Please, God. No.
They’d had a chance, damn it. They’d had a real chance to break out of this place, to get somewhere safe. They would have been somewhere safe already, he told himself. If you hadn’t tried to rescue them.
That was the truth of the matter. He had been the one to draw the undead’s attention to the house’s front gate. He had been the one to storm the house and take out the guards who’d protected them. He had been the one to drive them into the arms of the undead. And now he was the one who’d rescued himself at their expense.
What would the guards do now? If there was no proof their loved ones were even here, they would condemn him and Sam as liars and hand them over to the Architect. And if they discovered some remains or items of their loved ones? They would condemn Hawk for his murderous act. He wouldn’t fight them. He had failed and deserved everything he got. And Sam. . . Poor Sam would be handed over to the Architect. At least Hawk would die. There was some release in that.
The crushing defeat pressed heavy on his chest and he raised his head and struck it on the hard concrete alley floor, hard. He did it again and again. It felt good to relieve some of that crippling sadness that threatened to consume him. He smacked his head again at his failure. Crunch. His skull cracked. A few more blows and his pain would be over for good.
The bedraggled figure of a fifties rocker shuffled past. He had such a confused look on his face that it arrested Hawk’s attention. He pushed himself onto his feet, staggered to the wall, and watched as the rocker sniffed at him, trying to ascertain if he was something worth eating. Hawk pushed the creature away and stumbled into the street.
The undead were there, still funneling into the house for a scrap of what might remain of the hostages. The makeshift rope of his cowardly escape swung in the wind, taunting. The crushing wave of undead that’d threatened to sweep him away was gone, as lost and confused about their current predicament as the rocker was.
Hawk couldn’t enter the house without being crushed, so he picked up a stone and hurled it at the rooftop. When nothing happened, he tossed up the remains of a glass bottle.
Show me the undead. Let me know the hostages are dead and gone, and I’ll be on my way.
A figure poked their head over the side. A figure with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. They remained violent with nervous energy, not sapped to nothing the way an undead’s eyes looked.
“Cheryl? Is that you?”
“Who did you expect? Marilyn Monroe?”
Hawk lost his voice. He probably shouldn’t even be talking with the undead so close by, but he couldn’t help it. “I can dream. Is everyone okay up there?”
“Just about. But they’re going to break through the door any second.”
They weren’t dead. They were still alive. He must have been knocked unconscious for only a short time. There’s still a chance to save them. “I’ll go make some noise. You get them to climb down the rope one at a time.”
“Please hurry.”
Hawk gritted his teeth with a new sense of purpose.
* * *
“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here! Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello!” Hawk limped across the road and bellowed at the top of his voice.
The creatures growled and chased after him. But not enough.
“Come follow me, you bunch of bottom-dwelling scum-sucking morons! Come get your nice hot—all right, it’s cold, but you won’t tell the difference—meal right here.”
The undead tucked inside the house’s foyer glared at him, and the tide turned as those on the first floor saw an easier meal than the one on the rooftop. But the vast majority hadn’t turned in his direction. Hawk needed to increase his efforts if he was to encourage them all.
He picked up an old trashcan lid and held it by the handle. Then he scooped up a length of thick wood left for the garbage men to dispose of. He banged it against the lid.
Clang clang clang clang clang!
A performance of the very worst metal music. He jogged down the road, keeping a close eye on his back. He sang at the top of his voice, shifting from hip-hop to blues, to pop and rock music, messing up the rhymes and lyrics in equal measure, butchering the artists’ work. But putting on a good show for the undead was an entirely different proposition to putting on a good one for those with functioning ears.
In the distance, unseen by the undead, a figure climbed hand-over-hand down the makeshift rope. Once she reached the bottom, she checked over her shoulders and ushered the next person to come down. They were brave, whoever they were—no one ever wanted to be first. But in this case, Hawk’s heart went out to the three men still holding the door. One of them was going to have to go last, and his strength would be all but spent after holding the undead at bay.
No matter what, the undead always extracted payment.
The undead on the second floor waved through a window, grasping with ruined fingers in the direction of Hawk’s impromptu one-man-band act. Those on the stairs would continue their siege against those on the rooftop. Hawk needed to make more noise if he wanted to pull more undead from the house.
He hurled the dustbin lid across the road and let it slam into the wall. Then he ran along the road as fast as his legs could carry him and scooped up a metal bin. He tipped it upside down so the garbage splattered the roadside. He banged on it, the sound reverberating from inside the stinky container before belching across the street. He backed into the alleyway at his back, thumping the garbage can with all the strength his artificial arm allowed. Artificial. Metal. He dropped the wooden beater and slammed his robotic arm against the bin. The alley amplified the thunder even more. Hawk grimaced at the sheer enormity of it, making his head hurt.
The noise drew the undead like a splinter from a festering wound. The undead formed a tightwad of rotting flesh in the narrow alley. Hawk checked over his shoulders and stepped back into the light. It was blocked by the undead on the other side, heading directly toward him, inadvertently boxing him in. Even worse, he could no longer make out the house and those climbing off the ceiling.
“Shit. Too successful for my own damn good.”
He turned and found a worn wooden door to one side. He threw his weight into the back-alley door. One, two, three thumps with his heel and it flew open. He stepped inside and slammed the door shut behind him. It wouldn’t hold for long. He ran up the stairs, one in three sinking beneath his feet and falling through.
Hawk rolled his eyes. “Wonderful.”
He took a second flight of stairs and came to a stop, peering over the side.
Crunch!
The panels of the alley door snapped off, spilling daylight across the floor, and immense dark shadows of long grasping claws. The stuff nightmares are made of. Hawk ascended another two flights before he reached the top floor. In the darkness, he scrambled for the door handle but found none. Maybe there was one, maybe there wasn’t, but he was out of patience and slammed his shoulder against it and emerged on the roof.
Already, the creatures closest to the building across the street stumbled toward the thudding heartbeat of the rooftop door. Everyone who hadn’t yet scaled the makeshift rope helped hold the door shut. Strength wasn’t the problem. The door itself was falling apart. The undead reached through and flailed for anything they could get their fingers to.
On the street, those who’d escaped helped the others climb down. Just over half had already descended to safety. If you could call it that.
A scream.
The sheet ripped, and the girl plummeted the remaining five feet. Cheryl reacted fast and caught the girl, taking the worst of the fall’s sting.
The undead turned toward the noise that’d come from nowhere.
Hawk slammed his arm into the garbage can, harder and with greater fervor than before.
Cheryl looked up in his direction, thankful for the noise, but focused on the creatures scattered here and there around them.
The undead stumbled first toward Cheryl, then t
oward Hawk. Slowly, gradually, they chose his thundering explosion as their primary interest, but it’d been close.
Too close.
Cheryl scooped up the fallen blanket and tossed it up as if laying a new sheet atop a bedspread. “Everyone grab a side!”
They did as she said, forming a rough square with the sheet. It might not provide a particularly soft landing but it was better than landing on your head.
Cheryl waved at the kid on the rooftop. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old. He stood on the rim, legs half bent, hands held out in front of himself. He daren’t jump. He couldn’t jump. He’d turned white as a ghost.
Cheryl waved her arms to get the kid’s attention. Then she threw a series of fingers at him. One. Two. Three.
The boy didn’t jump.
Cheryl waved a hand in a gesture Hawk took to mean ‘Next.’
“Give him another chance!” a woman who must have been the boy’s mother said. “He’s just a boy.”
Cheryl wrapped her hand over the woman’s loud mouth. Hawk could imagine the conversation they were having. “Every second he wastes is an opportunity for someone else to jump.”
The mother looked up at her boy and fought to free herself from Cheryl’s grip. “Les. Jump, baby. On the count of three! Ready? One. . . Two. . . Three!”
Les didn’t react, but a couple of the nearest undead did, twisting their bodies around to glare at a figure that spoke.
Hawk’s arm sped up, a replacement for the heartbeat he no longer possessed. Don’t make any noise, you fool!
Hawk beat a hasty message on the drum. Tap code, hoping one of them would recognize it. But they didn’t.
Another kid hopped off the rooftop. She fell into the middle of the sheet. Those holding onto the edges took the worst of the fall, but her backside still struck the alley floor. A boy dropped his side of the blanket and turned away, jamming the sleeve of his sweater into his mouth. He bit down on his screams as best he could. Cheryl rushed to his side to ask what was wrong. The boy pulled away from her, not letting her near his left arm that hung, unmoving, at his side. Hawk recognized a dislocated arm when he saw one.
Interest piqued, a pair of undead broke away from the main herd and launched an attack on the hapless ground-bound hostages.
“Watch out!” Hawk bellowed. “Undead incoming at six o’clock.”
A couple of those still holding the blanket checked their watches. Confused faces looked up from watches displaying the actual time of 2 pm. The blood drained from their faces and they stumbled back.
The undead pair closed in and the hostages dropped the sheet and ran for their lives. A teenage boy balanced on the rooftop’s edge hesitated and fell awkwardly. He hit the sheet, but those still holding it weren’t prepared for the sudden jerk, and the boy struck the ground hard and screamed.
The plan was falling apart. Pretty soon the entire horde would be upon them.
Bang bang bang!
Heavy bony fists pummeled the rooftop door across the way.
“They’re breaking down the door!” one brave lad said. “They’ll be through any second!”
Any second was not right now. And that was the problem those on the ground faced.
Cheryl scooped up a discarded bicycle and rammed it at an approaching undead. The creature ignored the handlebars that stabbed it in the gut and reached to grab her but it was—by mere millimeters—out of reach.
Cheryl turned to those on the ground. “Stand and fight or we’re dead! We’re all dead!”
Thank God for her, Hawk thought. They needed a firm hand and here it was. Without her, the others would already be lost.
A pair of men grabbed items close to hand. One found a child’s Tonka toy, another a skipping rope. As Cheryl wrestled with the first creature, the two men worked to tame the second. The man with the skipping rope wrapped it around the creature’s head and drew it so tight the creature choked—not that it made much difference to the monster—while the other man shoved the Tonka toy in the creature’s eye. The eyeball popped around the toy and the white liquid ran down its cheek, splattering over the ground. Then they turned to the first creature, its fingers already grazing Cheryl’s smooth cheek.
“Prepare for the next jumper!” Hawk shouted to the others crouched over the boy who’d suffered the heavy fall.
Bang bang bang! Tink!
Something—probably the hinge—gave way and snapped, the bolts and screws shorn off, unable to take more punishment. Those left holding the door wailed as half a dozen more arms swung around the doorframe, reaching, clawing at any living thing they could find. One latched around the front of a lad’s soiled shirt. He beat at the fist, tugging at the fingers to free himself.
Just two hostages held the horde of undead back at the fragmented door. It was amazing what you could achieve when your life was on the line. But eventually, no amount of fear could help you achieve the impossible. There were limits even then, and as the door folded over, the two remaining lads met that limit.
“Let it go,” Hawk said between thundering claps of his garbage can. “Let the door go.”
The door splintered, cracked, and caved in on itself, folding up like a deck of cards. One lad pulled back in the nick of time. The second was not so fortunate, his arm ensnared in the door’s remains. He tugged his flayed arm back and hugged it to his chest, but blood dripped in thick streams, and the undead were on him. They bit into the brave lad, tearing him apart before he even hit the floor. By the time he was down, his stomach had been torn open, his innards splattering over the rooftop.
The third lad tore his shirt off and let the creature have it. The two remaining lads ran for the corner but even in their panic did not throw themselves over the edge. They shared a look before reaching for the short stub of sheet-rope, clawing at it—and each other—as they both scaled down it. The boy who previously wouldn’t jump—Les—bawled like a baby, frozen in place.
The undead rushed forward and in their haste to snatch the boy, knocked him over the side. He screamed as he fell, and landed—quite by accident—atop the boy’s mother. She grunted as she struck the ground. Cheryl bent down to help her up. She wrapped the woman’s arm around her neck to lead her away. The boy, stunned, was in good shape.
The two lads climbing down the rope heard it tear the moment they reached its stubby torn end and fell the remaining ten feet. One landed on his feet and rolled. The other landed on his ass but was up in a second, rushing toward the others.
A clutch of undead balanced precariously on the rooftop’s lip jostled and fought for position. Two lost their footing and sailed toward the ground. One fell on top of a young woman still clutching the blanket close. The other exploded on the concrete, blood splattering those within two yards. The hostages stood transfixed, frozen in fear they’d been infected. It was a very real fear.
Nothing attracted zombies like freshly-spilled blood. Hawk could hammer at the garbage can as raucously as he liked but it would have little effect on a zombie with its nostrils gorging on the sweet aroma of blood.
Hawk peered over the edge of his building. A thirty-foot drop was not to be sniffed at. It would smash every fragile bone in his body for sure.
The undead crashed through the door on his rooftop.
It never rains, but it pours.
Hawk climbed inside the garbage can, shuffled toward the edge and said a prayer under his breath. “God, please save me from my stupidity.”
Why not? He had so far.
He hopped over the side and ducked inside his aluminum shelter, wrapping his arms about his head as best he could. His hydraulic leg took the worst of the impact as the garbage can smashed ungracefully onto the street. It tilted over and spilled him across the tarmac. He rolled up onto his feet and limped toward the hostages, a storm of undead rapidly gathering around them.
17.
TOMMY
“Stop the car,” Albert said.
Peering out the window, Tommy saw nothing of an
y interest beyond the woodland. “Why here?”
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
“That’s a good idea,” Guy said. “I think I’ll join you.”
“Five minutes,” Tommy said. “We’re almost there.”
He pulled into the shade cast by a forest of sycamore trees. Birdsong lulled them into a deep and peaceful mood.
“Wake the boys up,” Albert said. “They’ll need to empty their bladders too.”
Fredo’s eyes bolted open when Emin shook him awake. He hopped out of the car and hustled into the forest to relieve himself.
“Looks like you were right,” Tommy said.
“Lucky guess,” Albert said.
Sure it is.
Tommy leaned against the car as the others headed into the woods. The forest trees formed perfect lines, running off into eternity. It was not a natural forest but a manmade one. Perfect for camping. A squirrel raced up a tree trunk and hurled itself toward another. It slipped down the bark, claws scrabbling for purchase. Wildlife didn’t know the forest wasn’t natural. What difference did it make to them?
Emin joined Tommy. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“If he’s not, he’s one of the worst liars I’ve ever seen. Who would come up with a story like that? I was expecting something to do with picking up on body language, vague telltale signs that most people wouldn’t even notice. That, at least, would be understandable. But to read people’s minds?”
“One thing’s for certain. I’m glad he’s on our side. Who better to figure out the Architect’s plans? We can’t catch him by ourselves. We need someone like Albert; someone with an innate ability to see what’s in his mind. With him on our side, we might stand a chance of stopping the Architect after all.”
Jimmy came running back. He took Emin by the hand and together they climbed back in the car.
“That’s better,” Albert said, returning to the car.
The alarm on the Death Squad’s wristwatches bleeped, and they each took a small vial out of their pockets and swallowed it. Albert watched Tommy. He’d seen them taking it before but never commented on it.
Death Squad (Book 4): Zombie World Page 15
