As the Light Dies

by M. D. Woodham

  It all happened in a split second but Jeff was certain that the disfigured face tried to smile at him before it was engulfed again, hidden behind its hot mask. Jeff shuddered as the figure tried to lurch at him again. The burning figure shoved Jeff’s good arm out of the way and came in close. Jeff recoiled yelling out in fear.

  Behind him Shelly had recovered and she swung her extinguisher and brought it down over her head again and this time she hit the walking fireball dead centre on the back of the head, and without meaning to she sent it crashing right in to Jeff and they both fell to the ground.

  Jeff screamed out in pain and terror.

  “SHIT!” yelled Shelly, horrified at what she’d done.

  She started kicking blindly in to the flames trying to knock the freak off Jeff but her kicks were absorbed every time like she was kicking a heavy sand bag and she was getting burnt.

  “SHIT!” she yelled again stepping back, she didn’t know if she was hitting the rabid fireball or Jeff. She saw flashes of Jeff through the flames struggling to get free, he was screaming at the top of his lungs. She waited for the bulk of the flames to come her way and she raised her extinguisher again and swung it sideways as fast as she could like a golfer and she connected hard.

  She just hoped it wasn’t Jeff she’d hit.

  The momentum of her swing and the weight of the extinguisher pulled Shelly all the way around, and as she came back around she saw Jeff rolling across the floor trying to put himself out.

  Relieved for Jeff she fixed on the burning madman as he started pushing himself back up of the ground. Shelly ran at it and brought her extinguisher down as hard as she could right in the middle of its back between the shoulder blades. She felt something give through the vibration and heard a loud crack, it sickened her. The figure slammed back down on to the floor motionless, she stood back still holding her extinguisher tight, watching it, expecting it to move.... when it didn’t she looked up and she became aware of the carnage all around her.

  She’d been so focused on helping Jeff that everything else had taken a back seat. Blood curdling screams filled the air and the immense heat burned the air still left inside her suit. She looked down at herself and looked at her suit as it shrank around her body, her visor was tinged black in places making it hard for her to see. She looked back over at Jeff thinking that if she could get him to safety she’d be able to try and help the others. Shelly was completely horror struck when she saw him. Jeff was limping towards her, his right cheek was gone along with most of his chin, the wound was already cauterised from being gouged out by that burning mouth. His skin was blistered and burned and his hair was singed to nothing more than a shrivelled up hole on the side of his head and most of his scalp was now hairless and was already peeling. His suit was melted to him and patches of it had totally disintegrated looking like the rubbery material had fused with his skin. The wound on his forearm was terrible, Shelly thought that it almost looked like a small bomb had exploded under his skin and blown his arm apart.

  As he limped towards her she could barely look at him. She was crying, she knew she’d caused this. She forced the burning maniac on to him.

  “I’m so, so sorry Jeff,”she said as tears streamed down her face clouding her singed visor. Shelly couldn’t look him in the eye.What have I done? she thought, as he skipped a step. Shelly flinched towards him reaching out meaning to catch him if he fell avoiding looking at his face.

  He skipped again, and again.Shit, he’s gonna fall, she thought. She looked at his legs trying not to see his upper half avoiding any eye contact, she daren’t risk looking him in the eye. Jeff didn’t fall, he was gaining on her fast. Shelly took a step back and he moaned loudly grimacing with what face he had left and lunged towards her swinging his extinguisher up high.

  Oh my God, thought Shelly and she jumped out of the way amazed that Jeff would try and hurt her even after what she had done as Jeff brought the fire extinguisher down on to the crawling burning mess that was reaching out for her from behind.

  Shelly realised how stupid she’d just been, thinking that she’d brought down the burning thing with one blow when no one else had, and that she’d thought Jeff would ever hurt her.

  She joined Jeff and swung her fire extinguisher over and over bashing the now partially disabled figure as it crawled after both of them between their blows.

  How the hell can they keep on going,she thought, it’s not right, it’s not natural!

  They worked together swinging as hard as they could, over and over until Shelly was gasping for air. Despite the fire destroying its muscles and tendons and joints it still came, relentlessly pursuing them as its fire started to burn itself out. The loss of flames actually made things harder for Shelly because now she could see what she was hitting of aiming blindly at a ball of flames hoping for a good hit. What she saw was horrific. The fire hadn’t left much, but yet it still came for them. No matter how many times Shelly and Jeff hammered the charred figure, it kept trying to reach out for them as it crawled after them.

  “DIE YOU FUCKING BASTARD!”yelled Jeff as he brought his extinguisher down again putting all of his body in to the swing. Shelly glanced up and caught sight of his face. She cringed and snapped her head away feeling the burden of guilt trying to pull her down and as she looked away she saw that just across from them several of the still walking husks were rising up from their mutilated prey and they were looking at her and Jeff.

  The carnage she saw was horrendous. While she and Jeff had been fighting one figure the other rabid fireballs had been fighting as well, and winning! Mutilated bodies littered the hangar floor lying in puddles of blood left behind by the smouldering figures as they started to move towards her and Jeff. Right then Shelly suddenly realised that the figure they were fighting was making a croaking noise and so were the others. They were calling out to each other and with their burnt vocal cords and charred lungs all they could manage was a dry croak. Shelly shouted Jeff’s name and nodded towards their new followers when he looked at her. He shook his head stepping back from the figurestillcrawling after him.“Where is everyone?”he tried to say.“We need help!”

  The pair of them looked around the place backing up and couldn’t believe what they saw.

  Everyone that had been out on the hangar floor trying to fight, were lying on the ground dead or in one or two cases dying. The carnage was horrendous, bodies lay half eaten with severed limbs and horrific wounds. The head wounds on some were beyond belief with holes punctured through skulls. Jeff was sickened as he looked around, he saw one of the charred figures repeatedly thrusting its hand inside one of the fallen men’s shattered head retrieving fistfuls of pink mush and cramming it greedily in to its brittle mouth.

  “What the fuck is happening?”he said and Shelly vomited when she saw it.

  “Oh my God!” said Jeff,“Look!” He pointed up to the far end of the hangar where there was a line of low lying built in offices. Shelly looked and saw that the remaining scientists and workmen had sought refuge there trying to escape the same fate as their colleagues on the hangar floor. But the plan had backfired and the large windows made it easy to see the carnage inside. Men ran around like scared mice trapped in a box with no way out as they were attacked just like those out on the hangar floor but their attackers weren’t burnt and charred like those on the hangar floor. They were wearing the same bright orange bio suits as the rest, only they’d ripped off their hoods to expose their hungry mouths. They were much faster and better coordinated than the charred figures. The office was a blood bath! The windows were turning red as gouged arteries spewed out blood at a tremendous rate masking the scene to anyone outside. The screams were mercifully muted behind triple glazed aeronautical grade glass.“They’re not burnt!” said Shelly.“Why are they doing that? What’s happened?”

  Jeff tried to shake his head, his pain limited his movement.

  He and Shelly only looked for a few seconds but that was long enough. They’d both seen enough to kn
ow that they had no option but to make a run for it. Staying in the hangar meant death now.

  “Must be an infection or something,”said Jeff.“It must’ve spread!”

  He looked back at their advancing charred figures.“We’re screwed,”he said and he skipped forwards quickly and whacked the charred brittle remains on the floor as it reached for him, and this time when he hit it a piece of its hip broke off like brittle plastic.

  “Oh God!” cried Shelly as Jeff whacked it again breaking more of it away.

  “C’mon!” he said looking up at her.“They’re brittle, c’mon!”

  Shelly joined Jeff and started swinging her battered extinguisher again, hitting it repeatedly, as hard as they could and with every blow another piece of it fell away.

  Shelly was managing three blows to Jeff’s one despite her body constantly trying to vomit at what she saw, what she was doing. She glanced at Jeff quickly thinking he was about to go over as he stumbled, but he caught himself just in time. She saw how much he was struggling, he was in bad shape and she fully blamed herself.

  How on earth is he going to run for it?, she wondered as they swung at the still moving remains. More and more of it crumbled and fell away as chunks of ash. Jeff caught it side on and pushed it closer to Shelly and it managed to grab hold of the toe of her boot.

  “SHELL!” yelled Jeff and she pulled back fast breaking free of its grasp and she broke in to an all out frenzy, desperate to stop the thing in its tracks. She swung as fast as she could and she kicked and then she even stood over it for a few seconds and slammed the butt of the extinguisher down, powering down with all her weight and she reduced the thing to just its upper torso and one arm. She wanted it stopped.She needed it stopped!

  What she was seeing and what she was doing she just couldn’t believe but she carried on swinging and slamming knowing there were more charred monsters coming after her and Jeff, she could see them out of the corner of her eye gaining on them as they fought against their charred and brittle bodies relentlessly rushing onwards. She stepped back and went over her ankle and fell to the ground. She was completely and utterly exhausted, and in that instant, right there that second all that mattered was each individual breath, she guessed that she had time for two, maybe three breaths before she would have to get back up and fight for her life again with Jeff and each one of those breaths were going to feel like bliss....then she screamed out so loud she hurt her lungs.

  The one-armed torso grabbed on to her foot with its charred claw of a hand and started to pull itself towards her. Shelly lifted her head and looked down her body at the monster as it pulled itself in closer with a series of small jerks staring at her intently. All of a sudden Jeff stepped over it from behind and swung the extinguisher up over his head.Thank God, she thought.

  But he was slow, pain was getting the better of him. Shelly pressed herself down, against the cold concrete floor as the black flaky head rose up beside her and cracked open its mouth shedding charred wisps of burnt skin as its jaw tried to work splitting open brittle cheeks. It looked awkward and jerky in its movements. It looked mechanical almost, like an indestructible machine intent on murder. Shelly couldn’t move, she just stared at it amazed it was moving at all after everything else that had happened to it wishing that the floor would eat her up and then it burst in to a cloud of dusty ash and brittle chunks as Jeff’s extinguisher came down hard on the crown of its head only just missing Shelly’s as it swung passed.

  Shelly felt its grip on her snap free. She rolled away fast, blind with fear getting too close to their other pursuers. Jeff yelled at her to watch out and she jumped up in a flash and swung her extinguisher at the closest one and hit it hard on its shoulder. She broke a good sized chunk off and sent it tumbling to the ground, but it stayed focused on her, never taking its silky black eyes off her.

  It reached out with its other arm as it rose up on one knee as the others stepped around it moving in excited by how close she was.

  “Hit the head,”yelled Jeff,“this one’s finally gone down!”

  Shelly saw the remains all crunched up like a pile of charcoal. Black fluid oozed out of cracks in the blackness here and there. Shelly turned around just as Jeff was starting to say something again but she didn’t really hear what. As she turned she saw a charred hand in front of her face, it was reaching out for her. It nearly had her.Not that slow after all,she thought ducking and then jumping out of the way.

  She swung her extinguisher at the thing’s head hoping that Jeff was right. She brought her extinguisher down with both hands aiming for the centre of its head.

  She heard a sickening crack and felt it vibrate up her arms from the blow. The extinguisher had landed a little to the left caving it in like an eggshell, burnt and brittle flesh flew through the air, but it wasn’t enough it fell to the ground under the momentum from the blow but it still came at her, watching her with its one good eye trying to get back up.“SHIT, JEFF!”she screamed.

  “Again! Hit it again!”he called. He wasn’t coming to help her this time, he couldn’t.

  Shelly caught a glimpse of him, he was lying down propped up with his good elbow, he looked beyond exhausted now, he’d lost a lot of blood and he was turning very pale.

  Shelly felt guilt gnawing at her again, she’d seen plenty of ill people before through the job, and Jeff looked ten times worse than all of them combined with his open wounds added to the mix. She swung again full of hate and anger screaming out with frustration as she did. She landed a good hit, just off dead centre but it didn’t matter, she’d already weakened the skull and she demolished the head, the burnt up body fell and lay motionless.

  “YES,” she cried turning to face the next one. They tracked her across the open floor, the sheer number of them pushing her back. She was confused, she was sure that there were only five quarantined scientists in the med room and Jeff had just put one of them down, but there were many more now. She looked around frantic and saw that not all of them were as badly charred as others. They were all burnt but she could tell the original quarantined figures apart from the others easily, they were burnt beyond belief.

  One of the figures stumbled over to her right tripping on a power supply cable. She snapped her head around to look and saw the Professor. He was badly mauled, fingers were missing and one hand had nearly been completely devoured, his forearms were bleeding profusely along with his chewed up neck and his nose was missing. His suit was in tatters, torn to shreds in places, singed in others but he wasn’t really burnt.

  Then she remembered what Jeff said about an infection. She looked back over the hangar floor as the professor struggled to find his feet again. She felt her heart jump, then stop, then jump again when she saw previously thought dead orange suited men pushing themselves up off the ground. The Professor skipped and hopped catching her attention again. She looked and realised one of his feet was actually flopping around hanging on to his shin by a flap of skin. He was walking on the stump that remained at the bottom of his shin and every couple of steps the severed foot would swing and land beneath the stump, and as he put his weight on it, it buckled sending him in to another tumble. He looked up at her with those same cold black eyes the others had and smiled at her. He opened his mouth wide and let out the weirdest sound she’d ever heard. It was a deep bellowing gurgle, just like she’d heard on the news but the laptops tiny speakers hadn’t given the sound any strength. It sent chills racing down her spine and filled her with dread!

  The others all seemed to respond to it, they each tried to call back with their burnt vocal cords and the newly risen or rising sped up hearing the Professor before opening their mouths and bellowing the same primal war cry.

  Still backing up Shelly looked down the hangar at the blood drenched offices, the freshly infected were still occupied and as horrible as it was, she was glad they were.

  She swung her extinguisher with her tired arms and with every swing that she thought had enough force to do the job the first time ar
ound, didn’t. The skulls were still tough despite burning. She had to work at each one trying to weaken them and break them down with multiple blows before going for the kill shot while constantly backing up. She dropped another one by kicking out its ankle and then thrusting the extinguisher straight down on to the back of its head as it tried to get back up, the brittle skull cracked on the fifth blow finishing the job. As she withdrew from that one another got close enough to touch her shoulder. She lunged backwards and slammed up against the wall! She’d backed herself in to a corner without realising! She’d lost sight of Jeff!

  With nowhere else to go and panic setting in she shoved the closest one back using the base of the extinguisher holding it out at arm’s length trying to give herself a little more distance and time. It reached out quickly, far quicker than she’d anticipated and it grabbed hold if her sleeve. Shelly cried out twisting and turning her arm and only just pulled her arm free as her sleeve was torn off. She jabbed at another one, punching the extinguisher out in front but she was weak and it had little effect and she didn’t have the room to swing it either. She was being penned in.

  “JEFF!”she screamed. “JEFF HELP!”

  She couldn’t hear if he answered over the croaks and gurgles.

  He’ll hit them from behind, she thought,any second now.... any second now!

  Gnarly grimacing faces closed in as they cried their dry croak. Shelly held her extinguisher out in front of her, side on between both arms like a thick pole and pushed against their chests trying to hold them back. She pumped her arms thumping their chests with the extinguisher and kicked at their legs trying to break the brittle stalks but it wasn’t working, they were still strong, stronger than she was. Now she was so tired, and they pushed against her, eating up her room.

  Shelly took a deep breath, opened her mouth and screamed as hard and as loud as she could, it was a horrible gut wrenching ear piercing scream, and they closed in.