, but still they were coming at those doors. She dropped the scythe, wiped her hands on her combat clothing and grabbed the hammer, it was heavy enough with a claw at one end, both sides of the hammer head would give her a fighting chance... if only for a while.
Spattered in blood, Tina clutched at the weapon with her sights set on the weakening doors as the radio switched between distant voices and static as outside the horde pushed at the doors. Her grip on the hammer stayed firm as she watched and waited, ready for a final battle, knowing she could not take them all out, but she would certainly go down fighting...
As the house erupted into chaos, with boards bursting off windows and corpses howling and snarling as they fought to get in, Marie looked to David with fear shining in her eyes.
“Vince, where are you?” David yelled, then he heard a crash and a thump and more moans of the undead as Vince raced back into the room.
“I blocked it with a table... It won't last...”
“Neither will we,” David said grimly.
He pushed against the sofa, ensuring it was tight, as he felt resistance on the other side that meant this new barrier was as temporary as the table that was lodged in the broken window out in the hallway. David looked to the petrol on the floor, then to the others.
“We don't have much time left. I wouldn't advise the cellar as an option – the heat of the fire will turn it into an oven, that's if the floor above doesn't cave in and fall through. Rick's idea might work...might. But we have no gas left and if the explosion busts that brick wall, what's left of the horde will still come through and there is no way out of that garden and no way to fight back against any surviving undead and there will be plenty of them... Who wants to try for it?”
David cast his gaze around the others.
“Come on!” he said impatiently, “We don't have the luxury of time!”
As the baby cried, Rick cradled him gently in his arms and then looked to his close friend.
“I have to try, it's the only chance we have - and this kid deserves a chance.”
David nodded, looking to Vince and Marie.
“Go with him.”
“But what about you?” Marie demanded, standing her ground as defiance burned in her eyes, “I'm not leaving without you!”
“And this won't work and one way or another, we all die because the odds are against us, we have no back up and we are surrounded! Don't even think this is likely to work, Marie. Just do it and hope for the best. It's all you can do. I'm lighting the fuse. I'm making the trail, I'm going to be setting it alight and I'm the last one out of here. That's how it has to be, I'm in charge around here, always have been -”
“I think maybe this is still a jointly run group?” Rick reminded him, “They didn't call me Mall King for nothing, I want this kid to have a chance – but I'm willing to leave with you, not without – I'll take my chances alongside you, David.”
He smiled fondly as he looked at Rick.
“Sure... you could get killed too, but that's a huge loss to Lois and two children who need a father, two very unusual kids who very much need a father like you. I doubt anyone else could come close to your patience and kindness when it comes to grey children. Sorry, Rick – I'm doing this alone. Take the baby and go.”
Rick stood there for a moment, tears filling his gaze as the two men looked at each other across the room, separated by the unlit petrol that stood between them.
“But maybe none of us will make it,” Rick said honestly.
“Take the baby and go,” David said again.
Marie gave a startled gasp, turning her head sharply as she heard a slam from across the hall.
“I just got the window open,”Vince called out, “we should do this now, while we have time....”
Marie looked tearfully to David.
“I don't want to do this without you...Let me light the fire.”
David walked around the petrol and gave her a hug, letting go quickly, not wanting to feel the loss of her, but all the same it was a shared pain reflecting in their eyes as they both felt the loss of that moment, knowing it would most likely be their last ever chance to embrace.
“Get out of here, Marie,” David said, “And if Rick doesn't make it, you take that baby back to Lois. That kid deserves a chance.”
“You just want me to walk away?”
As Rick asked that question, David looked away from him, hiding the tears that stung at his eyes.
“Go now,” he said.
Vince hurried back into the room, beckoning to the others.
“We have to get out!”
As Marie hesitated and then followed, as Rick reached the doorway he lingered back, holding the child in his arms as he looked back one last time.
“What the hell are you doing?” he exclaimed, his eyes wide as he watched David lift one of the cans, take out the rag and begin to pour a careful path of petrol, through the front room and then as Rick stepped aside, he trailed it up to the front door, then took the can back to the lounge area once more and set the can down with the others.
“You can run it to the window -” Rick began, but David shook his head.
“I need to keep the blast away from the back of the house to give you guys a chance...”
“So how will you light the trail?”
David looked at him, saying nothing.
Tears filled Rick's eyes.
“That's suicide!”
“Get that baby out of here,” David said again.
Rick stood his ground, his gaze fixed on his friend.
“You can't do this... you'll have no way out!”
“And the horde have the house surrounded – they're thinnest behind the garden, which has a high wall...Destroy the front, burn the horde!”
“And take you with it?”
“Just go,” David said.
Rick stood there, the bay crying in his arms as he grew agitated at the scent of the undead as with a crash, the barrier to the lounge area was broken through. The howls and snarls of the corpses filled the house. In the hallway as the table was forced to the floor and wood splintered, the two men looked around to see the undead piling through the window, fighting each other to be first through as many corpses pressed against the gap, reaching in, climbing, getting through with seconds to spare...
David pulled a lighter from his pocket and looked to Rick with urgency burning in his eyes.
“Get out NOW!” yelled.
Rick ran from the room, crossed the hallway as a corpse fell into the house with a thump as another and then another started to pile in, he reached the open window and yelled to Marie.
She ran closer and he held out the baby.
“Take him, I can't climb like this!”
Marie darted forward and snatched the baby, ran off down the long over grown garden and then looked back, giving a gasp as she saw Rick was still in the house, looking through the window.
“Thanks,” was all he said, and then he was gone from view, turning away
and running back inside.
“Rick!” she shouted, “Get out of there!”
By now Vince had joined her, he looked towards the house, stunned at Rick's decision.
“The crazy bastard!” he exclaimed, “They'll both die in there!”
As Rick ran out of the dining room, he slammed into a corpse that snapped and snarled and dragged him to the floor. He made a fist with his metal hand, slammed it into the head of the creature, sending it sprawling, then picked up a discarded gas gun as another came at him, ramming the weapon into the corpse's face then slamming it down into the skull of the first attacker. More were climbing through the windows. He tossed aside the bloody gun and ran back, following the trail of petrol.
David was standing there, looking down at the trail. He knew the undead had got in, he knew it was seconds before more piled in, and he wanted as many in as possible, to take as many out as he could when that fire was lit...
There was a boom from outside as the barn doors caved in and the horde piled on top of one another, desperate to reach Tina who was still trapped inside.
David raised the lighter, preparing to spark it as more glass shattered as the undead invaded the house. Then he saw Rick in the doorway, and a feeling of shock registered.
“No, you have to get out!” he said as he looked to the petrol and then back at Rick as finality reflected in his gaze, “I can't wait any longer...just go!”
David stepped into the trail of petrol, holding the lighter over the rags stuffed into the petrol cans.
“There's no time left,” he said, and made a move to spark the flame.
Then Rick realised something as he looked up, then to the broken window.
David was still preparing to ignite the explosion.
“No!” he yelled, diving forwards into the petrol as he made a grab for the lighter and the two men fell as the world around them was swallowed up in a blinding blaze of light...