As the Light Dies

by M. D. Woodham

  No-one answered. They waited in silence and listened. Sam was poised on three legs facing the front of the shop ready to pounce. They listened hard trying to hear over the wind and the sound of the dirty snow blasting against the glass shop front.

  Sam’s head jerked left. Ann stifled a gasp. They heard a shuffle!

  It only lasted a split second but they all heard it.

  Sam dropped his front leg he’d been holding up and lifted the other without moving his head a single centimetre. It came again. A faint shuffle as a heavy foot was dragged through the black snow.

  Ann was ready for it this time and held her nerve.

  David started to speak,“Could be a dog out th....”Dean raised a hand quickly indicating for him to be quiet. David closed his mouth feeling stupid, knowing he should’ve known better. They waited. Listening and staring at the front of the shop waiting for the shutters to explode in to a frenzy of shakes and rattles any second.

  Then there was a heavy thump from upstairs!

  Everyone ducked down.

  “SHIT!” yelped Ann unable to stop herself, and Sam howled and bounced up on his hind legs, looking up at the swinging light in the centre of the dark ceiling.

  “What the hell?”said Gavin trying to look up at the ceiling and at the front of the shop at the same time. Glass shattered nearby so loud that Dean thought it was something in the room with them.

  An infected reaching through the steel shutters, he thought. He snapped his head around and looked at the front of the shop. The glass was still intact.

  Then the gurgles started! They were guttural and deep like a base drum.

  “Oh God!”said Ann as she backed up against the till.

  Loud hysterical yelling erupted, filling their eardrums. It was coming right through the walls!

  “Holy shit!”said Dean as he searched all around taking up his meat cleaver as a high pitched brain- numbing scream rang out drowning out the yelling. It made Ann wince, and Sam whine.

  It sounded like it was getting nearer. Coming towards them from somewhere!

  Dean grabbed hold of Sam and pulled him snarling and barking to the back of the shop. Dean was desperate to keep their presence hidden for as long as he could, but the screaming was so loud!

  Where the hell is it,he wondered. He hadn’t a clue where it was coming from and yet it was still getting louder.

  “SHIT!”he cursed with frustration.

  There was a bang and a clatter behind them! In the room with them!

  They all spun around ready to fight and saw an open door swinging back from hitting against a display cabinet full of used wrist-watches. There was no sign of David.

  “FUCK!” blurted Dean trying to read the situation. He looked at the ceiling at the swinging light. He looked at the shops front windows and then he looked at the open door and said,“There’s people upstairs.C’mon!”

  The three of them made for the door and saw stairs leading upwards. Sam pawed at the bottom step eager to climb up ahead of them but Dean held him tight.

  “What the fuck’s this all about? What’s going on?”said Gavin looking at the stairs.

  “He must have family up there,”said Dean inching closer trying to see up the stairs, but it was no use, the stairway ascended in to pure darkness. It was pitch black.

  “Ah shit!”he said unable to see anything.

  “He isn’t gonna hurt us, he’s just scared for whoever’s up there,”said Dean nodding towards the darkness.

  Between the yelling and the high pitched scream from above and the clogged up howls from the infected, they all felt like they were being surrounded. They felt like they were being closed in on!

  “What should we do?”said Ann. Her eyes were on stalks trying to adjust to the new level of darkness.

  Gavin looked at Dean.“Out the back, let’s make a run for it!”he said.

  Dean shook his head.“No! We’re still safe in here for now. The infected aren’t trying to get in here. Not yet at least!”He pointed at the calm shutters, but he knew it was only a matter of time, maybe even only seconds.

  Right then the ashy black snow twirled and spun as he looked at the plate-glass beyond the shutters as something moved passed at speed.Someone running, he thought.

  He felt an enormous burden as he looked in Ann and Gavin’s faces. Their fate was in his hands!

  Images of Keith flashed through his mind, Keith stuck in the water flume, stuck in that blood drenched fiberglass coffin.

  Forcing the thoughts of Keith out of his head he made up his mind and said,“C’mon.”And he nodded upwards in to the dark.“Let’s go,”he said.

  He let go of Sam, letting him charge up in to the darkness ahead of them, and he ran up behind him as fast as he could, calling for him not to run too far ahead as the three of them raced after him.

  The stairs were steep, and seemed to reach out in front forever. They ran for what felt like too long until they crossed a half-landing where the stairs turned at a right angle and continued up in to the dark.

  One by one they each bumped in to and then pushed off the sudden dead end that appeared in front of them and raced on. There was an enormous shattering of glass too close for comfort and Dean was certain that the shop’s front window had broken.

  They carried on, there was no sense in going back to check, Dean just hoped that David had paid for a good shutter. They passed another half landing where the stairs turned again and this one had doors and a hallway leading away from it. But Sam passed right by without hesitating, following the stairs and bolting up them leading them closer and closer to the screaming.

  As they pounded up the stairs each of them heard muffled shouting join all the noise. It sounded like David. The shouting was followed by another new sound. A banging of some sorts, metallic yet grainy at the same time. None of them said anything; they didn’t have the breath to spare.

  Then, after a few more seconds that felt like long minutes of pounding up the stairs they reached another landing, this one much larger with another hallway and Sam bolted straight down it.

  He slipped and slid on the laminate wooden floor as his claws searched for grip but found none.

  Dean was sure they must be about to burst in on David and whoever it was that was screaming. But he didn’t think they would meet who was doing all the yelling. He was certain that was coming from next door. Sam suddenly darted right and disappeared through a door that Dean hadn’t noticed in the dark. Sam nudged it open and raced up even more steps, still struggling for grip. These ones weren’t carpeted like the others, they were bare wood and Sam clattered and scrapped up them at lightning speed.

  The screaming was loud beyond belief now. Dean knew their journey was about to come to its end! He was right. Sam disappeared out of sight ahead of them as he made it over the top of the stairs before them. The others reached the top just seconds behind him and found themselves in a large, wide open attic area that was being lit by some well positioned candles.

  David was over by the wall that joined the building next door. He was stabbing at the wall with what looked like a curtain pole. He’d chipped a large area of plaster off the wall and ripped out a bundle of insulation that surrounded his feet. In between stabs with the pole, he used the tip of the pole to scrape at the cement between the large bricks. Beside him on the floor screaming with all her might despite David’s best efforts to calm her, was a little blonde girl.

  Dean rushed over to David wanting answers. David saw them and paused. He looked up and said,“She’s my niece, Sarah. I’ve told her about you guys. She’s the one who banged on the ceiling, turned the kitchen dresser over then ran up here like I told her to at the first sign of trouble.”

  Dean nodded and glanced over at Sarah and saw Ann was already beside her. She was just kneeling down beside the distraught little girl, putting an arm around her to comfort her.

  Dean looked back at David.“What the hell’s going on?”

  “Those things have gotten in next do
or! I didn’t even know they were in. My neighbours that is. They don’t even live there. They were banging like crazy on the wall when I got up here, scared the hell out of Sarah. I think they’re trying to break through.”

  Gavin butted in,“There’s no way they’re gonna break through that wall, ever!”

  Dean nodded and said,“He’s right. What about the roof?”

  “What!” said David.

  “Windows,”said Dean,“there’s windows up here they could climb through.”

  Dean saw the realisation wash over David’s face.

  “I, uh, I don’t know if they could,”he said.

  “They’ll have to,”said Dean, and he rushed over to the side that faced the street, minding his head from the roof beams. Gavin grabbed a candle and followed.

  “Quick,”said Dean,“shift all this stuff.”And he started digging his way through piles of dust covered junk working towards the closest roof-light to the adjoining wall.

  The three men worked fast shoving boxes of faulty watches and DVDs aside and pulling old wardrobes with broken hinges and book shelves riddled with woodworm out of the way.

  “Tell them,”yelled Dean struggling to be heard above all the noise.“Tell them to start clearing their way towards their nearest window. It’s the only way. They’re gonna have to climb across!”

  David nodded and ran back over to the wall and started yelling through to his neighbours.

  “Iain, Sammy. Get to the window! Get to the window closest to me. It’s your only chance. We’ll never break through the wall. Get to the windowNOW!”

  Dean and Gavin reached the window and tore down an old moth-eaten curtain that was nailed to the frame. It came down in a cloud of grey dust. The window was as old as the building, and the frame was thick with layers of paint sealing it closed. There was no way they’d get it open.

  Without hesitating Dean thrust the end of his monkey wrench through the brittle glass and the ancient window disintegrated and fell out of the roof and in to the street below where it landed with a crash.

  Ann was making progress with Sarah. She’d stopped screaming but was sobbing uncontrollably. Ann rocked back and forth hugging her tightly in her lap.

  Dean didn’t like what he saw when he looked out through the hole in the roof. The distance between David’s window and his neighbour’s was further than he’d hoped, and the pitch of the roof was steep and covered with black snow. He didn’t like their chances!

  Just finding the courage to climb out on to the roof was going to be a major hurdle, but at the moment there was no sign of them.

  “Who are your neighbours?”asked Dean.

  David stared at him. He seemed to be lost for words for a second, dazed.

  Dean added,“Are they even fit enough to even try this?”

  David hurried over to the window still holding the battered curtain pole.

  “They’re middle-aged,”he said hopping over junk,“they run the second hand book shop next door. They have done for years. Iain and Sammy, well, Samantha that is. He’s ok but Sammy has an artificial hip after a car accident a few years back and she’s got a pretty bad limp.”

  Dean was already shaking his head.

  “What! What’s wrong?”asked David.

  “You’ll see,”said Dean as David neared the hole where the window had been.

  David looked out and let out a gasp. He hadn’t realised what would be involved.

  Dean waited for the situation to sink in for David. He listened to the gurgling howls. They were getting louder. Closer!

  David looked down trying to gauge the drop that was maybe thirty five feet or so.

  “Oh my God!”he said.

  Below him drifting in and out of sight there was a horde of raging infected people all fighting to get in to the book shop through the giant hole in the front of the shop that the shattered front window had left.

  “I know,”said Dean nodding, he’d only glanced down for a split second but that was enough. He saw no point in wasting time staring. He saw what he needed to in that instant and knew a fall would be fatal even if the actual fall wasn’t.

  Dean wanted to start moving as soon as he could. He was worried that if they didn’t move soon, they’d all end up trapped. He glanced around the attic, searching the clutter for anything useful. He saw Ann still nursing Sarah with Sam standing beside them, guarding them.Good boy,he thought as he searched, but nothing was jumping out at him, it was all just junk, apart from David’s pump action shotgun that lay on an old cracked tea chest across from him. His spirits rose but then he remembered that it wasn’t loaded.

  “You said that you go shooting at the weekends,”he said.

  David nodded.“Yea,”he said.

  “Can you put your hands on cartridges for that gun of yours if you need to?”

  “Uh, yea, why?”said David. Then before Dean spoke David blurted,“WAIT! I think I hear them. Listen! Yes, I can, it’s them. They’re trying to get their window open. I can hear them. They’re gonna be ok!”

  Dean thought otherwise. He couldn’t see this going well at all. He turned to Gavin and told him to go and get Ann ready to leave, and to gather up Sarah’s things as well.

  Gavin nodded and set to work straight away leaving him with David.

  “Hey,”said Dean,“do you have anything up here that we might be able to use to help them get over here?”

  Before David answered Dean heard the sound of breaking glass.Here we go, he thought.

  “No!”David called back over his shoulder. He was leaning so far out of the window Dean worried he was on the brink of falling out so he grabbed hold of the big guy’s belt.

  “I’ve got you,”he said.

  “Thanks,”said David, then he answered Dean’s question.“All that’s up here is junk that I couldn’t sell.”

  Dean racked his brains trying to think up options when David nearly deafened him seeing his neighbours pop their heads out!

  “GUYS!” he shrieked as Samantha and Iain both looked over at him squeezing out through the mouth of their window.

  Samantha looked at David wide eyed. Her face was pure white with panic, making her freckles stand out like black dots on a blank page. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were wet with tears. She pressed her lips together attempting to smile but couldn’t. She nodded at David and ducked back inside. David knew right then that she wasn’t even going to try, the look on her face said that she knew her time was up, and she knew how she was going to go. There was simply no way that she was going to be able to make the crossing. Iain knew it too. All they needed was that quick glance and they both knew it was over for them. Both of them because neither one would be leaving without the other.

  David called across,“You have to try, you have to, c’mon!”

  Iain shook his head as a tear ran down his cheek.

  “Please,”said David,“I’ll help you. I’ll climb out my side and reach across.”He pushed himself out a little further and his big hand slipped on the cold roof tiles and he slid a little further out of the window. Dean only just managed to keep a hold of him. He tugged him back a little and said,“Careful Dave, you’re a big guy. I nearly lost you then!”

  David inched back further. He knew that there was little chance of Iain and Samantha making the crossing, but he simply couldn’t do nothing.

  He called over again,“Do you guys have anything that might help you get across, anything at all?” “No,”Iain called back shaking his head.“All we’ve got up here are boxes and piles of old books and magazines.”A loud bang made Iain jump, and Samantha cried out somewhere behind him.

  Iain called over,“They broke in David. They’re at the attic door!”

  If their door’s anything like mine, it won’t hold for long, thought David.

  Samantha’s sobs were loud enough for David to hear over all the noise. She tried calling for Iain but couldn’t even finish saying his name.

  “I’m coming Sammy, I’m coming,”he said glancing back in at
her.

  He looked back at David and swallowed hard.“We don’t have a chance David. But you do, you and Sarah. We could hear her, and whoever else that’s in there with you. You still have a chance, all of you....”He stopped and whipped his head around to look back in to his loft.

  David heard why and so did Dean.

  They heard the sound of creaking and snapping wood.

  It reminded Dean of the flimsy fire-doors back at the leisure centre.

  Samantha called again for Iain and managed to get his whole name out this time, practically wailing his name.

  “I’m coming Sammy,”he said as he turned back to David.“You guys go,”he said,“make a run for it while this lot are busy with us. Do it before they’re finished with us. Go now before they even start, because they’ll be straight after you guys. We’ve seen what they can do. I don’t know if they can smell or if they just listen or what, but either way they must know you’re in there now with all the shouting.”Then just as Iain said it, as if right on cue, the pawn shop’s front shutters burst into action below as they started to get shaken. A sound David had gotten used to most Friday and Saturday nights.

  “Please,”Samantha managed from behind Iain.

  Iain looked at David and nodded.“You guys go.Run!Get Sarah to safety until this thing blows over. Run and don’t stop....”He broke off for a second looking back in at Samantha.

  Then turning back to face David he gently shook his head and said,“Thank you for trying. Thank all of you, now good-bye.”

  Iain ducked back inside out of view.

  “IAIN! IAIN WAIT! PLEASE!”yelled David.

  Dean gently squeezed David’s shoulder to get his attention and said calmly,“He’s right David, we’ve gotta go. If we don’t we could end up in the same situation.”

  Then the attic door next door gave way with an almighty crunch and Samantha started to wail a mind numbingly loud moan that soon became a gut wrenching scream!

  The gurgling rose up feverously and the footfalls sounded like thunder!

  Then Iain started screaming!

  “No, no, no!”pleaded David. He was frozen to the spot oblivious to Dean barking at the others to start moving. Dean told Ann to take Sarah and start heading back down to the shop. He told Gavin to do the same and to search the shop for anything useful that they might be able to use. They did as he said and headed down the stairs without question. Sam sensing what was happening darted in front of them and led the way, and instead of running ahead like before he stayed close to Sarah the whole time. Dean turned back to David. He wanted that shotgun loaded before they left and he knew that they’d be leaving soon.