Wild Strawberry: Book 3 Ascent

by Trevor Donnelly

  “Shit! The wires are in a mess, but I think I can do it,” he called through the sheeting to the Scientist who had been keeping watch outside.

  “Keep quiet!” The scientist hissed, “you’re calling attention to yourself.”

  Some of the zombies had spun round at the sound of a living voice. They were standing, heads cocked, listening. When they couldn’t locate the whereabouts of the voice they started to amble in the general direction of the sound.

  To make matters worse the wind was picking up again, whipping up the sheet and rattling the bed-frames.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Letting the

  Wrong Ones in

  Max felt dreadful. He felt hot, but the thermometer told him his temperature was low. He just needed to hold on for the signal, the nanites to be switched off and his infection cured.

  Everyone was upstairs, either working on the tunnel or standing anxiously by the Bunker door, which was now shrouded from the world with scaffolding made from bed-frames, and tarpaulin made from sheets.

  Max fell to the floor. What will the world do without me? he thought as the weakness seemed to pervade every ounce of his being.

  * * *

  Outside, the tent that was concealing Rob’s work on the wiring continued to flap in the wind, exposing him for seconds at a time. The Scientist tried to hold the sheet down in the whipping wind, but he was aware that it was allowing any creature that happened to be passing to see Rob crouched at work.

  For around ten minutes they were lucky. Then disaster struck as Rob was connecting the last wire and Summer was coming out to offer a glass of squash and to check how work was progressing.

  A gust of wind picked up the bed-sheet that should have concealed Rob, and flipped it right over the top of the bed-frame.

  “Bugger!” Breathed Rob, as he found himself face to face with a putrefied corpse in running clothes which had shambled over, attracted by the noise of him fixing the wiring.

  The creature was on him in seconds, followed by another.

  Summer ran forward a few steps to try and help, but the Scientist, abandoning his failed attempts to hold the sheeting in place, pushed her backwards and hissed: “Get inside, now!”

  Then the Scientist lunged forward to try and pull the zombies off Rob.

  Summer watched as the Scientist managed to haul a monster off the survivor, noting with horror a large piece of Rob’s throat still in its mouth.

  The arms of the flailing zombie caught the leads that connected the Scientist’s headphones to his iPod.

  Without the signal, his face lost all vestige of humanity and he turned to Summer as she began to run.

  She bolted back towards the airlock door. Leaping inside she tried to slam the blast door shut, but it was too heavy to move easily, and the undead Scientist was able to push through.

  Summer managed to duck under his arms and shove him against the far wall, buying her enough time to get through the inner airlock door, slam and lock it.

  * * *

  The airlock should have provided total security, but there was a large hatch from airlock to Control Room. The hatch could be sealed, but it had not been so since they had opened it to talk to the Scientist on his first arrival.

  Summer looked in horror as zombies started to fill the airlock, and then clambered through the hatch into the rest of the Bunker complex.

  Misha heard a noise at the end of the corridor and turned to see Summer running towards her followed by a mass of zombies pouring into the corridors from the stairs in frightening numbers.

  “Give me strength!” She cried, and started to run.

  Misha pulled open the nearest door, leapt into the room and locked herself in. Looking around she saw it was a storeroom. She hurled boxes and lockers against the wall.

  The door rattled with the dead beating against it. Misha sighed and piled more boxes against the door to make the room as secure as possible. When she grew exhausted and could pile boxes and furniture no more, she slumped onto the floor and started to look at what the boxes contained. Sadly it was not food, but batteries, torches and assorted electrical equipment.

  Half-heartedly she continued to stack boxes against the door to strengthen the barricade. The thought of dying of hunger or thirst was marginally less appealing than being eaten alive, but her faith would not permit her the easier, suicidal option of opening the door and allowing the monsters inside.

  * * *

  Siobhan had been listening to music in the Broadcasting Room and making a final check on the equipment when she heard a commotion in the corridor. She opened the door to find herself nose-to-nose with a foul-smelling grey-faced creature dressed in a flannel nightie.

  * * *

  Siobhan staggered backwards into the room clutching her throat. Blood pumped through her fingers. She managed to slam and latch the door before collapsing to the floor. She lay on her back with the Broadcasting Room growing dark. If the others had done their job on the surface then all she would have to do would be to start the signal. Her head was spinning. She had seconds to live.

  With a last desperate effort she rose to her feet, she coughed, blood splattered from her mouth and the wound in her chin.

  She felt light-headed; her throat felt cold. Her breathing did not seem to come from her nose or mouth, but through the holes ripped in her neck.

  Maybe I could save the world if I could just stay alive a few more seconds.

  The room was spinning.

  She felt no pain, but everything was becoming dark.

  She could hear more creatures outside the door, hammering to get in. The door wouldn’t hold, but by the time they broke in she would be one of them.

  She would have laughed at the thought if she hadn’t been trying so desperately to concentrate on staying alive long enough to switch on the broadcast.

  She fell to her knees, her hands wildly groping the table attempting to flick the switch that would initiate the broadcast, and turn on the signal from the connected computer. She couldn’t tell what she was doing any more as her vision narrowed and blurred.

  She tried to utter a prayer, but her voice no longer worked.

  God receive my soul, she thought as the world went completely dark.

  * * *

  Summer was joined by her father as they ran down the corridor, heading towards the kitchens where they had set up a last line of defense in case of an emergency like this.

  However, as they flung open the door that led towards the kitchen they saw Max, his face wild, his lips drooling at the other end. It was clear in an instant that he was undead.

  “Shit!” They retraced their steps and ran up another staircase, as the creature that had been Max started to charge towards them.

  Back along this corridor they could see that the dead had been swarming throughout the complex. They were now at a crossroads, and creatures were approaching from three sides.

  “Run!” Jim shouted, and he grabbed another club. They had left weapons in various locations in case the infection spread inside the Bunker. Jim was grateful for this foresight.

  Now to evade the horde they had to pull open an interior door.

  It was jammed.

  Jim cursed, looking back over his shoulder at the approaching zombies.

  In response there was cursing from the other side of the door, and the sound of furniture scraping across the floor

  “Elsbeth?” Summer ventured.

  In seconds the door opened enough to let them through.

  Elsbeth who had been barricading it from the other side shouted an apology as she tried to shut the door again, “Sorry, I didn’t know there was anyone left out there!”

  Pale, cold hands were reaching through the door as Jim, Summer and Elsbeth put their combined weight against it.

  Summer found herself at the end nearest the opening, where hands grabbed at her arms and face. One creature managed to secure a firm grip on her wrist, and began pulling her arm relentlessly to the opening wh
ere its hungry, snapping mouth was waiting.

  “No!” She screamed as the creature bit down on her fingers, its teeth gnashing till they found the second knuckle, closing and snapping off the little finger.

  Jim had not seen what had happened, but Elsbeth’s eyes were wide with shock.

  “Run to the next fire door!” shouted Elsbeth, “I’ll hold them off!”

  In her heart she knew it was the end; she volunteered to hold the line because she did not want to fight any more. Summer was going to become one of them, she had no desire to see that.

  Jim began to protest, but Elsbeth punched him in the chest, hard enough for him to know there would be no discussion.

  Jim pushed off against the door, trying to give Elsbeth a few seconds’ grace. Maybe she could catch up, he thought as he ran, grabbing his daughter by the arm.

  Summer regarded her hand. It seemed unreal in that it had changed shape, her finger gone, in the belly of some rotting corpse.

  She was only sixteen, but she was not stupid. She knew this was the end of her. Even if she survived the next ten minutes, which was not looking very hopeful, if somehow she managed to make it past the next door and find another shelter, she would soon become one of the undead. She hoped she would die down here, so her father would not have to see her like that. She did not want to think that she could end up killing her father.

  She thought of all she had learned since the world had ended. Her lessons had been fairly piecemeal but smart people had taught her important stuff.

  Danniella (now dead) had taught her mathematics and science. Father James (now dead) had taught her about faith, God and the Bible. Will (now dead) had taught her music: how to play the guitar, and how Bob Dylan was the world’s greatest songwriter. Her father: her father had taught her about courage, about never giving up.

  Thinking of her father spurred her onwards. A towel was drying on a radiator outside the bathrooms. She grabbed it as she passed and wrapped it round her bleeding hand.

  They made it to the next fire door, looking back through the glass as they slammed it. The creatures were through, and Elsbeth was being pushed backwards towards them even as they took bites from her body.

  The crowd continued surging forwards, and Elsbeth was carried along on this unstoppable tide. But the time her face was pressed against the glass in front of them it was no longer human.

  The door would not last long and shook against its hinges.

  Jim ran into one of the bedrooms and started to haul out one of the many triple bunks out to form another makeshift barricade. But the door was starting to splinter under the weight of bodies pushing against it.

  “Next door down!” he shouted to Summer.

  They were being pushed further and further back. There was no reason to suppose that the next door would offer any better protection than this one, but they kept clutching at life, determined to go down fighting. As they turned towards the far end of the corridor the door behind them smashed open.

  The creatures hurled themselves forward with ferocious speed, with total disregard for their own safety. As some tripped over the toppled bunk bed, those behind trampled over them to get to the living flesh they craved.

  Jim’s head and heart were pounding, as if competing to see which could bring him to his knees first.

  He had felt this kind of fear before, on the first morning of the End of the World. But with Summer immediately in front of him and zombies close behind he felt that the end of everything good and precious had come.

  The fear for his own life was terrible; the fear for his daughter was unbearable.

  They raced down the corridor towards the last door: the door to the Emergency Exit air lock.

  Jim swore. There was nowhere left to go except back into the world outside.

  Since the End of the World he had not heard of a single journey that had not taken its toll of the travellers. He did not want to die and leave Summer unprotected, but to have Summer die would be far, far worse.

  As he ran Jim felt the hands of the dead on his back.

  “Fuck!” he yelled, he had not realised they were so close. He continued to run for his life.

  “Go Summer, go!” he yelled as he pushed Summer ahead through the door. Elsbeth’s teeth bit into his shoulder. He knew the only way to give his daughter any hope would be to slam and seal the airlock door, separating them forever. He closed the door and twisted the handle, pressing his face to the glass to have one last look at Summer.

  She was lying sprawled on the floor, where she had been pushed forward. She turned to see the door closed behind her. Next she saw the window and her father’s pained face, looking straight at her.

  Leaping to her feet Summer ran to the door, ready to let her father in. She reached the handle before realising what had happened: he had pushed her in and locked the door to save her.

  She couldn’t hear over the screams of the dead, but thought she could see her father mouthing the words ‘I’m sorry!’ to her.

  She could see Elsbeth tearing at her dear father’s back and shoulders.

  Then the window sprayed with blood: the view obscured by red.

  * * *

  Summer looked around. There were a couple of primitive clubs propped up against the outer door. One had razor blades welded into the end; the other had large nails hammered through it.

  She chose the nails, as it seemed less likely that she would injure herself with that one.

  Then she knelt down and prayed

  “God, I think I’m about to find out if you are real or not.

  “I really hope you are, because my dad just died to save me, and I want to see him again.

  “There are so many people who have died: my mum, Mrs Southgate, Father James, Dan, Will, Elsbeth, Tina, Arlene: These were good people God.

  “Why did you let them go?

  “I hope you have given them peace.

  “And now it’s my turn.

  “I’ve been bit. Look!”

  She held up her hand wrapped in the bloody towel.

  “It really hurts, God.

  “But not as much as the next few minutes are going to hurt.

  “If you are going to do something to save the world - you know - if this is all a part of your plan, now would be a really, really good time to do something.

  “We had the cure, we almost did it ourselves.

  “We tried our best, we really did.

  “Enough!” She shouted, to herself, to God, to the monsters hammering at the door. “Father James said praying isn’t all about a list of requests, so I’m going to go out there, before I bleed to death, or starve to death or the infection gets me.

  “See you in heaven, God.

  “Amen.”

  Summer stood, then bent double, breathing heavily.

  “Here we go, here we go, here we go,” she chanted to herself.

  Standing straight again she approached the exit, and brandishing her club up over her head she opened the door.

  The moment the door was open a creature that had once been a young man wearing chunky gold earrings and necklaces, a shaved head and tribal tattoos lurched inside towards her.

  She brought the club down squarely on top of the zombie’s head. The creature flailed as the six-inch nails disrupted the actions in its misfiring brain. The blow bought Summer a few seconds; she extracted the club, and struck again, this time a side-on blow, sending the nail into the creature’s head by its ear.

  The creature was confused, but still clawing for her, so Summer used the club to swing it round, nails still deep in its head. She forced it backwards, so that it fell to the floor. Seizing the opportunity, she let go and, grabbing the club with the razor blades, ran out of the door into daylight for the first time in months.

  She had forgotten how bright it could be outside, and the backs of her eyes ached from the violent light.

  There was a huge mob of creatures by the Bunker’s main entrance, and more wandering around the area.
/>
  As soon as she became visible the clamour of the creatures told her that she had been spotted.

  Squinting in the bright light she saw the clearest route and ran forward.

  * * *

  Summer ran. Her lungs felt like they were bursting, her heart was pumping, each beat causing searing pain in her hand where she had been bitten. Her face, usually pale from living so long underground, was flushed with exertion; her long blonde hair swept out behind her as she ran.

  “Not fucking fair,” she hissed through teeth gritted in pain. They were all dead. She had survived for over a year since the world had ended: a year longer than ninety-nine percent of the human race.

  She wondered why she was bothering to run. Everyone was dead. It was only a matter of time now: and that time would be counted in seconds rather than hours or minutes.

  She felt a cold hand scrabbling at her shoulder, gripping her. She shrugged off her red leather jacket, and with it came the blood-soaked towel from her hand, giving a fresh wave of pain to the reopened wound. She ran on leaving towel and jacket in the zombie’s clutches, and she looked over her shoulder,

  “Oh shit!”

  There were hundreds of them… actually millions… the whole world was like this now.

  * * *

  They had such high hopes: the Bunker had become a place of hope and life in a world overrun by horror and death.

  It had all gone wrong when they had dared to think there could be hope.

  “My God!” she cried as she turned a corner into a street where there were just as many zombies as in the road behind, “my God, why have you forsaken me?”

  As she ran she screamed: a high-pitched wail that echoed around the buildings of the neighbourhood, a scream that echoed down the Medway valley, and could be heard for miles around.

  There would be very few survivors in the area. Most strongholds had fallen to the tearing hands and teeth of the dead. Those who had not fallen prey to attack from outside had brought infection inside with them, and the fate of the whole world was acted out in microcosm.