He shuddered. He felt better today. Things were coming back. He could remember Amber's face and Steph's, and what he did for a job and his mother's name. He was getting better, less… strange. The relief was like nothing else. He could get through this and find Steph and everything would be perfect. He could divorce Amber and Steph would never need to know.
The zombie shuffled closer and tapped one curled fist on the window, and he jumped. They were dead. Amber was dead and Steph was dead and nothing would bring them back. But there would be other women who were still living. There had to be. He nodded and thumped his fists on his legs. He could do this.
He stretched and rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble already growing there. The zombie was still staring. Perhaps if he hit it really hard with the door, it would fall over and he could escape. Or perhaps he could just get out the other side. He couldn't see anything out that window, so he climbed over the gearstick and wiggled his way into the passenger seat.
The glass on this side was cracked. Not badly, but enough that he saw the world through three different frames. And in every one he saw zombies. He also saw blood, like weak blackberry juice, splashed across the pavement. There were bones, strewn not far from the car, still carrying chunks of flesh, and his stomach heaved.
They ate their own. How long would he have to wait before they lost all control and killed one another? He wasn't that hungry and he could hold off on taking a piss. He adjusted the seat so he slipped below the level of the window and relaxed. His eyes slipped closed and he drank in the heat of the sunshine coming through the windscreen. It was quiet, and despite the occasional growl from his watcher, he could almost imagine he was on a beach.
Then something thudded against the car. His eyes flashed open and he looked around. From his low vantage point, he found himself looking up at four zombies, all pushing and jostling against the car. For a moment he thought they were fighting one another, but then they bent down and four pairs of eyes fixed on him. Another thump came as one slammed its hand against the cracked window.
The sound was like the moment you're standing on ice and it cracks beneath you. The window was about to give.
'Shit, shit, shit, bollocks, you can't, you bastards, you absolute bastards.'
He climbed into the back and tried the door. They were all still locked so he leant back over the driver's seat to pop them open. The thunk was as distressing now as it had been reassuring the previous night. The zombie slammed its fist into the window and it cracked again. This time it shifted as it prepared to fall out of the frame.
Other blows struck the car and he took a deep breath. Where was he going? He had no idea where to go, or what to do, but if he stayed here he was a canned dinner for the creatures.
Besides, he was the wind.
Wasn't he the wind? He had been last night. He could run, outrun them all.
He took another breath and shoved the door as hard as he could. It struck the zombie in the legs and it staggered back. He pulled it closed and swung again. He had more leverage this time and it made a crunching sound as it connected with the creature's knees. He got halfway out the car before the thing even hit the floor.
The next second he was out and running. He heard them behind him, growling and moaning, and he glanced back. There were hundreds. The ones at the car hadn't even moved. They hadn't realised he'd escaped! A laugh burst from his throat as he waltzed around another and kept going.
He reached the road towards Leicester Square and slowed, checking for cars. Another laugh escaped him, like air from a drowning man, and he raced on. Where was he going? It didn't matter, he was the wind, faster than everything, faster than anyone, and definitely faster than a bunch of zombies.
His foot caught against the kerb and he sped up, arms pinwheeling as he tried to stay on his feet. Somehow he got his balance and kept going. His chest hammered and the adrenaline made him gasp. Where was he going? He looked up for a brief moment and caught sight of a plume of smoke to his right. Smoke might mean other people.
Perhaps it was like in days of old, a fire to signal people and tell them where to come. Other people. He hadn't spoken to anyone in two weeks. He covered his mouth with one hand, slowing as he realised he'd have to speak. He wasn't sure he still knew how. What would he say? Did he have anything worth saying? Steph certainly thought so. Would Steph be there? She might, it was worth a try.
He turned right, raced down through Leicester Square and out the other side towards Trafalgar. It was crowded with zombies here but they weren't expecting him. And he was the wind, racing between them like a shadow, an afterthought. He wanted to whoop and holler but that would draw their attention. You couldn't catch the wind but you could divert its course.
He emerged from between the portrait gallery and the Tate and hurtled straight down the stairs into Trafalgar Square. It was busy here also, the place filled with tourist zombies. There were three in front of him, big stocky creatures in nasty Day Glo tops. Their skin was different from the others, a much darker grey and less crumbly. They turned as he neared, and he gasped. Their lips were pure white against their skin and they were terrifying.
There were others as well, from all over the world, and they all looked different. And they were all existing in harmony, hanging out in perfect peace together. He giggled and passed by the three Day Glos. He cut it too fine, but only realised he had when the nearest stretched out a hand and caught him. He caught the wind!
David wriggled and squirmed to break free from the claw clutching his shirt. He managed it, too, and stuck a finger up at the zombie coming towards him. Then he was off, hands shaking so hard they felt like they'd fall off. His breath came in short bursts and his vision flickered, spots appearing.
He needed to stop and get his breath back. There were cars all over the road, and though he couldn't see a way through, still it looked like the best option. An unblemished, sun-yellow Lamborghini was parked across two lanes right before the lights and he raced towards it. He hauled on the door handle and it popped up. He ducked under it and screamed, throwing himself back as a zombie lunged up from the seat towards him.
Its arms swung frantically as it snarled at him. They didn't like being trapped. He didn't know why he thought that was useful. The zombie chased him as he raced around the other side of the car, yanked open the door and jumped in. Getting into a Lamborghini was considerably tougher than he'd expected and he grunted as his knees slammed into the steering wheel.
He groaned and hauled on the door handle. It clicked closed just as the zombie beat its fists against it. David leant over and pulled down the far door then stared at the wheel before him. He turned the key and the engine coughed and roared into life.
He put it in first and gently pressed the accelerator. The car leapt forwards and he stamped on the breaks, stopping it just as abruptly. Taking more time over the clutch he tried again and managed a fairly smooth pull away. The zombie, understandably pissed at having its beautiful car pinched, made a decent fist of chasing him.
He pulled through the lights and turned right down Northumberland Avenue. David left the zombie behind as he tried to weave in and out of the parked and crashed cars. His first scrape came against the side of a red bus and tore the wing mirror off. He grimaced but kept going.
He reached Embankment and hauled the car right, straight into a motorbike that lay on the road. The sound of crunching metal and glass made his head thump and he stood on the brakes. He reversed and struck a zombie, knocking it flying. 'David picks up a spare!' He thumped the wheel and grinned. He drove around the bike, confidence growing.
The smoke rose from a street just behind Embankment. He'd be there any minute. He pushed gently on the pedal and the car picked up speed. He realised he was going too fast as he headed for a tiny gap between two cars, and caught the front corner on the bumper of one. The car he struck didn't move and the Lambo slewed to the right, front bumper tearing half off.
He grumbled and put his foot down, pushing
through the barricade accompanied by the sound of a car being killed. It didn't matter, though, the owner was way past caring. He pulled right again then turned left onto Whitehall. The traffic was more spread out here and he accelerated, heading for where he could now see flames as well as smoke pouring from the front of a shop.
His eyes stayed for a moment too long on the flames and he didn't turn hard enough to get around the bus. The Lambo slammed into it and his seatbelt tightened against his chest. The air shot from his lungs. The back of the car came round and the view of smoke was replaced by an empty street, filling with zombies as they shambled after the yellow beast that had just flown past them.
He tugged on the door handle and the wing crept upwards, screeching as metal scraped metal. He ducked beneath it, struggling almost as much as he had getting into the car. Then he was free and charging towards the flames.
As he drew closer, the upper floor windows of the shop blew out, scattering the crowd of zombies below with glass and burning debris. They shifted, some moving away from the heat that poured from the fire. Others remained, hammering on the front doors and staring at something inside.
It had to be a human. There was nothing else that could elicit that sort of response from them. Someone was alive in there, in the fire. He thought about the irony of surviving an apocalypse only to burn up in a fire the following day. Except it wasn't ironic, it just sucked. He would have to talk to them. But he had to do something, because if he stayed here and watched, the person inside would die. And he'd get eaten.
He had to do something. His hands shook as he pressed them against his trousers, wiping away the sweat. There was someone in there, someone he could talk to. Or better yet, listen to. He heard the scraping of feet on the pavement behind him and without waiting for his brain to get in the way, charged towards the shop, shouting and waving his hands.
Alex - Tuesday: 2 Days to Plague Day
The lab was hot. Hot wasn't the right word. Stifling, desert-like, parched. They were a little closer to the mark. He perched on the tiny wooden bench that acted as a seat and wiped his forehead. He glared at the door and the paper taped all over the glass. He was trapped. He'd tried, at various times over the last few days, to pretend he was a genius professor cracking the code to his own terrible invention. A doctor Frankenstein for the modern age.
But the truth was, he was a fraud. The equations written on the board and now scribbled onto the notepad he gripped in one hand, meant no more to him than they had when he plugged them into the computer. Oh, he could explore them logically, but he still didn't understand why they did what they did. And that meant he couldn't retro-design them to work out how to undo it.
Why he ever thought he could was a mystery. He'd lucked out on the first one and judging by what Luke said before he disappeared, it wasn't even luck. The whole thing was a set up that seemed to have no bearing on the human race at all. Of course, believing that, meant believing Luke was who he said he was. But there was every possibility that someone with far more expertise than him sneaked into his lab at night and wrote the answers up there. That he very much could believe.
He raised the notebook to its habitual place a couple of feet before his face and ran through the figures, muttering under his breath as he did so. He tossed the book across the room and thumped his open palms against the bench. He knew no more than he had when they arrived here, and he must have sweated off half a stone.
He headed for the door, snarling at the room and the frustration it held. He yanked open the door and strode out into the sunlight.
The car park was empty. Most of the people who worked here had little in the way of money and no reason to own cars. So this space had become a testing ground for all sorts of random experiments, from bottle rockets to explosives. It was also a handy collecting ground for rats, should he need them. He was supposed to use lab rats, grown clean and free of any diseases that might affect the results. He'd decided a few days ago there wasn't much they could carry that would change what happened when the gas hit them.
He picked up the trap and carried it into the lab. He emptied its hapless occupant into the cage and slammed the door shut. The thing was huge and dark and smelled of piss. It snarled and began to chew on the bars. Alex scooped up the gas mask that lay beside the cage, slipped it over his head and released the gas.
The cage filled little by little, and he switched it off after only a couple of seconds. The rat twitched and went through the same display as the others, dropping dead to the floor of the cage the moment it got a whiff of the gas. He prodded it with the rubber finger and felt the strange brittleness of its body.
He removed the test tube and desultorily slipped the feeder tube into a different one. He opened the valve and another cloud of smoke drifted into the cage. It brushed over the rat and he held his breath.
Nothing. Not a damned thing.
The cure was useless. It was no great surprise, so he dragged the bench over and sat, watching the rat with tired eyes. A few minutes passed before it twitched and clambered awkwardly to its feet. The moment it saw him its red eyes flashed and it launched itself at the bars, grabbing them with its yellow teeth and gnawing furiously.
What was causing that? His initial plans had been a brain suppressant of a sort, something that slowed the frontal cortex and gave power back to the more fundamental brain functions. Combine that with the agitative nature of the gas and voila, instant un-killable soldiers. But they shouldn't have yellow teeth or flaking skin. So something had been changed.
That made this entire process even more pointless. Whoever had messed with his workings out, had added their own ideas in and made something even worse than he'd envisioned. What this would look like when, and if, it reached humans he didn't want to consider. But he had to. It was the only thing stopping him from walking out the door and not returning.
He plucked the notepad off the floor and examined it again, realising before he was halfway down the page that he'd intended to get some food. His brain had slipped a gear and he'd forgotten what he was doing. Too long in this room, too long staring at something he couldn't fix.
He looked down at the cage, fighting the guilt that always surfaced at this point in the proceedings. He pressed the red button set into the worktop and electricity flowed through the floor of the cage. The rat jerked and jerked until the light went from its eyes and it dropped dead. He dumped the notepad on the desk and walked out of the lab.
It smelled in there, of his sweat and a shared anger. Where was Luke? He would have to tell him the truth, though if he didn't arrive soon, it might not matter. The soldiers of god had had the formula more than long enough now. They could have weaponised it any number of ways and just be biding their time. Or this whole thing could be pointless hysteria and they were never going to use it. He recognised that for the wishful thinking it was and set off across the car park.
He stepped into the street and the first thing he saw was Luke, heading towards him with a scowl on his face. There was a certain wisdom at this point to running in the opposite direction. His feet thought so, too, but where would he run? And what was the point? Luke would know one way or the other. He'd been in a bad mood since the cave beneath St Paul's and that wasn't likely to change any time soon.
So Alex folded his arms, settled back on his heels and took a deep breath.
'Where are you going?' Luke asked.
'I need to get some lunch.'
'Is there a cure yet?'
He shook his head.
'Then you don't need lunch. You need to keep working.'
'Luke, look…' There was no way this was going to end well. 'Look, the cure. Whoever it was changed my equation, they did things I don't understand. I can't just create a cure based on what's there; I have to understand it first. And I don't. At all.'
'Why do you have to understand it?'
Luke's voice was calmer than he'd anticipated, which was either a good thing or something to be scared about. Maybe he jus
t hadn't got the point yet.
'Without understanding it, I'm just guessing. I could do this for decades and not get any closer.'
The frown grew deeper. 'Are you saying you can't create a cure?'
Alex shrugged evasively. 'Not can't, exactly, but it's very unlikely.'
'I see. That's unfortunate.'
Alex stuck his chin out and glared. His hands slipped unobtrusively beneath his armpits. 'So what, are you going to kill me now, or take my hands away?'
Luke chuckled and shook his head. 'As tempting as that is, I think the alternative will be far worse. You've created a disease and very soon you'll have to live with the consequences. That'll be much worse than anything I can do. I've been wondering what'll happen to babies in the womb. Perhaps they'll zombiefy and eat their way out of their mothers...'
He drifted off and went to stroll past Alex, a wry, sickening smile on his lips. Alex grabbed his arm and Luke froze, looking down at the hand. Their eyes met and Alex refused to look away. It was like a bee had got stuck inside his head and the buzzing grew louder and louder, but still he stared.
Eventually the buzzing faded and Luke nodded, maintaining eye contact. Alex wanted to punch him. More than anything, he wanted to take a swing and feel the impact. It would probably break his hand but it'd be worth it, just for the look on the bastard's face.
'Fine, so what do we do? I can't make a cure and we can't let it happen, so what do we do?'
Luke smiled and Alex wondered whether he'd planned this entire thing. There was something self-satisfied in the way he sighed and ambled up the street towards the shops.
'Well, that's an excellent question. I've spent the last few days searching for something and as luck would have it, I found it.'
He dug in his pocket and removed a small bag the colour of blood. He stopped and tipped the contents of the bag into his hand. A jewel, the same colour as the bag and cut into a simple square, glowed in the sunlight. He juggled it gently in his palm, watching Alex as he watched the stone.
Thirteen Roses Book Two: After: A Paranormal Zombie Saga Page 3
