by RR Haywood
There’s an itch though. Alcohol does that. It lessens the inhibitions. That itch. It won’t go away. This has happened before when he got drunk which is how he ended up serving time in that sex offenders hospital and being put on that god-awful sex offenders register, telling them where he lived, letting them come into his house and check his computer. Bastards.
Ah, that itch it just won’t go away. Those poor boys, sleeping innocently upstairs. They’re probably terrified of the storm and the howling wind outside. God that thunder hasn’t stopped one bit, getting worse if anything and the rain! Never seen rain like it.
Blasted itch. An urge, a demand, a nasty desire that nags and nags. He knows what he wants but it’s a step too far.
He’s The Doc though. He can do what he wants, when he wants. He owns this house and everyone inside it. He’s going to find the cure and the vaccine and fix everyone, he’ll be worshipped then and his dirty little secret won’t matter. Hell! Mothers will be queuing up to hand their sons over. Yeah, that’s right, I am The Doc and I can do what I want.
‘Ere Doc, what about getting us some women ‘ere then?’ A big bruiser asks drunkenly. Squat and ugly, with scars on top of scars and faded tribal tattoos down his neck, he is a victor of many fights on the terraces and in the streets outside the games. Poland, Germany, Italy. He’s fought for his club all over the world, weapons and with his bare hands. A big man, but quick and with a violent streak and a list of convictions to match.
There is a difference between psychotic and naturally violent. A big difference. The naturally violent know right from wrong. To them, violence is almost a sport, a team game to be done when the time is right. You don’t kill the opponent but fuck him up, make him bleed and maybe break a few bones but killing? That just means a life sentence.
Psychotic don’t care. They just don’t care about the consequences. The rage comes and it must be fed, instantly and without hesitation.
The Doc crosses the room within a split second and drives the point of his large thumb deep into the other man’s eye, bursting the pressurised ball within. Screaming he doesn't go down but quickly backs away flailing to get the digit from his eye socket. The Doc goes with him, primal rage takes over, blow after blow is given. Fists, elbows then, as the man goes down, feet are used. He doesn't stop but kicks and stamps at the head until all that remains is a bloodied dead mess.
‘I’M THE DOC,’ he screams over and over, ‘THE DOC, I’M THE DOC.’
The men watching could tear him apart within seconds if they worked together but so great is the fear the man brings, they do nothing. The other men watch quietly as all conversation ceases. Cans get put down, men back away fearfully. Not one word is spoken other than the screams given by the Doc.
He stamps and stamps, the skull caves in but still it doesn't scratch that itch, it does nothing to feed the urge he feels inside. They won’t touch me, they won’t do anything. Immunity from everything he has, immunity from prosecution, from being judged, from being stopped.
The world is his for the taking. Standing back he glares round the room, towering over every man present. Eyes wild and unblinking, unaware of the gore stuck to his shoes, uncaring even.
‘DRINK THEN,’ he roars, ‘DRINK, THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED, SO DRINK.’ He picks on one man stood slightly away from the others. Nervously, the man lifts a random can from the table and sips at the edge. Others do the same, sullen but terrified they lift cans and drink, not one man even daring to glance at the corpse lying at their feet.
‘Enjoy your night gentlemen, I shall retire and bid you a good evening.’ The Doc speaks gently, with the forced tones of a cultured man, but still he holding that central position as though daring anyone to speak.
Eventually he walks towards the door, head held high, one hand he sweeping the scraggly, grey hair away from his neck.
Breathing hard from the exertion of stamping a man to death, his head swims from the after-effects of the violence and alcohol. Heart thumping hard which only serves to give him the sensation of being untouchable.
The sweat flows freely down his face, caught by the flickering illumination of the candles and the flashes of pure energy strafing the sky. To the beat of the rolling thunder he mounts the stairs, long legs ascending with ease. Hand gripping the rail as the first layer of conscious thought grasps the idea of tucking the boys in while the deeper levels know exactly what he’s intending once he’s in that room.
At the top of the stairs he holds still, resting for a minute while he gets his breathing under control. Absent mindedly his hand tugs at the collar of his shirt, pulling it away from his neck. Rolling his head he eases the tension in his neck. Flashes of light all add to the over-whelming sense of power dripping from his fingers.
Lips twitching with unabated, lustful hunger he advances towards the door. Step after heavy step. Fingers twitching at the prospect of grasping that door handle and turning it slowly. Eyes now fixed and staring.
It’s dark within the room, the boys lie huddled under sheets. Too hot to be covered but too scared to lie on top. Tears stream down faces, small chests heave with quiet sobs, images of parents of siblings and relatives, of the lives they lost dance through their minds. Billy sucks his thumb, something he hasn’t done for years. Lilly will come. Lilly will come. He holds that thought, knowing she’ll come for him.
The thunder rocks the house, vibrating the very foundations. Lightning forks outside the unsheathed windows. Howling wind roars through every gap and crevice, shaking the old wooden frames. The boys hear noises of monsters everywhere, but the greatest danger is yet to come as slowly the door handle creaks.
Boys hold their breaths, longing to see the large friendly shape of Meryl silhouetted in the frame. Swinging open on creaking hinges they stare into the darkness, waiting, longing, terrified.
‘My boys,’ the huge figure of the Doc looms in the frame. Flashes of light race across the sky, lighting his drunk, grotesque features, showing the hunger evident on his face as he steps inside and quietly closes the door.
Fifty Two
‘I can’t go any faster,’ I call out.
‘Eh? No one said anything,’ Clarence stares at me.
‘I know but this feels so slow.’
‘Better to get there in one piece,’ Clarence mutters. Well I say mutters but more shouts due to the noise of the storm, ‘and we could go faster but the van behind us can’t.’
Sheets of rain lash the road ahead, visibility is reduced to just a few metres. The powerful headlights just bounce the light back of the water giving a dazzling effect. The route ahead is now featureless. The surface water has pooled so deep as to present a lake. The road is straight so we keep heading on, ever mindful of much less ground clearance of the van behind us.
‘Man, like you know this thing is built for this,’ Ginge calls out, ‘like deep water and bad things man, you know, like it can take it.’
‘Got to be near the estate now,’ I lean forward to peer out, straining to get a glimpse of the ruined area. A wall ahead looms ahead. The dark shape of the side of a house maybe? But no, it’s too big.
I can’t make it out. There wasn’t anything this big here before, Dave saw to that when he blew the estate up. What is that?
Slower now, edging forward as crackling static fills the Saxon. Suddenly, a fork of lightning shoots down straight in front of us. The glimpse is less than a second but it’s enough to have my foot on the brake instantly. Despite the slow speed the Saxon lurches to a halt, jarring everyone inside.
‘What?’ Clarence shouts, Dave moves up to stand behind and view out the front. They all do.
‘No, no way,’ I mutter, ‘not possible.’
‘What isn’t?’ Lani urges.
Lightning again, long and sustained as several separate forks hit one after the other, giving a series of strobe like flashes of illumination, revealing everything in perfect, gory detail.
Gasps sound out behind me. A wall in front of us stretches as far as we can s
ee. Six feet in height and solidly built with no gaps. Meredith growls, deep and resonant, lips pulling up she locks eyes on towards the front.
They’ve done this before. No. It has done this before. In the car park last night they did this; using their own fallen to make a corpse wall. But this one is bigger and better made.
When the lightning strikes again, we all look to where the enormous mounds of bodies were stacked up waiting to be burnt. We know they’ll be gone but visual evidence is needed.
They are gone. Instead, the human remains have been made into bricks, limbs and torsos jammed together.
‘How did you not see this?’ I shout at Clarence.
‘Wasn’t there,’ he growls, ‘I saw the fucking mounds, it wasn’t built yet.’
‘It wasn’t,’ Dave cuts in, ‘when we came back it was normal.’
‘They did this in what? Half an hour?’
‘Looks that way,’ Clarence mutters.
‘Where the fuck they coming from? We got thousands again last night,’ Cookey asks, ‘where? Where from?’
‘I told you,’ Dave says flatly, ‘there will be millions. The population was at fifty million when it started… A few thousand kills is nothing.’
‘Not now though, we’ve got to get Nick,’ Lani says, ‘punch through, just go…’ she urges.
‘We can’t leave the fort.’
‘It’s moving,’ Dave cuts in again.
‘What?’ I shout in disbelief. We wait in silence for another flash of light. At the same time as thunder splits the air apart, we see a multitude of forks hitting the wall. It is moving, inching closer every second. The weight of it must be immense, there must be thousands not only holding it in place but pushing it along. More than that as the numbers of the killed in those mound were well into the thousands. Staggering in scale, terrifying in the noise of the storm.
A vicious wind starts to pick up, a low groaning noise that quickly grows to a wild howl. It’s so powerful it buffets the Saxon on its hinges. Crackle and static from the radio, the atmospheric conditions so bad it’s rendering the transmission from the van just a few feet behind us to a broken hiss.
‘TURN BACK,’ Clarence transmits again and again. Closer now, the wall keeps coming, so solidly made it sends little waves of surface water scooting in front of it.
No GPMG, no assault rifles, no grenades, no cannon, no anything. Fucking sawn off shotguns and a few pistols, some axes and an angry dog. And Dave. As good as he is, even he can’t fight of thousands by himself.
‘We can’t stop them, they’re too wide, we’ll have to go back,’ I twist round to stare at the others.
‘I can’t,’ Lilly says firmly.
‘Listen,’ Lani snaps, ‘you’re with us now, you go out and you’ll be dead in minutes.’
‘But…’
‘No buts,’ I cut her off, ‘we stay together.’
‘And do what?’ Clarence asks with a shrug, ‘and what with?’
‘Fuck knows but we’ll figure it out as we go. Dave, how long till they reach the fort?’
‘At that speed?’ He pauses, ‘an hour, maybe an hour and a half.’
‘No boats,’ I say more to myself.
‘Boss, we can’t put people in boats in this wind.’
‘Van’s turned round,’ Cookey yells from peering out the back. I start the turn, driving backwards onto what I know is solid ground. Pausing at the turn we all stare across at the wall of undead, knowing our friends and families are within it.
Think Howie. Think. There will be a way. Even if we destroy that wall that still leaves the several thousand that must be beyond it and we’re cut off from the mainland now, stuck out on this spit of land.
With a sinking feeling of abandoning Nick, and cursing foully, I turn back towards the fort. Nobody speaks and even the sound of the big engine is lost to the calamitous noise outside. The wind is getting stronger by the second, howling over the flatlands so much it whips the surface spray up into waves that roll and crest with no discernible pattern.
Visibility is down to the lowest so far and within a few metres the wall is lost from view. Surely even they can’t keep pushing a wall of bodies that size in this weather.
Slowing down, we watch as the van ahead of us slowly navigates the treacherous route. The rear doors get ripped open, yanking them from Cookey’s hands. Shouts inside as they all work to pull them closed, heaving with every bit of strength they have.
Clarence clambers over into the back, moving swiftly to grasp the doors and heave them closed. Just before they slam shut, we see the corpse wall shuffling into view. It looks dark, black and fucking big. Grotesquely made from shapes so easily identified as once being of the human form.
It’s the coordination that staggers me. That not only must they be pushing at the same time but also holding the bodies in place as they do. Human remains are soft and after so many days left festering in big mounds in the increasing heat, they will be gooey as anything. Pushing them will just cause those at the base to fall apart. Surely the whole thing can’t be lifted clear off the ground?
Can it?
Fifty Three
Physics. Matter and Energy.
The wall is the matter to be moved. The hosts are the energy. Apply mathematics and a logical execution of weight to body ratio and the wall is lifted.
Howie was right, the base layer of bodies would get squashed, dragged and fall apart. This was accounted for once human bricks were slotted into place.
The expenditure of energy is vast. The host bodies now use sustained strength to hold the wall clear of the ground. The weight is distributed evenly between every host body.
Thousands of pairs of hands lift while thousands of pairs of hands hold the bricks in place. Together those thousands move forward in perfect synchrony.
Like a Roman Testudo. Soldiers interlocking their shields and stepping in perfect time to present a solid unbroken line towards the enemy so they shuffle, left and right, left and right. If they wore hob nailed boots on a parade square the timing would be perfect.
The wall is ever so slightly angled back towards the hosts. This has been calculated to prevent the bodies falling forward. The tallest hosts are used to apply pressure to the top of the wall and in doing so they prevent bodies falling out.
It will take time to advance the distance but the infection has time. The infection knows there is nowhere for the inhabitants of the fort to go. The weather is too wild to allow an escape via the sea.
There weren’t enough bodies to stretch fully from one side of the flatlands to the other, but fortunately, the reduced visibility means the survivors couldn’t see that. The appearance of a solid unbroken wall was enough to send them to scuttling back.
To use the terminology favoured by this region of survivors;
Howie is fucked.
Fifty Four
‘I’m saying we sit on it, do nothing and wait till tomorrow,’ Larson says. Calm now, the wild fury ebbing away as he starts scheming and plotting. To take action now, while everyone is so drunk, could be disastrous.
‘And I agree,’ Jacob sighs, repeating himself for the third or fourth time. Ten minutes they’ve been in here talking quietly and still Larson goes on, almost like he’s trying to convince Jacob and Nick of his plans, get them on side and form allegiances.
Nick listens patiently, knowing that every minute wasted is a minute closer to Mr Howie coming, but the night is getting on now so where are they? Figuring the weather must be delaying, them he leans against the wall and closes his eyes for a second. It’s still so hot and clammy and he sweats just standing here.
‘Yeah,’ Larson nods quickly, ‘we see who’s with us, then we strike. Get rid of him. Quickly though cos he’s strong, unpredictable and quick too.’
‘Course Larson, tomorrow. We’ll get it all sorted then but now’s not the time is it, not with everyone drinking,’ Jacob reinforces the message noticing the discrete nod from Nick. Stall for time, keep him calm and jus
t wait.
‘Dirty bastard,’ Larson groans, ‘a fucking cure, a fucking vaccine…a fucking, WHAT the fuck is that?’ Larson yelps at the strangled yell wailing down the corridor between the thunderous claps booming from the sky.
‘The boys,’ Jacob spins round to lunge out the door and sprint down the corridor, with Nick and Larson right behind him.
‘COME HERE,’ the Doc’s orders. Loud, angry and drunk it floats clearly down the hall from the boys room, bringing Jacob to a sudden stop. The instinct has already been ingrained not to stop the Doc doing what he wants, ignore everything and turn a blind eye.
‘Wait,’ Larson hisses from right behind them, ‘don’t go in… Listen we got to be cool about this.’
‘NOOOO.’ A terrified wail from a young boy whilst others cry in abject fear. More scream and add to the terror from within. Lightning flashes across the three men as they come to a stop outside the door. Nick gets ready, his eyes fierce and determined staring between the two men.
‘I said TOUCH IT,’ the Doc roars from the other side of the closed door, ‘TOUCH IT NOW!’
‘I’m going in,’ Nick growls.
‘You ain’t’ Larson snaps stepping in front of Nick.
‘Get out the way,’ Nick stares at the guard leader, eyes fixed and unblinking.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ Larson hisses, ‘fuck off you little cunt, we ain’t going in there are we Jacob?...I said…Are we Jacob?’
‘THAT’S IT…TOUCH IT…TOUCH IT PROPERLY.’
‘Move,’ Nick snarls.
‘Jacob, get this fucker away from me, we wait till tomorrow.’
‘Larson we can’t…’
‘What Jacob?’ Larson turns on the other guard, ‘we can’t what?’
‘We can’t leave them,’ Jacob mutters, torn between what to do. The sounds of crying are clear, the boys are being terrorised but Jacob has seen what the Doc can do. The man terrifies him, his temper and brutal violence. The size of him, with those huge hands and the wild eyes he gets.