by RR Haywood
The knife is broken. She throws it away. Her huge chest rises and falls. Her cleavage drips blood. Her face twists to fight and kill. Someone falls next to her, screaming out in agony from the teeth sinking into his throat. An axe falls from his hand. An old double-headed thing with two wicked-looking curved blades. In the blink of an eye she drops to grip the shaft and brings the blade down into the back of the neck of the infected biting down. It cleaves deep, severing into the spine and killing it outright. As that one dies so she looks down into the terrified eyes of the bitten man and brings that axe down into his neck, too.
She stands again to scythe the weapon through the air, taking the blade deep into another throat. She yanks it free and slams the other direction, using the smaller blade to hack into the face of another. The weapon is perfect and she holds it double-handed like a tennis player, grunting and shouting with each volley and ace served. Side to side she goes. Cleaving, hacking, cutting and killing as the blood sprays thicker until her dress hangs tight and wet and her hair becomes strands that drip crimson down her back.
‘I’m bit…’ a man screams in panic, trying to tug his leg free from the broken body of an infected female biting into his ankle. Men and women swarm to his aid, battering at the gnashing woman with sticks and bats. A workman slams a lump hammer down, breaking her neck with a sickening crack of bone snapping. The bitten man lurches away, screaming in shock as those around him look on with horror. Just one. That’s all it takes. He is already infected.
‘No…no…no…’ he whimpers, crying for help. ‘Cut it off…CUT IT OFF!’
A police officer steps behind the bitten man with a pistol in his hand and fires the weapon with a single deafening retort of the gun. The man’s head bursts apart with a shower of brains and skull flying through the air. He drops, instantly dead as the police officer looks down with utter shock at what he just did. Tears well in his eyes. Silence deep and profound settles around him. He killed a man. Shot him in the head at point-blank range. The power of the action surges with every rule of society telling his mind that he has done something so terribly wrong. He looks up and round, his eyes locking on Henrietta and on his face she sees complete pain. She sees the hand move, the arm bend, and tries to scream out, to say no, to tell him to stop, to explain he had to kill the bitten man, but the speed of his movement is too fast and the still-hot end of the barrel presses hard into his temple.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he mouths silently, asking for forgiveness from another human being who witnessed what he did. A twitch of his finger and his own life ends as he slumps down to join the corpses on the ground.
‘JOE…JOE…’ Another officer rushes to drop down at his colleague’s side, turning the body over to cradle in his blood-soaked lap. ‘No…Joe, mate…oh shit…Joe…’ Tears stream down his face. Sobs wrack his body.
‘AFTER HIM.’ Henrietta snaps her head up at the distinctive voice of the foreman shouting while pointing his length of wood at an infected male staggering further down the street towards the square.
Henrietta sets off, sprinting hard with the axe in hand to catch the male who lunges a sudden lurch left to slam into a woman screaming in fear. His mouth bites down hard, passing that deadly virus. People scream and run in all directions, desperate to be away.
‘SOUTH SIDE…SOUTH SIDE…URGENT ASSISTANCE…’
The amplified voice booms out as Henrietta reaches the infected male to bring the axe hard into his back. The blade hits bone, jarring the shaft from her grasp as the infected man lunges again at the woman with the axe buried in his spine. She gets a hand onto his hair to try and pull his head back as she grips the axe to wrench it free. Clumps of hair come away in her fist. Her strength is immense. The obsession to train and lift weight pays off as she drags him away with wild determination to get the axe from his back. She tugs and heaves, pulling him round in circles until finally it comes free and he staggers backwards. She spins a full circle, screaming out to drive that blade through his face with such impact it sends shards of bone into his brain. As he drops so other men and women descend to slam lump hammers and tools down to pulp the once-human form.
The bitten woman tries scrabbling away, crabbing on all fours to get free of the attack, but the wounds in her neck and shoulders bleed fast and heavy. Panic shows in her eyes. Panic everywhere. She screams out in horror, in pain, in terror.
‘KILL HER,’ the foreman shouts at the man holding the hammer then spins round to face the barricade. ‘ONE BITTEN ’ERE…’
Malcolm runs over, ditching his bat to pull the assault rifle round. He slams a heavy boot down on the woman’s chest, driving her flat into the ground.
‘Sorry,’ he says with a grim face full of regret, but he pulls the trigger sending the bullet through her brain then turns to stare at the barricade, seeing the control now being exerted as the last few remaining infected that got through the gap are beaten down.
‘SOUTH SIDE…SOUTH SIDE…’
‘You,’ Malcolm says, pointing at an armed police officer holding a black machine gun. ‘Stay here and get it cleared. Police officers stay here…soldiers with me…’
He sets off, sprinting down the street with a clear order given. The police officers stay behind as the soldiers in civilian clothing go after him, running to give aid to the next emergency unfolding.
No time to think. No time to stop and let the shock take over. Take the adrenaline and use it, channel it, make it work. Henrietta runs towards the barricade and the van used to wedge the gap while men and women with guns fire over the bonnet into the gap at anything now presenting itself as a target.
‘Bri?’ she shouts before arriving at the driver’s door. She comes to a sudden stop at the sight of Brian lying across the seat. A bite wound shows on his leg and the back of his head is missing from being shot at point-blank range. She goes to speak, to tell him to get up as her mind struggles to compute what her eyes are seeing. She blinks heavy and slow, swallowing and showing confusion on her face.
‘He with you?’ a man calls out behind her. She turns to see a police officer changing the magazine in his pistol. ‘Was he with you?’ he asks again in a softer tone. She nods and swallows again.
‘Brian,’ she says simply.
‘I’m sorry,’ the officer says, squeezing his eyes closed for a second. ‘He was bit.’
She turns back to look down at the man she met only a few hours ago. She doesn’t know his surname. Is he married? Does he have children? Where does he live? He must have said but right now she can’t think of a single thing other than she saved him from the burning van and kept him running all night just to get here to get bit and shot. She should have got him away from the barricade when she had the chance. She should have pulled him clear and got him away. She reaches out a hand, her fingertips brushing the material of his jeans on his right knee. Rose. Brian. Two killed that she should have protected. Two dead because of her.
‘Move back, love.’
She should have driven the van. She should have got him out, yelled at him to move. He should be in the square with Dolan and Bennie.
‘Love, move away now…he’s dead.’
‘Huh?’ She turns, almost drunk, to the man motioning her to move away.
‘Move away,’ the man states emphatically. ‘We need to keep this…hang on…I know you, don’t I?’ the man says, pulling a quizzical expression. ‘Fuck me…Henrietta Swallow? Is that you?’
‘No,’ Henrietta says quickly, firmly, and turns to walk off. Leaving Brian behind dead on the seat the same way she left Rose behind dead on the road. She would cry but the tears won’t come. She would sink down to sob but she doesn’t. Instead she walks on with the police officer staring after her.
She passes Joe, the other police officer who shot himself, and spots the butt of the pistol poking out under his dead body. She could take it but she doesn’t know how to use it so she walks on past people still running and moving with intent and purpose. Some glance at her with a double take
and the puzzled expression of having just seen someone they know. She keeps her head down, avoiding eye contact.
‘SOUTH BARRICADE IS NOW SECURE. I REPEAT, THE SOUTH BARRICADE IS NOW SECURE. RETURN TO YOUR ASSIGNED POSTS AND WAIT INSTRUCTION. ALL MEDICALLY TRAINED PEOPLE TO REPORT TO THE SQUARE. WE NEED WATER AND…’
An instant change of atmosphere, a settling of nerves with fleeting looks of relief on faces that she avoids looking at.
‘Get back to work,’ the foreman shouts in his broad cockney accent. ‘Thems windows ain’t gonna cover themselves up.’
The tiredness hits. The exhaustion of mind and body and an emptiness inside that’s numb to the core. She barely registers a dull cheer sounding from a generator kicking to life, giving power to a new set of floodlights that work to banish the shadows away. Instead she looks up to a sky starting to lighten as a new day heralds. An hour from now will be the first day of this new world. This isn’t contained to London. She knows that now. This is everywhere. One bite. That’s all it takes. The spread has been too fast and too great for it to be contained to the city. The whole country will be gone, maybe the whole world. One infected getting through the Channel Tunnel. One infected on a plane leaving Gatwick or Heathrow. The pilots will be safe, locked in their cockpit. They’ll land somewhere and the spread will continue. Maybe England wasn’t even the first country hit but simply part of the spread of a virus sweeping across the planet.
She won’t be a serious journalist. She won’t get a chance to climb that new ladder. That life is gone. Dead as Rose. Dead as Brian.
Still, she got Bennie through it. She comes to a stop and looks ahead to the small crowd of teenage girls gathered round Bennie still pissed from the vodka and whiskey. The girls look filthy: torn clothes, faces smudged with dirt and grime. Red-eyed from crying but still they show some awe at the sight of the young man who seems to have got through the night in a daze of alcohol-induced happiness that has somehow numbed him to the horror. Best way to be, really. She snorts a humourless blast of air and shakes her head.
‘Bennie,’ she calls out softly, watching as his head jerks up and the big grin spreads across his face. ‘Come on.’ She motions him over as the girls look round.
‘Oh. My. Fucking. God…are you Henrietta Swallow?’
‘No,’ Henrietta says quickly, firmly. ‘I just look like her.’
The girls instantly lose interest as Bennie sways over, unsteady on his feet and looking round as though confused.
‘Where’s Bri?’
‘Didn’t make it,’ Henrietta says quietly.
‘Ah, man,’ Bennie says, showing genuine pain. ‘Ah, that’s bad…’
‘Yeah. You okay?’
‘Me? Yeah, cool, Henrietta,’ he says, nodding quickly. ‘You?’
‘Yeah,’ she whispers. She doesn’t flinch when his hands reach out towards her chest but stares down as he gently takes the material of her dress and draws it together over her cleavage.
‘Boobies falling out,’ he says as soft as a child and nods again with a quick, shy grin. That single act brings forth the emotions that threaten to spill out and she looks away to bite them down. His gesture touches something inside. She lost Rose and Brian but she got one through it and she looks past him to the people who smile warmly at seeing his instantly recognisable face. He’s an idiot who can’t fight for toffee. That much is without doubt, but he’s loveable as a puppy and for that, maybe it was worth it. A protective energy comes from her. Not the energy of a mother but something else. The energy of one who can fight and who chooses to do so for something worth defending, for someone who can’t defend himself.
‘We’ll use one of the houses to get washed,’ she says, easing back into the calm authority of someone who may not know what they’re doing but will fake it with a confidence that gives strength to the other.
‘Okay, Henrietta,’ Bennie says simply. ‘Can we look for some vodka?’
‘No. We cannot look for some vodka.’
‘Oh,’ he says glumly. ‘Okay.’
She takes him by the hand, leading him across the street through the crowds of people moving with purpose and all eyes go to Bennie, not to her. She hears his name over and again and he smiles and nods, waving at people in his happy, drunken way.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’
She winces at the harsh tones coming from behind. Dolan storms across the road. He grabs her wrist, turning her hard and glaring down.
‘There isn’t a way out,’ he shouts as though it’s her fault. ‘We’re trapped here, you stupid bitch…’
‘Whoa, man,’ Bennie says.
‘Shut up,’ Dolan snaps at him. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Helping at the barric…’
‘Do not fucking leave me again. Do you hear? Do you understand? Can you get that into your tiny fucking brain?’
‘Okay,’ she says with a shrug. Too much has happened, too many sights seen. She’s exhausted, drained, empty.
He stands straighter, fed on the supplication shown and able to once again use his temper now there is nothing dangerous immediately apparent. ‘There are no phones,’ he says, holding his thumb out to count. ‘No landlines…no helicopters…no transport out. That idiot with the beard is in charge but is nowhere to be found…that doctor in there is just rude and told me to fuck off…’
‘Dolan, I need to get washed,’ she says tiredly.
‘Oh, well, excuse me,’ Dolan says, pulling his head back in mock apology. ‘I have been keeping us alive all night. I have run a fucking marathon. I am an important person trapped, but you need to get washed? You? A fucking porn star? You were born dirty, you fucking skank…’
‘Hey,’ Bennie says, losing his affable smile.
‘Fuck off, you little prick,’ Dolan snarls. ‘Both of you are finished when this ends…finished. You hear me? Done. I will ruin the pair of you…what? Why are you laughing, you crazy fucking whore?’
‘This won’t be finished,’ Henrietta says, chuckling at the haughty tone of the man trying to cling to some semblance of importance. ‘It spreads too fast.’
‘I think we’ve had the conversation about spreading,’ Dolan says, withering in his execution. ‘And although of course you are the expert in spreading, I do not think…’
‘And Brian’s dead.’
‘What?’
‘He got bit.’
‘Bit?’ Dolan says, looking round in alarm.
‘Then shot.’
‘Oh,’ Dolan says, not hiding the look of relief. ‘Poor Brian,’ he adds with a dismissive shrug.
‘Yeah, poor Bri,’ Bennie sighs heavily.
‘Come on.’ Henrietta turns away tugging gently at Bennie’s hand to lead him on towards the buildings.
‘I just said you will not fucking leave me,’ Dolan says, seething at the pair of them turning their backs on him.
‘You’re safe now,’ Henrietta says, not turning to look.
He runs to catch up, trying to reach out to grab her arm but she pulls it free and keeps walking.
‘Safe? This isn’t safe…stop walking away…I said stop walking away!’ He grabs harder, gripping tighter, heedless to the axe gripped in her hand.
‘Dolan, get off me,’ she snaps, trying to tug her arm free, but he clamps on, glowering with self-righteous anger.
‘You’ll keep me alive and happy, remember that?’ he growls, stepping closer. ‘Everyone else rejected you. Remember that? I’m the only one left.’
‘Leave her alone,’ Bennie says, trying to push in between them.
‘Alive and happy,’ Dolan says again. ‘That’s the fucking deal…remember that?’
‘Get off her,’ Bennie says, drunk and uncoordinated, pushing his arms between Dolan and Henrietta.
A temper tantrum explodes out. Dolan’s face flushes red. His hand squeezes painfully on her arm, thrashing it back and forth. She tries to push him away but Bennie gets in the way. She tells him to get off, to let go. Bennie shouts louder, pushi
ng harder. A mistake made and a hand lashes out. An open palm slaps with a ringing scald across a cheek that snaps the head over.
She was hit before, in the garage. She took it then and she may well have taken it again. Too many things done. Too many things seen, but the slap doesn’t hit her. It hits Bennie and the line is crossed. The tiredness evaporates instantly. Adrenaline courses to be used and channelled. The axe is dropped and that hand comes up to break his nose with a fist smashing into the centre of his face. Dolan sags back, stunned from the blow, but she doesn’t end it there. A knee comes up hard into his groin. He bends double with a searing pain shooting through his testicles. Still it doesn’t end there. She hits him again to the side of his face, this time snapping his head over. She hits him on the other side, snapping it back. Calm, controlled, breathing easy and deep. Each blow planned and delivered with precision. He sinks down, unable to hold his own weight as his legs give out. She slams a fist into the back of his head, helping him to the ground. He hits and rolls, groaning with hands covering his face that spurts blood from his ruined nose. Still it doesn’t end there. He hit Bennie.
She straddles his waist in a position almost loving to a casual glance from an observer walking past. Except this is a night of terror and people are too busy, too worried, too full of fear and terror to even notice the battering being delivered. Besides, the new floodlights make the shadows deeper, darker, and in those shadows she rains hard punches down onto a face that has needed a battering for the last few hours. She hits for the callous nature shown for Rose. She hits for the comments he made. She hits for the bad things he said to Bennie. She hits for Brian who said he would back her up if she stood up to him, but Brian isn’t here now. Brian is dead. Brian gave his life to defend these people, and Dolan was one of them. She hits until Dolan doesn’t cry out or try to cover his pulped face. She hits an unconscious man unable to defend himself and only then does a strong hand gently grip her arm and she feels herself being lifted away.