Blood on the Floor: An Undead Adventure

by RR Haywood

  The top of the hill is gained with a small sense of victory and a wry glance back to the see the long lane stretching down and away. Movement in her peripheral vision. She stops to stare, seeing figures in the distance on the top of another hill across the valley running in the same direction. Thick lines of people moving with uniformity and pace that speaks of infected. They’re too far away to see details but she knows what they are and they’re going in the same direction in response to the urge she is feeling. They’re being pulled but to what? Why? So many of them too. Hundreds. She eyes the trailing line trying to guess the numbers but gives up with shake of her head.

  ‘Water,’ she says, handing him the bottle. He turns from the view to take the bottle that gets pressed to his lips in a way a man would do. She watches him then back across the valley to the long lines. None of this is her business. Run. Hide. Go the other direction. ‘Had enough?’ She asks when he hands the bottle back. He doesn’t reply but his lips twitch to form to speak but no sound comes. She holds perfectly still, fearful of causing any distraction. His eyes focus on hers, narrowing with emotion that plays across his features then it’s gone. Fading as quickly as it came to be replaced by hurt and vulnerability. She smiles at him, her eyes forever glued to his. Her hand on his arm, touching gently that soothes the troubled expression. For the first time since she met him he breaks the eye contact first to turn and stare across the valley to the hill on the far side. She blinks, stepping back with the realisation that there are bigger things happening than her right now. She is not the centre of the universe. This world is not revolving around her. Shame creeps up her cheeks. Shame that she kept him to herself to fix her own paltry issues.

  ‘Come on,’ she sets off to speed down the hill in parallel to an army of infected running the same direction.

  They disappear from sight within a few minutes. The hedgerows obscuring the view until she can no longer see them anywhere. They veered off another direction but she can’t tell where or why. She keeps on the lane that feeds to a main road that runs straight. She keeps her eyes open and her head up, watching the sides and the rear but seeing nothing other than puddles, lakes, exposed roads and surfaces with fields, houses and the objects of life left as they were.

  Late morning and they find it. A twee village where every available roof has been thatched. Houses, tea gardens, the bus shelter, alcoves, porches and even a shed. With cheeks flushed bright red they walk down the main road seeing bodies ahead that lie dead from being shot down. Bullet casings lie glinting. Doors smashed in show entry gained to shops but no sign or noise of anyone or anything. The bodies are fewer in number than she expected too and all old or weak looking. They saw hundreds on the other hill but there’s less than twenty here. She bends over to rest her hands on her knees, breathing hard and deep with sweat dripping from the strands of hair hanging down.

  They were here. In this town. She stands straight to draw a deep lungful of air and catches the scent of cigarettes hanging in the air. She sniffs again, turning and walking to find trace of the smell. It gets stronger nearer a tea gardens set to one side of the road. A once lush garden of flowers and borders with chairs and tables laid out for patrons to enjoy cream teas.

  She follows her nose to a veranda adjacent to the building. Several tables pushed together. Empty cans of drink litter the table. Cigarettes butts crushed on the floor. Snack bar wrappers and signs of recent life. That thrill comes on again. The sensation at knowing there are people doing something. They came here, killed the things then stopped for a break. She imagines them sitting round talking and planning. The big man with the bald head and the others she saw in the front of the vehicles. She counts a dozen chairs. Twelve of them. Her eyes absorb tiny details as though trying to learn and understand. The inner voice screams loud at that second. Her own base instinct asserting itself to get the hell out and go the other way. None of this is her business. If twelve idiots want to fight back then let them. She can’t fight. She can’t do anything other than find good hiding places. Paco can though. Paco can fight. No. People are bad. Paco can fight. The things can’t hurt him. Paco is connected to them.

  She turns away to carry the argument in her mind then spots the water bucket on the ground in the shadow of the building. A water bowl for a dog. It’s obvious. They have to go on. How far behind them are they? This could be hours old. Which way? To where? For what? Run away and hide. They need a car.

  They get back into the main road and start walking up past the bodies. The businesses are here but there will be houses nearby with cars parked outside. Find a car. Catch them up. See what happens. A plan without a plan that sends a wave of fresh nervous fear that has to be pushed back.

  A whimper sounds out. A rushed panicked noise coming from somewhere on the left. She spins round, searching for the source as the sound of running feet reaches her ears. Fast footsteps gaining closer. Paco tenses, his fists clenching as he steps ahead at the same second as a figure bursts from the leafy entrance to a footpath to run helter skelter into the road. Arms and legs flailing everywhere. Wild and uncoordinated. The man glances over his shoulder, panic on his face. Paco reaches the entrance as the first infected comes barrelling out to be smashed down by the momentum Paco carried forward. Others come. More that charge out to be swatted and battered aside in an explosion of violence so unexpected in the stillness of the village. Paco rages. Grabbing a woman off her feet so her can snap her neck and use her already dead body to batter two more down.

  ‘HERE,’ Heather calls to the man tripping and staggering at the awful sight behind him. He tries to watch the attack, see Heather and look ahead at the same time with a myriad of movements that send him sprawling out. The second he hits the floor he tries crawling. Whimpering and crying with a keening noise. She starts running towards him, snatching a view of Paco landing a hard fist into a face that seems to explode in a shower of blood from a busted nose.

  ‘Wait,’ she grunts, grabbing his shoulder to heave him up. He screams out, blind to her but only seeing infected and believing they’re grabbing him. She grips harder, forcing him up onto his feet. ‘Move,’ she propels him towards a garden wall, looking round to see Paco stamping down on a neck that snaps like a dry twig. He lashes out at another, grabbing a fistful of hair to wrench the beast of its feet and back to be grabbed, hefted, snapped and dropped with a grunt of exertion. ‘Wait here,’ Heather pushes into him, using her body to hold him still while watching Paco finish the last one off by smashing his head into a metal railing so hard she sees teeth flying across the road. ‘Hang on,’ she says, pushing into the man. ‘Almost done…Paco, that one’s moving…’ the big guy turns to see her pointing and sets off towards the crawler, bringing a hard foot down onto an elbow that breaks and crushes underfoot. His next step lifts high to drop down to stamp and it’s done. Finished. She checks each body, flicking her eyes from one to the next as Paco moves from kill to kill. ‘Okay, it’s over. You okay? Come on, stand up. Stand up…take a breath…slowly, breathe slowly.’

  The man cries hard, snotting over his chin and mouth with tears streaming from his eyes as he hyperventilates with fear. His eyes strobe wildly, still unseeing. Gripped by panic and terror.

  She drops the bag to get a fresh bottle of water that she drinks from first. ‘Paco,’ she calls his name, holding the bottle out. He walks over, his whole manner charged and hard. She gets another bottle, pushes the man into the wall gently and tells him to take a sip. He tries gulping but she pulls the bottle away. ‘Slowly…sip…’ he nods deep and fast, still gasping for breath. She guides him to sip, pulling the bottle back. He starts to settle with focus coming back into his eyes and manner. His movements not so rushed and wild. He takes another drink, deeper this time to get more down. She watches, waiting for him to compose himself. Finally he comes back to a person in control of his own mind and looks over to the corpses and up to Paco standing behind Heather. His face changes, his features morphing with fear and something else. ‘Heather…’
he says, blurting her name out as he looks at her.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Heather,’ he nods as though to himself. ‘It’s you…I…in the…’

  ‘Slow down,’ she says staring hard at a face she has never seen before. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Pete…I er…in the street yeah? I…when you….fuck me he killed them all.’

  ‘Pete? What street?’ she asks.

  He gulps more water then gasps a few times to frown and look round, ‘it was raining, remember?’

  ‘What? Who are you? When…oh…oh the rain. With Becky?’

  ‘Yeah yeah…you ran off,’ he nods again, he keeps nodding with a mind whirling to process everything.

  ‘But…you were going south.’

  ‘This is south, I mean…this was…the way we…it is south.’

  ‘Subi! Where are they?’

  ‘Oh fuck,’ he whispers. ‘It was bad…they…so many of them and…’

  ‘Pete, where are they?’

  ‘I ran. We all ran…they just had so many…never seen that many…just fucking…it was so bad…’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘I don’t know! I just ran. I…I didn’t even see I just legged it and…’

  ‘You have to calm down. Where are they? Did they hurt Subi or Rajesh or…’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he wails, panic building again. ‘I just ran. Everyone was running…Becky was screaming at everyone and she said to run…’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t fucking know!’

  ‘Think,’ she says, growling the word out. ‘How far back? How far did you run? How long were you running? Which way did you come? Can you find the way back?’

  ‘Please stop…I don’t know, I just…oh fuck…there were so many. Like came out of nowhere and fuck me…they’re ramped too, like off the fucking…’

  ‘Shut up,’ she snaps with such ferocity it makes him flinch and move back. She goes with him, forcing him into the wall. ‘How far did you run?’

  ‘I,’ he swallows and mouths words that don’t form sounds. ‘I…’ the tears come again, spilling out from his eyes as his lip starts trembling. His legs weaken, the blood drains from his face as he sags and looks ready to faint.

  ‘Pete,’ she forces a softer tone. ‘How far? Was it up that footpath or further away? Just tell me where to go.’

  ‘So many…so many…’ he gets stuck in a loop of twisted faces snarling with lips pulled back. ‘So many…so man…’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ she whispers then hits him open handed and hard with a stinging blow that snaps his head over. ‘Answer the fucking question,’ she pushes into him, dominating his space. ‘How far and which way?’

  ‘Few miles,’ he whimpers, sinking down with his hands coming up to shield his face.

  ‘Which way?’ she grips his neck, hating herself for doing it but doing it all the same. She pushes him up, bracing with her legs to pin him hard to the wall. ‘Answer me…which way?’

  ‘Back the…the footpath! Don’t hurt me…I just ran and…’

  ‘Show me,’ she pulls back, he sags on the spot, whimpering in absolute terror to sink down with his knees bent into his chest. ‘No, up,’ she grabs his arm to pull him up but he lashes out with a scream, flailing hard with a hand that knocks her back. Paco is there. His hands gripping to lift Pete from the floor to be pinned into the wall with a face showing pure aggression.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Heather says, pulling Paco back. ‘Let him go…Pete, you have to show us.’

  ‘I can’t I can’t I can’t…’

  ‘Pete, I am sorry but you’re showing us. Now. Move now… I SAID MOVE NOW.’

  She forces him off the wall, pushing and dragging the poor sod across the road. He drops screaming to crab away. She grips his collar, lifting him up to scoot him on. ‘Children…there are children, Pete…’

  ‘Too late, it’s too late…they’ll be…’

  It’s no good. She drops him to cry on the road with a look of pity and disgust crossing her face. ‘That footpath? Where after that? Pete…Pete…Just tell me and we’ll go…’ she drops to his side, speaking urgently but softly. ‘Which way? Please…up the footpath then where?’

  ‘I can’t….I just…so many and…Becky was…’

  A footpath could branch off in any direction and lead to other footpaths. She won’t know the way and she doubts even he knew the way he ran in the state he’s in now. She looks round, seeing the bodies. At least five of them. Six, she spots one in the undergrowth. Six of them chasing this bloke. Eighteen days of foliage growing undisturbed. She only needs direction, the distance she can make up by moving quickly.

  ‘We’re going,’ she says quickly, rising to her feet. ‘What’s the name of the fort? Pete? The name of the fort? What’s the fort called….MAN UP,’ she bellows, grabbing a fistful of hair to wrench his head back. ‘Fort? What’s it called?’

  ‘Spitbank,’ he blurts.

  ‘Thank you,’ she lets him go and is off, heading into the shade of the footpath with the bag once more strapped to her back.

  Thirty Two

  Heather spent a life in denial and fear, hiding from people and commitment. A childhood taken away by a system that was meant to protect. She knows her failings, her weaknesses but she also knows she is intelligent once she focusses and fixes one subject in her mind.

  She does that now. She does it with a sense of urgency that has been growing all day. First to catch up with the people in the army truck and now to find Subi, Raj and Amna. She learns to read the ground, seeing where the tread of feet have crumpled the grass and damaged the stems of plants. She spots the weave as they went through bends and got carried wide by the momentum of their running to trample the longer grass on the verges. She goes fast too. All she needed was direction and once that was gained it was just about closing the distance.

  Despite his screaming panic attack she gains a grudging respect for Pete at the distance he travelled. She didn’t trust him when he said it was a few miles but the footpath is long and weaving as it borders fields and forests. They go fast with a mix of jogging and marching when she needs to slow down to get more air and drink water.

  A few seconds are lost at the first junction of three footpaths meeting but she soon spots the trampled verges and chooses course with Paco forever at her side. The heat gets worse with an air seemingly heated and trapped by the dense foliage of trees and bushes. The sweat coming from them is immense. Tops are sodden. Faces drip flushed and hot.

  Another junction. Several directions leading away and it takes longer to go further into each opening to find tell-tale signs of recent passage. Her mind fills with images of Subi, Raj and Amna running in fear. That fear pushes her to run and ignore the pain in her legs and chest. Pete said there were so many too. He said more than he’s seen before and they were ramped. Why are they coming here into this area? What for? It has to be something to do with the people in the army truck. That the infected people could be coordinated enough is a terrifying concept. Massing and moving together for a single objective. She knows they chase prey together but this is different.

  The footpath ends abruptly. A mirage created by a dense thicket of trees across the road that made it look like it kept going but suddenly there is space around her and tarmac underfoot. She looks left and right, trying to work out which direction to take. Searching for signs but the road is wide. They could have run six abreast and not touched the verges. Which way? Left or right? She goes left, searching the ground but finding nothing. She goes right, the same again. Time being wasted. Time ticking away. Pressure growing that builds.

  ‘Thank God,’ she mutters when the snarling women comes running flat out towards them with half a head of hair streaming behind her. The other half is a mess of wounds and blood that drips down her body. She’s fresh. Clean clothes in muted colours and sensible shoes for walking. Heather doesn’t flinch or wait but sets off running behind Paco who charges the woman down. As he hits her so Heath
er veers to run past to close the distance now direction has once more been gained.

  He catches her up with ease. Sprinting hard to fall in at her side. She glances, offers him a grim smile and keeps going. A signboard ahead. Large and white with a welcoming message emblazoned across it, Welcome to Hydehill, please drive carefully. The main road through is wide and straight. Shops and stores on both sides with parking spaces out the front. Post office, a church and a junction to a side road that runs behind the shops. Puddles everywhere, steaming in the heat. Bodies everywhere, steaming in the heat. Bullet casings everywhere, shining in the sun.

  She runs in trying to make sense of it. A fight took place. The people in the army truck were here but Pete came from here too. She comes to a stop, her hands pushing her slick hair back down her head that comes away dripping wet.

  Hundreds of bodies. So many. Pete said there had been many but he didn’t mention guns or people firing. She gulps and blinks, shaking her head to clear her mind. Think, Heather.

  The infected woman that charged at them was from Becky’s group. Her head was cut open. She’d been slashed with a knife or something with a blade, like the meat cleaver Becky had but all of these bodies have been shot. She looks closer, flicking from body to body that stretch back to the buildings at the sides of the road. More in the junction in a long trail. The piles of bullets show the rough circle in the road where the shooters stood and a few more placed in the junction.

  ‘I think I’ve got it,’ she tells Paco, drawing his attention to look at her. ‘They heard the gunshots and came this way…so the…the people in the army truck were here first and shot these and Becky’s lot came after. Yeah, yeah think about it. They heard the gunshots, came towards the noise but got here too late and ran into more of the things…’