by Luke Duffy
The dead reached for them, gaining a grip on Jim's arm, pulling him towards the edge of the vehicle's hood and into the waiting crowd.
Stu's body lay motionless, his head hanging down over the bumper and the dead scrambling around towards him as his body remained limp and helpless.
The helicopter closed the distance to twenty-five metres.
Marcus roared as he watched his friends fall. He began to fire, hoping that his shots would be accurate enough to give the men a fighting chance. Lee opened up beside him, firing into the crowd swarming around Jim as he fought desperately to climb back onto the hood of the police car.
"Closer, Kelly," Marcus shouted, "get us closer, for fuck’s sake."
Kelly glanced out of the window and down to her right. She could see the illuminated red tracer rounds as they shot out from Marcus and Lee's barrels and ploughed into the mass of rotting faces swarming beneath them. She watched the tracer as they smashed through the bodies of the dead, illuminating them for a split second with a demonic red glow as they were lit up from inside by the pyrotechnic ammunition.
Some of the corpses, dried out and nothing more than parched husks, burst into flames as the heat of the tracer rounds caused them to spontaneously combust. The burning corpses did not seem to notice the searing flames engulfing them, and continued to pour forward, setting fire to others as they come into contact with them.
Soon, acrid black smoke began to rise from the crowd as more of them combusted.
Kelly pushed the cyclic to the right and increased the lift on the collective slightly, making the helicopter yaw towards starboard, bringing them closer and directly above the wildly waving arm of Kieran, as he stood his ground on the roof of a car, frantically screaming up at them for help.
She brought them lower, just metres above the heads of the dead that reached up for the underbelly of the green, roaring monster hovering above them. One of the wheels on the starboard side made contact with the tallest members of the swarm, as the helicopter swayed to the right, knocking them over and creating a domino effect as they all collided into one another from the force of the impact.
Marcus was just within reach of his men. Still firing, he screamed down to them to climb up as the helicopter closed the gap, centimetre by centimetre.
"Kieran," Lee screamed, hanging out from the side door and reaching down with his hand outstretched. "Come on, Kieran."
Kieran looked up at him, glanced at his hand and shook his head before leaping from the roof and onto the bonnet of the police car. The downwash from the whirling blades threatened to knock him off balance as he landed beside Hussein, screaming something into his ear before the young Iraqi made a leap for the grasping hands of Lee.
Steve and Helen had joined Marcus in the door and poured their fire into the bodies converging on Jim, as he fought desperately to keep them back and regain his position on the hood of the car.
"Magazine," Marcus screamed, dropping his empty magazine and reaching into one of his pouches for a replacement. He could see that Lee almost had Hussein in through the door to his left and turned his attention to the others.
Kieran leapt from the vehicle and landed in the crowd, close to where Jim was fighting for his life in an attempt to hold back the tide of dead.
Marcus' heart skipped a beat as he watched the powerful young Kieran disappear in a sea of rotting grey faces and swallowed up as they piled in around him.
The sudden distraction and disturbance in the bodies around him as Kieran jumped, allowed Jim to break free of the clutching hands refusing to let him go, and he began to scramble back up onto the hood of the vehicle.
Marcus, Helen and Steve increased their rate of fire as Lee hauled Hussein up the last few centimetres to safety.
Marcus scanned desperately in the area where Kieran had disappeared, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, and give him fire support and a chance of making it back to the safety of the police car, but he feared that Kieran was lost.
The crowd in the area where Kieran had been engulfed suddenly erupted like a volcano of rotting flesh. Kieran appeared, forcing himself upright from the ground and using his back to bear the weight of bodies that had heaped themselves on top of him. He threw himself upwards, pushing his body high on his powerful legs and clearing the space in his immediate area, allowing himself the fraction of a second that he needed to make his run.
He sprang forward, swinging his rifle in front of him like a medieval sword and smashing the skulls of the corpses attempting to close in on him. He threw his right leg forward, planting it firmly on the tyre of the police car, and with the momentum of his run, launched himself upwards and back onto the hood.
Together, Jim and Kieran scooped up the limp body of Stu and raised him up, as Kelly brought the helicopter in lower so that Marcus and the others could pull Stu in while Steve and Helen continued to fire into the mass of clambering bodies.
Marcus dragged Stu across the floor of the passenger compartment and crouched down beside him, checking his pulse as he stared down at his smashed and bloodied face. He could feel nothing from Stu's heartbeat. His stomach begin to churn and his throat seized as another friend lay dead in his arms.
Marcus looked down at his friend, his eyes already beginning to fill with tears as he expected to see a river of blood flowing from the exit wound of the bullet that had smashed through his head.
There was no sign of it. The back of Stu's head remained intact.
He checked Stu's pulse again and felt a powerful throb against his fingers as he held them hard against the carotid artery in Stu's neck. He began quickly checking the rest of his body in case the shot had hit him elsewhere, but apart from the damage to his face, Stu did not seem to have suffered any other injury, including a gunshot wound.
"Stu!" he screamed into his friend's face, shaking him in an attempt to bring him back to consciousness. "Stu, can you hear me? Wake up, Stu."
Jim and Kieran scrambled into the aircraft together with the aid of Steve and Lee as Helen loosed off another magazine into the dead below.
"Get us out of here, Kelly. We got them," Steve shouted, and with the swishing blades thundering above, Kelly began to lift the aircraft to a safer altitude.
Marcus remained by Stu's side but looked up at Jim questioningly.
Jim shrugged, and then winced with pain.
Marcus saw the blood running down his arm and pooling at his feet. Immediately, he feared the worst and assumed that Jim had been bitten during his fight. He moved to get up and examine the wound, but Jim waved him off, shaking his head dismissively.
"It's not what you think, Marcus," he shouted across to him, "it's a gunshot wound, not a bite. I'll be okay."
A look of concern crossed Marcus' face at the thought of one of them having accidentally shot Jim during the rescue.
Jim noticed his friend's anxiety and confusion. He grinned.
"It wasn’t any of you guys," he roared over the engine, the veins in his neck protruding from the skin with the effort. "It was him."
Marcus glanced down to where Jim's finger was pointing and looked at Stu. He looked back up, frowning inquisitively.
Jim nodded with a smile.
"Yup, that's right. Stu, 'the bastard', shot me." He could see that more questions were on their way so he decided to put Marcus out of his misery. "Don’t worry, buddy. He didn’t do it deliberately. He was down to his last round, and was about to swallow it, then you turned up in a fucking helicopter."
Jim sat back, grinning at Marcus whose expression was already turning to one of relief. "I couldn’t let him miss out on a helicopter ride, could I?"
As the helicopter rose into the air, Steve glanced about them, looking from one survivor to the next and doing a mental count. His brow furrowed and he glanced back down at the ground below where the dead continued to swarm around the vehicles where Stu and the others had made their stand.
The burning bodies had spread, and now a glowing ring of corpses surrounded the
cars as more and the flames engulfed more bodies. A cloud of brown smoke hung low over the area, as the stench of burning, rotted flesh filled the air around them, but the dead were oblivious to the smell, as well as the danger of the spreading flames.
Steve looked back at the survivors from Stu's team, still frowning.
"Stan," he shouted to Kieran, struggling to be heard over the noise. "What about Stan? Where is he?"
Kieran did not reply. He remained sat with his back hunched against the rear of the pilot's seat, staring at the floor beneath his feet and clutching his painful shoulder.
Steve caught the eye of Jim who shook his head solemnly. He understood and leaned forward, placing a hand on Kieran's shoulder.
"Mate, I'm sorry," he shouted into Kieran's ear, unsure of what else to say.
Kieran nodded, his head slowly turning upward. His eyes were red with fatigue and sorrow and a tear escaped his lashes and ran down his cheek. He blinked and wiped the tear away, nodding as he turned to look out through the side door.
18
Andy did not leave the house. He did not want to. He wanted to remain close to the vulnerable child, in one way or another. He was aware of his initial reaction and feelings when he laid eyes upon the girl as she hid from him. The urges that he had felt, and came so very close to carrying out, frightened him. He recalled the overpowering need to sink his teeth into her soft flesh and he snorted in disgust.
He paused in the hallway, unsure of what to do next. He made as if to turn back and head into the kitchen again, but the image of the child's terrified eyes upon seeing him forced him to hesitate. One thing he was sure of was that he was not going to leave, yet.
He turned right, halfway along the corridor, and walked through a door that led to a large sitting room. The curtains were drawn and very little light penetrated their thick material, casting the room in shadow and causing Andy to falter at the doorway, before entering the room proper.
In the centre, there was a wide-open space containing a small coffee table, flanked by two bulky couches. Beyond the table and set into the far wall stood a large iron and black marble fireplace, adorned with ornaments and photographs. Above it hung an enormous mirror, giving the impression that the room was much larger than it actually was.
Andy moved into the sitting room, catching a fleeting glimpse of his reflection in the mirror as he approached the fireplace. Immediately, he averted his eyes, afraid of seeing the hideous monster he knew he had become. He paused for a moment and considered his feelings towards himself. He understood that he looked very much like the other revolting, shambling figures roaming the streets, but he also knew that he was different.
He had come face to face with the living on a number of occasions, and after the initial urges that he felt to tear them limb from limb and feast upon their bodies, he resisted and caused them no harm.
He thought about the man that he had stood just a couple of paces from all those months ago in the abandoned supermarket, and the fear that had burned in the man's eyes as they stood staring back at each other.
Andy could have very easily attacked him. The small bearded man was cornered and had no way of defending himself, but Andy had pointed him to safety and remained where he was, watching as the man left and slowly walked through the street, away from him.
The little girl, hiding in the cupboard and defenceless against him, he could have easily torn into her, but he had fought against his instincts, knowing that it was wrong and that the child had caused him no harm. He would gain nothing from hurting her.
Even the men who had held him captive; he could have easily attacked them, but he had felt no urge to do so. His self-preservation had conjured up more powerful feelings inside of him, than the need to feed on them.
Pain; he distinguished that what he was capable of would cause great pain and suffering and he recognised that it was the main difference between him and the others outside. They did not think. They would not have hesitated to attack and devour the child, her screams of agony and terror falling on their uncaring ears and oblivious minds. They did not appreciate the beauty of the world around them or understand the things they did. They just did them and moved without any thought process, understanding or reason.
That is where Andy was different, and he recognised that characteristic in himself. He was not like them and he feared them in the same way that the child, hiding in the cupboard, feared him.
He looked back up and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Although the image staring back at him was that of a ghastly abomination, he could also recognise something different in his eyes. They did not carry the same glint or spark that the child's eyes did, but they saw the world around them and understood much of it, unlike the others that he despised so much.
He stepped closer in an attempt to view himself more clearly in the gloom.
His flesh was stretched taut over his features, making his cheekbones and eye sockets seem to jut out from his skull. The skin was a pale brown in colour with a green hue that appeared to radiate from beneath the outer layer.
His face had a waxy sheen about it, as though coated with a fine layer of grease, and the lips and tip of his nose were all but gone, leaving his teeth bared in a permanent sneer and his nasal cavity exposed to the open air.
The eyes staring back at him were dull and flat with a large, faded grey spot in the centre of each that was his misted and dilated pupils, but they were not vacant; he could see that. They did not just stare through the objects and reflections that they gazed upon; they studied and calculated. They understood and appreciated that the world in which he roamed had not always been that way.
Much of the hair that protruded from his scalp had fallen out over time, leaving strands and clumps of lank black tresses, flattened to his cranium and forehead with grime and filth.
He sighed, long and mournful, as he remembered how the man he had once been had appeared. He had been handsome once and looked upon with envious eyes by men and women alike.
Now, he was repellent to all that viewed him. He understood why the child had recoiled in fear, even after he had attempted to make it clear to the little girl that he meant her no harm.
He looked no different from the others and, despite his abilities and thoughts, the living's first reaction would always be one of fear whenever they laid eyes upon him. He would either die in the ensuing attack, or look on as they ran away; giving him no opportunity to prove to them that he did not want to hurt them.
He reached out and took hold of a picture frame that sat in the centre of the fireplace. He immediately recognised the smiling figure in the centre. It was the child that was still in the house, hiding from him in the kitchen. In the photograph, she looked happy, smiling from ear to ear, as she stood surrounded by a cluster of other people who appeared to be as content as she was when the picture was taken.
Andy ran a finger over the glass, stroking the faces of the joyful and beautiful people, frozen in time, and set in a decorative frame to be looked upon and remembered for years to come.
Stepping back, still holding the picture tightly in his hands as he continued to study it, he moved over to one of the couches. Slowly, he began to sit, his joints groaning and cracking as they bent and twisted in their parched sockets. He heard the noises that his body made in protest against his movements, but he was resolute and ignored them as he dropped into the soft cushions of the sofa.
There, he remained for a while, staring at the picture in his hands and admiring the simple beauty of the people that grinned back at him from beyond the thin pane of glass.
A shadow flickered its way across the room, causing Andy to turn with a start. In the doorway leading in to the room, and with the dim light from the hallway at its back, stood a motionless dark silhouette. It was too small to be anything but the girl, and Andy stared back at it, unsure of what he should do.
After a moment, the black figure stepped forward into the sitting room and paused at the end of the cou
ch where Andy sat. The Girl watched him curiously, clearly fighting her fear as intrigue forced her to come and see what the strange creature was doing, as it was obvious that it had not harmed her, nor did it want to, and she knew it had not left the house.
They stared at one another, the child becoming less afraid and more confused. Andy was conscious of his actions and careful not to make any movements or sounds that would bring back her terror towards him.
Eventually, she walked past the coffee table and hesitantly sat down on the couch across from him. Andy remained sitting motionless, not wanting to move and scare her away. He eyed her from the couch and saw that she still held the large knife close to her chest. He could see that she was incapable of using it effectively, and that she clutched it more for comfort than defence.
The pair of them remained in silence, studying one another and taking in the atmosphere around them. There was nothing in either of their demeanour that activated any alarms in the other's minds, and soon, the little girl began to relax, placing the knife on the arm of the chair and sitting with her arms folded across her chest.
Andy, believing that a little imitation may be the right thing to do, gently lay the photograph on the cushion beside him, and attempted to fold his arms like the child had done. His first few attempts failed completely and left him with tangled arms and a confused mind. He was ready to growl in frustration, when he noticed the expression on the girl's face as she sat watching him, bemused and with a half-smile creasing the corners of her mouth.
Finally, he accomplished the intricate manoeuvre and sat staring down at his knotted arms with a sense of growing satisfaction in his achievement.
"Can you talk?"
Andy looked up, startled at the sudden noise in the otherwise silent room. The girl remained seated but watched him intently. He was not sure if the noise had come from her, and he glanced about him, expecting to see someone else entering through the door.