by Rick Wood
She stumbled forward.
“Okay, Laney, I want you to jump, in five.”
Blood dribbled down Mrs Andrews’s chin, trickling onto the floor, forming a puddle.
Her joints stiffened. Her bones reformed. They all clicked into place.
The sound of thuds against metal grew closer.
“Four.”
The sirens were deafening now.
The thuds were repetitive, constant, pow, pow, smack, bump, all the time, again and again.
“Three.”
Mrs Andrews snarled.
Except, this wasn’t Mrs Andrews.
Laney could see that.
“Two.”
The corpse charged forward with a high-pitched screech, sprinting toward Laney.
She screamed.
“One.”
She held her breath like she was diving underwater and leapt over the side of the window pane. Mrs Andrews followed behind and went tumbling to the ground.
Before she hit the floor, a car screeched into position beneath her. With the sound of a handbrake skidding harshly, the car twisted in a perfectly formed circle. The door opened, and a man stuck out of it, a large man with his arm outstretched. As if by perfectly timed magic, she fell into the man’s arms and was thrown into the backseat before she could tell what was going on.
The thudding started again. It was louder now. So, so loud. The sirens wailed, but the constant smacks repeated.
She leant up and peered over the man’s shoulder. His windscreen wipers were going so fast, wiping red gunk off his screen at a rapid pace. The car was speeding with such force that she felt they would crash at any moment, but they didn’t, they just kept pounding into the zombies before them.
And the man was screaming. He was in a lot of pain. Holding onto his calf.
“Son of a bitch,” he grunted. “Motherfucker!” he screamed.
Then his grimace changed. Amongst the pain, he looked to be laughing. A strange, uncontrollable laugh of triumph. Like he had just achieved something that was impossible.
It looked as if the pain had gone and elation had taken over.
“I can’t believe it,” the man was saying. “I did it. I did it. I really fucking did it! And all I had to do was withstand a lot of bloody pain!”
The man turned over his shoulder and looked at Laney.
“Hi,” he said. “How are you?”
Laney’s jaw hung open with stuttering sounds drifting out.
“My name is Gus Harvey,” he continued. “It’s nice to meet you.”
She looked at his speedometer. He was going over a hundred miles per hour. Bashing zombies out the way with such frequency there was no way he could see where he was going. Even though she knew she couldn’t, she felt like she was able to feel the aerodynamic force pushing through her hair.
“Thank you for saving me,” was all she could muster.
And it was enough.
For Gus, it was always enough.
Minus One Hour Twenty Minutes
42
Donny shifted his weight from right foot to left. His shoulders tensed upwards as he nervously strummed one hand through the other.
Darkness had fully descended. The sun had disappeared, and the moon was now rising into the sky.
He remembered Gus’s hollow words.
The girl will be back by the time it’s set, and you can’t see the sun for the moon no more.
Donny hadn’t seen the sun in a while. The moon had been a sturdy presence, filling the sky with a gentle illumination.
He peered into the empty streets of London before him.
He turned to Sadie, who sat on the floor, uprooting flowers, inquisitively running her eyes over them, then throwing them to the side.
“Sadie,” Donny spoke, crouching before her. “I – I’m going in.”
Sadie’s eyebrows narrowed to a glare.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Donny persisted, “but I have to. Gus said he’d be back by now, and he–”
Donny stopped talking. Looked into Sadie’s eyes. He thought she was glaring at him, but in actual fact, her eyes were fixed on something over Donny’s shoulder.
“What is it? Is it zombies?”
Sadie rose to her feet and lurched her body forward, hissing at something.
Donny looked behind him. He saw nothing.
“Sadie, I don’t see anything.”
She hissed again. But just as her eyes intensified and she readied her body to run, something struck her around the back of her head, forcing her limp body to fall to the floor.
Donny looked at the assailant.
He couldn’t believe his eyes.
It wasn’t possible. It was not possible. There was no way. Absolutely no way. It must be a lie. A mirage. Something.
It couldn’t be.
“But… I shot you.”
“Yes, sir, you did,” Stacey answered, with a beaming smile and a sparkle in her eyes.
“I shot you in the chest. Three times.”
“Yes, you did – and it rather hurt, quite a bit actually. I didn’t think it was very nice.”
Weapons. Donny needed weapons.
They were in the boot of the car.
Just a few steps away.
He edged to his left. Toward the boot. Nice and slow. So she wouldn’t pounce, wouldn’t do anything. Just slowly, getting minutely closer to the boot full of weapons.
“I don’t understand. How are you not dead?”
Stacey lifted up her spotty dress, revealing the undeveloped body of a ten-year-old girl, except it was covered in wounds. There were three definite holes from the shots Donny had fired, gaping open and crusted with dried blood. Below those were knife wounds, and another circular scar – possibly a bullet wound that had healed long ago.
And on her leg. The most pertinent scar of all.
A bite wound.
“How are you alive?” Donny asked.
“Oh, you mean the zombie bite? Yeah, I was bitten.”
“But – you’re not dead.”
“No, silly, of course I’m not. I mean, do I look like I’m dead?”
“I don’t understand.”
Keep her talking. Edge toward the car. Keep her talking.
The weapons in the boot.
Just keep her talking.
“You need to shoot a zombie in the head, everybody knows that. Which is why you managed to hurt Daddy – which, by the way, was not nice.”
“You don’t look like a zombie.”
He was a few steps from the bonnet. He was nearly there.
“My family has special genes.”
Realisation hit Donny like a sucker punch to the gut.
She was immune to the virus.
How was that even possible?
“See, I have those special genes. Daddy had those special genes. Mommy has those special genes. And my sister.”
Her sister?
Stacey looked to the unconscious body of Sadie lying on the floor.
What the fuck…
Donny was close enough now.
He turned and ran, keeping his eyes on Stacey, reaching for the boot.
He tripped over a foot and went flying to the floor, landing on his face. He lifted himself to his knees, wiping a trickle of blood from his nose.
“I suppose you thought you were being rather sneaky.”
Trisha sat on the floor, leant against the boot, cradling Gus’s shotgun like a baby in her arms.
“Jolly nice weapons, though. Really, I admire them. James would have loved them.”
Donny closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to be eaten. He barely wanted to be killed, never mind eaten.
He was screwed. Completely and utterly screwed.
Gus, this would be a really good time for you to come back.
But Gus wasn’t coming back.
He said he’d be back by now. And he wasn’t.
Which could surely mean only one thing.
He tu
rned and looked to Trisha’s face. Her smile curved upwards. One could mistake her for being cheerful, except for her eyes. They gave her away. It was the same look in Gus’s eyes. That same faraway absence that no one could touch.
The look of someone who had lost their family.
Donny took to his feet and ran. It was the only thing he could do.
A loud shot rang out and Donny felt a warm pain pummel through the back of his ankle. He collapsed onto the floor, writhing in agony.
“Now, I really did not want to have to do that,” Trisha declared, standing over him. “Any time I shoot you, I am losing good meat.”
Donny looked up at her, toughening his expression, refusing to let her know that the scraping of the passing bullet was causing his leg to seize in agony.
“And you know, I do not like to waste meat.”
It dawned on Donny what they had done with her husband’s corpse.
Stacey joined her mother, giving her a big, loving, bear hug.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“That’s okay, darling. It’s dinner time now.”
Minus One Hour
43
How the fuck can something so dead run so fast?
Gus’s foot pressed hard on the accelerator, forcing the car forward and screeching around every corner. The smell of burning rubber followed him, the speed dial steadily hovering somewhere between fifty and eighty.
Yet, in his windscreen mirror, he could see the horde, still sprinting after him. Even in the car he could feel the ground shaking, rumbling under the weight of so many heavy feet.
“How you doin’, Laney?” Gus asked.
If felt so strange to say that name again. Especially to a girl so young. So vulnerable. So helpless.
Just like she was when she died.
Stop it.
Must focus.
“They are still coming!” she yelped, staring out of the back window.
“Then stop looking. It’s like when you’re really high up, you know? Best advice is – just don’t look down.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Me? I’m…”
Good question.
Who was he?
He wasn’t in the army. He wasn’t a secret agent. He was just some alcoholic nutcase that they saw as expendable enough to send on a suicide mission.
“I’m… nobody. Just a guy. Sent to rescue a girl.”
Well that sounded cliché.
Still, it was good enough for her, and she seemed to relax – but only for a moment, then she turned back to the window and resumed her terrified stare.
Gus hit the brakes, then swung around another corner.
The cinema grew closer.
They were nearly there.
“Hold on!”
He fired them into the car park, ignoring the eager groans and frantic moans chasing behind them.
He brought the car to a stop beside the stone wall that separated London from the rest of the country. As soon he had skidded to a halt, he burst out of the car and opened the backdoor. He grabbed Laney and climbed on top of the car.
“Listen to me,” he told her. “I’m going to swing you over the wall, do you understand?”
“What?” Her eyebrows raised, her lip trembled, her body shook.
“We don’t have time to think about it – I’m going to swing you and throw you over that wall. Then there is a man and a girl waiting by a car. You go to them, you understand? They will take you home.”
“But–”
Before she could object, he grabbed her hands and began swinging. Spinning a few times, getting enough force, ignoring her continuous scream, and let go as he directed her upwards. She flew over the wall, disappearing behind it.
She was safe.
He’d done it.
He stayed atop the police car.
The horde thudded into the far side of the car park.
All of them, parading forward, their arms outstretched for him.
They were seconds away.
He took the pills from his pocket.
It was time.
He was going to be reunited with his family.
The horde were halfway across the car park. A thousand old friends joining him for lunch.
He put the pills in his mouth.
44
Janet’s sweet smile reached out for Gus.
Those eyes. Those damn perfect eyes. Glazing over with tears.
Bitten.
Those eyes turning yellow. Turning to terror. Becoming something Gus had never seen before.
How he longed to kiss her. To touch her face, to run his hand down her gentle skin. To hold her close during a thunderstorm. To hold her hand as she gave birth. To kiss her on their wedding day.
Love like theirs only existed in movies. It wasn’t just a standard marriage, where you exist together. It was earth-shattering. World-changing. After so many years, she still made his heart race. He would still wake up in the morning, looking at her sleeping peacefully beside him, and wonder how he got so damn lucky.
Men like him didn’t get things like this.
Then his daughter would run in. Her eyes would light up the room stronger than the early morning sun. For the entirety of their Sunday morning they would lay in bed together, laughing, playing. Being the family that you only saw in catalogues. The family that everyone else envied.
He would kiss his wife on her forehead. Ruffle his daughter’s hair.
And he would tell them he loved them.
Every morning he would tell them he loved them.
Janet would not want him to be living like this.
Neither of them would.
Gus opened his eyes.
The horde reached the base of the police car he stood upon. Reached out for him. Clambered at his feet.
But he knew it’s not what they would have wanted.
Janet would not want them to be reunited. Not yet. Not until the time was right. When it was nature’s choice, not his.
She would kill to see his face again.
But not like this.
He spat out the pills.
Turned to the wall.
It was too big.
A hand grabbed his ankle and he shook it off.
The car was beginning to rock. Nudging from side to side. Keeping his balance was becoming tough, as was staying out of the reach of the all the zombies clambering for him.
He jumped, trying for the top of the wall.
He just needed another metre.
He looked to the pale, demented faces below, chopping their jaws at him. He had an idea.
He placed his feet shoulder width apart and rocked the car back and forth. Using the momentum that the zombies had created, he forced it further into an uneasy rock.
The car swung upwards and landed onto its side.
Seizing the opportunity, Gus jumped onto the side of the upturned car.
Just as the car turned once again beneath his feet, he used it to gain the extra metre he needed and jumped upwards, reaching his hands out for the top of the wall. One hand scraped off, but the other held tight.
His fingers slipped.
They were reaching for him.
He swung his other hand up, attempting to hold on more securely.
His entire body weight was being held by the strength of a few fingers.
He slipped again, but held on. He pushed his arm upwards, until he had securely mounted the top of the wall.
Using his feet as leverage, he pushed his body up, ignoring the continual pain of his calf, and rolled onto the top of the wall.
He lay there for a few moments, allowing his breathing to calm, finally feeling himself overcome with exhaustion. He had denied himself rest for so long that now he was able to lay on something flat, he could feel each ache in every muscle.
Pushing himself to his feet, he leapt to the wire fence and climbed down. He pushed himself up the verge of the hill, making it to the car, where Laney stood beside Sadie.
He smiled at the sight of them.
Now it was just the drive back. That was it. It was over, and all he had to do was drive. He had achieved the impossible.
He walked to the door of the car, placed his hand on the handle, then stopped.
Something wasn’t right.
He looked to Sadie, who stood still, staring at him with wounded eyes.
Something was going on.
He looked around himself.
“Where’s Donny?” he asked.
Sadie looked blankly back at him.
“Where is he?”
Sadie looked down.
“People,” she said. “Took him. Away.”
Gus closed his eyes and bowed his head. Why? Why did that inept kid have to do this?
He looked to Laney, looking back at him with those big, innocent eyes.
The mission was the most important thing.
He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t wait any longer. London was going up in flames, he hadn’t enough time. He had one purpose, one sole purpose, and that was the girl.
Laney.
He had to get her back to her father.
If only someone had thought that about his girl.
“Get in the car,” he demanded, placing Laney in the passenger seat.
“Donny!” Sadie protested, furiously shaking her head.
“Get in the car, or I’ll soddin’ leave you too!”
Gus sat in the driver’s seat, waiting for Sadie to reluctantly get in. Once she did, he paused.
Then he drove away, watching London grow smaller in the rear-view mirror.
Minus Forty Minutes
45
Gus ran his fingers through his thick hair.
The motorway was clear, and the drive home seemed to be taking far less time than the forward journey had.
A glance in the mirror showed him that Sadie was still sulking. Her arms folded, her eyebrows pushed downwards, and her irritated eyes focussed on him in the mirror.
“I told you,” Gus said. “We can’t go back.”
Sadie’s expression did not falter.
Gus glanced at Laney in the passenger seat next to him, soundly asleep.
“We had a mission. It was to extract the target. We have done that. We can’t go back for a fallen soldier.”