by RR Haywood
‘What?’ Henrietta blinks at the sudden question.
‘Trained in firearms? Can you shoot?’ the officer asks, holding her arms out to the sides as she walks at them.
‘No…I, er…’ Henrietta says, looking at the others.
‘Played Call of Duty,’ Bennie says, wiping his mouth.
‘INCOMING.’ The air splits apart from weapons firing at the gap and the first undead female surges through to get ripped to pieces by rounds slamming through her, but she keeps coming. Pushed on from behind by the horde driving forward to get inside. The lines fire but the corpses get trampled down or carried on the wave of human forms spilling into the street. They fire but the infected keep coming. They fire faster. They come harder. They kill but not enough.
‘FALL BACK,’ Clarence gives the order on a signal from Chris.
‘Move away…down that street NOW,’ the female officer shouts at Henrietta.
‘SOUTH ENTRANCE BEING ATTACKED…WE NEED HELP…’
Henrietta spins at the new voice spotting another uniformed copper running towards the battle taking place.
‘HOW MANY?’ Chris shouts over the din, breaking free from the firing lines to stride towards the man.
‘LOADS…’ the police officer shouts, coming to a stop at the sight of the barricade becoming overrun. ‘Oh shit…we’re fucked…’
‘Compose yourself,’ Chris snaps at the young officer. ‘Clarence, with me…Malc…you hold it here.’
‘Yep,’ Malcolm shouts back. Clarence peels away from the line running after Chris down the street.
‘GET THOSE WINDOWS SEALED,’ Chris shouts at a crowd of people cowering at the side of the road. ‘HELP THOSE MEN.’ He points at a group of people then runs hard after the copper towards the new peril. Henrietta peers round, trying to make sense of the confusion within the street. Doors stacked up on the ground and that weird sight catches her eye. Wooden internal doors ripped from frames and stacked ready to be nailed across windows. Men with hammers and mouthfuls of nails work fast, holding and nailing the doors up. Others run out from doorways carrying more doors to be stacked and made ready. An older heavyset guy in a pair of blue overalls shouts instructions. Order within chaos.
‘GET THE INJURED INTO THE SQUARE,’ an amplified voice speaks through a loudspeaker from a police car. ‘TRIAGE IN THE SQUARE…ANYONE WITH MEDICAL EXPERIENCE REPORT TO DOCTOR ROBERTS IN THE SQUARE…WE NEED CLEAN WATER AND DRESSINGS…’
‘Stop fackin’ about and get that fackin’ door nailed up…’ The foreman in the blue overalls strides past a small work party gawping at the infected pouring through the barricade.
‘We have to hold them here,’ Malcolm shouts. ‘We need more people over here to fight.’
‘Get ya fackin’ hammers and get in there,’ the foreman shouts, grabbing a length of wood and marching towards the barricade.
‘WATER TO THE SQUARE…CLEAN WATER TO THE SQUARE…’
‘You need to move away from here,’ the female officer says urgently, turning to face the firing lines at the barricade. She is pushed back as the waves of infected increase from the gap widening as the sheer weight of bodies pushing against the vehicles pushes them out into the street.
‘You gots a hole in ya barricade.’ The foreman waves his length of wood at the barricade. ‘That’s ya problem right there. Yous need to plug it.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’ Malcolm shouts.
‘Van,’ Brian blurts, taking a step towards the foreman. ‘Drive a van into it.’
‘Well don’t stand there fackin’ shoutin’ suggestions…go find one,’ the foreman shouts.
‘Come on,’ Brian says, nodding at Henrietta. They head off into the street past people running in all directions. Women rush past carrying bottles of water and white towels. Men clutching sticks, bats, poles and knives head either down in the direction Chris went or up to the barricade. Children gather in small groups under the watchful care of adults and men hold whatever weapons they can carry. People in uniforms, police, ambulance and council officials trying to shout at one another and everyone else. Windows being covered. Torches shining, lights flickering.
‘Officer.’ Dolan snatches at a policeman running past, grabbing him by the arm. ‘I’m an important person. Where’s the transport…’
‘Fuck off,’ the officer screams with spittle flying from his lips, jerking his arm away leaving Dolan reeling on the spot.
‘Did you fucking hear that?’ Dolan says. ‘I have never in my fucking life…’
‘Hi, sorry, can you help us?’ Henrietta rushes to a woman carrying towels. ‘They need a vehicle at the barricade.’
‘Ere, ain’t you that Jordan?’ the woman says, blinking in surprise.
‘The other one,’ Henrietta says.
‘What other one? Jodie?’
‘Henrietta Swallow.’
‘Oh yeah…well fuck me backwards. You look like shit, love.’
‘Vehicles?’ Henrietta prompts.
‘Oh right. Yep, down that road…Big Chris got ’em all lined up. Keys should be in the ignit…oh my fucking GOD! Is that Bennie?’
‘Thanks,’ Henrietta says, grabbing Bennie to drag him on.
‘BENNIE! Where’s The Boys…’
‘Dead,’ Bennie shouts, silencing the woman who turns away with a wince.
Keeping Bennie close, she runs through the street round a central square hemmed in by iron railings and shining like a movie set from floodlights set up, running off generators that add to the noise and smells. Solid dining room tables are put to use as operating tables and the bleeding and injured rest on a myriad of chairs and stools waiting to be seen by the frantic medical professionals identified within the disorder.
‘MORE WATER,’ a tall man with bushy eyebrows and wearing a white lab coat thunders at a poor sod running past.
People queue at the side of the police vehicle, waiting in turn to pass messages to the beleaguered officer using the amplified system, calling for more water, more dressings, support at the south, weapons to the barricade, more doors to be ripped off for boarding up windows.
‘MAKE WAY…MOVE OUT THE SODDIN’ WAY.’ Henrietta brings Bennie and the other two to a sudden halt as a train of people run past carrying heavy furniture. Sofas, cookers, two men straining with a washing machine and anything that can be grabbed and carried to shore up the barricades forming across the junctions.
‘Down there.’ Henrietta spots the front of a van glinting from the street lamps and rushes round the train of furniture movers, still holding Bennie’s wrist. A side road is already barricaded with a long wheel-based truck jammed across the road and every gap stuffed with heavy items. Only two armed people guard the section, both police officers with pistols.
‘Malcolm needs a van,’ Henrietta shouts, pointing at the first Transit. One of the officers nods and gives a quick thumbs up before turning back to watch his assigned position.
‘Brian, you drive,’ Henrietta says. Brian rushes round the front to the driver’s door wrenching it open. A second of checking and he turns the keys, flicking the lights on. She gets to the passenger door ready to get inside.
‘Only one seat,’ Brian calls out as she opens the door.
‘Bennie, Dolan…go to the square and wait there…’ Henrietta shouts, getting into the passenger seat.
‘Come with you,’ Bennie says, showing the first sign of panic at being separated from Henrietta.
‘No, the square…we’ll be right back…’
‘Brian doesn’t need you,’ Dolan wails. ‘Let him drive it…’
‘Go,’ Henrietta slams the door waving at Brian to push on while winding the window down. ‘The square…wait by that police car and for fuck’s sake, Dolan, do not piss anyone off…in fact, just don’t talk to anyone…GO…’
The van chugs and starts from the trembling, exhausted movements of Brian operating the controls. His right foot too heavy, his left foot shaking and coming off the clutch too fast. Shuddering, jolting and
vibrating.
‘Take it easy,’ Henrietta says, forcing calm into her voice. The street is rammed, the whole area thick with people consumed with the urgency of their own tasks, clogging the streets and blocking the way through. Henrietta leans over, pressing her hand into the steering wheel sounding the horn while waving at people to move. With the height gained from the seating position she can see the barricade at the far end and the sheer maelstrom of motion from figures pouring through. Muzzles flash as the police and soldiers fire into the infected, but even she can see they’re minutes away from being overrun.
‘NORTH BARRICADE…NORTH BARRICADE…URGENT ASSISTANCE…’
The amplified voice booms out rushed and worried. The two officers from the side alley run past holding their pistols. Men and women grab at hand weapons, stick, bats, poles, bricks and broken bottles and run towards the new point of danger. The sight of it sends a surge of energy through Henrietta. Something formed so quickly. A safe place made with doctors and nurses helping the wounded and hurt. Men and women, strangers to one another and everyone else but working side by side. People rushing towards the bad thing happening to defend this tiny space they have claimed. The goodness of human endeavour showing bright and real to her jaded eyes.
At the barricade she can see the infected pouring through and only just being held back. A replay of the old lady biting into the hooded kid runs through her mind. One bite. Just one. That one man the bouncers at the theatre went to help and everyone died. That one old lady in the street with the feral kids and no doubt by now they’re all dead. Rose dead. Rose screaming in pain and becoming weaker by the minute as she’s dragged by her hair through the wasteland.
‘DRIVE,’ she shouts at Brian, hammering her hand on the steering wheel to sound the horn over and over, ‘DRIVE INTO THEM…’
‘Are you nuts?’
‘They’ll kill everyone here…drive into the gap.’
‘Fuck.’ Brian pushes his foot down harder on the accelerator. ‘FUCK.’ He pushes harder, changing from first to second gear while Henrietta pounds the horn. ‘FUCK,’ he shouts louder at the barricade looming closer and the way ahead emptying as the people finally hear the van behind them. Into third and the power of the gear propels the acceleration to be greater. The van screams with the engine building in torque and he holds third gripping the wheel hard.
‘MOVE…MOVE…’ Malcolm roars at the firing lines that starburst aside. Human beings ahead. People that move on two legs and Brian has to fight every instinct in his body not to brake hard and prevent the collision. The last few seconds slow to a crawl of faces turning to stare at the van with wild, bloodshot eyes. Strands of saliva hang thick with teeth bared and ready to bite. So many of them. Thick numbers densely packed between the van and the gap in the barricade, but it’s towards the gap that Brian aims. Holding third gear with the diesel engine of a white Ford Transit van screaming in high revs.
‘BRACE.’ Brian gets the word out a split second before the impact. Henrietta drops the knife at her feet and slams her hands onto the dashboard, ready to absorb the hit. The van crashes into the first few, scooping them along like twigs in a flood with mouths gnashing at the windscreen. Thumps sound out as more are hit. The wheels bump over bodies that spray blood and gore from being crushed and broken. A concertina of human form rammed back into the widened pinch point with a bone-jarring collision that sends both Henrietta and Brian flying forward with faces ready to be smashed in on the dashboard and steering wheel. The electronic systems detect the impact. Airbags deploy faster than the eye can see. As they go forward so those bags come out. The two meet with a stunning speed of motion and momentum. Their faces slam into the bags that absorb the power of the impact and save necks being broken and nose bones being rammed into brains.
It still hurts and the shock stuns them to the core. The engine still revs with the back wheels turning on the spot, driving the van into the crushed bodies as Brian holds his foot down hard.
The glass on her left side shatters from a head ramming through. Hundreds of tiny chunks of twinkling glass cascade over her body. She turns in horror to see the wild red eyes of an infected man coming in hard for the bite. She screams out, twisting to get away while scrabbling for the knife dropped on the floor. Another explosion of glass. The windscreen shatters in from the flailing arms and heads of the infected jammed between the van, still trying to bite and rake. Noise everywhere. Sensations. Sounds. Images that sear into her mind. Howls and screeches. Men and women shouting. In that wild second she snatches a view of Brian pawing in shocked panic to open his door with the only too recent memory of being trapped in a van on fire so fresh in his mind.
‘MOVE IN,’ a voice bellows from somewhere. More shouts sound but outside the van is another world. Only here exists now. Only being trapped in the front of this van and the horn sounding from Brian’s elbow holding it down while he scrabbles for the door and the crazed man lunging through the window trying to bite into her. There’s nowhere to go. She can’t go forward. She can’t go back. Instead she bucks and writhes to dodge the face of the man biting with teeth snapping audibly at her arms and legs. She gropes, feels, shouts and swears as her fingers brush the blade of the knife, knocking it further under the seat. Single gunshots ring out but the greater sounds are of people fighting with sticks, knives and weapons as they fight the infected.
She twists on the seat, trying to find a way out as Brian lunges back from his window imploding in another shower of glass by the infected woman surging in. Trapped on all sides now, they become demented with desperation, ducking and banging into each other to veer away from the mouths snapping filthy, stained teeth. The knife is knocked out of reach, the desperation grows. The people outside can’t get to them. There are too many infected still raging within the small space. A glint of metal catches her eye. The seat belt clasp hanging down on the black cord. The idea forms the second she spots it. She slams forward, driving the head of the male down to bite the seat while she grasps the seatbelt. She pulls too hard, jamming the auto-lock mechanism. The beast tries to rear up but she goes faster, launching high to bang her head on the ceiling but coming down hard on his back, pushing her bent knee into his skull while Brian screams and leans back from the infected woman.
A dangerous calm descends in her mind. The calm that Big Chris, Clarence and Malcolm have. The calm that gets the bad thing done. Her manner settles. The panic goes. Steady hands pull the seat belt out carefully to avoid it jamming. Timing it right, she lifts and allows the male to rear up so she can tug the belt under his head, down his face and round his neck. With her knee back down, she cinches the belt and forces her hands to cross over the back of his neck. Veins bulge in her arms. Sinewy muscle stands taut under the grimy skin, but she pulls and pulls with a fierce determination. The belt tightens, cutting air and blood from the brain of the infected male. He thrashes wild and crazed but the more he does so the calmer she becomes. Breathing slow and easy. Forcing those arms to work harder. Millimetre by millimetre she strangles until his writhing becomes weaker, slower. His hands flail with dull hits until he falls limp and dead as the life within him is taken away. She holds the pressure, refusing to be tricked or drawn into a foul game. Still she holds on. Her face is a mask of pure, cold aggression: lips thin, eyes set, veins standing proud from skin. She looks up to see the female pushing closer to Brian and the hilt of Brian’s knife so clear and obvious in the pocket of the driver’s door. With a grunt she ramps an extra few millimetres on the belt before releasing with an explosive lunge of utter violence. Her right hand grabs the female by the hair, lifting her up as the left hand grabs the knife and sticks the blade deep into the soft flesh of her throat. She stabs once, twice, three times, puckering the blade in and out faster and faster. The artery is cut. Thick red blood spurts down on Brian screaming and thrashing while being pressed down by Henrietta fighting over him.
Two dead and she powers on, forcing the female to drop down. The battle lust is there. The nee
d to fight back overwhelms her. Without thought she rushes from the van into a battle of chaos and screams. People wielding any weapon they could grab strike and batter at the infected. Skulls implode. Bones snap. Guts are cut open, spewing innards over the road. Corpses lie everywhere. Crawlers writhe and snap at ankles. Still so many infected on this side, but the survivors can’t fire their weapons now for fear of hitting one another. Something runs past her and she gains an essence of red eyes flashing in the light. Her hand whips out, grabbing a fistful of hair, and with a violent twist she wrenches the beast off her feet and drives the knife down into the throat. As the body drops she goes with it. Doing the same as she did a second ago. Puckering the flesh with repeated stabs until the air fills with the spray of blood from the opened artery. Sensation of movement as another infected trips to land across the one she is stabbing. She switches aim and takes that one through the neck, too. Both dead. Both with throats cut to ribbons of flaying flesh.
On her feet again. She fights to protect the square and the people trying to help one another. She fights to do what she can for this spark of humanity on the worst night the world has ever seen. She fights to kill. She fights because she can. She stabs with strong hands and braces on strong legs that hold her centre of gravity. She twists, ducks and weaves round the infected. Slashing and stabbing with a snarl etched on her face. Barefooted. Barehanded and wearing only a flimsy black designer dress, she kills and fights to protect her own. She slices one and turns to see the back of a big male going for the back of a workman wielding a long piece of wood.
Instinct within her, she runs to jump and land on the infected beast’s back. Her left arm goes under his throat to cut his airways off as her hand sticks the blade into his side again and again. Hot blood spurts out. The man screeches turning on the spot. Henrietta grips on, spinning round as she stabs and chokes, heedless of the primeval scream coming from her own mouth. He drops to his knees. The blood loss is too great to keep his body upright, but still she stabs and still she chokes. He falls backwards, his heavy body trapping her on the filthy blood-soaked ground, but still she chokes and still she stabs. The blade breaks but still she stabs, ramming the jagged shard into his stomach and chest while he writhes and bucks to push her across the ground. The end is decreed and she claims the victory to heave his dead body away to stand up wild and full of lust.