Undead at Heart

by Calum Kerr

  His thoughts drifted back to his destination. Not Susanne, she was for later, first there was the client. It was his first University job and he was quite excited and a little nervous. He’d gone straight from school into work at the age of sixteen, so it felt a long time since he’d been in any kind of educational establishment. He tried to remember but didn’t think he’d ever actually been in a University. Now here he was, entering like a conquering hero, bringing them the tool which would allow them, yes, to copy, but so much more as well. What he sold weren’t photocopiers, they were Multi-Functional Devices. MFDs. You could copy, scan, fax, print, scan to email, email to print, anything you liked. About the only thing they wouldn’t do was make you a cup of coffee and he had no doubt that the boffins were working on that. It was the easiest job in the world. These things sold themselves.

  He didn’t care how educated the people at the University would be, or how many degrees or doctorates they might hold, once they saw the demo machine he had in his back seat they would be climbing over each other to get them installed in their departments. He’d been tasked with getting at least five into the university, but his personal target was twenty. Quietly confident was how he saw that estimate.

  His attention was suddenly taken by two dark shapes in the distance. They were large military helicopters, Chinooks, flying over the fields from his left, low over the road, and off behind trees on his right. Just as they were about to disappear from view he saw one of them veer suddenly downwards. There was a huge explosion which made him jerk in his seat. His car was still speeding forward and Tony couldn’t understand why his right foot wasn’t already on the brake. He shifted it from the accelerator, time seeming to slow, his foot caught in treacle. He started to press on the brake as he saw a truck rise up over the trees from where the helicopter had gone down and his eye tracked it as it flew towards him. It was going to hit him square on.

  The sharp braking caused his Blackberry to slide along the dashboard and he reached out to grab it even as the shadow of the truck blotted out the sun.

  Three

  Nicola opened her door and vomited onto the road. In the distance she could hear the crunching of metal on metal as the cars that were behind her pile-up in a screech of braking. She heard, hell, felt the flames from the truck behind her. More explosions and strange whizzing, cracking noises came from behind the trees, and from the back seat she could hear Alyssa calling her name. None of this seemed to matter. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and took the moment to realise that she was still alive.

  The trailer had crashed to the road right in front of the car. Nicola had attempted her futile gesture of shielding Alyssa, but had turned back just in time to see the trailer roll onto its top. Both of the sides were aflame, but they were canvas and, even as she looked, they peeled back from the frame. The car jolted as it bumped up onto the upturned roof of the truck, drove through the smoke-filled emptiness and thumped back down onto the road on the other side. She had immediately turned back, pressed down on the brake pedal once more, and slewed the car over to the hard shoulder.

  She turned and looked back at the truck. The wooden roof which had provided her with a driving surface was now firmly ablaze and she could barely make out the cars which had screeched to a halt on the other side.

  She was alive. She couldn’t believe it. She was alive.

  ‘They’, she reminded herself. She should be thinking ‘they’ were alive. She looked back into the car and saw Alyssa, tearful and scared, but whole, and she choked back a sob which nearly turned back into vomiting. The girl saw her looking and held out her arms, calling, “Mummy! Mummy!”

  Nicola tried to stand and a wave of nausea and faintness sent her back into her seat. “Just a minute, baby. Just one minute.” She lowered her head and took several deep breaths.

  When she looked up again she saw the silver car. The one that she had thought must be smashed by the truck. It was parked, its side snuggled up against the burning truck, intact. She could see a figure sitting behind the steering wheel, not moving, and before she knew what she was doing she was sprinting across the road and hurdling the crash barrier.

  Four

  Tony woke up when she slapped him across the face. He didn’t know who she was or what he’d done to her. Hell, he thought, trying to control his confusion, she didn’t even have red hair. He didn’t have time to work it out before she was grabbing his arm and pulling him from the car. He didn’t get far. His seatbelt was still fastened.

  She didn’t wait for him to come to his senses, but reached past him and hit the release. As she did so her hair brushed against his face and he could smell her shampoo. That worked to wake him as effectively as any smelling salts. He became aware of the passenger side of the car being closer to him than it should be, and the huge wall of metal that filled the window on that side. He remembered what had happened and, even as she was pulling at his arm again, he was levering himself from his seat and pushing up and out. The combined effort sent them both sprawling to the tarmac. She scrambled to her feet, her hand still on his arm, pulling him up and away from his vehicle and towards the relative safety of her own car.

  He took two steps with her then stopped. He pulled his arm free and patted his pockets.

  “Damn, hold on.” He turned back to the car and leant inside.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” she screamed at him. She pointed to the buckled front of his car. “There’s smoke and shit coming out from under the hood – the… the… dammit!… the bonnet! It’s going to explode or something.”

  He knew this. A quick glance to where she was pointing showed him the increasingly dense cloud which was emanating from the engine. Was that a flicker of flame he saw? But he had to find his Blackberry. The rest could burn, or blow, or whatever the hell it was going to do, but he needed his phone. It was his life.

  He scrabbled around in the car and finally saw it lying in the passenger-side foot-well. He dived over and scooped it up from under the bulge of plastic and metal which used to be the door, and pulled back out of the car holding it in the air. “Got it! Let’s go!”

  He dived past her and starting running towards the crash barrier in the central reservation.

  Five

  Nicola was wrong-footed as the guy ran past her. Did he really just dive back into a potentially burning car – definitely burning now as bright tongues licked the sides of the hood – to rescue his cell phone? She stood still and watched him run past her, not quite able to believe what she’d seen. He stopped just short of the guard-rail and turned back towards her. “Well, come on then! It’s going to blow!” He put a hand on the rail and jumped over.

  Watching the crazy man achieve the relative safety of the other lane and head towards her car, and her daughter, brought Nicola back to herself. She ran after him, once more simply hurdling the barriers, landed running and caught up with him as they hurried towards her dark blue people carrier.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” she panted as she reached him. He ignored her, looking back over her shoulder. She turned and watched as the flames took hold and the car started to burn. She had always thought that a car on fire would explode and was slightly disappointed to see nothing more than the fire working its way through the car. The seat where he had been sitting was a torch now, burning brightly despite the midday sun shining down on it. Then the backseat was aflame. And then –

  The man grabbed her arm and pulled her behind her car as the flames, which had found their way via the upholstery, finally reached the tank. With a loud bang the back of the car flicked into the air in a shower of metal and fire. A few small pieces of metal bounced off the side of Nicola’s car, but the explosion seemed contained and almost docile. Thick clouds of black smoke started rolling down the carriageway towards the stationary cars that had managed to stop before running into the car and truck combination.

  As it went up, Nicola heard a scream from inside her car and once more remembered Alyssa. G
od, what kind of mother was she?! She pushed the man out of the way and yanked open the rear door. Alyssa had already removed the seat-straps and was clambering over to her. She scooped up her daughter and pulled her out of the car, cooing and shushing in her ear, and retreated to the soft verge by the side of the road.

  The man followed her and she turned on him, “What the fuck were you thinking? Your car was going up and you had to stop to pick up your phone! What, you going to take a photo of it? A self photo? ‘Me and my burning car’? It was nearly you in your burning car! You stupid fucking fool!” She could feel tears trying to come, but damn if she was going to cry in front of this asshole.

  “Hey! Don’t shout at me! I’m not the one who left my child in my car while I went chasing after burning wrecks. I’d have been fine if you left me. I was just about to get out anyway!”

  “The fuck you were. You were unconscious. If I hadn’t come over there – ”

  “And if it had gone up when you were ‘saving’ me? What would have happened to her, eh? Didn’t even think about it, did you? Had to be the big hero! God, you Americans, always storming in where you’re not needed!”

  “I’m not American! And anyway, she was safe inside the car. At least mine wasn’t on fire!”

  “Well, you sound American!”

  Nicola was suddenly aware that they were standing at the side of the road, screaming into each other’s faces, Alyssa held in front of her like a shield to protect herself from this crazy Englishman. Alyssa didn’t look upset by this shouting match, as she might have expected, but was simply watching them, stunned. Nicola stopped, her mouth open ready to retort, and let it close. She felt all the anger drain from her, taking her energy with it, and took a stumbling step back.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been away for a while.”

  “Must have been a long while, you really do sound American.” His voice had also dropped down to a normal level.

  “Fifteen years, actually, so yeah, a while.”

  The surrealism of having this conversation while vehicles burned around them and crowds started to gather, moving from their stationary cars to watch the flames, hit her and she let out a laugh. The man smiled in return. She let Alyssa slide from her arms to stand behind her. The girl held onto her hand, but didn’t seem to be particularly distressed now she was free of the car, more curious. Her head peered round the man to watch the flames from his car and the truck. Then she looked up and down the road at the people and cars.

  “Sorry. Sorry,” Nicola said. “I guess I got a fright.”

  He shrugged. “You and me both.”

  “Are you okay, though? I thought the truck was going to hit you.”

  “It nearly did. Turns out my brakes are better than I thought. I skidded and I think I slid sideways into it, or it slid into me. Both, maybe. Whatever. It was a hell of a thump. And then there you were, giving me another one.”

  “Ha, yeah. Well, you needed it, didn’t you?”

  He gave a short laugh and nodded. Nicola suddenly realised how young he looked. Poor thing, must be scared, she thought.

  She thrust out her hand. “I’m Nicola.”

  “Tony.” He took her hand and shook it, and she he looked her up and down, so consciously that she would have sworn she could feel it. She relaxed her grip and took her hand back, resisting the urge to wipe it on her trousers.

  “Well…” she said, looking around them at the scene of devastation. There was no sound of sirens or anything, but she imagined that it was too soon for that.

  “Yeah,” was his only reply.

  They both looked around and nodded for a moment, as though they’d run out of conversation at a cocktail party.

  “So,” she started again, “What do you think happened?”

  “Oh.” He seemed startled by the question, but Nicola thought it was quite an obvious one. “Well, there were some helicopters.”

  “Yes, I saw them. They flew over me. They seemed really low.”

  He was nodding and already speaking before she finished. “I saw one of them take a dive just the other side of the trees. I guess it crashed on the truck and, I dunno, its fuel tank must have exploded and catapulted it over the trees.”

  She thought about it for a moment. It sounded reasonable, but – “Would that be enough to throw such a big truck in the air? I mean, your tank exploded and it just lifted the car a bit, didn’t throw it over our heads.”

  “Well, it could have done. I was down to a quarter tank, and a truck’s tank is so much bigger. If it was full, and maybe if the helicopter exploded too…” He trailed off and shrugged.

  “Well, maybe. But what made it crash in the first place. Did you see anything?”

  He shook his head and looked around him again. Again she was reminded of a cocktail party but one where he was growing bored and looking for someone else to talk to. She looked too. More people had gathered from the increasing tail-back. The trailer was still in flames, but they were dying down and she could see people and mangled cars through the frame. The traffic on Tony’s side must have been lighter, or more careful, as there wasn’t the same scene of wreckage. From the look of it there had just been a few fender-benders.

  Finally, after standing in silence, she asked him, “What is that noise?” Over the sound of flames she could still hear the strange whizzing and cracking noises from behind the trees.

  “Probably ammunition on the helicopters exploding in the heat.”

  That made sense, she guessed, but she didn’t trust this answer either. The noise sounded too electronic for that. It was more like something from movies or a computer games she remembered.

  She dismissed it and looked back past the trailer. “It looks like people have been hurt. Should we go and help. It feels strange just standing here.”

  “We could, but there seem to be plenty of people. We’d only be in the way. Personally I’d just like to get out of here, find some way to get around all this mess and on my way.”

  “What about your car?”

  “It’s insured. The police will find it when they turn up, identify it from the chassis number and it’ll all get sorted. If I can get to a car rental place, I can get on my way.”

  “But your things. Aren’t you bothered?”

  He pointed to the car. “All burned and useless. I’ll buy more, no worries. I have everything I need right here.” He held up his Blackberry and waved it at her.

  She nodded, not really understanding how blasé he could be about all this.

  “You’re not hurt are you?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “And the sprog’s okay?”

  “The what?”

  “The sprog.” He pointed to Alyssa.

  “Oh.” She looked down at her daughter, who was busy twisting the tassels which hung from the hem of Nicola’s short jacket. “Sure, I think so. You’re okay, aren’t you, honey?”

  Alyssa nodded.

  “Okay. And your car looks okay, too. A little smoky, but intact.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so.”

  “Excellent.” He rubbed his hands together. “So how about you drop me in the nearest town with a car-hire place and we can be on our way.”

  “What? Just drive away? Leave all this? But shouldn’t we stay?”

  “What for? What possible good can we do here? Who can we help, tell me that.”

  She shook her head. Again, he seemed to be making sense but she couldn’t help feeling there was more going on here than it appeared.

  “I – I guess so.” She pushed her hand into her pocket to look for the keys and then realised that not only were they still in the ignition, but the engine had been running all this time.

  Tony moved quickly to the passenger door, nodding at her, encouraging her, and she led Alyssa slowly back to the car.

  As they climbed in, he was already staring intently at his phone, tapping away on the keys. He said nothing as she settled Alyssa and climbed in herself. She looked around, feeling
very wrong to be just leaving the scene of this… well, this whatever it was. But she put the car into ‘Drive’ and started forward.

  They had managed about ten yards when there was another huge explosion, this time from further away behind the trees, accompanied by a strange whirring, whining scream. The engine went dead and all the lights on the dashboard went out.

  She heard Tony say, “What the-,” and looked over to see he wasn’t responding to the failure of the car at all, but was shaking his cell phone. The screen was blank and all his shaking was doing nothing to bring it back.

  Six

  God, the woman could talk. Okay, so he was grateful that she’d pulled him from the car. He’d really thought he was dead when he saw the truck sailing towards him. Some quick thinking and fast reflexes had saved him, though, and he was sure he would have been awake and out of the car in plenty of time, even without her assistance.

  In fact, here she was protesting about him going back in for his Blackberry, but if she hadn’t been so damn pushy about him getting out of the car in the first place, he would have remembered it first time round and the extra delay wouldn’t have been necessary. Typical bloody American, he didn’t care what she said. Her accent was a give-away. Born there, brought up there, it didn’t matter. Once the culture got into them it was all fuss and bluster and getting their own way.