Bannon got to his feet. He crept to the front door and pressed his nose against the cold glass, eyes fearfully hunting the heavy darkness of the street beyond.
There were black masses beyond the windows – the hulking shapes of cars that had been parked, or abandoned. They were deep shadows without distinct form. Bannon sucked in a series of deep ragged breaths, like an anxious athlete about to run the race of his life.
It was a hundred yards of lush grass from the street to the edge of the woods, where the ground slowly rose and roughened to become the rocky headland that protected the southern arm of Grey Stone harbor. Bannon knew the area well. He could see it in his mind – see the park benches and the children’s playground equipment where tourists and local gathered on sunny summer afternoons after a morning at one of the beaches. He could visualize the bushes and shrubs that had been planted for shade and shelter against the winds that came off the ocean.
A hundred yards seemed suddenly a very long distance.
“Are you ready?” Sully asked.
Bannon nodded.
Sully reached for the lock. “When we get outside, we just fucking run, okay?”
“Okay.”
“We make for the trees at the top of the headland – the ones at the end of the tourist loop.”
Bannon nodded again.
Sully’s expression became fierce. He thrust his face close. “If I lose you,” he warned, “– if we get separated for any reason – I won’t come back for you.”
Bannon nodded. “I understand,” he said, and then narrowed his eyes, and his voice became stinging. “That works both ways. If I get to those trees and you’re not there, I’m going to get Maddie, and you can fucking rot for all I care.”
Sully’s smile was unexpected. “Good,” he said harshly. “Just so we understand each other.” He unlocked the glass door and cracked it open.
Fresh salty sea air swirled into the shop – the sweet smell of the ocean. Bannon tasted it in the back of his throat and his eyes watered. Then Sully pulled the door wide open…
… and they began to run.
Chapter 11.
Bannon exploded through the open front door of the shop like a sprinter, bursting out of the blocks. There were two cars parked nose-to-tail on the side of the road. He weaved between them, and then his boots were slapping on the blacktop.
He ran with the Beretta in his fist, arms pumping, keeping his eyes fixed on the distant smudged darkness of the wooded crest. He heard sound behind him, but didn’t look back. Sully was not beside him.
Bannon kept running.
The grass on the far side of the road was long and unkempt. He leaped the gutter and his legs buckled, but he stayed upright. He ran with fear and desperation.
But he didn’t run fast enough.
There were undead in the park, wandering aimlessly. They emerged from the night, seeming to peel away from the shadows of a high shrub near the park’s playground equipment. Bannon saw them coming towards him and knew that he was trapped.
He stopped running, slowed to a walk.
He stood still.
His breath sawed across his throat and there was a fierce cramp of pain in his chest. He stole a glance over his shoulder. Backlit by the faint glow of distant fires, he saw Sully’s big lumbering shape coming towards him with an awkward ungainly gait. The man was twenty yards back, running on grimly.
Bannon turned around and faced the undead.
There were two of them – maybe a man and a woman. Bannon couldn’t be sure. It was too dark, and they were too far away to see detail. The decomposition of the bodies seemed to have ravaged their appearances beyond identification. One was taller and broader than the other, but they both moved as though it required great effort – as though it was the fury of their infection that compelled them.
Bannon raised the Beretta.
The closest undead was the broad shouldered one. He seemed to creak with effort, the body stiff and withered, but the eyes still filled with the blazing malevolence of its madness. It loomed closer and as it did, Bannon at last was able to see features.
The ghoul was a rotting, filthy corpse. Ragged, tattered clothes hung from the body and the flesh of it had blackened and bloated. The zombie’s face had been ripped and clawed. Flesh hung in livid flaps, and there were hideous lacerations and weeping ulcers along the line of its jaw.
The ghoul’s throat had been gnawed, so that the head seemed to hang. The flesh around the wound was black, and the stench of corruption and decay was almost a physical thing.
The zombie raised its loathsome head…
And Bannon flinched in abject shock.
“Peter?”
The crewman Bannon had sailed with – the polite young man with the steady gaze and calm confidence – was long gone. This hideous infected monster was not the youth that Bannon had set to sea with, and trusted at the helm of ‘Mandrake’.
Bannon remembered Peter Coe dying on the cobbled pavers in front of the marina, recalled the undead ghoul tearing at the young man’s face and throat, and the pain of his own anguish. He took a staggered step back. The zombie came on, mindless with its madness.
Bannon raised the Beretta reluctantly.
“Peter. Don’t.”
The zombie stopped, just a few paces from Bannon and stood teetering. It’s head lolled, and then the body began to rock. The ghoul hissed at Bannon, and its tongue slithered from the dark gaping hole of its mouth. Bannon felt the shake in his arm. The gun wavered.
“Peter…?”
The other ghoul moved around to Bannon’s side, stalking him with slow predatory steps. It was a woman. Her expression was a snarling slash across the revolting face that looked like it had been gnawed by vermin. Her hair hung in ragged tufts, and one of its eyes was missing. The dark hole of the empty socket oozed thick brown slime that ran down her cheek and dripped from her chin. She flapped her hands madly in the air like the wings of beating birds and Bannon was forced to follow her with his eyes, compelled by his ghastly fascination.
Which was the instant the ghoul that had once been Peter Coe suddenly attacked.
The zombie charged at Bannon in a frenetic lunge, arms and legs tangled into a writhing fit of fury. It flailed at him, its jagged black fingernails like little knives that swished through the air before his face. The ghoul was vomiting rancid clots of slime from between his bloated snarling lips.
Bannon wrenched the pistol round and pulled the trigger instinctively. The bullet caught Peter Coe full in the chest, just below the breast bone, and hurled him to the ground. The female zombie shrieked cruelly. She twisted and growled – and then sprang forward. Bannon swung his body neatly from the waist, bringing the Beretta around and squeezing the trigger at the same instant. The first shot flew wide. He fired again, just as the woman’s thrashing clawed hands reached out for him. The barrel of the handgun pressed brutally into her face as the sound of the shot ripped through the dark night.
The ghoul’s head seemed to disappear in a mist of gore and clotted shards. The round punched a neat hole through her cheek, but such was the extent of her corruption and decay that when Bannon stared down at the mess that splashed his boots, there was little of the head remaining.
He reeled away. Loud, pounding steps came from behind him, heavy enough that he could feel the tiny tremor of them vibrating up through the ground. He spun round and saw Sully. The big man was hefting a long piece of wood that was slick and wet and stained.
Sully slowed but didn’t stop. He saw an undead ghoul in front of Bannon, and another one lying in the grass beside the man. One of the zombies was sitting up slowly, rising upright from the waist. To Sully it might have been a man. He swung the lump of wood like a two-handed broadsword, without slowing his stride, and smashed the zombie in the head. The sound of the blow was a meaty, satisfying thud – like a dinger hit way back into the bleachers. Peter Coe’s skull caved in.
“Come on, fucker!” Sully shouted over his shoulder
at Bannon without turning or stopping. “Keep running.”
Bannon ran.
He caught Sully quickly, and the ground beneath their feet began to rise. Bannon could feel the grass underfoot give way to small stones that squirmed and popped beneath his boots. They had reached the base of the headland.
Clumps of trees rushed out of the darkness. Bannon clawed at them to keep his balance and heave himself higher. Wind rustled through the leaves, swirling and sighing. Bannon gritted his teeth and scrambled on.
The headland that overlooked Grey Stone harbor was like the hump of a whale’s broad back. The two men reached the crest. Bannon was gasping painfully. He bent at the waist and propped his hands on his knees, sucking in cold, wind-chilled air that was swept straight off the ocean. They were concealed in the woods, and it seemed like another world. The sound of the pounding surf was loud in the stillness, and the air was sweet, free from the taint of corruption and decay. Ahead of them was the rocky cliff-face and then endless vast miles of ocean. To their right, was the tourist road that meandered up the rise and then looped back onto itself. Behind them were the burning ruins of their town.
Bannon breathed deeply until the tremble in his aching legs had subsided, and the sweat of fear and panic had dried on his skin.
There was a pale line across the horizon, a scar of milky grey light. Sully was gazing at it pensively.
“That zombie you just killed – the one you hit with the lump of wood. I think that was Peter Coe,” Bannon said.
Sully didn’t seem to hear. Bannon grunted. He glanced over his shoulder, back through the trees and narrowed his eyes warily. It was still dark, but the distant town seemed a lighter shade with the imminent approach of dawn. He could see nothing moving. He swept his eyes carefully through the trees and concentrated his gaze on the open ground near the clump of playground equipment.
Nothing.
“I said, that zombie –” he started.
“I heard you,” Sully cut him off abruptly. He was leaning on the length of lumber, like it was a walking stick. He turned to face Bannon. “But I don’t care who it might have been. It was a zombie – pure and simple, and if you had just shot the fucker in the head the first time, I wouldn’t have had to clean up your mess.”
Bannon felt his temper boil. “Peter was a friend,” he said, and his tone was like acid. “Maybe it’s easier for you, Sully… because you’ve always been a fucking jerk. You never had friends.”
“That’s right!” Sully’s tone became venomous so that he spat the words out. “I don’t have friends – but I do have your wife, Bannon,” he became malicious. “In fact, I’ve had her time and time again.”
There was a moment of tense silence. Bannon had the pistol in his hand. Sully carried the heavy length of wood. With a huge effort of will, Bannon relaxed his fingers from the trigger.
He turned on his heel and crept through the trees towards the tourist loop. The road loomed out of the gloom, and he saw a couple of park benches and a picnic table. Bannon stalked to the edge of the woods and crouched. His eyes swept the open ground before him. On the far side of the road was a fringe of low shrubs beyond which, he knew, the ground dropped away suddenly – down to the southern arm of the marina’s break wall. He was tempted to cross the road – aching just to stand on the lip of the promontory and gaze down into the harbor. But caution made him wary.
He heard Sully’s footsteps behind him, crunching over fallen leaves and debris. For a moment, Bannon did not turn. Instead, he had a sudden flashed premonition – an image of Sully’s gruesome death-like face twisted into a malicious grimace as he lifted the heavy piece of lumber above his head and then crashed it down, murdering him. Bannon turned his head slowly. Sully was standing over him, a dark brooding hulk, his expression fixed and unfathomable. The two men locked eyes, and Bannon wondered if Sully had read his thoughts.
“Wait here,” Sully said thickly, his voice tight and strange for a moment, as though he too had recognized the opportunity – and lamented letting it pass. “I’m going out to check the road.”
Chapter 12.
Sully stood in the middle of the blacktop, staring defiantly back down the road to where it joined the main artery into town. Nothing moved. The area around the lookout was cleared and level. During the holiday season, the grounds were filled with a throng of tourists who sat in the grassy field and perched on the wooden benches, staring out at the distant horizon and the misted panoramic view along the rugged coastline.
Sully gave a curt wave of his hand. Bannon came cautiously from the fringe of the woods.
Dawn was rushing across the horizon, watery pale light creeping up the sky and pulling the world out of darkness and back into gradual detail.
Sully threw the piece of lumber down onto the ground. “How this ends is going to be up to you,” he said suddenly.
Bannon kept his expression blank. “Meaning?”
“Meaning you’ve got decisions to make.”
“Such as…?”
Sully sneered. He folded his arms across his chest. “Maddie and I are in love – that’s a fact. You’re going to have to decide how you deal with it.”
Bannon raised a taunting, mocking eyebrow. “I will believe that when I see it – and when I hear it from Madeline’s mouth.”
Sully nodded. “Fine,” he said. “But when you talk to her – when she tells you what I’ve already said, you’re going to have to decide whether you let us go – leave us to try to find peace… or whether you want to play the hero.”
“Hero?”
Sully nodded. Then he thrust a finger into Bannon’s face. “It’s not the choice I’d recommend,” he warned. “I hope you can be a man about this. I hope you do the right thing by Maddie. Because if you don’t – if you try to get me into that helicopter, and if you think I’ll let myself be taken back to a lab somewhere… you’re fucking out of your mind. I’ll kill you before I let them take me.”
Bannon’s expression was tight. He glared at the bigger man for long seconds, neither of them blinking, as if the confrontation was a direct test of wills that neither was willing to concede.
“You could have killed me already. You could have left me to die,” Bannon said at last. “You didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m trusting you to put your wife’s happiness above everything else – and out of consideration for Maddie. She still cares about you. She just doesn’t love you anymore.”
“That’s very noble of you.”
Sully’s eyes darkened and his expression turned nasty. “So far I haven’t needed to kill you for my own survival,” he said bluntly. “But if I ever do – I will.”
Bannon was unflinching. He stared hard into Sully’s virulent eyes, measuring the man with frank appraisal. He put his hands on his hips. “Since we’re having this little heart-to-heart, there’s something I want to know,” he said.
“Yeah? Make it quick.” Sully narrowed his gaze and stared unmoving for a moment back towards the burning buildings, like a hunting dog distracted by the first hint of scent. The dawn’s light was coming on quickly. He could see the shapes of individual buildings, and make out the bodies of the two undead laying in the park. Gulls were picking at the remains. Bannon waited until the alert tension had gone from the other man’s posture.
“I want to know why you waited,” Bannon’s voice had an edge of challenge to it. “Why didn’t you come back to town last night after the chopper picked me up, and make a run for it with Maddie.”
“How? On the boat?”
Bannon nodded. “You could have tried clearing the harbor.”
Sully nodded slowly. “Yeah, I could have,” he said, “and I thought about it.”
“But?”
Sully shook his head. “Too dangerous in the dark.”
Bannon nodded. He accepted the risk of trying to navigate the wreckage-strewn harbor at night would be monumentally dangerous. “The
n why not try in daylight. Why didn’t you take your chances yesterday morning, before the helicopter came?”
Sully’s lips peeled back into a humorless smile that showed his teeth. His expression was fixed and frozen.
“The marina looks like a mini Pearl Harbor after the Japanese attacked,” he said darkly. “Half the boats moored along the jetties have sunk, or burned down to the waterline… and a couple of yachts were drifting. I thought they might get drawn out through the heads with the tide, but they didn’t. They wrecked on the break wall.” Sully glanced away, galled and frustrated. “If I had tried to get out of the harbor, I would have ripped the bottom out of the boat.”
The two men were silent for several seconds. Bannon watched the pale light of the approaching day begin to spread across the rim of the world. “The army will come back for you, Sully. You know that, don’t you?” he changed the subject suddenly.
Sully said nothing and Bannon went on relentlessly, filling the strained silence with his hushed voice. “This won’t be the end of it. If you don’t board that helicopter when it returns, the military will just send another team, and another after that. They won’t give up. You’re too important. You might contain the key to curing this hideous infection.” He sighed. “There are just too many lives at risk for them to let you get away.”
Sully looked unflustered. “They’ll never find me,” he said confidently, and then turned to face the ruined town that spread out below where they stood. “Take a look around,” he gestured. “The whole population is undead. How would they ever find me?” He shook his head.
Bannon thought about that. Sully had a point. He could move freely, maybe even make it cross country, further down the coast to one of the other towns that had been overcome with the infection. It would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Chapter 13.
The slope down to the marina was rocky. Bannon scrabbled to the water’s edge and stared for long seconds. There were tufts of long grass growing between the rocks. He crouched behind cover and Sully dropped onto his haunches beside him.
Dead Rage Page 18
