As the months had passed, though, Sarah had got to know him in increments. The hair colour was natural, along with the male pattern balding inherited from both his father’s and mother’s sides of the family. The pockmarks were the result of acne as a teenager, his broken nose the result of a car crash before the days of airbags, and the smattering of light skin was the result of scarring from the broken windshield. The gawping mouth was an indirect result of the accident. His broken nose never healed properly, leaving him unable to breathe through it. The more Sarah had got to know him the less intimidated she felt. The final nail in the coffin for her prejudice had been when she found out he worked for an animal rescue centre.
“You’re thinking things are so bad that it justifies going out there?” Ali’s eyebrows dipped so low it was impossible to see his eyes.
Sarah looked at Ray. “They will be in a month.”
“There are thousands of those pus bags between here and there. One bite, one scratch and that’s all it takes to turn you.” Ali looked round at the rest of the group’s expressions. “You plan on dodging those things long enough to get to a helicopter full of people who are mystery to you?”
Everyone was silent.
Ali continued, “As Elspeth said, they may not be friendly, they may want to shoot us, they may refuse to take us. What then?”
“We don’t have time to argue this,” Ryan said restlessly. “Who knows how long they’ll be there.”
“Is it truly worth the risk?” Ali asked. “Do you want to wait here and starve to death or take the chance?”
The congregation on the rooftop started looking at each other.
“I only say that because everyone has to be sure what choice there is,” Ali said.
People were looking into each other’s eyes, trying to measure what they thought. Slowly everybody started nodding.
Watching the unspoken agreement spread, Sarah decided to take charge. “Okay, leave everything. Only carry a weapon. It’s not far to the square but there’s a lot of them and we’ll have to run the whole way.”
She looked at Ryan’s toned figure. Unlike the rest of them, he had stuck to a regular workout regime. The lack of fat from the strict diet combined with his improvised weights gave him an athletic appearance. Even then Sarah knew there had been no space for a proper cardiovascular workout. None of them had regularly walked more than the length of the warehouse in years. A mad dash between a thousand infected corpses filled her with dread.
But then so did starving to death.
Adrenaline would have to see them through.
“Nathan, Ryan, get all the Molotov cocktails we have left. Let’s try to thin them out,” Sarah said, her voice carrying a weight of confidence that surprised even her.
She looked out over the street to the town square. It looked further away than it had just a few minutes ago.
* * *
Bates bobbed his head in time to the beat, holding his carbine like a guitar. His gloved left hand held the ribbed heat guard that sheathed the muzzle like it was the neck, whilst his right hand strummed on the collapsible stock. He stood in the midst of this dead town, singing along to a rock track like the last drunk at a student party. His dress didn’t match his actions, though; he was clad in a khaki uniform, most of which was obscured beneath protective armour. Overlapping his pristine black leather boots were matt black shin guards. Above them and made of the same dull man-made material were knee protectors. Strapped around his thighs was a holster and various pouches for holding ammunition, all made from the same black synthetic weave material. The tactical vest he wore was replete with ammo pouches and the various laced panels that ensured a tight fit gave the garment a certain fetish chic rather than a military look, sporting a high collar and shoulder protection which came well down past the bicep. The vest had obviously been developed to guard the wearer’s vulnerable areas against zombie attack. With the black helmet, elbow pads, gauntlets and his blond shadow of stubble, Bates looked more like a faint-hearted skateboarder than a soldier.
He whipped the stubby black machine gun over and started singing into it like a microphone.
He was used to places like this, familiar with them. In the years since the Rising he had visited a fair number of dead towns like this one. They were all the same lifeless husks. Broken down towns smashed by the panic of the outbreaks, then softened by years of weathering. The smashed shop windows. The abandoned rusting cars. The discarded edifice of life like a singular shoe, a broken pair of glasses or a child’s toy. Clumps of moss and grasses clinging impossibly to the stonework of buildings. Nature encroaching on concrete. All of this was commonplace in his life now. Even the skeletons lying bone naked all were mundane.
This was a town like a dozen others he’d visited, like the whole world was like now. Bates was familiar with it, and even though his childish antics said otherwise, he knew he’d never be comfortable with it.
His feet made an amateurish attempt to moonwalk across the cargo net spread over the tarmac beneath. The dance step hadn’t been spoiled by the impediment of his armour or the ground underfoot, it was purely Bates’ own ineptitude at dancing. He didn’t care. The only eyes watching him belonged to the dead and their palsied movement was far more awkward than his own.
Suddenly Bates let out a scream in sync with the track booming out from the battered and duct-tape refurbished stereo. With his weapon taking the place of a mic stand, he stumbled through the off-key lyrics in his impromptu karaoke.
The dead had not been the only ones to watch his juvenile display after all.
A husky east European accent poured over Bates’ earpiece, “Don’t know what make worst noise—you or the dead.”
Bates stopped his singing and looked up across the abandoned car park. Raising a hand to his forehead, he squinted at the rooftop of an abandoned office block. He scanned the rooftops for a glimpse of Angel, the barrel of her gun, a lock of her auburn hair, anything. But she had been trained in the old Soviet mould. Bates knew he wouldn’t see her unless she wanted to be seen.
“You come down here and say that, Angel!” Bates shouted in what he thought was her general direction.
“A hui ne myaso!” she taunted back over the radio.
“What you say there?” Bates looked up at the chopper hovering overhead. “What she say there?”
A new voice crackled across the airwaves: “Stay on station, Bates.”
Bates scolded, “Angel, speak English!”
“Burak!” Angel cursed.
“Oh, that’s it! I know what that one means! I’m coming up there to kick your ass!”
“Bates!” the voice from the chopper cracked. “Stay on station.”
Bates cradled the mouthpiece on his radio mic behind his thick leather gauntlets, shielding it from the gusting wind. “Roger that, boss.”
Without another word he pointed up at the office block where he suspected Angel was sniping from and mouthed his own obscenity back at her.
“Bait, this is Angel. One Whisky Delta, seven o’clock, one hundred yards out.”
“Don’t start me!” Bates scolded. “Don’t call me bait! You know it makes me jumpy.”
“Is your name,” Angel answered back, with a tinge of sarcasm in her velvety voice.
“It’s Batesssss—you leave out the S on purpose.”
“Bates, Angel, this is Lieutenant Cahzalid. You will observe proper radio discipline. Is that clear? No more horseshit!”
Sheepishly Bates replied, “Yes sir, confirm multiple Whisky Deltas one hundred yards out and closing.”
“This is Angel, multiple contacts all vectors.”
“What’s the count, Angel?” Lieutenant Cahzalid asked.
Before she could answer a shot rang out.
“Who fired?!” Cahz demanded, looking out the windows of the cramped helicopter.
“Me sir,” Bates replied.
Cahz looked down at Bates through the glass footwell of the helicopter. “What the hell wa
s that for? I didn’t see any W.D.’s in your immediate vicinity.”
“No, there weren’t,” Bates said. “Caught one that looked like John Prage a hundred yards out. I just had to pop one in his head.”
“Who the fuck is John Prage?” Cahz suddenly realised he’d regret asking that question. “No, forget it. We don’t have time. Angel, say again. What are the numbers?”
Bates didn’t hear or didn’t care that Cahz didn’t want to know. “He was this prick I used to work with. If anybody deserved to get bit it was him.”
“Shut the fuck up, Bates, or you’re on report,” Cahz snapped.
Bates had the sense not to cut in.
Cahz repeated his question: “Angel, what’s the count?”
“Too many, sir. Suggest we abort and find clearer ground,” Angel reported. “There’s also smoke. W.D. must have set off something flammable.”
Cahz looked over at Idris, the helicopter pilot. “Spin us around to get a look.”
“Sure,” Idris replied, and the chopper dipped slightly and made a gentle turn.
Looking out over the ruined city, Cahz could see a torrent of grey corpses snaking their way around the derelict cars and other debris to the lure below.
Cahz craned round to talk to the last member of his squad. Cannon almost filled all three seats in the back of the chopper, his muscular square body uncomfortably wedged into the middle seat with his huge heavy machine gun protruding across the other two. Before Cahz could speak, the bear of a man piped up, “There’s too many of them, Boss.”
“Something must be drawing them in,” Cahz said, thinking out loud.
“But what boss?” Cannon asked. “World’s been dead a long time.”
“I haven’t seen this many in one place since that op in Norfolk.” Cahz looked through the view port at his feet, at Bates standing on the cargo net below. “It’s academic anyway,” he said, more to himself than any of his crew.
He flipped the radio on his shoulder to transmit to the two on the ground, “Angel, Bates, we’re bugging out. Angel, is your position secure?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” Angel replied with her eastern European pronunciation.
Cahz addressed everyone over his microphone: “Let’s move before those W.D.’s and that fire give us cause for concern.” He looked out of the window at the rolling black clouds of smoke. “Okay then. Bates, you’re first up. Confirm your harness is secure and clean.”
Bates spoke into his radio, “Affirmative, Lieutenant. We’re good to go.”
All the time Cahz watched the pockets of smoke. As he watched, they grew, but they didn’t look like a normal fire. The smoke seemed to be concentrated into patches rather than carpeting an area as he would expect. He hadn’t seen anything on the way in, and now as he watched, a fifth distinct plume of smoke started to rise up above the buildings. He couldn’t see the actual fires behind the ruins and he had no time to investigate.
“Cahz!” Angel hollered over the radio, a tremor in her voice. “We’ve got live ones!”
Cahz, alert from Angel’s exclamation, looked around at the multitude of undead below. “Say again, Angel.”
“Multiple humans fighting their way towards Bates. Seven, maybe eight.” Angel’s voice dropped. “Ah jeez, they just lost one. Coming in on four o’clock.”
Cannon lent forward from the back of the chopper. “What do we do, boss?”
His question was serious. In all the years since the outbreak there had never been a straightforward answer. In the early days Cahz had witnessed dozens of people lost in vain on ill-conceived rescue attempts. More people had been lost than had been saved, for the most part.
But Cahz made his decision: “Angel, give them cover fire.”
“Be my pleasure, sir.”
Angel nuzzled her cheek up against the cherry coloured wooden stock of her sharpshooter’s rifle like she was cuddling up to her favourite childhood toy. One eye closed, the other firm up against the sight, she took her finger off the trigger guard and let out a slow exhale. The crack of a rifle shot splintered the moans of the dead city. Angel’s target collapsed to the ground, a large part of its head missing. Taking in a slow, measured breath, Angel scanned the mass of zombies for her next target and the process began anew.
Cahz cocked his rifle, placing a round in the chamber. “Bates, clear and hold the LZ. We’re coming down.”
“Whoooee! Lets rock!”
Bates flipped the safety catch off and set his carbine to semi automatic. Butt of the gun against his shoulder, head cocked to peer down the sight, Bates surveyed his surroundings. He slowly turned through three hundred and sixty degrees, assessing the number and proximity of the W.D’s. He drew an imaginary perimeter around his position, within which any corpse would be dispatched. The first corpse stepped over his imaginary line and as it did its head exploded. The decapitated body flopped to the ground, black ooze trickling from the stump of its neck.
Turning around again, Bates took stock and waited for his next target to cross the line.
* * *
Sarah punched out with the palm of her hand, knocking the cadaver off balance and sending it tumbling into the corpse behind.
She shuddered at the contact. To be so close to the walking dead was horrifying enough. A single scratch could be enough contamination to turn you. The revulsion of the physical contact and the fear of infection pushed Sarah to the verge of breaking down. There was something deeper, more primordial than a phobia that terrified her about becoming one of them.
The creature slumped to the ground, flailing as it went, knocking two others over on its way down. The gap was short lived as a new wave of zombies lunged for their prey.
Sarah knew if she cracked she would freeze up or run the wrong way or something as equally fatal. Her lungs heaved but she couldn’t suck in enough air to fuel her muscles. The stitch in her side competed with the burning in her thighs, the cramp in her calves and the numbness of her left arm as she held onto Jennifer.
Sarah had to fight both the macabre creatures swarming the street and the macabre thoughts in her own mind. If she didn’t, it wouldn’t be just her life that was lost.
Jennifer had her scrawny arms flung around Sarah’s neck, her head buried deep in her chest and her legs wrapped tight around her torso. Every time there was a jolt, like a boa constrictor gaining purchase on its prey, Jennifer would grip harder. The young girl’s breath was as deep and as rushed as Sarah’s. The trembling breaths billowed through her blouse, leaving a hot damp patch above her breast.
Sarah barged though the zombies, the pain of her unfit body drowned out by the fear of the animated corpses, these resurrected husks that had just one instinct. Driven only by their need to infect others, they crowded in on her, arms outstretched, mouths open, ready to bite. Her energy long ago spent, Sarah charged on, fuelled by an explosive mixture of adrenaline and terror.
Something snagged around Sarah’s ankle. She stumbled against the obstruction, carried forward by momentum and the extra weight of the child in her arms. Stumbling headlong, legs kicking in an attempt to maintain balance, she crashed face first into a zombie. Its brittle chest cracked from the impact and snapped further when Sarah landed on top of it.
In the fall to the ground the zombie had smashed its skull, fracturing it like an egg shell and causing enough damage to render it permanently inert.
Lying face down in the rotting cadaver’s chest, all Sarah could taste was putridity. The taste crawled down the length of her tongue and clogged up her nostrils with its stench. The nauseating mix of decaying flesh, excrement and the musty odour of damp rotting clothes made her retch. Sarah tried to spit out the rank musk but her fear-dried mouth spasmed shut. Choking and gasping, Sarah felt a hand snatch at the back of her blouse. It grabbed a handful of cloth and flesh and pulled hard at her.
“Get up!” Ryan shouted as he hoisted her to her feet.
Before she could thank him for the save, a zombie was at his neck. As it rolled
back its lips to bite, there came a tremendous cracking noise and its head flew apart, the explosion sending chunks of scalp spraying into the air.
Neither Sarah or Ryan paused.
Sarah bundled up the young girl she had been carrying and started running again, towards the sound of gunfire.
Ryan looked back at the rest of the survivors. They were getting too strung out. Behind him, Nathan was hauling Elspeth through the melee. The old woman struggled to keep up the pace of her younger companion. In her arms she carried a small bundle close to her bosom. Way behind them was a knot of zombies where Ryan had last seen Ali, Ray, and Grandpa George.
He hollered, “Ray! Ali!”
“Keep going!” Ali’s nasal voice cried out.
Ryan didn’t keep going. Instead he ran back the way he’d came.
A knot of ghouls pushed their way in front of Nathan and Elspeth. Nathan swung out the fire axe he’d been carrying and the blade imbedded itself into the skull of the first zombie. Nathan’s grip sheared as the creature collapsed. The cadaver crumpled to the ground with Nathan’s only weapon still wedged firmly in its head.
A second cadaver stretched out its bony fingers for Nathan, clawing and grasping at him. Instinctively he let go of Elspeth so he could fend off the creature with both hands. Elspeth screamed as two zombies grasped at her. For a heartbeat, she stared into the milky eyes of her attackers. Broken teeth bared from behind split, festering lips. Black putrid drool dripped from their rank maws as they lent in to consume their victim.
Domain of the Dead Page 2