by James Somers
I’ve already been bitten, back in the Tombs. Why I didn’t become one of these monsters still eludes me. My wound healed over within two minutes, like it had never been. Just like my broken arm healing at St. Mary’s Hospital before the orthopedist could set the bones and cast them. I have no memory of any long standing injuries. Maybe this healing factor was the reason then also. I’m simply glad for it, whatever it is. For now, I’m still human.
A noise interrupts my musing. I hear the growl of an engine and then the screeching of tires in the near distance. My binoculars come up to my eyes, making blurs of close objects. I pull away long enough to locate the source, a small black thing approaching from several blocks away.
I look through the binoculars again, finding the object quickly. It appears to be an SUV of some kind—maybe an Escalade, but I’m not sure yet. Could this be Raven arriving later than we scheduled? He never said what he would be driving.
I track the SUV as it swerves dangerously around a corner, headed in my direction. It’s not a police vehicle. There are no sirens. Why would it be coming this way if it wasn’t him?
Tires squeal again, rounding another corner, then around the perimeter curb of the Sainsbury parking lot. Why the erratic driving? Sure, he’s late, but it still doesn’t make sense to be driving so wild to get here.
Then I see them.
Raven isn’t trying desperately to keep an appointment; he’s running from a horde of zombies sprinting down the road in pursuit. Still, the SUV guns its way through the parking lot toward the store, engine howling. Raven slams on his brakes, screeching right up to the entrance.
The driver door opens. I don’t need binoculars to see at this range. The SUV is almost right below me. Holly Tavers emerges, standing on the runner to look over the roof. Then she calls out my name, looking around.
Holly has arrived instead of Raven. The timing isn’t exact, but pretty close. No one else has arrived for the meeting. How could she have known where to find me, unless she got the message I sent to Nesky’s contact? Could she know Nesky as Nesky and not Agent Smith? Is Holly also a Russian agent?
I have no idea what’s going on. I hear Cassie’s voice now, then Garth, calling Holly back into the vehicle. They’re urgent. The zombies are getting closer. There must be thousands of them coming this way, giving it everything they’ve got in a desperate effort to make victims of Holly and the others. It’s like watching a marathon. I’ve never seen so many at once.
I don’t know if I’m making a mistake, or not, but I decide to call out to them. I have to know what’s going on, one way or another. I have to find out if Holly can be trusted, if Cassie and Garth are in on this.
“Holly!” I shout.
Something crunches roofing gravel behind me. I turn just in time to see her. The woman from the alley—the zombie woman—hits me hard. We crash into the back of the Sainsbury sign together, her driving me backwards, her face coming at mine. I just manage to see the other two from the alley following behind, as her mouth lunges for my throat.
Waking Nightmare
2 Hours Earlier
As promised, Garth woke with the sun. The girls are still asleep on the couch when Garth gets up to use the facilities. He runs some water through his dark hair, bringing it to points again.
“Good as new,” he whispers to the mirror.
Coming out again, Garth moves like a cat, investigating the stockroom. It’s full of boxes on shelves and various dresses and other garments hanging on racks. He sees nothing of particular use to them for survival. However, he does find a rack of keys on hooks next to an employee entrance and a time clock.
These don’t look like official store keys. One of them has a Cadillac emblem on the keychain. Garth removes it from its hook. Definitely a set of car keys, he thinks.
He peers through a single peep hole on the back door toward the alley behind. No one appears to be moving about. Garth opens the door a fraction. There are no zombies at the moment. However, he does find the vehicle belonging to the keys. A black Escalade waits in an employee parking space next to several other abandoned cars.
Garth smiles. It’s big, which will help keep zombies out of the way, or at least give them some brute force, if necessary. It has a big engine, so it’s reasonably fast, and the windows are tinted dark. Zombies won’t be able to see them. Garth wonders if they would attack at all without seeing people present inside.
He depresses the lock button on the key fob. The lights blink and the Escalade gives a little chirp. Garth smiles. These keys will work. With a vehicle they can hold more stuff also, and Holly mentioned a department store. They can get all kinds of necessary items: food, water, even clothing.
Closing the rear door again, Garth comes back to the girls. It’s only a little past 7AM, so he decides to raid the refrigerator and a set of cabinets adjoining the break room. He finds soups and more crackers. A set of dishes waits to be used also.
“Breakfast time,” he says to himself, setting out to prepare something for the ladies.
Twenty minutes later, Garth has the table set. He wakes Holly first, showing her what he found. Steaming bowls of chicken noodle soup, heated in the microwave oven on the counter, wait upon the table with napkins and plastic silverware.
Holly smiles when she sees his preparation.
“It’s not much,” Garth says, rubbing the back of his neck self consciously, “but at least it’s hot.”
She smiles at him, going over to take a seat. “It’s wonderful,” she says.
Garth rushes over to scoot a chair out for her. Holly plays along, giving a little bow as she accepts. He scoots in for her as she takes the seat.
“Saw that in a movie once,” he says. He walks around to a seat next to her. “And I got us a vehicle.” He tosses her the keys to the Escalade. “It’s right outside the back door over there.”
“Very good,” she replies, still smiling. “Shouldn’t we wake Cassie?”
“Too late,” Cassie says from the couch, stretching her arms and shaking out her blonde curls. “I’m up already. What’s that smell?”
“Breakfast,” Holly replies. “Garth prepared it himself.”
Cassie stands and nods. “I’d be careful then, if I were you.”
Garth sits down, not bothering to show Cassie the same civility he did Holly. “I’m not going to mess up a can of soup, now am I?”
Cassie shrugs her shoulders, smiling at Holly before digging into her bowl of noodles and broth with a plastic fork. “So, where are we?” Cassie finally asks, slurping her soup.
Holly glances at Garth. He meets her eyes, seeming wary of the topic. Then, before Holly can say anything, Garth asks Cassie, “What do you remember?”
Cassie furrows her brow for a moment. “We were at the pub.”
She looks up from her bowl at Garth, then at the stockroom. Cassie straightens in her chair, laying her plastic fork on the table next to her napkin. Her gaze falls to the table.
“What happened, Garth?” she asks expectantly. “Another episode?”
Garth nods, before answering.
Cassie glances at Holly, seeming a bit guilty for what she can’t remember.
“Well,” Garth begins, “after the power went off at the pub, zombies broke through the windows. I tried to draw them off with a flashlight, so you and Holly could get to the car. It sort of worked, but many more came while you two tried to get away. I followed along on the rooftops.”
Holly sits listening intently also.
“I felt your power welling up,” he says.
“I think I remember some of it,” Cassie says. “I was terrified.”
“They were all over the car, even inside the car,” Holly says. “I was terrified too.”
“Yes, but your fears don’t get people killed,” Cassie retorts gently.
“It was a good thing you have that power,” Garth says. “I couldn’t save you both, not from so many at once. As it was, I barely got to you in time.”
&nbs
p; Holly leans forward with her elbows on the table. “How can you feel Cassie’s power, Garth?”
“I’m not sure,” he says. “I’m just sensitive, I guess.”
Cassie stifles a laugh.
“You know what I mean,” he replies irritably. “Sensitive to things like that.”
“Like what?” Holly asks. “I still don’t understand what power you worked last night.”
“Cassie doesn’t even understand what it is,” Garth says.
“I suppose I should also be wondering why I’m not dead,” Holly says. “Hundreds of zombies reduced to ash, not to mention my car. Why not me?”
“Anyone touching her at the time becomes safe,” Garth says.
“So you grabbed me and Cassie to save me?”
Garth nods, trying not to grin.
Holly nods also, feeling a little dumbfounded. “Thanks again,” she mutters.
“It’s not just touching me,” Cassie says. “That’s part of it, but I also have to want to keep you safe. Zombies were probably touching me and they didn’t survive because they were the reason it happened at all.”
Garth grins. “Which is why I’m staying on your good side.”
They all laugh a little at this.
A noise comes to them from the showroom, beyond the stockroom door. Garth leaps out of his chair in an instant, his katana already in his hand. He creeps toward the door on the balls of his feet. Holly and Cassie stand up, unsure where to go.
Garth makes a motion like turning a car ignition then thumbs toward the rear door and the Escalade waiting outside. Holly takes keys in hand and her pistol, moving quickly toward the back door with Cassie in tow. Garth inches closer to the door that leads to the showroom. He listens intently, only a foot from the door, but hears nothing more.
The door crashes in, bodies tumbling over one another, falling into the stockroom with more stumbling behind. Garth leaps instantly away, catching hold of a high stockroom shelf with boxes stacked high. Hands claw the air after him, missing by mere inches.
“Get to the car!” Garth shouts. “I’ll catch up!”
Holly and Cassie duck out the back door. They turn immediately to get the rear door closed, as bodies leap their way, covering the expanse of thirty feet in two bounds. The door closes and the lock engages, but Holly realizes it’s meant to keep people on her side from getting into the store not the other way around.
She locates the Cadillac Escalade, opening the doors with the key fob. Holly and Cassie hurl themselves toward the big SUV, wanting a barrier between them and flesh eating monsters still in the stockroom. They open their doors, Holly jumping instinctively into the driver’s seat. She starts the car and slams it into gear, as zombies somehow manage to open the door and come pouring out of the stockroom. Once again, Holly sees a remnant of human intelligence working in these creatures. Garth is nowhere in sight.
The Escalade backs away from the building, and then Holly shifts into drive and rams her foot down on the gas. The SUV growls angrily, and they rocket away with tires squealing, churning up acrid smoke. They leave the zombies from the store awash in a billowing cloud of white, making for the main road.
Garth leaps from one shelf to another, his katana opening wounds on the arms and hands reaching for him. Zombies climb the structure with him, threatening to topple the wood framed shelves with their added weight. He runs across the top and then jumps to another, as the first begins to teeter.
Zombies clamor after him. Garth sends several wounded back on top of their squirming comrades. The others pull at the shelf, trying to topple it to get to their prey.
Garth nears one of the frosted windows situated high on the back wall. The shelf allows him to reach the window. He crashes through the glass with his katana, using the blade to scatter glass so he won’t cut himself.
Grabbing the lip of the heavy guttering outside, Garth pulls himself through the window and then up onto the roof. Blood encrusted hands surge out the window after him, as he swings his lithe body away. Zombies attempt to follow, but they’re unable to copy Garth’s maneuvers. Instead, they fall out of the window into heaps upon the pavement outside, scrabbling to get back up for the chase.
Wasting no time, Garth takes off along the roof of the strip mall. There are no gaps between businesses here, not that it would matter to him. He bounds like a gazelle across the gravel and tar mixture, leaping over vents, pipes and air units as needed. The Escalade is outpacing him, but they will be forced to stay on the road, allowing him to catch up.
In the meantime, zombies are in pursuit. Garth can’t think what might have set so many off at once. A herd of them chase the Escalade down the alley leading to the road. The SUV allows Holly and Cassie to put distance between them and the horde. Yet, the zombies aren’t giving up, forcing Garth to wonder if they’re starving for flesh now with Central London all but abandoned.
London is steadily emptying of its citizens and has been for weeks, according to the news. People are afraid and rightly so. Some might weather a storm, or risk some natural disaster leveling their home, but no one wants to face an army of zombies on the move, or risk being torn apart as they attempt to sate an insatiable hunger. No one wants to become one of them.
So, now they are forced to move outward in pursuit of fleeing victims. Those who remain to prowl in abandoned places like Central London find food scarce—at least, the fleshy kind they prefer. He and the ladies are precious morsels to these emaciated creatures. They’ll do anything they can not to let them get away.
Garth cuts across the building, heading for the street on the other side. As he reaches the edge of the roof, he finds the Escalade drifting sideways around the turn around the building. They’re headed his way. Garth takes to a pipe leading down between two businesses, then drops the remaining ten feet to the ground.
Holly spots him, bringing the SUV to a skidding halt. Garth opens the rear door and leaps inside, as Holly jams her foot onto the accelerator again. Zombies close in from businesses and from the road behind them. They fill the street in pursuit as the Escalade peels away, taking any route open to them.
The infected are coming from everywhere, running right into the speeding SUV. Holly attempts to dodge by them, but something is drawing them in. Some dinner bell has been rung, and all of them in the near vicinity are responding to it.
Holly notices the time on the dash clock. She’s going to miss her meeting with Vladimir and Jonathan. Moreover, she realizes she’s been driving in the wrong direction. At the next intersection, she begins to double back.
“Where are we going?” Cassie asks.
“Yeah, the zombies are in this direction,” Garth calls from the back seat.
“We’ve got to get to Sainsbury, remember?” Holly replies, whipping the wheel around another turn. “Agent Smith and Jonathan are waiting for us.”
“I’m pretty sure the car engine is drawing them in,” Garth says. “They can hear us coming from a long way off.”
“We can’t leave them behind,” Cassie says.
Garth sits back, resigning himself to their course of action. “All right, but I warned you,” he says.
Fifteen minutes later, the Escalade is pummeling through zombies again, as Holly attempts to dodge the greater masses. The SUV is taking damage, but has enough bulk to maintain speed despite the numbers pursuing them. The department store is only blocks away now.
Another two, then three bounce away from the heavy metal grill. Holly doesn’t stop, doesn’t regret. To stop would be to die. The thousands of zombies attempting to overtake them would undoubtedly tear them limb from limb, given the opportunity. She has no intention of letting that happen. They must survive, and they must make sure Jonathan survives.
From what Holly has seen on the news over the past few nights, before the power went out, London is lost. Most likely, all of England, Scotland and neighboring Ireland will soon follow. Cases have already been mentioned across the channel in France. If it’s not quelled quic
kly there, then Europe will come after.
Russia hopes to remain distant, but a land border with Europe means there will be little chance of making it happen. At best, they will be surrounded. Yet, they are not cut off by fences, or walls. How can they ever hope to keep hordes of zombies, which may already number in the millions, out of their country?
A cure is needed by everyone. The only person who can possibly provide it is a block away, hopefully still alive and well in the care of Russia’s greatest assassin. Holly has no idea what they’ll have to do once they get to them. Escape somehow, obviously. Yet, she doesn’t know where they can go, what direction is safe now.
The Sainsbury Superstore finally comes into view up ahead to the right. In the rearview mirror, Holly sees the street filled with the infected coming for them like a tsunami wave. As many as there are after them, they would easily topple the Escalade and rip it to pieces.
She pushes the accelerator even harder, then brakes and banks to the right to come around where the entrance to the parking lot is. Holly doesn’t want to risk popping the tires hopping the curbs to go straight at the store. They’ll have to make a quick getaway, once Jonathan and Nesky climb inside with them.
Holly whips the Escalade to the left, gunning the engine, surging through the parking lot. There is no sign of the Porsche Nesky was driving when they left the SIS Building nearly five days ago. She wonders what might have happened. Did they run out of gas or something? Perhaps, they are holed up in the store itself. A good place, if you have to hide out for a few days.
Holly slams on the brakes, halting the Escalade right in front of the entrance to Sainsbury. There’s no sign of either of them. It’s only a few minutes past 8AM. They have to still be here.
She opens her door, realizing the zombies are closing in. They are nearly to the edge of the parking lot. It won’t take them long to make it this far. Holly stands on the running board calling out over the roof of the vehicle toward the store, searching for any sign of Jonathan and Nesky.