Singh nodded. “Yes sir.”
“Ready?”
“Sir.” Singh had wrapped a number of shirts around his arm and hand, then threaded the flex around his waist, up his elbow and forearm, before feeding it to the window with his heavily wrapped hand. He stood by the window and dug his feet into the floor where it met the wall.
With little ceremony, Allen climbed out of the window, and stood up on the frame, holding onto the two pieces of broom, tied together tightly to make a short stumpy swing. He put the swing through his legs, so he was sitting on it.
The whole of the office stood in a semi-circle a respectable distance away from the window - as if they expected Allen to go plummeting to his death and didn’t want to appear too macabre by snagging a ringside seat.
“Ok, everyone, this is how you’ll do it. Lewis will be able to help you get up. Singh will be taking your weight, and you’ll simply walk down the wall. I’ll be smashing the window below through, so when you reach the next floor, I’ll pull you through. Nothing to it. As long as you don’t look down, it’s a walk in the park.” He gave a rare smile, and received a few back in response.
“Ok Singh, brace!” he shouted.
“Braced sir!” shouted Singh.
Allen took a deep breath, and let go of the top of the window frame. Singh made a grunt as he took Allen’s weight. He slid forward a few inches before leaning back into the weight. Allen in turn fell back a few inches, then steadied as Singh took the strain.
“We good?” said Allen.
“Good sir,” said Singh.
There was a collective sigh of relief in the watching crowd.
Lewis passed Allen a sledgehammer. “Good luck sir.”
Allen began his walk down the side of the building, as Singh fed through the flex. He only had to go a meter or so before his feet bounced against the glass from the third floor office. He stopped and positioned himself so he was looking down, the sledgehammer hanging from his right hand. He pulled it back a little and swung it backwards and forwards, building momentum. When he had enough, he altered the angle so with the next swing, the hammer would hit the glass.
It did so with a large and dull thump, but no cascade of shattering glass.
The thump did have one side effect though. A raucous moan came from below, almost celebratory. Allen looked down to see that he had been spotted by the peanut gallery. The zeds were reaching up, hissing, their teeth chattering. The sight of Allen hanging above them, out of reach, seemed to be too much for them to bear. Allen allowed himself a small laugh. “Suck it up, dead heads.”
He repeated his action with the hammer, allowing the swing a bit more time. This time when it hit the glass there was the beautiful sound of smashing glass. A rain fall of shards and glass dust cascaded onto the zeds below, icy spikes embedding themselves in their arms, shoulders, eyes. They didn’t care.
“Ok Singh, give me about 3 feet of slack,” shouted Allen.
He bounced down until he was even with the window. He held the sledgehammer up near the window and used it to clear the glass from the frame. He reached forward and using the top of the window frame, pulled himself into the office. He cursed as remnants of glass cut the palms of his hand.
He let go of the swing. “Ok, Singh, all yours. Send the first one down.”
He heard a cheer from above.
It took an hour to get the civilians down. Now it was only Lewis and Singh left above.
“Sure you want to go last?” said Lewis to Singh.
Singh nodded. They had a plan, the only way for the last person to get down, but it was risky. “First, let’s clear the door.”
They removed the furniture from the door, quickly. They were piped with adrenaline, and the increasing noise from the other side of the door only fuelled that.
“They know something’s up,” said Lewis, a slight smile on his lips.
“Lucky they’re dumb as fuck, eh?” said Singh. “This plan may just work.”
The furniture cleared, the door rattled as the zeds on the other side pushed against it.
“Let’s be quick,” said Singh.
“You getting the fear?” said Lewis.
“Damn right,” said Singh, smiling.
They went to the window and Singh took the strain once more, with Lewis on the end of the rope. “See you in five,” said Lewis as he waked over the edge. Within a minute the rope was slack.
“All yours!” came Allen’s shout.
Singh pulled up the rope and quickly untied the end of the flex from the pillar, the noise from the zeds increasing, which was good - he wanted as many as possible up here.
“Flex coming down,” he shouted out the window.
He fed the flex out the window, the end without the swing. Then he waited for a few minutes, before he got the shout. “Ok Singh, you’ve got about six feet of slack. Let us know when you’re ready.”
Singh swallowed, his heart beating a million a minute. Opening a door with a bunch of hungry zeds on the other side was like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane - senseless. But he had done many parachute jumps, so he would do this too.
He rested the swing on the floor near the window. He walked across the empty office to the door and took the handle. He held a deep breath, and pulled the door open.
He ran to the window. He didn’t look behind him, but he could hear them. Moaning, hissing, their teeth chattering in unison like some insane flesh mashing factory.
He picked up the swing. At least he didn’t have time to think about what he was doing. He stood up on the window frame, turning to face into the office. They were only feet away, pulling and pushing past each other, their dead eyes fixed on him, moaning and, he would swear, roaring with excitement.
“Coming!”
He wrapped his arms around the broom handles at the elbows and held it tight against his body, like his life depended on it, because it did.
He took a jump backwards, and he was suddenly in motion. Only a few seconds. He had the muscles of his arms tensed. The window appeared, he felt hands grasp him, and then slip. His arms pulled up and his shoulders hurt with a blunt yanking pain. The handles began to slip from his arms.
He wasn’t going to make it. He swung forward and hit the wall just under the window frame. Hands grabbed his shirt, and he stopped moving.
“We got ya!” shouted Allen.
He was lifted into he office. His heart hammered against his chest and his breaths came deep and fast. Everyone in the office cheered. Allen slapped him on the back. “Well done lad.”
He was alive.
Chapter 9
They repeated the process for each floor, with Lewis taking the death jump the second time, and Allen taking it the third time. To get to the first floor had taken three hours, and they were all exhausted. The day was fading, darkness creeping in from the west.
Allen stared out the window. Red fingers of dusk painted the sky. He couldn’t get everyone out before dark. “How are we for water?” he said.
“We’ve only got one canteen left. A few sips each,” said Lewis.
The eyes of the others were on him, waiting for a decision, They had trusted him this far, and he had managed, somehow, to make the right decisions, one after another. Until getting into this building. The events of the last few days had shaken his faith in himself.
He could ask everyone what they thought - should they stay or go? But they didn’t want to have to decide. They didn’t have many comforts in the world, and the least he could do was take on the responsibility of such a decision. He was the leader. He had to be. For his own sanity as much as theirs.
“Ok, we go.”
The next stage of the plan involved noise, and lots of it. Breaking down the furniture in the office led to each person having their own chair or table leg.
They smashed the windows of the far side of the office, round the L. This attracted the attention of the zeds, just one floor below.
“Hang out the window, and ban
g, shout, make as much noise as you can. We need these dumb zeds to think the party is happening anywhere apart from this side of the office.”
They all together banged and shouted at the far windows. The zeds complied mindlessly, shuffling and moaning their way round the building.
“It’s working,” said Lewis. The ground below him was clearing of zeds. For the first time in days, the car park was visible. The flower bed that lined the office had been stamped to a brown green mulch. Directly below, the window was already broken, having been forced through by the zeds when Allen had been exploring.
The first floor was low enough that they could hang out the window and drop only eight feet or so. They would have to be quick.
“You know what to do?” he said to Lewis and Singh. They both nodded.
“Good luck sir,” said Lewis.
Allen took one last look, then climbed out of the window backwards, hanging, before dropping to the ground. He landed on the flower bed. Only twenty feet away stood a wall of zeds. Their noise was all encompassing. The smell like being in a thick gas of death. His heart beat uncontrollably - something right in the core of his being rejected so much death near him.
They hadn’t seen him. They pushed against each other, undulating senselessly, trying to get to the people hanging out of the windows round the corner of the building.
Allen carefully knocked the last fragments of glass through from the window frames. Nothing turned at the sound of the glass falling into the office - they were making too much noise to hear.
He climbed through the window. The office was empty. The plan had worked. Opening up each office had drained out the zeds from the stairwell and this office. Their herd mentality had sucked them up the stairs like a powerful tractor beam. He ran over and locked the office door, then returned to the window. He stuck his head out and signalled to Lewis, who was hanging out the first floor window. A few moments later, Lynsey hung from the window and dropped. She let out a small gasp as she landed. Still no sign of the zeds hearing anything. Allen let go a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. She climbed into the window.
“There’s the server room,” said Allen, pointing. Lynsey ran to it and disappeared down the stairs.
The escapees came thick and fast. One dropping as soon as the other had landed. This meant people were getting through quickly, but it also meant the noise from the office above was decreasing quickly too.
Soon only three were left making noise, Johnson, Singh, and Lewis.
Then only two as Singh dropped to the floor. He climbed through the window.
“Johnson next?” said Allen.
Singh shook his head. “He insisted on going last. Said we’d taken enough risks.”
Allen shook his head.
The banging stopped.
Lewis dropped to the ground.
Only one zed turned at first. It let out a monstrous moan of excitement. Within seconds, as if on a hundred swivels, the hoard of zeds turned to face Lewis. Teeth chattered and the mass of dead bodies vibrated under a wave of urgency, shoving against each other like it was first day of the sales: Cut Price Human Flesh.
Lewis turned white, the blood draining from his face as the crowd of zeds pushed towards him.
“Come on!” he shouted, looking up.
Johnson landed on the ground. He fell. A zed wearing what looked like a ripped and fading ambulance uniform lunged forward and grabbed Johnson’s leg, its boney fingers, the skin having been torn off by some unnoticed trauma, ripped into the flesh of Johnson’s leg.
Lewis grabbed Johnson’s arms and pulled. Johnson looked up, his face naked and open in fear, “Help me Lewis, help me!”
Lewis pulled. But another zed fell on Johnson’s leg and clamped its jaws around Johnson’s calf. Johnson let out a terrible scream
Lewis pulled out his knife and stabbed the nearest zed, but was in danger of becoming swamped himself.
“Leave him!” shouted Allen.
Lewis looked up at Allen.
“He’s been bit, we can’t save him. Get in here now, that’s an order!”
Lewis shook his head, staring at Johnson as another zed latched onto his leg, before tearing off most of Johnson’s calf muscle.
“NOW!” shouted Allen.
Lewis felt his arm being pulled towards the window. Allen was beside him.
They climbed back into the building and Johnson’s screams become lost in a chorus of terrible crunching sounds.
Allen grabbed Lewis and pushed him towards the server room. “Go!”
The two men ran for the doorway as zeds lined up against the window, braying and clawing, before tumbling into the office.
Allen slammed the door behind him and ran down the stairs.
“Where’s Johnson?” asked someone.
Allen didn’t answer. Lewis glared at him.
“Come on,” said Allen. “We need to get his grate up, there’s no telling how long that door will hold.”
The soldiers lifted the release handles on the grate and pulled. It was stiff, probably hadn’t been operated for years. It gave way with a heavy creak as the rusted sides peeled against the wall of the shaft. They dropped it to the side with a huge clang.
“Singh, you go first. Head north, that’s towards the main road. Me and Lewis will follow the rear.”
“Sir,” said Singh, before quickly disappearing down the shaft, climbing down the small ladder.
“Come with me Lewis,” said Allen motioning towards the stairs. We need to make sure that door is sound.”
They climbed the stairs. Scratching and moaning and thumping from the other side of the door rattled the door alarmingly on its hinges. Allen turned to Lewis in the darkness. “Look, I couldn’t do anything else.”
Lewis shook his head. “We don’t leave anyone behind.”
“He was bit. Once someone is bit, they are as good as dead. You know that.”
Lewis seemed to be fighting tears. “He was only a kid.”
“When you reach my age, anyone under thirty is a kid, that includes you. I need to make my decisions based on keeping the most of us alive.” said Allen.
“I don’t know how much more I can take sir.”
Allen put his hand on Lewis’s shoulder. “Dig deep lad. We’re army. We’ll always find what we need.”
They both jumped at a loud thump on the door. The wood around the handle chipped.
“Come on, we need to go.”
Chapter 10
Eighteen, including the soldiers, survived. They stood in the dusk of the dying day, on the main road that led into the peninsula of Cornwall. The office building that had been their brief prison stood in silhouette a mere few hundred yards away. Noise from the surrounding hoard of zeds vibrated in the background, like the constant hum of a distant motorway on a summer’s day.
Allen guided them to a field on the other side of the road, behind a large hedge. They were tired, scared, thirsty, and hungry.
“We’re going to have to keep going through the night,” said Allen with resignation. “We don’t have a choice. If we find somewhere we can hold up, we will. Then as soon as we have a base, we can find some food.”
The soldiers passed round their canteens. What little there was, was shared.
Lynsey called over Allen. She was sitting with Neil, an older chap, must have been in his mid sixties, thin and frail looking. The past few months of constant moving and low calories hadn’t been good to him. “He’s hurt his leg in the drop.”
“It’s nothing too serious, Sarge,” said Neil. He had an trustworthy northern accent and always managed a smile. Allen liked him. “Just a knock, I’ll be good soon enough.”
Allen inspected the man’s ankle, his trouser leg rolled up to reveal a red swelling. “We don’t have time for soon enough. Can you walk?”
“Get me a stick and I can,” said Neil. His smile faltered, just for second, but Allen was attuned to people’s micro-expressions after years of dealing with unruly grunts.
He knew Neil was scared.
“Good enough for me,” said Allen.
Allen searched the nearby field, whilst Singh and Lewis kept look out to be sure the hoard across the road didn’t make any moves their way. Once he had found a reasonable walking stick for Neil, they were on the move, west towards Cornwall.
It was near one o’clock in the morning when they came to a petrol station in a lay-by off the road.
“Wait here,” said Allen in hushed tones to the group. “Singh, come with me, let’s take a look.”
The forecourt had one car sitting in it, an old army jeep. Blood was splattered on the windows, and both doors were open. The front windscreen was shattered.
“Army,” said Singh, a question hovering in his voice.
Allen nodded as they walked slowly past the vehicle.Army - Allen didn’t know whether that was good or bad these days, ever since his own unit had splintered in the first days of the Fall.
“Let’s check out the petrol station first, we’ll look at the jeep later.”
They shone their torches against the darkness of the petrol station’s shop interior. Beachball wide circles of light revealed empty shelves, broken windows, turned over newspaper displays. Dust hung in the air, the micro particles floating gently in the bright beams.
It looked abandoned, like everywhere else, but you could never be sure.
Singh opened the door quickly and Allen moved into the building holding his sledgehammer up, and his torch ahead. A noise from the left alerted him to movement. A zed was on the floor in army fatigues, a hole in its chest, the lower torso covered in blood. Its left leg had been gnawed to the bone, leaving it unable to stand.
The zed pulled at the floor, its fingers dashing uselessly off the smooth tiles of the floor, moaning in frustration. Allen brought the hammer down hard on its head. It smashed with a dull thump. Skull and blood and flesh squeezed out the side of its head like a novelty sized tube of toothpaste.
“Careful,” said Allen. “Something went down here.”
They spent the next five minutes checking the shop carefully, finding no other occupants, alive or otherwise.
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