by Baker, Adam
‘That’s him. Teplov. Get in there. Finish it.’
BIOHAZARD LEVEL FOUR – STRICTY NO ENTRY.
A door framed with UV sterilisation lamps and rimmed with hermetic seals. Sanjeev threw himself against the door until frame-bolts began to tear from cinder block.
***
Daniel stood at the kitchen window and watched the empty street. He looked down at the holdall near his feet. He glanced towards the living room and made sure he was unobserved. He crouched and unzipped the bag. He took out the carving knife and straightened up. He was about to slit the plastic ties which bound his wrists when he saw the first wave of infected townsfolk shuffling down the street. Rotted misshapen things.
‘Oh my God. They broke through southern barricade,’ he shouted. ‘They’re here, they’re outside.’
The tight-packed crowd advanced slowly down the street. A couple of infected stopped, turned and looked up as if they sensed Daniel’s presence. They stumbled through the abandoned gatehouse and headed down the path towards the apartment building.
***
The living room.
‘Hey,’ said Ben, feverishly thumbing through a travel wallet. He held up a scrap of paper and waved it at Elize. ‘There’s only one chit. Yo, listen to me. The chits. The tickets for the plane. There’s only one.’
Elize remained transfixed by the screen.
Sanjeev’s POV. He advanced on Teplov. Teplov backed against the wall, his sweating, panicked face glimpsed through the Lexan visor of his respirator.
‘Do it. Do it now.’
Sanjeev looked down and gripped his watch. Trembling fingers fumbled for the light button.
‘Now, Sanjeev.’
Gunshot. Muzzle flash and smoke. Ben put a bullet through the laptop screen.
‘Fuck are you doing?’ shouted Elize. She reached behind her back for the pistol jammed in her waistband. Ben stepped up and aimed his smoking 9mm at her face.
‘Don’t you dare,’ he said. ‘Don’t you fucking dare.’
Elize slowly raised her hands. Ben held up the paper.
‘Two of us. But only one ticket out.’
‘I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Is that right? You didn’t notice? When you signed for the gear, the paperwork? One ticket? Escaped your fucking attention?’
‘Two. There should be two. Look again.’
Daniel stood in the kitchen doorway transfixed by the tableaux before him. Elize on the sofa. The shattered laptop. Ben standing over her with a smoking Glock.
A dull thud against the apartment front door. A scratching sound like dragging nails. He edged to the front door and peered through the spyhole. A grotesquely disfigured face staring back at him. A woman. Jet black eyeballs. Skin stretched and broken by grotesque tumours.
‘What’s out there?’ demanded Ben, keeping his eyes on Elize.
‘The woman from 12B. She’s infected.’
The creature sniffed the spyhole like it could smell Daniel inches away. He glimpsed movement in shadow on the other side of the hall. A couple more infected stumbled up the stairs.
Daniel turned to face Ben and Elize.
‘Listen,’ he said, pitching his voice calm and low like he was trying to pacify fractious children. ‘I don’t understand what’s going on with you two. I don’t understand the politics. But there are infected on the other side of this door and more will be joining them any second. We have to get out of here right now, otherwise we’ll be trapped.’
Ben ignored Daniel. He kept his gaze fixed on Elize.
‘I was going to get whacked when the job was done, is that right? Expendable asset, is that the deal?’
‘There are two tickets. Double check the wallet.’
‘Bitch, please.’
Ben blinked back tears. He was overwhelmed by anger and shame. He’d seen plenty of burn-out cases discreetly retired from the game over the years. Never thought it would happen to him. He let himself get old.
He shot Elize in the kneecap. She screamed and rolled on the floor. He pulled the pistol from her waistband.
He crossed to the front door, pushed Daniel aside and checked the spyhole. Three infected clawed at the door. He weighed the odds. He rocked on his toes like he was limbering for action.
He put a gun to Daniel’s head like it as an after-thought, like he was taking care of a last piece of business.
‘Sorry kid.’
‘Why?’ said Daniel, facing the moment of his death. ‘You said you would let me live.’
Ben gave an apologetic shrug.
‘I got to vanish. New name, new life. Can’t leave loose ends.’
‘You know why they want you shipped?’ shouted Elize. ‘Because you’re a fuck-up. Head in a bottle. You got nothing coming. Just the same downward spiral.’
The distraction was enough for Daniel to draw the carving knife from his waistband with bound hands and stab Ben deep in his side. Ben gasped and fell against the wall. Daniel drove the knife into his belly four times in quick succession. Ben grunted with each impact. He dropped the pistols, slid down the wall and slumped dead.
‘Give me his belt,’ said Elize.
Daniel cut the zip tie binding his wrists. He unbuckled the dead man’s belt and tugged it free. He handed it to Elize. She wrapped it round her thigh as a tourniquet. Shrieking through clenched teeth as she pulled the leather strap tight.
‘Morphine. Bedroom.’
Daniel retrieved a clutch of hypodermics. He gave her a needle. She bit the cap from a hypo and shot the dose into a bicep.
‘More.’
She shot three more needles. Her pupils shrank to pin-pricks as the opiate hit. She picked the headset off the floor.
‘Sanjeev? Sanjeev?’
‘Did he detonate the bomb?’ asked Daniel.
‘Guess I’ll never know.’
She tossed the headset.
‘How many of them out there?’ she asked.
‘Three. Plenty more in a minute or two. They smell blood.’
‘Have to shoot our way out. Get me up.’
Daniel helped Elize to her feet. She swayed like a drunk. He handed her a pistol.
‘Madness,’ said Daniel. ‘Americans. Playing spy games as the world falls apart.’
‘Some folks are going to ride this shit out. The chosen few. They’ll hide in bunkers, or take to the sea. They’ll survive and inherit the world. I’m a patriot. I want it to be us.’
They edged towards the door. Elize hopped, dripping blood.
‘Got your inhaler?’ she asked.
‘Belongs to my ex. I don’t have asthma.’
‘Sly motherfucker.’
A heavy slam against the front door.
‘Damn,’ muttered Elize. ‘They really want a taste of me.’ She chambered her pistol. ‘Alright. Banzia, motherfuckers.’
Daniel checked the spyhole.
‘God in heaven. There are more of them. Five. And more headed up the stairs. We can’t go out there.’
‘We don’t have a choice.’
‘Hold on,’ said Daniel. He helped Elize prop herself on the arm of the sofa. ‘I have an idea.’
He swept the table clear. He grabbed his cricket bat, stood on the table and began to pound the ceiling. He brought down a cascade of plaster, turned himself ghost-white with dust.
A shallow roof void. Beams and ply wood. He pounded plywood until it splintered and buckled. He tossed the bat and clawed with his hands. He ripped a hole, tore chunks of wood and scraps of tar-sheet. Sunlight shafted through the aperture.
‘The apartments in this street are built side-by-side. We can move rooftop-to-rooftop.’
He hauled himself up and out. He leant back through the hole and held out a hand.
‘Come on.’
Elize limped to the centre of the room and grasped his hand. He strained to lift her. No good. She released her grip. She shook her head.
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
She limped across t
he room to Ben’s body and tugged a scrap of paper from the breast pocket of his shirt. She stuffed the paper into Daniel’s outstretched hand.
‘C-17 transport. Leaves Aden International in an hour. It’s the last ride out of here. This chit will get you through the cordon and on the plane.’
‘I can’t leave you.’
‘That’s exactly what you’re going to do. You got that pistol?’
‘Yes.’
‘You got an hour to reach the airport. Get going.’
A moment’s hesitation, then Daniel was gone.
Elize slid down the wall and sat next to Ben. Hypos lay scattered on the floor. She gave herself another shot in the arm. Fists pounded the door. The locks wouldn’t hold much longer. She checked the Glock was chambered. She looked round the shitty apartment. Motes of dust danced in sunlight shafting through the hole in the roof. An amplified voice from outside. Allāhu akbar. Final call to prayer for thousands of faithful barricaded in the mosque.
She rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes against the world.
‘Fuck it. Let the roaches have their turn.’
She listened as the muezzin called on an absent god. His voice rose over the ruined city and was lost in empty sky.
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Baker was born in the west of England in 1969. He is the son of a priest. He studied Theology and Philosophy in London. He has worked as a gravedigger, a mortuary attendant, a short order cook in a New York diner, and fixed slot machines in an Atlantic City casino. He is currently employed as a cinema projectionist.
He was also a close neighbour of the notorious British serial killer Fred West.
ALSO BY ADAM BAKER
OUTPOST
JUGGERNAUT
TERMINUS
IMPACT
ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE
My first novel, STRAIGHT TO YOU, was released in 1996 and promptly disappeared from view. 500 copies were printed, and I still have a couple of boxes from the original print run in my garage! The experience taught me several valuable lessons about writing, most notably that both the hardest and most important task for a new author is to find people to read their work. In those dim and distant pre-Internet, pre-ebook days, that was no easy task.
When it came to releasing my second novel, AUTUMN, in 2001, I was already making my first tentative steps online. It struck me that the easiest way to get people to read my book was to give it to them for free, so that was what I did. And with no real plan or design, my first zombie novel generated around half a million downloads, a series of sequels, a radio adaptation and even a (not so great) movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carradine.
Self-publishing was frowned upon in 2001 (and still is today in some quarters), so I decided to take a different approach. I talked about ‘independent publishing’ instead, and I set up INFECTED BOOKS, my own publishing company. I hit the market at just the right time and managed, through luck more than judgement, to capitalize both on the sudden growth of ebooks, and also on the massive popularity of zombies.
In the fifteen years since AUTUMN was published, zombies have become a global phenomenon. In the same decade and a half, the publishing industry has changed beyond all recognition. Back in the day, myself, Brian Keene and David Wellington were just about the only folks putting out zombie fiction. Now that’s changed and there are many brilliant zombie authors delivering the goods. I thought the fifteen year anniversary would be a great opportunity to celebrate both the enduring appeal of the living dead and the massive success of zombie authors worldwide.
2016 is Infected Books’ YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE, and over the course of the year you’re going to be treated to brand new zombie novellas by some of the very best in the business. Check www.infectedbooks.co.uk at the beginning of each month for each new release.
David Moody
January 2016
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM INFECTED BOOKS
YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE
KILLCHAIN by Adam Baker
THE PLAGUE WINTER by Rich Hawkins
STRANGERS
LAST OF THE LIVING
ISOLATION
THE COST OF LIVING
STRAIGHT TO YOU
AUTUMN: THE HUMAN CONDITION
TRUST
by David Moody
GIRL IN THE BASEMENT
by Wayne Simmons
VOODOO CHILD
by Wayne Simmons and Andre Duza
FIND OUT MORE AT WWW.INFECTEDBOOKS.CO.UK
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