by Ian Woodhead
“Man, she has a voice that could shatter glass.”
Dominic could understand his new friend’s discomfort at listening to Clarisse jabber on. After all these months, he had learned how to tune out her voice.
“My admiration for your patience knows no bounds, dude. I can see why Our Lady separated the bitch from the rest of us. She ought to have a tattoo on her head that says: “Does not work well with others.”
Dominic shone his torch beam across the wet stone tunnel walls. Despite the size of the place, he still felt very claustrophobic. For some stupid reason, Dominic was waiting to see the headlights from a train heading towards them.
“Look on the bright side, Glen. You could be at the back, with her.”
The man shivered. “Man, who said that God doesn’t have a sense of humour. She has the body of an angel and the voice of a vulture on crack. I would so love to have me a piece of her, but I’d have to gag the noisy bitch first.”
Dominic sighed; the guy only seemed interested in one thing. Then again, at least he was company.
“Glen, this is going to sound strange, but I can’t shake the feeling that somebody is watching us.”
The man laughed. “There are sixty pair of eyes behind us, dude, and apart from vulture voice at the back, we have the only torches."
Despite his silly report, Dominic just couldn’t shake the feeling.
“Tell me about this woman, Glen. The one everyone seems to love.
“Our Lady? Oh, she is one amazing woman. I only met her once. Don’t get me wrong here,” he said. “I thought it was all bullshit. The others said the old woman was some sort of new messiah, that she could see the future. So I walked into her room thinking I was about to meet up with some cheep magician. I even expected her to pull a rabbit out of a hat or something.”
Glen suddenly stopped and shone his torch directly above him.
"That was weird,” he muttered, but then shook off whatever it was that had spooked him.
“Anyway, so that’s what was going through my mind. It was a bloody shock to me when I saw her, that’s for sure. She looked just like some old lady you would see at Sainsbury, buying cheese. Then I looked into her eyes.”
Dominic noticed the man’s voice had changed. He heard what could only be described as reverence in his tone.
"I felt like a mouse caught in a cat’s gaze.” He sighed. “That sounded like she was a right evil cow; that isn't right. I sensed a great wisdom behind those eyes. What she said next just cemented my first impression. Out Lady told me that my brother was still alive and was in the air, helping with the quarantine."
Dominic played the torch beam over the wall again, he was sure he could hear something odd.
“She told me that the rest of the world was still free from the infection and that I would meet up with my brother some time in the future.” He smiled, “We all will.” Glen spun around. “Lord God almighty! That girl’s voice is seriously doing my head in. It’s like fingernails running down a blackboard.”
Dominic saw that Glen was not the only one that Clarisse's voice was affecting. He played the torch beam across the crowd; most of the others had their hands tight over their ears. What the hell was happening? Clarisse carried on talking, blissfully unaware of what she was doing. He shone the torch on her and saw that her eyes were shut and her face bore no expression whatsoever. It was as if she was in some sort of trance.
He wasn’t prepared for the first scream. He shone his light across the top of the heads, seeing that a gap had opened up at the back, close to Clarisse.
The people were all stumbling back with their hands still on the sides of their heads. Dominic’s torch beam caught sight of a large object falling into the crowd. Another frightened scream blasted out from a woman that stood just a few feet ahead of Clarisse. He pushed through the tight throng of people, forcing his way to the back. He pointed the light at the floor when he reached the gap and saw a convulsing child between the tracks. It was a climber. That was not possible; they had all turned into the dead months ago! Thick blood streamed from every opening in the tiny monster.
Dominic pointed the torch to the ceiling and gasped. There were dozens of them hanging from the bricks like bats. They were all were shaking as if they were in the throes of some sort of fit. Another one fell to the ground with a thud.
He looked at Clarisse. She was lying on the floor, her talking reduced to mutters. It had to be her incessant talking that was causing the climbers to convulse. She was scrambling their brains. Dominic laughed to himself, thinking that he had been right all along. Clarisse's voice could cause brains to explode.
He gathered his composure and ran to the girl. He reached down and picked her up from the ground. She is deceptively heavy, he thought as he hoisted her up.
Some of the other people had now regained most of their senses. He passed his torch and Clarisse’s to two males.
“Get these people moving!” he shouted.
More of them were dropping and he saw to his horror that they all were not as incapacitated as the first few had been. One climber growled loudly. The monster shook its head as if trying to clear away the noise that was causing its brain to turn to mush. It focused its attention on the woman in Dominic's arms. It must have known that she was the cause of all of this pain. It started to crawl towards Dominic, blood and saliva streamed from its mouth. There was a madness that was more pronounced than normal in its eyes. Had Clarisse managed to turn mindless killing monsters into brain-dead killing monsters?
He screamed when something ran past him, thinking one of the things had jumped down from behind. Dominic watched Glen run forward like David Beckham and kick the thing square in the head. David Beckham before the outbreak, of course. Now, the Beckham family was probably shuffling about the streets of London with their designer knickers rotting away, just like their flesh.
Dominic snapped back to the present as Glen stamped down hard on the climbers head, squashing it like a rotten melon.
“Get back!” shouted Glen.
Dominic ran with the muttering woman as the others rushed past them. He heard more of the things dropping from the ceiling like overly ripened fruit.
He followed the bouncing torch beams, trying to keep his balance. A heart-wrenching scream blasted out from the darkness, followed by the sound of ripping flesh. He moaned in terror when he noticed that Clarisse was no longer moving or muttering. He spun around as another scream rang out. That scream was directly behind him. He watched Glen’s torch light as it scanned over the ceiling. More of the things were dropping down, but now they were fully sentient. The falling climbers were active and awake.
“Come on, Dominic,” gasped Glen. “Everybody is in front of us.” He played the light behind him. “We are so fucked. Make her talk again! They’re going to rip us to fucking pieces!”
Dominic leaned against the wall, freeing a hand. He slapped Clarisse on the cheek.
“I really am so super sorry!” he said, thinking that she would definitely make him pay for this when she woke up.
“Come on, girl, wake up,” he hit her again, harder. She let out a small moan and twitched slightly.
“Oi, you dumb bitch!” Glen shouted as he reached over and shook the unconscious girl. “Come on, wake the fuck up!” Glen grabbed Dominic and pulled him away from the wall. "It’s not going to work. Come on, we have to run!”
Dominic nodded and adjusted the girl in his arms. He paused as Glen’s torch light caught sight of a figure appearing from the darkness.
“What are you doing?” he cried, "Come back here, we have to go!”
The figure paid no attention to Dominic's warning. He picked up a stone and hurled it towards the advancing climbers. Dominic gazed in astonishment as they all turned and ran towards the walls like frightened cats. Within seconds, the things had clambered up and resumed their positions hanging from the ceiling.
“That was amazing. Thank you! How did you…”
The figu
re turned around and grinned at them. Dominic saw that the hunter was limping as though something was wrong with its foot.
“Oh my fucking god!” shouted Glen. "It’s a fucking hunter!”
The figure ran forward and pulled Clarisse out of Dominic’s arms.
“She’s mine!” He bent his head and bit down into her neck.
“Get the fuck off her!” shouted Dominic. He ran up to him and kicked the hunter in its gimpy leg. The monster cried out, its mouth full of Clarisse's blood. His assault was cut short as somebody grabbed him from behind.
“Oh, look here, it’s the little human who sprayed me with his infected blood. I’m so going to enjoy pulling you to bits.”
Dominic jerked his hand back with all the force he could muster. He felt the hunter’s nose crack. It let him go and brought its hands up to its ruined nose.
Blood streamed out like a waterfall, covering the rotted patch of flesh on its face that closely resembled the shape of Dominic's hand.
He turned and saw Glen’s torch lying on the floor. His new friend had dropped it as he was otherwise engaged, fighting with the other hunter. Dominic picked up the torch and slammed the handle into the hunter’s bloody mouth. He cried out in surprise and disgust as the hunter's face collapsed into itself. He pushed it away and the lifeless body twitched one last time. Dominic saw that Glen had managed to kill the other one with a rock to the head.
“Clarisse is dead,” said Glen as he walked up and placed his hand on Dominic's shoulder.
Dominic nodded and wiped away a tear.
“Now you know why your spiritual leader separated her from the rest of you."
He picked up the torch and shone it across the ceiling. The climbers were getting restless again. He looked down at the girl’s body, trying not to cry. He knew that she would be nothing more than a meal for them. It made him sick, knowing that the girl had been reduced to nothing more than a hot lunch.
“We had better move.”
Chapter Eighteen
The magistrate was sat in his chair, looking just as smug as usual.
The delegates sat around his table, all staring at him like fucking expectant children. For the last half hour he had been painstakingly going through his actions over the last few days, trying to find fault in his methods. It just pissed him off when he discovered that there was nothing he would have changed.
His Captain of the Guards was the only officer that had stayed with him throughout the rushed evacuation from the courthouse just a few moments ago. He heard the moans of the dead close by, and the sound made him ill.
Maybe there would have been something he could have changed. Why the fuck did he think of coming here?
He looked behind him and stared in disgust and fury at the dead thing chained to the wall. Why had he allowed this one to keep moving?
“Magistrate, what are we going to do now?”
He looked at the blond haired man sitting at the front of the table. This spineless, weak chinned arsehole annoyed the fuck out of him. If it had not been for the fact that Colin was an administrative genius when it came to organising the day-to-day routines for the community, the magistrate would have gotten rid of him months ago.
He heard a rapid burst of gunfire in the distance and wondered who in the fuck was firing that gun. Not that it mattered, not anymore. The tainted had broken out of his cage and all his townsfolk had fucking left him like cowardly rats deserting a sinking ship. He looked around at what he had been left with and wanted to weep.
The magistrate grinned and leaned forward, taking pleasure at Colin’s surprised expression. That slimy little worm had not expected that move. The magistrate pushed his negative emotions away; he had no need for them. His grinned widened when an embryonic plan began to take shape in his mind.
“We start again, Colin. We learn from our miscalculations and rebuild.”
Colin looked around the room, gazing at each person.
“How do you propose that we do that? There are only seven of us.”
The magistrate looked over at the remaining officer, “Colin is a little skeptical.”
The officer marched up to the table and slammed his weapon down next to the floppy haired twit.
“There were only three of us when we got here. I think it’s time you grew a pair of bollocks and stop being such a bitch.”
The magistrate nodded self-righteously. At least this time they had a pair of females. They were not brilliant looking, but he supposed that they would do until some fresh stock arrived. His one failure was that he had not seen any pregnancies in the community; they could not have all been infertile. That was statistically impossible.
He stood up in order to insure that his point was driven home.
“The tainted have all gone along with the traitorous scumbags. It seemed that my pep talk was a colossal waste of fucking time. I should never have let those tainted mutants intermingle with our normal people. The bonds formed were obviously too strong to break with reason alone.”
Half of the delegates jumped in their seats when a window somewhere in the building broke.
“So, we just sit tight and wait for the dead things to go?”
The magistrate looked at Colin, wondering if he had a certificate for stupidity. He slowly shook his head.
“But, you said they’d all go when the tainted left.”
“Most of them have gone,” replied the officer. “The ones that are left have already sensed our warm flesh. These bastards will never leave. They’ll stay here for months if they have to.”
The delegates moaned collectively.
“The dead have compromised this building,” said the magistrate. “Our food supplies are limited and we have very little in the way of weapons.”
He cracked his sausage fingers loudly and paused, watching their idiotic faces drain of blood. He then looked at the officer and winked, nodding over at their dead thing. He was wondering if the captain of the guards would jump onto his wavelength. The officer slowly grinned.
“So, ladies and gentlemen, we are all leaving. We going to walk out of here and the dead will not bother us at all.”
“How the fuck do we do that?” asked Colin. With each question, he seemed to be getting a little braver.
The magistrate heard the captain of the guards suppress a chuckle.
“You are all invited to dinner at my house. Smart dress is compulsory, I’m afraid. So, I suggest you look for a change of clothing as the stuff you have on is about get a little messy.”
He watched their baffled faces. He was thoroughly enjoying his little game, and he believed that he knew exactly how they were going to react when he revealed his surprise.
“It’s time to get moving, I think. Those things outside are getting uncomfortably close.” He hauled his bulk out from behind the table and held his hand out. The officer passed him his weapon. The magistrate turned around and looked into the dead thing’s eyes, searching for any sign of activity in that rotting brain. There had been a few occasions over the past hour when the magistrate could have sworn that this dead thing acted more alive, more…aware. That bothered him; they were not supposed to act any different.
“Is there anybody in there?” he asked.
“Magistrate?”
He heard the questioning tone in the officer’s voice and realised he was just wasting his time. He grabbed the weapon tight and slammed it forward, embedding the spike into the monster's rotten head.
The officer hurried forward and kicked at the body. Satisfied that it was in fact dead, he picked it up and laid the body on the table.
“As we have only one weapon and I’m the only one who can use it, we have to find an alternative method of getting past the dead that are crowded around this building. We have some cloaks in the officer’s barracks made from skinned dead. We have used them in the past to sneak around the perimeter without theses monsters noticing us. They have been partly successful.”
“What does that mean, partly succe
ssful?” Colin asked.
The officer smiled at the man. “It means that it didn’t always work.” He unceremoniously sliced the dead thing open from neck to groin.
“We can coat our bodies with this things cold guts. It should work, the theory is the same.” He reached in and used his bare hands to peel back the skin flaps. “Come on, dig in.”
Colin shook his head, suddenly looking quite queasy.
“You’ve lost your fucking marbles, that stuff is poisonous! Everyone knows that. If we do as you suggest, we’ll all end up like them!”
“Don’t be so fucking stupid. You’ll be fine as long as it doesn’t go into your mouth or in any open cuts.”
“I’ve got a better idea. You’re supposed to be the best of the best, why don’t you just clear a path for us?”
“It doesn’t work like that. We are more effective as a group. I will not be able to protect all of you. Now, stop bitching and do as you’re fucking told.”
He ran over to the table, snatched up the officer’s weapon, and rushed over to the door.
“You’re just a fucking coward. I’ll show you how to do it.”
“Don’t do it!”
Colin opened the door and cried out in surprise when the things spilled through the opening like beans from an open sack, falling on top of him.
The magistrate pushed past two delegates and slammed his fat fingers into the thing’s body, scooping out a handful of guts. He daubed it over his chest, trying not to pass out from the foul stench of its rotted innards.
From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the female delegates fall under a pile of dead. Her screaming abruptly cut off as one of them bit into her throat.
He scooped out what must have originally been the thing's liver. He crushed it with his fingers, and rubbed the jellied purple mess down his arms and legs.
The officer pushed his own hands inside the dead man and wiped a generous portion of the foul stuff down the front of his uniform, then ran over to the door. He dived under one of the dead and managed to slide his weapon out from under them. He jumped to his feet and swung the staff in a high ark, cutting two of them down. Three more surged forward to take their place.