* * *
Adam kicked open the car door and pushed past the first two zombies who had been knocked backwards by the force of the door slamming into them.
He sped out into the middle of the food court, pushing silver chairs and tables behind him to obstruct his undead pursuers.
He heard a woman’s voice calling him: momentarily confused he looked around. He saw an attractive middle-aged woman suspended from the roof.
She saw his blood-soaked hand.
“He’s infected!” the woman shouted to an unseen friend.
The look of horror on the stranger’s face made Adam hesitate for a moment.
He only paused for a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for the zombies to catch up with him.
Dead hands were entwined in his long hair and he was pulled backwards.
Teeth found his head, scraping along his skull as a chunk was bitten from his forehead.
He fell backwards, and another creature started biting at his stomach. His flesh tore, and hands found his innards.
Adam screamed in pain. Gritting his teeth he looked at the zombie that was disembowelling him. “Fuck you,” he spat in the creature’s face, “fuck you and the horse you rode in on!”
He felt teeth at his throat.
Attempting to curse again he discovered that his voice was no longer working.
He tried to look up to see if his friends had escaped. All he could see were ever more snarling undead faces approaching him.
He willed himself to let go of life and die, but the pain kept coming. His breathing became difficult, but it wouldn’t stop.
He felt himself pulled apart, like a ball of string unraveling, racked with excruciating pain, as teeth bit deeply and hands tore at him.
Fingers found his eye sockets, and mouths found his eyes. Blinded, he remembered hearing that when people lost one sense the others would become more acute. This thought was just slipping through Adam’s brain when mercifully he lost consciousness.
* * *
Neil and Misha opened their car doors as the zombies caught up with Adam. They were about to run out of the building through the hole they had made in the glass front wall, when Rob called to them.
“Up here!”
“Wait!” A female voice called from the other side of the building, “They may be infected.”
“No, no, no!” Misha and Neil shouted together.
Rob’s fear of infection wrestled with his desire to help these desperate strangers. He lowered a home-made rope ladder, and Misha was first up. As Neil followed, zombies, mouths still red and wet with Adams blood, caught sight of him.
As the creatures ran towards him, Rob and Misha hauled the rope ladder, pulling Neil upwards as he climbed.
He felt hands on his legs, scratching his flesh; a flash of pain, and then he was lifted through the ceiling to safety.
* * *
Once they were settled in the rafters, panting for breath, Helena growled, “You can’t stay if you’re infected!”
“Wait, Helena,” Rob held his hands up apologetically, “let these poor people get their breath back before we start this conversation.”
Neil was clutching his bloody shins.
“Here, let me have a look,” soothed Misha softly.
Turning to Helena and Rob, she added, “Have you any water for me to wash his wounds?”
“Water…?” Helena furrowed her brow… “Wash his wound quickly and be on your way.” She stomped angrily across the rafters to go and fetch some water.
“I’m sorry,” Rob apologised, “forgive Helena, she’s been through a lot.”
“We all have” retorted Misha curtly.
“I know, I know,” mumbled Rob, sounding miserable as he looked at Neil’s bleeding legs.
Carefully Misha peeled back Neil’s trouser leg. He had several long, deep scratches along his shins. She undid his training shoe and carefully rolled back his sock. Lifting his leg, she looked all around it.
“I don’t know, Neil!”
“You don’t know?”
“There are no bites,” she furrowed her brow, “at least I don’t think so. And I don’t know if the infection can be carried by scratches.”
Rob looked at the wounds and shook his head, “I don’t know about this.”
Helena returned with a plastic bottle full of water and a large green first aid box.
Misha rummaged through the box, tutting and shaking her head, before turning back to continue her inspection of the wound. “Even if he doesn’t have the infection, being scratched by rotting nails is bound to give an infection”
Rob ran off and came back with a bottle of Irish Whiskey. “I was saving this, but under the circumstances…”
He opened the bottle top and took a swig before handing it to Misha.
She looked at the bottle suspiciously, and sniffed the dark liquid.
Rob pointed to the first aid box, “The antiseptic cream in there is long out of date and dried up. Maybe this will do.”
Misha nodded.
“I’ve seen it in the movies,” added Rob, “but I’m not sure if it’ll really work.”
“I’m honestly not sure how effective it will be, but the alcohol is bound to kill off some of the germs…” She took some cotton wool from the first aid kit, and soaking it in whiskey, began to bathe Neil’s wounds.
As he watched the whiskey-soaked swab approach his legs he told himself to be brave; he told himself that this would hurt, but he was a man, and could handle it; he told himself pain was nothing more than his body’s signal to his brain, and he could chose to ignore it.
He wondered who was screaming as he watched the drops of amber liquid roll over his twitching leg. Then he realised it was himself.
The pain was intense and uncompromising.
Misha nodded towards the first aid kit, “Sorry, Neil, there’s nothing in there to help you, it’s all we’ve got.”
Closing his eyes tight, Neil tried to shut out the searing, stinging pain. He prayed for it to end in a litany of swear words.
“Shit! Fuck! Piss! Wank! Bugger! Tits! Shit! Fuck! Piss! Wank! Bugger! Tits!”
After what to Neil seemed like hours of torture, and to Misha not nearing long enough to do a proper job, Neil staggered to his feet. “No more, that’s enough.”
Now the wounds had been cleaned, the long scratches were clearly visible.
Misha considered. “Only this one and this one would be serious enough for stitches.”
“You can’t stitch me up!” Neil protested.
“You could be right Neil,” said Misha grimly, “I went to a first aid course years ago. At this point we should ‘seek professional medical assistance’ – but that could be difficult.”
“No shit?”
“Please, Neil, don’t swear, I’m doing my best.”
“Fuck, Misha, how can you worry about swearing at a time like this? If I don’t bleed to death…”
“You’re not going to bleed to death Neil!” Snapped Misha.
“OK, if I don’t bleed to death, then I could catch some infection from some fucking zombie’s dirty fucking fingernails. And if I don’t die of that it could be the shitting-fucking-bastard-zombie-virus that turns me into one of those fuckbags.”
Neil’s anger gave way to sobbing.
Rob put an arm around him.
Neil started singing in a weak, child-like voice, “It’s the end of the world as we know it…”
The other survivors looked from each other to the sobbing man with the bleeding legs.
“It’s the end of the world as we know it...”
Rob scratched his chin, wanting to say something, but having no idea what.
“…And I feel fine.” Neil stopped singing and lapsed into silence.
Helena looked at Rob and mouthed the word, “He has to go.”
Rob looked at her appealingly and shrugged his shoulders indicating resignation or helplessness.
“He has to go, now!
” Helena mouthed.
Rob mouthed back, “Go where?”
Helena mimed, slapping her forehead, “I don’t give a fuck.”
Rob walked away over the rafters and beckoned Helena to follow.
* * *
Jim couldn’t sleep. He climbed out of his bunk as quietly as possible, taking care not to wake Summer. He flicked open his mobile phone, there would be no signal in the Bunker even if there had been a signal outside, but he charged his phone every time the electricity was running. He dreamed that one day the phone would ring again, and it would be Kate, his wife. He would realise that she hadn’t really been infected and killed on their journey to the Bunker. She had somehow survived and found a hiding place, and now she was on her way to join her family in their underground oasis.
He kept his phone charged to entertain the fantasy that it would ring, but his other reason was to provide himself with a little torch.
Jim peered into his daughter’s bunk where she was sleeping fitfully. They could be proud of the community they had built underground, but no matter how good things became in the Bunker, no matter how well they managed to create a new ‘normality’ they all shared the nightmares. Maybe it was the trauma they had all experienced, but even the most horrific trauma should give them one or two nights’ respite from the nightmares. Jim wondered if the violent death of almost every human being on the planet had disfigured the collective unconscious of the remainder. Or were the undead still somehow connected to the collective unconscious network, making it a place only fit for nightmares.
Whatever the truth, sometimes Jim preferred to keep awake to avoid the nightly terrors.
He was reminded of a horror film he had seen while at college. “…three, four, better lock the door; five, six, grab your crucifix; seven, eight, better stay up late; nine, ten, never sleep again.”
With the rhyme swimming round his weary head Jim pulled on his track-suit bottoms and slowly opened the door.
The corridor was completely dark.
A sound, distant, and quiet, like scampering feet. Suddenly Jim was fully awake. There was no way they could get in here, it couldn’t possibly be a zombie. Just keep telling yourself that Jim, he muttered to himself while he slapped closed his mobile phone, extinguishing its tiny light.
It was as dark as if he had had his eyes closed: it was a total, disorientating darkness that seemed to suck him deep inside.
The situation suddenly felt more dangerous in the pitch black, his body tensed and he had no idea what could be in the corridor. The light from his phone was so dim that he would only see potential danger once it was almost on top of him, yet it was still just bright enough to attract attention.
They had been through drills of what to do if any infection found its way inside the Bunker: he should raise the alarm immediately. But he was not sure if he really had heard anything. If a creature had passed this way surely it would have been attracted to the snoring from Will’s bedroom?
They had propped makeshift clubs fashioned from the posts of dismantled metal bunk beds by every door in every corridor. Telling himself he was being foolish, Jim felt along the wall till he found the nearest club. He winced at the noise it made when he picked it up: he felt the weight in his hands and stood still again, listening.
He sensed trouble before he heard it. Something was moving towards him fast.
He drew his club back ready to strike.
The undead were seldom quiet: they snarled and lumbered, and sometimes screamed so Jim reasoned that he would have sufficient warning before any creatures drew near. He hefted the club, tensing to strike.
He thought he could hear something close… held his breath… listened hard.
At that moment he was knocked off his feet by something smashing into him at full speed. Air escaped from his lungs. He tried to scream at whatever it was fell on top of him.
“Siobhan?”
“Shit!”
“Is that you Siobhan?”
“Fuck!”
“Siobhan? Are you naked?”
* * *
Neil’s pain blocked everything going on outside his own head.
Misha could hear Rob and Helena arguing about them.
“No, it wouldn’t be killing them, Rob!” Helena’s voice drifted across from the other side of the roof. “We distract the zombies, they run out to the car park and get away.”
“How long would they last out there?”
“If he is infected they’ll not last long in here either; the only difference is that we won’t last long either.”
“We can’t let all this make us lose our humanity.”
“It’s the End. We are not ‘living’ here, we’re just ‘raging against the dying of the light.’”
“We are all going to die soon enough, I’d rather face the End as myself: not as a monster every bit as merciless as those zombies down there.”
And so the argument raged endlessly into the night, occasionally drowned out by the noise from the creatures below.
On and on they argued.
There was a dull ache in Neil’s scratched leg, and the shouting and snarling was making his head hurt too. He shrouded himself in the blankets, squeezing his arm over his ears, and trying to sleep as blood pounded in his head.
* * *
Neil was back in the campsite. Had they decided to go back? Had Helena and Rob thrown them out of the service station? He couldn’t remember. He recalled driving away in the first place, a farm, and a service station. But he couldn’t remember how he had returned to the lakeside.
Someone had re-pitched the tents; last time he had seen them they had been trampled underfoot by zombies and fleeing survivors.
He was in the shower block, peering out at the site through a chink in the door. There were people walking about, but he couldn’t tell if they were alive or undead.
It was dark, and there was thunder. He looked upwards, somehow the roof had gone. Had they used it to repair the fence? Drops of rain started to land around them. They washed the surface of the sinks, turning the brown grime to a swirl of fresh, clear red, translucent as watercolour paint.
His hands also started to run red. He looked at them as they crumbled, like the roof, like the walls around him. Everything was rotting and wasting away.
“This is all wrong. Everything’s wrong. It’ll never be right again.”
He turned around, looking for some sign of hope. All the doors had fallen off the cubicles and all the occupants were exposed.
There was Jesus sitting and smiling benignly.
Next to him sat a bearded stranger, and further on was a very fat, bald man.
“I think,” Neil began, “that you guys really let the side down.”
“Who do you think is responsible for all this?” Said Jesus, waving his hand around to indicate the state of the world.
“Even if you didn’t do it, you still let it happen.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“Oh Jesus!”
* * *
Neil woke to see Rob’s bearded face looking down at him.
“I’m sorry, son,” Rob looked awkward, “I’m really sorry, but you can’t stay. Those scratches... You know… They look like they may be... I’m sure you’re OK, but we have to be careful.”
Misha heard them talking, and came over to join in. “Wait!” She protested, “You can’t send us out again. We’ll die out there. You’d be murdering us!”
“Oh no, no, no, we wouldn’t be sending you out too. You’re not infected, you can stay, it’s only him. Neil. So sorry. But what can we do?”
“Helena!” Misha protested to the other survivor, who was in one of the back rooms, below the others.
Helena climbed up, her face defiant. “I know what you’re going to say. But it’s no good, we have no choice.”
Rob looked pleadingly from Helena to Neil. He felt sick.
Finally Neil cleared his throat and spoke, “I have no idea if I’m infected or not.
I’m sorry to be the cause of this. I understand. I don’t want to end up killing any of you.”
“Wait, I have an idea,” Misha spoke with tears welling in her eyes. “why don’t we lock Neil in a room and see if he gets better? Quarantine him.”
“This is our whole world now,” Helena indicated the service station, “we can’t leave a zombie running loose in part of our home, it’s not secure at the best of times.”
“You would kill a man for the sake of a room?”
“Listen!” Helena snapped, “You’ve no idea what we’ve been through, what we’ve had to do to survive. This place is our hope, our only hope. I’m not stupid, the food here won’t last forever. Our luck will run out one of these days.”
Rob, who had been trying hard not to think about the harsh reality of their situation looked as though he had been slapped him in the face.
“We know what we have here is a last gasp,” Helena continued, “but it’s all we’ve got, and we’ve had to fight for it.”
“OK, OK I get it,” said Misha, “if we can’t afford a room why don’t we let him set up camp up on the roof outside?”
“But he’d freeze to death out there!” Objected Rob.
“No, if we can get to the car we have tents, sleeping bags and bed rolls. He’d be fine up there, and if he turned, he’d fall off; he’d never be able to get down here.”
Helena thought about her bed made out of car blankets from the service station shop. “How much bedding have you got? And how much food?”
Rob looked stricken that she could even ask.
“We were camping,” Misha explained, “we escaped in the car in a hurry, but it had been packed for emergency exit. “We have five sleeping bags, three bedding rolls, two small tents, a gas stove, a few bottles of gas, a box of noodles and a box of Kendal Mint Cake.” Misha paused, and looked Helena in the eye. “We can pay our way; you don’t have to think of us as a drain on your precious resources.”
Wild Strawberry: Book 3 Ascent Page 3