by Luke Duffy
“Good,” she replied. “Let’s get moving.”
“What about the others?” he asked, referring to Gary and the second group.
“They’re gone. There’s nothing we can do to help them now.”
Time ticked by, but the pace of the people did not increase. There were too many people trying to squeeze their way through the narrow passageway, dragging too many of the young, old, and sick with them. Some had raced ahead, able to move rapidly under their own steam, but many were being left behind and becoming jammed into a bottleneck of slow moving people who needed to feel and grope their way through the near darkness.
Stan and Tina were at the rear, along with Ron, Paul, and Sebastian. The dogs seemed to have calmed a little, no longer barking or pulling at their restraints as they sensed that the immediate danger had passed, and that the people they instinctively protected were now safe.
Behind them, the entrance into the tunnel continued to bang and buckle as the swarms of infected charged at the barrier, smashing their decomposing bodies against the shuddering door in an attempt to force their way through. Their howls and wails sounded laden with excitement and frustration in equal measure, knowing that the living were close by, but being thwarted in their attempts to reach them.
“Come on, keep going,” Tina’s echoing voice called out into the blackness ahead of her, encouraging the survivors. “We’re nearly there, but you need to hurry. Pick up your feet and keep moving. As fast as you can.”
“We’re moving too slow,” Ron grumbled, glancing back over his shoulder towards the mouth of the tunnel. In almost fifteen minutes they had travelled only a few hundred metres. “They’ll break through soon. We need to speed it up.”
“Come on,” Tina shouted again, sounding more urgent and joined by the voices of Paul and Ron. “Move your arses and get going.”
There was a commotion up ahead. People were yelping with fright and others were cursing loudly. In the beam of his light, Stan saw Kyle pushing his way through the crowd towards him, carrying one of the machineguns and weighted down with hundreds of rounds of linked ammunition that glinted in the beam of his torch.
“I thought you could use some help back here,” he huffed with a smile. “Did we get everyone out okay?”
Stan said nothing but glanced at Tina as they continued to walk along. She shook her head, averting her eyes so that the veteran could not see the regret and shame she felt.
“Only half of them,” Stan whispered to him. “The second group and most of the militia never made it.”
“Jesus. What about…”
Kyle’s words were abruptly drowned out by a reverberating screech that travelled along the shaft like a roaring, high-pitched wind. It clawed at their minds and bodies, making them wince against the spine tingling vibrations that rippled violently through their eardrums, like the sound of giant claws being dragged along a chalk-board. There was a wrenching clang and wavering beams of light suddenly spilled into the tunnel behind them as the door was forced inwards. The moans of the dead instantly filled the tunnel, travelling the length of the shaft and instilling fright and dread into the civilians.
The terrified people at the back pushed and cried out to the people in front, stomping their way forward and thrusting to the side anyone who stood in their way. The panic stricken screams of the living joined in with the woeful laments of the dead, creating an atmosphere of sheer terror that threatened to overwhelm everyone who heard it. A stampede began to take hold with everyone rushing forward, almost causing a complete blockage of tangled bodies as the slower and weaker members of the group struggled to stay on their feet against the sudden surge. Tina and the others charged along at the rear, but they were hampered by the people who had fallen and needed to stop and help them to their feet before continuing.
The light from behind them was now completely blocked by the hundreds of bodies that were rushing through the door. They could hear the howl of the dead growing in volume, clawing its way along the tunnel as more of them spilled in through the gaping hole. The fear in the atmosphere was thick, and the screams and beseeching whimpers of the panic filled people only added to the terrifying situation.
There was a shriek from close by, followed by the sound of someone falling. It was Paul. He had collided with a man lying prostrate on the ground, having been trampled and left unconscious.
“Help me get him up,” he called out, grasping the invisible man by the arms and trying to lift him. “Someone help me.”
Stan jumped across and helped to stand the man up. His light flitted across his face, and he saw that the man was far too old and weak to be able to flee with the others without being left behind. There was a large abrasion on his forehead, and his eyes had rolled backwards revealing only their whites. Stan considered dropping him back to the ground, but a sputter and a groan convinced him that there was still life in the old man.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you,” Stan reassured him, lifting him up and cradling him in his arms. “You’re okay, mate.”
The dead were giving chase, following the lights and the fear filled screams of the men and women as they charged through the tunnel. The living were still moving too slowly and more of them were falling, or being pushed to the side. A Darwinian state of mind seemed to be quickly taking hold amongst the survivors, with everyone looking out for their own interests and willing to sacrifice the old, young, and sick in order to save themselves.
By now Tina’s group at the rear were hauling a number of hapless victims of the anarchic exodus. Some hobbled and others needed to be dragged, but she was determined that no one else would be left behind to be torn to shreds by the infected. She looked back over her shoulder to check on their hunters and noticed that they had passed through the first of the gates without realising it. She stopped.
“The gate,” she shouted. “We need to close the gate.”
“No time,” Kyle grunted, grabbing her by the arm and pulling at her.
She tugged away, slapping his hand to the side. Getting the barrier closed and sealed would buy them a little more time, maybe giving them the chance to get through the tunnel before the dead managed to break through. She turned to run back, but stopped when she saw that the first of the pursuing bodies had already crossed through that particular point, blocking all hope of her reaching the gate.
“The charges,” she hissed. “The first one is just ahead of us on the right.”
She continued after the others, quickly catching them up and hollering at the people in front of her to keep moving. Despite the pressure from behind, the crowd did not seem to be moving any faster, and the dead were steadily catching them up. The sounds of their feet rasping over the dusty floor and their conjoined moans were getting louder.
“How far to the explosives?” Stan called back over his shoulder, still carrying the old man in his arms.
“Just up ahead about fifty metres or so.”
Kyle stopped and turned to face the oncoming swarm of bodies. Holding the machinegun at his hip, he pressed back on the trigger. The rounds erupted from the barrel in a thunderous cacophony, spewing out in bursts of two to three and drowning out all other sounds. The bright flashes from the muzzle lit up the passageway, framing him and the advancing dead in momentary swathes of yellowed light. Tracer spat out from the gun, zipping along the tunnel and smashing into the corpses. He dropped his aim slightly, bringing the barrel down so that it was aimed at waist height. Again he sent a number of bursts down-range, hoping to cause enough damage to create an organic obstruction that would stall the advance of the dead. With one final burst he turned and charged after the others. They had made very little progress during his short absence.
“That should slow them down a bit,” he grunted, pulling a fresh belt of 7.62mm rounds from one of his pouches and clipping it onto the remainder that was hanging from the feed-tray of the gun.
“There,” Tina shouted, pointing to an area on their right. “That’s it.”
&nbs
p; Stan halted and spun around, lowering the unconscious man to the ground. He glanced across and saw one of the thick wooden support beams highlighted by Tina’s flashlight. Attached to the side of it were two plastic boxes that were each approximately the same size of an average paperback novel. Tina stepped across and opened the flap that kept its contents protected from the damp atmosphere. Inside there were three blocks of yellow material and something that was clearly an electrical receiving unit. She pressed a button, and the display on the old mobile phone lit up, confirming that it was ready to receive a signal. Although there were no mobile networks working, Ron had reprogrammed the phone so that it could receive a signal from the transmitter that Paul carried, providing that there was line of sight communications.
“That’s a lot of explosives,” Stan grumbled.
“We wanted to be sure,” Tina replied. “There’s no one here that knows demolitions, so we made a best guess.”
“Well, I know explosives, and that’s a lot.”
“Will it be enough to collapse the support?”
“That, and the whole street above us.”
“Shit, shit,” someone hissed from nearby. “Shit.”
Tina saw Paul frantically rummaging through his equipment, turning his pockets outwards, and then ripping through his pouches. She did not need to ask what the problem was. She already knew, and the dread began to bubble inside her stomach.
“The detonator,” he gasped. “I must’ve dropped it back there.”
Everyone turned and looked back along the tunnel. Their lights, losing some of their luminescence over the distance, revealed the faint, misshapen silhouettes of the advancing dead as they lumbered and crawled after them, dragging themselves along, groaning and wailing. Going back to search for the remote was impossible.
“We can still blow it. We light the safety fuse. It’s about two minutes long and enough to give us the chance to get some distance,” Ron offered.
“I’ll do it,” Paul volunteered, hoping to make up for his mistake. “You lot get going, and I’ll stay to light it. I’ll catch you up.”
“No,” Sebastian replied, stepping forward. He reached out and handed the dog chains across to Ron. “Look after these for me. I’ll set it off. You need to get their ship working again, Paul. I’m surplus.”
“Okay,” Tina instructed him, knowing that there was no time to get into a debate over who should stay behind. “Let us get some distance, light it, and then get the fuck out of here.”
“That’s exactly what I had in mind,” Sebastian nodded with a nervous smile.
His anxious eyes looked from her and back to his dogs who were now whining again, sensing that their master was about to put his life in great danger.
“Keep tucked into the left,” the veteran advised him, grabbing him by the shoulder and pointing to the side of the tunnel he was referring to so that there were no misunderstandings. “I’ll be sending a lot of shit down along the right once we get to a safe distance. Just run, and don’t look back. Okay?”
The swarm was closing in.
“You’d better go,” Sebastian replied. “Go. I’ll catch you up.”
They turned and began to chase after the main group. Ron was having to drag the dogs with him as they fought against their restraints to return to their owner. Stan was in front, huffing with the exertion as the limp body of the unconscious man bounced against his chest and hoping that they could gain enough distance to minimise the effect of the blast.
“Light it up, Seb,” Tina called back into the darkness when she judged that they were gaining some ground. “Light it and get out of there.”
“Cover,” Sebastian’s panicking voice called out. “Cover me. They’re almost here. Someone fucking cover me.”
The veteran jumped to the side and dropped to the floor behind his gun. A moment later, and he was sending long bursts along the opposite side of the tunnel from where Sebastian and the explosives were. The deep, grinding noise of the weapon shook the ground and caused clods of loose dirt to tumble from the ceiling. He could see Sebastian’s light on the left, moving around as he frantically tried to light the fuse.
“Come on, mate,” Kyle growled as he let off another burst and felt the butt of the gun push back forcefully against his shoulder. “Come on.”
“Back, get back,” someone cried from close behind him.
There was a sudden flurry to his left as something big whipped by him and barrelling back down the tunnel at break-neck speed. Between the bursts of the GPMG and their deafening echoes, he heard the snarls and snorts, but they were not coming from the infected. Another dark figure shot by, screaming out to the first and forcing the veteran to cease fire as the man drifted across and into his arcs. It was Ron chasing after two of the dogs that had managed to break free from his grip.
“Ron, get back here, you fucking lunatic,” he called after him, but the man did not stop. He continued forward into the gloom, rushing after the dogs and soon reaching the area of Sebastian and the explosives.
As they disappeared into the darkness there was a sudden flash, and the world seemed to implode around the veteran. The explosives detonated, blasting away the supports and a large portion of the ceiling, vaporising Sebastian, Ron, and the two dogs in a violent burst of heat and light. The shockwave raced along the narrow corridor, sucking away all the air while flinging people in all directions and smashing them into the walls and one another, breaking limbs and crushing skulls in the process. Everything went black and the high-pitched ring of the explosion’s aftermath filled the passageway, pressing inwards against the eardrums of the living and sending them into shock as they gasped for air through their flattened and deflated lungs.
There was nothing but darkness as people’s vision blurred and swirls of dust and debris plumed through the tunnel. Kyle coughed, choking on the clouds of smoke that billowed around him and the clumps of dirt that clogged his mouth and nose. He spat, trying to clear his throat as he crawled out of the shallow grave he had found himself buried in. He felt a searing pain in his shoulder. He groaned and he reached into his jacket, feeling the wet and warm blood that was seeping from the wound. His fingers ran over something hard and jagged that was protruding from the flesh. He hissed and grunted, biting down against the pain as the foreign body rasped against the torn edges of his skin.
He rolled over and scratched at the ground, his mind jumbled and barely able to breathe as he crawled on his hands and knees while searching for his machinegun. The sound of people groaning around him brought him back to earth, his senses quickly returning.
There was a loud rumble followed by a mighty crash from behind him. The street above them was collapsing, the buildings tumbling in on themselves and smashing through their own foundations, threatening to collapse the entire tunnel.
“Move,” he yelled, suddenly realising the danger they were in of being buried alive. He climbed to his feet, grabbing and shaking the nearest body that he came into contact with. “Come on, get up and move.”
He stumbled forward, his knees buckling and his head spinning. He kicked at the people that were sprawled all around him and squirming in the dirt or lying in shocked silence. His light passed over Tina. She was staring back at him, her eyes bulging from her blackened face and her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“Get up and help me. The whole place is going to fall on our heads,” the veteran roared, dragging her to her feet and throwing her forward.
More people began to recover, lifting themselves up from the ground and helping the shocked and injured survivors around them. There were a number of bodies that were incapable of moving, the life having been sucked from them when the shockwave tore along the corridor and ripped through their bodies.
“Take care of the dead,” Stan wheezed, sputtering from the dust that was clogging his throat. “Don’t leave them to come back.”
The man he had been carrying was unresponsive and he could not find a pulse. There was no
time to attempt resuscitation, and Stan had no choice but to leave him where he was. He pulled out his knife and slammed the blade down through the old man’s forehead, wiggling the hilt from side to side and ensuring that the brain had been damaged enough to leave it incapable of reanimating.
“What happened?” Tina groaned, climbing up from the ground and steadying herself against the wall. “I thought we had two minutes on the fuse?”
“Obviously we didn’t,” Kyle snorted
He coughed and turned to shine his light back along the tunnel behind them. He could see nothing but clouds of billowing dust and hear the constant rumble of collapsing masonry.
“Where’s Ron and Seb?”
“They’re gone. The charge must’ve blown the second they lit the fuse.”
They struggled forward, climbing over the prostrate corpses that littered the ground. There were at least fifteen who had been killed in the blast, their frail bodies unable to withstand the shock of the detonation or the impacts as they were launched into the walls and the support beams. Some of the survivors needed to be physically dragged away as they lay screaming and crying over their fallen loved ones and friends. Parents were torn from their lifeless children, and orphans whimpering in the darkness were wrenched away from the limp bodies of their mothers and fathers.
The dead lay where they had fallen now, their brains destroyed and their corpses entombed within the collapsing tunnel as the remainder of the evacuees limped on, nursing their broken limbs and rattled minds.
Stan was at the rear with Kyle. They were still having to step carefully, their shaking legs recovering slowly as their bodies pieced themselves back together. The effects of the explosion within such an enclosed space had debilitated almost everyone, but the two veteran soldiers were recovering faster than the others.
