The Dead Walk The Earth: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

by Luke Duffy

  Samantha moved forward through the darkness, taking small steps and feeling with the toes of her boots before placing each foot. It was impossible to see anything ahead of her and instead, she relied heavily on her hearing.

  From what she could tell, the blood thirsty horde was still a couple of levels above them, but they were close and within the next minute or so, they would be on top of them.

  Her knee made contact with something at the foot of the next flight and her throat instantly tightened up. She gasped and instinctively took a step back, already beginning to squeeze the trigger on her rifle.

  Melanie’s light suddenly illuminated the area in front of her, having caught up from the turn in the stairs. At her feet, Samantha saw the pile canvass sacks that had been left behind. She let out a loud gasp of relief and stepped to the side of the discarded bags. She had almost fired into them.

  She anxiously checked over her shoulder to see that the others had caught up and were following. Without wasting any more time and throwing caution to the wind, they began to pound their way up the next set of steps.

  Melanie reached out and held onto the back of Samantha’s shirt, making sure that she stayed closely tucked in behind her and they did not become separated again.

  The infected were close. Their smell had already filled the entire stairwell, accompanied by their thundering footsteps and ghostly wails. Samantha’s nose twitched at the scent of decaying bodies, the sickly sweet tang making her want to cover her mouth and nose, but she fought the urge, opting to keep both hands on her rifle.

  She was just a few steps from the top of the final flight and the entrance to the corridor that led into the tunnels. She looked up, and a few metres above them, in the flickering light of the torch beams from Jonesy and Melanie, she caught a glimpse of the dark shadows that were descending upon them.

  As the light shifted, she saw the first of the infected, halfway down the final flight of steps above. The light from behind her drifted from the blood coated white shirt and illuminated the pale eyes and blackened face of a corpse, staring back at her.

  Instinctively, she raised her rifle and fired.

  In the confines of the staircase, the report of the discharging rounds sounded like the crack of thunder, clapping at their ears and threatening to implode their skulls. The flash was blinding, shooting out from the muzzle like a volcano of brilliant white.

  The body fell as a number of bullets ripped through its chest, splattering blood and bone into the air around it. The infected man toppled forward and bounced down the stairs, smashing against each rung as Samantha raised her aim again and fired into the lunging figures that followed close behind.

  “Run,” she screamed down at the others as she stood in the doorway leading into the corridor, holding off the advance of the dead.

  “Fucking run. Get to the tunnel.”

  As Melanie reached the top of the steps, she was momentarily blinded in the muzzle flash from the rifle that jerked in Samantha’s hands. Her head buzzed with the echoing blasts that announced the demise of yet another of the infected. With each flash, she caught a glimpse of the contorted and hate filled face of Samantha as she continued to dispatch the creatures that had begun to pile up at the foot of the stairs.

  “Go,” she screamed, as she stood her ground.

  Melanie jumped through the doorway and spun around, raising her light in her left hand and illuminating the cramped staircase. With her right hand, she took aim with her pistol and joined Samantha in the melee. Their weapons roared together, hammering at the falling bodies as they began to choke up the stairwell.

  Jonesy was through and into the corridor but in the narrow confines, he was unable to bring his rifle to bear and support Melanie and Samantha.

  “Stoppage,” Samantha screamed out, hitting the release catch and reaching for a fresh magazine.

  She ducked, keeping herself below Melanie’s line of fire and stepped into the corridor as she slammed her cocking lever forward and chambered a round. Within seconds, she began firing again and continued to pour a hail of projectiles back at their attackers.

  “Emma,” Melanie cried out, seeing the final member in their group as she reached the top step and the body that dropped from between the bannister, landing on top of her and knocking her flat to the ground.

  She turned her pistol and fired, hitting the squirming body in the shoulder, but it had no effect. In the next instant, as Samantha’s rifle continued to blast away beside her, Melanie heard the blood curdling screams of Emma, as the teeth of the infected closed over the soft tissue between her shoulder and neck, tearing a huge hole out from the muscle, which instantly began to pour with a river of blood.

  Melanie made to take a step forward as Samantha’s rifle roared again. The discharge was close to the side of her head and forced her to instinctively duck and pivot on her heel, jumping to the side to get out of the line of fire. Her head buzzed and her vision danced as the torch slipped from her hand and clattered against the floor, rolling away from her and casting its beams across every surface, illuminating the infected and the living, freezing them in instants of light like the separate frames in a roll of film. The light trundled away and finally went dark as it smashed against the wall, leaving only Jonesy with a means of countering the blackness that threatened to swallow them up.

  As she cleared Samantha’s arcs, Melanie felt a body land nearby and a cold hand reach out and close around her ankle, gripping her tightly and trying to pull her downwards. She could feel the body squirming at her feet as it attempted to climb up to her, tugging and jerking at her clothing. She kicked and pulled, trying to break free, but the first hand was quickly joined by a second and the grip tightened.

  Raising her pistol, she screamed out as she repeatedly pulled the trigger, emptying the remainder of the magazine into her attacker. As the final round exploded from the chamber and the top slide locked in the rear position, she saw the snarling face below her implode in the instant of the final muzzle flash. A cold splash of sticky liquid hit her cheek as the hands lost their grip and slipped away from her lower leg, allowing her to step free.

  As Emma’s shrieks continued and Samantha’s rifle boomed over and over again, Melanie began to change out her empty magazine, frantically reaching for a full one and almost dropping it from her shaking hands.

  “Back, get back,” Samantha cried out, grabbing the young pilot by the arm and forcing her to the rear. “Move back.”

  She reached into the satchel slung over her shoulder and pulled out a High Explosive grenade. It was the only one she had, but now was the time to use it. The stairwell was now packed with the infected, tumbling over one another in the dark and piling through into the corridor as the three survivors began to retreat.

  She knew that they could do nothing to help Emma as she was swallowed up by the mob. Her cries for help and howls of agony continued to echo through the corridor, but it was impossible to reach her.

  As Jonesy and Melanie fell back and began to fire into the advancing black mass, Samantha pulled the pin on the grenade, keeping the ‘fly-off’ lever clutched against her palm. Stepping backwards, she tried to judge where exactly Emma was within the throng of bodies, but there were so many of them, pulling and tearing at her, that her position seemed to have changed a number of times.

  Still, she screamed out in desperation, her voice filled with pain.

  “Bastards,” Samantha spat with rage and threw the grenade into the area where she believed her friend to be.

  She heard the heavy grenade land with a thud and turned to run through the wall of fire that Melanie and Jonesy had thrown up, feeling the displacement of air and hearing the ear-splitting snaps as their rounds whizzed through the darkness around her, covering her withdrawal.

  “Run,” Samantha screamed at them as she reached their position.

  Behind them, a blinding flash lit up the corridor. A deafening thump, sounding like an enormous steel weight had just been dropped on to
the stairwell from high above, crashed against their ears, joined with a shockwave that pushed at their backs and hurtled them forward. The increased air pressure in the corridor squeezed their bodies, threatening to collapse their lungs and burst their eyes out from their sockets.

  The earth stood still for a moment as the concussion of the exploding grenade stole their breath and senses away. They seemed to drift through time and space, being carried through the passageway by an enormous invisible hand. Then, as the sound of the blast faded and with ringing ears and bursting lungs, the three of them were slammed into the floor, feeling their bodies being pressed into the hard concrete as the shockwave raced along the narrow hallway, looking for a way out.

  Jonesy was the first of them to reach his feet again. Staggering and unable to see clearly, he grabbed for the torch that had fallen from his hand and spun around, shining it back down the corridor towards the entrance into the stairwell. It was hard for the light to penetrate the thick cloud of smoke and dust, but nothing came out from the swirling debris. It appeared that Samantha’s grenade had bought them a few precious seconds.

  “Come on, Sam, get up,” he grunted, unsteady on his feet as his vision continued to dance in the gloom.

  He grabbed hold of Samantha and Melanie and began to drag them by their shirts along the corridor.

  “Up, get up. We need to move,” he screamed at them.

  Groggily, they both climbed to their feet, disoriented and unable to walk without leaning against one another for support. They groaned and sputtered from the effects of the blast and the dust that lingered in the air.

  Behind them, the infected had begun to recover from the explosion. Bodies, cut in half by the flying shrapnel and shockwave, dragged themselves along the corridor, spilling their entrails out over the cold concrete in their wake. Others, still descending from the floors above, crashed down the steel steps and trampled over the fallen.

  Samantha, vaguely cognisant of her surroundings, became aware that something was no longer in her possession. It was not her rifle. That was still firmly in her grasp. She reached down to the map pocket on her trousers and realised that she had lost the Iridium phone, her only means of contacting Stan and his men.

  “Shit,” she cursed hoarsely as she began to feel about her in the dark.

  “The sat-phone. I’ve lost the fucking sat-phone.”

  “Leave it,” Jonesy shouted, still pulling at her arm. “Leave it, Sam. It’s too late for that now. We need to go.”

  The three survivors forced themselves into a stumbling run, hobbling along the passageway on unsteady legs, still holding onto one another and constantly under threat from toppling forward as their lack of balance caused them to struggle to remain upright.

  They could hear the sounds of the dead behind them, tearing their way through the darkness in hot pursuit. They moaned and howled, hundreds of voices crying out together and creating a sound that clawed at the bones of the living.

  “Keep going,” Jonesy encouraged, “we’re nearly there.”

  Up ahead, his torch light flashed across a door set into a thick steel frame. It was the entrance into the tunnel.

  Timing his run, he threw out his leg and hit the door with a forceful kick. Instantly, his body was stopped dead in its tracks. The crack was audible within the bang of the impact as the bones in his ankle shattered.

  Jonesy crumpled to the ground and yelped, feeling a pain like nothing he had experienced before, shooting up from his leg and into his brain, completely overwhelming him. The agony burned brightly before his eyes, blinding him for an instant as he reached down towards his wrecked ankle.

  Samantha, feeling Jonesy drop from her side, almost tripped over him as she reached forward for the handle. She pulled down and the door swung open, forcing a backdraft of cool air into the smoke and dust filled corridor.

  Melanie snatched up Jonesy’s rifle and turned to face the rear, pointing in the direction they had come.

  “Grab him,” she shouted to Samantha nodding down at the injured man. “Get him out of here. I’m right behind you.”

  “Stay close, Melanie,” Samantha called back to her, “we’re counting on you to fly us out of here.”

  As Samantha scooped up the screaming Jonesy from the ground and began to drag him into the tunnel, Melanie began to pour a heavy weight of fire into the corridor behind them, screaming as she did so from fear and anger.

  The three of them, limping and firing as they fled, made slow progress through the catacombs of the underground bunker. The dead were closing in. Unaffected by the damage they had sustained from the gunshots and exploding grenade, they were gaining ground.

  Melanie emptied her magazine and turned to catch up to the bouncing light of the torch in Samantha’s hand.

  “How far,” she wheezed, reaching into the satchel hanging from the Captain’s neck and feeling for a fresh magazine.

  Finally finding what she was looking for, she slammed it into place and forced the cocking leaver forward again.

  “About a hundred metres, I think,” Samantha groaned back at her, struggling with the weight of Jonesy as she helped him to leap along on his remaining good leg.

  He was howling with pain and frustration with each step and begging Samantha not to leave him behind.

  Something moved up ahead of them in the tunnel. In the instant that she saw it in the torch beam, it was impossible for her to recognise. She stopped, dropping Jonesy to the floor and raising her rifle. She could hear the commotion behind her, as their pursuers continued the hunt, but now, the threat was also in front of them.

  Her heart, already beating rapidly, began to skip beats. Her body was exhausted and her mind was beginning to lose its grip, giving in to fear and panic. They were cut off from their escape. Somehow, the infected had got ahead of them, and now, they had no way out. Her finger pressed against the trigger as she waited for her target to show itself again.

  “Don’t shoot,” a voice called out to her from within the inky blackness.

  As the pounding footsteps got louder up ahead, drawing nearer and the voice became clearer, Melanie recognised the man approaching them.

  “Mike,” she gasped, turning for a moment to look over her shoulder, and then firing another volley into the invisible snarling mass that was following them.

  He came to a halt in front of them, and in the glow of the light in her hand, Samantha saw the look of horror and alarm in his face as he stared back down the tunnel and heard the dead approaching.

  Another man, one of the aircrew on loan from Gerry, stepped forward and helped to carry Jonesy, slinging him over his shoulder and turning to head back into the pitch-black of the tunnel.

  “Come on,” Mike encouraged, grabbing hold of Melanie and pushing Samantha ahead of him.

  “The chopper is ready to go. We just need you to fly it, Mel.”

  At the far end of the shaft, they reached the stairs leading up from the basement of the office block. From there, hauling their wounded and struggling up the endless flights, they forced themselves through the darkness and up onto the roof, the infected close behind and refusing to give up the chase.

  As they barged through the fire exit at the top of the stairs, they were hit by a blast of cold air and a thunderous roar, as the huge engines of the Chinook howled beneath the rotors. At the rear ramp, a man stepped out, shouting something through the racket of the aircraft and anxiously waving them forward, and then disappeared again into the body of the huge machine.

  A drumbeat of low rumbling concussions, barely audible over the noise of the helicopter, rang out from the forward part of the fuselage, accompanied by a number of bright flashes in rapid succession of each other. In her exhaustion, Samantha struggled to understand what was happening, but a rearward glance clarified things for her.

  The infected had reached the top of the stairs and had made it through the door. She saw them fall, their heads imploding and limbs being ripped from their bodies. Jets of asphalt and
splinters of masonry, mixed in with blood and bone, shot up like fountains all around them as the 0.5 inch calibre rounds from the heavy machinegun chewed up anything that followed the survivors out onto the rooftop.

  The aircrew were manning their guns, hammering away at the infected as they piled through the fire escape.

  Moments later, the remnants of the bunker personnel were sprawled out on the floor of the passenger compartment, close to collapse and grimacing from the exertion and pain threatening to overwhelm their worn bodies and minds.

  Melanie could not afford to rest and forced herself forward and into the cockpit where she took control of the machine.

  Soon, as the pitch of the engine grew and the rotors changed angle and increased their speed, the wheels of the CH-47 lifted off from the asphalt roof of the building. As the helicopter rose up a few metres, the crew manning the guns ceased firing, opting to conserve their ammunition for when they really needed it.

  The infected, no longer being held back by the heavy rounds that smashed their bodies to pulp, spewed out through the disfigured and crumbling doorway and raced towards the aircraft, hovering just beyond their reach.

  Gripping the cyclic, Melanie yawed the Chinook to the right and into the open space beyond the rooftop’s edge. The infected, determined in their assault, blindly followed the escaping helicopter.

  Many of them, unaware of the danger to their existence, launched themselves from the building and out into thin air, plummeting to the ground below and crashing into the hard pavement where they exploded like bags of offal.

  The sun had risen on the new day. Its dazzling rays shone from above the horizon and reached out over the rooftops of London, blinding in their brilliance. Below, a new world had been born. One where the living fear the dead and death, was no longer final.

  It was time for Samantha and the others to join in with the evacuation. They set a bearing for the Isle of Wight and headed away from the bunker, over the dying land and out towards the English Channel.