The tension suddenly released, Ali stumbled backward where he collided with the damaged handrail. He threw his hands out, grasping for anything before his momentum carried him over the railing.
Unable to stop, he flipped over the balcony. As the sky flashed overhead his grip found purchase. Then came a jolting wrenching through his shoulders as the momentum yanked at the joints. He hung there for a spilt second before his fingertips slipped free.
Ali started plummeting again. He was watching the balcony above fly away. As he fell a couple of the loosened bars burst free and were sent tumbling to the ground with him.
Ali flailed his arms out, trying to grab hold of anything to arrest his fall. His arm connected with something impossibly solid. The force of the impact was numbingly violent. His whole body twisted from the impact and he collided hard with the metal deck of the balcony below. The two metal bars that had fallen with him clattered off the decking and continued their journey to the crowd of zombies below.
Ali started laughing. Like an action hero, he’d survived by a piece of miraculous luck. Granted, it hadn’t seen him favoured enough to get him to the adjacent apartments, but he was still thankful. He laughed until he realised just how much pain he was in. The laughter turned to coughing, and when that subsided, Ali groaned.
After an age and a couple of aborted attempts, Ali hauled himself up to sit against the wall. His injured leg throbbed and now his shoulder did too. There was a lump on the back of his head and a massive headache to testify to the force of the impact. He looked down at his hands. They were bloody and scratched and now he noticed the nail on his index finger had been ripped off about halfway. He felt sick looking at the raw pulp of his nail bed. He dropped his hand out of sight, grateful that the pain from elsewhere was masking his missing fingernail.
He looked out over the thoroughfare packed with undead. They filled the road from here to the offices across the street. The front windows were smashed in and the zombies were packed inside just as thick as outside. To his right he could see the plaza they’d been trying to get to. The helicopter and its promise of rescue were long gone. And still there was no sign of the people who’d been shooting earlier.
Up to the left, back towards the warehouse, Ali could just see the odd patch of tarmac. The zombies were thinner on the ground up there but there were still thousands of them. The odd waft of grey black smoke drifted across the street, some of the petrol bombs were still burning and hopefully still incinerating zombies.
“What now?”
He could climb back up and try the window again, but even if he forced his way inside there would be nothing of use to him. All the food and weapons had been scavenged from here years ago. Could he survive until the helicopter came back? And what if the helicopter never came back?
Ali looked across at the dilapidated office block, its sandstone walls grimy with soot and moss and all the other discolouring that five years of the apocalypse and a lack of maintenance had accumulated. The maintenance crews, the cleaners, the office workers and a hundred other careers had all amalgamated into one profession: denizen of hell. Most of the undead that had congregated wore the same uniform now: tattered brown rags, pale blue skin and a gormless open maw.
Here and there Ali could still pick out the odd noticeable individual. A soldier in a bio-chemical suit with his gas mask torn off, a hiker with his backpack still secured by its shoulder straps his thick jacket with white puffs of stuffing poking out from the rips, and Ray—
Ali shook his weary head and let out a lonely sigh.
Among the zombies gawping up at him was Ray. There were raw chunks of flesh gouged from his body where the zombies had ravished him. His familiar glasses were missing and his face was caked in his own dried blood, but it was unmistakably Ray. Ali’s friend these last four years was now reduced to a mindless corpse.
Even with a hundred hungry ghouls feasting on his bones he had revived before the ravenous mouths had time to consume him. And no matter how fresh the kill, once they had reanimated no zombie would eat them.
“I am truly sorry, my friend,” Ali said.
He closed his eyes.
Chapter Seven
Chamber
“What the fuck happened here?” Cahz said, stepping over a dead body. Once through the broken gap in the makeshift defences, he had been confronted by an extraordinary scene. It looked like the stairwells had been barricaded and sealed off. The office furniture piled up to block the entrances and the space created by their absence resembled a campsite. There were tents, camp beds and piles of provisions all laid out in an orderly pattern. The only thing that wasn’t orderly were the blood splatters, bullet holes and dead bodies.
“Defence in depth,” Cannon said absently, looking at the make do redoubt.
“What are the tents for?” Elspeth said absently.
“Privacy I guess,” Ryan offered.
“The Whisky Deltas break in?” Cahz asked, looking round the breached stronghold.
“Nope, not a single W.D. in here.” Cannon nudged a corpse with his foot. “These poor bastards have rotted to mush. The roaches and flies have seen to them.”
“W.D.?” Ryan asked.
Cannon answered without acknowledging Ryan, “Walking Dead.”
Cahz continued to prowl round the site, occasionally pulling open the flaps on tents with the muzzle of his rifle. He prodded at a flap of leathery skin on a cadaver’s skeletal rib.
“That’s an exit wound,” he observed, looking at the shattered bone. “This guy died from a shot to the chest. What the hell happened here?”
“When we found this place,” Ryan looked across at Elspeth, “What, four years ago?” Elspeth shrugged. “Well, the corpses were in better condition. You could see some had their throats cut, others shot.” Ryan gestured to a stack of crates. “There was food and water and guns and ammo and everything you’d need to hold up for months. Ray called it Masada.”
“Masada?” Cannon asked.
Cahz stepped back to the group. “First Jewish uprising against the Romans in something like fifty A.D.”
“Ray reckoned the same thing happened here,” Ryan added.
“Do one of you want to fill me in? I ain’t that clued up with Jewish history,” Cannon grumbled.
“There was a Roman siege at a place called Masada. The Romans built a massive ramp to breach the defences. It took months to build but when they finally got over the wall everyone was dead. Even though they had plenty of supplies, rather than being captured and crucified or sold into slavery they decided to commit mass suicide.”
Cannon kicked a corpse with a gunshot wound to the head. “Yeah, well, nobody shoots themselves in the cheek to blow their brains out.”
“At Masada they drew lots,” Cahz said. “Each man would kill his family and then they in turn would kill each other until only one man remained. Then he would be the only one who had to commit suicide.”
“So you’re saying the same thing happened here?” Cannon asked. “It was Jonestown massacre all over?”
“That’s how Ray and Sarah saw it,” Ryan answered. “Surrounded with no way out, they committed mass suicide.”
“It’s a bit unlikely, isn’t it?” Cannon wonder aloud. “Could it not just as easily been looters?”
Ryan shook his head and pointed at the crates. “There were still a ton of supplies when we found the place. Kept us fed for a month. No way looters would have broken in, killed a group of heavily armed people, and then left without ransacking the place.”
“They all drank the Kool-Aid,” Cannon said reluctantly. “Still it’s a bit sick.”
“Technically it was Flav-R-Aid,” Ryan mumbled.
“Hell, Cannon, we’ve seen a dozen things just this fucked up over the years,” Cahz pointed out.
Cannon chewed his lip. “Suppose.”
“Well, let’s make this place secure,” Cahz said. “We need to be sure we can get to the roof and check it’s suitable to land a chopp
er. Ryan, you know this place better than us.”
Ryan nodded his agreement.
“You and Cannon check that out. Go scout things out up there. I’m going to start making an inventory of what we can use in here.”
“No point,” Ryan said. “We gutted the place of anything useful.”
“I want to know that for sure. You guys might have missed something. Now get a move on.”
Cannon gave a nod and turned for the stairs.
“Cannon,” Cahz said. Cannon stopped and whipped round. “Go up one staircase and down the other. Don’t go onto the other floors, but keep your ears open for other residents. We’ll sweep the place clear only if we need to.”
“Got it boss.” Cannon made a salute and jogged away.
Ryan hesitated. He looked at Elspeth and the child she cradled.
His daughter was still whining, her cheeks flushed, the scratch down her face puffy and prominent. Elspeth looked cold and grey. Her skin had a waxy sheen to it and her eyes looked sunken. Ryan had seen that pallor so many times before. The condemned look of the infected.
“You comin’?” Cannon called back.
Elspeth was Samantha’s mother and they shared the same hair and the same eyes. And now Elspeth shared the same haunted expression Ryan had seen on Sam when she’d realised she was going to die.
“Yeah, sure,” Ryan said softly and turned to follow.
Cahz slung his carbine behind him and marched up to the crates.
The various wooden and plastic boxes weren’t as ordered as he’d first thought. Cahz guessed that at one time they had been neatly stacked, but that Ryan and his friends had seen no need to tidy up after their foraging.
He squatted down on his haunches and gave a huff before opening the first one.
Inside was an array of bandages and other basic first aid.
“Here,” Cahz said, offering a Mepore dressing.
“Oh, what’s the point?” Elspeth sighed.
Cahz nodded and tossed the dressing back.
“It doesn’t hurt now anyway,” Elspeth said.
“Gone numb, huh?” Cahz didn’t look back to make eye contact. Instead he opened the next box.
“After all this time…” Elspeth sucked in a sharp breath. “I mean... Well, I don’t know what I mean. We’d survived all of this, Samantha and me.” She looked down at the sleeping child in her arms. “It was a shock when she died. I thought I could console myself with my granddaughter. There was always a reminder of Samantha. But she reminds me too much sometimes. It’s all so unfair. I mean, who dies in childbirth these days...” Elspeth paused for a moment. “I mean, no one should die in childbirth in this day and age, what with the medicines and machines and doctors. If we’d have had them Samantha wouldn’t have died. She’d be here to look after her baby girl just like I looked after her.” Elspeth looked up, her eyes wet with welling tears. “That’s how things are supposed to be. Not this nightmare.” She took in a deep breath that transformed into a sob. She started crying.
Cahz looked round from his rummaging. Elspeth was sitting with tears streaming down her cheeks. Her short salt and pepper hair combined with the deep wrinkles from her weeping made her look like a pensioner. Cahz guessed she was actually younger than that from the way she talked and the way she had run the gauntlet of zombies.
He gazed at her blankly, trying to decide what to do. He could go across there, sit down next to her, and put a comforting arm round her. But what would be the point of that? Cahz didn’t know her, had only just met her and there was no point investing time in getting to know her as she’d be dead in a few hours.
He might as well go over there and put a bullet in her brain—wouldn’t that be the kindest thing to do?
As prudent as it was, Cahz knew he shouldn’t dispatch her. Elspeth was a longstanding companion of Ryan’s and he’d no doubt want to say his goodbyes.
He sucked in a brisk draft of air through his teeth. He turned back to the first crate and retrieved the dressing.
“Let me have a look at that,” he said as he walked over.
“I’m sorry,” Elspeth sobbed.
Cahz pulled back the blood soaked collar. The bite mark beneath was black. The contagion’s spread was marked against her pale skin by the tendrils of dark veins. He unpeeled the dressing from its packaging and gently placed it over the wound. The stark white plaster showed the contrast of the greying dead skin and infected deep blue blood vessels.
“Nothing to apologise about, lady,” Cahz said, staring down at his boots. “Whole world’s shit and there’s no rhyme or reason to it.”
“I was supposed to look after her.” Elspeth looked down at the baby. The child’s face was still raw looking with a thick red welt.
“You did your best. Sometimes that just isn’t enough.” Cahz paused a long moment. “I was about to try and empathize with you, lady—tell you about the people I let down. But it’s not the same.”
Elspeth glanced down at her blood stained blouse. “No, it’s not. You’ve not been infected.”
Cahz straightened at the comment. He felt the tainted mucus in his mouth rise. He shook his head. “There’s nothing anybody can do for the infected.”
“There is one thing,” Elspeth butted in, looking down at his side arm.
Cahz saw where Elspeth was going with this train of thought.
“How do you want to play it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to be a nuisance. I don’t want to come back and… well, you know.”
Cahz did know.
“When?” he asked solemnly.
Elspeth took a deep swallow. “Not right now, if that’s what you mean.”
She gently stroked the baby’s uninjured cheek. The small child pursed its lips and made a sucking motion in its sleep. “She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”
“She sure is.”
Cahz meant it. Even with the nasty scratch covering one side of her infant face, her wide eyes and pug nose were still cute. He felt a cold shudder run down his spine at the thought of having to shoot such an angelic face.
He picked himself up and made his way back over to the supplies.
“Best sort through this stuff,” he said, trying to distance himself from the child and the appalling notion.
* * *
“Find anything useful, boss?” Cannon asked, looking at the heap of crates.
“Nothing much. The most important things are these.” Cahz stood up and ushered Cannon over. “There are six of these five gallon water bottles,” Cahz said as he gently kicked the first container with his toe. The water inside sloshed against the clear walls.
“Will they be safe to drink?” Cannon asked.
“Should be fine,” Ryan said. “Water doesn’t go off so as long as the lids are on tight. There might be a bit of a taint off the plastic but it won’t kill you.”
“You know that for sure?” Cannon asked.
Ryan thumped his chest. “Never done me any harm.”
“If you’re worried we can drop a couple of purification tablets in,” Cahz said.
“We got some?”
“Over here. There’s a ton of camping equipment.” Cahz looked over at Ryan. “You and your pals obviously didn’t need it.”
Ryan peered into the open crate. “We had as much of this shit as we needed. It was mainly food and weapons we took, when we could find them.”
“Any medical supplies boss?” Cannon asked.
“Yeah, boxes of the stuff,” Cahz replied. “Why, you needing something?”
“Got some gloves and some disinfectant?”
“You carrying an injury?” Ryan asked, suspicious of the big soldier.
“Nope. I just want to get the crud off my kit.” Cannon looked down at the gore soaked body armour and the smudges of gunk on his uniform. “I don’t want to wipe my nose and get the infection off this shit.”
“Here.” Cahz tossed two tissue box sized containers over in rapid succession
.
Cannon caught the first box with ease but fumbled slightly to keep hold of the second. When he finally had both under control he read the packaging.
“One hundred vinyl gloves.” Cannon turned the second box round. “And alcohol wipes.”
“Closest thing to a disinfectant I’ve found,” Cahz said.
Cannon sat down on the edge of a crate and started opening the boxes.
“I suggest we all take the time to clean ourselves up,” Cahz said looking round at everyone. He saw Elspeth lying on a camp bed oblivious to the conversation, cradling the infected child. In reality he knew he was only addressing Ryan. It was too late for them.
“So there’s no chow?” Cannon said as he scraped at his body armour with what looked like a moist towelette left over from an in-flight meal. The wad of tissue was becoming more and more discoloured with every pass. Streaks of black, brown, red and even green began accumulating on the white cloth as Cannon went about cleaning.
“Don’t know how you can think of food right now,” Cahz confessed.
“Just taking stock. Need to know our assets and liabilities.” Cannon kept working at the sodden fabric as he spoke.
“We do have dinner, courtesy of Bates.” Cahz held up the webbing Bates had passed him. “But it’s early for lunch just yet.” He placed the pouches down with the rest of the useful material scavenged.
“Fantastic,” Ryan said, eyeing up the pack.
“And I think we should be saving that,” Cahz added.
“Saving it?” Ryan asked. “What for? I mean, your man’s coming back in a few hours and I’m fucking starving.”
Cahz sat down on a crate. “He is, but it’ll be a while.”
“Well, how long?”
Looking down at his watch, Cahz went through some mental arithmetic. “If all goes well I’d expect to see him sometime after seventeen hundred hours.”
“And if it don’t go well?” Cannon said slowly.
“Worst case scenario, old Captain Warden won’t let him fly without six hours shuteye,” Cahz answered.
Remains of the Dead Page 9