by Perrin Briar
Selena tucked her legs onto the seat and prayed they hadn’t been seen.
90.
They fell heavily on the fence, links digging into their backs.
The Lurchers pressed Stan, Jessie and Anne on two sides. They daren’t turn their backs to the Lurchers and climb or else risk leaving Jessie to the Lurchers. They were in an open stretch of field, the grass was tall having grown wild. The Lurchers waded toward them. The reek of festering bodies was overpowering as the Lurchers ambled closer.
“We have to keep fighting,” Stan said.
“We’ll never kill them all,” Anne said.
“Then it looks like this is our last stand.” A thousand similar situations in history flashed through Stan’s mind. Not one ended well for the defenders.
“Time,” Anne said. “We need more time.”
“Do you want to ask them to wait, or shall I?”
A determined set came across Anne’s eyes. “Take care of Jessie.”
Stan barely registered what Anne said before she ran head-first into the tall grass, into the Lurcher hoard. “Anne! No!”
Stan clung to Jessie, clenching his eyes shut, unable to watch them tear apart the woman who had become like a daughter to him. She had run into them to buy a few extra minutes to get Jessie over the fence, but the Lurchers were undeterred and continued their march forward. Stan turned to face them, bracing Jessie behind him. He wanted to scream and shout at the Lurchers, but his voice was hoarse, his throat dry.
Then he heard a familiar voice shout, and the sound of gun fire. “Come on! Follow me! Come on! What are you waiting for? Come get me!”
“Anne?” Stan said, disbelieving. Then louder, “Anne? What are you doing? How are you still alive?”
“I saw a gap and made it through. Now, shut up before you attract them!”
The Lurchers turned away from Stan and Jessie, and toward Anne’s barrage of noise. Stan seized the moment, grabbed Jessie and pushed her over the fence. She landed in a heap on the other side.
“Anne, wait!” Stan shouted. “Jessie’s safe! Let me distract them!”
But there was no reply.
A few Lurchers turned to face Stan, now attracted to him.
Stan hastily turned and climbed the fence. On the other side, he took hold of Jessie and led her toward the carousel. They were surrounded by the fence on every side. A few Lurchers waved their arms through the links. The fence rattled, but they couldn’t get through.
For now they were safe.
91.
The terminal was more complicated than an Apollo spacecraft. There were buttons, levers, dials, and screens with numbers on. Jordan had hoped for a big button, preferably green, with the word ‘ON’ written across it in big letters. He didn’t see it. “Uh, where’s the on button?”
Baxter shouldered past him. “Move out of the way. A trained chimp could turn it on.”
“That explains how you can work it, then.”
“Just watch my back, will ya?”
Thick electrical cables ran from the generators to the amusement park rides and stalls. A Lurcher in a blue baseball cap turned the corner. He saw Jordan and screamed. It limped toward him, half a dozen Lurchers in tow. Baxter twisted dials and pushed buttons. For all Jordan knew, it could have been random.
“Moment of truth,” Baxter said, hitting a black button. The generator shuddered, but didn’t tick over. Baxter smacked the machine. “Come on!”
“Try again!” Jordan said as he met the Lurchers.
92.
Another pack of Lurchers emerged, cutting Anne off. She skidded to a halt and turned right, running parallel to the snack food stands. She was in the heart of the fairground now and had taken so many twists and turns she couldn’t find her way back if she wanted to. She was boxed in on one side by a long coconut shy, the teddy bears staring at her with dead eyes from their prize shelves.
Yet another pack emerged, ambling straight for her. She stopped, heart pounding in her ears. She looked for somewhere else to run, but there were no other corridors or gaps for her to take advantage of. She turned to the dark entrance of a ride, mawing open like the frozen grimace of a corpse. She felt like she was being herded into a trap. She turned and fired, the flickering light of the muzzle of her gun giving her the strobe lighting she needed to peer into the enclosed darkness behind her. She spied stairs.
The gun clacked. Empty. Crap.
Anne turned and ran up the stairs, which wound around in a spiral up to the top of the odd, cone-shaped building. Within seconds she was exhausted. She had no idea what kind of ride it was supposed to be. A horror house for fat people?
The metal grating of the stairs shook with the combined weight of a dozen Lurchers hot on her heels. It was dark inside and she barely caught herself from falling. She daren’t look back. A puddle of light at the top of the stairs illuminated the building she had run up.
The stairs gave out onto a small platform with a railing around the sides. It looked over the fairground spread out below on the ground. She spied the sporadic flash of gunfire some way off. The sounds reached her a second later. The sun was lowering toward the horizon, its light giving way to twilight. It wasn’t that late already, was it? Having run up the spiral staircase, Anne’s sense of direction was screwed up. Wherever Jessie and Stan were, she hoped they were okay.
The footsteps behind her on the metal staircase rattled like expectant thunder.
There was nowhere else for her to go. This was her last stand. Should she fight? With luck, she might be able to throw one Lurcher off the building with her – one less for the world to worry about. Or she could just climb the railing and throw herself off the building. It was cleaner, with no chance of failure.
Anne took a deep breath and let the cool night breeze wrap around her. She began to climb.
93.
The monitors on the generators burst into life, ticking over in sequence.
Jordan kicked out, snapping the knee of the Lurcher wearing a baseball cap. Another Lurcher with a smashed pair of Ray Bans approached, chomping. Jordan spun, bringing his gun around to smack Ray Bans over the head. Jordan landed in a strong firing stance and opened up on a long silver-haired Lurcher. But before Jordan could turn, yet another Lurcher was on him.
Baxter slapped a palm on the black button. The generator shuddered and roared into life.
“Yes!” Baxter said.
“A little help?” Jordan said.
A Lurcher swung at Baxter. He leaned back, the Lurcher’s clawed hand hooking through the front of his shirt. The buttons pinged off. One caught the Lurcher between the eyes and was immediately followed by Baxter’s elbow.
Jordan dragged a knife across the Lurcher’s throat, spilling dark foul-smelling blood over Baxter’s shoes.
Baxter looked at Jordan and said, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
The lights flickered on, the rides and their jingly jangly music speeding up. The effect on the Lurchers was instantaneous. They turned, mesmerised at the eye-searingly bright bulbs.
“It’s working!” Jordan said.
“We’d better hurry. I don’t know how long the fuel will last.”
In the near-distance, they heard a loud roar, followed by an explosion.
“Marsh…” Baxter said. Then, to Jordan: “Get to your boat.” He smiled, more like a sneer. “I wish I could have said it’d been a pleasure.”
“Me too.” Jordan turned and ran toward the docks.
94.
Selena held her breath. By the sound of their mantra she could tell the Lurchers were close, but she had no idea just how close. The unfaltering creep of dragging limbs and gentle hollow tunk of Lurcher feet smacking into the coffin-like boxes filled Selena with dread.
Please pass, Selena prayed. Please keep going.
But their low groans grew louder as they drew closer. Nasser extended a yellow pill in a sweaty palm.
Selena took it. She had no idea what it did, but it
must be better than being eaten alive.
Selena and Nasser’s eyes locked. Nasser nodded, and they raised the pills to their lips.
The lights flickered with an audible plink-plink-plink, casting abhorrent shadows of lumbering figures. Selena sank further into their hiding place. The lights burst on, bathing Selena and Nasser in a harsh pale light.
Live eyes met dead eyes.
The Lurchers sneered and stumbled forward. Selena screamed. A dozen electric flowers erupted over their heads, and the bumper car Selena and Nasser lay in – she recognised it now the lights were on – hummed with power.
Selena slammed her foot on the accelerator pedal on Nasser’s side.
The car jerked forward, striking the first Lurcher with surprising force, knocking it forward. Its head shattered over the bonnet like an over-ripe watermelon.
The car zipped out of reach of grasping Lurchers and smacked into another bumper car.
Nasser shook his head. “Women drivers.”
Selena grabbed Nasser’s arm. Out of instinct she was going to say, “Let’s go,” but then she saw Nasser’s pale form. A skeleton in a uniform. “I can’t leave you here.”
“You must.” He slapped his hand against his mouth, swallowing the yellow pill. “Go.”
Selena turned and ran into the noisy night.
The Lurchers stumbled toward him. Nasser threw his hand up onto the steering wheel and turned it full lock. He held the combat knife in his other hand, putting all his weight onto it. He slammed his foot on the pedal. The car jumped forward like it’d been stung and went round in a wide circle. When the Lurchers stepped close, the blade severed their limbs and decapitated loose kneecaps from swollen joints.
After just two minutes the bumper car slid to a stop.
95.
The lights blinded her. Anne wobbled, momentarily losing balance. She fell forward and barely managed to grab the railing before plummeting.
Blazing coloured lights ran around the cone-shaped building. Now she recognized it for what it was – a Helter Skelter. She wouldn’t have to throw herself off the building after all – she could throw herself down the slide that curled around the outside instead.
She pulled herself back up onto the balcony.
Just then, the first Lurcher barrelled out from the doorway at full limping sprint and, blinded by the light, flipped over the railing and plummeted to the ground below.
A second Lurcher emerged in the doorway – unfortunately slower than the first. It found Anne and grinned toothlessly.
Anne grabbed a sack lying on the platform, tossed it on the slide, and then threw herself onto it. She felt the wake of the Lurcher’s swipe against her ear as she picked up speed and looked out at the fairground – seemingly made from light – and let the cheery absurd tunes and sound effects wash over her.
An explosion somewhere in the distance. Anne looked up, but couldn’t locate it. She feared it had come from Jordan’s direction. Her stomach twisted with concern.
The slide incline flattened. Anne came to a stop.
96.
The carousel spun around them. Stan followed it for a moment, becoming dizzy. Someone had managed to turn the power on. Unfortunately for Stan and Jessie the gate of their protected domain was electronic, and had popped open the moment the carousel began to turn.
The Lurchers spilled in, attracted by the loudest, brightest thing in the entire fairground: the carousel. Nebulous fairground music blared from loudspeakers.
“Come on, Jess,” Stan said. “We’ve got to get going.”
Stan led her across the spinning carousel. They lost their balance momentarily, then hopped off. They edged around the fence perimeter. They were anything but hidden, but they were at least a little less obvious than if they walked in the glow of the one thousand watt bulbs. Thankfully, the Lurchers had eyes only for the spheres of light.
The Lurchers approached the bulbs cautiously, staring in wide-eyed fascination. A Lurcher drifted too close and jolted back, the tip of its nose burnt. It blinked, waking from its stupor. It swiped a hand at the bulb, smashing it, and cut its hand open in the process. It screamed, and neighbouring Lurchers blinked awake like they had been sleeping. They snarled and screamed. A domino effect.
Stan and Jessie ran out of the open gate toward the docks. If they weren’t in such a hurry they might have noticed the grin of the only Lurcher that was never mesmerised by the lights.
97.
The Lurchers tore indiscriminately at the fairground. A cheap Terminator-inspired mural collapsed. Glass bulb shards crushed underfoot as Jordan ran over them. A single Lurcher ahead blocked the way to the dock.
Jordan daren’t fire his rifle for fear it might attract the marauding Lurchers. He slung his gun over his shoulder and picked up a giant hammer leaning against the strongman machine. He swung it round. The hammer’s plastic head bounced ineffectively off the Lurcher’s bonce with a comical squeak. The Lurcher almost seemed to smile, saliva dribbling down its chin.
Jordan stepped on the hammer’s head and wrenched it upward, tearing the soft plastic casing off, leaving only the hard nub at the end. He swung again. This time the hammer connected with the Lurcher’s skull with a deep thunk. The thick pus-like liquid seeped out around the hammer and down the Lurcher’s face. It fell to the deck. Jordan put his foot to the Lurcher’s shoulder and yanked the hammer free.
“Jordan!” Stan said, trailing Jessie behind him. “Boy am I glad to see you.”
A heavy weight perched in Jordan’s stomach. “Where’s Anne?”
Stan’s eyebrows drooped. “She’ll be here.”
Jordan looked to the fairground. The lights flashed in time to the music of each ride, but with no cohesion between them it became a cacophonous mess of disco music and jingling bells.
“We’d better get moving,” he said.
“Run!” a frantic voice said.
Selena and Anne tore toward them, bursting from behind a Test Your Strength machine.
Jordan’s heart leapt. “Anne!”
Anne panted heavily but did not slow. “Pleased to see… you all…” she said. “We’ve… brought a few… a few… friends.”
Half a dozen growling Lurchers staggered past the popcorn stand toward them. They were sheltered in a sphere of darkness, the light bulbs smashed to smithereens.
“That’s nice of you,” Stan said.
They ran.
98.
The hard slap of their footsteps on concrete hollowed as they crossed onto the sleepers of the dock.
To their right were the tangled remains of boats long since tossed and destroyed by the sea, clogging up the jetties. On their left was a long row of boat maintenance sheds that gave way to slipways, some of which had boats attached to them. Others had lost their grip and the boat had gone skidding down the slipway and got jammed half-way. Others, half-built and not yet fit for the sea, had been released and lay submerged at the foot of the slipway.
Their nameless catamaran sat bobbing at the very end of the quay. It was the most beautiful thing any of them had ever seen.
Jordan looked to the right. Sweat poured down Stan’s face, his strides becoming short. He would need to stop soon. Stopping meant dying. He would never make it. Jordan slowed and peeled away from the group.
“Keep going,” Jordan said, “I’ll catch up.”
The Lurchers’ rasping breath grew louder as they dragged their rotting corpses along the dock. Jordan took aim and fired at them. The front two hit the deck, heads smacking the unflinching floor. A further two tripped on the fallen. Jordan blasted the first two Lurchers’ brains over the deck. The gun clicked empty. He took out the hammer he still clutched in one hand.
Four Lurchers remained. As the two fallen Lurchers scrambled to their feet, the other two closed on him.
Jordan kneeled and brought the hammer round, swiping across a Lurcher’s legs, knocking him down. But before Jordan could smack it over the head, the second Lurcher was on him. Jordan
rose with the hammer, his balance off.
The Lurcher caught the hammer in both hands.
Jordan pushed hard on the hammer, but the Lurcher did not give.
The other Lurchers were up, heading straight for him.
Jordan pushed and pulled on the hammer, trying to keep the Lurcher between himself and the approaching danger. He became aware of a cracking, splintering sound. It wasn’t the pole, but the Lurcher’s rotten humerus buckling under the pressure.
The other Lurchers, teeth bared, descended on Jordan.
In a last desperate effort, Jordan pushed hard on the hammer with all his weight.
Snap!
The Lurcher’s left humerus fractured. The hammer smacked the Lurcher’s head. Skull fragments protruded from the Lurcher’s brain like a crown. The Lurcher hit the ground, unmoving.
The three remaining Lurchers attacked at once.
Jordan swung the hammer at head-height, eyes closed, knowing it might well be the last thing he ever did.
But the agonising pain of renting flesh did not come.
Jordan opened his eyes to find Anne beside him, the butt of her rifle buried deep in the skull of a Lurcher. His hammer had found its own mark.
Two Lurchers fell. Only one remained. If it had a shred of intelligence it would have turned tail and ran, but it didn’t. Jordan and Anne despatched it with ease.
Jordan looked at her. “I thought I told you to run?”
“You’re welcome.”
Up ahead, Stan and Jessie lay on their backs breathing in deep gulps of air.
“They’re exhausted,” Anne said.
“They have to keep going. They can rest on the boat.”
“Jordan, they’ll never reach the boat.”
Jordan looked at their cat. The water lapped softly against the twin hulls, which thumped hollowly against the dock. “It’s right there. It’s only eight hundred yards away.”