Getting up herself and running for the other end of the room she found herself at some fire exit doors that led out into a small secret garden area. Trying the handles she pushed them wide open, the ash covered air falling all around her as she stepped out. She held up her scarf more over her mouth and moved over to a gate. “Raaa,ah”, the dinner lady was right behind her and in the ash she seemed to grow strength and speed. Running at Alicia she screamed and the teenager ducked, moving to the side and letting the once woman thing hit the wooden gate causing it to splinter at the hinges. Alicia had an idea forming and ran back into the garden letting the dinner lady follow her, then as she neared her Alicia danced in the ash swaying her body from side to side figuring out the best way past, then she ran back to the gate and waited. Hunger led the dinner lady as she followed like a lost sheep before she charged at Alicia and once again Alicia moved out the way just in time and the woman fell into the gate and ripped it off the hinges, the gate crumbled beneath her and Alicia spotted what she wanted, a sharp ended piece of wood. A stake.
She snatched up the stake and before the woman could stand to get at her again Alicia drove the wooden stake home in her chest. The woman still moaned and groaned, snapping her jaws at the girl who was now heaving the stake out of her chest and bringing it down three more times until her heart gave out and there was just a puddle of mucky gore mixed in with the ash.
Alicia breathed out a sigh of relief and wiped the woman’s blood from her hands on her trousers. Then she went to the gate and ripped out another sharp piece of wood arming herself. Bracing herself she re-entered the school and headed for the other classrooms that led off from another door.
SNIFF, COUGH, SCRATCH, THUMP AND SNIFFLE!
She froze and looked around the hall, SCRATCH! The noise came from a row of cupboards which looked to hold P.E equipment. She went over to them and listened. Again she heard it, an almost gentle sobbing. Lifting the stake she prepared to strike as she opened the cupboard door.
“Don’t kill me!” Daniel cried between hands hiding his eyes.
“Daniel, thank god your alive”, she wept putting her arms around him but he pulled back, “Daniel what’s wrong?”
He looked up at her in fear, his big young eyes full of tears, “I saw you attack her, in the garden… You were crazy like one of them”.
Her chest ached that he had seen that, “Daniel she wasn’t well, she was going to hurt me and stop me finding you. I had to stop her. I had to make sure I found you…”
“I want mum and dad”, he sniffed snot running down from his small button nose and tears streaming in his innocent eyes.
“Mum told me to come get you, she’s stuck at the stupid trains again and dads at work”, she put her hand out and he gingerly took it, “Let’s go home, we’re wait for them there ok?”
He nodded, “I’m scared”.
“Me too”, she admitted leading him back out into the ash ridden garden before stopping. “Wait here a sec”.
She ran to the curtain pole that housed some curtains for the school stage and ripped the curtain from it and tore a small section off keeping it by her side, then she ran to the dead dinner lady and hid her bloody body with the larger bit, Daniel didn’t have to see that. Heading back to him she wrapped the curtain around his mouth and nose.
“Why do I have to have this?” He whined.
“Because I think the ash is making people poorly and we don’t want you to fall sick now do we?”
He shook his head, “I wanna go home”.
“Come on, let’s go”.
They walked down the deserted playground to the gate the other side which was still standing open. They exited onto the street to find a whole army of turned parents, their eyes bulging and their faces pale and covered in blood. “Alicia?” Daniel whimpered.
BEEP, BEEP!
She whipped her head to the side and spotted Glenn’s car through the small alleyway that ran past the school. “RUN!” she screamed and shoved Daniel in the direction of the car. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them although Alicia swore her heart was racing faster in her chest.
“Come on Daniel faster, they’re right behind us”, she urged him on as the howls and wails chased them down the alley, causing her fear and urgency to spike to a whole new level.
Their footsteps echoed loudly in the alleyway as they neared the car, Glenn already had the doors open before they got there and she pushed Daniel in slamming the door shut then jumping into the front seat and slamming that door just in time as a body pelted against it. “Go Glenn, drive… Just F-ing go!”
“I’m on it”, he yelled putting the car in reverse and speeding off.
3.12pm Public Health Organisation Quarantine Zone
Doctor Rosetta Lawson stood stunned at what she saw running towards her. The people they had placed in the quarantine bays in the tent had somehow escape and were now running around eating her work colleagues, their sights now set on her, Finch and Pippa, the goddamn civilian who she had somehow allowed in. Why hadn’t she checked her I.D more carefully? Why did she trust that they had sent a newbie here? HQ would never send a newbie to a scene like this… Well mostly never but everyone else had called in sick, most probably sick with whatever this illness was!
She had found Pippa funny at first, entertaining for her and Finch, thinking of her as a newbie to wind up a little by throwing her in the deep end with the autopsy and the gore but she knew her bosses wouldn’t allow just anyone to stay on who couldn’t handle their crap and couldn’t at least keep their lunch down, it was part of the job.
The person closest to her had a mouth full of someone else’s flesh and blood and was the mother of the child she had checked, Austin’s mother, her eyes wild yet vacant, her skin pale and washed out, a deathly moan escaping her crusted lips. She lunged and Rosetta froze for a moment until her brain kicked in and she ran sticking her foot out so the woman fell over in a heap on the floor. She pinned her down making sure to avoid her mouth and her jutting teeth as she smacked her jaws and lips together.
“Don’t let them bite you”, she called out to Pippa and Finch.
Pippa’s face turned an ashen colour, her lip trembled as she glanced around at the people eating one another all around them. “I can’t do this, really, I can’t do this… I need to get to him, my Daniel”. She stepped back raising her hands to her head in a cowering foetal position before bumping into one of the sick. She turned and screamed, shoving them out the way, their teeth snapping at her arms as she pulled them back. Then she ran, ran right out of the tent dodging flailing arms and mouths of the others.
Finch looked at Rosetta, “Should I go after her?”
She motioned at him to go, “Yes we can’t have her getting hurt, she is a civilian and came under my care when she falsified her details. We could get in big trouble if anything happens to her”.
He ran after her leaving Rosetta fighting with the woman on the floor. The woman tried desperately to bite her but Rosetta managed to keep her just out of harms reach. She studied the hunger and the anger inside her, the fury of not being able to eat was apparent in her wild eyes. Using her strength Rosetta dragged the woman along the floor and opened one of the examination rooms, shoving her in and quickly zipping the door shut. The woman thrust her body against it making Rosetta step back, the strength this woman held was immense, she could now see how they had managed to escape their rooms, their pure hunger causing them to rip open the plastic doors. And even if the doctor could restrain her in different ways she could still see the damage the woman could do to her and her people if she slipped up in anyway. Not that it really mattered, she could hear her people falling to the sick easily.
She quickly turned and ran back into the room where the deceased train driver lay, she snatched up the camera and fled out after the others. The street as she ran out into it was pure chaos, bloodied bodies lay everywhere she looked, men, women… children… She turned away, the sight of the children making her
want to heave. Something nagged at her though as she searched all around her, she couldn’t locate Finch or the Dawling woman… Until… until she saw the back of the Dawling woman’s head, her hair covered in blood which made Rosetta’s heart freeze but it wasn’t hers. She was cradling someone in her arms, the person who the blood belonged to, she held her hands over a wound to try and steady the bleeding, blood laced over her fingers as she desperately tried to put more pressure on it. Finch lay on the pavement, a large bite mark on his arm which was bleeding, a lot.
“What happened?” Rosetta asked skidding to the floor next to them.
“Finch he saved me, that man there… That thing… went to bite me but he put his arm in the way and now he’s bleeding”, The Dawling woman spoke panicked, Rosetta could see by her eyes how they flashed all around her, taking everything in that she was in shock, in complete horrifying fear but the manner she looked after Finch showed a professional tone, she kept the wound elevated, kept pressure on it and she had even torn a tourniquet from the lab coat she had stolen around the wound to try and stem the bleeding.
“Who are you?” Rosetta asked again.
“I told you, a mother trying to get to her children”.
“But you seem to know what you’re doing here?”
“My husband is a paramedic, he taught me a few things”, she told her.
“That’s real great, but what is your name?”
“Pippa, Pippa Dawling”.
“Ahhh, it burns!” Finch gasped.
“We need to get him some medicine or something right?” Pippa asked, “He’ll be infected right?”
Rosetta’s stomach done a summersault, what if he was infected, the medication for an amoeba was unheard of in Britain, very few hospitals or pharmacy’s stocked it in the USA let alone here in the UK.
“Rosetta?” Pippa exclaimed.
“I, I don’t know. I don’t even know if anyone round here would stock it”.
“Then… What do we do?”
“I don’t know but we need to get off the street”, Rosetta looked around and saw only more chaos. The survivors on the train were smashing themselves against the windows trying to get out. None of them looking human anymore, all of them looking ill, turned and hungry. Most of her scientists were bleeding or turning into this amoeba madness. “We need to go somewhere?”
“My home”, Pippa suggested, “It’s over the line and a few streets away”.
The doctor gave her a look.
“Look I know I want to get over for my own reasons but I do live just a few streets away. We can make him comfortable, until Ned comes home, then he can help”.
Ned must have been Pippa’s other half but Rosetta knew that he wouldn’t be able to help, she could see the illness taking over Finch’s body, quicker than she had seen the others turn. Maybe the bite was more infectious than the ash? Whatever it was she couldn’t see Finch having long. “Ok fine we go”, she said helping to lift Finch off the ground, slinging his shoulder over hers and gently dragging him towards the bridge.
“It burns inside! It burns!” He mumbled to her.
“Where does it burn?” She asked as they stumbled up and over the bridge, with chaos erupting all over with the train passengers the police and fire crews were no longer manning the bridge and it was an easy walk across.
He lifted his hand up to his head and his chest, “Lungs and brain, my brain is on fire”.
“Is there a pharmacy near here?” She looked at Pippa who nodded and pointed into the gloom as they became fully immersed in the ash.
“Just past the village shops and down a small alleyway is a small supermarket and it has a chemist, it’s not very big though so don’t know how well stocked it will be”.
“That’s fine, we just need to get him some pain relief”, she told her hauling his weighted body along the pavement. They passed empty shops with their doors wide open to the ash ridden world. The ash was still falling like a dusty snow over this side but as she chanced a glance back she could see it breaking through the strange weather barrier and going over the other side of the line. Not that it mattered now, the infected were out on that side too.
The walk to the supermarket only took a few minutes but practically carrying Finch made it seem like hours. Every shadow and noise they jumped at, not knowing what to do if someone came running at them.
The automatic doors to the now abandoned supermarket swished open revealing the lit up store, inside there was no noise, just a deafening hum of silence and the real hum of the air-conditioning unit. The three of them edged further in taking their time as not to alert anyone who might be sitting in wait for them. The tills were still, the conveyer belts no longer moving due to the stacks of food waiting to be served on them stopping the sensors from moving, blood was pooled on some of the floor tiles near the tills and one cash register was covered in blood with a body slumped over in the chair, a man’s throat bitten out and dripping with bodily fluids. As they neared they saw it wasn’t just his throat but his whole face had been eaten all on one side revealing a toothy grin from the jaw line under the flesh, the eye socket was struggling to keep the bulging eye in.
Pippa shuddered, “Why is this happening? Why are people eating each other?”
“The amoeba has changed their brain patterns, it’s disrupted the signals and confusing them with hunger for blood. It craves blood to keep the craving fulfilled but it’s most likely telling the brain to spread the infection as far as it can, so it doesn’t die out”, Rosetta said.
“It’s…True”, Finch breathed, “I can hear your hearts, I can…Smell the blood in the air… The fear… I want to devour it, control it… Spread it”.
“We’ll get you something to help numb the feeling”, Rosetta told him turning to Pippa, “So where’s the chemist?”
Pippa led them to the back of the store, the aisles of food were strewn with broken jars, bottles, sauces and other food items. There had been fights and struggling here, but where were all the turned now? Rosetta didn’t like how quiet it really was but she tried to drown out her inner voice, telling it that they had probably gone off out into the world to hunt down more lost souls. But she couldn’t shake the feeling of being hunted, watched from a distance until the opportune moment from the hunter.
“Here”, Pippa said shaking Rosetta from her thoughts. Pippa had been right the pharmacy was small but as she peered over the counter it looked to be well stocked.
There was a small glass door that led into the pharmacy but it was locked with a pin code on the side panel. Noticing two blue chairs to her right Rosetta sat Finch down, “I’ll be right back, Pippa watch him for me. Shout if you need me”. She then turned for the counter and vaulted over it bypassing the door, her feet crunching on tablet boxes that had been shoved to the floor as she landed on the other side. She glanced down but it was only cough sweets and paracetamol, knocked from the display shelf, those were not what she was after. She vanished from view from Pippa and Finch to the back shelves where the chemists usually sat and sorted out people’s prescriptions. Opening draws and raiding shelves she grabbed the medications she thought she would need anything from Morphine, Tramadol and Codeine to Antibiotics and anything her mind registered as useful.
Crunch!
A noise sounded behind her coming from a small consultation room, the door was closed so she ignored it, snatching up a plastic bag and filling it with all she had found, along with some bandages and Steri-strips, then she heard it again, that same noise.
Crunch! Thump!
She turned again, “Pippa is everything ok?”
“Fine. Did you get everything?”
“Yeah just coming”, Rosetta called back lifting the bag and turning back the way she had come. The door to the consultation room was now ajar when she could have sworn a moment ago it was closed.
“Ah…Ra…Ah”.
Rosetta’s eyes widened as a woman stood there, obviously the old pharmacist. She had long blonde hair tied back
into a bun but that was the only part of her that looked human in anyway. Her face was a puzzle of bite marks, gashes and bone sticking out. She reached out with long fingers, one which was missing and was just a bloody fingerless stump. Rosetta had an image of the woman putting her hand up to protect her face and her finger being eaten instead.
Not giving the woman time to make a move on her Rosetta dropped the bag and shoved the woman hard in the chest, back into the small consultation room. The woman tripped over another body on the floor and fell back hard against the corner of a small desk, the back of her skull connecting with the corner. The woman didn’t rise again.
Just like that Rosetta had killed but she didn’t think about it, she just grabbed the bag, vaulted the counter and went straight to Finch and Pippa.
“What was that noise?” Pippa asked.
“I knocked something over”, Rosetta lied not wanting to alarm Finch. She knew that if he knew infected were still inside he would make them go and leave him. But she needed him… She needed to know more about the virus that was flowing in his veins and see if anything she could administer would slow it down or stop it all together. He would have to be her guinea pig.
She pulled some stuff out of the bag it wasn’t brilliant only tablet form of Morphine and some antibiotics. It was some of the strongest medicines the pharmacy had and she didn’t expect it to work but she hoped there was a chance she was wrong and it would work. “Feeling any better?”
He shrugged not saying anything.
“RAAAAA…AGH!”
“We need to leave”, Rosetta whispered. “How far is your house?”
“Not far, a couple of streets away”, she replied, “Follow me”.
3.25pm The supermarket
Alicia frowned at Glenn as he pulled up in the supermarket car park, “Why are we here? You said you would take us home”.
The Amoeba From The Ash Page 5
