by Wood, Rick
Gus looked to Trisha. His eyes pleading to her.
He looked to her eyes, to her hands, to her gun… Her gun, over her shoulder…
Gus’s eyes widened.
It couldn’t be…
But it was…
He recognised the gun over her shoulder. Recognised it, as it had been used against him before.
Just as a plan started to form, he looked up into the eyes of the girl grinning down at him.
“Look, Mummy. Now we have dessert.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
The monster’s eyes were like a pair of rotten apples. Behind the yellow flare was a fiery absence, an inbuilt desire to eat, and a shuddering evil that meant it would do so at any cost.
Sadie remained frantically still.
Maybe it hadn’t seen them. Maybe. And any moment now, that zombie would turn around and continue with the stampede of the other zombies on their great escape.
But no. Its salty, torn face remained, twisting as his hollow eyes clamped onto its next meal.
Its head twisted to the side. And, although a zombie did not feel emotions, she felt certain she saw the slight twitch of a smile.
The main bulk of the infected had gone. Left behind were the stragglers. This did not give Sadie any relief, as there were easily still hundreds.
The zombie turned. As if Sadie’s completely stationary state had convinced it that she was nothing. That she was not worth hanging around for.
That’s when Laney’s eyes bolted open and she accompanied her immediate terror with a deafening, high-pitched scream. Her breathing continued to quicken pace, straining under its frantic surges of breath.
The zombie turned back, as did all the others in the vicinity, attracted to the sound of the little girl’s scream. Within seconds, the car was surrounded by an audience encompassing them in a circle of rank flesh. Their hands furiously beat against the windows, their bodies ran against the car as if they didn’t understand that there was a barrier in the way. Some of them thrusted their open, snapping jaws against the window, reaching for Sadie and Laney, eagerly chattering their teeth for them.
Before Sadie could take any salvation from being within the sanctity of the car, the window beside the driver’s seat cracked under the force of a continual headbutt. The zombie repeatedly launched its forehead forward, like the back feet of a bucking horse. The crack grew larger until the zombie managed to smash its head through it, shattering the glass.
Laney screamed again.
Sadie quickly stuck a hand over Laney’s mouth, giving a shush sign by placing her quivering finger over her lips.
The horde descended upon this open window, trying to reach inside, hands after hands after hands clambering for her.
She could fight. Hell, could she fight. But she’d fought dozens. Could she fight hundreds?
She remembered what Gus had told her.
Laney.
The girl.
She was to protect her at all costs.
With the screech of an eager predator, she leapt upwards and clamped her teeth over the arm of the nearest zombie. She clenched her teeth hard until she ripped the arm clean off, and threw the bloody remains from her mouth to the backseat.
She swung her arms forward, driving her fist into the nearest zombie and getting it stuck in its face. She wrenched her hand out of the stretched eye socket and the zombie fell against the other zombies, its visage an ugly, contorted mess.
Another zombie threw its jaw forward and clamped its teeth around her shoulder. With a sickening cry, she pushed her shoulder toward the frame of the window, squashing the zombie’s skull under her strength. Its face and body fell off, leaving its jaw still clamped on her. She ripped away the teeth and continued fighting.
And in that moment, she formed a thought. The first coherent thought she’d manage to think beyond basic grunting of various motivational words.
Still alive?
Bitten.
But still alive.
How?
She let out an almighty war cry and dove out of the open window, taking the creatures to the ground.
Chapter Fifty-Three
“No, no!” Gus cried.
He reluctantly pushed himself to his feet, reaching his arm out for the gun over Trisha’s shoulder. He couldn’t think of anything beyond getting that gun. If he could just lay his hands on it, just take it for a moment, then maybe…
“Aw, look at him,” Trisha teased. “He’s trying to get my gun.”
“What a featherbrain!”
Stacey smiled at her mother and they shared a loving hug.
“Now, we have a choice to make. Originally, we were going to eat the scrawny one – but this one has far, far more meat on. What do you say?”
Gus groaned, reaching out for the gun, opening and closing his fist as he helplessly grasped.
“Do you really, really want this gun?” Trisha asked, a face full of bemusement. “Here, have it!”
She took off the gun, fired it into the bush, emptying it of all bullets, and chucked it on the floor just out of Gus’s grasp.
He didn’t wait a moment. He reached his hands for it, digging them into the soil, dragging himself forward, ignoring the pain, just dragging himself closer.
If he could just get his hands on it…
“I just emptied the clip!” Trisha laughed loud and heartily. “This one is such a simpleton! Look at him! Reaching for a gun that’s completely empty!”
A glance back at Donny’s face.
Eyes still wide. Tears still trickling. Face full of terror.
The pain in his calf was still seething, but he had become accustomed to it now. If he pretended it didn’t exist, he still felt it, but it helped him to keep going. To stay conscious. To reach for that gun.
He dragged himself closer. It was nearly within reach.
“Are you not listening to me?” Trisha taunted, a mocking, patronising smile etched across her face as she bent down to him like you would a dog trying to get a snack. “There are no bullets in it. You won’t be shooting us with that.”
He dragged himself closer.
Ignored her. She can go to hell. She can go fuck herself.
He reached his hand out, landing it on the gun, grabbing it tightly.
“I think we should wait to kill this one. I’m worried he may be on drugs, and I don’t want us getting them in our system,” Trisha continued. “I mean, honestly, my darling, have you ever seen something so peculiar?”
“It is most bizarre, Mummy. Honestly, it’s like I’m watching one of those comedy sketches again. What were they called, Mummy? The ones Daddy used to watch with me?”
“Laurel and Hardy, my darling, Laurel and Hardy.”
“Yes. It’s like them. Absolutely hilarious.”
Fuck. You.
He turned on his back, holding the gun across his chest, holding it tightly against himself.
“Saying that, those gunshots may have attracted some nasties. We really should be getting on with it.”
“Okay, Mummy.”
Stacey walked toward Gus.
It didn’t matter.
He held the gun.
The gun, that just so happened to be an 8-bolt-action Kalashnikov assault rifle.
And he had a bullet for it lodged in his calf.
Minus Zero Minutes
Chapter Fifty-Four
Sadie’s arms thrashed and smashed, her feet kicked and soared, and her jaw snapped down on the throats of her victims.
That’s how she saw them. Victims.
The undead.
Those that were bitten.
Like her.
She threw another zombie over her shoulder, kicked the loose leg off another, sending it to the ground, then plunged her fist into the gaping throat of another.
But they kept coming.
No matter how many she turned to pieces of helpless flesh and grotesque guts, there was always another to take its place.
But she had to get
through them.
She had to protect the girl.
She couldn’t let Gus down.
A grey arm with muscle tissue falling out of a gaping hole managed to get past Sadie and to the car door, reaching in for Laney. Sadie ripped the arm off and stuffed it down the throat of the opposing zombie, then launched her fist into its guts, pulled them out, and sprayed its entrails over the floor below. The helpless zombie slipped on its own guts and struggled like a dying fish.
She killed another. Then another, and another, and another.
Eye gauges. Ripping out throats. Plunging their heads into the ground and stomping them to pieces.
The ground surrounding Sadie turned into a graveyard of decaying insides.
But more still came.
Then they all stopped. Hovered motionless for a fleeting moment.
Without any warning or reason, each paused.
Then, as if sensing an imminent distinct danger, they sprinted away. The remaining few running, putting distance between themselves and danger. What was it they heard? What had they sensed? What could they smell?
Then Sadie understood, as she smelt it too. Her basic instinct took over and told her to run, the same instinct that ruled those fleeing zombies. A distant oncoming odour of smoke, so sensitive to her nose that she wasn’t even sure she smelt it.
Then the sound came. The rumble growing louder, the thudding of propellers in the air, the soaring of aerodynamic resistance bringing with it immense danger.
She looked to the sky.
There it soared, a plane, shooting overhead. As it travelled into the distance, something from it dropped. A large whirlwind of fire raised into the air. The bomb in the distance, beginning the attack on London.
She felt the ground tremble, shuddering beneath her. It was in the distance, but the tremors still sent her falling onto the ground. The car lifted upwards, then landed back down to earth.
That was one bomb in the distance. Enough to take away her balance and raise a vehicle from the ground.
How had the infected known? For all of them to just suddenly start running, in unison, away from the bomb?
Then she remembered what Gus had said about the Taliban.
The guns and the fists and the knives, they all did some damage to ’em – but it was the bombs and grenades that really showed us who they were. Cowardly instincts of an animal told ‘em to run. They knew then.
The sound resumed. More engines, more speed, soaring overhead.
She looked upwards.
A plane flew overhead.
Then another.
Then another.
Until so many filled the sky, she couldn’t register the quantity that was approaching.
And she knew the instinct of the infected was to run, because hers was the same, just amplified. And as she watched the planes slow down over London, her instinct changed from a tremble to a manic roar.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Stacey loomed over him. The picturesque ideal daughter, the model image of clear skin and a beaming smile. Pigtails. Frilly dress. Loving, doting eyes toward her parents.
Gus plunged his fingers into his gaping wound.
He wailed and moaned and cried and screamed. It hurt like hell, but the bullet that had skimmed past him had created enough of an open wound that he could reach his hands right in and pry the scar tissue apart.
It felt rubbery. Fat spilled out over his fingers, like he was pushing into a juicy steak. He could see a pool of blood filling the floor, but he tried not to look at it.
He just had to stay conscious. Ignore the pain.
He screamed harder. It hurt too much.
He paused. Breathing. Taking a break.
But the knife held high above the girl’s head told him he had no such opportunity.
It was inches away.
She was taking her aim.
Thoughts escaped him. He relied on instinct. Pure, basic instinct.
He pushed his fingers further in, opening his leg until he felt it. That small, metal cylinder, lodged between a bone and muscle. Stuck in there.
He ripped it out, screaming from the excruciating anguish, watching as blood sprayed like a streak of piss over the soil.
“Whatever are you doing?” asked the girl, ready to strike.
No time to think.
No time to suffer.
Just got to do it. Put the bullet in and do it.
He opened the pistol grip of the Kalashnikov, slotted the bullet in, and pointed the gun at Stacey’s cute little face.
“Where on earth did you get that bullet from?” she asked, the knife poised above her head as her confused expression gazed down at her food.
BAM!
Her face exploded into a hundred pieces. The bullet soared through her, sending splatting pieces of brain, skin, and a wayward eyeball soaring in every direction.
“Stacey!”
Trisha sprinted over in despair. She dove upon the headless body of her daughter slumped heavily upon the blood-soaked earth.
Gus didn’t waste any time.
He stole the knife from the girl’s hand and dug it into Trisha’s calf.
She wailed out in pain.
He grimaced. It was a nasty place to get wounded. He’d know.
As she fell to her back he retracted the knife and put all his energy into lifting himself up. Raising the knife above his head he pushed it through the air, and sent it plunging downwards into her throat.
Her choking and splattering didn’t last long. The blood continued to squirt over Gus’s already drenched clothes until her face fell lifeless, as did her empty body.
They needed to hurry. She would turn soon.
He turned to Donny.
There were four of him. Four heads, all spinning around in circles.
Blurs turned to inky splodges. His vision faded to hazy shapes.
His head spun like he was drunk, turning around and around, despite him being desperately static.
“Donny…”
He reached out for his friend, then fell to the floor and passed out.
Chapter Fifty-Six
It took Donny every strength in his body, everything he had, to pull Gus. Donny had hold of Gus’s one good leg as he pulled the hefty, unconscious weight across the dirty earth, leaving an imprint of his body in the mud as he did.
He’d already seen the planes firing overhead. He’d felt the tremble of the ground upon the impact of one bomb.
Now there were how many planes?
At least thirty. Maybe even forty.
Too many flying too fast for him to count.
Adrenaline grew tired in his veins. He’d been running on it for so long now that he felt the onset of his comedown, just as he needed it most.
But still he gripped, tightening his fingers around Gus’s thick ankle, dragging him.
Donny could just leave him.
But he knew he wouldn’t.
Gus saved him whilst running on empty, it was time to do the same.
The tremors of another bomb twisted his legs into submission and he fell onto the ground. His face smacked harshly into the mud.
But he got up.
Brushed it off.
Persevered. Gus would never fail his mission, now it was time that he didn’t fail his.
He pulled again. His muscles wouldn’t do it. They were aching too much.
He paused. Let his breath catch up. Let his body regather itself.
“Come on,” he urged himself. “Come on!”
He tried to pull Gus, but it was dead weight that wouldn’t budge.
He fell to his knees.
“No…”
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t drag him, he didn’t have the strength; he didn’t have the willpower. He was going to have to leave him. He had no choice. Otherwise he’d die too.
He had no choice.
He lifted his eyes to the sky. Harsh droplets of water began to pound upon his face. Slowly at first, then faster. Faster and
faster. Until they were parading helplessly into his eyes, drenching his clothes, soaking his hair.
The last of the planes disappeared overhead.
He had minutes, if that.
“I’m sorry, Gus.”
He turned to Gus, who groaned in his unconscious state and allowed his hand to flop onto his jacket. There was something beneath Gus’s hand. Something in his pocket.
Donny reached inside the jacket. Wrapped his fingers around whatever it was and pulled it out.
In his hand was a pair of sunglasses.
He cradled them like a baby, gazing upon the cool shades, completely torn between running and staying.
Those sunglasses. Gus had brought them back for him.
To shut him up.
No. It wasn’t just to shut him up.
It was to show him who he could really be.
He placed the sunglasses on, wearing them proudly. He was an action hero. He was a secret agent. He was Bruce Fucking Willis kicking the bad guy’s arse in Die Hard.
Those zombie computer games don’t got shit on a badass like me!
And he would not leave his friend behind.
With a desperate scream he grabbed Gus’s ankle and lurched it forward. And again. And again. And again.
He screamed with the agony of his muscles.
But fuck it.
Gus had wrenched a bullet from his body for him, Donny could damn well endure the pain within his muscles it took to drag this big lump.
“Argh!”
He dragged. Dragged. Dragged.
“Son of a bitch! Bastard! Motherfucker!”
The cursing helped ease the pain.
Before he knew it, he came to an opening.
Sadie stood beside the car door.
“Open it, Sadie! Open the car door!”
She did.
“Help me put him in.”
Sadie took Gus’s head and Donny took his good leg. It took them a few attempts to lift him fully, but they managed to throw him in a quick surge of energy, dumping him onto the backseat.
Donny passed his jacket to Sadie.
“Wrap this around his wound, stop the bleeding.”
