Hell

by G G Garcia

  Most of the IOs had their chins covered in blood, and went back over to the other small group that hadn’t moved from the pub. They knew there was something else inside for them. They all knew, and they had no intention of moving until they had more fresh flesh.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  They were aware that they should have kept away from the window, but Paul, Henry and Demi couldn’t help themselves. All three were huddled together and peered out of the two-inch gap where Henry had pulled the curtain to the side. They could see the horde and the noise of many feet below them, on the ground floor, but they couldn’t see the Audi leaving the pub yet.

  “Come on, Craig,” Paul said with gritted teeth. “Where are ya, pal?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know how to drive the Audi,” Demi said.

  “A few more seconds,” Henry spoke up, “and he’ll be out of here.”

  “Oh, no.” Paul looked on in panic for his friend.

  They could see three individuals at the back of the herd breaking away from the group and jogging towards the entrance/exit of the pub’s car park.

  “Why are they going there?” cried Demi.

  “Must have heard the engine.” Henry ran his fingers over his face. “Better do it now, Craig. It’s now or never.”

  A screech of tyres could be heard and the vehicle shot out of the car park, a little too quickly, knocking over what was in its way.

  Henry watched on in horror as his vehicle skidded and squealed and then veered off the road, onto the grassy bank, colliding with a tree.

  “Fuck!” Paul snapped

  “What’s going on?” Mel called out, but he received no answer. He knew it was bad news. Lisa sat on the floor with her legs crossed, eyes staring at the floor as if she was zoning out.

  “Get out of there, Craig,” Paul hissed under his breath.

  Many of the infected broke away from the herd below them after the crash, and over twenty bodies began to run over to the crashed Audi, leaving over a dozen outside the pub and God knows how many inside.

  Nobody said a word. They just looked on in horror, knowing that Craig was done for. He was going to die, they all knew that, and there was nothing they could do about it.

  All three knew that if Demi and Henry went out there firing, they’d put a few down, but they’d be dead in seconds and more of the IOs would come from afar, after hearing the shots. They were in a hopeless quandary, and held their breaths as the contaminated people surrounded the vehicle.

  Demi, Henry and Paul watched on in horror as the infected tried to smash their way through the car. Mel and Lisa asked what was going on and was told by Henry what was happening. They chewed their fingernails and Mel was close to weeping for the trapped Craig Shepherd.

  “Jesus Christ in Heaven,” cried Demi, and watched as the passenger window went through and some of them tried to get in. Then the driver’s side smashed and she walked away from the window, with the two men looking on with morbid fascination.

  “I can’t look.” Paul was the next to look away and Mel could see that he had tears in his eyes.

  Maybe Paul wasn’t as tough as I thought, Mel mentally deliberated. Then again, this guy has lost a friend, and is about to lose another. All in one day.

  Henry was left alone by the window and continued to stare out whilst the group ripped the poor man to pieces. It was a horrendous thing to witness, but Henry watched until each individual from the group had moved away from Craig and the Audi, and jogged their way back to join the rest of their peers by the pub. Henry looked down and gulped when he could see the crowd of almost thirty IOs outside, now half of them with fresh blood, Craig’s blood, over their chins. With the infected in the downstairs’ lounge, Henry guessed that there could be at least fifty to deal with. The Savs getting upstairs and breaking their way through to the pub’s living room wasn’t bear thinking about. Yes, Henry had a handgun, but with around fifty of the things to contend with, he may as well put a bullet through his brain.

  What were they going to do?

  His thoughts went to all the supplies that they had brought upstairs. It seemed so unfair that they had done this and now were being attacked and would have to leave the pub and the supplies behind ... somehow!

  He thought about all the food and the booze. Alcohol, he thought. He also remembered the tea towels in the kitchen drawer and the long black candle lighter. Henry looked over at his smashed up Audi and could see the ravaged body of Craig bleeding out over the road. He shook his head and promised himself if ever he was in such a dire situation, he’d put the barrel of his gun in his mouth and squeeze the trigger.

  He looked over to Mel and a tearful Paul. He could feel their eyes on him and Henry told them, “He’s gone.” Demi took a few steps forwards, towards the window, but Henry raised his hand and stopped her from approaching. “I wouldn’t bother,” Henry said. “It’s the worst I’ve seen so far.”

  A depressing cloud smothered the depleted group and Lisa was the first to speak.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Take that stuff away from the door,” said Henry. “I'm going to get a few bottles of booze.”

  “What?”

  “I have an idea.”

  Chapter Seventy

  Henry held up the bottle of Bushmills with a ripped part of a tea towel that was stuffed in the opened bottle, and lit the fabric for the second time. The first time he lit it, it went out after a few seconds. He opened the window and turned to the people of the room, and then looked over at Paul who could be seen at the top of the stairs, now that the living room door was wide open.

  “Well, here goes nothing.” Henry poked his head out and could see the crowd. Some were trying to climb inside, whilst others stared up and hopelessly reached out after seeing Henry’s face.

  The infected were grouped tightly together, like a queue outside a supermarket on Black Friday, and he needed to throw the bottle at a part of the road so it would make impact and smash. He looked to the left of the crowd and threw the bottle, but the first attempt wasn’t to Henry’s satisfaction. The bottle exploded to the side of the herd and burned temporarily on the road, harming no one. A few to the side of the flames moved away and went to the back of the infected group.

  Henry lit two bottles of bourbon and popped his head out, hung the two bottles over the crowd and decided to do something different. He dropped the two bottles. One hit an IO on the shoulder and fell to the ground without breaking, and the other somehow managed to squeeze itself inbetween two individuals and exploded on the floor.

  The fire’s flames licked the trousers of two males that were in the centre of the crowd, and the rest of the herd parted and slowly formed another group, minus the two that had just caught fire, and were two feet from the right where they originally were.

  A gunshot was heard behind Henry, making him jump. It was Paul. He had taken the gun off of Demi and wanted to try the weapon. He announced that an IO had tried to make its way up the stairs. The infected had taken one in the chest and died in seconds. Henry turned his attention back to the crowd outside and could see that they had moved further to the side. They were now trying to get through the window that was to the right of the one that had already been smashed through. The two infected that had been affected by the Molotov cocktails were now on fire from the waist down and were beginning to scream. One ran towards the crowd, but it was being ignored. One even pushed it away, but by then another one from the crowd had caught fire.

  “Fuck it.” Henry smiled and lit two more bottles.

  He had other bottles with him, but they hadn’t been prepared yet. This time he threw the bottles at the crowd that were now a little to his right, and was delighted when they both exploded once they made impact. The crowd dispersed and screams filled the air. It worried Henry a little that the screams would attract more, but it was safer than going out there with knives and trying to remove them. That would be just suicide. And shooting them, even from the windows, would
just attract more of them.

  The individuals not on fire looked at their burning counterparts, seven of them, with confusion, and the screams intensified. One of them now was fully on fire, from head to toe, and ran around like a headless chicken, eventually falling to his knees and collapsing to the floor. Another one, the first of the two that Henry had caught, was now up to his chest in flames, releasing high pitched screams and ran at the smashed through window and went inside the pub.

  Henry was concerned about what he had just witnessed and hoped that the flames died down quickly, before the individual reached any flammable parts of the pub. But was there anything flammable in the lounge area? Henry thought. The furniture was made of oak, and the bar was solid... Shit. The curtains. The curtains by each window of the pub! If they went up...

  Henry shook his head. It wasn’t worth thinking about. A shot could be heard behind them and Paul yelled out, “Gonna need a hand with this, Henry!”

  Henry jogged through the living room and onto the landing. He stood next to Paul and could see three trying to crawl their way by the couch.

  “Wait till they’re past the couch and just on the stairs,” Henry explained to him. Shoot them on the stairs. Then when they fall, they’ll block the stairs even more.”

  “If ya say so.”

  Paul raised the gun and Henry could see he was shaking.

  “You’re shaking,” Henry said. “You’ve killed more of these things than I have, at close range.”

  “I know,” said Paul. “I don’t get it.”

  They watched as the first one had managed to crawl through the gap and stood up on the stairs, ready to make the climb.

  Paul took aim and pulled the trigger, but the shot missed the IO and hit the couch. Frustrated that he had managed to put one down with his first try, he fired another shot, which also missed.

  “Oh, fuck this!” Paul snapped.

  He put the gun on the floor and pulled out his blade from his pocket. He jogged down the stairs to meet the assailant and drove his knife into the man’s chest. Paul pulled the blade out with both hands, and then stabbed the chest three more times before the man fell over and stopped once he tumbled into the couch. Paul jogged back up to the landing and could see the other two crawling by the couch, and both were past it and were starting to get to their feet.

  “I know they’re not the easiest thing to handle at first,” Henry said, referring to the handguns, “but they’ve gotta be easier than hand to hand combat, stabbing the fuckers to death.”

  Henry put two rounds in the chest of one, and shot the other in the neck. Both fell. One was already dead and the one with the serious neck injury bled out on the stairs and took a while to die. More tried to squeeze through the gap and Henry released another shot, this time hitting the cushion of the couch.

  “Wait a minute.” Henry disappeared briefly and returned with three magazines for the Glock and dropped them on the carpet. “Thought I had more.”

  “Wit are ya doin’?” Paul asked.

  “I’ll stay here,” Henry said to Paul and bent down and picked up Maxwell’s gun. “You set up more cocktails for those cocksuckers. The stuff is by the window. I’m putting down everyone that comes up until the stairs is too blocked.”

  Paul went into the living room and immediately Mel and Demi asked him what was happening.

  “I’m gonna continue to torch those fuckers,” he told them.

  Mel walked over to Paul and started helping Paul by unscrewing the bottles of booze and ripping the tea towels so the fabric could be stuffed inside the bottle, in preparation to be lit.

  “Don’t let him give you a hand,” Lisa laughed nervously. “He’s about as much use as a balloon strap-on.”

  “He’s doin’ more than you,” Paul snapped back at the woman who was sitting on the floor and picking at her nails.

  All jumped when more gunshots rang out, and Paul could see that Henry was standing at the top of the stairs with a handgun in each hand. Seven more shots rang out, and Paul asked if he was okay.

  “Yeah! Tremendous!” Henry called back. “Three more down. How are you getting on with those bottles, eh?”

  “We’ve done four.”

  “Good. Get ‘em thrown!”

  Mel grabbed the black candle lighter and lit the fabric of the fire bottle, then passed it onto Paul. He then tried to light the second.

  Paul Newbold looked down and could see where the other cocktails had hit, but were no longer burning. There were three dead burnt bodies on the floor, and there were still around twenty outside the pub. Some must have gotten inside, he thought.

  He threw the Molotov at the crowd and saw it hit the tarmac and engulf one of the infected in flames around their legs. Screams, like before, emerged. Despite whatever skills they had lost once infected, they could still feel pain.

  Mel passed him another, as Demi was now watching on from the window, and threw it as hard as he could. This bottle hit a female member of the crowd on the top of her head and covered her and two others to the side of her in flames. The crowd began to disperse and Paul excitedly told Mel to hurry up with the other two bottles. More gunshots were heard from behind them, and Paul could now see Henry changing the magazines for both guns.

  Mel passed Paul two lit bottles of whisky. “There you go.”

  Paul held a bottle in each hand and peered out of the window. He threw the bottles at the crowd and both exploded on the floor, catching more of them on fire. The crowd dispersed with six beings on fire, and they began to move away from the pub itself and went to the entrance of the car park.

  “They’re leaving,” said Demi.

  “Well, kind of,” Paul corrected her, before Mel and Lisa could get too excited. “They’ve just moved around to the back of the pub, onto the car park.”

  More gunfire could be heard from Henry. Six more shots had been released and he stated to the small audience of four that two more were dead. He also joked that he was officially now a mass murderer.

  Mel walked onto the landing and looked down to see the carnage that Henry had created. Bodies lay against the settee, but more were still trying to make their way up. It was almost impossible for the IOs to get through, especially now with the fresh bodies blocking some of the gaps.

  Somehow, another IO had managed to squeeze through the gap where the couch and a body lay. Once the infected person had squeezed through and stood to their feet, Henry and Mel gasped. The IO was a boy, no older than seven, dressed in his tattered and torn pyjamas. How on earth did this young fellow become infected? Was he outside when it happened? Camping, maybe? Or maybe his bedroom window was open when, whatever the hell it was, dropped from the sky to pollute the people that were out in the open air? Both men didn’t know the answer, but the boy was there, right in front of them, and he was contaminated like the rest.

  The little boy’s bloodshot eyes gazed up the stairs, and he growled once he spotted the two men that were standing at the top.

  “I suggest you look away,” Henry said to Mel.

  Mel gulped and nodded his head in agreement, and walked back into the living room and jumped when he heard a gunshot.

  Lisa could see that Mel’s face was white as a sheet, and derided, “What’s up with your face? You saw a spider or something?”

  Mel huffed, “Fuck off, Lisa,” and walked back over to the window, back over to Paul and Demi.

  He peered out and could only see two infected by the pub, and half a dozen burning bodies scattered along the road. The rest were now in the car park.

  “We could slide down the drainpipe and make a run for it,” Mel said.

  “And leave all this food behind?” Paul shook his head. “No way. And anyway, where would ya run to?”

  Mel hunched his shoulders. “Back to my place.”

  “Your place is all smashed up and has dead bodies all over the floor.”

  “So has this place now.”

  Three more gunshots were heard and Paul could see tha
t Henry had thrown one of the guns on the floor, moaning that it had jammed.

  Paul could see and hear Henry indiscriminately firing more shots, then changed the magazine, and fired more.

  “What is it?” Paul could see the panic on Henry’s face and had to ask him the question.

  “There’s more coming up,” Henry cried, and before Paul could ask how, Henry said, “Some of them are trying to move the couch, creating more of a gap.”

  “Shit,” said Mel. “They’re not as daft as they look.”

  Henry fired more shots, and had to put in another magazine. It was his last one. He shut the kitchen door and left the landing, entered the living room and shut the door, moving the cabinet and armchair where they were before.

  “There’re too many coming up,” he told the small group. He walked over to the window and could see just two of them out there. “We’re gonna have to leave.”

  “Leave?” Demi began to panic. “No way.”

  “Most of these fuckers are inside or around the car park. This is our best chance.”

  “Where are we gonna go?” asked Demi.

  “Our place?” Mel spoke up.

  Henry hunched his shoulders. “Anywhere will do. I’ve shut the kitchen door, so even if the downstairs does catch fire, which I don’t think it will, we can come back another time and grab the supplies in the kitchen. But right now we need to go. I don’t have enough bullets to stop these fuckers, and I’m not sure if the sound will attract more, even though we’re inside.”

  The living room door was banged from the outside and Demi released a yelp of fright. More banging occurred and it sounded like a few of them had made it to the top of the stairs.

  “Fuck this.” Henry went over to the window, annoyed by everybody else’s hesitancy, and added, “Looks like I’m the only one that’s going to survive this.”

  “I’m coming as well,” Demi spoke up.

  “We all are,” said Paul. He looked over to Henry and nodded at the man. “Gonna hurry the fuck up?”