Red held the bow pointed to the gap where the door used to be before it was smashed from the frame. Nothing charged through. She expected one of those naked zombie type creatures. The bow trembled in her shaking hands. Instead, a large form of a man stood blocking the doorway. He wore a greasy grey overall and heavy work boots. She could not see his face because he was so tall the top of the doorframe shadowed it.
He’s not naked? Went through Red’s mind. And he’s not charging. She pulled the arrow back harder. The bow shuddered in her hands.
“Stop making a mess, Lennie. Why’d you have to break everything?” said a female voice.
“Locked,” a slurred male voice replied.
“Stand back, let’s see what we ‘ave ‘ere then?”
The giant shuffled to one side, dragging his left foot along the carpet.
An old woman shuffled in. “Jesus girl, you gave me a fright.” She raised a frail arm up in front of her face. “Mind pointing that thing some place else?” She had on a long brown dress that looked a few sizes too big for her – as if she had shrunk over the years – with a large thick, green polo neck jumper. She had no coat, just a couple of blankets tossed over her shoulders. Her greyish-white hair looked like it had been dragged through a bush backwards, and she was trying to impersonate a dandelion.
“Who are you? What do you want?” was all Red could think to ask.
“Now, now dear, no need for open hostilities, we are all victims ‘ere.” She shuffled into the room and plunked herself down into an armchair.
The giant of a man moved under the doorframe. He had to duck, and turn sideways to get through. Red noticed he looked about thirty. He had a wide, plain face, which was flushed red, like an oversized baby. He had a scruffy mop of black curly hair, large blank eyes, and thick wet lips, as if he continually ran his tongue over them.
Red lowered the bow and arrow a little.
“We were just looking for somewhere safe, is all. And for food.” The old woman gave a loud sniff and wiped a sleeve across her nose.
“I’m Betty, and this here lummox is my grandson Lennie. Of course, his real names Able, but the name Lennie stuck after I read Of Mice and Men. You know John Steinbeck’s literary masterpiece?” Betty gave a smile, showing crooked teeth with lots of gaps.
“Say hi Lennie.”
“Hi.” Lennie moved forward to offer a handshake.
“I wouldn’t shake it, if you wanna be able to use that bow again. Grip like a vice. Would probably shatter every bone in your tiny hand,” she announced with a smile. “He doesn’t know his own strength.”
They did not seem like a threat. Just an old woman and her dimwitted grandson. Red lowered the bow all the way.
“My friend will be back any minute,” Red said. It sounded like she was making out there was more on her side.
“That’s his stuff over there I take it?” Betty asked. “Looks like the kinda stuff a man would carry.”
“Yes. He will be back any second.” Red still held onto the bow.
“Relax. Take a weight off,” Betty said. She looked at the vending machines. “Mind if we eat some of your food? Pickings have been sparse as of late.”
“It’s not mine. But you’re more than welcome to it.” Red took a few steps back, away from the machines. She wanted to keep the giant in her sights.
Betty got up slowly, making a grumbling sound as she did. “Sorry, old bones. I should be at home relaxing at my time of life, not running around, avoiding bloody zombies, or whatever the naked things are.” She shuffled over to the machine.
“You gotta pull the door open. Here let me.” Red made a judgment call. The old woman seemed genuine, and not out to hurt anyone. She placed her bow and arrow on the couch. She then moved forward and pulled the front of the snack machine open. Red then took a step back.
“Hmm. Don’t really like chocolate, but beggars can’t be choosers.” The old woman grabbed a bunch of chocolate bars and a few packets of crisp. After Red opened the drink’s machine, the woman removed a handful of cans.
“Lennie, take a seat. Sit there.” Betty nodded to an armchair. “But take the bag off first.”
Like a slow moving tectonic plate, the giant of a man moved over. He slowly swung the large backpack off his back and gently placed it on the floor, and then dropped himself down into the seat. The chair groaned under his weight. It was a tight fit.
Betty deposited the snacks and drinks on Lennie’s lap. “Eat up lad. Keep up your strength. Be a good boy for grandma.”
It dawned on Red what the old woman had just said about the naked creatures.
“You’ve seen some of them?”
“Hmm. What was that midear?” The old woman straightened her back, and winced as it cracked like a row of dominos.
“The naked zombie type things, you just said.”
“Yes dear. That’s why we came into this building. After all that gunfire started in the distance, we saw a group of them running full pelt into the Paint Center next door.”
Just then, the windows vibrated from concussion blasts. It sounded like something was exploding one after another.
19
Noah
Newton Abbot, King Street
The Paint Center’s Fire Escape
10:51 AM GMT
Noah could not believe his bad luck. The bloated bodies that filled the alleyway blocked the only escape route. He could hear the naked, animalistic people chasing down the hallway behind him. With all his strength, he slammed the fire exit door shut. He could hear their bodies frantically slamming into the other side. It would not take them long to smash their way through.
Think fast.
He could not go down among the bloated bodies, because he had seen the result of their violent exploding, and he could not return the way he came.
Up!
A thin metal ladder was bolted to the wall, leading up onto the paint centers roof. Noah grabbed the rusted metal, and with the speed brought on by fear, he flung himself onto the ladder and started scrambling up it.
He could hear the screaming of those behind the door, as they collided with the fire exit. The sound of the metal hinges straining under the onslaught – along with the wet slapping of their bodies against the wood – sped him on. It did not take him long to swing his body over the lip onto a flat gravel covered section about four feet wide, and just in time too, because the door was ripped off its hinges and clattered down into the alleyway. He lay still below the lip of the low wall. He tried not to move because the sound of the gravel beneath him would give his location away.
The ear-piercing screams intensified when they realized they had lost their quarry. However, their screaming was drowned out by the sound of the bloated bodies as they started to explode one after another. The ground shook from the violence of the blasts.
Noah instinctively put his hands over his face, covering the gasmasks faceplate. Through the gaps in his fingers, he could see the blood, guts, and bones flying high into the air. As the fluids, meat, and bones started to be pulled back down by gravity, it left the deadly black spores floating like a slow-moving cloud of ash.
20
Doctor Lazaro
Crashed Military Merlin Transport Helicopter
Courtney Park, Newton Abbot
10:56 AM GMT
Melanie was jolted awake when a hand shook her arm. Bleary-eyed, she looked into the blood-covered face of Coco.
“It’s okay; the bloods mine. I turned and caught my head on a sharp piece of wreckage,” he stated, to ease her fears that he was not dripping contaminated blood all over her.
I must have blanked out; Melanie thought.
Coco was cutting the webbing from around her. She slumped forward.
I’m so weak. What the hell did that nurse give me?
“We’ve sorted out the worst of the critters, but stragglers are still heading our way.”
The occasional sound of gunfire rung through the confines of the wreckage.
Must have cracked my head good and hard.
Coco was shifting Melanie’s thighs forward, and then gripped one arm firmly. “Sorry if this is a little undignified Doc, but we are moving over to one of the houses skirting the park, so we can create a better defensible location.” As he said that, he pulled her forward and hoisted her onto his shoulder, using a fireman’s lift.
Melanie’s head swam as she was tossed over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.
Coco did not seem to notice the extra weight of her body as he ducked under the twisted hatch and out onto the blood-soaked grass.
The January sky was like a slab of grey concrete, and the air was bitterly cold.
“Let’s pick up the pace soldiers, more will be arriving any minute,” the commanding officer shouted.
Even with the dull, overcast sky, everything was so bright to Melanie’s eyes after the confines of the craft. Also, seeing the world upside down, while bouncing along, did not help with her nausea.
Soldiers fanned out into formation. Some were carrying containers between them. Others covered their run to the nearest house.
Melanie could see naked bodies littered all around the helicopter, with sprayed patches of blood fanning out from the cooling corpses. From her upside-down view, she saw a pond with the water fountain still working. A couple of naked bodies floated in the murky water, with red blossoms spreading out from their carcasses.
The sound of the soldier’s utility belts and the stamping of their boots on the grass, along with their laboured breathing, filled the silence. No more gunfire echoed off distant houses.
“That one,” the commanding officer shouted. The group changed direction like a flock of birds, heading towards a building that had what looked like a tower, one story higher than all the other houses around it.
As they hustled through a tall metal gate onto a redbrick driveway, Melanie noticed the sign stating it was a dental clinic. A few naked dead bodies lay face down on the road skirting the park.
So much death. So much waste of life, Melanie thought. I need to get my findings to someone who can make a difference. Someone who can stop all this. With that thought, she remembered the folder. She just prayed someone had grabbed it.
21
Red
Newton Abbot, King Street
The Mortgage Company’s Breakroom
10:57 AM GMT
Red was worried. The explosions had stopped, but she just knew that they had something to do with Noah.
“You’re gonna wear a hole in that carpet,” Betty stated, as she tried to eat a mars bar with the few teeth she had remaining. Chocolate dribbled down her chin.
Lennie was happily consuming everything that was dumped in his lap. Empty wrappers littered around his boots. He slapped his lips and made content sounds as the chocolate was washed down with one fizzy drink can after another.
Red had noticed how he simply stared straight ahead, and he hardly ever blinked.
“Sorry about his manners. Never was a quiet eater, that one,” Betty said. “He’s got a good heart though.” The old woman wiped the chocolate off her face.
“He came and found me,” Betty stated.
“What? Sorry?” Red was deciding whether to go up a floor in the mortgage company building and see if she could see what was transpiring next door.
“I said Lennie came and found me, after all this started.” She waved a hand around her, as if that could describe everything that had happened over the last three weeks.
“I was in an old people’s home, up at Ford Park. I was there for almost nine years. They told me I was too old to stay in my own home. Incapable of looking after myself, as if I was some cripple or retard.” She gave a gruff grunt.
“I am eighty-six and I have more wits about me than half those dotty teenage care assistants who were meant to be looking after me. Half of them couldn’t even string a coherent sentence together. And they were always on their bloody mobile phones.”
Red realized the old woman was just trying to distract her mind from worrying about Noah.
“Lennie was the son of my only child, Sophie.” She had a faraway look on her wrinkled face. “I never did find out who the father was.
“Anyway, Sophie left him in my care. She just ran away one night, when he was two. She didn’t leave a note or say good-bye or anything.
“When I got put into an old people’s home he was taken into a special care unit in Torquay. They said he was to dimwitted to live on his own. They brought him to see me once a week.” Betty looked across to her grandson.
“After all this palaver started he turned up at the home. He made his own way, walking about nine miles. Whether he broke out, or was left to fend for himself, I don’t know. But he found me, and hasn’t left my side since.” A tear rolled down the old woman’s face. “The big lummox.”
Lennie was oblivious to the conversation. He was halfway through his eighth chocolate bar. Crisps were sprinkled all over his overalls.
While Betty had been talking, Red had collected all Noah’s stuff together, packing it all back up, in case they needed to leave in a hurry when he returned.
Movement caught Red’s attention.
Lennie stood up in one swift move. Some drink cans hit the carpet and rolled away. He dropped the half-eaten chocolate bar and clenched his chocolate-covered fists. Lennie seemed to be hearing something Red could not.
Then Red understood. She could hear the muffled sound of furniture shifting around through the gap where the adjoining door used to be. Something else was making its way through the structure towards them. Suddenly, a piercing, guttural scream echoed through the building.
22
Noah
Newton Abbot, King Street
The Paint Center Roof
11:01 AM GMT
Noah lay wedged up against the lip of the low wall for what felt like hours – but in reality, was five minutes – while he caught his breath. He could not hear any movement from below. Slowly, he rolled over onto his front and raised himself up to peer over the lip of the roof. Gravel dug into his elbows.
The alleyway looked like someone had tried to repaint it in shades of red and brown. It was hard to tell if any of the body parts belonged to the two creatures that had been chasing him, or whether they had returned inside. Blood ran down the walls, with larger chunks coming unstuck and dropping with a wet squelching sound onto the concrete below, like some cheap horror movie set.
His only choice was to head down through the guts and mess. The roof was a galvanized tin roof, which veered right up at an angle after the four feet of flat gravel. It was too steep to climb, and the noise his boots would make on the metal would attract unwanted attention.
Jesus, why didn’t those teenagers set light to another building? I could be sat at home in the safety and comfort of my apartment; he reasoned. But then I wouldn’t have met Red. He just realized the whole reason for heading into the Paint Center in the first place was to get Red a filtration mask, and he had left it in a box, inside, at the bottom of the stairs.
Fuck! I have no choice but to go back in.
Noah strained his hearing.
Nothing.
Slowly, he crawled over the wall and back onto the ladder with shaking legs. He had to hold on tight because the ladder was slippery due to being splattered with body fluids.
I hope Red is still inside the breakroom, and hasn’t come outside to investigate the explosions. He looked down the alley. Luckily, the January winds have swept the spores away.
Noah stood on the fire escape looking back into the building. The remains of some naked body parts were splattered down the corridor. It was hard to tell how many people it had once been. The resulting blasts, of the bloated bodies in a confined alleyway, were phenomenal.
The inside of the gasmask was steaming up from his heavy
breathing.
Cautiously, and carefully, so as not to slip, Noah made his way back along the corridor. On the floor, halfway down was his rifle. In all the frantic running and rush of adrenaline, he completely forgot about it. He was sure he had it out on the fire escape.
I must have dropped it when climbing the ladder and the blast blew it into the hallway; he reasoned. He picked it up, shook a glob of flesh off the handle, and hooked it back over his shoulder.
He strained his hearing. The building seemed deserted. With a little more confidence, he headed down the stairs.
The box had tipped over; the mask and goggles were on the floor. Quickly, he swept them up and ran toward the large back warehouse doors.
The yard was deserted.
Maybe the explosions scared the other zombies away. It still felt strange to use that word. It was such a surreal word that was used repeatedly in movies and books. The word did not belong in the real world. However, no other word better described them.
Noah jogged around the corner and across the small car park. He realized he had not heard any gunfire since he climbed up onto the roof.
Maybe that’s where they have all gone, to investigate the new sound.
Just as he reached the small back alley, where the breakroom’s entrance was located, the door flew open and Red ran out, closely followed by an old woman – who had her dress hitched up, so she could run – and a giant of a man who had to turn sideways to fit through the door.
The man then turned and lifted his huge meaty hand, and brought it down with enough force to crack concrete; he hit a head that just came into view. The deformed cranium of the naked female hit the floor with bone-crushing force.
“Run!” Red screamed when she noticed Noah.
23
Doctor Lazaro
Dentist Clinic
Courtney Park, Newton Abbot
11:06 AM GMT
The Sixth Extinction & The First Three Weeks & The Squads First Three Weeks Omnibus [Books 1-10] Page 8