When There's No More Room in Hell 2

by Luke Duffy

  Peering over his shoulder, Simon saw the body also break into a run. It was not a sprinter, but it was definitely running. It chased him, keeping pace with him. A feeling of dread washed over him. The thing would not tire and would follow him until it caught up with him eventually. Simon knew that. He had seen plenty of footage about the dead on the news and read much on the internet. He had also seen it for himself from the safety of his bedroom window.

  Pumping his legs harder, Simon was running flat out. He gulped air into his lungs and without realising it he had began to cry. The fear of the walking dead gripped him so powerfully he had lost control of his bodily functions. A dark patch appeared at the front of his trousers, his bladder having released its contents involuntarily. If he had had the luck to find food during his stay in the woods, he no doubt would have lost control of his bowels also and would be running with more stains at the rear.

  He could hear the pounding feet of his pursuer behind him. He could feel its arms reaching for him as it clawed at the air separating them. Another long screeching moan and Simon became aware of more movement within the street. All around him, dark lumbering figures appeared. They staggered from the open doorways of houses and from the abandoned and overgrown gardens. They poured from alleyways and into the street, moaning and wailing as they reached out towards him as he passed them.

  The rotting bodies of men, women and children were all around, some old and some young. Fat and thin, short and tall, some were fresh and others were badly decomposed. All types now crowded the road, all of them wanting Simon's flesh and wailing loudly together as they laid eyes upon him.

  The tears streamed down his cheeks as he ran. He whimpered as he pictured himself surrounded and with no way out. Now, he wished more than ever that he had stayed in the bunker. He would be bored, lonely, even depressed, but he would be safe and not out in the open and being pursued by hordes of walking corpses.

  There were hundreds of them. All of them emitting that dreadful and spine chilling sorrow filled moan. They all saw him and staggered after him. Only the one immediately behind him ran and, for a split second, Simon thanked the Gods for that small mercy.

  The noise of the dead carried along the street, rising in pitch and intensity. It echoed along the road, bouncing off the houses like a pinball and continuing along in front of him. More of them stepped out ahead of him. The groans and moans had reached fever pitch and Simon could no longer see a clear way out up ahead. They were everywhere he looked.

  Thinking fast, he changed direction and headed to his right. He hurdled over a low wooden fence and ploughed through the front garden of a house. The running corpse was close on his heels and attempted to follow him but it floundered at the fence and tumbled to the ground. It landed face first on the concrete of the garden path, the crunch of the bone audible in Simon's ears as the face of the corpse was smashed inward.

  Without slowing his pace, Simon crashed through the side gate of the house that led to the rear garden. The gate collided loudly with the wall of the house as he passed through and swung shut behind him with a crash. He headed for the rear fence that he could now see at the far end of the overgrown garden. This time, he would not be able to hurdle the obstacle as he had done in the front garden. It was much too high and he would need to scale it using his hands and feet.

  He felt the rough wood in his hands and the splinters that dug into his soft skin as he climbed but he did not slow. He heard the crash of the gate as the dead continued to follow him and began to pile into the garden behind him.

  At the top of the fence, as he turned to drop on to the other side, he saw the mass of bodies that followed him. Their faces, dozens of them with hundreds more that were no doubt behind them, were fixed on him as they all stumbled in his wake. They pushed and jostled one another, all wanting to be at the front and to be the first to sink their teeth into his warm living flesh.

  Simon dropped into the garden that backed onto the one he had run through and was now teeming with partially rotted corpses, snarling and growling at him through the fence, some attempting to climb the barrier to get at him.

  He turned and headed for the front of the house. Like the one he had just passed through, this one also had a path that led up to a side gate. He walked slowly and with caution. He could not see what was in the street ahead of him and he wanted to be sure that he was not running straight into a horde of them before he moved. He fought his instincts that screamed at him to keep running.

  A creaking sound behind him made him turn to look back at the fence he had just crossed. The weight of the mass behind it was causing it to lean inward. There were hundreds of bodies pushing against it and it would soon collapse.

  Simon looked at the door to the rear of the house that was just a few metres away from him. It seemed intact and undamaged. Quickly, he peered through the window into the rear room of the house. Nothing stirred. It looked empty and abandoned.

  A crack from the fence and Simon saw the whole structure crash to the ground. The dead spilled forward like a tidal wave toward him. They tripped and tumbled in the fallen fence, but still they came, stepping on one another, crawling over sprawled bodies and trampling their fallen into the dirt as they advanced.

  Simon grasped at the handle to the door and pushed. The door opened inward and he piled inside, falling to the floor and kicking the door shut behind him. He was in a kitchen. The place was untouched and he suspected that the house had been empty for a long time judging by the lack of furniture and appliances, even before the dead had started to rise to attack and eat the living.

  The door leading out to the garden flew open behind him. A figure lunged into the doorway. Simon launched himself at it, catching it in the chest with his shoulder and sending it tumbling back into the garden. There were more of them close by, very close and Simon slammed the door shut again, this time pressing his weight against it.

  The dead crowded the doorway and began to pound against the timber frame and heavy plastic. Their thumps echoed in his ears and he gritted his teeth as he forced his body against the door, his feet struggling to grip the tiled floor below him. His legs juddered with each new assault from the outside. He knew he would not be able to hold on for long.

  The handle turned and the door budged. His feet slipped and a gap appeared in the doorway. He turned and pushed against it, throwing all his weight onto it and managing only to gain a couple of inches. The dead forced their arms through the gap, reaching blindly into the interior of the house and grasping for the living flesh that they knew was inside.

  Their smell and sound drifted through the open door and into the kitchen, filling the room with their lament and stench. Simon was in a panic. He screamed and howled as he tried desperately to force the door shut again. More and more bodies were pressing against it from outside and he was losing ground by the second.

  The gap was now large enough for a couple of the dead to force their heads and shoulders through. They growled and snarled at Simon as he kicked at their faces, their hands clawing at his legs in an attempt to grasp him and pull him to the floor and out into the feeding frenzy in the garden.

  Simon was crying uncontrollably now. He felt like he was fighting a losing battle, but he could not give up. He knew all too well what would happen to him the second that the dead got in the house. It was hopeless, though, and he knew it. They would get him eventually and he was just stealing nothing more than a few more seconds of life before they consumed him.

  "You bloody idiot!" an angry voice called out at him.

  At first, Simon thought it had come from himself, then he realised there was someone else in the room with him.

  Simon blinked. He stood, braced against the door and in complete shock staring back at a man in the doorway leading out from the kitchen. He was definitely a living human being, though bedraggled and looking not completely unlike the dead ghouls that hammered at the door behind him.

  The shabby man stood, wide-eyed and looking furious.
His long beard was matted and tangled and the woollen hat that he wore on his head looked like he had never removed it in his whole life. Simon recognised him, but he could not remember where from, and at that moment in time he did not care.

  "Help me," he shouted, "I can't hold them for much longer."

  The man disappeared from the doorway.

  "Where are you going? Help me, for God's sake." Simon braced himself against another jolt, as the door was battered more ferociously at his back.

  A moment later the scruffy man reappeared. He charged toward Simon, hefting an axe above his head and screaming. Simon, with the dead at his back and a mad axe murderer at his front, winced and waited for the blow to finish him off. He screwed his eyes shut and sunk his head into his shoulders. A second later and he heard a sickening thud as the axe head smashed into soft flesh and crunched through bone.

  Simon opened his eyes. The crazy man was close to him, leaning over him and struggling to free the axe from the head of a body that had managed to force most of its upper torso through the doorway. He began to kick at the corpse and shove it back through the door. Arms and hands continued to snatch at the two of them through the narrow opening, but with their combined weight, they were able to force the door shut. The man reached up, slammed the bolt across at the top of the door and then did the same for the bottom, securing it for the time being. Simon slumped to the floor, panting and exhausted and shaking with fright.

  The man stepped back and viewed the door as the dead continued to pound against it. Nodding to himself, he grunted. "That should give us a headstart at least."

  "What?" Simon looked up at him.

  "Come on. We're leaving."

  The man walked out of the room and left Simon, still sitting on the kitchen floor with his back to the door. Another crash from behind forced him into action. He scrambled to his feet and chased after the strange man into the interior of the house. He found him at the front door, peering through the frosted glass of the side window and clutching a plastic bag.

  "What are you doing?" Simon's voice was full of panic.

  He continually checked over his shoulder, back in the direction of the kitchen. The noise of the door beginning to splinter was destroying what nerves he had left in him and threatened to turn him into a blubbering wreck.

  The man calmly stood upright and peered into the eyes of Simon. He was considerably shorter but his nerves seemed to be made of steel.

  "We’re leaving and I’m checking to see if the street is clear. What are you doing?"

  The question caught Simon on the back foot and, for a moment, he was lost for words. Here was this man, completely at ease with the situation and asking him what he was doing, as if arranging a day out and wanting to know his preference.

  "I'm fucking coming with you," Simon replied finally.

  "Good." The man nodded with a slight smile. "Okay then. Have you got all your belongings?" he asked, peering around and past him as though expecting to see suitcases and other luggage.

  Simon looked down at his hands and the iron bar he held. "You're nuts, aren't you. This is all I have."

  The sound of the kitchen door crashing open and the moan of the dead echoed through the house.

  The man looked up at him, a warming smile on his face. "Okay, let's get going. I'm David, by the way, but most people know me as Johnny."

  15

  Jake was not happy about the situation. He eyed the building with a sense of foreboding. Something was not right as far as his gut was concerned and it was now screaming its warnings at him.

  "So what is it?" John asked from the rear seat.

  Jake bit his lip, his eyes fixed on the large sprawling complex of the supermarket in the distance below them. They had an elevated view of the shopping centre from the hilltop where they were and they could see much of the area around the supermarket. It looked deserted, but still, something bothered Jake.

  "I don't know," he said shrugging his shoulders as he sat in the front passenger seat. "I just don't like it. I have this feeling that it's all going to go to rat shit. It's been nagging at me all day and I can't explain it."

  "Nah, it's just that you've not been out for a while. You're bound to feel that way. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any doubts about this myself."

  Jake spun in his seat and glared at him. "Don't patronise me, John. It is nothing to do with being wire happy or anything like that. I just have a gut instinct that I have always followed and now, it's telling me that there's trouble ahead."

  Steve opened the door and climbed out from the driver's seat. He needed to stretch his legs and the atmosphere in the car was becoming stuffy. Jake and the others got out too, congregating around the front of the vehicle. Steve pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shared them with whoever was interested.

  "No thanks. I gave them up a long time ago," Jake said with a wave of his hand. He glanced back at the supermarket again. The whole thing was bothering him and it was clearly etched across his face for all to see.

  "Are you planning on living forever or something?" Steve asked with a smirk as he tried to force Jake into relaxing.

  "No, I just don't like smelling like an ashtray."

  John reached over from where he was leaning against the front of the vehicle and gave Jake a nudge on the shoulder. "You're keeping yourself smelling good for some hot young stud, then?" he joked.

  Jake smiled back at him. "Hey, you never know."

  Helen refused a cigarette but John was now happily puffing away along with Lee and Steve, enjoying the great outdoors and the beautiful sunny weather. They stood at the top of a hill, in a car park to what had once been an exclusive Golf Club overlooking the city and its suburbs. It was situated on the fringes of the rural area on the very outskirts of the city. From where they stood, they could see the tall buildings of the metropolis in the distance with the residential areas sprawling out from it.

  It was a heavily built-up area and all had agreed that to venture too far in would be considered too much of a risk. The streets would be crawling with the dead and driving around in an old beat up Land Rover would not be a good idea.

  Lee had remembered about the supermarket and outlet complex on the outskirts. It provided good access roads and easy escape routes and everything they needed in the way of supplies. If anything should go wrong, they could see the trouble coming well in advance and make a sharp exit before they became unstuck.

  Steve raised his binoculars and adjusted the focus as he concentrated them on a particular street in the distance. He could see right the way along it, from one junction to the next. Houses, their short gardens slowly growing out of control, lined the street. It was a residential area close to the hub of the city.

  The place looked a mess. Doors and windows were smashed; cars lay abandoned with their doors hanging open, slowly rusting away when the city was evacuated by the living. Steve could see the makeshift barricades at the far end of the street. They had collapsed and been pushed aside during the assault of the dead, their mass overwhelming the defences that the residents had feebly constructed in their desperation.

  Briefly, he pictured the streets in his mind and what they may have looked like before the plague had swept across the world. It would have been brighter, full of life and colourful; people coming and going children playing and traffic beeping their horns in frustration at the lights. Parents walking their children to school or returning home from work. Life, it would have been full of life. Now it was just dull and drab, everything seemed to have been painted in numerous shades of grey.

  Then he saw them, the dead. The shadowy figures that roamed the streets, they were slow and lumbering as they shuffled along the roads and curbs. They did not seem to pay much attention to one another; they just staggered about in their own world, following their feet below them that seemed to move automatically.

  He could also see a number of them just sitting slouched against the walls and static cars, as though waiting for
something to rouse them from their inactivity. If Steve had not known better, he could have been forgiven for mistaking the people in the street as being a bunch of drunks.

  At the far end, he could just about make out a gaggle of the dead, clustered together on the ground. They appeared to be fighting one another, struggling to gain possession of something that was on the ground. Some poor dog or cat that had accidently strayed into the street, Steve suspected. He did not want to imagine it being of a higher form of life than that.

  "You think there are people still alive down there?" Helen asked as she stood at the side of Steve, looking out on to the city.

  "I'm sure there will be. There has to be."

  "Why do you say that?" she asked, turning to him with a frown.

  Steve looked at her and shrugged. "I don’t know really. I just suppose there has to be someone who has managed to hide out and stay alive, for now at least. It was a big city with lots of people in its day."

  "Lots of dead people now though, Steve," she murmured with a sigh.

  "The place looks pretty dead to me," Lee said as he raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and began to scan from left to right.

  "Yeah, but you can't see every building and street with those things from this distance," Steve said as he flicked his cigarette butt away into the bushes, exhaling a cloud of grey blue smoke from his lungs.

  Lee looked across and shook his head critically. "That's not what I'm on about. We're not here to talk about the city; we are here for the supermarket and the fuel station. The place looks dead to me, empty, no one there." He highlighted his point by raising his arm and waving his hand in the direction of their objective.

  Steve saw that his friend was inpatient to get on with the job. "Okay, I want to get this over with, too. What's the plan then?"