Finding Her

by Rick Wood

  But she had to get through them.

  She had to protect the girl.

  She couldn’t let Gus down.

  A grey arm with muscle tissue falling out of a gaping hole managed to get past Sadie and to the car door, reaching in for Laney. Sadie ripped the arm off and stuffed it down the throat of the opposing zombie, then launched her fist into its guts, pulled them out, and sprayed its entrails over the floor below. The helpless zombie slipped on its own guts and struggled like a dying fish.

  She killed another. Then another, and another, and another.

  Eye gauges. Ripping out throats. Plunging their heads into the ground and stomping them to pieces.

  The ground surrounding Sadie turned into a graveyard of decaying insides.

  But more still came.

  Then they all stopped. Hovered motionless for a fleeting moment.

  Without any warning or reason, each paused.

  Then, as if sensing an imminent distinct danger, they sprinted away. The remaining few running, putting distance between themselves and danger. What was it they heard? What had they sensed? What could they smell?

  Then Sadie understood, as she smelt it too. Her basic instinct took over and told her to run, the same instinct that ruled those fleeing zombies. A distant oncoming odour of smoke, so sensitive to her nose that she wasn’t even sure she smelt it.

  Then the sound came. The rumble growing louder, the thudding of propellers in the air, the soaring of aerodynamic resistance bringing with it immense danger.

  She looked to the sky.

  There it soared, a plane, shooting overhead. As it travelled into the distance, something from it dropped. A large whirlwind of fire raised into the air. The bomb in the distance, beginning the attack on London.

  She felt the ground tremble, shuddering beneath her. It was in the distance, but the tremors still sent her falling onto the ground. The car lifted upwards, then landed back down to earth.

  That was one bomb in the distance. Enough to take away her balance and raise a vehicle from the ground.

  How had the infected known? For all of them to just suddenly start running, in unison, away from the bomb?

  Then she remembered what Gus had said about the Taliban.

  The guns and the fists and the knives, they all did some damage to ’em – but it was the bombs and grenades that really showed us who they were. Cowardly instincts of an animal told ‘em to run. They knew then.

  The sound resumed. More engines, more speed, soaring overhead.

  She looked upwards.

  A plane flew overhead.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  Until so many filled the sky, she couldn’t register the quantity that was approaching.

  And she knew the instinct of the infected was to run, because hers was the same, just amplified. And as she watched the planes slow down over London, her instinct changed from a tremble to a manic roar.

  55

  Stacey loomed over him. The picturesque ideal daughter, the model image of clear skin and a beaming smile. Pigtails. Frilly dress. Loving, doting eyes toward her parents.

  Gus plunged his fingers into his gaping wound.

  He wailed and moaned and cried and screamed. It hurt like hell, but the bullet that had skimmed past him had created enough of an open wound that he could reach his hands right in and pry the scar tissue apart.

  It felt rubbery. Fat spilled out over his fingers, like he was pushing into a juicy steak. He could see a pool of blood filling the floor, but he tried not to look at it.

  He just had to stay conscious. Ignore the pain.

  He screamed harder. It hurt too much.

  He paused. Breathing. Taking a break.

  But the knife held high above the girl’s head told him he had no such opportunity.

  It was inches away.

  She was taking her aim.

  Thoughts escaped him. He relied on instinct. Pure, basic instinct.

  He pushed his fingers further in, opening his leg until he felt it. That small, metal cylinder, lodged between a bone and muscle. Stuck in there.

  He ripped it out, screaming from the excruciating anguish, watching as blood sprayed like a streak of piss over the soil.

  “Whatever are you doing?” asked the girl, ready to strike.

  No time to think.

  No time to suffer.

  Just got to do it. Put the bullet in and do it.

  He opened the pistol grip of the Kalashnikov, slotted the bullet in, and pointed the gun at Stacey’s cute little face.

  “Where on earth did you get that bullet from?” she asked, the knife poised above her head as her confused expression gazed down at her food.

  BAM!

  Her face exploded into a hundred pieces. The bullet soared through her, sending splatting pieces of brain, skin, and a wayward eyeball soaring in every direction.

  “Stacey!”

  Trisha sprinted over in despair. She dove upon the headless body of her daughter slumped heavily upon the blood-soaked earth.

  Gus didn’t waste any time.

  He stole the knife from the girl’s hand and dug it into Trisha’s calf.

  She wailed out in pain.

  He grimaced. It was a nasty place to get wounded. He’d know.

  As she fell to her back he retracted the knife and put all his energy into lifting himself up. Raising the knife above his head he pushed it through the air, and sent it plunging downwards into her throat.

  Her choking and splattering didn’t last long. The blood continued to squirt over Gus’s already drenched clothes until her face fell lifeless, as did her empty body.

  They needed to hurry. She would turn soon.

  He turned to Donny.

  There were four of him. Four heads, all spinning around in circles.

  Blurs turned to inky splodges. His vision faded to hazy shapes.

  His head spun like he was drunk, turning around and around, despite him being desperately static.

  “Donny…”

  He reached out for his friend, then fell to the floor and passed out.

  56

  It took Donny every strength in his body, everything he had, to pull Gus. Donny had hold of Gus’s one good leg as he pulled the hefty, unconscious weight across the dirty earth, leaving an imprint of his body in the mud as he did.

  He’d already seen the planes firing overhead. He’d felt the tremble of the ground upon the impact of one bomb.

  Now there were how many planes?

  At least thirty. Maybe even forty.

  Too many flying too fast for him to count.

  Adrenaline grew tired in his veins. He’d been running on it for so long now that he felt the onset of his comedown, just as he needed it most.

  But still he gripped, tightening his fingers around Gus’s thick ankle, dragging him.

  Donny could just leave him.

  But he knew he wouldn’t.

  Gus saved him whilst running on empty, it was time to do the same.

  The tremors of another bomb twisted his legs into submission and he fell onto the ground. His face smacked harshly into the mud.

  But he got up.

  Brushed it off.

  Persevered. Gus would never fail his mission, now it was time that he didn’t fail his.

  He pulled again. His muscles wouldn’t do it. They were aching too much.

  He paused. Let his breath catch up. Let his body regather itself.

  “Come on,” he urged himself. “Come on!”

  He tried to pull Gus, but it was dead weight that wouldn’t budge.

  He fell to his knees.

  “No…”

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t drag him, he didn’t have the strength; he didn’t have the willpower. He was going to have to leave him. He had no choice. Otherwise he’d die too.

  He had no choice.

  He lifted his eyes to the sky. Harsh droplets of water began to pound upon his face. Slowly at first, then faster. Fa
ster and faster. Until they were parading helplessly into his eyes, drenching his clothes, soaking his hair.

  The last of the planes disappeared overhead.

  He had minutes, if that.

  “I’m sorry, Gus.”

  He turned to Gus, who groaned in his unconscious state and allowed his hand to flop onto his jacket. There was something beneath Gus’s hand. Something in his pocket.

  Donny reached inside the jacket. Wrapped his fingers around whatever it was and pulled it out.

  In his hand was a pair of sunglasses.

  He cradled them like a baby, gazing upon the cool shades, completely torn between running and staying.

  Those sunglasses. Gus had brought them back for him.

  To shut him up.

  No. It wasn’t just to shut him up.

  It was to show him who he could really be.

  He placed the sunglasses on, wearing them proudly. He was an action hero. He was a secret agent. He was Bruce Fucking Willis kicking the bad guy’s arse in Die Hard.

  Those zombie computer games don’t got shit on a badass like me!

  And he would not leave his friend behind.

  With a desperate scream he grabbed Gus’s ankle and lurched it forward. And again. And again. And again.

  He screamed with the agony of his muscles.

  But fuck it.

  Gus had wrenched a bullet from his body for him, Donny could damn well endure the pain within his muscles it took to drag this big lump.

  “Argh!”

  He dragged. Dragged. Dragged.

  “Son of a bitch! Bastard! Motherfucker!”

  The cursing helped ease the pain.

  Before he knew it, he came to an opening.

  Sadie stood beside the car door.

  “Open it, Sadie! Open the car door!”

  She did.

  “Help me put him in.”

  Sadie took Gus’s head and Donny took his good leg. It took them a few attempts to lift him fully, but they managed to throw him in a quick surge of energy, dumping him onto the backseat.

  Donny passed his jacket to Sadie.

  “Wrap this around his wound, stop the bleeding.”

  Donny rushed to the front seat.

  Another few bombs pounded the streets of London and the car jumped a foot into the air from the tremors that sunk along the ground.

  The flickers of flames and the grasping hands of the smoke reached out for them.

  Donny did the quickest three-point turn he had ever done and turned the car around. He slammed his foot upon the accelerator.

  Another few bombs sent the earth shuddering, and the car almost capsized. Donny twisted the steering wheel in an attempt to keep it straight, and just about managed.

  In the windscreen mirror, he saw London go up in flames. The tremble of the earth continued onto the motorway. And, although it grew fainter the further away they got, he could still see the fire rising into the air for miles.

  Once they were far enough away, Donny looked over his shoulder at Sadie, who had managed to wrap both his jacket and another blanket she’d found somewhere in the car around Gus’s leg, and it looked like less blood was seeping out.

  Gus’s eyes flickered open momentarily.

  “What…” he muttered.

  “Relax, Gus, relax,” Donny urged him.

  Gus looked to Donny. His weak eyes showed a vague recognition.

  He held out his hand, and very faintly said one final word.

  “Friend…”

  Then his head dropped, and he passed out.

  Plus Fourteen Days

  57

  The faint pulsating beeps of hospital equipment stirred Gus from his sub-conscious. His eyelids fluttered. His vision faded from a hazy blur to sharply defined lines as he dazedly twisted his neck from side to side.

  Light beamed between the blinds of the window. As he looked down, he took in the sight of a faded hospital gown. His eyes trickled down his body until they reached his leg.

  He’d already been fitted with a prosthetic foot.

  He leant his head back, closed his eyes and exhaled. He should have expected it, really.

  “It was quite the effort, Mr Harvey,” came a well-spoken yet aggravated voice.

  Gus twisted his head to the side, casting his eyes upon the disgruntled face of the prime minister. Eugene sat with his arms folded, a face coated in loathing.

  “How’s… your daughter?” Gus managed, finding his voice croaky from lack of use.

  “My daughter? She died six months ago.”

  “Have I been out that long?”

  “No, you have been out for two weeks. That girl you saved was not my daughter, you imbecile.”

  Gus grew confused. Before he had time to answer, Eugene had left, with those words left to linger.

  If she hadn’t been his daughter – then who on earth had he rescued?

  The days went by, and Gus heard little more. The doctors came to pass him small portions of indigestible food three times a day, but they said little to him.

  He asked them questions every time.

  “Where’s Donny?”

  “Is Sadie all right?”

  “Where’s the girl?”

  After a few weeks, he gave up asking.

  He wondered about Donny. Why he hadn’t come to see him.

  He could remember little about what had happened after he’d killed the cannibal family, but he could remember glimpses. One definite glimpse that remained in his thoughts was Donny’s face, looking down at him.

  “Relax,” Donny was telling him.

  And Sadie. She was alive. She’d spoken to him.

  Where was she?

  He tried to get up and leave his bed, tried to walk upon his prosthetic, but the first twitch of his arm sent an alarm ringing and doctors flooded the room. He didn’t hear the words they shouted, but once the commotion had ended, he had been restrained to the bed. His arms and thighs were fixed into position with straps. From then on, he was fed through intravenous drips.

  *

  One morning, Gus awoke to a chilling cold. His breath appeared before him, like the cool smoke of a cigarette, and he felt his skin prickle with goose pimples.

  “Hey! Hey, I’m cold in here!”

  He didn’t know why he bothered, no one listened.

  His head turned over and looked at the single window in the room, which was covered in frost – both on the inside and out.

  As he turned his head back, a recognisable figure appeared in the doorway.

  “You…”

  Eugene stood still. His arms were folded, his face bemused.

  Gus frowned at him.

  “So you keeping me prisoner here now?” Gus asked.

  Eugene didn’t reply. He slowly shook his head, licked his lips, then nodded at someone outside the room. On his command, three soldiers entered the room. One of them stuck a needle in Gus’s thigh, and he felt his limbs go limp.

  “What is this?”

  The answer presented itself without the need for verbal confirmation. It was a paralysis agent, to stop him from thrashing against them. He felt his muscles fall limp and knew that struggling would be futile.

  The soldiers unstrapped Gus and placed him on a wheelchair. They wheeled him down the corridor, following Eugene, who walked at some pace. Then ended up in a lift.

  Gus glared at Eugene for the entire descent. Eugene did not return his look. Instead, Eugene kept an unmistakable visage of loathing, like something had perturbed him greatly and he was infuriated about it.

  Gus finally realised why he was there. Eugene needed to know something he knew. And, if Gus was there, Eugene had no other line of enquiry to follow.

  They reached the bottom floor, which was poorly lit and smelt of damp. They took him to a room with a one-way mirror. Behind it was darkness. The soldiers halted his wheelchair against the wall in the small room lit only by a flickering bulb.

  Eugene leant against the wall and waited. Bided his tim
e before nodding to the soldiers.

  The soldiers vacated, and it was only Eugene and Gus left in the room.

  Eugene allowed silence to prevail. He appeared in no rush to speak, but the disdain wiped across his face remained clear and unbreakable.

  “Who’s the girl?” Eugene finally mused, slowly and calmly. If Gus hadn’t figured out the circumstances of the interrogation, he would have said that Eugene’s tone was casual – but Gus knew that he was the one in control. If he had information to impart, then he was being kept alive for that reason, and to be forthcoming would be foolish, no matter what they did to him.

  “What girl?”

  Eugene gave a bitter snigger, each jolt of laughter conveying sarcasm and irritation.

  “Who. Is. The. Girl,” Eugene repeated.

  “You’ll have to be a little more specific. I’ve known a lot of girls in my time.”

  “I’m going to ask you one more time, and I promise you, if you do not give me an answer, you will live to regret it.”

  “Will I?” Gus retorted, his lip curling into a smirk.

  “The girl you found, and you returned with. Says her name is Sadie, amongst little else. Covered in bite marks, yet she lives, not as one of the infected, but as one of us. Who is she?”

  “Sadie? Sadie…” Gus stuck his bottom lip out. “No, doesn’t ring any bells.”

  Eugene shook his head.

  “Okay then,” he muttered, “you want to play it that way.”

  Eugene beat his hand against the one-way mirror twice, and the scene on the other side of it instantly lit up.

  The room was full of men in white coats, with clipboards, in various discussions, surrounding something. As they parted to reveal what that something was, Gus’s mouth fell open and his world fell apart.

  Sadie. Stood horizontally off the ground, restrained to a board. Fasted by her waist, wrists, and ankles. Unclothed, wearing nothing but a dozen bite marks.

  She couldn’t move. She wriggled and fought against it, but it did nothing. She was trapped, but she didn’t seem to be able to understand any more about why she was there than an ant would understand why a child was trying to stomp on it.