by RR Haywood
She leads them down the path to the front door and again stops to listen before trying the handle and giving a little groan at another door to break in. She looks to Paco with a grim smile. He comes forward, lowering the yawning boy from his arms. That yawn makes Heather yawn which makes Subi yawn. Rajesh and Tommy go next. Amna is already fast asleep but the other two children complete the chain reaction of mouths stretching wide with low groans from tired bodies. Paco looks at the door. The others look at him and realise they’re in the way so shuffle back and away.
Paco reaches up to hold Amna’s legs dangling down his chest. She gurgles at the touch but stays asleep. He gets to the door, braces and explodes out with a foot that kicks into the mid-section which splinters the frame and snaps the lock. The door slams open. The shotgun fires. The range is close. The pellets don’t spread but fly tight together. Frank found the house yesterday. It was a lucky find. The old woman that lived here was turned and gone in the first few days of the outbreak. He stayed quiet with his double-barrelled shotgun but heard the tread of the feet coming up the road. He didn’t dare twitch a curtain for fear of being seen. So instead he stayed behind the door shaking from head to toe at the groans and moans coming from the children and Heather yawning. He heard the feet shuffling and heard one of the infected gurgling. They do that. They gurgle and moan. They shuffle and don’t walk like proper people do. Frank knows. He’s seen enough of them. As the door burst open he saw a big man with two heads and a glimpse of red eyes and plucked the trigger while a jet of hot piss soaked his groin.
The children scream at the huge boom of the gun. Hot liquid sprays on their faces. Heather moves fast, diving with her arms held wide to scoop the children to the side. ‘DON’T SHOOT….SURVIVORS…DON’T SHOOT…’
Frank gibbers. His finger pressing on the second trigger of the double barrelled shotgun as the voice screams words that sink into his brain which cause the hesitation that gives Paco time to grab the gun and boot the man away. The force of the kick slams the back of Frank’s head into the corner of the side unit, fracturing his skull with shards of bone plunging into his brain. Paco stands over him. Checking his kill with one hand still holding Amna’s feet who gurgles in her sleep at the sounds around her.
‘DON’T SHOOT…SURVIVORS…’ Heather screams the words again. Her arms spread wide over the children beneath her.
‘Dead,’ a gurgled voice, rasping and broken.
‘DON’T SHOOT,’ Heather shouts back, ‘CHILDREN…’
‘Dead,’ the rasping tone says again. She’s up instantly. Knowing that voice. Knowing that broken tone. ‘Paco?’
‘Dead…’
She leans round the door in a fast darting motion, in and out but grabbing enough of a view to see Paco standing over a body. ‘Stay there,’ she tells the children and rushes into the house. Adrenalin has been dumped into her body. Her vision becomes sharper. Her senses heightened. Her heart booming. She can’t form coherent thoughts but can see Paco holding a shotgun by the barrel with a dead man at his feet. Blood coming from the back of the dead man’s skull that seeps down over the floor. His eyes open and glassy, reflecting the light of the moon shining through the door.
‘Dead,’ Paco says again. She looks at him, staring wide eyed at hearing his voice again.
‘HEATHER!’
‘What?’ Heather is away, running back out at Subi’s scream. She sees the body on the path. The body of the little girl now dead from being struck by hundreds of pellets from a shotgun fired at close range. The little blond haired girl who was too exhausted, too sleepy and too slow to move when the rest shuffled to let Paco get through. ‘No…no….move, Subi move…’ Heather drops down, her hands grabbing the girl now covered in blood. Blood everywhere. Wounds in the girl’s chest and stomach. ‘Oh god no…please no…’ she paws at the wounds, pushing hard as though to stop the blood coming out but there’s so much. So much blood. She gasps hard, her mind frantic with panic. She lowers the girl to try and find a pulse. Her shaking hands pushing into the girl’s neck. No pulse. She grabs a thin wrist and tries again. No pulse. She lowers her head to the girl’s injured chest, smearing blood down her face. No heartbeat.
‘Okay…okay…’ Heather swallows and moves onto her knees at the girl’s side. First aid. CPR. Mouth to mouth. She tilts the head back, opens the girl’s mouth with bloodied fingers then clasps her hands together to begin compressions. One. Two. Three. Four. Five…how many? She can’t remember. Fifteen. Fifteen compressions to two breaths. How many has she done? She doesn’t know. She drops to form a seal on the girl’s mouth and breathes hard. They said in the first aid class you have to see the chest rising. She looks as she exhales but it’s too dark to see if the girl’s chest lifts. She blows again, harder and feeling resistance as the smaller lungs of the girl inflate. Compressions. One. Two. Three.
‘…four, five, six, seven,’ she counts out loud into the silence of the overgrown front garden. ‘Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen,’ her hands pushing down. She feels ribs crack but remembers that’s normal. They said that in the first aid class. Two breaths. She forms the seal and exhales. She does it again.
‘One, two, three,’ compressions on a body that shunts with the force of the movement. Sweat pours down her face that mingle with the tears streaming down her cheeks. The children watch, rendered silent by the horror.
She forms the seal and exhales. She does it again.
‘One, two, three, four… COME ON…six, seven, eight…WAKE UP…ten, eleven, twelve…’
She forms the seal and exhales. She does it again.
‘One, two, three…’
‘Dead.’
‘FUCK OFF,’ Heather rages at him, her face contorting with emotion. Veins bulge from her forehead and neck. Blood on her hands and arms, across her face and mouth. ‘Eight, nine, ten…’
‘Dead.’
That awful voice. That terrible broken voice. She forms the seal and exhales. She does it again.
‘Dead.’
‘No,’ she whispers and starts the compressions. She won’t let it happen. She made a vow. She’ll get them to fort. She’ll keep them alive. She won’t fail. ‘Eight, nine, ten…’ the sob comes as she counts.
‘Dead.’
She weeps but keeps going. They said that in the first aid class. They said keep going and don’t stop until the ambulance gets to you. She forms the seal and exhales. She does it again.
‘Dead,’ firmer this time, broken and awful, rasping and deep but a message being passed.
‘NO,’ she starts the compressions. She made a vow. The children will live. She counts and sobs with tears that fall onto the girl whose name she doesn’t know. That breaks her. That single realisation crushes her spirit. She weeps harder but carries on. She doesn’t know her name. Keep going until the ambulance gets to you. She doesn’t know her name. There are no ambulances.
The hand closes over her shoulder. Big and solid but gentle, so gentle. ‘Dead,’ a whisper of a word from a throat torn and ruined.
‘I…I don’t…’ she keeps pumping her hands, refusing to stop because to stop will be to accept it. She won’t accept it. ‘I don’t…I don’t know her name…’
He drops to her side. Amna taken and held by Subi. His hand stays on her shoulder as she pumps and works the chest. She loses count and goes to move to form the seal and exhale but the hand on her shoulder won’t let her move. She sobs out and goes back to the compressions. Her vision blurred by the hot tears pouring out.
‘Keep going…keep going…I didn’t know…keep going…I don’t know her name…’ She made them walk all day and she didn’t know her name.
‘Lisa.’
‘What?’ Heather gasps, turning to stare at Subi.
‘Lisa…her name is Lisa.’
Heather takes them in. Six children and Paco staring at her in silence. Paco’s hand on her shoulder. Her own hands frozen on the girl’s chest while her composure crumbles into a void. A tidal wave of self-loathing rises from
her own selfish actions that she wanted Paco and nothing more and never took the time to ask their names. She can’t do this. She can’t. It’s too much. She’s failed and a little girl called Lisa now lies dead because of her failure and her vile disgusting selfish actions.
They come then. They come when the anguish is greatest. They come because they can and this is a world of pain and hurt that keeps serving the suffering for the sheer fun of it. They come drawn to the noise of a gunshot and the screams of the frightened. They come with bare feet slapping the road in a noise the group has come to recognise all too well. They come at the breaking point when the consideration to give up is the strongest from a loss that strikes deep to render limbs useless and a mind inert. They come when they are weakest and already beaten. They come when the grief and shock is the highest and the fatigue is already sapping at their bodies.
Her mind opens. The panic vanishes. The emotions drop away to leave an icy hand squeezing her heart to cease the panic. On her feet, hands covered in blood. She takes the shotgun from the floor and breaks it open the way she taught herself so many days ago. Shells. The dead man must have more shells. She runs into the house, jumping over the warm corpse to find a green rucksack open on the table next to a plastic box of shotgun cartridges that she grabs and takes back outside to hand to Subi.
‘Hold these, give them to me when I ask. Do not drop them. Everyone out on the road. Do it now. Tommy, carry your brother, what’s his name?
‘Oliver…I mean Ollie…’
‘Rajesh and you…what’s your name?’
‘Christian.’
‘Christian, help Rajesh carry Amna. Stay together. Subi stay close to me.’
The temptation to hide inside the house is strong but it’s a death-trap. She saw that last night. The infected will surround it and pound the doors and windows then rush in as one. She loads the shotgun, snaps it shut and drops to kneel next to the body of the girl whose name she didn’t know. ‘Forgive me,’ she whispers, kissing the girl’s forehead before rising to grab the machete that’s pushed into Paco’s hand.
They go fast. Tommy leading. His brother in his arms. Rajesh and Christian carrying Amna. Subi next staying close to Heather who carries the shotgun held tight across her chest.
Make distance, stay quiet and hope for the best. That’s all there is. They’re all covered in Lisa’s blood. That blood will be scented and followed. If it was just her she’d stop and lead them off. She’d honour that vow to Becky with her own life and tell Subi to run and never stop running, but it isn’t just her with blood on her body.
Breathing becomes hard within minutes. Exhausted bodies once again pushed to keep going with nothing inside except fear driving them on. They run in a direction they don’t know without a plan to do anything except this.
The feet come louder. Gaining closer. Many of them. Howls behind from infected giving sound to others in the area that respond with terrifying inhuman screeches.
The iciness in Heather grows. It hardens to become a separate entity within her. Paco at her side. The children in front. The howls keep coming, every direction is doomed. ‘Go in front,’ she tells Paco. He hesitates with an expression on his face. His eyes searching hers that flick down to the shotgun then to the children. He looks at the machete in his hand then turns to glance behind them. He’s unsure. She can sense it. ‘Want me to go in front?’
His head snaps to glare. His eyes focussed with such intensity she can see the affirmation of the reply.
‘Ess…’ a sound comes from his mouth, almost lost in the rasp.
‘Yes?’
‘Ess…’ A hiss of a noise but given quickly in response.
‘Okay, you stay at the back?’
‘Ess…’
She goes wide to run round the children, ‘Subi…with me, stay close…’ Another quick glance back at Paco. He can speak. He’s healing. He needs time to get better but time is a thing they are fast running out of.
The first one comes from the back. A female with a body already honed from years of marathon running. She outstrips the others in her horde to fly over the road towards the smell of blood and fear hanging in the air. Her body runs with poise. Her arms pumping to keep traction and balance. Her knees lifting in the way she was trained. The hive mind within her learns from the collective conscious to evolve and seek greater harmony with the gross motor skills of the host body. She is in the true state of being. The lactic acid in her muscles don’t hurt her. Her heart works in synch with her lungs to propel forward and gain the objective. She closes the distance. Head fixed and eyes locked on Paco’s broad back. Her lips pull back. Her hands claw. She is ready to draw blood and pass the infection. She snarls at the last second with a sound that keeps coming as her head falls from her body from a machete swung by a strong arm that cleaves the blade through the vertebrae in her spine. Paco glances at the machete and keeps running. An understanding forming in his mind of the concept of a weapon to be used.
At the front Heather scans ahead. Listening and trying to sort through the noises of the children behind her. She hears the snarl of the infected woman and casts a quick look to see Paco slicing through her neck and the head falling with a thump as the body runs another step from sheer momentum gained. Other noises in the air. Howls and screeches. A way of communicating to say where the infected are. Movement. There. A flash of the moon reflecting from a pale torso. She lifts, aims and fires. The sound of branches breaking from a heavy body crashing into the hedgerow. ‘Shell,’ she pants the word, breaking the shotgun open to eject the used cartridge. The new one goes in, the gun snaps closed.
‘Heather!’
Subi gives the warning, her keen eyes spotting the two running straight at them. Heather lifts, aims down the barrel and plucks the first trigger. The spread of pellets hits both, sending them reeling back. The one on the left sprawls out. The one on the right gains balance and keeps coming with blood pissing out from the wounds inflicted on his chest and stomach. Heather fires again, blowing him back off his feet. ‘Shells,’ she opens the gun, pulls the two used ones out and takes two more handed from Subi’s shaking hands. A glance back. Paco is right there. More howls rip through the air in response to the new shots fired. Direction of the potential hosts has been gained.
‘Can’t…’ Christian cries out. His arms burning in the sockets from the weight of Amna.
‘Put her down, Amna you have to run...’
‘Carry me…’
‘I SAID RUN,’ Heather bellows the words out, making five children flinch and one little girl lift an eyebrow with an expression of mild distaste etched on her face. ‘Fine,’ a change of tactic, ‘stay here then…’
She runs on, noticing the shock on Amna’s face who immediately starts running, her little legs working furiously to keep up with the others. Rajesh grabs her hand, forcing her to keep pace.
‘There,’ Subi shouts again. Heather fires from the waist. Both barrels one after the other. Three drop but more are coming.
‘Stop…shells,’ she brings them to a halt, dropping to a knee to break the shotgun and load two more shells. She lifts, aims and fires. More drop but more are coming. She breaks the gun, reloads, lifts and fires. The sound is immense. The recoil slams her shoulder until she learns to brace. She reloads and fires. Sending hundreds of shots down the lane that lacerate, wound and kill the infected.
‘Okay…move…’ she aims and fires into the head of a crawler, exploding the skull that blows apart sending a shower of sticky grey matter over the bushes behind. Bodies on the floor. Blood on the floor. Blood and gore everywhere. They weave through the corpses. Heather fires into another crawler, wasting valuable shells. Over half a dozen shot down but more are coming.
A grunt from behind. Paco slams the machete into the neck of one while lashing a hand out to grip the hair of another trying to run past him. He twists hard, flinging the body down to the floor before stamping on the face with such force the bones are driven in.
Shots
from the front. Another one gunned down. Three from behind. One of them aiming for Paco while the other two aim for the children with a cohesion of effort. Heather turns, aims and blasts one apart. Paco swats aside the one coming at him and runs to intercept the other. Heather goes wide, shooting into the head of the one Paco felled with the swat.
On they go. Bodies left to bleed behind them. Chests heaving. Legs burning. The minds of the children grow dim from the sustained peril and shock. Another bubble forms around them. A bubble of noise and gore but they keep going. The running eases. They cannot keep the pace up despite Heather bellowing at them. Amna is too little. Tommy is struggling to carry Oliver and puts him down. They walk fast instead at a pace that Heather finds crippling.
‘Shells…’ she slides them in and snaps the shotgun closed, turning to see Paco walking backwards with the machete held out to one side. That he’s using the weapon is not lost on her.
The lane bends and snakes between high hedges. Moonlight bathes the land giving shape to silhouettes that loom in the distance. Farmhouses, barns and stables blocks. They pass five bar gates and junctions to other lanes and footpaths. She takes lefts and rights, desperate to lose the infected but knowing that each shot fired is akin to a flare sent in the sky we are here, come find us.
She saw the number on the side when she picked the case up. Fifty shotgun cartridges would be enough for any sport shooter. Fifty shells would last a farmer a long time. Fifty tonight go fast. Two at a time fired at shadows flitting to burst from hedges. When they come hard she stops to kneel to speed the reload and fire at anything making noise or giving sight of movement. The children stop flinching at the sound but use those breaks to gasp air and claw back what energy they can. Ten cartridges are used within the space of a few minutes until she snaps the order to move on.