by Luke Duffy
Kieran felt his shoulder pop from its joint as he smashed against the frame of the door. Instantly, a white hot flash of agony shot to his brain, making him yelp as he crashed back into Hussein beside him.
Stu groaned, holding his hands against his face in an attempt to stem the flow of blood. For a moment, he lost track of what was happening and where he was, but reality was soon brought back to him, as he heard the thumps against the windows and doors of the vehicle as dozens of the dead closed in and surrounded them.
Stu looked up and through his blurred and bloodied vision, saw the grey faces peering in at him longingly as they continued to pound against the glass. They pressed themselves so close that they blocked out the sun and cast the interior of the police car into semi darkness.
A black decomposing face, its skin full of gaping sores, smacked against the window beside Stu. Its thick bloated tongue flopped against the glass, leaving smears of putrid mucus across the cracked window. Maggots dropped from the gaping maw, becoming trapped in the sticky secretions of the corpse's mouth as it continued to drag its mottled blue tongue across the window of the driver's side.
Stu looked to his left and saw Jim struggling to climb up from the passenger foot-well.
"Shit," he groaned, "Jim, you okay?"
Jim did not reply but he grunted back in response, informing Stu that he was at least still alive.
Hussein began to pull himself up from his seat, grimacing at the pain that he felt in his head and his already damaged knee. He turned to look at Kieran, who sat growling with clenched teeth, holding his shoulder beside him.
Everyone reached for their weapons as the mob around them surged and assaulted the vehicle, sending it rocking from side to side as they tried desperately to get to the injured men inside.
Jim was up in his seat and staring back at the sea of grotesque faces that peered in at them. There were too many to begin to count.
"We're fucked, Stu," he said, calmly but loudly in order to be heard over the rising moans of the dead, and the bangs and thumps against the ruined vehicle.
Stu could not form a clear thought. Partially through the knock to the head he had received and partially through panic. Everywhere he looked, all he could see was a swarm of pale grey faces surrounding them. It was only a matter of moments before the windows gave way and left them as easy prey for the creatures outside.
The hood of the vehicle was the only area that was not covered with the pressing bodies. The front of the police car had become completely merged with the side of the other vehicle, smashing through the rear door and wedging the bumper and first half of the hood inside the rear passenger compartment.
Without any further consideration, Stu leaned back in his seat, raising his legs above the steering column. He began to kick at the smashed windshield with the heel of his boot.
Jim looked across at the new and sudden noise, realising what the new plan of action was, and joined Stu as they forced the glass from its frame, leaving the front of the vehicle open for their escape.
Stu leaned forward, pointing his rifle out through the gaping hole, and began to fire into the crowd of faces surrounding them. Heads exploded and bodies dropped, but each one was quickly replaced as another figure soon filled the gap.
Between the deafening blasts of each shot, Stu could hear a voice screaming, roaring close by. He realised that it was his own voice, bellowing in defiance of his imminent end as he became determined to die fighting.
"Fuck you," he hollered, "fuck you…you fucking cunts…"
Round after round erupted from his rifle, creating a bright flash of flame that shot out from the muzzle with an ear-splitting crack. Stu was in a rage, shrieking like a mad man and emptying his magazine into the rotting heads closest to him.
Despite the din, the crack of gunfire, the screams of his men, and the howls of the dead, he was acutely aware of the jingling sounds of the brass cases from his rounds, colliding with the vehicle interior as they were ejected from his rifle. Time seemed to slow down and all other sounds became distant and distorted except for the tinkle of the empty cases.
As his weapon ceased firing, he instinctively reached for the release catch, dropping the empty magazine into the foot-well. Without needing to look at the weapon, he reached for a fresh magazine from his vest and slammed it home, sending the working parts forward and chambering a live round.
Still roaring at the top of his lungs, he hurled himself forward and clambered through the hole created by the missing windshield. The vehicle swayed beneath him and he was tossed from side to side as he regained his feet and positioned himself on the hood, planting each boot firmly and continuing to fire.
More heads exploded and imploded as the hail of fire punched through them, sending sprays of blood and bone in all directions and bodies toppling to the ground.
"Move," Stu yelled into the vehicle, "move, Jim, get out of there."
As Jim, Hussein and Kieran began to scramble forward, Stu continued to pour his deadly fire over the sea of dead around him. The hood of the car was too high for the dozens of reaching hands and clambering bodies to reach him properly. Stu could feel their fingertips clutching at the heels of his boots as he danced like a boxer in an attempt to keep his balance and remain upright on the swaying vehicle.
"The roof," Stu ordered loudly as Jim climbed through the open windshield, "get onto the roof."
Jim did as he was told and quickly bounded up onto the top of the vehicle, wedging his feet beneath the red and blue lights to steady himself, as he gave supporting fire to Stu and the others.
Kieran screamed as his shoulder smashed down on the hood. The pain shot through his body like an electric shock, causing his head to spin and his hands to lose grip on his rifle. The weapon clattered across the hood, becoming wedged in the twisted and mangled grille attached to the front that protected the headlights that were partially buried inside the other car.
He rolled from the open window, almost crashing into the legs of Hussein, who now stood beside Stu, hobbling on his damaged knee and firing wildly into the ocean of walking corpses.
A rotted brown hand reached out and clamped around Kieran's forearm, its bony fingers closing tightly around the skin beneath his jacket. He wrenched his hand free and threw a kick into the face of his attacker, sending it reeling back into the crowd as he scrambled across to his rifle.
Moving quickly, and ignoring the pain that screamed at him through his shoulder, he scooped up his weapon and continued forward as his momentum carried him onto the roof of the abandoned car into which they had crashed. He could not risk trying to stop and losing his balance, so he allowed the impetus of his run to hurl him away from the grasping hands that were so close to his heels.
They were split, with Jim and Kieran on the roof of the two vehicles and Stu and Hussein standing their ground on the hood of the police car. All of them fired, hoping to thin the crowd closing in around them, but they could see thousands more approaching from the surrounding buildings and streets of the town.
More magazines were emptied and discarded as the brass casings piled up at their feet, accompanied by the deafening roar and crack of their rifles.
Stu and his men were beginning to run low on ammunition and they had failed to make even the slightest of dents to the mass of bodies pressing in around them.
"What do we do?" Kieran cried across at Stu as he continued to fire at the wailing and snarling faces below his feet. "What the fuck do we do now, Stu?"
Stu did not answer and maintained his rate of fire, his teeth clenched and his eyes burning wildly.
"Save your last round," Jim's voice screamed out over the noise of the gunfire. "Save it for yourself."
Kieran looked up to see Jim dropping an empty magazine and replacing it with his last full one. Looking down at his rifle, Kieran quickly took stock of his ammunition state. He was already down to his last magazine and he guessed that he only had ten rounds, maybe less, before he was empty and defencele
ss.
"Last mag, last mag," Stu hollered as he slapped the remainder of his ammunition into the magazine housing of his rifle.
Despite their weight of fire, they had been unable to clear any kind of path through the tightly packed bodies standing, shoulder to shoulder, all around them.
Hussein's rifle stopped firing. He looked down and saw that the cocking lever was fixed to the rear, giving him a view of the empty magazine inside. He drew his pistol and fired into the face belonging to the hand that had made a grab for his leg, catching him by the ankle and pulling with all its might, almost dragging him from the vehicle.
The pistol jerked in his hand and the round punched a hole through the eye of the partially decomposed face of a large fat woman. Her body slumped forward over the hood, but her hand remained firmly clutched around his leg.
Ignoring the pain he felt shooting up through his leg from his injured knee, Hussein kicked and stomped at the arm, breaking the bones and almost severing it from the rest of the corpse. He fell back and collided with Stu, almost knocking him from his position and into the waiting crowd of dead at his feet.
Stu was also out of ammunition for his rifle and firing with his pistol, counting each shot and ensuring that he would save the last round for himself.
"Five," he counted to himself as the weapon cracked and the round exploded from the chamber, "four," another crack, "three…"
Jim had ceased firing. He was not out of ammunition, but something else had caught his attention.
A new sound, a rumbling, had joined the blast of their rifles and the crescendo of the dead. At first, it had been distant, but it was closing fast and growing louder by the second, and only he seemed to notice it.
He looked in all directions, trying desperately to identify the origin of the new sound, but all he could see was an ocean of rotting flesh surrounding their position.
He turned and caught a glimpse of movement in the sky.
"Stu!" he shouted as loudly as he could. He pointed into the air, waving his arms frantically. "Stu, look!"
No one could hear him through the sounds of their own weapons, and Jim watched in horror as Stu stopped firing and looked down at the pistol in his hand. Jim felt his heart miss a beat as he saw Stu close his eyes and begin to raise his pistol towards his face, opening his mouth wide and placing the barrel between his teeth.
"Stu…" Jim screamed again.
17
Marcus scanned the ground below. A multitude of grey rooftops and streets were laid out just a hundred metres beneath them, at a glance, appearing like a highly detailed model town.
Numerous bodies shambled through the streets, picking their way through the detritus left behind during the final days of chaos, before the dead seized control of the cities, and what was left of humanity, were forced in to hiding.
Cars; some burned to their frames, but most remaining neatly parked at the side of the roads or in their allocated spaces in the expansive car parks, lay abandoned and long since forgotten, as they slowly decayed along with the town and its inhabitants.
Whole buildings had collapsed in on themselves from the fires that had burned, unchecked, and spreading to the structures adjacent to them, destroying entire streets as the flames raged, engulfing the dead and the living alike. Now, the charred buildings lay as blackened ruins, bearing witness to the horror and chaos that had spread throughout the world as the dead began to rise.
The reanimated corpses of the dead infested the built-up areas, swarming like insects through the buildings and streets. Marcus could see hundreds of them swaying and shambling along the pathways and roads that criss-crossed the town. They all stopped and looked up with clouded eyes and gnashing teeth, staring at the helicopter as it passed overhead.
They had flown along Stu's intended route towards the car showroom. Although it was clear that something had happened there recently, they could not see any evidence of Stu and his team. The numerous bullet holes in the walls and vehicles around the main showroom building, and the smashed doors to the garage, were clear indicators that the five men had been and gone from the scene.
Marcus ordered Kelly to hover while he watched the ground below and studied his map. He dreaded the thought of suddenly catching sight of pools of blood and torn bodies on the ground, or worse, recognising one of the many lurching figures that he saw scattered around the area.
Although he was far from sure, he concluded that for some reason, Stu and his men had not been able to travel the same route back. The only other route that was clear and open, was the road that led into the built-up area and the town centre.
The carriageway leading off to the east was completely blocked, with static and overturned vehicles leaving Stu and the others no option but to turn south, and head towards the town itself.
They were only a few hundred metres from the outskirts of the town. If Stu's route west had been further blocked as he travelled through the suburbs, he could have ended up lost or even dead within chaos and confusion of the overrun centre.
Now, flying slowly and low over the rooftops, every set of eyes in the aircraft peered down into the dead streets, searching for any sign of the others.
Steve, Helen, and Lee, all took the extra precaution of keeping their harnesses fastened around their waists as they hung out as far as their nerves would allow in order for them to get a better view on the ground beneath the helicopter.
All of them were on edge and they instinctively, and regularly, looked back to ensure that their harnesses were still firmly secured to the frame of the aircraft.
The thing that Helen feared the most was not the danger of falling and being killed, but rising up as one of the walking dead afterwards. Even worse, she shuddered at the thought of falling and surviving, her bones smashed, leaving her unable to walk while she lay helpless as the rapacious monsters closed in around her.
"Something's happening up ahead," Joey called through his headset.
Marcus climbed forward in an attempt to see through the windshield of the cockpit. It was hard to make out, but he could clearly identify a mass of bodies filling an entire stretch of road to the south. Everywhere he looked, figures lurched towards the crowd, joining in on whatever it was that was going on there.
"Let's take a look, Kelly," Marcus ordered, and climbed back to his position by the side door. "Keep us low and reduce our speed."
Kelly was about to protest, remembering the mechanical issues that the old machine tended to suffer from, but she decided better of it and remained silent.
She pushed down on the anti-torque pedals and eased off on the throttle, bringing the helicopter's nose around so that it could move forward at a three hundred and fifty degree angle, giving Marcus a better view from the doors on the side of the aircraft.
Below them, a carpet of dead covered the ground for a depth of two hundred metres from the epicentre of the mass. Even over the thump of the blades swishing above them, the people in the helicopter could hear the excited cries of the crowd as they surged forward, pressing in towards whatever it was that had drawn their attention.
Over the scream of the engine, and without a headset to distort his hearing, Lee could hear other noises. At first, he could not place the faint cracks that sounded similar to branches snapping in a dense wood. He frowned as he angled his head and tried hard to focus his hearing to identify the source.
"Gunfire," he suddenly and triumphantly screamed up at Marcus, proud that he had identified the noise before anyone else did.
Marcus looked down at Lee's beaming face.
"Well fucking done," he hollered over the racket of the helicopter engine and the thump of the rotors. "I'll give you a cookie and a 'smiley face' badge when we get back."
Lee's face changed, his expression fading from delightful pride to embarrassment as he recognised the sarcasm from Marcus at his childish outburst.
"Fucking simpleton," Marcus grumbled as he removed his headset and began scanning the area at the centre of the
crowd.
At roughly three hundred metres out, Marcus could see movement, fast and energetic movement and not the lumbering clumsy lumbering of the dead.
"There," Marcus shouted, pointing to an area where he could see people moving about on the rooftops of cars.
The sound of firing rifles could be heard more clearly as they drew nearer, and Marcus felt his heart leap at the prospect of finding what remained of his decimated team.
"Get us over to them and take us down, Kelly," he shouted into the cockpit at the top of his lungs.
Kelly and Joey manoeuvred the aircraft so that it shot forward with speed. The nose dipped slightly and the engine increased its revolutions as the helicopter raced towards the scene. Fifty metres out and Kelly eased off on the throttle, pulling back the cyclic stick and pushing down on the anti-torque pedals simultaneously, bringing the machine to a hover and spinning it around to the left so that the right hand side door faced the men trapped on top of the vehicles.
The sudden deceleration and turn of the aircraft made Steve and Helen need to hang on to their harnesses in fear of being thrown out through the left hand door. They gripped on, their legs suddenly becoming lighter than the remainder of their bodies as the centre of gravity inside the passenger compartment shifted with the sudden manoeuvre.
Marcus looked down and instantly recognised the stranded men. His men.
"It's them," he called over his shoulder as he placed his rifle into the aim.
Kelly was still bringing the aircraft into a hover position close to the men on the ground, and Marcus could not get a clear aim without the risk of shooting one of his friends. He growled under his breath as he watched his sight picture sway and oscillate, frustrated that he was unable to give accurate and safe fire support for his men below.
He watched as a figure that he recognised as Jim ran across the roof of a police car and threw himself at one of the others, Stu, standing on the hood of the vehicle with what appeared to be a pistol in his hand and pointing into his own mouth. Marcus looked on in horror as the two men collided. A flash erupted from the barrel of the pistol and they both tumbled forward, crashing into the hood of the car.