Barnes let out a frightened yelp as another took hold of him and he was pulled closer to the gurgling horde of undead. Lucy tried to tug him back but a third arm had joined the other two. Now both of them were losing ground. With the ferocity of a rabid pit bull, Humphrey launched himself through the air and ripped into the arm of one of the RAMs. The creature relinquished its grip on Barnes as the Labrador’s teeth tore through its tendon. That gave the two humans the impetus they needed to pull back. Both toppled over the creatures they had killed earlier and landed hard on the shelves. Their short cries were out of not so much pain but relief that for the moment they were free. Humphrey retreated but kept snarling. The creatures remained unmoved by his boisterous threats.
Another metallic screech deafened them as the bottom half of the door began to give way, buckling the shelving units further. The first RAM squeezed its way through, followed by another.
Barnes stepped forward once again, holding his rifle the wrong way to try and bludgeon the creatures back, but it was a lost cause.
Lucy moved back to the wall. Time seemed to slow down as she looked at Beth hiding the faces of her brother and sister. Tears were visible on Lucy’s cheeks as light poured in from the ward. She looked across at Barnes, who was goading the creatures into one last violent showdown, and then down to Hughes. “I guess this is it, sweetie,” she said, bending down and taking his hand. He squeezed it gratefully. His biggest fear was dying alone, but now he knew that was something he would no longer have to worry about.
There was another deafening crack and Lucy closed her eyes. This was it. In a second the small room would be full of RAMs feasting on them, tearing them limb from limb, sucking the lifeblood from their throbbing veins. She opened her eyes as another loud crack sounded. Barnes was still battling the two beasts that had won their way into the small room. They were still trying to climb over the racking while getting coshed by the butt of a rifle, but the rest of the monsters were dispersing. Lucy let go of Hughes’s hand and stood up, ignoring what was happening a few feet away and instead looking out to the ward. There was another crack and a grey head exploded, then another with the same result. She stood in a daze, believing she had either died or gone insane as snow began to fall in the ward.
*
When the firing had started again, Mike hadn’t missed a beat in darting across to the infirmary. He had squeezed through the debris caused by the crashed ambulance and into the ward. None of the creatures had noticed him, consumed as they were by their obsession with the occupants of the linen room. He had hoped for more time to formulate a plan, but when he heard the empty clicks as the guns ran dry, he knew he had to act. He pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall, whipped his rucksack off and placed it at his feet. Mike saw two of the beasts begin to squeeze through as the door to the small room started to give. He heard a male voice shouting empty threats, the last shouts of a man who refused to go down without a fight. Mike raised his shotgun and began to fire. The first shot went wayward, but shots two and three brought a satisfied battle grimace to his face as his targets’ heads exploded like water balloons. It had the desired effect. All of the creatures now turned and rushed towards him. They had tried for hours to get to the occupants of that small room, but here was some new fresh meat, ready for the tasting.
Mike dropped the shotgun onto his rucksack and pulled the pin out of the fire extinguisher. He aimed the hose and squeezed the trigger, releasing a torrent of white foam. He saturated the ground first, and within seconds the floor became like sheet ice. The advancing RAMs slid, slipped and fell. They scrambled to get up, but more fell on top of them. Mike then aimed the nozzle further back, and the foam covered the faces of the creatures, blinding them, making them collide with beds and with each other. The froth from the foam wafted into the air and travelled the length of the infirmary, settling like gentle snowfall on a cold Christmas morning. Gradually, the extinguisher began to splutter. He retrieved his shotgun and began firing.
Red explosions turned pink as the blood and tissue mixed with the white foam to form a sickening cocktail. He fired two shots before his weapon clicked empty. He reached down and pulled out the second shotgun and pumped it. Just in time he fired a shot at one of the creatures who had regained its footing and was fighting the foam to find the source of the noise. It had travelled just a few feet before the blast sent it shooting back into the small red, white and pink lake of struggling bodies. Another broke free and crawled on its hands and knees out of the deathly ooze. Its progress was so slow that Mike thought it wasteful to spend a shell on it. He picked up a machete and went across to the grovelling creature, keeping the shotgun poised in his left hand should he need it.
Still blinded by the foam that was blocking its eyes, somehow it sensed Mike’s presence in front of it and it reached out, grabbing fiercely at empty air with its hand. Mike brought down the machete, splintering the beast’s forehead, the sharp blade slicing through its skull like it was cutting through cake. The creature collapsed to the floor. Now the beasts in front of Mike were no longer frightening, just pathetic. The pink slush bled redder as he continued his killing spree, careful not to step into the bloody sludge himself. One after the other, he brought about a final and gory demise, his face merciless, no empathy for the people they once were. Villagers, soldiers, they were all the same now, rabid animals cluttering the slaughterhouse floor, stopping him from getting to that room, and hopefully the truth.
His tunnel vision gradually numbed his senses. This kind of carnage was just a part of life in this new world, he thought to himself as he speared through the eye a creature that had previously been a primary school attendee. The tiny figure hung lifeless on his machete. He withdrew it and the little girl fell to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He moved straight on to the next one, this time carving his blade down through the right side of the RAM’s head and sending another small cloud of pink foam wafting into the air. The foam had started to muffle the growls from the creatures, and it was only when his ears sent a rapid message to his brain telling him there was a different sound coming from behind him that he whipped round in time to notice three RAMs forcing their way past the rubble next to the ambulance and into the ward. He moved towards them, dropped his machete on the floor, raised his shotgun and blasted them to oblivion.
*
Barnes had managed to crush the skull of one of the RAMs while the second stumbled over the shelving. He now had his foot firmly on the second one’s back and brought his rifle down repeatedly on its head. With each strike, the beast’s movement diminished until finally a crack gave way to a sloshing sound as the butt of Barnes’s rifle plunged into the soft matter of the creature’s brain. He stood there exhausted, sweat dripping down his face, horrified at the sticky substance that was spreading on the floor beneath him, and amazed that he was still breathing.
Lucy was in a state of confusion. Her eyes were locked on the strange snow falling in the ward. She was stirred from her bewilderment by coughs of laughter from behind her. She turned to look at Hughes, who was spluttering and in pain, but most definitely laughing. She shook her head, feeling as though she was still in a dream, unable to make sense of anything. She mouthed the word what without being sure why or even how. Nothing was computing. “What’s happening?” she asked eventually, just loud enough to be heard over the screams of the children and the bizarre sounds and intermittent blasts from outside.
Hughes gained his composure for long enough to speak. “Know anyone who’d think of taking on an army of RAMs with a fucking fire extinguisher?” He put a hand across his belly to take the strain of the pain from his laughter. “For fuck’s sake, Barney, get out there and help him.”
Barnes looked back at Hughes, then out through the broken door, realising for the first time that the attackers had gone. He stepped over the bodies and the shelving units and threw aside the creature that had been trampled to death by the others in the doorway, its head crushed underfoot. Barnes
stepped onto the ward and saw Mike discharge his shotgun once, twice, three times. After each blast a creature fell. He looked in the foreground and saw the result of the bloodbath that had taken place. A small handful of creatures were still writhing in the foamy chaos, but most had been brutally slain. He went towards the mess, raising the butt of his rifle to cosh the remaining survivors.
Mike watched the third of the RAMs that had torn into the ward drop. Hearing steps behind him, he swivelled to see Barnes approaching the pink pool of horror. He remembered him as the sniper who had been instrumental in their victory against the raiders, he remembered him as a good man, but he had gone along with the kidnapping of Lucy, so now, as far as Mike was concerned, he was the enemy. He pumped his shotgun and aimed. “Where’s Lucy?” he shouted in a gruff, menacing voice.
The half-smile that had spread onto Barnes’s face at the sight of Mike vanished and he stopped in mid-stride, instinctively putting his hands up. The fear he had felt when trapped in that small room came flooding back as he saw in Mike’s eyes the uncompromising certainty of death. “It’s alright, she’s okay,” he spluttered nervously as two of the creatures changed direction towards him. Mike shot one in the back of the head. Gore erupted from its face, spreading a gruesome trail across the floor and up to Barnes’s feet.
“Where is she?” Mike shouted again, his angry eyes bordering on madness.
“Mike?” It wasn’t Barnes who spoke this time.
Mike looked behind him at the figure who had emerged from the doorway. It was Lucy, his Lucy. Suddenly he was completely disinterested in the remaining three RAMs struggling to safety, just as he was disinterested in Barnes. All he wanted now was to hold Lucy in his arms. He sidestepped the hellish foamy lagoon and ran towards her, shotgun still in hand. He stopped a hand’s breadth away from her and took her in. Tears of joy welled in her eyes as she pulled his head to her lips and kissed him again and again. He dropped the shotgun on the floor and put both his arms around her. He never wanted to let her go, but their journey was far from over yet. She pulled back from him so she could see his face again.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he replied, gently moving a lock of damp hair from her forehead.
“Took you long enough,” she said, sniffing back her tears and smiling lovingly at him.
Mike heard the familiar sounds of solid objects cracking against bone and knew that Barnes had begun mopping up the remaining creatures. “Yeah, sorry about that, woke up with a killer headache.”
Lucy’s smile faded as she remembered the blow to the back of his head that had heralded the beginning of this nightmare. She touched the side of his cheek and kissed him again. “I didn’t get to tell you that morning,” she said, kissing him on the lips, then pulling back and holding his face in both of her hands.
“Tell me what?” he asked.
“Fuck!” yelled Barnes, slicing through Mike and Lucy’s intimacy. They glanced towards him and then to the entrance. More RAMs were fighting their way past the debris by the ambulance to get in.
Mike looked to the doorway of the small room from where Barnes and Lucy had emerged and saw Beth coming out with her two tear-stained siblings. “Is that everybody?” asked Mike, looking beyond them into the small room. There was no time for warm greetings.
“No, Hughes is still in there, he can’t walk by himself,” said Lucy.
“Can we trust him?” asked Mike, nodding his head towards Barnes.
Lucy nodded. “He’s one of the good guys.”
Mike ran down the ward as the first RAM made it through. He raised the shotgun and fired. By his reckoning, that was his sixth shot, so the gun was empty. The creature flew back with the impact, giving him the vital seconds he needed to get to his rucksack. He reached in and handed a Glock 17 and two clips to Barnes. A couple of well-aimed shots rang out behind him as he ran back down the ward. By the time he reached the small linen room, Annie and John had begun to cry again. Beth looked drained. Mike gave the other Glock to Lucy with the remaining three clips and tugged the rucksack back onto his shoulder. He marched into the small room and saw Hughes in the corner, holding his wound, but smiling. With his other hand he was ruffling the fur on Humphrey’s neck. “Eh up, Mikey boy,” said Hughes. Humphrey let out a contented yap.
“Alright, Bruiser. C’mon mate, we’re getting out of here,” said Mike as he climbed over the racking. Humphrey stood up, realising it was time to go, and happily hopped over the shelving and out into the ward.
Hughes shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere, Mike. It’s going to be hard enough getting out of here as it is without someone having to support me. Get the rest to safety. I can’t go with you.”
“Don’t talk bollocks. If you think for a second I’d leave you here by yourself, you’re out of your head,” Mike said, crouching down and taking hold of Hughes’s arm.
Hughes pulled it back. “I’m serious, Mike.”
“So am I. Now don’t be so fucking soft, you’re coming with us and that’s the end of it.” Mike took firm hold of Hughes’s arm again and yanked him up. Hughes grimaced and let out a grunt. A few seconds later they emerged from the small room. Lucy had not shifted position, but she was aiming her Glock down the ward ready for any more intruders.
“Right, we’re going to head west through the woods. Em and the others are waiting for us on a boat,” he said, supporting Hughes as the pair awkwardly began to find their stride.
“Wait,” said Lucy, halting them in their tracks. “We can’t go yet. Jenny and Shaw are locked in the cells.”
*
Jenny continued to sit on her bed, clutching her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth. The RAMs that had attacked the cell block were all dead. Shaw had single-handedly slain each of them, but now there was a greater fear welling up inside both of them. If the humans were all dead, who would free them? Were these jail cells going to be their tombs?
She jerked back to full consciousness as footsteps sounded down the corridor. She heard Shaw get up from his bed and walk to the bars of his cell. “Is it more of them?” she asked in little more than an urgent whisper.
“Shhh,” he commanded as he put his face right up to the cold bars, desperate to try and see down the passageway. The footsteps halted and Shaw’s heart pounded as his anxiety grew. When he looked down at all the creatures he had destroyed, it made him feel sick. He had killed countless RAMs since the start of the outbreak, but each time he had wondered who they had been before, who they had left behind. He bent down, picked up his homemade weapon and readied himself. The seconds passed by and then he heard a jingling, like keys. He tried to look back up the short corridor, but his view was restricted. The footsteps started again and they were heading in his direction.
Mike put his arm in front of Lucy and the pair stopped. A bloody pile of RAMs lay motionless in front of one of the cells. “Jenny?” shouted Lucy, needing to hear her friend’s voice, disregarding the danger of there being other creatures in the building.
“Lucy?” Jenny’s voice echoed the astonishment she felt inside. “Lucy, is that you?” she asked again, not believing her own ears.
“It’s me, Jenny,” Lucy said, resuming her journey down the passage. The pair walked past the cell containing all the supplies – Mike looked longingly at the piles of food and ammunition – then they came to Shaw’s cell. Lucy climbed over and around the bodies piled in front of it, turned the skeleton key she had found on a hook behind the front desk, and opened the door, giving him an unfathomable look before continuing on to her friend’s cell. Shaw picked up his bag of belongings and was about to leave his cell when Mike blocked his exit.
“Just so you know. Lucy insisted that we got you out,” he said. “If it was up to me, I’d have let you rot in here. And for what it’s worth, if you ever try to fuck us over again I will burn you down in a heartbeat.” Mike was a few inches shorter than Shaw and seven years younger, and he wasn’t a trained soldier who had seen combat, but t
here wasn’t a doubt in Shaw’s mind that the man in front of him would be good to his word. He didn’t say anything, just gave a barely perceptible nod.
Mike stepped out of his way and went to the next cell to join Lucy and Jenny, who were in a tight embrace. Sensing another presence, Jenny opened her eyes and saw Mike standing behind her friend. She pulled back from Lucy and smiled broadly. “This one’s definitely a keeper,” she said, pulling Mike towards her and kissing him roughly on the side of the cheek before squeezing him tightly.
“It’s good to see you, Jenny.” He smiled and then turned to Lucy. “I’m going to get the others. We need to take as much ammo and supplies as we can carry and then we need to head back.”
“Head back where?” asked Shaw, who was now standing in the doorway to Jenny’s cell. Mike looked at him but couldn’t speak without wanting to spit the words in his face, so he just brushed past him and let Lucy explain to them both.
The group organised themselves with military coordination. Barnes had retrieved the sniper rifle from the supplies cell and was keeping guard at the entrance to the prison block, with Humphrey sitting vigilantly by his side. Hughes was on the stretcher from the ambulance, where despite his pain he brought a smile to the faces of Annie and John with childish jokes that he still found funny himself. The others packed bags and rucksacks, loaded weapons and prepared themselves for the next leg of the journey. When they had all the supplies they could carry, Mike gathered them together, making sure he kept his voice low so the children couldn’t hear.
SAFE HAVEN: REALM OF THE RAIDERS Page 24