by Ian Woodhead
Tony’s heart leapt up into his throat when he noticed several white tablets lying on the carpet. He waited until he heard the sound of the other door locking before rushing out and scooping every one of them up.
“The gods must be smiling down on me today,” he whispered, looking at the tiny white tablets huddled together in the palm of his hand. They must have fallen out of the guy’s pocket.
They weren’t like the ones that were handed out to the workers like him and his wife, and they certainly weren’t the same as that crappy cast-off rubbish that was given to the masses.
“Fuck me, the gods really are being kind to me.” That guy must belong to the inner government, the shadowy elite that ruled their huge city. He picked one up and held it up to the light.
His gut feeling told him that he had found something very special. This had to be what the elite used to stave away the sickness, what else could it be? The idea that a member of the inner council would be walking around with a handful of headache tablets was just ludicrous.
Tony held it close to his eyes. He guessed that just one of these things would probably be as strong as a full foil strip of the stuff that they gave to the admin. After all, from what Ellen had told him, the elite did demand the highest quality of everything.
His newfound pessimism then peered out from under a rock and asked Tony why it hadn’t worked for Clown Man.
“Screw it,” he snarled, before stuffing the tablet into his mouth. Fuck the pessimism. He knew he was right about this. Hell, for all he knew, the clown man might have done something totally unrelated from the sickness. Tony paused, then stuffed in another three just to make sure.
He set off running down the hallway, eager to get away from the area. The thought of one of those security guards bursting through that door, glaring at Tony and demanding back the tablets, gave him a sudden burst of energy and enough motivation to get the hell out of there. There was no way, with the state he was in, that he’d be able to offer any resistance.
“Well they can’t have them,” he whispered, pushing the remaining tablets into his back pocket. “They are mine now.” As he ran, Tony realized that it no longer felt as though he had iced slush flowing through his veins. The tablets must be working; he’d bought himself a little more time.
“Oh, well that’s great,” he muttered. How long did he have left though? He stared at a battered metal table next to a vending machine that had never worked. It amazed him that only yesterday, he’d been trying to see if any sweets were still inside it. Until a few minutes ago, those kinds of wispy thoughts were the only ones drifting through his mind. Until a few minutes ago, his work time occupied the majority of his rather sad life. He could very well go there now. Tapping in an endless stream of meaningless numbers for the next eight hours sounded to him like a death sentence. It probably would be as well. For all his boasting to his wife, he was only a very small cog in a huge machine. He paused, for the first time wondering why the head of the department had chosen him to test out Joseph’s new device.
Maybe he should go back home and see if he could sleep his way out of this malaise. He was sure that Ellen had left a dozen foil strips in the kitchen drawer, beneath her collection of tea-towels, but he guessed that there was little chance of him getting out of here without running into more people armed with scanners. Even if he did get out and survived the journey back home, what were the chances of him getting through the checkpoint?
Besides, he wanted to be fixed. Taking tablets was just delaying the inevitable. It was like sticking a plaster over a hole on a burst water pipe. He might be a very small cog in a huge machine, but there might come a day when his input could help find a permanent cure to this vile disease. He couldn’t afford to go home.
Distant screams reached his ears, followed by the sound of more gunfire. The commotion came from behind him. He guessed that the main entrance would be the likeliest location. That meant there was no chance in trying to leave just yet.
He didn’t have a clue where to turn, or who could help him. Tony felt like a rat in a maze. He’d just keep going round and round these empty fucking corridors until the tablets lost their potency. After that? He skidded to halt. After that, it wouldn’t matter anymore. He’d be dead, simple as that.
The floor looked so comforting. Perhaps he should just sit down and lean his back against the wall, and maybe close his eyes for a couple of seconds. He stared at the government issue brown wallpaper, following the parallel patterned lines up towards a black metal sign bolted to the wall next to a set of double doors. It displayed every department in the east wing; Tony must have passed it hundreds of times and not once had he bothered to read it.
The name of one department, right at the bottom, stuck out from the rest. He found that the tiny candle of hope had just been re-lit. “Research and Development – Ground Floor,” he said. He’d never been down that far, not that it mattered. Tony knew of one person who did work down there. The guy who’d given him the VR machine to try out.
“Why didn’t I think of him before? Yeah, Joseph will be able to help me out. Oh yeah, I think my problem has …”
Tony’s words dried up. He stepped back and crashed into the other corridor wall. He managed to reach into his pocket, pull out the tablets, and push them into his mouth before hitting the floor.
Tony swept his hand out in a low arc, grunting with confusion when his probing fingers found nothing but dry rubble. His eyes snapped open and he looked up at the broken roof, seeing a dozen stars through the rafters which stuck out of the top of the wall like skeletal fingers. What the fuck just happened? Where was he and where was his shotgun?
He calmed his breathing, then got to his feet. “Wait a minute, Tony. What fucking shotgun?” None of this made any sense. He fell back against the wall and muffled a scream when he felt alien thoughts urgently trying to press through a thin barrier located at the back of his mind. “Go away,” he snarled. “Get out of my fucking head!” It was no good, those other thoughts rushed into his mind, pushing out everything that was familiar.
What the fuck had he done with his shotgun? No matter how hard he looked, the weapon was nowhere to be seen. He knew that he’d left the campsite with it. Coming back into the city was stupid enough, but to come here unarmed was just suicidal. It wasn’t just the few dead things that he needed to watch out for. If the security forces caught him outside during curfew, the bastards would take great pleasure in torturing him. Those bastard off-worlders honestly believed that they were all fucking sub-human.
“Did I really leave the site without my gun?” he whispered. He must have done so. It troubled him that he couldn’t remember. The only thing he could recollect was some weird dream about him watching some clown fighting with a group of men and then pushing a load of pills into his mouth.
“I think I need to lay off the homemade beer before setting out,” murmured Tony. So, he had no weapon and his memory had deserted him. Ever the practical man, Tony pushed these worries away. There was no point in worrying over stuff he had no control over. At least there was no sign of dead monsters, so it gave him time to look for a suitable alternate weapon. As for his recent memory lapse, well, he was sure it would come back to him eventually.
Perhaps he’d banged his head? That did make some sense, considering he’d just picked himself up from the ground. Tony’s objectives hadn’t changed, no matter what the condition of his memory. He must be back in one of the forbidden places solely to look for weapons. There would be no other reason to risk death by coming into this blighted place.
Tony climbed onto the rubble, jumped up and managed to catch a low beam with his fingers. With more luck than skill, Tony eased his body up until his head was clear of the top of the structure. The ruined city’s panorama stretched out in front of him.
Beyond the forgotten buildings, Tony could make out the vast sway of green, yellow, and white fields which stretched all the way to the horizon. Each one was packed with enough food to fe
ed a city for months. Tony growled to himself. None of this precious stuff would go to feed any of his people. This harvest would disappear through the gate, into the hateful city of those evil, fucking invaders who had arrived here five years ago, bringing the plague with them. The ones who didn’t turn into shambling corpses, eager for human flesh, were enslaved.
He dropped back to the ground, just in case their ‘master’ was watching, He didn’t want them to find him in here. Wherever ‘here’ was.
“Oh, that’s helpful,” he grinned, looking up at a metal sign just above his head. Tony brushed away the years of accumulated dirt, tracing his fingers over the embedded letters in the metal. Judging by the departments’ names, he figured that this building had been either a military complex or probably some sort of administration building belonging to a chemical factory. Why else would it have a research and development section?
For some reason that he couldn’t fathom, Tony felt compelled to go down three floors and investigate that particular section. He saw no logical reason for doing so. His priority was to find weapons, not to gaze in incomprehension at a bunch of old experiments left rotting in some forgotten building. Despite this, he’d already made up his mind.
He picked his way through the rubble, heading towards where the doorway once stood. Tony reached the stairway and shook the railings to check that they weren’t going to crumble. The metal didn’t budge. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to tumble down the middle of the stairway, he leaned over the edge to make sure that it would be safe enough to use this route.
Apart from a chunk of masonry that must have fallen from above, he saw no sign of heavy damage. “Here we go then.” This place felt so familiar; there was something about the layout and, in particular, that old sign that jarred his memory. Tony tried to shake away the irrational feeling that he’d been here before. He knew he hadn’t. Hell, until The Rising, Tony had never even left his home town.
He made his way down the stairway, keeping his ear open for any sound that he wasn’t alone. He still needed a weapon. There were plenty of stones lying about but nothing he could use. Tony felt vulnerable with his hands empty. Even a heavy stick would suffice for the moment.
Before he reached the next level, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. No obvious sounds of company had reached his ears yet, but he knew without doubt that someone or something was just behind the next door, just waiting to whack him. He flattened his back against the wall and stared at the door. It was weird; apart from obvious signs of wear and tear, it looked almost new. How did that work? This whole building must have been open to the elements for years. By rights, that door shouldn’t have even been there. “Unless someone has maintained it,” he muttered. It was probably best that he abandon this stupid venture altogether. The heavy feeling in his guts had returned. The evidence pointed to another human settlement. They wouldn’t take kindly to a stranger poking his nose into their business.
If he followed this path, Tony could very well end up losing his nose, as well as certain other parts of his anatomy. Not every person had surrendered when the invaders had come through. Some of the more resilient ones had hidden away in the forgotten cities, staying underground, only coming out at night to hunt for food. He’d heard the stories of other human settlements turning to cannibalism in order to survive. Tony picked up a fist-sized rock. He might be wrong about all of this. It was probable that his nerves were still shot. More than likely, Tony was alone in here. Even so, if he was right about someone else down here, he wasn’t going to let anyone put him in a cooking pot.
The one lesson that he’d learned the hard way was to never dismiss his gut feelings; this sixth sense that set his hairs on end and shot a load of butterflies into his stomach had saved his skin on more than one occasion.
If there was somebody behind the door, he would have to find some way to get past him. He looked behind him, back up the stairway. He’d always said there was a choice. Even if his instinct was so strong that it would be impossible to ignore, it, there should always be at least one alternative. His choice in this case was to run back up those stairs.
Tony already knew where his destiny lay. He charged forwards and slammed his body against the door, not remotely surprised to find an obstacle on the other side.
He pushed the door again and dived through the gap, listening to mumbled curses coming from a large man dressed in tattered military fatigues.
The man reached for a baseball bat just by his hand. Tony saw the movement and kicked it out of his reach. He then viciously slammed his boot into the man’s face. There was no guilt; this guy would have done the same to him if the tables were turned. He preferred it to be the other guy on the floor, pouring blood out of his broken nose.
Tony snatched up the bat. “Listen to me closely, friend. It would be in your best interest to stay on that floor. Now I know you must be really pissed because I messed up your nose.” Tony pushed the bat against the man’s forehead. “That’s mild compared to what I’ll do if you get any bright ideas. I hope you get my drift, buddy.”
He received a glare nasty enough to freeze the blood, but the guy did give Tony a slight nod. He guessed he’d have to live with that. It did feel odd how he was getting colder though.
“Just one more question, how many of you are down here?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” spat the man. “Don’t you know where you are? Just you wait until the others get here. They won’t need to use a scanner on you, buddy.”
Tony backed away from the man, not taking his eyes off his smirking face. He had no idea what any of that meant, and yet … He shook his head, trying to clear away a dense fog that was threatening to take him back to somewhere else. “Fuck you,” he snarled.
That door behind him looked so inviting. Maybe he ought to listen to his common sense and just get the hell out of here. None of this felt right at all. It would only take a few minutes to race up those stairs and get out of there.
No, screw that idea, this mission needed to be seen out to the end. There was no backing out now. Tony gave those doors one last look before bolting down the darkened hallway. His common sense could go take a running jump. It didn’t matter if he was heading towards the center of an angry hornets’ nest; this was what his instinct was telling him to do.
He shivered. That coldness flowing through his body was beginning to worry him now. It had to be in his mind, the effect of this building and that weird guard was obviously messing with his head. He gripped the bat tighter, promising himself that the next guard he met would get the bat wrapped around his head before the fucker could spout out any confusing nonsense. This part of the building was free of debris and clean. It almost felt as if the place had been resorted to its former glory. It was as if the decaying world above his head didn’t even exist. Tony ran his hand along the corridor wall, then inspected his fingers. These walls were definitely clean. Would a bunch of mad cannibals keep the place so tidy? Tony didn’t think so.
It also suggested that they were just another small band of individuals, hiding out in this ruined city, keeping their heads and wanting to stay alive.
“And you’ve just whacked their only lookout,” he muttered. “Good move, Tony. He’s probably the only safeguard they have from the real flesh eaters. Those dead things are probably on their way down here right now.”
Tony stopped running as he reached a ‘T’ junction. Where did the sudden bout of guilt trips come from? He felt, just for a moment, like a completely different person. It was this place, it had to be. Something in this building was seriously fucking with his head. He just needed to find out what it was. Tony guessed that it must be in that room, why else was his instinct guiding him towards it? “Poor starving individuals?” Hell, the guy on the floor looked as though he’d only just finished off a three-course meal.
He looked both ways down the corridor. Tony knew he needed to go left. That didn’t help either; how could he even know where he was suppose
d to go? These walls felt so familiar, as if he’d travelled down here many times. Before he turned, he heard something crash against the wall, back where he’d left that guy. It sounded like the man wasn’t going to take his advice after all.
Tony sighed heavily when he heard the man’s voice and, to make it worse, the guy with the broken nose had company. Judging from the sudden blast of furious shouts, the guy wasn’t all that happy about Tony stealing his bat. They weren’t wasting time in coming after him either.
“Just great,” he said, racing down the dimly lit hallway. His progress came to an abrupt stop when his ears detected another voice; this one was directly in front of him. Fuck, had they doubled back and cut him off? His blood chilled when that noise transformed into a low moan.
His fingers tightened around the handle. The men behind him were temporarily forgotten as he focused on the sound of that moaning, trying to find out exactly where it was coming from. He tuned out the shouts, hearing the clacking of teeth. Was it just one or two of them? It didn’t matter, Tony knew where it was coming from now. Judging from the long shadow growing from around the corner, there was just the one.
The muttered tones of his pursuers had now turned to shock and fear. Tony nodded to himself, guessing that there was more than just one zombie down here with them. Still, he was confident that they’d be able to deal with it. Nobody in this terrible world could last long without knowing how to put down the dead things.
He lifted his bat and ran towards the shadow. The cloying stench of bad meat, coupled with their unique chemical taint, confirmed what he already knew. Tony swung the bat hard, feeling the thick wood connect with the side of its head. The impact reverberated through his arms and into his shoulders. The dead thing slammed into the ground. This time it wasn’t ever going to get back up.
Tony stood over it, panting heavily. He looked at the dark blood staining the end of the bat. None of this made any sense. There shouldn’t have been so much blood. Just by looking at it, he knew that this zombie had been in this state for years. Its liquids would have turned to stinking black sludge years ago. This one was freshly turned.