by RR Haywood
There’s too much blood on the floor to see trails or pick routes out. The whole scene is carnage and filled with the stench of metallic blood, shit and innards hanging out of stomachs torn open by bullets.
‘Pete ran that way,’ she points off back the way they came in. ‘He was chased by six…that woman came later so…so maybe she got turned then cut down by Becky or someone and decided to go after Pete. This way then,’ she points off in the other direction going further through the town. ‘You ready?’
She doesn’t wait for the answer but sets off at a brisk walk that builds to a jog. She gets through the bodies and keeps going a hundred metres before spotting a mangled torn hunk of meat lying slumped at the side of the road. She goes closer, realising it’s a body but so torn apart it’s barely recognisable as once human. Teeth marks all over it. Deep bites from a big jaw that held long teeth. Spots of blood lie in a patch a few feet away, bandages and an empty crumpled packet of cigarettes. She sniffs the air, detecting the tang of tobacco. Strange sights that mean nothing to her. Strange smells that indicate they were here and not too long ago either.
She goes faster. Running past shops and side roads. Another body further up. She can see the red glistening blood still wet and warm. Cut marks on the neck, messy and deep. The body is fresher than the ones that were shot further back. Blood spatters everywhere. Footprints too that ran through pools of blood to lead a trail that she follows as fast as her already tired legs will carry her.
A bloodied patch lies not far up the road. Someone was taken down and turned. She can see it in her mind. More bloody footprints too and this world has suddenly become very small indeed. The army truck is going through towns slaying anything that moves without heed to what they leave behind. Becky’s group heard it and ran in to seek help only to meet more. This whole area must be crawling with them. Why didn’t the army people stop and see if there were any survivors here?
Another body. This one bitten too deep in the neck that opened an artery. The pool of blood is huge. Litres of crimson liquid lying wet and slick on the road. She spots the sensible shoes, the muted colours and the rucksack still on the back of the corpse. A teenage boy. Fat and unable to run fast enough to get away. Too many video games, too many pizzas and junk food. The world is culling itself. The fast and the strong survive. Subi isn’t fat. Neither is Raj or Amna. They had good parents who fed them good food. They’ll be able to keep running. They had days of junk food in the supermarket though. Days of bad diet and no exercise. They’ll tire easily and she knows Amna can’t run for long, same with Rajesh. They’re both too small with little legs. That image chokes a sob in her throat. The thought of Amna and Raj struggling to run and being left behind. She knows Subi would drop back to stay with them. God no. Please no. I’m begging you. Not them. She goes faster. Turning the grief into anger to drive energy into her limbs and muscles. Paco should go ahead. He’s fast and strong. He doesn’t get tired. He could catch them up. She glances at him knowing the concept is one too complex to explain.
‘Go,’ she tries anyway, motioning with her hand for him to run. ‘Find Subi…Subi….find Subi…’
He isn’t a dog and just speaking those few words knock her breathing out of whack. He stays at her side in what must be a gentle jog for him.
Car. Get a car. Foolish woman. Why didn’t she think of it before? She casts about, searching for anything that she can grab quickly but every car is locked up with no indication of which house the owner lived in. She runs faster, gritting her teeth to reach the bigger houses with driveways. The first one has a Volvo outside. Modern and big. She veers off sharply, aiming for the front door of the house but finds it locked. She starts kicking it, slamming first the toe of her shoes then stepping back to get her whole foot into it. The door is UPVC and flexes in the frame, bouncing and banging but holding firm. Then it’s gone. Ripped from the frame by the full weight of a big man running at it and one who doesn’t hold back for fear of hurting himself. She doesn’t hesitate but follows him into the hallway to be greeted by a rotten stench of decaying meat that she’s come to know only too well.
Blood on the floor. Blood on the walls. Entry gained to the house by an infected who turned those inside while the self-locking door closed behind, sealing them in. Five of them. Two adult males, one adult female, two children. All snarling. All decaying. All ramped to feast and bite with an urge to get out and join the hive mind going after the people in the army truck. Now that urge changes. There is a potential host and the one that turned but is longer hive mind. A single act saves Heather’s live. Five people rushing from the lounge into the hallway and trying to fit through one doorway at the same time, getting wedged by their own mass. That hesitation buys her the time to step back and for Paco to step in and while he goes to work she searches for the keys. While bones get snapped she opens drawers that get thrown onto the floor. While more blood is spilled on the floor she runs into the kitchen to search the sides and the breakfast bar. Five on one in a confined space. The woman gets past him into the hallway to charge down towards the kitchen with a snarl that makes Heather spin and grab a knife from the metallic strip on the wall. She holds the point out, screaming as the woman impales herself with a force that drives Heather back into the side units. She braces and leans back while sawing with the knife that cuts the stomach open. Things start falling out. Long wet gloopy innards that hang with blood spurting thick and foul. A second later and she’s gone. Ripped from her feet to be lifted and smashed down into the breakfast bar that disintegrates with Paco dropping to tear her apart for daring to touch Heather.
No time to lose. Adrenalin is coursing. Focus is maintained. Find the keys. She carries on opening drawers with hands that smear blood over surfaces and cupboard fronts. Finally she sees it. A row of hooks hanging from a metallic strip on the front of the fridge. Keys hanging from the hooks and the big Volvo fob so distinctive. As she reaches so she sees her own hands covered in blood. She gets to the sink, turns the tap and starts scrubbing with a scouring pad used to wash dishes almost three weeks ago. Dollops of washing up liquid get used. Anti-bacterial washing up liquid. Everything is anti-bacterial these days. An obsession with germs made worse by advertisers telling everyone they will die if they don’t sanitise everything. Hands scrubbed and rubbed pink she grabs the keys and weaves to vault over the bodies to get outside. She presses the button, hearing the satisfying clunk of central locking. Door open. Bag off and thrown in the back. She goes for the driver door then stops to guide Paco round to the front passenger seat. He understands and goes with her. His logic and reasoning skills improving with every hour.
In the driver’s seat she stares at the keys realising there are no keys but a single plastic fob. How do you start it? She’s heard of these. Keyless ignitions. She searches the dashboard and finds a hole the same shape as the fob. It goes in. Lights come on the display but the engine doesn’t start. She searches frantic and rushed, flicking her eyes everywhere with a panic building at the time being wasted. A simple round button marked start stop. She jabs her finger and both hears and feels the engine come to life. No clutch. Automatic. She tries selecting D for drive but the shift won’t move. She presses the button on the side and curses foully. Her foot hits the brake, the gear stick moves but goes too far. She forces calmness into her movements to get it into D and pushes the accelerator down. The engine bites but the car doesn’t move.
‘WHAT NOW,’ she screams in frustration at a world that got too complicated and too bloody stupid at the same time. A plastic lever on the dashboard that she yanks to release the handbrake, or what used to be the handbrake when they still had handbrakes before they started making stupid things to annoy everyone. Stop it. Focus. Keep the focus. Now the car moves. She twists the steering wheel too hard, slamming the front wing into the post on the garden wall that scrapes down the side with a metallic screeching. Into the road and she bites her lip while building speed while telling herself not to go fast while remembering it’s bee
n a while since she last drive while all the time being terrified from the image of Raj and Amna falling back and Subi choosing to stay with them.
That does it. Sod the speed. The engine roars to change up through the gears as the big car eats the tarmac under wheels that grip from a design perfected over decades. Four wheel drive, solid chassis and it gives a feeling of strength, like the people in the army truck. This is her army truck and Paco is her army.
Paco tenses in his seat. His arms bulging with fists curling to hard balls. ‘Yeah I see him,’ Heather says with a vicious sneer. She lines up and lets the vehicle do the rest. A man running with hands clawed. A man running with the fury of the infected giving chase. A man running who is hit from behind by the solid front end of a car that snaps his thigh bones as he pivots down to smash into the road. A thump of wheels and it’s done. One dead without blinking or missing a beat. She checks the rear view mirror, seeing the mangled corpse lying still and dead. ‘Perfect,’ she mutters, shifting in her seat. She reaches back to open the flap of the bag. ‘Drink,’ she hands him the bottle. He drinks. ‘Another one,’ she nods ahead, altering course to hit the woman square in the back of her legs. This one rides up across the bonnet and up to fly over the top to land hard in the road behind. ‘Two,’ Heather says, showing Paco two fingers. He hands the bottle back. She drinks then holds the bottle away to twitch the steering to hit the next one that is sent spinning across road into the side of van. ‘Three,’ she says quietly and drinks the water.
She slows to navigate a sharp bend and spots more ahead as the road opens out. Several groups all running staggered and drawn out but she can’t see ahead of them. They must be close. There’s no way Raj and Amna could run much further than this. Fast movement ahead. Something flashing in the sun. She guns the engine, building speed with a hand coming down hard on the horn that blasts out loud and angry. The infected turn with a synchronicity that is frightening to behold. All of them acting as one. Turning as one. Seeing as one. She sees it. She sees the hive mind at work as the closest half run at the car while the rest keep going. A decision made and executed with a precision that is terrifying. In the chaos of that moment she spots two infected kneeling in the road biting down into a woman that screams for the pain given. As the view opens she sees more of the same. More people torn from their feet to be bitten and raked. A flash of metal glinting in the sun far ahead. Fast movements of people fighting. Everything taken in with a blink of an eye and a beat of her heart.
She aims, pushes the pedal and runs the first one down. More come to vault over the bonnet to slam heads into the windscreen snarling and howling, impervious to pain. She doesn’t flinch. Not this time. She steers and weaves to hit more as they keep coming to thump into the sides and front. She aims the car to the two biting the woman and kills all three with a violent jolt of the wheels spinning to gain traction and crush the soft bodies. Carnage ensues. A chaos of noises and bodies slamming into the car. The rear passenger window smashes with a head coming through that drops out from the burst of speed applied. There is no time for thought but only to react from instinct and be guided by each new threat and sight. She fishtails the steering, slewing round with hard braking and even harder acceleration to clear the street. Those on the floor being bitten are run over with death given to infected and human alike.
There it is. The last stand being taken with Becky swinging her meat cleaver to slice through a lunging face with a bare few adults still on their feet fighting to protect the children behind.
‘RUN,’ Becky’s voice roaring in the noise of a war taking place. ‘FUCKING RUN…’ she turns to shove the children, bellowing with kicks to arses to get them moving. A vicious backhand from lightning reactions fells a big man coming in. Another adult goes down under a flurry of bodies lunging to dive and bite. Blood sprays in the air. Some of the children star burst from the sight. Some too scared to move get killed where they are. A pair of red shoes showing through the bodies fighting. A pair of red shoes on little legs that can’t run much further. Rajesh hefts her up, crying out to carry his little sister while his big sister shields both of them from the beasts.
Aye. That does it. That sends a pulsing rage surging up through Heather who aims to run the things down. She goes fast, braking at the last second with a hard turn of the wheel to fishtail the back end round that slams into several running at Becky. Door open and she’s out running flat for Subi, Raj and Amna. Paco behind her lunging into the fray to swat the things aside as they dive for Heather running through the battle. She powers on legs given speed by the sight of a big infected male running at the three children. She powers on with her eyes fixed and knowing she took one down before. She powers on knowing a dangerous monster covers her back so she only has to worry about the front.
‘DOWN DOWN DOWN,’ she screams with the last bit of air in her lungs to make Subi lift her head with eyes that go wide at the sight of Heather running towards them. ‘GET DOWN…’ A mothers tone. A tone that expects compliance. Compliance is given. Subi grabs Raj who holds Amna and drops down, taking her brother with her. The three land in a heap as the big man goes to lunge. Heather grunts and explodes forward to land on his back, her arms round his neck drawing in to wrench his head back with an impact that sends him off to the side away from the children. She hangs on for dear life, squeezing with every ounce of strength, feeling bones breaking in his throat. She feels it stagger round but holds on as Paco clears the ground around her, swatting and hitting to floor creatures that fly past. She roars with pain and determination. She grips harder, pulling tighter with veins in her neck and head bulging as the beast drops to his knees from the lack of air being taken in. She goes with him, forcing him down to the ground to jump up and stamp a foot on his skull. She kicks hard, driving feet into its face smashing the nose and jaw, fracturing eye sockets while heedless to the pain in her toes. The beast rears. The damage to his face is nothing to him. He will bite and rake all the same. He rises fast with a fresh lungful of air giving oxygen to muscles. She tries punching the side of his head but he shows no reaction and comes up with blood dripping down his ruined face. The meat cleaver swung by Becky takes him through the throat, severing his neck with such brutal strength his head falls to roll across the ground. Still no time for thought but only to react.
She runs back to find Subi and the other two but gets hit from the side by a body lunging in to take her down. She hits the ground hard, whumping the air from her lungs as the weight is suddenly taken away by Paco lifting the man overhead to be thrown like a ragdoll into more coming. She rolls, scrabbles and crabs on hands and knees through blood spraying and bodies falling. A woman lands in front of her, screaming with terror and pain from the beast sinking its teeth into her shoulder. A machete falls from her hand that cannot now tense and grip due to the tendon being bitten through. Heather grabs it and swings wildly, cleaving into the infected. She hacks harder, strength gaining with a weapon in her hand. She slams it into the back and shoulders slicing deep through flesh. On her feet, she boots the body away and without a thought in her mind she brings that machete down into the throat of the woman bitten in the shoulder. On she goes, staggering to her feet to see Amna’s red shoes underneath her brother being pinned down by Subi. Movement to her right, she spins and lashes with the blade swiping across a head that peels apart. She slices again, hacking to get it away. Sensation behind her. Paco leans past to stop a man lunging in to bite her. His fist gripping hair to yank and pull the man in so his neck can be broken.
‘SUBI…CAR….’ She grunts the words while dancing back to hack out at a hand coming to rake. Several fingers are taken off to fall like litter on the ground. ‘SUBI…CAR…NOW SUBI…’
She reaches back to grab Subi’s arm, lifting her up as Paco fights to keep her clear. ‘UP…RAJ GET UP…CAR NOW…’
She fight to cover them as Paco fights to cover her. A battle of filth and blood and snarling voices. Screams of pain score the air. The whole of it is sordid and terrifyin
g but within that chaos she gets them through. Slashing anything that comes close. Digging that blade into a thigh then through an arm then higher into a neck as her hands and arms get drenched in blood.
‘BECKY…CAR…’ she catches sight of wild ginger hair atop a face as snarling and vicious as the infected. A woman, a mother, a wife who will fight until the last drop of blood in her body is gone. She snatches round to see Heather, calm in her eyes despite the battle lust etched on her face. A curt nod and she’s off to grab children who get propelled to run through the bodies to the car.
Those three hold them back. Becky with a meat cleaver. Heather with a machete taken from a woman’s hand who she just killed and Paco raging to destroy them with the ease of his virtue and right from having their blood in his veins. He doesn’t tire. He doesn’t get scared or feel fatigue and like them he feels no pain but tears human form apart to make the streets run red with blood. Becky sees it. In the utter depravity of that awful minute of frenetic motion she sees it and gives a prayer for his presence. He gets worse too. Faster. Harder. He breaks and stamps and punches with a strength that isn’t right to see.
Children are thrown into the back seats, wedged and pushed to make room for more that get shoved and screamed at by Becky and Heather. ‘IN…’ Heather yells at Becky, pushing her to get in the back. ‘PACO…’ she screams his name while going for the driver door to get in and start the car but the big man doesn’t run away. He stands and fights. Running away is not in his mind right now. ‘PACO GET IN,’ Heather roars the words but knows he won’t listen or pay heed. Go. Drive away. Get the children away from here. Now. Do it now.
‘Becky you drive,’ she’s out and running to join her man to fight and keep them back. She runs to swing the machete into the back of an old woman who goes down with a spray of blood. She hears doors closing, the engine starting and gains perception of the car moving through the battle to mow more down that get thumped and knocked aside.