by Luke Duffy
“Come on,” Tommy ordered as he turned and headed for the doorway that led back down into the lower floors.
“Where to?”
“We need to find a place to hide. We’re out of options, and I don’t fancy trying to hold my own up here. I’m no hero.”
They raced down the stairs towards the next level, their footsteps and heavy, fear filled breathing echoing loudly through the stairwell. There was another crunch from below them, sounding hollow and magnified in the confines of the staircase. They slammed into the first door that they came to, and out onto the next level of the parking complex.
A sudden flurry of movement and sound almost caused Tommy to loose off a volley of fire as a flock of pigeons took to the air, startled at the sudden crash of the door and the appearance of the two men. Al and Tommy ducked as dozens of the birds fluttered around them, scattering in all directions, and fleeing through the openings between the parking levels.
“Fuck,” Tommy snapped, as he raised his rifle.
After a few short seconds, the birds were gone, and an eerie calmness settled over them again. The parking bays were mostly empty, with just a few scattered vehicles slowly rusting away and being swallowed up with moss and plant life.
Tommy paused and scanned the length of the level. None of the vehicles looked much stronger than cardboard boxes. He considered the elevator shafts at the far end for a moment. However, they looked just as corroded as the vehicles around them. It was doubtful that they would get the doors open, and by the sounds of the racket beneath them, it was clear to him that they did not have the time to try.
“No good,” he declared. “Next one down.”
Within seconds they had covered the next flight of stairs. More clangs and clunks echoed up from below as the barriers were steadily heaved to the side, making the two men increase their pace as their hearts pounded away within their chests. For hours their bodies had been surging with adrenaline, causing their limbs to shake and their stomachs to knot. Now, since hearing the sounds of the barricades beginning to collapse, their systems went into overdrive. Their adrenal glands began pumping more of the intoxicating chemical into their bloodstreams, causing their bodies to tremble and their legs to feel like jelly, while the neurons in their brains fired at an increased rate, making their minds race as panic squeezed them tightly.
Without stopping they barged through the next door, saw that there were more vehicles on this level, and then took off along the parking bays in search of somewhere they could hide. Most of the cars were untouched, covered in dust and grime while rust steadily crawled its way over their frames. Most of them had by now lost their tyres, and in between the vehicles weeds were springing up from every conceivable space and creating a carpet of tangled vines and roots. Tommy paused and considered jumping into the foliage, wrapping themselves up in the thorns and leaves, hoping that the dead would not discover them. He quickly dismissed the desperate and foolish idea. That sort of thinking was the fantasy of a child in the same way that a blanket or pillow could protect them from monsters.
“There,” Al grunted and raced ahead of Tommy, making a beeline for a large van with the faded logo of a courier firm stencilled on the side.
He grabbed the handles of the rear doors and pulled hard. Nothing happened. They were locked, or sealed tight from rust. Next, he moved to the passenger side and tried again, yanking on the handle with all his strength.
With a crack the locking mechanism came away in his hand, leaving a gaping hole that was rimmed with bright orange oxidised metal in the side of the door. He reached his arm through, feeling the jagged shards of the panel scraping against the unprotected skin on the underside of his forearm. He paid it no attention. At that moment he did not care about infections, only finding somewhere to hole up before the dead arrived, thirsting for their blood. If he managed to get out of this mess alive, he promised himself that he would see the doctors at the base for a tetanus shot.
There was a clatter followed by a long drawn out grinding sound as one of the barricades at ground level finally gave way. Within seconds, the sound of trampling feet accompanied by lustful wails and aggressive snorts, could be heard throughout the parking complex. Al pictured thousands of them rushing through the gap, quickly filling the lowest level, and piling in through the door of the stairwell.
“Fuck,” he snarled. “There go the barricades.”
“They’re in,” Tommy exclaimed from the rear of the van, gripping his rifle tighter as he watched the door that they had entered through. “They’re in, Al.”
It was all happening very fast. They could now hear the echoing footsteps growing louder as the infected surged up through the floors of the complex. No doubt some spewed out onto the lower levels, but with the numbers involved there would be thousands headed in their direction, following the steps beneath their rotting feet and the backs of the mindless corpses in front of them while climbing higher through the building.
“Tommy, in here,” Al grunted as he grasped the torn metal and ripped the door open. “Get in here, quick.”
The door was stiff and needed to be forced. A loud screech filled the parking level as the hinges protested against the years of heavy corrosion. Once open, a gust of dank and mouldy air whooshed out from inside, smelling like stagnant water and sodden clothing. Al paused and hesitantly poked his head inside, checking that there were no surprises waiting for them in the darkness.
“Clear.”
They jumped inside. As Tommy hurled himself over the passenger seat and into the rear compartment, Al began attempting to secure the door. He pulled it shut, but it only fell open again. The catch was completely destroyed and the weight of the door, along with the slight list of the van, caused the doorframe to swing outwards. He twisted and grabbed the seatbelt, hoping to find a way of securing it, but the nylon was too brittle and snapped when it scraped across the shards of rusted metal in the door.
“Bollocks,” he cursed as he searched for an alternative. “Find something we can use to tie it shut.”
They searched their immediate surroundings, desperate to find something that could help seal the door. A rope, chain, anything that would be of use. The van was empty. Only a few oily rags and an assortment of small plastic boxes littered the floor of the vehicle.
“There’s nothing here. Use one of the straps from your daysack.”
Al unshouldered the small pack and began to fumble with the buckles, his hands shaking and his bulky fingers uncooperative. He ripped off his gloves, hoping to manipulate his fingers better. Outside there was a loud bang. The door to the parking level where they were hiding had been thrown open. The pair of them froze, staring at one another as they realised that they were out of time. The dead were inside.
“Shit,” Tommy whispered, dejectedly.
They could hear the sounds of hundreds of pairs of shuffling feet, scraping over the tarmac floor while the moans filled the level to the point that the noise caused the metal of the van’s frames to vibrate, and filling the interior with a foreboding hum. The sound was growing rapidly in volume as more and more of the infected spilled in through the door.
The two men hunkered down behind the front seats, still searching for a way to seal the door while the dead advanced through the parking level. Al, seeing no other option, pushed his bare and unprotected hand through the gap of the passenger seat and the door and reached out. He grabbed the frame with the tip of his fingers and pulled the door closed, holding onto it in order to keep it from falling open again. His soft, fleshy fingers remained outside, protruding through the hole in the locking mechanism.
He turned and stared at Tommy. Both their eyes were bulging with terror and locked on one another, unblinking as the sound of the infected drew nearer.
By now there must have been thousands of them surging through the parking bays, making their way along the lines of ruined cars. Loud clunks and thuds sounded an irregular drumbeat as bodies crashed into the other vehicles. Windows crack
ed, and bony, clawed hands scraped against the flaking paintwork as they searched for the living. Thousands of voices groaned and cried out, magnified by the acoustics of the recesses in the ceiling.
Inside the van, Al and Tommy cringed, not daring to make a sound or even breathe. They could clearly hear and feel the dead, and now they could smell them. Their stench was growing stronger, as was the hiss of the insects that swarmed around them. Before long, the windscreen of the van was coated in a blanket of flies acting as the vanguard for the arrival of the infected horde.
Tommy arched his neck and saw the dark and shifting shadows of the dead flitting across the murky windows at the front of the van. There was very little light filtering through and into the parking level now due to the amount of bodies that filled the building. He quickly withdrew and ducked his head back down behind the seats.
“They’re wall-to-wall out there.”
Al nodded and gritted his teeth, blinking against the streams of sweat that were trickling into his eyes. He hissed and tightened his grip on the door, hoping that his pink, fleshy fingertips would go unnoticed from the outside. There was nothing that either of them could do now except wait and pray.
Something slammed into the exterior of the van, causing it to rock violently. Al shifted his position, riding the motion of the vehicle as another body collided with them while doing all that he could to prevent his grip on the door from loosening. It was their only barrier between the land of the living and the realm of the dead, and he was determined to cling on to it until his last breath.
There were more thuds, and before long the van was swaying like a flimsy boat on a choppy sea as dozens of reanimated corpses bumped into the van’s sides. Withered hands and skeletal faces battered at the weakened framework, the scrape of bone on metal causing the men inside to wince and squirm. The hunger laden moans filled the interior, haunting and deafening, as the whites of the eyes of Al and Tommy shined wildly in the blackness.
“They know we’re here,” Tommy hissed, his voice filled with panic.
“No, they don’t.”
“They fucking do. They know we’re in here, Al.”
“Take it easy. They’re just doing their thing. They don’t know we’re here, and they’re just bouncing from one vehicle to the next. Stay calm.”
Al hoped that he was right. He had witnessed the dead do the same thing on numerous occasions when hunting the living. They would leave no stone unturned, but as long as the hunted remained out of sight and in a secure place, there was always the chance that the herd may lose interest and move on. It was now a test of will and nerves. They needed to remain calm, quiet, and still, riding out the storm and hoping that they would not be detected.
Something brushed against Al’s fingers as they remained protruding from the door. He instantly moved to retract them, but quickly fought the urge. If he pulled his hand away there would be nothing holding the door shut, and they would soon be discovered. He grimaced as he felt it again sliding over the warm flesh of his fingertips. It was cold and mushy, the same texture as weeks old chicken skin that had been left out in the open. He raised his head and looked up at the passenger window. Beyond the filthy glass he saw the silhouette of a man. Suddenly, its face was thrust up against the door, its skull like features becoming much clearer beyond the opaque window as it peered into the front compartment. Al ducked his head and turned away, spitting to the side with disgust and pulling a face as he realised that his fingers were inside the man’s abdomen.
The corpse continued to push itself up against the door, its body becoming flush with the frame while its face pressed against the glass. From between its teeth its fetid tongue slithered out and slid across the window, leaving a disease filled smear in its wake.
“Just sit tight,” Al whispered, hoping to reassure his friend. “We’ll wait it out. They don’t know we’re here, and they can’t get in.”
Tommy stared back at him and nodded.
For over an hour they remained sitting in the darkness while thousands of infected bodies clawed and groaned at the vehicle as they drifted through the parking bays. It was hard to tell whether the noise from the excited crowd had somewhat dissipated or if it was just that Al and Tommy had become used to it. Either way, the haunting voices of the dead were no longer causing their ears to throb and their spines to tingle. The initial frenzy seemed to have simmered.
The pair of them crouched motionless, staring at one another and gripping their weapons in their sweating palms as all manner of rancid filth coated Al’s fingers. He desperately wanted to change his grip so that his fingers were less exposed, but he did not dare to risk any movement. There was a sea of bodies surrounding them, but so far his blood-filled fingertips had gone unnoticed.
“We could be stuck here for days,” Tommy whispered.
Al looked up at him, the thought of having his own flesh exposed to the marauding corpses outside for all that time making him feel nauseous. By now the adrenaline was beginning to settle in their bodies. They had become almost accustomed to their situation, realising that the dead did not actually know that they were inside the vehicle. They were exhausted now; hungry, thirsty, and cold. Their nerves were shot, and their limbs ached. Remaining trapped in the van for any length of time would be a true test of their resolve.
“I reckon we should try to at least get an idea of what’s going on out there.”
Tommy raised himself into a crouch. At the rear of the van there were tiny gaps in the framework around the door seal. Small beams of light filtered through from time to time as the bodies outside moved about and allowed the daylight to enter. He slowly began to hobble his way towards them, carefully placing his feet to avoid noise.
“Watch it,” Al said quietly.
Tommy, almost at the rear doors, suddenly stopped and cocked his head, allowing his mouth to hang open in order to cancel out the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. He remained rooted to the spot for a few long seconds, his eyes closed, and his hearing focussed.
“What’s up?” Al hissed.
“Shhh. I can hear something.”
“What?”
“Sounds like…”
“What is it?”
“Sounds like…music,” Tommy replied, turning his head and glaring at Al in complete astonishment.
Al screwed his face, wondering whether his friend was losing his mind. After only an hour or two, he found it hard to believe that a veteran of Tommy’s years would be close to crumbling. Al turned his head, giving him the benefit of the doubt before he dismissed it as Tommy’s imagination. He could hear nothing except the sound of his own breathing and the grunts and snorts of the dead outside.
However, Tommy’s face told him a different story. They had known one another for a long time and Al knew that the man in front of him was not one to lose his cool and dissolve into a wreck in the face of adversity. He tried to focus his senses again, ignoring the cold and decomposed flesh that continued to squelch against his fingers. Since being shot in the head, his hearing had never been as good as it had once been. There were many frequencies that he could no longer detect, and as a result, he had to rely on the abilities of others. He was about to declare that Tommy was just too highly strung at the moment but then stopped. He squinted, holding his breath and tilting his good ear towards the door. His eyes suddenly grew wide as he detected a distant, barely audible sound. He concentrated all of his efforts on hearing the noise, and soon it began to sound clearer until he reached the point that he no longer needed to focus on it. In that moment he had retrained his ears to hone in on the faint music, cancelling out all other ambient sounds around them.
“Jesus, you’re right. I can hear it.”
“Thank fuck. I was beginning to worry that I was hallucinating.”
Al’s brow furrowed.
“Is that… is that Beyoncé?”
Tommy turned to Al, flashing him a grin that shined brightly in the gloom. He nodded, but then quickly stopped, worried
that the motion of his head would cause the vehicle to rock.
“Yeah, I think it is.”
“I haven’t heard this one in years.”
Tommy looked at him quizzically. It was hard to tell, but he pictured Al sitting in the darkness, his hand covered in cold, dead entrails while smiling and mouthing the words to ‘All the single ladies’.
“Well, we’re not having a dance off if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Who the fuck is playing the Beyoncé in the middle of a dead city? What the hell’s going on out there?”
“Do you think it could be Tina?”
“God knows, but someone is putting their arse in a sling out there. Have a look, and see if it’s having any effect on the pus-sacks.”
Tommy continued to inch his way towards the rear doors. He lowered himself down slowly until he was lying in a prone position, his rifle carefully placed on the floor beside him. Using his tiptoes and elbows, he silently worked his way closer to the corner where he could see tiny dots of light. He pushed his face up close to the frame, closing one eye as he spied through the small gap.
At first it was hard to make anything out. All that he could see were dark and blurry shapes. After a few seconds, the figure closest to the vehicle shifted its position, moving away and to the side, and giving Tommy a distorted view of what was happening beyond the walls of the van. He could not make out much in the way of detail, but one thing that he was certain of was that the dead had also heard the music.
Many of them were standing still, their heads slumped to the side and staring up at the ceiling, but Tommy could hear that there were others beginning to shuffle away, headed for the door and where they thought the sound was coming from. Of course, some of the dead remained where they were for a while, unable to hear a thing or even see, but the movements of those around them prompted them to follow.
The noise of the crowd steadily decreased as more and more took note of the new sound. Eventually, a ghostly silence settled over the crowd accompanied by a stillness that was as unnerving as the rampaging antics of the dead from just a few minutes before. The music continued, and the thousands of corpses remained entranced by it.
