As the Light Dies

by M. D. Woodham

  Samantha had stopped screaming, but he could still hear Iain. He was only grunting but Dean could still hear him. Dean dreaded the thought of what he must be going through right this second, just feet away and having just witnessed his partner’s terrible fate.

  He’d tried putting up a fight. Dean had heard that much while he yelled at the others. But it was passed that now. There’d never really been any chance for him.

  “David?”he said,“We have to go. You can’t try to deal with this right now, there’s no time. There’s nothing anyone could’ve done. We did all we could, the grieving has to wait. Do you understand? We have to get the hell out of here while we still can!”

  David didn’t respond.“NOW David!” said Dean.“Go and load that gun of yours and let’s get the hell outta here. Let’s get Sarah to safety!”

  David eventually nodded after what felt like ages and said,“Yea ok. You’re right, of course you are, let’s go, I’ll load the shotgun as we head back down stairs.”

  Thank God for that, thought Dean relieved,it’s about time.

  David began to shimmy back inside from the windowsill helped by Dean when Iain suddenly flew out of his window screaming at the top of his lungs hugging two infected people that were biting chunks out of him even as they fell.

  Dean and David both flinched, and then watched completely helpless and amazed as the three of them landed with a dull thud four storeys below in the street silencing Iain once and for all. The two infected he’d taken with him, unhindered by the fall continued pulling and tearing at his flesh, pealing him like a raw chicken. They disappeared in an instant, enveloped by the ash as the downdraught from their fall faded.

  David felt vomit rising up his throat as Iain was obscured by the ash again as other infected people made visible only by the tops of their heads, rushed back out off the shop towards them. Dean reached for David to gently pull him away from the window knowing that they had to move when an infected woman suddenly jerked in to position around Iain and Samantha’s window.

  She looked right at them, opened her smashed-in jaw and bellowed at them!

  As Dean stared at her, he was sure that he saw a glint of excitement in her bleak featureless black orb of an eye.

  She reached out towards them with mangled hands and her slow gurgle sped up to a screech. David and Dean leaned back in shock and horrified. Her wounds were beyond horrific and yet she came at them as agile as a gymnast, despite her missing fingers and exposed skeletal bones. She was drenched in blood from head to toe. Some was her own, seeping from her wounds like molten tar and some was no doubt Iain and Samantha’s that smeared her face colouring her bright red.

  She climbed away from the window ledge and out on to the roof!

  “FUCK!” snapped Dean and then David fell back against him as he pushed back with fear.

  Dean shoved him off quickly, trying to look out at the roof knowing they had to stop her from getting across. Looking back out he placed his hand on his cleaver as the infected woman fell against the steeply pitched roof and slipped off and fell out of sight. David’s heart leapt with relief but before he’d even taken another full breath another infected figure took her place. It was another woman. She climbed out quick and nimble like a sewer rat, and another quickly joined her from behind. They climbed out without any fear of falling. They thrust their wounded bitten hands towards the two men screeching their morbid call.

  The closest one fell against the roof like the first one and cracked a roof tile with her head before she fell to the ground. Dean glanced down watching her fall and caught a break in the ash. He saw multiple infected people huddled in little groups around Iain’s severed limbs. Dean’s heart was banging like a drum on fast forward. David mumbled something catching his attention and he looked back up and along the roof top. His heart leapt so high he thought he’d swallowed his tongue. The next one along, a man by the look of it, was so badly wounded and discoloured that is was actually impossible for either man to tell.

  The figure closed the gap more than any before it, as it inched towards them, while yet another figure slid out of the window going absolutely bat shit. It was waving its arms in all directions and screeching like a banshee even though most of its throat was missing. It didn’t even try to hang on to anything, it practically flung itself out of the window waving its arms like it was trying to fly, and didn’t. The indistinguishable figure inched closer and closer as more infected faces appeared out of the window. They stopped where they were and seemed to watch the one that was getting dangerously close to Dean and David.

  “Oh God,” said David looking at Dean.

  Dean pushed David aside and reached out towards the infected figure coming for them.

  “WHAT THE!” blurted David as the figure saw Dean and stood bolt upright and bared its teeth. Then it lunged for Dean’s outstretched arm. Dean pulled his arm back and the sick figure fell short by two inches. It belly flopped on the gutter, then bounced off and fell on to Castle Street like the others.

  “FUCK!” gasped David shocked that anyone would be able to do that, to use themselves as bait.

  “All I could think of,”said Dean without taking his eyes away from the roof top.

  There were five in the window now. Watching them, clicking and gurgling. They looked like a mob of murderous bloodthirsty shadows.

  “Oh God! What now?” said David as one of the figures pushed the one in front of it down against the window ledge. The one being forced down gurgled frantically as its neck was pushed down hard against the ledge. It looked like it was being choked by the one behind but Dean knew that wasn’t the case. He’d seen enough to know that these things didn’t feel pain. It was frustrated because it was being held back,itcouldn’t get at them.

  “What are they doing?”said David, and his answer came as the figure doing the pushing climbed up over the others back, stepped all over it and out on to the roof.

  Human ramp! thought Dean.

  “Oh!”said David stepping back. This new figure was a teenage girl in dirty torn up school clothes. She looked at both men and cocked her head to one side, as if she was evaluating the situation. Then she reached out with one foot and placed it neatly in to the rut of the old iron gutter with her toes tucked inwards. When it fitted and didn’t slide anywhere, she stepped out with her other foot and placed that one neatly in to the gutter as well. Then when she still didn’t slip she let go of the smashed up window frame and started towards them. She stood tall, but leaned over ever so slightly brushing an outstretched hand along the steep taper of the roof while her other, nearly complete, hand stretched out in the air over the road below for balance.

  She brushed piles of dirty black snow off the roof with her hand that touched the roof as she walked towards them.

  “She’s clearing the fucking way,”said David.

  Dean didn’t answer, not yet, he just watched. He thought he heard excitement in her gurgle as she made easy going of the roof coming closer than any of the others. There was a definite change in the tone of her primal call!

  David backed in to the attic.“Shit. Shit. Shit! FUCKING SHIT!” he yelped and banged in to a chest of draws. He rocked them sending an old antique looking globe of the world rolling off its stand and along the top of the drawers until it fell to the floor and broke in two.

  “We can’t go anywhere yet,”said Dean,“we have to knock her off.”

  He saw another figure trying to climb out behind her.

  “And the others,”he added,“we have to give the guys downstairs time to get ready. We gotta keep these fuckers back as long as we can, then block the window and leg it!”

  David was still backing further in to the attic in stunned silence.

  “FUCKING HELL DAVID!” yelled Dean,“Throw me that pole of yours, then leg it downstairs load that gun and meet me with the others down in the shop. And be ready to make a run for it with as many shotgun cartridges as you can carry.”

  David nodded and scrambled to pick u
p the old steel shaft that he’d liberated from an antique lamp shade. When he had it, he threw it aimlessly at Dean without thinking, and the pole flew through the air like a throwing spear.

  Dean expected nothing less with the panic David was in and he quickly stepped to the side avoiding being harpooned and caught the battered pole with ease. Then he turned back to the window as David took off down the stairs behind him with his gun. Dean was shocked to see two figures up on the gutter when he turned back around, and a third one climbing out behind them that was practically being helped out by the others. This alarmed him to the point that he could feel his hands start to shake. It wasn’t so much the number of them out on the roof, but the fact that these ones seemed to be thinking about what they were doing. So far he hadn’t seen them show any real signs of conscious thinking, not really. Until now they’d all relied on brute force and blind luck. But these ones were definitely thinking.

  He reached out with the pole and just managed to reach the teenager with the opposite end. He tried to push her off by jabbing at her, but she wasn’t close enough for it to have any real effect. He cursed himself under his breath as the third macabre silhouette climbed all the way out from Iain and Samantha’s window.

  Their calls were loud and excited, there was no mistaking the tone of their morbid calls now. It reminded Dean of gurgling water rushing down a funnel, but even then it was like nothing he’d ever heard before. It was a nasty sound and it chilled him to the bone as he watched them coming for him. Eager to touch him, and feel him between their teeth.

  He tried ramming the gutter with the end of the pole, hoping he could break it or at least loosen it and unbalance them and make them fall. But it didn’t budge; the gutter was solid. Quickly he swung one leg out over the windowsill and tried stamping on the gutter but all he was doing was stirring them up. Their calls got louder and faster, almost deafening him. Despite his efforts the gutter still didn’t budge.Damned iron gutters, he thought. Then he winced as lumpy black spittle landed on his face as the teenager half hissed, half gurgled at him.

  She was closer than ever. She swiped at him and missed by a fraction as he flinched back and pulled his leg back in just in time. For a split second Dean hoped that her momentum from swiping at him would carry her over the edge. It didn’t.

  She recovered quickly and started towards him again. She was getting too close, and she was leading the others that were now very close behind her straight towards him. Desperate to stop them Dean swung his leg back out through the hole left by the disintegrated window and stomped one last time on the gutter. He still had no effect.

  He swung his leg back in barley aware of shouting coming from downstairs. Hoping they didn’t have a break-in down there he thrust the pole at the teenager and hit her just above her belly-button. She was closer still and the force of the thrust along with her forward momentum caused the pole to tear through her ragged ash black blazer and pierce through her skin. Dean felt it pierce through her young skin. His stomach leapt and then turned over as he realised what had happened. What he’d done!

  The girl looked down at the pole and took a hold of it with both hands. Dean waited for her to start screaming and wake him from this nightmare, but she didn’t and he looked on in utter astonishment as she started pulling herself along. She was pulling the pole in to herself. Moving towards Dean!

  Dean was horror struck. He watched her for a moment, dazed and unable to move. He tried to think as more spittle landed on his face. He wiped it off quickly not wanting his hand off the pole any longer than it absolutely needed to be, and she came to a sudden stop as the end of the pole came up against something hard inside her!

  Spine, thought Dean.

  She paused for a second looking down at the pole where it entered her. Then she leaned back a little and pulled the pole out a little. A glimmer of hope passed over Dean thinking she was going to try and go back. He readied himself to thrust the pole forwards to try and knock her off. He took a deep breath and pushed as hard as he could. The girl leaned forwards right at the same time. She pulled with both hands, just as hard as Dean pushed. The pole jutted sideways a quarter of an inch and sank deeper in to her abdomen and emerged out behind her as it pushed out through her back. On the move again she gurgled excitedly as she started back towards Dean.

  She was faster than before, she was unrestricted now. Before Dean had time to react she was on him. She slid herself along the pole reaching out for him with claw like fingers. Dean instinctively pushed the pole away from him in a panic not wanting to touch her with his bare hands. He managed to throw her off balance as the pole flew out over the street. She turned side on to him, forced around by the pole. Her ankles twisted with her feet held in place in the rut of the gutter and she lost her footing. She stumbled forwards and crashed in to the roof beside Dean’s window. She reached around the broken frame frantically snatching for him and something to grab on to.

  Dean had to duck and swerve fast to avoid her searching hand. He batted it away from himself revolted by the touch, and then from one of the wooden beams. When she didn’t manage to grasp anything she fell to the street below pierced through the stomach with an antique lamp pole screeching with anger, and reaching for him all the way down.

  Dean looked at the next infected person shimmying towards him, and was surprised to see an overweight middle aged man wearing the remains of a boiler suit.

  He was already struggling for balance. The part of the pole sticking out through the teenage girl’s back had hit him as she turned around and she’d knocked him off balance. He waved his arms around in the air trying to regain his balance but it was too late and he fell against the roof smashing three slate tiles with his head. He didn’t slide off though. He stayed there for a moment lying against the roof motionless. Until he locked eyes with Dean!

  He started to push himself up off the roof staring at Dean.This one means business, thought Dean. He was sure he could see determination in the man’s face and in his eyes. The man hissed baring his teeth and started to get up. As his weight shifted on the slippery tiles as he moved, he simply slid off.

  Dean didn’t waste time looking at the other infected people further along the roof, he knew they were there inching towards him. He spun round and darted around the closest piece of furniture he saw and put his weight against it and pushed!

  First in place across the window was the old chest of drawers David had bumped in to. It covered the bottom half of the window. Next was a badly chipped and paint splattered oak table turned on its side and propped on top of the drawers to block off the top of the window. There was a two inch gap along the top where the table stopped short of the top of the window frame. Dean didn’t have time to worry about two inches, he just had to slow them down and get as far away as possible. He set about reinforcing the blockade with whatever came to hand first. He didn’t even look at what he was laying his hands on. If it moved, it went.

  Within seconds there were infected at the window!

  Dean heard them scraping at the upturned table.

  That’ll have to do,he thought,or before I know it they’ll be in here with me!

  He turned on his heels and ran back down the stairs taking as many steps at a time as he could. He slammed the door at the bottom and looked around for anything to barricade it with but he couldn’t see anything. It was too dark, and not knowing the property he hadn’t a clue what he was looking at.

  He heard heavy footfalls coming towards him. He called out before he saw him.

  “Hey! David, what can we use to block this door? I’ve blocked the window as best I can but it won’t hold for long and they’re already up against it!”

  David emerged through the darkness wearing two fully loaded shotgun cartridge belts. One around his waist and one diagonally from shoulder to hip with the pump action slung over his other shoulder and he had a large carbon black survival knife looped through his belt.

  “There’s a cabinet over here, follow me,”he s
aid and he lead Dean through the darkness to a tall cabinet sitting up against a wall. They lifted it up ignoring the sound of what was inside it moving around and falling over and moved it through the darkness and placed it across the attic door.“What else is....”started Dean when they both heard the unmistakable sound of falling furniture above them!

  “Shit!”he said,“this isn’t heavy enough but forget it. It’ll have to do, we’ve gotta go.”

  David agreed, and they made their descent.

  They emerged on the shop floor to find it cold and draughty. The front windows were completely shattered and the steel shutters were being violently shaken and battered by a horde of infected people out on the street. The combined noise from the shutters and the infected was incredibly loud.

  Dean saw Gavin rummaging frantically through the gear in the shop searching for anything they could use. Ann was through by the back door waiting to go. She was comforting Sarah as she sat on the floor with both hands over her ears, she was still crying and her tears were wetting her dust mask. Sam was standing in the doorway between the back room and the shop floor close to the girls but watching Gavin at the same time, he cocked his head at Dean when he saw him enter.‘WOOF’ he barked.“Good boy Sam,”said Dean throwing him a glance. Then he looked back to Gavin as he called over to him.“Here!”said Gavin, and he handed him something long and heavy.

  “What’s this?”he asked turning it over in his hands.

  “It’s one of those replica swords. It’s not overly sharp but....”

  “Wait a sec!”said David butting in,“there’s one under the counter. Two in fact. It’s actually a set that came in a couple of days ago that I haven’t gotten round to putting up to the attic yet.”