Stephen turned around in his seat. “There are no hospitals, Liz. You saw what they did—they bombed it. What am I supposed to do, conjure one up?!”
“We need to get to a doctor. They need medical attention.”
“I can’t help you. Get out,” Stephen demanded.
“You have to help us,” Liz cried.
Melissa sobbed, “Ma, I’m scared.”
“It’s okay,honey. Just be quiet for now.” Liz turned back to Stephen. “Please, you have to.”
Stephen shouted, “I don’t have to do anything! Now get the fuck out of my car!”
“Please,” Liz begged.
Stephen seemed to calm down. He rubbed a hand over his tired face and then looked back at Liz. In a measured voice, he said, “It’s the easy way or the hard way. You choose.”
“Are you threatening me?” Liz asked.
Stephen didn’t hesitate to answer, “Yes.”
He pulled the keys from the ignition and stepped out.
The alleyway felt narrower than usual. There were a number of industrial-sized bins sitting ready for refuse collection.
He walked over to the chain gate of the office parking lot and unlocked it. He pushed the gate half open and stepped back to the car.
“Get out,” he said, staring Liz in the eyes.
The young girl Liz held appeared terrified, and the boy looked like he was in a trance. In the front seat, Gary was swaying gently, delirious with fever.
“Get out!” Stephen shouted, the anger flushing his face red.
He pulled open the front passenger door and manhandled Gary out of his seat. The security guard was drenched in sweat and far heavier than Stephen anticipated.
He stumbled backwards, hauling at the docile man. Getting his feet out of the car, he dragged Gary inside the gate and lay him down on the asphalt. As he straightened up he heard the car door slam shut.
Liz had stretched over and pulled the door closed. As Stephen ran up to the car she slapped down the door locks.
“Daft bitch,” Stephen growled.
He pulled his keys out of his pocket and dangled them in front of the window.
He hit the central locking button on the car key and the door locks sprung open.
Liz lunged out and managed to lock the rear passenger door again before Stephen could yank the door open.
Thwarted, Stephen grabbed the handle for the front passenger door and beat Liz to the goal.
He leaned inside the car. Liz was still half out of her seat, frozen in her failed attempt to secure the door.
Stephen pulled his fist back.
He grumbled, “You annoying cow,” as he punched her in the face.
Liz fell back into her seat, Melissa’s screaming and a swarm of buzzing in her ears. She screwed up her eyes against the bright light and realized she was being dragged from the car.
The ground was hard and unyielding as she felt herself being dumped down. Dazed and in pain, by the time she had managed to sit up, the car was gone, the sound of its engine quickly obscured by the crying and plaintive sobs from her daughter.
An alarm sounded, high-pitched and angry.
Liz turned round to see a fire exit wide open.
“Liz?” Colin panted.
With Melissa’s help, Liz got to her feet..
Colin called above the racket, “What happened?”
Liz ran her hand under her nose. It was tender and throbbing, but there was no blood on her fingers.
“Stephen,” Liz slurred. She looked back down the alleyway in the direction he had sped off. “He hit me.”
“Are you okay?” Colin asked, getting closer. He looked down at the delirious Gary. “Is he okay? Did you not get to a hospital?”
Liz shook her head and started to cry.
Colin looked around, unsure what to do. The little girl Melissa had buried her head in her mother’s abdomen. She had started crying, too. The young boy was lying on the ground, still holding his injured hand, looking very sickly, and Gary was mumbling incoherently.
As Colin was trying to determine what he should do, a rasping moan rose above the sound of the fire exit alarm. From across the deserted car park he could see a limping figure making its way towards them along the chain link fence. He stepped up to Liz's side and put his hands on her shoulders.
“Let’s get you inside,” Colin said, gently guiding her towards the office block.
With his eyes on the figure ambling towards them, Colin jogged across the parking lotto the gate.
The flimsy metal gate squeaked slightly as he pushed it back into place. As the two halves of the gate met, the chain mesh jangled, but didn’t line up.
Colin looked more closely at the lock. It was a simple slide-over bolt, but the problem was the bolt was all the way across, stopping the gates from sitting flush. The bolt was being held in the locked position by the padlock that normally kept the gate secure, a padlock that had been snapped shut.
“Oh, Christ,” Colin cursed.
He looked around for some way of barring the gate. As he did he caught sight of the advancing figure again. Now that he was closer, Colin could see he wore an unzipped grey jacket that was missing a sleeve from the shoulder down. His dark jeans were muddy and ripped through at the knees. The cartoon figures on the front of his T-shirt were obscured by the trail of rich red blood that until recently had flowed from the gash in the man’s throat. With his stiff limbs he was fighting to move each and every step forward. He swung his legs out as if he were trying to free his feet from wet cement. The force of the motion would throw him off balance slightly and he would totter for a moment before throwing his trailing leg forward. Arduous though the movement was, he persevered.
Colin broke his gaze with the man and resumed his visual search for something that would bar the gate. He saw Liz walking wobbly toward the doorway, her daughter helping her, but the boy and Gary were lying on the asphalt.
There were a couple of cars in the car park, but without the keys to start them, there would be no way to manoeuvre them in front of the gate.
Colin looked down at his slip-on shoes and khaki shorts.
No shoelaces. Not even a belt. Even a tie would do the trick, he reasoned.
“Hell with it.”
Colin grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt and started pulling it up and off his torso.
The fence rattled close by and the moaning grew louder. By the time Colin had fumbled his way out of the t-shirt the creature was at the gate. The air smelt of iron from the fresh blood that gently oozed from its neck wound.
Colin stuffed his t-shirt halfway into the space between links.
He curled the fingers of his left hand through the chain links and held the gate shut. He slipped the finger and thumb of his right hand through the void in the chain on the other gate and started plucking at the cloth of his t-shirt. He couldn’t get enough of his fingers through the hole to get a good grip of the material. Every time he tugged, the cloth slipped a little and gave way.
The gate rattled and Colin looked up into the blank stare of the zombie.
Something cold and wet touched the fingers of his left hand. He looked across to see the zombie’s fingers touching his.
Colin jumped back in revulsion. “Christ!”
The creature heaved its lips back and threw itself at the gate. With its mouth wide open, it gurgled out a fluid-muffled scream. Spits of fresh blood cascaded from its mouth.
Colin took a step back to avoid the sickening spray.
The gate swung open and the bloodied man stumbled in with his arms outstretched, grasping for its prey.
“What’s going on?!” Mo shouted as he rushed up beside the shirtless Colin.
“I need to get this fence shut! Have you got the key?”
The zombie snarled and lunged at Colin. Colin easily sidestepped it.
He said, “You get the gate locked. I’ll keep this guy occupied,”
Mo ducked round the zombie as Colin, naked from the waist
up, played rodeo clown, shouting and waving his arms wildly.
Getting to the gate, Mo pulled out his set of keys and flicked through them until he found the small brass padlock key. Before locking it, he stuck his head out and looked both ways down the alleyway. Even though the refuse bins blocked much of his view, it looked clear. He stepped back, unlocked the padlock, slid the bolt across, and secured the gate.
Behind him, Colin was still backing up the parking lot, keeping the creature’s attention.
Mo shouted, “Gary, don’t just stand there—help him!”
Gary turned at the sound and painfully started walking over to Colin.
Colin caught the movement from the corner of his eye and turned in time to see Gary raising his arms to grab him.
“Christ!” Colin spat out as he threw himself out of reach.
The sudden dodge made him stumble. Losing his balance, he fell flat on his back.
Insulated from the pain of the fall by adrenaline and fear, Colin scurried away on his backside until he could get to his feet again.
“What’s up with you, Gary?!” Mo shouted, keeping his distance from his colleague. He looked over at Colin. “You okay?”
Colin nodded.
“Lucky they’re slow bastards,” he said.
“Gary, snap out of it,” Mo said. “What are you doing?”
Gary, his eyes glazed over, had switched targets and was now heading for Mo. Colin kept the other crazed man focused on him by staying in his line of sight and taunting him.
“He can’t answer you, Mo,” Colin said, panting slightly. “He’s gone.”
“What’s up with you?” Mo said, backing up to maintain his distance.
“He’s dead,” Colin said.
“What? No way.”
“It was on the radio. If they bite you, you’ll get infected and become one of them.”
“What are we supposed to do?” Mo asked. “We can’t just keep doing this until they get tired of chasing us.”
“They don’t move fast. We can make a run for the door and lock them out,” Colin said.
“Okay.”
Colin nodded. “Ready? Go!”
The two men turned and dashed for the fire exit.
Colin cursed, “Shit!”
Mo turned to see Colin running back to the gate.
“Where are you going?!”
Colin hit the gate and yanked his t-shirt free. He shouted back at Mo, “Go! Go! Go!”
Running full tilt, Colin easily dodged the two zombies and scurried into the office block just seconds behind Mo.
Mo slammed the door closed and the whining emergency siren stopped wailing. He sunk against the breeze block wall, his hand across his heart, breathing heavily.
“That was just whacked,” Mo said, shaking his head.
There was a thump at the door, followed by another and then another.
“What the hell is going on out there?” Sharon was trotting down the stairs towards Mo and Colin.
“I think we need to get everyone together,” Colin said, pulling his t-shirt back on.
“Why?” Sharon demanded. “What’s happening out there? Who’s banging on that door?”
“Get everyone to meet in the canteen,” Colin said.
“You’re not in charge here,” Sharon said coldly.
“I’ve got news for you: no one’s in charge here,” Colin countered.
Sharon looked over at Mo for support. Mo simply shrugged and stood up from his slumped position against the wall.
***
Colin pushed open the door to the canteen and was followed in by Sharon.
Liz was sitting with the two cleaning ladies, a wet cloth over her cheek. The young girl was flicking through the TV channels.
“Who are we missing?” Colin asked.
“Just John,” Sharon said.
Liz stood up. She asked, “Where’s Grant?”
Colin’s faced dropped. “I thought he was with you.”
“No,” Liz said.
She pushed the chair back and threw the cloth onto the table. The side of her face where Stephen had punched her looked red and swollen.
“You didn’t leave him outside?” Liz asked.
“No, no, I’m sure of it,” Colin replied. “We’d have seen him.”
Liz marched up to Colin. “We have to find him.”
Colin put his hands on Liz’s shoulders to stop her. He could feel her trembling.
“We’ll find him,” he assured her.
“What’s that banging?” Liz asked. She pushed to get past Colin. “Is that him banging on the door?”
“No, he’s not outside,” Colin said.
“Who’s banging then?!” Liz demanded.
“It’s Gary and some other guy,” Colin said, not letting go of Liz’s shoulders.
“You have to let them in—maybe they’ve seen Grant!”
Liz slapped Colin’s hand from her shoulders.
“No,” Coin said firmly. “They’ve changed. They’re like the others.”
“What others?”
“Like the ones who attacked you this morning—like the ones in the streets. They’ve been changed.”
“I was just with Gary. He was... Well, he wasn’t okay but he wasn’t one of them,” Liz said. “Grant! We need to find Grant before something happens to him!”
Colin heard footsteps coming down the stairs. He turned and saw Mo and John on their way down..
“Look, you stay here. Look after your girl. We’ll look for your son,” Colin said.
He gently applied pressure to Liz’s shoulders to steer her back to her seat.
Sharon stepped aside to make space for John and Mo to enter the canteen.
“Okay,” Colin began, “since we’re all in one place, I need to tell you something.”
He slipped his hand into his back pocket and pulled out his phone with the headphones tangled around it.
“I got a signal on this,” he explained. “It said these people are infected with some disease or something that makes them attack you.”
The room was silent, but in the background they could still hear the banging on the door.
“So we need to get Gary to a doctor then,” Mo said.
“No, there’s more,” Colin said, looking down at the phone. He took a deep breath and brought his head up to face the room. “It’s irreversible. The voice on the radio said they were dead.”
“You mean it’s fatal?” John asked.
“No, I mean it kills you then brings you back as one of those.” Colin looked over his shoulder in the direction of the emergency exit.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Sharon said.
“No, it’s true and the only way to stop them is to damage the brain,” Colin said.
“That’s outlandish!” Sharon countered. “You don’t expect us to believe that?”
“Listen,” Colin said, switching on his phone.
The phone lit up, showing a crack running down the screen.
“What?” Colin whispered, looking at the bleached-out screen.
“Let us all hear then,” Sharon said.
Colin studied the phone and the myriad cracks fanning out across it.
“It’s broken,” he said in resignation.
“Oh, how convenient,” Sharon replied.
Colin tapped the face of the phone. “I must have landed on it when I fell in the car park.”
“This is ridiculous. I need to find my son.” Liz pushed past Colin, making her way to the door.
“Okay,” Colin said, shuffling to place himself in Liz’s path. “Why don’t you stay with your daughter? We’ll look for your son.”
“I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”
“Look, when we find him he’ll be scared. He’ll want you. It’s best we know where to find you so we can bring him straight to you. You stay here and we’ll all go and look.”
Colin looked around for approval.
“Yeah, sure, you wait here and
we’ll go look,” Mo said.
Liz took a deep breath and turned to gaze at her daughter. Melissa was clutching onto her mother’s dress. Although almost a teenager, Melissa looked younger and more vulnerable that she had since she was a baby. She placed her hand on the back of Melissa’s head.
Liz pursed her lips and nodded. “Okay.”
Colin turned to Mo, Sharon, and John, and made an ushering motion with his hands.
The four of them stepped out into the corridor.
“You know the building better than me,” Colin said. “Where could he be?”
“He could have wandered up the stairwells, into reception maybe, even the plant room or loading bay, but all the rest of the doors need a pass,” Mo said.
“That’s good news. It means he can’t be far,” Colin said.
“What about the cleaners?” Sharon asked.
“Alex and Magda,” Mo offered.
Sharon did nothing to acknowledge Mo’s prompt.
"Why aren’t they doing this?” she said.
Colin’s mind was blank. He couldn’t think of a good reason why he hadn’t gotten them involved.
Having heard their names, Alex and Magda were paying more attention.
“Their English isn’t very good,” Mo cut in. “By the time we explain to them what we want them to do, we’ll have been quicker doing it ourselves.”
“All right, Mo, what’s the best way to go about this?” Colin asked.
“I’ll check the lobby, reception, loading bay, and the plant room. I’ve got to walk through reception to get to the plant room anyway. The rest of you the stairwells, I suppose,” Mo said.
John let out a huff of air at the thought of the climb.
“Do what you like, but I have work to do,” Sharon said sharply and started walking back to her office.
“You want the East or the West stairwells?” Colin asked John.
”I’ll take the West,” John replied quickly.
Colin looked back at the canteen before addressing the two men. “Be careful. The kid’s been bitten. That’s how the radio said the infection spreads.”
“Do you believe that?” Mo asked.
“That guy in the car park out there had his throat torn open and he was still going. I felt his hand and it was ice cold.”
Neither John nor Mo looked convinced.
Colin lent in closer to the two men. “Whether or not they’re dead, the fact is that if you get infected you go mental and start attacking people. That’s reason enough not to take any chances.”
Demise of the Living Page 9