Dean scanned the room hoping to see a familiar face. Hoping to see one of his few friends, Jamie. His deceased friend. He would struggle to forget what he witnessed at the supermarket. Was it preventable? His forehead stung as beads of sweat trickled down his brow. They needed air conditioning. The officers had opened fire, government orders, save the food and ration. Jamie was trampled as an innocent man looking to survive, not to loot. The image burned into Dean’s head; his eyes pulsed. If he could go back in time, he’d keep Jamie in that station as an on-call emergency doctor. Jamie had been forced to cooperate with the processing of people. That wasn’t his fault, neither was being trapped in the hospital.
Then, another totally irrelevant thought crossed his mind. Dean saw the image of a lady holding her little boys’ hand, speaking softly to him. Their eyes met, she smiled at him and the little boy smiled back. Dean’s mind was in a dark place. He had tried to forget many years ago, his dearest friend of twenty-seven years, Marcy. She had been his rock, a partner, that was a long time ago. The candles flickered as a gush of breath blew over them by passers-by and a mystical daze overcast his flickering consciousness.
Marcy had wanted to move to the city to find a better home, to live the city life dream. “It’s more money”, she told Dean. “Better career”, and “more stimulating.” They discussed it regularly when they frequented the pub together. She had returned after a dreary goodbye some months later. Her news hit Dean first, he was first to know, even before family.
Dean felt a pin prick scrape his spine; the memory flooded over him. She had returned to tell him she was moving back to Beach Town. Her house hadn’t sold and that was the good news. Dean crustily remembered the sad news. She had little to no time left to live, maybe months. The city doctors told her. That day his emotions had plummeted beyond the core of the earth. The whole church shook with a malevolent howling wind that penetrated the cracks in the walls. The cool breeze snaked past Dean’s feet. Tears falling uncontrollably down his cheeks. Dean watched the room of survivors, teary eyed, smiling. Dean remembered the final days he spent with his former friend. The image of the mother and son faded away.
He could not stop the disease that had killed her, but he could help prevent the deaths of the people in the church. They were lost and scared. Only one person could give them guidance – Dean – and he revelled at his position.
He would help them. The dead were trying to break into the temple, and they needed to fortify the doors.
CHAPTER 24
Church Breach
Dean was out of breath standing on the stone staircase leading back up the main hall.
He had to get things locked down before taking official charge, he’d have to barricade the church and then find a way to communicate with the station. That was the goal. Dean hoped the station was holding out. The town hall and police station were the only buildings capable of receiving the government orders. Dean stepped through the door into the main hall.
He scanned the empty hall and recalled a hostage situation two years ago. A gang had taken the church goers hostage and wanted a ridiculous sum in return for their release. Swat had a tough time breaching the building, but they succeeded in the end. Now all that mattered was getting the benches flipped upside down and pushed against the door. If he was lucky (he considered it unlikely), he could go back to the police station and leave someone in charge of the church, a deputy sheriff.
He was mayor, albeit battle trained and dangerous when desired.
He needed a shower and more ammunition. The outbreak was more of a pain in the ass than he expected.
The hall reeked of foul flesh. The air had thickened. Wind blew through the gaps in the stone, and morning dew was settled on the stain glass windows.
Dean crept forward, the floorboards let out a shrilling creak and clank. Dean glanced to the bell, the priest’s legs in a pool of coagulated blood.
He stepped down the stone path in the middle of the benches. The front doors were very dangerous, the banging hadn’t subsided.
He glanced at the man impaled by the scaffolding pole. He had reanimated, clawing in the air, unable to get up. Its eyes were black, and green goo seeped down the metallic pole. Its ribs clanked on the metal sending a razor down Dean’s neck.
Dean stood next to the church doors.
He placed his palm on the wooden door, and then his ear. Moans and scratching radiated through the wood; Dean pulled away. The chants of groans were like a gust of wind. It was no wind. The sun beat through the stain glassed windows. It was them and him.
The wooden doors shook as the dead pushed against it. Dean stumbled back, the church doors were rocking back and forth. The wood creaked and cracked. Pushing and chanting corpses.
Dean wanted to call for help. The shaking doors reverberated along the stone walls. Adrenaline surged through his chest.
A beast screamed as sharp as barb wire wrapping around Dean’s face. It channelled through the building. The floors seemingly rumbled.
Dean frozen like a mannequin. His legs were facing the opposite way to his body. A creature screeched again. The window’s rattled. Dean’s breath was shallow, his nose dripping. The screech was a rancid sting, an electric airwave speared into every crevice of his being. Dean had never experienced anything like it, it was haunting, petrifying.
Dean quickly headed – avoiding the poles and planks from the scaffold, to the cellar door. The refugee camp door.
A stain glass window above him smashed, a rainbow of glass shards fell onto him.
Dean had seconds to escape. He shook the shards of glass of. A piece had cut through his neck. A million pieces had left a thousand cuts over his forearms. His forearms stung and he ran tripping and crunching on the glass as he hit the floor.
Dean gazed around the hall. It was empty. He lifted his head to see what had smashed the window. The creature he saw made his eyes bubble dry and his lungs incinerate.
Blood dripped from his forearms and neck. He pulled himself to the bench, staying low. Dean crouched to the wooden platform past the bell. Whatever creature was in the window, it did not see him moving.
Dean kept looking over his shoulder as he hurriedly lunged for the basement door.
Dean watched from the door. The beast leapt into the air, screeching as it did so. The noise was brain sizzling. It came crashing to the stone floor and a crack rippled through the stone floor to Dean’s feet. Stone and dust spat into the air sporadically. The dust settled; the creature had formed a hole in the floor. The creature was at least eight feet tall. Thick fangs protruded from the mouth and it had an overcoat of thick black sludge.
Dean slammed the basement door shut and bolted it. He hurried down the steps. His heart pumped steel ants around his body.
He had to stop, he had to admit, he was fucking petrified beyond belief.
He had to shake the fear off, he realised he was the saviour of the people in the basement. He needed to look strong for them, especially the children. A scared officer didn’t look good any day of the week. He should have taken backup to fortify the door.
They needed to get to the North of the island. It had a small community. Hope was better than fear.
CHAPTER 25
Disagreements
Dean entered the basement and was met with a sea of desperate eyes. Unique souls watching him pant and fall onto the nearest bed. It was occupied by a woman. Dean recalled her face; he’d seen her in the main street café. The times when he had no choice but to go there after the station coffee machine conked out and all officers were stupefied by it. She got off the mattress and scoffed at him and sat on another bed.
Dean wiped his forehead with his hand and dried them on the bedsheet. He tried to rub his palms dry. His hands were clammy, like the cheeks of survivors who couldn’t come to terms with the situation. The people sat in silence laying and glaring to the darkened ceiling.
Some children mocked one another whilst others nagged their parent’s with grumpy moans
, they wanted more food. It was tough, they couldn’t have it yet. Dean’s gut churned.
He thought it was a case of the heebie-jeebies, however it had a new and bitter meaning now. It didn’t dissipate, like death had transcended upon his neurons, destining him to the grave.
Screeches couldn’t be heard between the stone walls.
Dean stood off the bed and faced the people. ‘Plans screwed,’ Dean said. Everyone looked to him. ‘We need get everyone out of the church and to a safe, secure location. Bef…’
Dean was cut off by a man wearing an American flag t-shirt and black joggers. The man’s eyes were red from lack of sleep. The man shot Dean a stern scowl, he appeared fed up.
‘This is safe, this is secure, we can’t move now we have to make do, you should know that by now,’ the man shouted, more people began to stand up and approach them. Kids stopped bickering; the vicar’s wife sat holding her rosemary beads.
The crowd had encircled Dean and the man, like a school yard fight. An unbearably ideocratic action. It would only go Dean’s way or no way. He was the official leader for now. Throwing them a few big words should help.
A petite woman with thick lips and moisturised skin stepped into the circle wearing a purple night gown. She was quick to speak.
‘I agree, we need to go, there’s hardly any food here at all,’ she said, pointing to her son, who lay curled on a bed, pale. Dean concurred; the food situation was dreadful. The vicar was mistaken, supplies hadn’t been stocked in a long time. There was enough food for another two days at a stretch.
Everyone had already eaten their daily protein bars and drank the instant-coffee. That was over half of the rations. This place wasn’t viable.
The tired man turned to the gowned woman and gobbed off into her face, right in front of everyone. Dean watched, amazed at the audacity of the man.
‘What are you siding with him for? Are you the useless police too? We stay and we wait for help, this is safe and this is secure, we do not need to go out there with those things, whatever they are, we need to stay and fortify, the only logical thing that buffoon has suggested,’ he shouted, teeth gritted. Dean grabbed the man’s shoulder with a firm grip, some of the crowd huffed non-agreeably and others nodded in agreement. Idiots.
‘Calm down, keep calm and nobody has to spend their time chained to a bed, okay?’ Dean smiled, trying to diffuse the situation. Perpetrators were hard and intimidating. Today this man was as frightening as a kitten.
The man swung his left fist at Dean. Dean stumbled back, gripping the man’s shoulders. The crowd stepped back, nobody intervened.
Dean swung his right fist and the man dodged and returned an uppercut to Dean’s stomach.
A lump propelled with unimaginable nausea into his chest. He hadn’t been hit like that for a long time. He was unaccustomed and fell back onto a bed spluttering.
Dean held one palm up to the disgruntled man. He didn’t take kindly to the hand and Dean was unprepared as the man grabbed his shoulders and kneed him in the chest. An atomic bomb of stomach acid galloped to his tongue. Dean was overwhelmed by the nausea, but he wasn’t ready to give up.
Dean grabbed the man’s arms and threw him across the bed. The man rolled across the mattress to the floor on the other side. He quickly jumped to his feet, agile and unaffected.
Dean stood up; his ribs ached. Dean held his fists up. The man copied Dean.
People lined the walls; the makeshift boxing ring was the size of the room. Some people had gone to lay down near the window. Parent’s pulled their kids close to them.
‘Stay back,’ Dean shouted. ‘Someone help me take this psycho down.’ The survivors watched, too afraid to help. Dean waited for someone to step forward and was caught off guard.
A steel boned fist impacted his right cheek. The bones cracked and blood shot from his mouth. His tongue cut on a broken tooth. This guy was strong, Dean was dizzy and wanted to use the gun, but he didn’t have the gun anymore. It might be excessive force anyway.
Dean lunged forward and rugby tackled the man’s waist. Dean had tackled him onto the bed and onto the floor. Dean managed to pin the man under his legs. Dean punched left-right on the man’s face, uncontrollably.
The man was weakened and tried to push Dean off. It was hard to tell if he had lost consciousness, his face was mashed in, bleeding. Dean stopped punching him.
The man was unrecognisable, purple veins bulged from his eyes. Black bruises formed over his face. A red river flowed and seeped at the embankments of his ears down onto his cheeks. Five teeth had fallen out onto the floor. His forehead lacerated with deep cuts. Dean thumbed his carotid artery for a pulse. He was breathing, he was alive, and he knew who was in charge.
Dean stood up, muscles aching. A pitiful snake bit into his oesophagus, the stinging nettles of a thorn bush wrapped around his body. Dean’s belly a lead pie. He had won, no doubt about it. There was no sign of a struggle. Dean laughed.
People began to approach, and a few assisted the man on the floor. The crowd was white, shocked, speechless with gaping mouths.
‘You needed to take care of that, and you did, thank you,’ a woman said, standing behind Dean, placing a meaty hand on his tingling shoulder.
Dean waddled back and sat on the bed. He turned his bloodied face to her, his ribs cricked as he turned.
‘Yes, I did, and you know what?’ Dean said, grinning but his lips stung. ‘There was no sign of a struggle, ma’am.’ He wiped blood from his tongue onto his sleeve.
They needed to evacuate now and use anything in sight for a weapon, they could go through the rear window onto the lawn. It would be a slow crawl through back gardens.
Dean was horrified when thumping began on the cellar door. A screech pierced the cellar. It was like a demon choir, screaming to get into heaven, pissed at god. Everyone felt it, it rattled the candle holders. A candle fell to the floor and was extinguished by a man.
Dean stood up, his hips were rusting and unoiled. He needed some tasty food and fresh water.
It was now aware of their location. The window was the only escape option.
CHAPTER 26
The Run
Harry gripped the plastic, desperate for an answer. It was nerves wracking. His heart and breath silhouetted.
A crackled and distorted remnant of words was transmitted. Nothing human, nothing that could help. If he had put the phone down he would have missed the vital information. It was only spoken once, quaintly.
The office room had a glow, a migraineurs aura shimmered around the window ledges. Fizzy static lines danced around the corners of the desk. Harry would have a throbbing headache soon. Dehydration didn’t help.
The anticipation made his hairs stand on an electric edge, hungry for information, he persevered.
‘Hello, please, who is this?’ He spoke with a loose tongue, each word fed with trepidation, frustration. His elbows were sore from the desk. His nether was soaked from the trickling sweat. A singular presence rose in his spine to his neck. A reply.
‘Code…emergency…transmit to…. niner,’ a man said. The cackling subsided. Harry clasped the phone, James watched, smiling. Harry saw the dead outside the door becoming more erratic. He turned to face the lawn. ‘Niner, echo, niner, echo, foxtrot.’ The dead horde shambled across the lawn to the station.
Harry quickly grabbed Meg’s backpack, unzipped it and searched for the pad and pulled it out along with the pen. He jotted the message in the notepad..
He had a lot of questions. Why are they phoning the fire station? Is this being transmitted to all emergency services? Why by phone? Why hadn’t they transmitted via the radio or television before it went out? Harry tore the page out and stashed it into his trouser pocket, and then put the pen and notebook back into the backpack. The information was safe. It sounded important.
Hopefully it was the national army, or international corps, deployed at full force. He had to take control of his breathing. The lack of water and light from the
sky outside – cumulous clouds, blue sky– rattled his brain.
James was occupied with Sam, hiding under the desks as the cat tried to claw his hands.
A scream shattered the glass in the door.
The scream radiated through Harry. James froze and cried, Sam pounced onto his lap, hiding.
Harry’s heart pounded. His palms sticky. The room was like a sauna.
The glass shattered into a million pieces onto the office floor.
The room shook, a thundering vibration emanated from corridor. The screech was so loud that Harry’s ear cooled. He felt his ear, blood trickled down his cheek.
He stood up and staggered to the door. He daren’t look away from the door. A ghastly creature came into sight.
The flesh was inhuman, it was oiled in a thick coating of black tar. The arms thin. The fingers, twigs.
The scream had disabled – that was the only word he could think of – the other zombies. The corpses had fallen face first onto the floor, squirming as they tried to stand up. Harry was sympathetic. They had been people at one point. Now they couldn’t even walk straight.
Harry ducked behind a desk. James and Sam were cuddled together under the phone desk near the window. Time warped, Harry was anxious. It was if his neurons gave up halfway to their destination. His hands and legs were shaking with lactic acid. He clambered across the floor to James. James’s body took on a thick black outline. What was happening?
It wasn’t migraine, which had sought to destroy him since he entered the damn room. A sharp sting snaked through his chest around his neck. A pop echoed in Harry’s skull; he was disorientated. James began to cry.
Nothing was right, forwards felt like backwards and arms heaved as rocks. A disturbingly strong sensation of thirst and hunger washed over him. He wanted to feast upon the flesh before him, and the cat too. They were appealing, very much ready for consumption. Their fear odourised his buzzing brain, he scrambled like a tiger towards James.
‘No!’ James cried, pushing himself backwards with his legs, hugging Sam tight.
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