by Adam Millard
As if in response, one of the creatures collapsed through the trees. Moon punched the air with his fist.
'Oh, well, done,' Victor added with more than a hint of sarcasm. 'You got one. Just six and half million left to go.'
Moon holstered his weapon and slumped against the helicopter-door. The fun had been removed from his little game.
As they past over a playground, a group of infected children were lurching around, bouncing into the swings and roundabouts. Some of them still wore the school-uniform that they had been attacked in; others were naked and blue from the freezing snow.
Moon took out his pistol and lined it up with on of the children. He was just about to fire when Victor kicked him, hard as hell, in the shin.
'It's a fucking kid,' Victor said, admonishingly. 'Would you do that if it was one of your own?'
Moon rubbed at the spot on his shin where Victor's foot had connected. 'Fucking hell, Captain!' he said, sucking air through his teeth. 'It was just a lurker.'
Victor leant forward so that his face was barely an inch away from Moon's. 'You're right,' he said. 'But you never had kids of your own, did you? I did. Three of 'em. All grown up, now. In fact, probably all dead. You shoot them for no reason, you prick, then you're just as bad as they are. Lurkers, or not, the next bullet you waste had better be on yourself. Understand?'
Moon thought silently for a few seconds before nodding. He hadn't considered the severe lack of ammunition; Victor was right about conserving what he had left.
'Sir, the tracks seem to be fading,' Randall said, pointing to the road beneath.
Victor moved through the cabin to get a better look. When he saw that Randall was right, he said, 'I don't think we're gonna have too much of a problem finding them. We know which direction they're travelling, and it's not as if there are going to be any other moving vehicles on the road.' He returned to his seat. 'No, I really don;t think the snow's gonna be an issue.'
Although, thinking about it, he wasn't so sure.
FOURTEEN
As far as rest-stops went, this one was the lowest of the low. It was basically a brick block, in the middle of nowhere. Shane was undecided whether it had been intended as a toilet, or whether it had just turned out to be one because, well, it was so unsightly and godforsaken that it couldn't be utilised as anything else.
They decided to go in shifts; it seemed like the best way to work it. If something should happen – if a horde should appear from nowhere, which was something that had started to happen a lot lately – then the person in the driver's seat could sound the horn or move to safety.
As ideas went, it was the best they could come up with.
Marla went first. Not only was she bursting for a piss, but she had a few “feminine issues” which needed taking care of, although she didn't deem this information worthy for broadcast to the rest of the group.
The inside of the toilet-block made the outside look like The White House. There were shards of porcelain scattered across the ground, the aftermath of one of the toilets getting a kicking, and an inch of dirty water coated the ground, complete with floating cigarette-butts and tampons.
Marla sloshed through the room and barricaded herself into cubicle three. After wiping the seat several times with toilet-roll – which she was surprised to find even existed in such a cesspit – she pulled her jeans down halfway and sat.
The relief that came was unsurprisingly welcome, and she sighed and closed her eyes, a smile curled the corner of her mouth.
The water began to soak through her boots; she could feel the cold creeping along her toes and shuddered at the thought.
What she would have given for a shower; a nice, hot soapy scrub with coconut conditioner. She imagined the water, warm and creamy, coating her body, dripping down and leaving a trail of warmth behind it. It was heaven – at least, it would have been if she wasn't sat on a dirty toilet in the middle of nowhere with ice-water sending chills through her entire body.
She opened her eyes and tried to forget the fact that a hot shower was currently as likely as a lasting relationship; the apocalypse had ruined quite a lot of peoples' days.
She finished up and reached across for the toilet-roll.
It was then that she saw it, and her heart jumped up into her throat.
Staring at her through a tiny hole in the cubicle-wall was a bloodshot eye. She almost fell of the toilet and into the freezing water beneath.
The eye vanished, but that was not the end of it. The possessor of the eye appeared on the floor. It – she – was trying to push herself through the space between the cubicle and the floor. It splashed around, growling and snapping at Marla's feet. The black ooze that fell out of its mouth dripped into the water and diluted into a murky grey.
Marla screamed, hoping that they would hear her in the Snatch. She slipped off the seat and pushed herself as far away from the hellish creature as possible. It was difficult manoeuvre with her jeans halfway down around her knees, and she found herself on the floor of the cubicle, whimpering, kicking in a frenzy at the lurker opposite.
The creature had obviously been there the whole time; if it had crept in after Marla, the guys in the Jeep would have sounded the horn.
How long? Was it waiting, just sitting in hiding, hoping for its food to come to her?
Marla snapped out her left leg, kicking the creature in the face so hard that its nose ruptured, spraying black goo in all directions. The nasal-bone was jutting out of the creature's face, now, and the visible cartilage made Marla want to upchuck right there.
It grabbed onto Marla's kicking-leg and dragged itself forward another couple of inches. Marla cried out, hoping – please God, fucking help – that her rescuers would appear just in time, like they always did in the movies.
The lurker was at the halfway point; its upper-torso was all the way through, grasping onto Marla's flailing legs, trying to pull them towards its snapping mouth.
'Fucking biiitch!' Marla screamed, driving a knee into the creature's face. The nose, which had already shattered, completely detached, leaving only a gaping hole where it had been. Thick, black sludge pumped from the hole. The creature didn't notice – or care, for that matter – and swung its arm over Marla's leg. It managed to latch onto her jeans, which were still hanging around her ass, and pulled her closer.
Marla knew that if she didn't do something, and fast, she would be infected. All it took was a scratch, or a single bite, and it was bye-bye old Marla, hello cannibal-girl...
She punched out with both fists and managed to knock the lurker's head to the side where it couldn't snap at her bare flesh. It gave her enough time to grab for the only available weapon.
She pushed with her feet, actually using the lurker's face to get to where she needed to be. Reaching across, she lifted the cistern-lid from the back of the toilet. It felt good in her hands, heavy, dangerous.
Slipping in the water lapping around her ankles, she landed back down on the cubicle-floor with a painful thud. Her tailbone would be sore later on – if there was a later on.
The creature screeched, its face twisted into something more horrific than before. Lashing out with its clawed hand, it realised that the opportunity to infect the human, or feed from it, was fast fading. With one final, almighty lunge, it propelled itself forward. Its entire body was in the cubicle, now, with Marla, who was wondering just how hard it could be to take a piss in peace.
Marla lifted the porcelain weight high above her head and screamed, louder than the lurker, louder even than she had anticipated. She brought it down, caving the creature's skull in with the first impact. One eye fell from its socket and was now floating atop the murky ice-water.
Marla lifted the cistern-lid once more. She slammed it down, this time in silence. The meaty squelch which came as the block made contact, though, shattered the silence.
The creature slumped forward, face-down in the grey water, where it lay motionless, the back of its head exposed, brain-matter spilling o
ut on a river of viscous slush.
Marla tried to breathe; tears were stinging her eyes as she dropped the cistern-lid down onto the back of the creature's head. She sat for a moment, gathering thoughts and trying to fathom what had just happened.
Standing, she pulled her jeans up; wiping seemed pointless now, and would have simply been a force of habit rather than a necessity.
She pushed the cubicle-door so hard that it slammed on the next one and snapped off its hinges.
When she got outside, and the cold hit her full-force, she fought back the tears that threatened to betray her.
The Jeep was parked where it had been; Shane was hanging half-out the window, smiling ever-so-slightly.
Marla could have punched him right then. Just walked around to his face and smashed his nose in, the way she had smashed the lurker's.
'Better?' Shane asked, stepping out of the Jeep. When he noticed that she was soaked from chest-to-toe, a puzzled expression appeared on his face.
Marla shook her head. 'You might want to check the cubicles before you piss,' she said, the tears even closer now. 'Plus, I don't know about the men's, but the women's was a bit flooded.'
Without another word she clambered into the back of the Snatch.
No tears.
Not this time.
FIFTEEN
She liked the dinosaur-room the best. There was something magical about being surrounded by creatures that had been extinct for millions of years. Some of the dinosaurs were intended to move, but the power had been cut – or had failed, somehow – which meant that they just stood, instead, in magnificent glory.
She felt alive for the fist time in weeks. Whether it was the fact she was safe, for now, or had enough food to survive on without putting herself at further risk, she didn't know. What she did know, however, was that the Giganotosaurus existed 90 million years ago in the late-cretaceous period, and that little morsel of knowledge made her happy.
She had managed to get into the vending-machine with nothing more than a crowbar and some brute force. The first chocolate bar tasted good, the second even better. By the time she reached the third, she had to take a breather.
And she knew it wouldn't last forever. It was there now, and it would be so easy to work through it the way she once had, when such luxuries were readily available.
No, rationing was still of utmost importance. The quicker she worked through the vending machines, the sooner she would have to venture out into the world. As far as she was concerned, she could spend the rest of her life in the museum, never seeing another person, never bumping into another creature.
It wouldn't be like that, but it was nice to pretend, at least for now.
She searched the next room, which was something to do with Romans. There were tunics and togas encased in glass; some of them were in better condition than others, but it had been a violent time to live and the slashes across some of the clothes were only to be expected.
Further along, hanging on the wall, were various warrior clothes. She recognised the breastplate, the tunics, the belt and arm-guards. If they were genuine, they were in very good condition. Perhaps the enemy was too busy chopping up the villagers to attack the soldiers, if the encased togas were anything to go by.
She found a book on the Romans and carried it with her, back into the dinosaur-room.
She curled up in the corner, wearing a genuine American Indian powwow shawl she found hanging up three rooms away, and began to read.
She was asleep before the end of page two.
*
'Will they kill them?' Kelly Bloom asked her mother. 'I don't want them to die.'
Susie almost choked on her water; it spurted out of her nose like a watery sneeze. 'Kelly, nobody's going to kill anybody,' she said, wiping the liquid away from her mouth. 'They're just going after them to make sure they don't do anything stupid.'
Kelly wasn't stupid, either, and without pausing for thought, she said, 'But that old lady said they were going to kill them. Why would she say that if it weren't true?'
Damned Maggie Cox; Susie had a good mind to give her a round of fucks, not that it would do any good.
'She was just speculating, honey,' Susie said, stroking her daughter's hair, which was matted, greasy, and starting to smell a bit strange. It was almost wash-day; Susie would make certain that Kelly's hair had a thorough scrub.
'I was telling the truth,' a voice said. Both Susie and her daughter turned to find Maggie Cox standing not three feet away. 'Problem is that nobody around here wants to listen to a little, old fart like me.'
'Do you mind?' Susie said. 'I don't like that kind of language around my daughter.'
'Oh, I'm sure she doesn't mind,' the elderly woman continued, smiling, a mouthful of discoloured teeth on display. She took a step closer and sat cross-legged next to Kelly. 'You don't mind if a silly, old fart like me says naughty words?'
'Mommy says it's rude to swear,' Kelly said, not sure whether she was allowed to talk to Maggie Cox, or not. She looked nervously to her mother.
'That's right, Kelly,' Susie said, with more pride than she could ever explain in words. To Maggie she said, 'I've brought her up to respect people, even when they don't really deserve it.'
'Well,' Maggie said, grinning. 'That's your mistake, ain't it?' She turned back to Kelly and said, 'It was true, though. What I said to the nasty man was true.'
Susie wasn't going to stand for this. Her daughter was impressionable, far too impressionable for her years. The old lady seemed nice enough, or she had before everything had erupted earlier that day. Nice, though, did not give her the right to sprout nonsense and fill her daughter's head with fallacies and fables.
'I would appreciate it if you kept your little conspiracies to yourself,' Susie said, trying not to sound too rude, but it was more difficult than she had imagined.
Maggie, ignoring Susie with everything that she had, said, 'You want to know the truth, don't you? There's no point being lied to by adults, just because you're a little girl, is there?'
Kelly shook her head. 'Mommy says that lying is a bad thing.'
Susie could feel her blood boiling. She reached across and placed a hand on Kelly's shoulder and was about to remove her from the situation when a voice interrupted her.
Across the room, one of the soldiers – she didn't know his name – called out for Maggie.
A look of fear and confusion spread across the old woman's face; a look that wasn't entirely certain.
'If I'm not back in half an hour,' Maggie said, clambering to her feet, her back audibly cracking with each movement, 'then you will know that I was telling the truth.' She smiled. Kelly smiled back, although she was worried for the old lady.
'Over here,' Maggie said, jabbing a rheumy hand in the air. 'Have I won something?'
A few people laughed, although the seriousness painted on the soldier's face suggested that her humour was not appreciated, not in the slightest.
He beckoned Maggie forward, without speaking. She calmly made her way across the room and through the doors. As she went, she tightened the lilac scarf that hung loosely around her neck.
'Are they going to hurt her?' Kelly asked. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that Susie almost choked on her own saliva.
'Of course not,' Susie said, stroking the side of her daughter's face with the back of her hand. 'The lady probably just needs to take some medicine, or something.'
She knew that to be a lie, but couldn't for the life of her think of anything else to say.
Kelly shook her head and stared towards the groundsheet on which she sat. 'I have a really bad feeling, Mommy,' she said. 'I think I want to go to sleep for a while.'
Susie smiled, forcibly scrunching her face into something approaching comfort. 'I think that would be a good idea,' she said. 'I'll wake you when it's time to eat.'
Kelly was sleeping in less than four minutes; her mother sat stroking her hair, pondering just what had gone wrong with the world.
&nbs
p; SIXTEEN
They passed a sign reading JACKSON 170Mi soon after the toilet stop. The snow had waned a little, dropping to the ground now with more of a flutter than anything else. It didn't make the driving conditions any better, though. In fact, Shane found the Snatch even more difficult to control, and on several occasions the steering locked and they motored forward, uncontrollably, until decent-sized snowdrifts brought them to a halt.
At the current speed, they would reach Jackson before dark. That was assuming there were no other stops and the snow remained the same.
Shane doubted it would. The skies looked full of it – off-white blankets that seemed to go on forever.
In the passenger-seat, Terry silently read his bible. Shane could hear snoring from the back, a deep rumble of guttural snorts, which he didn't think Marla was capable of. Jared, on the other hand...
'How are we for fuel?' Terry asked without looking up from his book.
Shane looked to the gauge, which still sat quite nicely between the quarter- and half-mark. 'Why are you so worried about the fuel?' he asked. 'I said I'd let you know as soon as we needed to stop.'
Now Terry did look up, but glanced out of his window. 'As soon as we hit the Interstate,' he said, 'we ain't gonna be able to stop for a while. I'm just making sure we've got enough to get us to where we need to be. The last thing we want to do is break down in the middle of nowhere, especially when the chances of lurkers is severely increased.'
Shane slowly drifted past a snow-covered cadaver; he could see it was – or had been – female, but was now nothing more than a freezing mound of half-eaten flesh.
'You're right,' Shane said. 'Probably best if we fill up at the next station.'
He didn't want to. Fuck, why would he? Stopping for anything was dangerous. He hadn't questioned Marla, but he knew that something had happened back at the last stop. Maybe she would tell them later, or maybe she would keep it to herself the way women had a strange knack of doing.