by Luke Duffy
"Find the fucking key for a start."
Stan looked bewildered and panic was clear in his eyes. "The key, where will we find that?"
Kieran pointed at the furthest body. Stan followed the line of his finger and saw what Kieran had seen. A loop of keys was still attached at the waistband of what was left of the man's jeans.
"Maybe that’s them?"
Stan recoiled with horror. "I'm not touching that thing, mate. I say fuck the noise and kick the door through."
"It’s reinforced and double-glazed Stan. By the time we get through, there will have been enough noise to have a hundred of those things on the doorstep."
"Well, you had better hurry up and get the keys then, hadn't you." Stan gave him a gentle push from behind and in the direction of the two bodies.
Kieran stepped forward and over the first. Reaching down with his right hand, and pinching his nose with the thumb and forefinger of his left, he began trying to manipulate the key ring from the belt loop.
With each heave, the body jerked, disturbing the flies and other insects feasting upon it, which then took to the air and, once again, swarmed him. It made a sucking slurping sound as the body shifted in the sticky blood and bodily fluids that had collected in a pool around it. Finally, the keys came free and Kieran almost lost his balance again and came close to colliding with the second body as the momentum of his heave carried him backwards.
Scrambling to the door, and fumbling with the bunch of keys, he began trying each key in the lock. Stan stood at his back, hopping from one foot to the other and craning his neck to see over Kieran's shoulder and into the street. He could see the walkers getting closer.
"Come on. Come on, for fuck's sake, Kieran."
"None of them fit." Kieran was panicking and the keys shook and jingled in his fingers. He glanced up and could now see the faces of the dead closing in on the building they were in. "Fuck it."
He stepped back and began kicking at the lower panel of glass in the door. Grunting with each swing, he continued to pound away. The glass did nothing more than rattle in its frame on the first few attempts, then with a crack and pop, the whole pane shattered into tiny square cubes and flew out all over the floor beyond the shop doorway.
Without any hesitation, both of them ducked and scrambled through the open hole and into the street. Kieran was in the lead with Stan close on his heels. There were more bodies to the left, so they automatically turned right and zigzagged their way through the mounting walking corpses that reached out for them as they sprinted into the open street.
"Which way do we go now, Stan?" Kieran shouted over his shoulder as he managed to side step a lunging pair of hands.
Stan was running as fast as he could and sucking in all the air he could squeeze into his lungs. "Just keep going," he screamed between gulps.
They tore along the road, the houses and buildings to their left and right nothing more than a blur as they zoomed past. They made a sharp left at the bottom of the street that led them into a housing estate. The dead were pursuing them. Though most of them could only stagger along, tripping over themselves as they attempted to give chase; a few were faster and managed to keep sight of their quarry as they tried to flee.
Looking back over his shoulder, Stan saw the runners behind him and felt panic course through his body.
"Shit, they're runners, Kieran," he screamed to his friend out in front.
"Here, turn right here," Kieran replied.
He suddenly changed direction, causing him to hop on his left foot, flailing his arms as the momentum of his run tried to force his body to continue in its original direction. "Come on, Stan, over this fence."
Stan had his head thrown back as he powered forward in Kieran's wake. Kieran was now halfway up the steel mesh fence and scaling it rapidly. Stan could feel himself being left behind. He leaped forward, his hands outstretched as he flung himself toward the barrier. His fingers gripped the steel mesh and his feet began to scurry against it as he followed Kieran up and over into safety.
Stan landed on the other side in a heap and unable to raise himself to his feet. His lungs were fit to burst and he struggled to compose himself.
Kieran stood above him, bent double with his hands on his knees and panting for breath. "I tell you what, considering we've spent so much time at the gym lately, you're out of shape, Stan."
Stan's body began to shudder as he struggled to breathe and laugh at the same time. His body desperately needed air, but between what Kieran had said, and the relief of the moment, he was in convulsions.
Three of the pursuing dead had reached the fence. They slammed heavily against the wire mesh, causing it to shake and rattle under the impact. They gripped the fence and jerked at it with all their might in an attempt to pull it down. The fence did nothing more than shudder and rock in their grasps and held fast.
Stan climbed to his feet. Still panting for air, he approached the fence. He kept a safe distance, though, just in case. He looked back at the dead, staring directly into their lifeless unblinking eyes. Their grey putrid skin, filled with sores and festering with insect lava, sagged and peeled from their skulls as their discoloured and broken teeth bit and chewed at the steel mesh of the fence. They were in frenzy, growling and snarling as they tore at the barrier.
"Ugly demons, aren't they?" Stan spat. "If it wasn't for this fence, Kieran, they would've got me." He turned to his friend and nodded.
Kieran returned the gesture. Between them, that was as close as they would come to anything like a 'thank you'.
"Come on, Stan. Let's get out of here."
Still watching the three corpses at the fence, Stan slowly turned and followed on behind Kieran as he headed away.
The dead moaned and sighed as they watched their meal escape them and disappear into the maze of houses.
The fence led on to a long alleyway that ran between two rows of houses creating a corridor of just a couple of metres wide and hundreds of metres long. The brick walls to the left and right were high and many were overhanging with bushes and weeds, adding to the claustrophobic atmosphere and punctuated at regular intervals with wooden gates that led into the gardens to the rear of the houses. The ground was still old style cobblestones and had been that way since the houses had been built in the early twentieth century.
Stan and Kieran made their way along the alley. The narrowness of the passage heightened their senses and made them nervous. Every gate that they passed could burst open on them, spilling hordes of ravenous ghouls onto them and swallowing them up before they had time to react.
Stan was getting twitchy. "How long is this rat run going to go on for?" he growled from behind Kieran.
"Not far now. I can see the road at the end."
Stan glanced back in the direction they had come. The walls to his left and right seemed to continue forever, slowly narrowing and converging into one another in the distance with no breaks or turns. The alleyway reminded him of the end scene from Star Wars where the final battle takes place in the narrow corridor that travelled the circumference of the Death Star. Only there would be no quick death here. If the dead stumbled upon them, they could be trapped. A shudder ran through his body. I would rather be fighting against the Imperial Empire right now, he thought. He quickened his pace; he wanted to be back in the open, anywhere but here.
Kieran stopped and Stan almost stumbled into him. "What, what's up?"
"Shhh," Kieran hissed, holding his index finger to his lips. "I heard something."
Stan began to sweat even more and his eyes darted left and right as he scanned the walls and alleyway around them. "What did you hear?" Without realising it, he had moved in closer to Kieran, like a child wanting to be closer to a parent when it felt scared. He was scared.
"I'm not sure. I thought I heard...music."
Stan stepped back, screwing his face, suddenly regaining his masculinity and shrugging away his child like insecurities. "Music, I don't hear anything."
"It's g
one now, but I'm sure I heard it." Kieran was still holding his head slightly tilted, trying to pinpoint exactly where he thought he heard the noise.
"Nah, can't be. This place is as dead as a big bag of dead things. Let's keep going. I don't like it in this tube."
Kieran straightened his neck and began to walk on. Stan moved to step off then stopped. Something was coming along the alleyway behind them. He reached forward and grabbed Kieran's arm as he turned to look along the narrow corridor.
Stan stooped as he squinted, trying to see from a better angle. There was definitely something moving. In the distance, a blur seemed to unfold as it approached them. It was approaching fast.
"Shit," Stan's eyes grew wide and he began to back up, "run Kieran." He shouted as he took off along the cobbled path, "Fucking run."
Kieran quickly turned and together, they raced along the alleyway. Both of them ran for their lives, their arms and legs pumping like pistons as they pushed themselves forward. The sounds from behind reached their ears.
The growls and snarls of their hunters became as loud as church bells in their ears. Even the noise of their pursuing footsteps, as they raced along the alley after the two young men, sounded thunderous now.
They were closing fast.
Both Kieran and Stan soon realised they could not outrun them, but they did not slow and neither did those that chased them. In fact, they were gaining ground. Terror tore at them. Their survival instincts were in full swing and their quick subconscious assessment of the situation had told them that they could not fight their way out, so flight was the only option, but even that would not save them.
Stan veered to the right and lunged for a clump of vines that hung over from a garden. He felt the roots pull taut under his weight and he quickly began to heave himself up, using his feet to power himself up the wall. Kieran was following suit alongside him and they both hauled themselves onto the narrow top of the wall, away from the immediate danger at ground level.
They raised themselves to their feet just as the first of their pursuers reached the point at the foot of the wall where they had scaled. The rest soon joined it. The angry pack snapped and growled at them from below, leaping at the rough brick in an attempt to follow Stan and Kieran up the vines.
"Where did they come from?" Kieran gasped.
Stan was catching his breath and nodded down the alley. "We must've walked past them."
Kieran watched as another of the dogs attempted to assault the wall. It forced itself up on its hind legs and catapulted itself into the air, gaining a good four feet of altitude before it crashed back down into the rest of the pack. They barked and bit at one another as they jostled for prime position at the base of the wall, all the while never taking their eyes off Kieran or Stan.
"They must be starving. Look how skinny they are," Stan pointed.
"Yeah," Kieran agreed, "they would've had a real feast with your chubby arse, Stan. Come on let's keep going. We'll follow the wall until we hit the road."
Stan was still watching the pack of hungry, feral dogs circling below them. "Then what? They'll just follow us then get us when we try to climb down. We should go through one of the houses."
Kieran looked into the garden of the house whose wall they were standing on. The windows were dark and revealed nothing of what was on the other side of them. In his mind, he pictured more horrors waiting for them within.
"I'm not getting off this wall unless I know exactly what's inside the house, Stan. Come on, we'll walk along it until we find one that we can see into."
Stan looked down at his feet. The wall was only slightly wider than his foot. "You mean we have to do this balancing act the whole way to the end?"
Kieran glanced back at him as he raised his arms out to the side and began to pin-step along the wall, one foot in front of the other. "Well, if you're going to fall, try and fall that way," he nodded at the gardens to their right, "or you'll be the next best thing to a tin of Pedigree Chum."
Progress was slow and they still had a fair distance to cover. All the while, the pack of hungry dogs kept pace with them, stalking them from the alleyway below. They snarled and growled continuously and occasionally, when Stan or Kieran wobbled and threatened to lose their balance, one would leap into the air snapping its jaws in anticipation of meeting them on their fall.
Both of the young men concentrated hard on where they placed each foot, their arms outstretched to their sides. Everything else around them went unnoticed as they focussed on their balance. The sweat poured from their foreheads and their breaths came in slow, shallow gusts.
They almost completely passed it without noticing and it was only when Stan's ears registered the music that he turned his head; it must have been the music that Kieran had heard earlier.
"Kieran, stop," Stan said urgently from behind.
In the garden to their right, a strange sight greeted them. A large man, topless and sitting in a wheelchair, stared back at them. He wore a pair of sunglasses and clutched an unlit cigar between his teeth. On the table beside him was a bottle of sunscreen, a glass of what looked like orange juice with a straw sticking out from the top and a small set of speakers playing opera music that he switched off when he realised he had been noticed. He looked as if he was on holiday or just enjoying the midday sun in days gone by.
Both Stan and Kieran had to blink a number of times before they were sure that their minds were not playing tricks on them.
The holiday image was soon shattered when their gazes fell upon what the man was holding in his lap. A sawed off double-barrelled shotgun lay across his thighs. His hand gently caressed and rested upon the dull black steel, as though it was a substitute for a cat.
"That's right, boys," the man muttered in their direction, "move along. There's nothing to see." He gave the weapon a reassuring pat.
Stan and Kieran stayed still. The hungry dogs continued to snarl at them from the alleyway below as they too stopped and waited.
Kieran glanced back down at them, and then to the man in the wheelchair. "Look, we don't want anything from you. We just want to get away from them." He nodded in the direction of his feet.
"That's not my problem, and if you don't get away from my wall, I'm going to blow you both off it." Keeping one hand on the shotgun, the man reached for his drink with his other hand and manipulated the straw into his mouth with his tongue before taking a long gulp.
"Look, mate...." Stan began, but the man cut him off.
"I'm not."
Stan became confused and looked to Kieran then back to the man in the garden below them. "You're not what?"
"I'm not your mate," the man replied with a slight smile. Obviously, he had used that one before and never ceased to get a kick out of it when it went the way he wanted it to.
"Okay then, sir," Kieran had his diplomat voice in gear, "all we want is to get away from the dogs. Can we just come down and maybe leave through your front door?"
"Not a chance." He shook his head as he placed his drink back on the table beside the speakers. "You two shit bags are probably looting everywhere in sight and there's no chance of you getting your hands on my stuff."
Stan straightened. "Stuff, what are you on about? We've no interest in anything of yours."
The man pulled a large plastic bag from beneath his wheelchair and placed it on the table. At first the bag just looked green, but Stan realised the plastic was actually transparent and it was the contents that was green.
"Holy shit, look at that for a bag of weed," Stan whistled through his teeth.
"See? My stuff," the man said again slowly.
Kieran held his hands out in front of him. "Look, we're not interested in your weed. You've obviously smoked plenty of it. We just want to get away from here. Right, I'm going to climb down from the wall and so is Stan here. Don't shoot us."
The crippled man stiffened in his chair and placed his hand around the handgrip of the shotgun. "Don't you dare come into my garden, I'm warning you."
Kieran and Stan climbed down, ignoring the threatening tone of the man in front of them. They stood with their backs pressed against the wall, their hands raised in front of them.
"Don't shoot. Don't shoot us, mate." Kieran was attempting a soothing tone to his diplomatic voice.
The man began to huff and shake as anger swelled inside him. He slammed his fist down with a crash on the table beside him, causing the speakers and the glass of orange to rattle. With the other hand, he raised the short weapon and pointed it at the two young men who stood before him.
"I told you not to come into my garden. I fucking told you," he ranted.
Stan jumped to his right and ducked as the man in the wheelchair let off the first round. The deafening bang of the gun popped his ears and the fragments of shot slammed into the wall behind him, shattering the outer surface of the brick as he ducked his head towards the ground. His legs continued to carry him forward and the man followed him with the barrel of the weapon, about to squeeze off the second shell.
Kieran ducked to his left as the first shot was fired and he leapt towards the man. In just two bounds, he was upon him.
"You fucking wanker," he screamed as he brought his fist down to connect with the side of the man's head. The impact sent a shock wave along the length of Kieran's arm and up to his shoulder. The man's head jerked to the side and the weight of his body forced him, and his wheelchair, to topple over, the shotgun clattering to the ground as he lost his grip on his only means of defence.
Stan was upright again and he bounded over the sprawled form of the man and his wheelchair and past Kieran, who began to turn and follow, leaving the man dazed and concussed on the floor in a heap.
They barged through the rear door to the house and charged through the kitchen and into the living room, knocking over furniture and ornaments as they went. Stan reached the front door first and wrenched it open.
