The dead resumed their moaning, the room took on a strong stench – a freshly cut grass aroma. Harry wretched from the pain in his calf. Was it time for him to find shelter for his son, and go to die somewhere alone? He didn’t want to give up yet.
Harry pushed himself to his feet. The office door creaked and cracked, as if it were about to break open. He approached James. James retreated under the desk, afraid. Harry looked to James’s teary eyes. His son was afraid of him. It couldn’t end like this. Harry could turn into one of them or worse, die.
‘Sorry,’ Harry said. ‘I can’t stay strong forever, but I will fight it until you are safe, whether it takes weeks or months, I will not rest.’ Harry gulped his words; it could be months before salvation arrived, if it were coming. It could be months before they find safety. Harry reached his tired arms out to James who grabbed them.
The window shone with hope. The drop was worth the risk. It was better than becoming torn spaghetti guts that would satisfy some sick diseased bastard. Harry reached for the backpack and slung it over his shoulder. James held his fathers’ hand, and Sam was nestled under his right arm.
The window was open, and a desk slid against the wall below it. Harry assisted James onto the desk before climbing on himself. They peered out at the lawn. It was eerily quiet. The office door cracked, the wood splintered, and the door smashed open, the hinges were bust. The screaming black tar beast stumbled in, followed by a bloody mouthed mob of the dead. Each zombie with a blank stare limping towards them.
White clouds cumulated overhead; a rung-out sun now heated the earth. The heat could be a killer. Sweltering heat was not uncommon on the island, and with a lack of water it wouldn’t be long before he experienced seizures or heatstroke.
There was absolutely no time to ponder. The dead fast approached the desk, the jump looked higher now, and Harry had butterflies. The worry James or him would be injured conjured up images of becoming crippled after the jump and becoming grass and meat pies if the zombies jumped after them. Harry grabbed James’s shoulder and they both jumped out.
They landed hard on the grass. James whimpered and Harry grunted as his throbbing legs gave way. The bag had banged against his spine and the bruised ribs. Harry flicked his neck round to look at the window, his spine cracked. Groans whistled with the breeze. A wild-eyed zombie leant out of the window - a woman, wearing only white pyjama bottoms with purple blotched skin – fell forward.
Harry pushed James out the way and got to his feet. He grabbed James’s hand and began a fast limp back towards the front of the building.
Harry looked back, the dead fell one after another out of the window, on top of each other. Bones snapped and the dead struggled to get up. They were not free yet.
Harry pulled James along and he dropped Sam.
‘Wait,’ James cried tiredly. Harry halted to let the extremely lucky cat be retrieved. There was no way the cat would survive this; Sam was a big hindrance.
Harry watched the zombies begin to pursue, their broken arms swinging like dolls. They continued towards the front of the building.
Harry couldn’t hear or see the screaming beast anymore. His ear stung from an aching eardrum, it was burst, he couldn’t hear anything out of it.
As they reached the front of the building, more dead shambled from the right. Harry slowed.
The church stood out, a hundred or so zombies lined the streets. The dead turned, they began to walk towards them, some fell over in the excitement. Another wall was coming to block Harry. Harry could feel the sharp dread creeping up his arms and snaking around his pelvis and spine.
‘To the church James,’ Harry gasped, before leading his son over the muddying terrain towards safety. The muddy grass clogged his stride and then he stepped onto the concrete. They were close, they could do this.
More zombies trailed after them, undead neighbours poured from the houses. Harry couldn’t tell who was alive anymore, if anyone. The road was covered in blood and Harry heard distant screams. Harry turned around; the dead had gained on him.
Harry couldn’t react, the pursuing dead with their excitable hunger latched onto his shoulder. Harry pushed James forward out the way. The dead swarmed him. James sprinted off towards the church with Sam. Harry could see a figure, possibly cannibalistic, waiting.
Harry had a feeling they were both about to die. Time slowed, and the sky lit up bright pink and orange, his vision began to sink into darkness and scratching began to surround his head. He shoved and kicked. The dead were strong. He understood this was it, this was the only chance he had, this life was the only life he had and dying was not an option.
He swung his left arm and walloped a zombie in the face, its cheek cracked, and black pus squirted onto Harry’s filthy clothes. Harry saw James had reached the distant figure, safe.
Harry felt his arms go limp and he collapsed onto the road. An oblivion of fuzzy warmth encompassed his skull. The clattering of devilish teeth and a dozen hungry mouths were chattering around him, the stank of guts was vomit-inducing.
Harry was conscious, and even though his eyes were closed, he could see. His vision was cloudy, he was looking through his eyelids. Dean appeared, holding Sam’s hand. Two other men and a woman accompanied him.
Harry was silent, unable to move, but able to see the dead dropped to their knees. Their heads bobbed around his body, they were smelling his flesh, they might claw at his stomach.
Dean was keeping an eye on the situation while simultaneously gripping James’s hand. The zombies had a good smell and examination of Harry’s unconscious body. Then they rose and filtered away from him. They were disinterested, their sights now set on Dean and his companions. James’s face teared and little Sam meowed. Harry was hopeless to do anything.
The zombies were stumbling around him, their ghastly bloodied faces pursued Dean instead. Dean seemed reluctant to run, instead looking to Harry. Whatever Harry had Dean clearly wanted. Harry listened, and he could hear the Sedan doors open.
‘Get in and keep him inside,’ Dean shouted. Harry hoped Dean would come back, help him.
A scream echoed from the church. The dead stopped and then continued as if they were being called forth. The cries of men and women and children came from the church, probably being ripped to shreds. Whoever was in the church, it was too late to save them now. Only a Deus ex Machina could save them now.
Harry watched through closed eyes as Dean limply jogged towards Harry’s body. He was weaving round the dead, ducking and diving as the dead tried to grab him.
Harry watched; a gunshot rung out. Dean stopped and searched his person, probably for a gun. It wasn’t surprising that people would take up arms, however limited. Two more shots went off, closer. The birds overhead scattered with a squawk. A few zombies fell to the ground. Harry watched Dean get closer.
Dean crouched; he was being grabbed at like items in a black Friday sale. One of the zombie bastards had ripped through his shirt.
A gunshot deafened Harry. A corpse fell beside Dean. Whoever was behind Dean held a gun and was approaching fast. Harry heard the group in the car shouting for Dean to turn around. Dean did so.
A gunshot fired point blank into Dean’s skull. His body limply fell and rolled over onto the patch of grass next to Harry.
A bulky man wearing leather stood over Dean, shotgun in one hand, knife in the other. His eyes were red, and he growled as he stood over the body.
Dean’s blood stained the wet green grass brown. The killer laughed before driving the tainted steel bowie knife sideways into an incoming corpses head. The killer’s hands bulged.
The shotgun smoked from the barrel. He shot more zombies, but they continued to come, oblivious to their fate.
He chuckled as he blasted the crowd of undead. The shotgun clicked empty. The man approached Harry and knelt next to him. The man’s face was clear. Charlie had found him again.
CHAPTER 27
Hostage
The main street of Beach Town ha
d once thrived with shoppers, parents and toddlers alike. They would swing bags merrily and weave around the vine laden cracks in the sidewalk before basking under the sun.
Main street was now laden with bodies of dead families. Previous neighbours who had fought each other to get into the supermarket, only to be shot.
The police stood guard at the doors of the police station, picking off the dead who would stumble by now and again. Many of them had washed further into the urbanised area, main street was a post-war zone.
The armed police officers waited for orders, orders that would not come. Medical personnel had been placed inside the station due to unexpected problems with the temporary tent out in the rear car park.
Very few survivors remained, none of which were particularly talkative. Who would be? The docs had to continue to collect blood samples and the officers had to scour the corridors, their boots grimy. The officers were determined to detain the man still broadcasting from the radio station. Beach Town was being fed a bogus broadcast, a seriously uncontrolled version of events. It had to be stopped.
Pink cumulous clouds were scattered through the sky, the rain droplets spitting like ice stones as they hit the pavement with a clink.
The scene outside the supermarket was uncleared, a half-eaten mess. The dead had had a buffet on their way into town.
The motorway was now going darker under the pink evening sky. The highway was the only viable way out. Not one officer or doctor or survivor could have known the true extent of the situation. The bridge was blown to bits, the concrete destroyed, flung to the shoreline below. An oil tanker had rested underneath the bridge, and now it had sunk into the sea as waves crashed against the blackened rocks of the shoreline, black with oil which leeched to the sands.
Three military tanks were stagnant, the olive-green camo was barely visible in the dusk light. Soldiers surrounded the tanks, there was a commandeering chief giving orders, and a man with a radio on top of one tank, his broadcast short and repetitive, his shallow nod not reassuring the other soldiers.
Harry and James were caught by Charlie. Sheila was boarded up in her flat, arrogant to any help. Many residents were at home unaffected, unaware of the shear reach of the dead.
***
Charlie had driven as quietly as he could through the dead from the fire station lawn, but not before leaving the two men whom Dean had brought along and duck taping the woman’s mouth shut. He had no need to tie her hands, the shotgun deterred her.
Blood trickled down Harry’s forehead. His son was next to him, trying to wake him by prodding his ribs.
The car had rolled through the built-up area and approached the beginning of main street. Charlie investigated the rear-view mirror, the houses in the distance were alight. Houses were on fire, not from the zombies emotionally attacking the décor or wooden porches, but because many houses had been out of gas for a few days without realising it. The boilers had run dry and then sparked. Charlie knew the fires would die down in a few hours, then chuckled, to which James and Sam watched in awe.
Charlie turned right down main street. He could see police officers outside the station and wished he had gone the other way. There was a dirt road that led from the back of the estates to the motel. That would have been better. He had gotten what he needed.
A couple of cars blocked the road. Abandoned-doors-open style, the radio station drowned the silence with a monotone voice, a pre-recorded message. Charlie couldn’t believe the radio hadn’t attracted the zombies. But right on cue, he saw a few corpses pop up from the bar, the officers tiptoed down the station steps, equipped their guns and knelt. They fired their guns, three or four bullets pierced through the crowd of dead drunks. The stragglers were down before the officers retreated up to the door where they holstered their guns.
‘Smart’, Charlie remarked, noting the silencers attached to their guns. He eyed his shotgun; the brown barrel was cracked, and the grip worn down. He needed something bigger and silent.
The car rolled forward, the fuel light was lit. The stench of possible sewerage engulfed their noses. The cat meowed loudly and jumped down under the seat.
Charlie unintentionally ran over a few zombies who hadn’t seen the car coming. After it ran over a second body, it conked out and stopped, no fuel.
‘Shit,’ Charlie groaned, scanning the street trying to determine a safe route around the police station. Or a safe route into the station. It was too risky going back to the motel, once was enough.
The women wriggled, muffling and whimpering for help. Charlie had forgotten about her and dug his elbow into her ribs. Her tears began to loosen the tape. Charlie knew he’d be able to use her as bait if needed. The kid was a problem. Charlie was sick of children; he should have left the kid back at the fire station.
‘I’ll deal with you very soon,’ he told her.
Charlie grabbed his bloody blade from the dashboard. He twisted the blade in his hand and brought the steel close to his face. Charlie inhaled and let out a sigh before dropping the blade, it clanked down onto his shotgun in his lap.
Harry was still unconscious; Charlie couldn’t hear him, that was good. Harry had gotten on his nerves at the hospital. But this kid, he continued to prod and to entertain the kitten.
‘Name?’ Charlie asked the woman, using his index and thumb to peel back the tape from her mouth.
‘None of your business.’ Charlie roughly dug his thumb into her cheek and the tape stuck again.
It was a literal nightmare of a decision. Police would not sit idly, and watch Charlie carry Harry’s body around and with a noisy cat and gagged woman. The only other option as Charlie saw, was to get into the radio station and call for help.
The car conked out two shops from the radio station building on the left, another building or two to the police station on the right.
Thick coagulated fog and mist whipped and snaked over the dead bodies lying in the street and around the building, a sackcloth of ashlar. A mysterious silence drumming the air, piercing Charlie’s brain.
The car seat was uncomfortable, and Charlie shuffled his sore glutes to a better position. His ass scratches itchy. It would not be safe for long, sitting vulnerable in the car in a haze. The creatures would surely wobble back to main street at the first smell of flesh.
‘Your time is here, so be useful,’ Charlie leant over the woman and ripped the tape from the lady’s face, she whelped and curled into a ball. Her body small, her clothes skimpy tight. Charlie crumbled the tape in his hand and pushed opened her door.
The creaking passenger door attracted the attention of the police officers. They were looking, Charlie froze and then shoved the woman to the damp road surface. The woman would allow enough time to get the kid and Harry out and to the radio station. Charlie could then radio for help, possibly going back to the motel, he wasn’t keen on the idea the kid was his, he probably wasn’t.
She groaned and clawed at the floor before dragging herself into the sheet of fog and out of sight. Charlie had only glimpsed a wound in her leg, perhaps a bite.
Charlie carefully opened his door and swung his legs onto the concrete before stepping out.
Everything sounded crystal. The wind slipping around his ears. The smell of the salty sea air invigorated him. Charlie was tiresome trying to move, his stitched throat giving him sharp needles from the icy breeze. The sedative lingered, Charlie had a moment of clarity, but it faded, and moans of the beasts started to echo down the street. Adrenaline buzzed through him; his sense of survival heightened. He turned and opened the rear car door.
Inside the rear passenger seats, nothing. The boy and the cat were gone. Charlie quickly scanned the area; the kid and kitten were escaping from the front passenger door.
‘God damn it!’ Charlie shouted, about to pursue, when a wave of fear trickled over him. The beasts appeared through the thick smog, surrounding him, five or six of the bastards. Charlie went for the gun and knife he had left on the driver’s seat.
The corpses were translucent, their face ghostly in the condensation. Half torn hands, spaghettis of ligaments, boned fingers began to claw at his jacket. Bastards were tearing into the leather.
Charlie’s adrenaline gushed into his heart, he darted into the driver’s door, reaching in, grabbing the knife and turning and jabbing it rapidly into the dead’s afflicted skulls. The beast’s oncoming in numbers unseen. More and more, a sea of unchartered proportions.
Charlie was primal, a beastly presence took over him, he would not go down without a fight to the death, not now, not ever. Fucking kids. Harry was still unconscious in the backseat.
Charlie battled throwing fists and knife jabs in an ever-thickening smog. The darkness of night settling over the town and where the mist met the night sky a thin blue line of hope faded.
The woman had crawled through to the police officers and before she could speak, they had shot her dead. Their silencers leaving the dead and Charlie unaware of their actions. The police officers now sneaked side by side, crouched, into the street where the light of the open car door revealed dancing shadows that were falling fast. It was Charlie, the police had locked on and kept their eyes down the sights and fired.
Charlie was caught on the leg by a weight, a heavy clay of dead bodies fell as they were shot by the police. Charlie fell to his stomach, his ribs cracked, and his spine stiffened. It was increasingly painful on the tarmac ground as the beasts piled upon Charlie and within thirty seconds the recognisable faint whips of air of the silent pistols went dead themselves.
Charlie struggling to move or breathe, bodies were crushing his spine, some of the bodies barely clothed, some of the creatures’ guts were spilling onto his jacket and pants. The stench was foul even by Charlie’s standards.
Charlie heard the officer’s approach, their boots clip clopping on the road. They were unaware of him; god help him if they saw him move and decided to drop a slug or two into his skull. One of the officers knelt next to the bodies and rooted through the corpse’s pockets. Charlie had one eye on him, dirty copper, killing and stealing. The officer retrieved a pack of cigarettes from a dressing gown of a man and a pack of tic tacs from a woman’s jeans. The other officer was peered into the car door, his gun clanked against the metal door. Charlie knew they might be tempted to take the shotgun. More groans echoed through the foggy mains street. The officer had found Harry, as he stepped next to Charlie’s face to look in the rear passenger door.
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