When he found a gap in the shutter that he’d missed before, he closed one eye and peered through it. Staring back was an open six-inch gash down the side of one of the diseased’s faces that glistened with infection. The shock from the image kicked him square in the face and he stumbled backwards. When he looked behind, he saw he’d stopped just short of crashing into the bike rack in the centre of the shop. His heart pounded as he released a long stream of air from his puffed cheeks. With his hand on his heart, he stared at the shutters and took deep breaths.
The whoosh of the first firework cut through his panic. With a hand still on his chest, Rhys’ heart galloped against his palm. Several more fireworks shot through the air; some of them released a piercing scream, some of them whooshed like the first. Five in total. Four more to go.
A gulp did nothing to banish the dryness from Rhys’ throat—not long before he’d have to take action.
He stepped forward and pressed his ear against the cold shutter. After a series of loud bangs from three of the fireworks that exploded, the breaths of the diseased got heavier.
The last two fireworks exploded and echoed through the city. Enraged screams responded. At first, it came from the diseased far away, but it soon spread through the crowd until the ones directly outside the shop yelled and shrieked with the rest of them.
Rhys closed one eye and peered through the gap again. The diseased with the dark-red, festering wound hadn’t moved. Like with the woman earlier, the deep cut had a yellow tinge of pus to it. The thing then shifted to the side and Rhys saw beyond it. Many of the other diseased ran after the fireworks. Thank god, their plan had started to work. At this rate, the space outside the shop would clear quickly.
Another firework shot from the roof and through the gap between the two towers opposite followed by another bang that stirred up more screams. The mass movement disturbed the smell of the diseased and it damn near gassed Rhys. As he waited for the crowd to clear, saliva rained down his throat and he fought against the desire to vomit.
One more firework and he’d lift the shutter.
Although only a few metres away, Rhys wheeled his bike even closer to the shop’s exit. He left Oscar’s where it was.
A quick glance at the cog stairs and Rhys turned back to the front of the shop. Maybe this should be the end of the road. Sure, Oscar could fight, but that made him even more of a threat to Rhys. At some point, he could turn it on him. The guy seemed pretty fucking volatile, and if it kicked off, he’d beat the shit out of Rhys in a heartbeat. Then there was the cut on his thigh… why had Oscar felt he needed to hide it?
Another peek through the gap in the shutter and Rhys saw the diseased with the wound in its cheek had completely gotten out of the way. Just a few stragglers at the back followed the others down a tight alleyway to the next street over. It had worked! It had fucking worked.
Rhys couldn’t stop the shake in his hand when he removed the card from his top pocket. He held it near the card reader and listened to the seventh firework whoosh through the air. A swipe through the reader, and the light turned from red to green. The mechanism in the door whirred to life and clicked as it lifted the shutter from the ground.
The concrete hurt Rhys’ knees when he dropped down onto it. Like the shutters, it had the sting of cold when Rhys pressed his face against it and peered beneath.
As one, what remained of the mob watched the seventh firework fizz through the sky. Like children, they seemed mesmerised by it and doubled their clumsy, shuffled effort to get to where it landed.
Pressed so low down made it impossible to ignore the brown sludge left behind by the crowd. Wherever they went, they excreted a rancid slug trail of gunk. Their wounds seeped constantly, and what they left behind stank worse than anything Rhys had ever smelled. It stank like curdled milk mixed with sewage—it turned his stomach upside down.
When the shutter had lifted high enough, Rhys wheeled his bike out. The gentle tick as the wheels turned filled the near silence left by the abandonment of the diseased.
One final glance back into the shop, and Rhys looked at the cog stairs again. He spoke beneath his breath as he swiped his card through the reader on the outside and the shutter closed. “Sorry, Oscar, but I just don’t fucking trust you. You’re a liability, mate.”
Chapter Twelve
Rhys’ legs still burned as his muscles strained to match his desire to get away. Despite the reluctance that gripped his exhausted limbs, riding a bike sure beat running. Careful to avoid the large—and what looked like slippery—patches of blood, he weaved and swerved through the streets on his mountain bike. Oscar had pulled away from him, as usual, but Rhys kept a steady pace and remained focused on his deep breaths.
Rhys had gone back for Oscar. He’d gotten no more than about fifty metres from the shop before he turned back around. He couldn’t leave him there to perish. If the wound on his leg had been a bite, the man would have turned already. Besides, the lunatic would have found a way out and would have hunted Rhys down like a hound on a scent. No doubt, Oscar would have seen Rhys when he came downstairs before the shutter had fully closed. He didn’t need that kind of fury on his tail, not on top of everything else in the crazy city. Besides, injured or not, Oscar could fight like nobody Rhys had ever met before. Rhys needed that brutality by his side if he were to get to The Alpha Tower.
Now they could move faster, the pair travelled with less caution and shot out of the next alleyway. Two diseased milled about in the street, and before they’d even considered giving chase, Rhys and Oscar had a fifty-metre lead on them. Although the creatures yelled and their clumsy gait hammered a rapid—yet irregular—beat against the ground, the sound of them grew more distant by the second.
Oscar ducked into another alleyway and Rhys followed. The click of the bikes’ turning cogs echoed in the tight space.
The sound of the diseased had gone by the time they’d exited the next alley.
After a glance behind, Oscar slowed down and Rhys pulled up next to him. He still panted like an old asthmatic without an inhaler, but at least the ease of riding a bike allowed him to move while he rested.
“I really thought you were going to leave me when I saw you ride out of the shop,” Oscar said.
Using the chance to look at their surroundings—and anywhere but at Oscar—Rhys cleared his throat and took several deep breaths. “I told you, there were some stragglers. If I had left the shutter open, you would have come downstairs to a shop full of the fuckers. I needed to lead them away.”
As Rhys looked around, his face flushed hot. Oscar stared at him, and although Rhys saw him do it in his peripheral vision, he kept his eyes on the road ahead. He’d never been a good liar, especially not when under the scrutiny of Oscar’s cold glare.
The silence had lasted for a short while before Oscar said, “It didn’t look like that.”
“Well, it clearly was like that,” Rhys said. His pulse quickened when he added, “Otherwise you’d still be on the roof waiting for someone to rescue you.”
“Or I’d have jumped off and hunted you down.”
A look across at Oscar’s bloody thigh, and Rhys changed the subject. “What happened?”
“Huh?”
“To your thigh? You’re bleeding. What happened to it?”
Oscar didn’t reply for a moment. He then said, “I ran into some exposed metal.”
“So you haven’t been—”
“Bitten?” Oscar said. “No. If I’d have been bitten, don’t you think I would have turned by now? The wound’s bad and it makes it hard for me to move freely, but it isn’t a bite.”
“So you need me around to help you fight the diseased?”
“Need? Don’t get too fucking cocky. I think I do more for you than you do for me.”
Despite the abrasive response, Rhys saw the truth of it. Oscar felt vulnerable with his leg and needed someone to watch his back.
“Besides,” Oscar said, “I may be injured, but I can still outrun
you.”
When Building Seventy-two came into view, Rhys pointed at it. “There it is; that’s the building Larissa’s in.”
Before Oscar had a chance to respond, Rhys sped up and Oscar followed.
***
When they arrived at the tower, Rhys got off his bike and propped it up against one of the brushed steel shutters. The entranceway looked exactly the same as the one Oscar had been trapped in when they first met. Of course it did, every building looked the same except for The Alpha Tower.
The black tiled floor and slight alcove led up to the front door of the building. Everything else had been wrapped in the protective embrace provided by the shutters.
Despite how much everything had changed, the familiar buzz of anxiety ran through Rhys’ gut; a Pavlovian response to a life he’d always hated. Even when hell had risen up onto the streets, the thought of the slow death in his tiny cubicle filled him with dread.
A glance around revealed nothing—no diseased, no anything. They’d been there though; the streets evidenced it clearly: bloodstains, lumps of flesh… even a small arm lay on the floor, but no diseased.
Although he got off his bike too, Oscar remained out in front of the building, his axe raised as he kept watch.
A deep boom rang out when Rhys knocked on the shutters. The hard barrier stung his knuckles.
“Do you wanna make any more fucking noise?” Oscar hissed at him, the enclosed space making his voice echo.
Before Rhys could answer, the enraged scream of the diseased called out. Oscar’s eyes widened and he spun around. With his axe raised and ready to strike, he looked up and down the road.
Rhys also lifted his weapon and waited. It sounded like just a couple of diseased, but he needed to be ready should Oscar want backup.
Suddenly two diseased appeared and Rhys jumped backwards. In a flash, Oscar had buried the head of his axe into the skull of one of them, and before it hit the ground, he’d removed it and taken the next one down.
He panted as he loomed over the two bodies and held his right leg in a way that showed his discomfort. Then he turned to Rhys and scowled. “Now fucking hurry up and keep the fucking noise down, yeah?”
The first knock on the shutter had done nothing, so Rhys stepped closer. He found a gap between two of the steel plates and pressed his face into it. He jumped back instantly. Unlike the food pod, several faces stared back at him rather than a solitary eyeball. Their mouths moved, but the thick glass barrier between them made it impossible to hear what they said.
Rhys looked at the thick end of his baseball bat and the gap between the shutters. It looked just about wide enough. The screech of metal against metal set Rhys’ teeth on edge, but he persevered and pushed the bat farther into the gap. The tight pinch scratched both the writing and the dried blood from the end of the bat.
The bat made contact with the glass with a slight ting. Rhys had enough space to tilt the bat at an angle. Like moving an oar, he used the leverage he’d created to push the head of the bat against the large window.
A glance at Oscar showed the big man continued to watch the street. Good job, really. If he saw what Rhys was about to do, he’d go nuts.
With extra pressure, the window on the other side creaked and moaned and Rhys held his breath. He then bit down on his bottom lip and pulled a little harder just as Oscar said, “What the fuck are you…” the glass on the other side popped and whooshed as most of it fell to the floor.
For a moment, Rhys froze and looked at the enraged Oscar. Then the voices of those inside the tower rang out.
“Help us.”
“Please get us out of here.”
“Please.”
Rhys’ heart beat on the edge of a panic attack. He jumped forward and hissed through the gap, “Be quiet. Keep the fucking noise down.”
No one listened. If anything, their cries for help grew louder.
“If you don’t keep the volume down, I’m going to leave you here to rot. I’m trying to help you, but you’re not making it easy. There’s a lot of shit going on out here and the noisier you are, the less chance we all have of surviving this.”
Rhys heard three wet crunches and turned around to see three more diseased sporting brain-killing head wounds. Oscar kept his large back to Rhys and focused on the street beyond the tower. He used the t-shirt from one of the diseased to wipe the blood from his axe. Good job Rhys didn’t leave him at the shop. Liar or not, he needed him.
A woman’s voice came at Rhys through the gap, “What’s going on?”
It sounded like Janice, the receptionist. She’d always been the mother hen, the one to get involved in everyone else’s business. “Janice, it’s Rhys. Can you please get Larissa and I’ll explain everything.”
“What’s going on, Rhys?”
“Just get Larissa, yeah? I don’t have time to repeat myself.”
“You don’t have time?! We’ve been trapped in here for hours, you owe us an explanation.”
Rhys bounced on the balls of his feet and tapped his baseball bat to keep his impatience at bay. He looked at Oscar who shook his head. A deep breath and he said, “Janice, please get Larissa.”
“Don’t you talk to me like that; I’m not going anywhere until—”
“Look, you stupid bitch, if you take much more fucking time, I won’t be able to get you out of this building at all because I’ll be dead. Now get Larissa before my fucking time runs out, yeah?”
A heavy sigh and the click of Janice’s high heels marched away from the door.
***
It couldn’t have taken any more than a minute, but for Rhys it felt like an age. Left in the open, vulnerable to an onslaught, he paced and twitched until he finally heard Larissa’s voice.
“I’m here, Rhys.”
Another scream came from behind them. Although Rhys couldn’t see where they were, he checked Oscar, who continued to keep lookout. On high alert, he had his axe raised and scanned the area. He obviously hadn’t seen anything yet either.
“Larissa, are you okay?”
Although she offered a meek reply, she still said, “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s getting pretty crazy in here though. The water’s out and it’s hot. It’s ratcheting up the tension and people are turning on one another. What’s going on out there?”
“It ain’t pretty. There are zombies out here.”
“What?”
“I know… it sounds crazy, but there are real-life, honest-to-god zombies out here. But they’re worse than the movie zombies.”
“Worse?”
“It’s fucking mental. Look, I’ve found a way to get the shutter raised on the buildings, but I needed to come and tell you first. When these shutters lift, you need to run for all you’re worth and get the fuck away from this city as quickly as possible. I have Flynn.”
“He’s out there with you?”
“No, I’ve left him with someone.”
“You’ve what?”
A glance at the Superman watch, and Rhys said, “In just over three hours, this city is going to go up in a ball of flames. It’s been set to incinerate everything; I’m guessing to kill off the virus that made the zombies. I couldn’t bring Flynn back into the city with me because I need to get in and out before the place burns. He’d only slow me down. I’m here because he wants his mummy. I couldn’t walk away and let this city burn with you in it. A boy needs his mum. The main thing is, he’s in safe hands, trust me.”
Larissa didn’t reply, and when Rhys looked over, he caught Oscar as he glared at him.
Rhys shook his head and returned his attention to the gap between the shutters. “When these barriers lift, I need you to head for Central Station. I’m going to get Dave to meet me there too. From there, we’ll get out of the city together, okay?”
Her voice wavered. “Okay.”
“If anything happens and you can’t get to Central Station, meet me at the drawbridge at eight forty-five. This place will go up at nine.”
Another screa
m—closer this time—and Oscar called over his shoulder, “We need to leave now, Rhys.” Oscar lifted his bike from the ground and straddled it. “Come on.”
“Who’s that?” Larissa asked.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What if I can’t get to the drawbridge?”
Rhys backed away from the shutter. “You have to. If you don’t, you’re dead.”
Her words trembled when she said, “Please don’t let me die. I love you. I’ve always loved you and I want you back. We can be a happy family again.”
When Clive said, “Hey, what about us?” Rhys shook his head; the poor guy must have been there the entire time. At least he now understood what a ruthless bitch she was. Thank god Rhys didn’t have to deal with that any more.
Rhys jumped onto his bike, but before he could ride out of the entranceway, a line of diseased tore across in front of him and stopped. They barred his way like a police blockade.
As one, they stood and stared at him through bloody eyes. They breathed heavily and swayed on the spot. They looked like they could fall over at any moment, like the only thing that kept them on their feet was the desire to destroy whatever stood in front of them.
Unable to prevent the shake in his limbs, Rhys watched them snap their teeth as their mouths twisted into grotesque snarls and blood ran down their chins.
When Rhys looked past them, he couldn’t see Oscar. A dry gulp and his breath ran away with him. “Shit.”
Chapter Thirteen
Time seemed to pause as the line of diseased stared at Rhys. Their usual impatience to get at their prey had momentarily abandoned them. It was as if they knew they had the upper hand, and although their expression remained the same—hateful, dark, and hungry—something about the way they stood there suggested they savoured the moment. Like they knew he’d escaped them too many times already. He’d run out of lives.
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