As the Light Dies

by M. D. Woodham

  Steve felt an almighty crack through the vibration that travelled up his arms and the guy fell to the ground in a heap. Steve opened his eyes and looked down with mixed emotions, he couldn’t believe he’d just tried his best to actually kill someone and it looked like he’d succeeded!

  Oh God! What have I done’ he thought,I’m a murderer!

  “Steve!” Katie screeched.

  He looked up to see Katie pointing down at his feet. He looked and saw that the crawling figure was still mobile and was reaching out for his ankle.

  “WHAT!” he said not believing what he was seeing, not only was it just a torso, but Katie had just hit it with a blow that should have put it out of its misery.

  Skipping back he glanced at Katie as she started hammering madly at her sprinter’s head that despite the head wound from her was still trying to get up. He was reaching for her, and each time he did Katie brought the extinguisher down on his head as hard as she could forcing him back down again only for him to try and get up again.“HOW THE FUCK IS THIS POSSIBLE?”he yelled as something touched his shin and he jumped back, looking down. The crawler was grabbing at him with gnarly fingers crawling after him. The bunk door Katie had slammed erupted in to a crazy frenzy of bangs and crashes!

  “Keep quiet!”Katie hissed battling with her infected attacker. He glanced passed her down the corridor as he skipped back again checking the other infected figures. They were slower and were just turning away from the door now losing interest with it, realising it wasn’t gonna budge. The rancid torso looked up at Steve with bulging lidless black eyes and moaned grabbing his attention. It sounded like air oozing from a dead body. Steve swung his extinguisher up over his head like a pickaxe and brought it down on the back of the crawler’s head!

  Black goo spat out in all directions as the thing’s face met the hard floor. Something moved catching Steve’s eye making him look up but he was too slow and he was slapped across his chest by the sprinter he thought he’d just killed. Steve kicked out catching the sprinter in the groin and managed to unbalance him, but that was all. He was quick and regained his balance fast and came at Steve again. Steve ducked just in time as the sprinter’s head and shoulders crashed in to the wall above him where his own head had just been. It looked down at him as it leaned against the wall dribbling black goo on to his head and face from its open mouth.

  Steve thrust his extinguisher straight up under its chin and rolled away as the infected guy struggled to regain his balance from the blow. Steve shot a glance over to Katie and saw that she was still having problems with her guy, she still smashed the extinguisher over its head over and over and yet it still pursued her.

  How the hell,he thought,this just can’t be happening! His attention was brought back to his attacker; the mottled discoloured man came at him with its jaw snapping wildly, opening and closing unevenly. Steve recoiled, shuffling backwards along the floor staring at the man, he could see a break in his scull through a slice across his forehead that wept black fluid. The rest of its face was a mess from the collisions with Steve’s extinguisher. He felt sick knowing that he’d done so much damage, even though the infected guy seemed oblivious to the wounds. The wounded man reached out towards Steve making that horrible sound like he was trying to breathe through mud. Steve kicked, forcing himself backwards and accidentally dropped his extinguisher. Before he could grab it, it rolled out of reach. He looked everywhere for something else to use in defence but there wasn’t anything. Panic started welling up in him trying to take over as the crazed figure closed in.

  The figure curled up what lips it had left and ran straight at him screaming its gurgle war cry.

  Steve backed up blindly and banged his head off something! He banged his head hard enough to see stars!

  He stopped for a fraction of a second as the mutilated guy closed in and he heard what he’d banged his head on rolling away. He reached around grabbing blindly for it, for anything. He fell flat on his back as he reached out for his life! His hands clasped around something. He grabbed a hold of it and snatched it in close and clutched it to his chest knowing what it was before he saw it, he’d knocked an extinguisher off the wall with his head. The rabid sprinter lunged through the air at him and he forced it up, like he was doing a bench press then flinched back with anticipation and cracked the back of his head against the floor as the infected guy fell on top of him.

  Katie was tiring, her arms and shoulders burned with lactic acid as she repeatedly swung the heavy extinguisher trying her best to fend off her infected attacker. But her weakening blows were having less and less effect, every time she hauled the extinguisher up over her head to take another shot he recovered. He got a little closer. He was gaining ground, pushing her back as she took longer and longer to lift and then swing her extinguisher to fend him off. She weakened to the point that the extinguisher only fell under its own weight, she couldn’t swing it anymore, she couldn’t put any force behind it, and she used the time it took the extinguisher to drop from above her head to rest her exhausted arms and shoulders. She backed up like this until eventually she backed against the wall and the fear started to take hold. She was trapped without much, if any, strength left.

  She saw that her colleague was in trouble and knew there wasn’t anything she could do for him. Her mind told her she needed to go and help him but she just couldn’t shake her attacker off. She knew how desperate the situation was! Part of her wished that they’d listened to Ken, she wished they’d pulled that lever and let the lifeboat fall from the overrun rig. She wished they hadn’t heard anyone else in need of help, she wished there wasn’t anyone in need of help. But wishing never worked.

  She swung again and missed for the first time. Her attacker looked at her lustful for her flesh. She could see in its wounded mottled face that it knew she was weakening, knew it had her, knew it had worn her down.

  She swung again and caught its shoulder, but without any force behind the blow, it had no effect. He stood up tall and stepped towards her grinning at her with its broken face. Katie heaved her extinguisher up to her side but that was it, she couldn’t raise it any further. Her back pressed against the wall.I’m done,she thought,I’m done!

  The thought of what it was going to feel like having another person, another human being eat her flashed through her mind. Another human being breaking her skin with their teeth, then tearing through her flesh, pulling her inside out. She started to shake uncontrollably. She saw an image in her mind of the infected man thrusting its dirty hands in through the back of her cracked skull clasping feverously at her brain while she lay paralysed clinging to what life she had left in her before she drifted off in to the either, and then she screamed!

  She screamed with all her being and raised her extinguisher up to chest height and threw herself at her attacker using her legs to push away from the wall. She rammed the extinguisher into her attacker’s neck and forced him backwards. He stumbled back a few steps trying to fight her, trying to grab a hold of her and then he fell backwards tripping over some loose debris and Katie fell on top of him still forcing the extinguisher in to his neck screaming like a banshee.

  Steve could feel the turbulence in the air against his cheek as his infected attacker frantically snapped his broken jaw trying to bite him less than an inch away from his face, only just held back by the extinguisher wedged between them. It was caught under the infected guy’s chin holding him back just far enough to stop him making contact with Steve’s face. Steve tried pushing the infected man back but it was no use, he was too lively, too aggressive. When Steve tried to hold on to the rabid guy, grabbing his collar and pushing him back, he was nearly bitten by the freak, and now he was getting tired, and his strength was failing fast.

  Steve had no option but to concentrate solely on not getting bitten by keeping the extinguisher in place using it as a barrier between him and death, hoping that Katie managed to pull off a miracle and come over to help. But his hopes were dashed when he heard her guttural
screaming.

  That’s it, he thought,it’s over! It’s all lost now. It’s all gone.

  He squeezed his eyes shut praying that his kids didn’t suffer as he waited to feel human teeth bite down on the side of his face.

  He imagined his right eye being bitten into, even bitten in half as the freak took a mouthful of his face and ripped it away. He heard Katie being torn limb from limb just like so many others had been on the rig. If only I hadn’t brought her along he thought, and then he wondered how long Ken would wait before pulling the lever in the lifeboat and plunging in to the sea. He imagined him eventually dying of starvation out at sea.Good,he thought feeling guilty for doing so. Then he concentrated on his family, not how they might be now, but how they were the last time he saw them, how he had left them that bitterly cold morning. He had an early flight, so he’d been up at the crack of dawn. The kids were still wrapped up all warm and cosy in their beds, he’d leaned over and kissed them softly goodbye on their smooth warm cheeks. Hannah didn’t even stir. Sam said a groggy bye dad, love you, without opening his eyes, then rolled over and faced the wall cuddling in to his retro Ghostbuster’s duvet. Louise had come downstairs before he left and they’d hugged and kissed on the doorstep before he walked over and got in to his taxi waiting by the curb. He waved to her as his taxi pulled away bound for the airport and she hurried back inside, back in to the warm for her morning coffee and five minutes peace before she had to start getting ready for the day ahead and start waking the kids. He concentrated hard on how the kids felt warm like fresh toast and soft like a new teddy, he thought they even smelt of warm butter. They were safe!

  A bony hand drew him from his family as bony finger tips slid through his hear and cupped his head, trying to lift it up off the floor.“FUCK OFF!” he screamed trying to shake it off.

  Black goo dropped on to his cheek then in to his ear, he pressed his lips together terrified some would enter his mouth with his dust mask long gone, torn off in the struggle.

  “Yuck!” he said screwing up his face and turning away. Bony fingers prodded at the back and the side of his head. There was nothing he could do, nowhere he could go! He had no choice but to let things take their course, he couldn’t lie like this forever. Then he remembered the slower infected guys, and he thought they’d be on him any second.Good, he thought, the more of them there are the quicker it’ll be!

  Katie’s ear piercing scream started dying out.

  She’s gone,he thought,oh God, the poor girl! The poor, poor girl!

  The second mutilated hand slipped under his chin and gripped around his throat pulling his head up off the floor with both hands now, pulling his face towards that putrid mouth. Steve lost all focus, his mind raced off on its own saturated in adrenalin, panic, fear, anger and sorrow all at once. The sound of snapping teeth got louder, the turbulence in the air beside his face stronger, to the point where he was sure he felt the infected man’s broken mouth brush across his cheek.

  He took the deepest breath his shaking body would allow, and he screamed! He didn’t mean to but his body had taken over, he’d lost control.....THWACK!

  Fluid spurted across Steve’s face! It ran across his lips, his eyes, through his ear, and down his neck!Let it be quick,he prayed. The hand behind his head let go and fell away.Now comes the smashing against the floor,he thought waiting for it to join the hand around his throat.

  Both hands grabbed his shoulders.Here comes the smashing,he thought wondering where he’d been bitten with all the blood running down his face and neck. He was amazed that he couldn’t feel it, there was no pain.Adrenalin!he thought, it had to be. The cold rubbery forehead of his attacker slapped against his temple.Oh shit, oh shit, here it comes. Shit, shit, shit! he thought still screaming as loud as he possibly could on that single breath, sure he would feel what was coming next, expecting the side of his face to be torn off....Nothing happened!

  Steve’s head dropped back to the floor, it wasn’t forced. He dared to open his eyes and was both shocked and bewildered to see a young red headed woman yanking a long crowbar out from the back of his attacker’s head.

  She looked at him, saw that he’d opened his eyes and was looking at her and said,“Take care of that one,QUICKLY!” She wiped black goo off the crowbar and ran back down the corridor.

  Stunned he thought,Take care of what one?

  He lifted his head to look and burst in to life in an instant as the crawling torso reached out for him!

  It had the body of his attacker on its back, dead and pouring that horrible black fluid from a hole punctured all the way through its forehead. It was weighing the crawling torso down holding it back just far enough so that it couldn’t quite reach him....for now! It fought with the limp body lying on top of it, trying to break free from its hindering weight, inching towards Steve.

  The body suddenly rolled off, the torso lurched forwards desperate to sink its teeth in to him.

  “SHIT!” Steve yelped as fleshless fingers reached for him. He rolled away as fast as he could and stood up. He glanced over at Katie not wanting to but needing to and saw her lying outstretched on the floor and still. The new red headed arrival was beside her pulling her crowbar out of Katie’s killer’s head. Two infected bodies lay beside her. Horrified and burning with hatred he grabbed his fire extinguisher and raised it above his head, he watched the discoloured mutilated torso relentlessly closing in on him. Its face was a mess from where he had battered it earlier. Skin had been pulled apart stretched by the blunt trauma exposing bone and dark infected flesh beneath and one of its beady black eyes had burst leaking inky black fluid down its discoloured cheek.

  Grinding his teeth Steve let it come closer, letting it crawl within range and when it was he jumped up in the air holding the extinguisher high and then brought it down with every bit of strength he could muster and slammed the extinguisher against the back of its head mashing its face in to the floor. He retrieved the extinguisher utterly amazed that it was still conscious if not dead. It grumbled and jerked pushing itself up, pulling its face up off the floor and reached for him again.

  Steve lost all control then, he swung the extinguisher from over his head and struck the crawler’s head again, then again, and again swinging the extinguisher in an arc from just below his shoulder blades up over his head and down on to the crown of the infected torsos head. He swung it like his children’s children'slives depended on it without realising he was screaming at the top of his lungs!

  He carried on until there was nothing recognisable left but a dark pulpy mess.

  Katie lay on the floor utterly exhausted both physically and mentally. Her body too tired to even tremble. The red head said,“Don’t move! You’re in shock ok, you’re safe for now, just stay here and I’ll be back in a second ok.”

  Katie simply couldn’t believe what was happening, she thought she had a grip on things, she thought she’d managed to come to terms with the outlandish thought of fatally infected people turning cannibalistic and turning a weird charcoal colour. She had thought of them as the enemy in a war simulation, but she hadn’t bargained for them being able to withstand such force. She’d watched as she repeatedly inflicted horrendous wounds with her extinguisher as it pulled and tore flesh on impact and broke bone. But despite that the infected person still came at her oblivious to any pain. Relentlessly pursuing her, wanting to consume her,needing to consume her! Her blows just slowed them down, that was all. Not one minute of the hundreds up on hundreds of hours of combat training she had taken part in could have ever prepared her for that.

  As she lay there trying to grasp everything that was going on her body began to tremble, and she knew she was regaining her strength.

  Her mind replayed what had just happened even though she didn’t want it to, she tried to stop it, but it was no good, she didn’t have a choice and she saw herself falling on top of the infected man and struggling with him until he overpowered her and managed to climb on top of her.

  He started pulli
ng her face towards his snapping jaws. They tussled for a moment until they reached a stalemate, she didn’t have the strength to push him away and he wasn’t quite strong enough to pull her closer. But he was coming closer! He was gradually wearing her out! He was getting too close, he was winning and Katie knew it. He worked his way so close that Katie was certain he was going to bite off her nose like the infected man on the bed in the bunk room. She turned her head to the side desperately pushing her face against the floor delaying the inevitable when he seemed to flinch. Katie felt him jolt. She glanced at him through the corner of her eye just in case there was an opportunity for her to put some distance between them both when something burst through his face under his left eye spraying Katie with black goo.

  The vicious snarl disappeared, his jaw dropped open loosely, and then he slid backwards as he was pulled off her. Katie saw a young red haired woman standing over him pulling a long steel crowbar out of his head. The red head looked at her and smiled,“You’re ok,”she said and Katie overwhelmed by the situation dropped her head back down and urinated without even realising. The woman hopped over quickly after freeing her crowbar and told her that she was in shock, not to move and just to lay there, then she went to help Steve. Steve fell back against the wall panting, he was covered in black goo from crushing the infected torso’s head when he heard the redhead speak to Katie.

  Astonished he pushed himself off the wall to go to her absolutely elated, and before he’d even taken his first step towards her the bunk door opposite him crashed open and a partly dressed partly eaten man fell on him. Steve screamed with shock as he was forced back. The figure was slow and disorientated but it was strong and it was heavy. It grabbed his arm. Steve pulled away but the man had to good a grip and Steve just pulled him closer, he yelled out in fear. He tried to yank his arm free tugging it quickly but the grip was as tight as a vice. Yelling out for help Steve tried to lean as far back from the figure as he could, he couldn’t bear to touch it, to even be near it. It looked like it had been dipped in an oil tank full of piranhas. Its skinless face oozed that horrible black goo that reeked of dead animals.“SHIT!” he yelled slamming his free hand against its partly hollowed out chest cavity to hold it back. His hand sunk in to the rancid flesh, he yelled out horrified and his yell turned in to a shrill scream as one of its eyes fell back in to its head. As its eye fell out of sight the head suddenly separated splitting in two as an axe head carved down the middle burying itself all the way down to the roof of the infected man’s mouth. Steve felt the grip on his arm loosen and he scrambled back as the figure fell to the floor in front of him. He wasn’t surprised to see the redhead at the end of the axe handle.