by Luke Duffy
They both grunted and gasped with the effort, but with each blow, more daylight spilled into the gloomy interior. Stu began to laugh. The relief of finally having a solution to their problem was overpowering. Just five minutes before, their choices were limited to either dying from dehydration or risk being eaten alive, as they attempted to escape the way they had come.
Kieran also began to chuckle as he launched a new and increasingly vicious assault against the roof.
"You jokers hadn't even thought of this?" he shouted over his shoulder between kicks.
Jim shook his head. "Jesus, man…it hadn't even occurred to me."
"Me neither," grunted Stu.
Kieran shook his head and laughed. "Super troopers, I fucking shit 'em."
With a final bombardment of stomps and kicks, the last of the slate tiles were smashed through, leaving a large hole in the roof, big enough for the four men to squeeze through. Kieran pushed his head out into the open and immediately felt the effects of the cold winter air against his skin. He breathed deeply, smiling as he savoured the moment. What he could smell was freedom and salvation.
"Oh, the air has never smelt so good," he called back to the others.
Without warning, he was suddenly dragged back in by the other three. He turned quickly, glaring at them with anger.
"What's up?" he demanded.
"The bomb," Hussein replied, "we forgot about the bomb. The whole place could be contaminated."
Kieran looked back out through the hole and then up at the sky. "Smells fine to me," he remarked.
"Well it would," Stu pointed out, " you can't see or smell radiation."
He walked over to the hole and looked out at the landscape around them. Nothing looked any different to how things had been three days earlier. The sky was clear of any clouds and as blue as he had ever seen. Even the birds still fluttered around in the air, hopping from building to building as though nothing had occurred. Stu leant out as far as he could. He craned his neck in an attempt to gain a view of the street below to the rear of the building.
The alleyway and parking area at the back were empty. There were no sign of the hordes of dead that had surrounded them when they had arrived.
"Strange," he said as he pulled himself back in to the interior of the loft.
"What," Kieran asked, "what's strange?"
"There's no sign of any pus-bags down there."
Kieran looked down at the street. "Yeah, that’s because they're all in the building with us. They probably managed to smash through the rear doors at some point. There were enough of them to do it."
"What do you reckon, Stu?" Jim asked, lighting a cigarette and blowing out plumes of grey blue smoke.
He coughed and spluttered, and soon regretted the decision. It only intensified his thirst. With disdain, he flicked the cigarette through the hatchway where it bounced off the face of a dumbstruck corpse as the showers of red sparks rained down over it.
"You mean about the radiation?" Stu asked as he turned to look at him. "Well, the birds are still singing and none of them are dropping from the sky, so it must be okay."
"That’s good enough for me," Jim declared, and without any further debate, he was climbing through the hole and out on to the roof.
One by one, they carefully scrambled their way up to the top of the sloping roof, throwing a leg over each side and straddling the apex like a horse's saddle. They paused and surveyed the scene around them.
To their right, at the rear of the pub, the narrow and dark alley was empty. However, to their left, the street was packed with the shambling corpses of the town's previous residents. The two Range Rovers that they had arrived in were still in the middle of the road, swarming with the dead and with no hope of Stu and the other three being able to recover them.
"Well, looks like we're walking from here," Jim whispered over his shoulder as he began to shuffle along the rooftop.
Hussein looked down at the crowd and shuddered. It would only take a momentary loss of his balance and he would slip, unable to stop his descent, and fall into their clutching hands and snapping teeth. He concentrated on the tiles below his feet and the rounded terracotta of the apex that his sweating palms tightly gripped. He settled himself into a slow rhythm of lift and shuffle, taking extra care in where, and how, he placed his hands and feet.
Jim stopped and waited as the others caught up. He was right at the gable end of the building. In front of him was a sheer drop of twenty metres and the entrance to the empty alleyway below. He looked to the left and noticed a gate that blocked access to the passageway leading to the rear of the building from the main street. Beyond the barrier, thousands of bodies shuffled around, bashing into the gate and causing it to rattle in its frame.
None of the dead had noticed them on the rooftop.
'They always seem to be preoccupied with what was directly in front of them, or on the ground below their feet,' Jim noted to himself.
Stu caught up with him and stopped, panting from the effort of shuffling along the roof. Kieran was close behind but Hussein was lagging, taking his time and being particularly careful of his movements.
"Where do we go now then, Stu?" Jim asked over his shoulder.
Stu bit his lip and leaned forward to get a view of what Jim could see of the alleyway below.
"It's blocked off by a steel gate leading out onto the street," Jim pointed out when he noticed that Stu was trying to see past him. "It's clear at this end and they haven't seen us up here, yet. Thing is though, it must be open access in the other direction to have allowed them all to get around to the rear of the pub." He turned and looked Stu in the eye. "We could be trapped, buddy."
Without looking at him, Stu shrugged. "Nothing new there, then," he replied. "We can't stay here and our priority is to find water."
Hussein caught up with the others and took the opportunity to rest his hands and legs, and catch his breath. Despite the cold, he was saturated with sweat, but he feared risking removing his hands from the apex to wipe his brow. His rifle and ammunition were weighing him down. With his energy reserves depleted through lack of food and the onset of the effects of dehydration, he was terrified of losing his grip in his weakened state. Reclaiming the rifle, dealing with Stan and the fear and exertion, and having to fight off the dead, had sapped the last of his strength.
"Nothing for it," Stu declared. "It's down the drainpipe and standby to run."
He began slowly to slide down to the lip of the roof on his backside, using his feet out in front of him to act as a brake. He could feel the weight of his body magnified by the steep angle of the roof and threatening to throw him into an uncontrolled plunge, down to the lip of the guttering and beyond.
Without wanting to, he began to build up speed. He dug his heels in and spread his arms out wide, ensuring that as much of his body as possible was making contact with the slate tiles of the roof and acting as drag against his momentum.
"Shit," he hissed between gritted teeth as he saw the distance between him and the last of the tiles diminish far quicker than he would have liked. "Shit…"
He slapped the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands flat to the slate to bring him to a stop, risking his body being catapulted forward by the impetus of his descent.
With just centimetres to spare before he would have plummeted to the ground below, Stu stopped. He lay there for a moment, panting and sweating. His jaw was locked solid. He had been clenching his teeth so hard, they almost fused into one another.
Placing his toes on the lip of the guttering, he rolled over onto his stomach, turning to look up at the others. They watched him, concern slowly turning to relief but then back to concern as they realised that it was now their turn to try the same perilous stunt.
Stu nodded to Jim, signalling that it was his turn to descend. As Jim began, Stu made his way to his right and located the drainpipe he hoped would be there at the corner of the building. Huffing and grunting from the strain, he heaved himself over
the edge and began to climb down towards the alleyway below.
Halfway down, a sudden clatter from above warned him to press himself in close against the walls of the building, as a number of heavy slate tiles sailed past, shattering loudly against the hard ground.
Stu looked up, furious that he had almost been hit by the falling masonry and because of the noise that they made when they hit the ground. In the otherwise still air, they sounded like a rock concert in Stu's head as their din echoed around in the narrow alley.
Jim peered down at him from over the lip and mouthed the word, 'sorry.'
Stu shook his head and continued downwards. Soon, he was on the ground, his rifle firmly in his hands and checking the immediate area. Nothing moved. They seemed to have been spared from the possible repercussions of the falling tiles.
Jim was on the ground soon after and helping Stu to keep watch as Kieran clumsily began to climb down the pipe that was growing more rickety by the second.
Stu heard a scuffing noise to his right, from around the corner and towards the rear of the pub where they had been holed up for the prior three days. The hairs began to prickle on the back of his neck and a chill ran through his blood.
He looked across and clicked his fingers at Jim, who was looking in the opposite direction. The American turned to him and Stu pointed to his ear and then in the direction where he heard the noise.
Jim nodded and raised his rifle to cover the corner while Stu crept forward to investigate.
Slowly and carefully, he made his way towards the edge of the wall, his knees bent and his rifle in his shoulder. He placed himself flat against the bricks, making himself as hard to see as possible. He looked back at Jim and nodded. In his head, he began to count backwards from three.
He pushed his head past the corner and out into the open, getting a clear view of what was in the alley. He lingered there for no longer than a second or two, but long enough to get a lucid image of the rest of the passageway towards the rear of the pub. At the far end, roughly twenty corpses slowly shuffled and meandered about. They did not seem to be looking for anything in particular and were oblivious to the presence of Stu and his team, but nevertheless, they were there and blocking their only escape route.
Another body, the one whose feet Stu had heard dragging against the tarmac ground, was much closer and headed in their direction.
Stu pulled his head back in around the corner and remained pressed against the wall, waiting. He was unsure if the creature had seen him as he peered around the wall, but it did not matter; it was heading towards them and he would have to deal with it regardless of whether it was alerted to their presence or not.
Stu signalled across to Jim, indicating that there was one 'enemy' approaching. He drew his knife from its sheath, not wanting to use a firearm and attract every corpse in the city.
The knife blade created a dull metallic scrape as it came free. He raised it in his right hand and waited for the reanimated corpse to appear from around the corner.
It seemed to be taking forever and he almost began to suspect that the creature had turned around and headed in the other direction. Then he heard it. The scrape of its feet reached his ears as it drew near. He could hear its low groans and questioning sighs as it ambled along the narrow passageway of the alley.
Then, Stu heard something else. Something much more alarming and disturbing. A crunching sound to his left was quickly followed by an almost inaudible yelp. He turned just in time to see the drainpipe breaking free of the wall, and Hussein tumble through the air for the last three metres of his descent. He hit the ground with a heavy thump and his rifle clattered against the hard concrete of the pavement. He rolled to his right and groaned, clutching at his knee as Kieran raced over to help him.
In the distraction, Stu had taken his focus from the approaching danger. Now, he turned his attention back to the edge of the brick wall just as the festering corpse of a woman rounded the corner.
She saw him immediately, letting out a long howling moan, as she suddenly launched herself at him with speed that Stu did not believe possible from one of the dead. He brought the knife down in a powerful thrust, aiming it at the top of her cranium. The blade missed, slashing down the side of the dead woman's face and opening a wide gash that oozed pus and coagulated blood.
The creature collided with Stu and he felt her cold fingers begin to clutch at his flesh. Her lank blonde and blood stained hair clung to her scalp and face in strands. Her grey green mottled skin looked shrunken against her skull with numerous seeping sores, intensifying her demonic features. Her withered and drawn lips and receding black gums exaggerated the length of her teeth; her dead fishlike eyes, unblinking and without life or emotion, terrified Stu as he stared back into them, struggling to raise the knife for a second blow.
He brought up his knee and drove it into the midriff of the woman, knocking her backwards and forcing her to lose the grip she had on him. He threw himself forward, gripping her by her filth ridden and stinking jacket, and at the same time, brought the knife down. This time, the blow was accurate. It smashed into the top of her skull, piercing the brain and causing the corpse to drop immediately.
Stu stepped back, his chest heaving and his skin ashen. Jim nodded at him as Stu began to check himself for bites and cuts. He shook his head, blowing out a sigh of relief. He moved back over to Jim and Kieran, crouching over Hussein, who sat nursing his leg.
"What's the verdict?" he asked.
Jim looked at him. Stu looked shaken. His hands twitched and his voice quivered but he fully understood why. They had battled with the dead on countless occasions, but it was very rare that one would come so close to taking a bite out of either of them. To be caught out like that, having the putrid flesh and gnashing infected teeth so close to his skin, it was enough to shake even the toughest man to the core.
"Well," Kieran said, looking up at him, "his knee is fucked. I'm not a doctor so I can't give any better diagnoses than that."
Stu looked at the swelling that was even apparent under the cloth of Hussein's trousers. It looked like he had a grapefruit strapped to his leg.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
Hussein shook his head, his face grimacing with the pain. "I don't know, maybe."
Stu and Kieran helped him to his feet and supported him as he took a couple of hobbling steps. He soon collapsed to the floor again, gritting his teeth and growling with agony and frustration.
"How do we look at the far end of the alley?" Jim asked.
Stu shook his head. "Not good," he replied, staring down at Hussein and trying to come up with a solution. "There's a bunch of them down there, just mincing about. I don’t think they know we're here though."
"We'll have to make a run for it," Jim replied, looking back at the turn in the alleyway, making sure that none of the dead had suddenly appeared as they came to investigate the noise.
Stu shook his head again. "How will we make a run for it? Hussein can hardly walk."
Jim was still watching the corner, deep in thought. "It was a figure of speech, Stu. What I meant was: we can't stay here."
"I'll carry him," Kieran volunteered.
Stu nodded acknowledgement. "Jim, grab Kieran's rifle and bring up the rear. I'll take the lead."
"Wait," Kieran hissed as he began to haul Hussein up from the floor and onto his back. "That little tramp, Johnny, he said they can be fooled and we can pretend to be like them if we just shuffle along, slowly."
Jim looked at Stu and raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure I'm up for that, buddy. Rubber chickens, peanut butter, ball-gags…sure, I'm into all kinds of kinks, but walking about and pretending to be dead, amidst a bunch of pus-bags that want to eat me…?"
"Well, I'm not sure I can carry Hussein and fight them off at the same time, Jim."
"It's worth a try," Stu agreed. "Let's make like dead-fucks and if they make any move towards us, we go noisy, okay?"
Everyone nodded.
"Nice and slow,
remember," Jim reminded them, "we don’t want to look like athletes out there and get our asses bit off."
Stu stepped out in to the main passage of the alley. Before them, just thirty metres further on, a cluster of shadowy figures sauntered and roamed. They meandered from one side of the alley to the other, dragging their feet and colliding with one another as they stared blindly at the ground.
A few of them stopped and curiously studied discarded items that they picked up from the ground at their feet. One of the wandering bodies held a child's toy, a doll that was made to appear like a baby. It held the small lifelike figure up before it, studying it. The creature twisted and turned it in all directions as its cold eyes gazed at the plastic features and synthetic hair. Its shrivelled and brittle finger caught in the pull string attached to the doll’s back. Its eyes opened; their bright blue irises sparkling in the cold air as a flurry of baby noises erupted from the voice box inside its chest.
Immediately, every reanimated corpse within hearing distance stopped and turned. They all heard the recorded noises of a young child that emerged from the toy, believing them to be the sounds of a real life human being. A chorus of moans and wails broke out in unison, as every decaying figure in the alleyway began to stagger towards the source of the alluring sounds.
The body holding the baby, a man in his early thirties and probably once having been a father of children, without any further hesitation, bit down on the face of the doll. His teeth sank deep into the artificial, rubbery flesh and tore a gaping hole in the area of the eyes and nose. The dark grey of the man's decaying flesh contrasted harshly with the bright and vibrant looking skin of the child's toy. As the dead man pulled his head back, a large chunk of the toy's face tore and came away, wedged between his teeth.
The baby noises continued as the creature began to chew. After a moment, the man's lifeless eyes looked down at the small figure in his hands, confusion apparent upon his face. He spat the false flesh from his mouth and shook the baby as it continued to gurgle and repeatedly pronounce the word, 'Mama, mama.’