Demise of the Living

by Iain McKinnon

  The car horn tooted again.

  “Over here!” Melissa called.

  They all turned to see Melissa looking out of the windows that faced the street.

  “What is it—what’s going on?" Liz asked, running up to Melissa.

  In the street below, a car was ploughing its way through the crowds of undead. Its headlights were tinted pink from the blood smeared across them, but it was making slow progress through the throng.

  “It’s a car!” Karen said.

  The others rushed over to look.

  “Way to go with the obvious there,” Billy jibed.

  “Shan?” Karen said with hope in her voice.

  The car backed up into some of the space made by its wake.

  Quickly the window wound down and a head poked out.

  “Is that Stephen’s car?” Sharon said.

  A torch flicked on and illuminated the driver’s face.

  “It is Stephen!” Sharon proclaimed excitedly.

  “That dick,” Liz said venomously.

  “He’s shouting something! Open the window,” Sharon ordered.

  Colin stood on a desk and slipped the latches on the pane.

  “Who’s Stephen?” Billy asked.

  “He works here,” Sharon said.

  “He dragged me and my children from his car and punched me in the face,” Liz explained.

  “Sounds like a delightful fellow,” Billy commented.

  “Be quiet!” Sharon snapped. “I can’t hear what he's saying!”

  Sharon stood closer to the window and shouted out, “We can’t hear you!”

  “Open the door!” Stephen called up.

  “We can’t!” Colin shouted back. “There’s too many of them! They’ll get in!”

  “Please, you’ve got to—it’s carnage out here! I don’t know where else I can go!”

  “We have to let him in,” Sharon said.

  “We can’t,” Colin said. “Those things out there will tear him to shreds and overrun us.”

  “The back gates,” Billy suggested.

  “There are only a handful back there,” Colin reasoned. “If he can get round to the back alley we can let him in that way.”

  “What about the bins? You said they were blocking the way in,” Liz said.

  “Maybe we can move them or maybe he can climb over them,” Billy offered.

  Sharon climbed onto the desk beside Colin and hung out of the window.

  “We’ll get you in, Stephen!” she called out, but Stephen hadn’t heard her.

  The empty space had quickly been filled again and Stephen had to wind the window up. He was now driving the car backwards and forwards, mowing down swathes of the converging undead.

  After a few moments of clearing space, the car stopped and the window rolled down again.

  “Open the door!” Stephen screamed, pointing at the lobby.

  Sharon called back, “We’re going to get the back gates—”

  Colin grabbed her by the shoulder.

  “Colin!” Sharon protested.

  “Look at his arm,” Colin said.

  “What?”

  Colin shouted out of the window, “What happened to your arm, Stephen?”

  “Nothing! It’s just a scratch! Now open the door!”

  Colin jumped down from the table to stand next to Billy.

  “We’re going to let you in the back!” Sharon shouted.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Colin said to Billy.

  Billy nodded. “There’s no chance we can let him in here.”

  “What are you two talking about? Get down to the parking lot and get the gate ready,” Sharon instructed.

  Billy shook his head.

  “Get on with it!” Sharon barked.

  “He’s been infected,” Colin said.

  Sharon shook her head. “We don’t know that."

  “I don’t think we can take the chance,” Billy said.

  “We can’t leave him out there,” Sharon protested.

  “What choice do we have? Do we risk getting ourselves infected too?” Colin said.

  Sharon looked nervously at the two men. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  Neither Billy nor Colin said anything, but the message was clear.

  “You’ll leave him out there to die?” Sharon said.

  “He’s already dead,” Billy said. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Sharon shook her head. “No.”

  She turned her attention back to the street.

  “Stephen, have you been bitten?!”

  “It’s nothing!” Stephen shouted. “Now let me in! There’s nowhere else left! They’ve overrun everywhere!”

  “Have you been bitten, Stephen?!It’s important!”

  “What does it matter?!You’ve got to let me in!”

  Sharon looked down at Colin and Billy. Both men stood with arms folded, looking stern.

  She looked back out of the window.

  “We can’t,” she said.

  “What?!” Stephen cried in disbelief.

  “We can’t let you back in, Stephen!”

  “You’ve got to!” Stephen yelled.

  He was forced to wind the window back up as the undead again grew nearer.

  Sharon turned away from the street and eased herself down from the desk. She was crying softly. Colin tried to put a comforting arm around her, but she shrugged it off.

  “It’s the only way,” Billy assured her.

  The car outside revved its engine and started to pull away.

  “What’s he doing?” Karen asked.

  Billy, Sharon, and Colin turned back to the window to observe.

  Stephen had backed up a few metres, leaving a gap of undead where the car had been. Rather than turning and driving off down the street, he accelerated into the space and straight at the building.

  “Oh my God!” Colin cried, “He’s going to ram the lobby!”

  The car accelerated at full power, throwing corpses high into the air like spray from a puddle.

  There was the sound of glass shattering and metal screeching from the ground floor.

  “Quickly!” Billy called as he sprinted for the stairwell.

  ***

  Mo knocked on the plant room door.

  “Fuck off,” came Thomas’ gruff voice.

  “Thomas, it’s me, Mo.”

  “Fuck off,” Thomas repeated.

  “Listen, I know things got heated up there, but we’re in this together,” Mo said through the closed door.

  “Fuck off, Mo!” Thomas shouted back, more angrily.

  “This has been difficult on all of us, yeah? We’re trying to make the best of a bad situation. Tempers are going to flare. Everyone realises that.”

  There was no reply from the plant room. Mo listened to the door, hoping to hear some kind of friendly response.

  “The others… well, they realise they’ve been a bit harsh,” Mo said. “Would you come back up and—”

  Mo stopped. He had heard something.

  “Thomas, was that you?” he asked at the door.

  When there was no reply, he continued, “Thomas, did you just make a—”

  Mo stopped as the sound came again.

  “Did you hear that?” Mo asked. “Did you hear the car horn?”

  Intrigued by the sound, Mo listened more intently.

  “It’s coming from the street,” he said in realization.

  He jogged through to the lobby, keeping himself flat against the doorjamb to prevent the zombies pressed against the glass from seeing him.

  Through the grime-smeared windows he could see a beam of light. He peeked round the corner a little more to see the mob of undead silhouetted against it. The crowd moved and jostled, not for a better place at the window, but moving towards the light.

  There was something going on in the street. He could now hear muffled calls above the moaning of the dead. Cautiously, he edged forward, making sure with every step that he wasn’t a
ttracting the attention of the creatures on the other side of the glass. Tight up against the wall, he arrived unseen at the glass-panelled facade of the lobby.

  Nervously, he eased over to look out the window.

  “Mo?” came a voice.

  Mo jumped back, his heart racing.

  “Thomas, you scared me,” Mo admitted.

  Thomas stood by the door to the loading bay near the reception desk.

  He asked, “What's going on?”

  “I think there’s someone out there. Those things are moving away.”

  “We getting rescued?” Thomas asked.

  Mo lent out and tried to peer through the glass.

  “I can’t see a thing,” he said. “The windows are covered in filth.”

  “It looks clearer further up,” Thomas commented.

  Mo grabbed one of the chairs for the visitors and pulled it over to the window.

  “Over there. It looks clearest up there,” Thomas said, pointing at the window pane.

  Mo dragged the chair over, no longer worried about being spotted by the zombies. The creatures had been drawn to the lights like moths.

  He stood up on the chair and looked out.

  “There’s a car,” he said.

  “Let’s have a look,” Thomas said, grabbing a chair for himself.

  “It’s coming towards us!” Mo shouted.

  The light danced across the darkened foyer, making the shadows of the corrupt creatures stretch and twist into even more grotesque shapes. Above the moans came the thrum of an engine and steady thump of bodies being punched out of the way by a ton of accelerating metal. The shadows drew narrower, the light more intense, and the whine of the engine became a screeching.

  The window shattered and the car came crashing through. Thomas instinctively jumped out of the way. As he did, all he could see was the after image seared onto his retina of Mo being swept from the chair.

  The engine noise faded to a contented purr. A soft evening breeze found its way into the now open foyer, bringing with it the smell of burnt rubber and putrid flesh.

  Thomas pushed himself up. It was dark. All that he could see was the floating green silhouette of Mo falling.

  He shouted, “Mo!”

  A ripple of excited moans washed over the zombies in the street.

  The car door opened and Thomas heard feet crunching on the broken glass.

  “Mo?” Thomas said, pulling himself up.

  As he did, he felt a foot placed firmly on his shoulders. It pushed down hard, slamming him back to the ground.

  The beam of a torch danced its way across the tiled floor of the lobby. There was the odd diamond-like sparkle as the light caught a shard of glass.

  Thomas grabbed for the man’s feet, but his hand was quickly kicked away. Balling his staved fingers into a fist, he scrambled back up. As he got to his feet, the dark figure was opening the door to the stairwell. Lunging forward, Thomas got to the doors just a fraction of a second after they closed. There was the clunk of a lock sliding into place.

  “Open up!” Thomas shouted, battering his fists against the doors.

  Through the slim safety glass he could see the torchlight skipping up the stairs.

  Thomas cried, “Bastard!”

  From behind, he heard the crunching of glass. He whipped round. From the reflected light of the car’s one working headlamp, he could see a wall of corpses pushing through the shattered windows.

  “Mo?” Thomas said more cautiously.

  The moaning changed pace to a rasping groan.

  “Bollocks,” he whispered.

  Thomas vaulted over the reception desk, making for the corridor to the plant room and the lobby. As he landed he skidded on broken glass. His leg went away from under him and something in his knee popped out of place. Hitting the solid tile floor, he let out a wail of pain.

  A hand grabbed at his ankle.

  Thomas lashed out, striking hard at the attacker.

  “Thom—” the voice was cut short as Thomas’ heel struck something solid.

  “Shit!” Thomas cursed, realising what he’d just done.

  “Mo. Come on, buddy.”

  The zombies were almost on top of him and Mo wasn’t moving.

  Pulling himself up, he felt his leg quiver with pain.

  A mass of undead were streaming into the lobby, their arms outstretched, their mouths gaping open.

  Thomas called, “Mo?!”

  There was nothing but the hum of the car’s engine and the zombies’ sorrowful lament.

  Taking sharp breaths, his hands braced against the walls, he hopped down the corridor towards the fire exit sign above the loading bay door.

  The guttural moans following him down the corridor pushed him forward.

  Then there was a scream. A high-pitched, hysterical scream.

  Thomas didn’t stop. He didn’t look back. He knew he couldn’t.

  He jumped down the stairs to the door and threw his whole body weight at it. The door flew open and he tumbled out into the car park.

  The noise of the screaming echoed up the corridor, cutting through the constant drone of moans, the screeching rising and falling like waves against rock.

  Thomas scrambled for the door and slammed it shut.

  ***

  Colin was only a few steps behind Billy when he came to a sudden halt. Grabbing hold of the handrail, he was barely able to stop himself from running into him.

  A torch flickered across their faces.

  “Who the fuck are you?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

  “Where’s Mo and Thomas?” Billy demanded sternly.

  “Fucked if I know,” the man answered.

  “Stephen!” Sharon cried from up the landing.

  “Sharon,” Stephen replied in a flat tone.

  A muffled scream emanated from down the stairwell.

  “Mo,” Billy said, pushing past the new arrival.

  “I wouldn’t go down there,” Stephen warned.

  Billy thundered down to the ground floor doors. They had been locked.

  “Wouldn’t open them,” Stephen said, shining his torch at Billy.

  Billy flipped the key in the lock and swung the door open. He hadn’t even stepped through it when a zombie made a lunge for him.

  Billy blurted, “Christ!”

  He threw himself backwards just as the first zombie reached the doorway.

  “Help me shut it!” Billy called.

  Colin charged down the stairs and grabbing hold of the handle with Billy, they heaved at it. The door crashed into the jamb and Billy turned the key. The door shuddered as the creatures on the other side started pounding at it.

  “Mo! Thomas!” Billy shouted.

  The moaning and hammering gathered pace from the other side of the door.

  Again Billy shouted, “Mo! Thomas! Are you there?!”

  “I told you not to open that door,” Stephen said smugly.

  “And we told you you weren’t getting in,” Billy said, marching up the stairs.

  “What, wrong shoes?” Stephen said sarcastically. “It’s not a night club.”

  Billy marched up the stairs, a look of anger on his face.

  “Oh, so you are a bouncer,” Stephen quipped.

  “Too fucking right,” Billy said as he sent an uppercut smashing into Stephen’s jaw.

  The force knocked Stephen from his feet and he landed unconscious, slithering down the stairs to stop at Billy’s feet.

  “Why did you do that?!” Sharon demanded.

  “Why?! Why?! Because he’s just killed two of our people and torn a hole in the side of our refuge, that’s why!”

  “Not to forget he’s infected,” Colin added.

  “He might not be—he said it was nothing,” Sharon replied.

  Colin picked up the torch from where it had clattered to a halt. He bent down over the unconscious Stephen and unwrapped the bandage covering the lower part of his arm.

  He held the arm up by the hand and pointed the
torch at the wound.

  “There. What do you think?”

  Billy and Sharon looked at the oval chunk of mangled flesh. It wasn’t a deep wound, but its edges were dark and uneven. The skin around it was pale and the blood vessels underneath pronounced and thick.

  Holding the arm on either side of the injury, Billy lent in and sniffed at the laceration. At the smell he scrunched his face up and pulled back.

  “Smells rank,” Billy said, his face contorted by the malevolent odour.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Sharon asked.

  “Chuck him back out on the street,” Billy suggested.

  “No, you can't do that!”

  “Why the hell not? Mo and Thomas are dead because of him,” Billy said.

  “No, I don’t think we could live with ourselves if we did that,” Colin said.

  “I could,” Billy assured him.

  “We might have to,” came a voice from the landing.

  Liz stood just outside the office doors, her daughter Melissa pressed tight to her side.

  “If Billy’s right, he’s responsible for the deaths of two people and he’s bringing this infection in among us,” Liz said.

  “Oh, come on!” Sharon scolded. “Your dead kid is up on the fourth, tied to a radiator, and you talk about bringing the infection in here?”

  “He doesn’t deserve to live,” Liz argued.

  “You’re just mad at him because he didn’t get you to a hospital,” Sharon spat.

  “And you’re just protecting him because he was your boy-toy in the office!” Liz shot back.

  “Ladies, ladies, calm down,” Billy said, loud enough to interrupt them.

  “Whatever we’re going to do, can I suggest we drag him up to the fourth floor and tie him up just in case he turns on us, one way or another?” Colin said.

  Neither Sharon nor Liz objected.

  Billy and Colin took an arm each and started dragging Stephen’s unconscious body up the stairs.

  “Would one of you be so kind as to get the doors for us?” Billy asked in a falsely sweet tone.

  “I will,” Sharon volunteered and she trotted ahead of them.

  ***

  When they walked back through the doors to the office campsite, Liz said, “I got Melissa and Karen to go to sleep, so please keep your voices down.”