One day he had felt the sharp end of the needle against his flesh but he couldn’t bring himself to pierce again.
Shortly after that, he had driven from the house, taken the roads down south, and ran away from the whole damn mess.
“Luke?”
Maddie was standing now, arms on Lucas’ hips as she looked into his eyes.
“It wasn’t your fault…”
Lucas looked at the floor. Nodded. “I know.”
“It was nobody’s fault.”
“I know.” Maddie slid her hands around Lucas. Her scent filled his nostrils and he closed his eyes and took it all in. He thought – as he had a thousand times before – of what it might be like to pull away, lean down and kiss her. But even now, with Fred somewhere out of the picture, the guilt was playing games with his insides. It could be so easy. But would it really be worth risking the loss of a friendship—
A noise came from somewhere above them. The sound of footsteps. Furniture falling.
Maddie pulled away, “You got company?”
Lucas shook his head and reached for his gun.
18
Kurt watched as the ferals streamed down the hill. It was a terrifying sight to behold. The gunshot awoke a manic passion in the ferals, igniting them like steam-powered pistons roaring down the road towards the buildup of cars. The decline in the hill giving them added momentum. There were a few that stumbled along the way, their legs moving faster than their bodies allowed. But that did little to slow the rest. Most made it into the throng just fine, fuelled by an angry rage as they sped towards the source of the gunshot.
As one, the mass of people in and out the cars panicked. Heads turned here and there, looking for a safe place to go. Some locked themselves inside their vehicles and closed their eyes, clamped their ears, waited for it all to pass. Some took a few seconds to realise that the ferry had docked, and had yet to receive passengers.
At the front of the ferry, two men tried hurriedly to raise the ramp and undock. Their eyes wide with fear as the screeches grew louder, and the first of the many panicked civilians burst through the polices’ barrier. “Hold the ramp. Hold the ramp” a man cried, waving one hand wildly, the other clutching at the stitch in his side.
The ramp slipped in one of the men’s hands. He tried to lift it again, but it was too late. The waving man leaped on board and disappeared inside the vessel, soon followed by another, then another, until bodies were pushing and scrapping, eager to get away from the feral horde. Between the shoving civilians, police uniforms could be seen dotted here and there as the people beneath the uniform forgot their duty and thought only of survival. By the time the ferals had begun to weave between cars, some simply jumping on top and using the roofs as stepping stones, the jetty was overcrowded with bodies.
There were some people that just panicked. Sometimes it just takes a while longer for people’s brains to clunk into gear and register the best path of action, and amongst the gathering of cars – over the top of the shouts and the God-awful screeches – there came the sounds of engines revving, as desperate drivers did their best to push and nudge the cars around in a futile attempt to free their vehicle from the others. The sounds only attracting more ferals. The drivers soon finding their views obscured as ferals clawed and scratched, cracking glass. Gnashing teeth. Hungry for blood.
Many of the running victims didn’t get a true look at their killers as ferals leaped over cars and onto backs, tearing at flesh with everything they could. Faces stained with lines of black reared and screeched, launching from one body to the next, only moving on once the current victim had stopped its wriggling. Kurt was horrified to see that many of the ferals were children, not quite as old as himself, their baby teeth gnashing, their fingers clawing.
The sound of the ferry’s horn turned a few heads. Up top people could just make out the outline of the captain behind the glass. The boat’s stewards fought a losing battle with the ramp as people clambered over one another, the ferry now at least filled to half capacity. One heard the instructions on his radio and waved for the other steward to climb on board and let it go. They were never going to win while people charged. The few remaining police officers at the barriers were doing their best to stem the flow of people, but they fought a losing battle. The ferals were close now. One or two already managing to make their way to the front cars.
“Go, go, go!” the boat steward screamed. Another horn toot, accompanied by the sound of splintering wood as the boat tugged against its mooring. The gap between ferry and jetty grew. The ramp splashed into the water, leaving the stewards on board, looking down at how close the water line was to the entrance.
But the distance didn’t dissuade some from jumping. Bodies fell into the river, one-by-one. A few chanced a swim to the other side, taking huge lungfuls of freezing water. There were a lucky few whose fingers clutched the boat. These were helped up by the stewards, but soon the boat picked up speed and left the rest of the people behind.
The first feral made it onto the jetty. An old straggler, easy prey, met his demise as the feral slammed fists into his face, gouging at his eyes. The old man’s screams would remain in the dreams of many of those who made it onto the boat, some of the few hundred that survived.
Kurt, James, Karen, and Steve were of the unlucky few who hadn’t made it to the boat. Kurt’s blood turned to ice as the ferry sped over the water and shrank into the distance.
*
“No. No. No!” Karen screamed, her toes hanging over the edge of the jetty. Next to her, James fumbled with his mask, spinning at all angles until it was fastened once more to his face. Once satisfied, he turned and pointed his gun at the ferals making their way onto the jetty, an old woman accidentally making her way into his line of fire before realising and ducking out the way. His hands shook.
Kurt wondered if James had ever had to fire one before-
“Behind you!” Kurt cried as he saw Steve playing catchup weaving through the crowd. Steve span just in time, lashing his fist across a feral’s face, forcing it to emit an awful, squelching sound. The feral fell to the floor, but quickly lifted itself back up and lashed out at a woman’s leg, causing her to fall down and serve herself as an entrée. James held his aim on the feral until Steve was well out the way, and caught up with them all.
“Holy…” Steve breathed as he doubled over. “Thought it had me for a second. Jesus those things are loud. So… What’s the plan?”
“Here,” James shouted through his mask. He reached into the back of his belt and tossed a second firearm to Steve. It looked to be the same as his own Glock, only silver. “Ever used one of these before?”
Steve shook his head.
“It’s easy. Point and shoot.” As if to demonstrate, he turned sharply, picked a feral target – what looked to have been a poor, obese man in his former days as a fully-fledged human being – and popped a bullet into his forehead. The obese feral fell down instantly.
Kurt clapped a hand to his ears, looked down between the gaps in the wood.
“Simple.”
Steve examined the gun, then tried to emulate. He looked down the barrel, scanning for a feral target, but it was fruitless. The sound of the bullet not only fuelled the ferals but also scared the remaining survivors on the jetty. In seconds they were everywhere, shifting and running and moving. As much as he tried he couldn’t get a clear shot. James rolled his eyes. Past the barrier that led to the jetty, was a growing din of angry growls and cries, pleading screams, and car alarms. Kurt heard splashes behind them where people were still leaping and attempting to swim as far away as possible. Maybe Kurt could join them and make it to the Scotland Dock? Would that be the easy way out? He thought not. He had never really been much of a swimmer and pictured himself drowning before he reached the other side.
Kurt looked curiously again between the planks of wood, seeing the water wash against a gentle sand bank some eight feet below.
A trio of ferals peeled their way through
the barrier and ran up the jetty. They targeted those who were nearest first. Kurt turned at the sound and watched in horror as red painted the victims’ clothes… Making gargling sounds as they tried to fill their last lungfuls of oxygen.
“We have to do something. Now!” Karen said.
James seemed to take the initiative and barged his way forward, popping bullets now and then with Kurt trailing behind, only able to hear the ferals as they fell. He heard Steve mutter something about the crowd being worse than an Aerosmith concert and made a note to himself never to attend a live gig. He had never considered himself claustrophobic before but he had never felt the pressure of dozens of bodies pushing at him from all sides.
“Hold my hand,” Kurt heard Karen say, sliding hers into his. He gripped it tightly. Around him, he heard the growls, the screams, the cries, but they bustled through. What James’ end goal was, Kurt had no idea. He kept his head down, watching their shadows pass over the shallows below, and did his best to keep up.
A gunshot sounded. Kurt wasn’t sure if it was James or Steve who had fired – or if it was someone else entirely. A second later he heard Steve shout, “Let go of him!” Another gunshot. “Fuck! Karen, run!”
James’ voice. “Save the boy. We’ll catch up!”
Karen screamed. Kurt couldn’t see for bodies but felt his stomach drop. Karen tugged at Kurt’s arm, forcing him through to a spot where the bodies were less tight and they could breathe. He heard James shout. Another gunshot. Karen looked behind her with tears in her eyes.
She looked at Kurt. “What do we do?”
Was she really asking his opinion?
Kurt looked around for a second, then the answer came to him. The one so glaringly obvious that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it already.
“Follow me.”
He dragged Karen along, finding that the concentration of bodies thinned the closer they got to the edge of the jetty. He saw the shoreline trailing off into the distance, the water gently lapping at its banks. A small drop and back underneath the wooden planks. That’s all they needed. Just a quick drop to safety.
Karen stopped. Kurt tried to tug at her arm but she didn’t move. Her eyes fixed ahead at a man, stumbling, gambling with the edge of the jetty as he walked with his head in his hands. There was a hole ripped in his side which revealed raw muscle and the splatter of blood. Scratches covered his neck. Kurt was surprised he was even walking, his body looked like it had been through a mincer.
The man stumbled, one foot slipping to hang off the jetty, the other landing on the wood. Instinctively Kurt reached out to help him. The man snapped his head sharply and scowled. Kurt jumped back, seeing the blank hate-filled stare. Was there anyone behind those eyes? Someone in the man’s cranium trying to control the helm of that ship? Or had the driver gone bye-bye?
A question came to Kurt, then, fuelled by yellowed pages of horror novels that he had read. The morbid curiosity of the question that he didn’t really want an answer to, but found that, on some level, he definitely did.
Do the bitten rise from the dead?
There were no signs of the dark veins on the man, only the open wound in his side. Yet, it was clear that all was not right, and that Kurt and Karen didn’t have long until the beast recovered its balance and came for them.
What was it that forced these things towards destruction? As far as Kurt had seen so far, there had been no survivors. The ferals’ instinct seemed to be to kill. But what about in the cases where their victims do survive? Is that what they were seeing now? The spreading of the infection through the bloodstream, creating more soldiers in an army bred to destroy everything around them for sport? Kurt thought of a G.I.Joe he once set on fire in the schoolyard for mere enjoyment. He remembered laughing as the face melted and the limbs slipped away.
The feral was almost free now. It was so close to standing that it began to lean forward, prepared to run at Kurt and Karen. Its eyes fixed on the boy.
“What do we do now?” Karen whispered, clutching Kurt tightly.
The thing began to sprint. Took two confident strides before a deafening sound came and the feral fell flat. Karen whipped her head around and just about made out James’ face through the throng of bodies. “Keep going!”
She turned back to Kurt, a smile finding its way back onto her face. “Go! Go!”
Kurt led her to the edge of the jetty, and without waiting for her, jumped onto the soft sand below. His feet splashed in a couple inches of water, but he didn’t care. He looked up and motioned for Karen to join. “C’mon. It’s not as high as it looks.”
A second later she landed clumsily next to him. Fallen to a knee that darkened as it soaked up the water. She looked up expectantly for Steve and James, but Kurt tugged her sleeve and brought her into the shadows beneath the jetty.
As the sounds of chaos raged above them, they waited for their companions. The noise too loud to hear the footsteps splashing in the water behind them.
19
Sabrina had never known a day to change so quickly. One minute she was a run-of-mill officer (okay, maybe not just a run-of-the-mill officer, Sabrina was a hell of a hard worker and had the medals to prove it), the next, her and her team were overrun by swarms of bodies.
What the hell were those things running down the hillside? She had asked herself, already knowing the answer. The Chief had given her a brief overview that morning at near 1am, around the time the mist was still very much present. “We’re not sure what we’re calling them, but they’re certainly dangerous. Cover your mouth, suit up, and get your ass to the docks. You’re in charge.”
“How long for?”
“Until I tell you otherwise.”
There was a mantelpiece at home for Sabrina’s medals and trophies. Flynn took extra care to polish them every day, and they gleamed as she had walked past them to her car. One trophy, in particular, catching her eye. ‘Commendation of Bravery and Loyalty to the Force – Sabrina Hutcheons’.
She didn’t feel so brave now. She could still see the moment that Higgins began to turn in her head. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. His flabby belly bouncing up and down before one of those… things leaped into the air and chomped down on his shoulder. It looked to struggle with the uniform, but Higgins went down real fast, allowing the thing to put its weight behind its chomp. Higgins eyes wide, begging for help. Sabrina fumbling with her gun, then running as another two creatures appeared and locked eyes.
Sabrina had never thought of herself as a coward. Even now, hiding and ducking away from the chaos as the sounds of people died above her, she tried not to think of herself that way.
It’s called survival. Someone needs to tell this story.
A thud. A boy.
A second thud. A woman.
Sabrina watched as the pair landed awkwardly, then waited at the jetty’s edge, looking above.
Stupid thing to do. What are they waiting for? The longer they’re out there, the more chance that someone’s going to follow, and then what? We might as well flip the jetty upside down, cause those things are going to come where the meat is.
Sabrina raised her gun and walked towards them. “Pssst.”
The boy turned. Gasped. Patted the woman. She saw the gun and looked as thought she was about to scream.
Sabrina brought a finger to her lip and waved them under the jetty, gun still on them both. “Get in here,” she whispered.
The boy came forward. The woman did not.
“I’m not going to ask you again.”
The woman looked at Sabrina, then the jetty top. Her mind already made up.
*
Karen sprinted towards one of the jetty’s support beams. Kurt intercepted, grabbing her arm. Aware of the firearm trained on them both.
“What are you doing?” Dust and sand sprinkled onto them as the fighting continued above.
“Saving my husband,” Karen spat.
“By getting yourself killed?” the officer with the g
un said. “You go back up there you’ve got no chance. Have you seen those things?”
“They’re going to catch up. That’s what they said. ‘We’ll catch up’.”
Kurt could see the tears collecting in Karen’s eyes. She looked frail, careworn as she deflated like a balloon. He wasn’t sure entirely what was going through her head, but he could recognise pain when he saw it.
“They need help. They should be here already… They should be here. My James…”
The officer took another step towards them. “Ma’am—”
Karen turned suddenly, seeing the officer for the first time. Her eyes flicked to the name badge on her chest. “You,” she said. “It’s you. You’re the reason this shit all started, aren’t you? With your trigger happy finger…”
Karen took a step towards Officer Hutcheons, who locked her arm and set her expression. Her chin lifted higher.
“If it wasn’t for you and this piece of metal, those things up there might have passed by in their little herd, and we’d all be halfway to Durham by now.”
Kurt had never seen Karen so upset. So angry. They were within punching distance by now. Karen wore her heart on her sleeve, but Officer Hutcheons was impossible to read. Could she shoot a civilian? Wasn’t the role of a police officer to serve and protect?
Karen grabbed ahold of the gun in one hand and manipulated Officer Hutcheons aim so that it was pointing at her own forehead.
“If you’re going to point a gun at me, at least have the fucking balls to use it.” Kurt detected a slur in Karen’s voice, remembering the several bottles of wine she had polished off that day. Again he wondered why adults drank, especially if it led to stupid, bold decisions.
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