Demise of the Living

by Iain McKinnon

  “Should we be?” John asked.

  “What did you say?” Thomas said, no longer on the defensive.

  “Okay, okay,” Sharon interjected. “Everyone just calm down. This isn’t a police investigation. What happened to the two cleaners is tragic, but I think we can all agree it was most likely suicide or an accident.”

  “Without leaving a note?” Liz asked.

  “Most suicides don’t. We did an outreach course at school,” Colin said. “And when I’ve been up here before, they’ve been sitting with their legs over the edge.”

  “Thank you,” Thomas declared, feeling vindicated.

  “Until I see evidence to the contrary, I think we should hold off accusing each other of murder,” Sharon said. “We're not in the best of situations here and needless accusations are just going to make things unbearable. Now, we have plenty of work to do to make sure we’re safe in here. I suggest we focus our efforts on that.” She looked around the group for the needed consensus. “Good. Now let’s get back to work.”

  ***

  “Where does this string go?” Karen asked, holding up the length of nylon cord.

  The first floor was beginning to look like a summer camp. Most of the desks had been cleared away and used to form the barricades in the stairwells or stacked in one corner. Centrally, there was now a circle of tents being erected.

  “That’s a guy rope. You anchor the tent to the ground using that and some tent pegs. Stops it being blown away when you’re not in it, but I don’t think we’ll need it in here,” Colin answered, looking up at the ceiling.

  “Good.” Karen scrunched it into a ball and tossed it over her shoulder. She winced, having extended her arm too far.

  “What is it?” Colin asked.

  “Nothing,” Karen snapped, turning away to distance the wound from Colin.

  “You’re hurt. What happened?” he asked.

  “I said it was nothing. Just a scratch,” Karen said.

  “You weren’t bitten, were you?” Colin asked in a concerned tone.

  “No! I said it’s nothing.” Karen stood up.

  “What’s the matter?” Sharon asked, walking over from her desk.

  “It’s nothing,” Karen protested. “I’ve got a sore shoulder.”

  “What happened?” Sharon asked.

  “I didn’t get bitten,” Karen said loudly.

  The others on the first floor had stopped setting up camp and were now interested in what was going on. Karen saw the eyes lock onto her and she instinctively backed up.

  “I fell off the bike,” she said, then quickly corrected herself, “We fell off the bike, Shan and me.”

  “It’s okay, Karen. No need to get defensive,” Colin said, trying to soothe things over. “I was just trying to help.”

  “Has she been bitten?” John asked.

  “Calm down, John,” Sharon ordered.

  “What if she has been bitten?” John said, looking for support from the others. “We can’t just let her roam around here free, end up like the boy upstairs!”

  “John, you’re not helping,” Sharon chastised.

  Karen saw her chance and made a break for it. She dashed to the stairwell door.

  “Karen, you’re being silly!” Colin called after her. “We’re just trying to look out for you.”

  She didn’t stop. She barrelled through the doors and disappeared.

  “Way to go, John,” Colin said.

  John blurted, “What if she is infected? Huh? What then?”

  “She doesn’t look sick, now does she?” Colin said. “She’s been here since yesterday. She would have turned by now.”

  “You don’t know how this thing works,” John countered. “You’ve not seen it up close—none of us have.”

  “I have!” Liz butted in.

  “Oh, yeah. Um… sorry,” John said, his head looking down at his feet.

  “What if she tries to get out? What if she opens the front doors?” Liz asked. “Have you thought of that?”

  “Shit,” Colin hissed.

  He thundered off after her.

  ***

  Karen ran up the stairs towards the open roof access. She got to the top landing and stopped. Fearing Thomas might be up there, she turned and entered the abandoned fourth floor office.

  The fourth floor was identical to all the others. There were desks in neat rows but no computers on them. The chairs were all stacked in one corner of the room.

  She saw something move in the meeting room at the far end of the office.

  She called out, “Hello?” but there was no reply.

  Drawn by her curiosity, Karen walked towards the movement. The meeting room had a large glass front, but there were blinds tilted half shut, obscuring her view.

  Gingerly she walked up to the office, still unable to work out who or what it was in the room.

  As she reached the door she caught a whiff something foul, a bitter aroma that stung the back of her throat.

  She opened the door and the stench assaulted her. She winced and gagged at the putrid aroma, stuffing down the urge to be sick.

  She could hear it now: the clattering of something against the carpet tiles, and the muffled moans.

  The urge to retch had brought tears to her eyes and she wiped them away with the back of her sleeve.

  She walked in.

  “God!” she gasped.

  Bound in silver duct tape was the figure of a young boy. Or what had once been a young boy. It stared at her with unblinking, milk-white eyes. Behind the makeshift gag it snarled and tried to gnash its teeth. The thing had evidently been trying to escape for some time.

  Karen was shocked to see one of them so close up to see the transformation which was taking place. The boy’s hair was matted and caked to its skull, his eyes sunken, yet still piercing. Its skin held a slimy blue tinge to it and it was excreting some vile fluid from its nether regions, now smeared and worked into the carpet around it. The skin around its bindings was raw and chaffed from the exertion to break free of its bonds, the dead skin frayed and loose at the binding’s edges.

  She couldn’t take the grotesque scene any longer and turned to leave.

  Colin stood directly behind her. Karen squealed in shock and the tethered zombie fought at its bonds even more ferociously.

  “That’s Liz’s son,” Colin said without being asked. “They tried to get him to the hospital, but didn’t make it. I don’t even know if they could have done anything for him anyway. Shall we?”

  He ushered the still shocked Karen out of the meeting room and closed the door behind them.

  “What’s he doing there?” Karen asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Colin said. “He’s Liz’s son, so we can’t do anything without her agreeing to it and no one’s approached her.”

  “You can’t leave him like that.”

  “I know. The point will come when we’ll have to do something about him, but at the moment we’re too busy trying to get our act together.” Colin sat down on the edge of one of the desks like he so often did when having an informal chat with one of his students. Mustering a sympathetic tone, he went on, “You can see now why John was so worried that you’d been bitten, can’t you?”

  Karen nodded.

  “I’d like someone to take a look at it,” Colin said. “If you’re not comfortable with me, we could ask Liz or Sharon if you like.”

  “It’s just my shoulder—it’s not my tit or anything,” Karen said indignantly.

  Colin laughed. “Well, if you’re fine with me.”

  Karen nodded and gingerly pulled her sweatshirt off. The T-shirt underneath had a huge hole torn from the shoulder. Little holes peppered the edges and there were splodges of rust-coloured blood on the pale, pastel-blue material.

  “Your top fared better than your T-shirt,” Colin said.

  “Pulled this out of the lost and found bin in the school office,” Karen explained.

  Beneath the frayed material Colin could se
e a large white dressing.

  “You mind if I rip the T-shirt or would you prefer to take it off?” he asked, pointing at the dressing.

  Karen looked past Colin at the doors to the office. She rasped her top teeth over her bottom lip, then nodded.

  Karen reached up and began pulling off the ripped T-shirt. She was struggling to raise her arms high enough to get the garment off, the injury hampering her mobility.

  “Here, let me help,” Colin offered, moving closer.

  “I can do it,” Karen snapped.

  “All right,” Colin said, sitting back.

  As she squirmed to get free, Colin suddenly realized he was looking straight at her naked midriff and bra-clad breasts. He quickly turned and looked towards the stairwell doors, terrified she would catch him looking at her. He felt embarrassed, coy even. Karen was only fourteen, but she was burgeoning into a woman. Not that he saw anything sexual in her, Colin told himself, looking off into the middle distance. Regardless of how physically precocious she may be, Colin had educated enough teenagers to know how vapid they could be intellectually. Still, this was exactly the kind of situation teachers were drilled to avoid for fear of accusation.

  “Colin.”

  “Um, yes?” Colin said, slowly turning round.

  Karen had finished pulling the T-shirt off and sat there in her off-white bra and grubby jeans.

  Colin swallowed to clear his throat. He pointed at the dressing and said, “I’m going to pull this off, okay?”

  Karen nodded.

  Colin gripped the edges of the dressing and gently pulled against the adhesive and dried blood.

  “You fell off your bike?” he asked. “Did you cycle to school?”

  Karen winced against the discomfort of the wound being tugged at. She said, “No, it was Nate’s dirt bike.”

  “Nate?” Colin asked absentmindedly.

  The skin was pink and slightly inflamed-looking underneath the dressing. It had been secured with tape and was coming off relatively easily.

  “He left school last year. He was Shan’s boyfriend,” Karen explained.

  “So he gave you the bike,” Colin said.

  He tugged at the dressing and a scab lifted free.

  Karen jerked away and gave a little snort of discomfort.

  “Sorry,” Colin apologized. “Nate gave you a bike.”

  “Well, no. He wasn’t in when we went round. He’d taken his gran to the hospital.”

  “Where is he now? Dead?” Colin asked, freeing the last of the tape.

  “Don’t know. Shan and I waited round at his place, but he never showed. He could be one of them for all I know.”

  Now that the dressing was off, Colin could see three small holes grouped around her shoulder. One of them, aggravated from removing the dressing, was weeping plasma and blood.

  “Miss Alvarez… Was she one of them when you got to the school?” Colin asked, touching the skin at the edge of the wound.

  Karen flinched. “What?”

  “I mean, had she already turned when you found her or did she say anything to you before she turned?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Colin was embarrassed to ask. He wanted to know if she’d mentioned him at all.

  But what does it matter now? he thought.

  “Is it itchy?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “The shoulder? Like a bastard,” Karen replied.

  “Good. It looks like it’s healing up pretty well. I’d say you got off pretty lightly if you came off a dirt bike and only grazed your shoulder,” Colin said. He stepped back. “I think we should put a fresh dressing on it and some antiseptic cream. There’s some in the first aid pack on the first floor.”

  Karen nodded, picking up the ragged T-shirt.

  “There’s also some fresh shirts in with the camping gear,” Colin said. “You wait here and I’ll bring them up.”

  He went to leave, but then stopped. He stood still for a moment. His eyes were watery and his mouth moved as if he were silently speaking.

  Eventually he asked hesitantly, “Did she suffer? Miss Alvarez, that is?”

  “It was quick,” Karen replied.

  Colin swung the door open to the stairwell and the sound of voices wafted over him. Looking down he could see a procession of people below.

  He called down, “What’s going on?”

  “Is Karen with you?” Sharon asked.

  “Yeah, she’s up here. She’s fine.”

  “Good,” Sharon replied.

  The mob of people continued their ascent of the stairs.

  As they drew closer, Colin could see they were armed.

  “What are the guns for?” he asked. “Karen’s not infected. It’s just a graze from coming off her motorbike.”

  “Don’t panic, Colin,” Sharon said as she drew level with him on the stairs. “This isn’t a witch hunt.”

  “Liz was going to show us how to use the guns,” Billy said. “You coming?”

  “I’m just going downstairs to get the first aid kit for Karen. I want to clean up that graze and get a fresh dressing on it.”

  Billy peered into the office at Karen.

  The young girl saw the intrusion, squealed and pulled the T-shirt across her chest.

  “Sorry,” Billy said, waving at her.

  “Billy, give the girl some privacy,” Sharon chastised.

  “How did she say she got hurt?” Billy asked.

  “Falling off a dirt bike,” Colin replied.

  “Did she say where?”

  “No.”

  Billy pressed, “Off road? On a street? Where?”

  “No, she didn’t say. Why?”

  “Cause that don’t look like road rash,” Billy said.

  “Road rash?”

  “The kind of scrape you get coming off a bike,” Billy said.

  “Are you sure?” Colin asked.

  “No, I’m not sure. I only got a glimpse, but if she came off a bike at any speed I’d have expected to see a much larger area of damage and no neat holes.”

  “What if it was gravel? Wouldn’t that leave holes?”

  “Sure, but they would run from the momentum. You’d see a tail where they’d scraped the skin.” Billy ran a finger up his arm to mimic the course of the theoretical stone.

  “Okay, thanks,” Colin said, puzzled.

  He cast a glance back at Karen, but she had moved out of the line of sight from the door.

  “I’ll fix her up and join you guys on the roof,” Colin said.

  He headed down the stairs.

  Billy turned to see John’s fat legs disappear up the access steps to the roof. He followed the fat, sweaty office worker up the short climb. John was huffing and trying to catch his breath. Billy looked down at his own beer belly. It was far bigger and rounder than he would have liked, but he was at least ten years older than John and twice as fit. Putting on a bit of speed, Billy overtook the labouring desk jockey and beat him to the roof’s edge.

  Liz was already sitting on the edge, examining the gun in daylight.

  “Thought you were going to show us how to use these?” Thomas asked snidely.

  Liz shielded her eyes from the polarized light filtering through the smoke-laden sky.

  “I will as soon as I get a chance to refresh my memory,” she said.

  The group stood in a semicircle around her as she unloaded a magazine, placing the bullets standing up in a row on the lip of the roof.

  “Anything we can do to help?” Billy asked.

  “Not right now,” Liz replied, fastidiously examining the underside of the rifle.

  “Doesn’t look as bad out today,” Billy said absently.

  “Are you kidding? There’s a million of them down there,” Thomas replied.

  “I meant the weather—the smoke in the sky,” Billy snapped back.

  “Shit!” Liz barked.

  “What is it?” Colin asked.

  Liz sat with her thumb in her mouth.

  “
Broke my nail loading the magazine,” she mumbled past the digit.

  “You okay?” Billy asked.

  “Told you she knew fuck-all about guns,” Thomas complained. “Give it here; I’ll work it out.”

  Liz glared at Thomas as she chewed off and spat out the broken nail.

  She picked up the magazine and slapped it into the back of the rifle. Pointing the gun up in the air, she whipped back a sliding bolt before sighting the weapon.

  There was a sharp crack and one of the zombies in the street below collapsed. Subtly, Liz moved the barrel of the rifle and fired again. A second zombie was floored.

  She lowered the muzzle and stood up from her firing position.

  “It’s all coming back now,” she announced.

  Chapter 16

  Agenda

  “Thank you all for coming to the five p.m. meeting,” Sharon announced.

  It was now five twenty-five, but she made no comment about having to round everyone up.

  With the group sitting in the meeting room, the two empty chairs beside Thomas were a gaping sore.

  Sharon closed her eyes for a moment and gathered her focus. “Well, as I am sure it is apparent, we have unpacked and catalogued the supplies brought in yesterday. We have made an encampment here on the first floor with a food store and preparations.”

  “I’d rather take a camp bed and move into the plant room,” Thomas said.

  “Shall we save that for ‘any other business’, Thomas?” Sharon said.

  “The second and third floors are empty; we could all almost have a floor each,” John added.

  “There’s still nine of us, John,” Billy said.

  There was a loud rumble from John’s belly and he placed a hand over his protruding gut as if to stifle it.

  He said, “Well, we could have a lot more space each, is my point.”

  “Splitting up isn’t a good idea,” Colin said.

  “Why not?” Thomas asked.

  “What if something happens, like an emergency—like they break in or there’s a fire?” Colin paused for a moment to let people ponder that possibility. “If we’re all scattered throughout the building we’ll be on our own and vulnerable. We’ve more chance in an emergency if we work together.”