by Haywood, RR
WE FIGHT.
A roaring pulse of energy sweeps through her. Meredith in her head. The line is drawn. We do not yield. Jess in her head. We fight here. Charlie feels the fear in the horse, the abject terror but there is great honour of staying to give battle when all your instinct is to flee and that horse carries the fight for them. That horse holds them back. That horse uses weight and power to keep the thick lines from gaining dense ranks into the doorway.
The infected slam but the three hold. They hold and they fight with an axe that swings back and forth and huge teeth that open skin and tear throats. The undead compress, pushing in, sensing they can take one of the living army but Howie’s blood pumps in her veins and Clarence’s strength flows through her limbs and Cookey’s heart beats inside her chest. She grunts with exertion and slams them down. She gets hit, knocked back into the girls in the doorway but not a second of hesitancy stalls her motion and she’s back into the line to hold and fight with a searing rage. This is life and all the seconds of humanity held together for one perfect moment of two holding many while a horse destroys them within their ranks.
We do not yield.
We fight. Little ones. From the heart.
Hold Charlie. We are coming. Howie’s voice so calm and deadly and the strongest of all. But it cannot be. The team against two hundred would be nothing. It would be over in minutes but Charlie, Jess and Meredith cannot hold them back. They cannot withstand the power of the surge that drives them back and the bodies falling down just choke the space until they can’t move or fight out. There is only one way to go and that is back into the doorway where the girls scream and cower from the sprays of blood that strike the floor and walls around them.
Hold Charlie. Do not yield.
I can’t. There are too many.
Hold on, for fuck’s sake hold on.
Voices of the team in her mind. Voices of the pack reaching out to give what strength they can.
We’ll come for you.
Fight Charlie. Fight like a bastard.
I will come to you.
I can’t. I can’t…we’re going back now…there are three little ones here.
THEN HOLD. DO NOT YIELD.
Too many…so many…
We fight little sister. The pack comes.
A blow to the face and she reels back with stars flashing behind her eyes and she lands heavy but scrabbles with the blind instinct to scoot back and use her body to protect the little ones behind her. Arms stretched out and she kicks to drive her body into the girls. Using her body as a shield as Cookey did for her. Meredith fights wild and Jess surges in with a thrumming panic to batter the lines away but they get past Meredith and they get past Jess and they come crawling into the doorway as Charlie screams a snarl with her lips pulling back and throws herself at them.
On the ground they fight. Dirty and filthy with fists hammering her head and nails raking her skin but she kicks and gouges eyes and fights for every inch of ground for the lives of three girls.
She feels not the pain given but only that every second she fights is a second closer to the pack coming. Images flash through her mind. Images of voices and thoughts and pure energy that gives her waning strength a burst.
I will come Charlie. I swear it.
Teeth on her ear and a chunk is taken in the mouth by one infected with a mutated gene that desires only to inflict harm. She roars and headbutts him hard, breaking his nose. He reels but lashes a backhanded swipe that snaps her head over but fuck you if this is over and she drives him down with a mouth that finds his ear to tear it from his head. She spits it out and headbutts down again. Slamming his face into the hard ground.
We’re here. We’re coming.
‘I AM DAVE. I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU. FIGHT ME…’
His voice rolls to echo down the street and she feels the fear ripple through the infected with a split second of hesitation before they are sent harder and wilder into the attack.
She punches and punches but it’s not enough and Phillip surges up, driving the back of his head into Charlie who sinks back from the impact. He goes for the kill, diving for the throat as her hands come up and find his neck to squeeze with a grip that is nearly as strong as Blinky’s and they roll over and over each other. Teeth on her ankle. Teeth biting into her thigh. Another on her shoulder but she braces across the doorway with her legs kicking wild and hard to batter and hold them from the girls. She does not yield. She holds because energy is coming. She can feel them. The pack is coming. The pack is here. The girls will live. She stares into the eyes of Phillip and into the infection within and she smiles with blood on her teeth.
‘This day is ours,’ she growls the words with blood coursing down her face and teeth sinking into her arms and legs. She draws him closer, pulling him in just with the strength in her arms. He resists and tries to angle to bite into her neck while she strains with everything she has to lift him up the inches she needs. Nothing else matters now. Not the teeth biting her or the nails raking her arms. Not the pain exploding from a dozen wounds inflicted but only the one she holds and lifts to expose his neck as her own mouth opens. His hand finds her face. A sharp nail that digs in next to her left eye and slides slowly down opening the skin to peel it apart with a searing agonising pain and the blood flows into her mouth. The fingernail rakes from eye to jaw, deep and digging deeper. She screams but holds, she holds with nothing left but the will to finish this.
Charlie!
A pulse. A surge. A feeling of love extended and projected and on that wave she rides to lift and bite to rag and tear the flesh from his neck. Hot tainted blood spurts thick to hit the back of her throat as he twitches to brush his own teeth on the soft tender skin of her neck but Cookey’s face flashes before her eyes. His arms wrapping on Phillip’s head to wrench and break the neck with a brutal explosion of violence. Howie’s dark hair sinks to her side and the teeth biting into her body are gone.
‘Get her back,’ Howie grunts and spins round with his axe slashing through the infected ramming into the doorway.
Cookey lifts her up onto her feet and in one smooth motion he twists round behind her and sinks down to put his back to the three girls and lets Charlie sink into his embrace. His arms wrap round her body. His legs go over hers, enveloping her bodily. Meredith gets in close to crouch next to Cookey with her eyes fixed on the entrance held alone by Howie. The little ones are behind her. They will not pass. The pack are here.
She sees Cookey’s arm extended out in front of her gripping the pistol that aims unwavering and steady. His left arm holds her close, pulling her into his body as the rest of the team come in hard from the side to sweep them back. She reaches up to grab Cookey’s shoulder, to feel he is there. She reaches out to touch Meredith, to sink her fingers into the blood soaked coat to feel she is there.
We held the line.
We did little sister.
Raw emotion inside her now. She squeezes Cookey’s shoulder and feels his heart beating through her back. He came for her. They all did. She is protected and safe, held by a man with a heart that gives only love. This is the light in the darkest of days. This is what they are.
‘I’m bit,’ she whispers, hoarse and rough. She can taste blood in her mouth, her own blood and that of the infected.
‘You’re immune,’ Cookey whispers into her ear as the blood from her cuts soak his skin but the fear of turning is still there. It’s not fact or certainty that she is immune. The tainted blood is in her. She has been bit and raked, her flesh has been cut and opened. She clamps her hand tighter on his shoulder as the horde are swept away and the clear light of day once more fills the recess. Sunlight bathes her face. Warm, clean and pure and it’s okay. It’s okay to die now. You did your job. You held the line. Her eyes flick to Meredith knowing what will happen if the cells in her own body become tainted and give the scent that drives the dog to kill. ‘You’re immune,’ Cookey’s voice so soft and confident, ‘I swear it…’
An arrow swooshe
s past the doorway. Another one a second behind it and the air fills with the deep steady bass of the GPMG. Assault rifles firing with controlled bursts.
She is ready to die and if it comes she will greet it with pride and dignity but she wants something else. She wants a thing that has been missing throughout her life. A thing she has only just found and given to her by one man who she holds more dear than he will ever know.
‘Make me laugh…’
‘Now? Are you taking the piss?’
That’s enough and she giggles in the blood spattered doorway and chuckles with pain radiating in her body.
‘You’re weird,’ Cookey mutters and she laughs again and clamps her hand harder on his shoulder. His tone of delivery, his blue eyes that twinkle and that smile. She needs to see that smile and she twists to look up. He stares ahead, the pistol still held because the threat is not over yet. The guns are still firing and that means the infected are still there but the corners of his mouth twitch and he flicks a glance down. ‘Weirdo.’
‘Your smile,’ she says, simply to give voice to the thing so important in her mind.
‘Your bum,’ he replies so quickly it sets her off, ‘stop laughing, this is serious,’ he grips her harder for a second as though to emphasise his point, ‘if Dave catches us pissing about I’ll be on brew duty forever.’
‘I’ll help…’
‘Guess what?’ He whispers, his eyes fixed ahead.
‘What?’
‘Been more than two minutes, you’re immune,’ he draws her closer and drops his head to plant a gentle kiss on the side of her head, ‘one of us now, Charlie.’
She closes her eyes and breathes. She breathes air for the simple fact of being alive and if this moment went on for eternity she wouldn’t grumble once. ‘One of us…’
A shadow forms and she opens her eyes to see Clarence standing huge in the doorway, his assault rifle slung on his back and his double headed axe dripping blood at his side, ‘keep on catching you two like this,’ he rumbles with a smile, ‘got your clothes on this time though….come on,’ he strides in with a hand held out, ‘can you get up? Where are the children?’
‘Behind me,’ Cookey says as Charlie is lifted from his embrace. He gets to his feet to see the three girls frozen silent in fear, shaking head to toe and curled up gripping each other with a sight that breaks his heart, ‘Paula, the three girls are here.’
‘Coming…JANE? With me please…we’re on our way…’
Cookey waits, knowing he is the wrong person to give comfort to three terrified children. Clarence walks Charlie from the doorway back into the light of a street thick with bodies that were cut down within minutes.
‘Where?’ Paula sweeps in with Jane at her side and nods as Cookey steps back to let Jane rush forward with a mother’s soft tone and a mother’s soft touch.
‘Christ,’ Clarence winces, eyeing the cut on Charlie’s cheek and the chunk missing from the top of her right ear.
‘Is it bad?’ Charlie asks, lifting a hand to her face.
‘Leave it,’ Clarence says gently pushing her hand away.
‘Charlie, you okay?’ Howie says striding towards them.
‘Fine, I’m fine…’
‘Ooh,’ Howie says with a wince equal to Clarence’s.
‘Oh,’ Charlie groans, ‘that bad?’
‘ROY?’ Howie shouts.
‘WHAT?’ Roy shouts back.
‘Come and have a look at Charlie’s face, she’s cut it.’
‘I would love to but I AM NOT A BLOODY DOCTOR…’ Roy shouts walking from the vehicles, ‘I am a hypochondriac. I am not a medically trained…ooh,’ he winces as Charlie turns to face him and rushes forward to peer closer at the wound, ‘that’s going to leave a scar. It needs cleaning, what was it? Fingernail? You lost a bit of your ear too, dip your head so I can see it.’
‘It was a fingernail,’ Charlie says as the lads wander back to gather round. She tries to finger the cut again but gets her hand pushed away by Roy.
‘Don’t touch it for God’s sake,’ Roy huffs, ‘you’ll make it worse.’
‘Sorry.’
‘They were biting her,’ Cookey says from behind her, ‘ankle, thigh and shoulder.’
‘Let me see?’ Marcy says and Charlie dutifully turns to be peered at by faces wincing and tutting. ‘It’ll be fine,’ Marcy says kindly, ‘we heal fast now. You should see the bite on my arse…’
‘Really?’ Cookey asks, ‘can we?’
‘I think you’ve seen enough backsides for today, Cookey,’ Clarence says.
‘Nah, you can never see enough bums, eh Blowers?…April had a bum…’
‘Oh no,’ Blowers groans.
‘But Dave cut her head off.’
‘Brew duty for the next month,’ Dave says from across the street.
‘Ah,’ Cookey grins, ‘Charlie said she’ll do it for me. OH MY GOD! Charlie’s immune!’ He blurts with such enthusiasm it sets of a chain reaction of people grabbing the poor woman to hug and kiss her unhurt cheek.
Blinky grabs her tight with an awkward and very rare show of affection, ‘you’ll look hard as fucking nails now…wish I had a scar.’
‘Come on,’ Roy says with a nod at the vehicles, ‘we’ll get you cleaned up.’
‘Cheers, Doc,’ Howie says with a grin.
‘Not a doctor,’ Roy mutters.
‘Cheers, Doc,’ Nick calls out.
‘Thanks, Doc,’ Blowers says.
‘TA, DOC,’ Mo shouts from across the street with Dave.
‘You won’t call me that will you?’ Roy asks Charlie, knowing she is educated and sensible and not given to pissing about.
‘Of course not,’ Charlie says politely, ‘Doc…’
‘Oh God,’ Roy groans, ‘you’re one of them now.’
Twenty Seven
So let’s recap. I want to recap. It’s important that I use this time to reflect on the events that have led me to this point in my life.
First the good things. I had sex with Marcy last night. That was a good thing. I slept well and that’s also good. I got dissolved by a weird old guy in the hotel kitchen but that was also good. After that? We got attacked in the hotel and the scientist got chomped. The one man who actually knew something about all of this got chomped. Actually chomped. After that it was all a bit shit really and through the whole of that time I haven’t had a fucking coffee. Not one.
Don’t get me wrong, Charlie being immune is brilliant news. The sight of her is incredible. She’s cut to bits, a bit of her ear has been bitten off, her face is cut open, her arms and legs bitten hard but fuck me if I haven’t seen someone more alive than that girl looks right now. She’s glowing with the pride of what she did. That she held the line and faced them down. She took the fight to them when she could have easily backed off or used Jess to run away.
Aye, there’s honour in that. Beautiful glorious honour and those cuts she has are like the ones we all carry now. They’re the badges of the conflicts we’ve had. They’re the medals we’ll never be able to pin on our chests. It’s like a rite of passage has just been done. Charlie held the line and took the beating to stand proud after and look upon the beasts she felled as three golden haired children are carried to the arms of the people still inside the bus. Paula is right. We cannot save everyone but we saved those girls. No, Charlie saved those girls. She was aided by a psychotic dog and a fucking great big horse now dancing round the street popping skulls open but nevertheless, this is her battle.
But back to the coffee. There is no coffee. I can handle running about, I can deal with the infected and I’m not that bothered about getting cut and bit but I draw the line at not having a coffee. It’s not right. It’s really not right.
‘Maybe one of these places still has the gas on,’ I mention to Paula standing next to me with her arms folded as she makes more lists of things to do in her head.
She turns to look at me and shakes her head, ‘we’re going to the fort before that bastard thing g
ets any smarter.’
‘Eh? What’s that got to do with having coffee?’
‘He said yesterday was infancy and today is childlike,’ she says thoughtfully with a worried look round at the bodies.
‘Exactly,’ I say firmly, ‘so we should have coffee now while we’ve still got the chance.’
She fixes me a look and in her eyes are hope and the dreams of mankind about to be given the thing he desires most of all, ‘fort,’ she says bluntly and turns round to watch Roy gently rubbing soaked gauze to clear the blood and gunk from Charlie’s face.
I move away towards the back of Roy’s van and peer through the open rear doors to see Reginald sat inside with Neal’s M4 assault rifle with the folding stock resting against the table.
‘You using that?’ I ask.
‘I’m sorry?’ He asks, leaning back on the swivel chair and staring into space, ‘using what?’
‘Neal’s gun.’
‘Is it?’ He looks down as though mildly surprised, ‘I wasn’t aware it is any different to our guns.’
I nod and lean against the frame, ‘so?’
He shrugs, his face passive but the cogs are turning in his brain. ‘I don’t know.’
‘We did it anyway,’ I say quietly and he looks at me, the small nervous man no longer just a small nervous man, ‘we killed them.’
‘Good for you,’ he replies with acid dripping from tongue, ‘and no doubt tomorrow we shall kill a few more and the day after that we’ll kill a few more and we’ll keep on killing a few more until it’s intellect passes ours and then we die and everyone else dies.’
I cough and bring my thoughts into order, ‘that’s a bit harsh, mate. We saved three little girls today. Well, Charlie did but…’
‘Thousands died today, Mr Howie. Thousands died yesterday and thousands have died every day since this began and they will continue to do so. It knows where they are. It only has to take one to find two to seek three to hunt four. This,’ he waves a desultory hand around him, ‘this is a torrid little skirmish of no consequence. We took pawns from a player that has an almost limitless supply of them. We have not progressed nor have we advanced…’