“Have a word with them, pal!” Ryan shot back.
Cahz turned back to the wall of rotten flesh ahead of him. In cold measured swipes he battered the cadavers from his path.
The sound of helicopter blades travelled up a pitch but Cahz was too busy to look behind. The noise rose and the downdraft washed across his shoulders and head.
He battered another zombie across the face. Chunks of rotten flesh broke loose and flew free.
His heart raced. It wasn’t the exertion of close quarter fighting, it wasn’t the fear of being surrounded by the undead. He felt his stomach sink and his heart pounded as the sound of the rotors changed. He knew the only way out was leaving him behind. He couldn’t turn around—couldn’t bear to watch the chopper ascend into the morning sky.
But the noise of the chopper stayed, echoing around the square, a constant reminder of his decision sounding in his ear. The noise of the rotors beating their retreat lingered for far longer than he thought possible.
Cahz cast off the thoughts of escape and lunged at the gnarled face of a resurrected police officer. The butt of his carbine impacted with a sharp crack and the skull gave way. Before Cahz could shift his weight, a second cadaver lurched at him. Its withered and necrosis blackened hands latched onto his body armour, clawing to get a firm grip. Unable to bring his weapon up, Cahz pressed his shoulder into the zombie’s chest and pushed. The zombie had no strength and no purchase against the shove, but instead of falling back it snagged on Cahz’s webbing.
A new zombie stepped up to the entangled soldier. With his rifle caught up in the first zombie’s arms, Cahz had lost the use of his primary weapon. He let go with his right hand and grabbed for his pistol. The decayed, bony fingers of the undead scratched at Cahz’s body armour as the two creatures ganged up on their prey, eager to deliver a bite.
Cahz flipped the safety off his pistol and jammed it into the fleshy underside of the nearest zombie’s jaw. Screwing his eyes tight and clamping his mouth shut, Cahz pulled the trigger.
The zombie’s jaw liquefied with the deafening crack of the round discharging. The noise of the blast hammered into Cahz’s eardrums. Crushed by the strike on his ear drums, the sounds around became muffled. The only clear sounds where the rasp of his own breath and the galloping thump of his heart. Blown apart by the shot, the zombies head vaporised. A tirade of congealed blood and shredded flesh slapped across Cahz’s face.
His eyes still shut tight, Cahz turned his gun to the second cadaver mauling him. The muzzle halted against something firm and Cahz fired. The blast wasn’t as loud. His ears were still reeling from the proximity of the last shot.
His target’s weight shifted as it keeled over, but it continued to thrash, caught on Cahz’s webbing. Cahz drew his sleeve across his face, scraping the worst of the putrefied debris away. He blinked his eyes open and gasped back the foul pus-laden odour. Drips of fetid gunk clung to his lips. Cahz screwed up his face and spat.
Before he could wipe his face for a second time, something tugged at his webbing. Hanging off his body armour by its bony arm, the zombie was struggling back to its feet. Its left arm rendered inoperative by the bullet through its shoulder, it hauled itself up by the arm tangled in Cahz’s armour. The pathetic grey husk stared up at Cahz while it tried to find purchase.
Before it could, Cahz levelled his pistol and fired. The headless zombie hung there, dangling from the straps on his webbing.
The bitter taste of rancid flesh crept up Cahz’s tongue. He felt the saliva ooze in his mouth and the bile rise in his throat. He tried to spit, but the thick mucus wouldn’t leave his lips. Instead it dribbled down his chin and onto the headless cadaver swinging from his chest.
Around him a dozen raw and weeping outstretched arms grabbed for him. Too close and too numerous for him to club, Cahz raised his pistol. He leaned into his firing stance and shot the remainder of his magazine into the crowd. A score of zombies fell inert around him.
“Don’t fire unless you have to, eh?” Ryan said from behind him. “That didn’t last long.”
Cahz unhooked the corpse from his gear. “Change of plan,” he said as he refreshed his pistol. “We’ve got to get in cover. Head for the that building.”
“You’ll never land a chopper on that roof,” Ryan said.
“Then we’ll need to be winched off,” Cahz replied.
“He’s right,” Cannon said. “But we’ll never get far in these crowds.”
Cahz wiped his cheek, smearing some of the pulverised zombie onto his glove. “What’s that building there?”
Ryan hesitated. “Offices of some sort?”
“Okay, that’s our destination. Cannon, thin it out.”
Cannon hugged the heavy machinegun against his side and fired. The buzzsaw noise ripped through the air, obliterating both the sound of the chopper and the moans of the undead. Bullets punched into the zombies ahead, knocking them down like pins.
“Go, go, go!” Cahz bellowed, slapping Ryan on the shoulder.
As Cahz ran off into the machinegun-hewn swathe, Ryan looked back.
The old woman was stumbling through the freshly mown corpses, the baby clutched tight in her arms. Her eyes were red with tears, her footsteps uneasy and faltering.
“Here, Elspeth,” Ryan said softly as he put a steadying arm around her.
Some of the zombies stopped by Cannon’s burst were starting to get up. Even with chunks torn out of their decaying bodies, unless the bullets had pulped their brains or shattered their spines, they would keep coming.
Cannon let out another burst, knocking over a handful more. He knew that without a head shot they wouldn’t stay down, but there were too many to take time picking shots. For now all he could do was waste ammo trying to knock them down and hope it would buy enough space to get through to safety.
Cahz charged forward, his pistol barking as he dispatched the most immediate threats. His lips felt cracked and sore from where he’d wiped the atomised zombie with the back of his glove. His cheeks still felt wet, plastered as they were with infected brain matter. He spat out the saliva building up in his mouth and tried not to swallow the bitter infected tissue that was forming a scum over his tongue. Trying to ignore the fetid taste, he pushed on.
More and more of the undead fell as the party fought their way through. Bludgeoned with rifle butt or shot at point blank range, dozens of walking dead were destroyed or pushed from their path.
With a point-blank coup de grâce, Cahz dispatched the final zombie between him and the office block. It had been a new building before the Rising, a towering icon to corporate power, but like a million other homogenised offices the world over it now lay abandoned. The standardized architect of glass and steel and sandstone now wore a coat of grime. A shabby veneer smoke stained grey with green trails of moss marking the tributaries from burst pipes and leaky gutters. Here and there in the thin troughs between steel and stone a resilient plant clung, its leaves turned skyward in triumph.
The expansive vista-exposing front window was a broken mosaic of splintered glass. A burnt out car sat rusting in the foyer where it had smashed to a stop.
Cahz stepped through the broken window and peered into the gloom. His boots crunched on the broken glass. Instantly a damp chill permeated his lungs and the smell of musty plasterboard hung on every breath.
The sound of the ghetto blaster still wafted into earshot between the dry cries of dead voices. But the drone of the chopper was now overwhelmed by the moans of the hungry dead.
Cahz scanned the lobby, looking past the security desk and the elevators, trying to make out the entrance to the stairs. Loops of conduit sagged from the ceiling like vines in a plastic and aluminium jungle. A steady trickle of water cascaded from a snapped pipe, splashing onto a mushy ceiling tile.
With his boots squelching through the debris, Cahz cautiously skirted the dilapidated car sitting on its four flat tyres. The driver’s door was slightly ajar. The windows were smashed in. Down the seams of
the metal work he could see the tarnish of rust—or was it dried blood? In the dim light he couldn’t be sure.
As he unpicked the darkness a figure stepped out of the gloom. Its arms outstretched, it let rise a wail. Its tough vocal cords pushed out the stale air in its dead lungs, past its goatee framed lips, to form a flattened vowel that bounced off the empty walls, an off-key note that piqued Cahz’s fear. The zombie’s once neat uniform was now dishevelled. The crisp white shirt bore a large hole across the shoulder. Around the edges the raw flesh had desiccated, forming ragged sheets of dried skin. The crimson deluge that once poured from the wound was now a brown stain that ran down the zombie’s chest to merge into the blood-caked trousers.
Fighting against his natural reaction to flee, Cahz took a determined step towards the zombie. The saggy folds of grey skin that drooped from its face became taught as its mouth opened wide. Its jaws held apart in anticipation of a meal. Polluted saliva glistened behind the cracked and blackened lips. As it lurched out of the shadows, Cahz realised the dead security guard didn’t have a beard. The dark stain around its mouth was the dried blood of a long dead victim. This wretched being had been infected and upon his defective resurrection he had in turn infected another, the cycle of infection perpetuated. In this one malignant creature, Cahz could see reflected the billions of dead and undead.
Cahz thumped the cadaver hard in the head. The bone crunched with the impact and the butt skidded off the loose skin. As the metal edge slipped down the zombie’s face, it took with it the cold dead flesh, exposing the bone beneath. Like a well cooked chicken, the skin and muscle and cartilage sloughed free from the skull.
The zombie stumbled backwards into the shadows from the force of the blow, but rather than toppling to the floor the creature caught itself and came shambling forward again. When it emerged into the light, it smiled an impossibly wide grin populated by broken teeth and yellow glistening bone.
The zombie stepped closer, devoid of a nose and grinning. Its skull still wore small clumps of flesh and sinew. The raw white eyes inside their sockets twitched and darted, peering through damaged cornea, trying to reacquire its meal. The remnants of its human face dangled from its chin like the wattle on a cockerels neck. The slick grey mask of dead flesh quivered and jiggled as the creature stumbled forward.
A bolt of sick rose in Cahz’s mouth. He spluttered at the acrid taste, spitting out the milky granules of vomit.
The zombie closed in, arms outstretched, compelled to embrace its meal.
With a grunt of exertion, Cahz delivered a second blow. The rifle split open the skull with a crack and this time the zombie collapsed to the floor.
“Is it clear?” Cannon asked as he drew up with Cahz.
“No idea.” Cahz pointed at a set of doors. “Reckon that’s the stairwell?”
“Let’s give it a try, boss.” Cannon jogged over and pushed at the door. “A little help here.”
Cahz turned to see Ryan supporting Elspeth as they hobbled into the lobby. At their tail there was already a sea of undead arms clawing for them.
“Fuck!”
Cahz whipped round at the cry to see the stairwell door wide open, light streaming in from the skylight beyond. Silhouetted against the opening, Cannon was tussling with a zombie.
“Get off me, you dead fuck!”
Cahz levelled his rifle at the mêlée. The muzzle danced, trying to track his target as the pair tussled.
“Shit,” Cahz spat, unable to get a clear shot. Letting his carbine drop free in its harness, he dashed over to his comrade.
Cannon twisted and succeeded in creating some space between himself and the zombie. He pulled back his hand and let fly a punch.
He bellowed, “Fuck off!”
The punch landed. Contorted by the impact, the creature’s head whipped back, its nose flattened and the skin ruptured. The corpse skidded to a halt not far from the crashed car. Cannon stormed over to the zombie and before it could rise up he pounded his boot into its face. The bone buckled and cracked and Cannon stomped his foot down hard again. With successive hammering its jaw snapped and an eye was popped from its socket.
“I guess it wasn’t clear,” Cannon said, looking at the pulped skull. “Fucker popped out from behind the security desk.”
“Come on, Cannon!” Cahz shouted, holding open the stairwell doors.
“Annoying little shit.” Cannon squashed his boot into the remnants of the zombie’s face and gave a final twist of his heel.
Cahz looked into the brightly lit stairwell. Golden streaks of sunlight were streaming through the grimy windows.
Back out in the foyer, the first of the pursuing zombies had made it inside the building. As Cannon ran past he jammed the door shut.
“Are you sure it’s safe up there?” Ryan asked.
“You’re the local expert—you tell me,” Cahz replied, looking for a lock to the doors. “Cannon, watch the stairs.”
“Sure thang, boss,” Cannon confirmed as he stepped past to take up position.
Cahz tried to pause and listen. He couldn’t tell if the stairs were a safer option or not. For all he knew he was about to trap himself in with a horde of voracious undead.
There was too much noise for him to pick anything out from the echoing stairwell. The constant moans of the pursuing zombies, the shuffling of feet, the infant crying and the old woman sobbing all combined to form a heart-wrenching chorus of misery.
“Come on. Come on in quick,” Cahz beckoned to the stragglers. As soon as the pair were through the door he threw it shut. “How the hell do you lock this?”
“Can we brace something against it?” Ryan suggested.
Cahz could see the barrel of a lock but no key. He looked around for something to bar the door but there was nothing. The stairwell was a mosaic of peeling paint, dirty glass and small clumps of smashed detritus. The hard synthetic fibre carpet tiles wore a film of dust and plaster, muting what would once have been a rich royal blue down to a pastille shade. His eye was drawn to the vivid red of a wall-mounted fire extinguisher. Its colour was still vibrant unlike its washed out surroundings. The only betrayal of its neglect was the specks of rust clinging to the welds around its neck and brackets.
The door thumped, yanking Cahz’s mind back.
Instinctively he pushed hard against the door.
“If only the door opened the other way, those dumb fucks would never work out how to get in,” Ryan offered.
“Well, it doesn’t,” Cahz snapped.
The door thumped again as a second then a third zombie added their force.
Cahz kept his back to the double doors, holding them shut. “Look, those pus bags have got no strength but I can’t stand here all day.”
“Want me to check upstairs?” Cannon asked.
“Go, and take these two with you. You might need the extra muscle.”
“There’s got to be filing cabinets or something we can use,” Ryan said as he bounded for the stairs.
“If you’re not back in five minutes,” Cahz said, “I’m coming looking for you.”
Cannon and Ryan started up the stairs, leaving the old woman behind. The hallway echoed with the clump of boots and the crying of the woman and child.
Cahz unclipped his canteen, twisted the lid off and put the end to his lips. He tipped the bottle up and poured a gulp into his foul tasting mouth. With the thoroughness of a dental hygiene commercial, Cahz swilled the water around before spitting it out onto the floor. There was still a bitter funk lingering on his taste buds. He rinsed a second time but the taste remained.
“I’d murder for some gum,” he muttered.
He tipped his head back and let a stream of water spill out over his face. He gave a shudder like a wet dog tossing the water droplets away. He brought up his arm and dragged his face across the sleeve. His face still felt polluted, unclean with the remains of the dead plastered to his skin. Like an obsessive compulsive, he raked his gloved hand down his damp flesh, trying to peel
off the contamination he knew must still be clinging to him.
The snug fitting body armour rose and fell erratically with the jittery heaving of his chest. He took a deep breath in through his nose and tried to calm his hammering lungs and the sense of dread. Slowly his breathing became less rapid and he found himself looking at his shoes.
The tan leather was sprayed with all manner of amorphous gunk. Splashes of dark viscera clung precariously to the tip of his boot. He tried to kick off the worst of it by scraping his boot across the floor but to no avail. He closed his eyes to escape the thought of the innards smeared over him, but the darkness behind his eyelids served to intensify the sounds around him. The sobs and wails from the old lady and the child, the muffled strains of Bates’ stereo playing to an indifferent audience, the banging and slapping of dead hands against the doors and through it all the incessant chill of the dead’s moans.
Cahz opened his eyes. The old woman was still standing there.
“Lady?”
The old woman stood there, immobile other than the shudders that swept across her with each sob.
“Lady,” Cahz said more forcefully, trying to gee her up.
Slowly she turned to face him. The wound on her shoulder was seeping. Rather than clear plasma or fresh blood, the viscous liquid that oozed out was an evil, almost black, hue of dark blue.
“Lady, what’s your name?” Cahz asked, his voice raised against the thumps and moans from the other side of the door.
The woman took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself. “Elspeth.”
“And the baby?” Cahz asked.
“The baby…”
Elspeth looked down at the child she carried. There was a raised red welt along the child’s face with spots of blood along the line. The baby’s face was flushed from her crying and her eyes puffy from the tears, her pouty lips still quivering even though the effort of crying had exhausted her tiny body.
“She doesn’t have a name,” Elspeth said. “Sam always liked Lucy or Rebecca but she died giving birth. Ryan...” Elspeth looked at the stairs Ryan had ran up. “Ryan’s her dad and he’s been avoiding her.”
Remains of the Dead Page 5