by Mark Morris
Getting to this point had actually proved easier than any of them had anticipated. Rather than hanging out by the offices and municipal buildings that seemed to dominate the far end of the long main street, most of the infected had wandered away by the time Purna, Sam and Xian Mei were ready to exit the police station, and were congregating en masse at the other end, where the retail outlets were. Maybe it was some kind of long-buried memory that drew them to that area, thought Sam, or maybe it was simply that that was where the majority of their food was – or at least had been. He guessed that, like the old woman with the loud TV, a lot of people must live in houses or apartments above or behind their business premises. Where the majority of those people were now was anyone’s guess. He liked to think that some of them had got away, or even that they were still holed up in their homes with plenty of provisions to hand. But he suspected the real truth was that they had either been ripped apart and devoured by the infected, or had become part of the massed and still growing ranks of the walking dead.
Whatever the motivations of the infected, in this instance they had given Sam, Purna and Xian Mei a relatively easy ride. Sprinting from the door of the police station to the van, they had only had to take out a couple of slavering, snarling attackers instead of an entire horde of them. And on the short drive round to the back of the supermarket, only one zombie had got in their way – a girl of about ten in a pink dress, who had flown through the air after being hit by the van and had clattered to the pavement like a broken doll. Glancing in the side mirror as they sped away, Sam had seen the girl lurch to her feet and shuffle pointlessly after them, despite sustaining what appeared to be multiple fractures.
Thankfully, the area at the back of the supermarket had been even more sparsely populated. In the almost-empty car park, which was enclosed by thick hedges, they had come across only three of the infected. One, an old black woman, who had been down on her hands and knees, her face buried in the torn-open belly of a headless corpse, had ignored them completely as they drove past. The other two – a long-haired guy in a Led Zeppelin T-shirt and a thin woman in blood-spattered spectacles, who looked like an archetypal librarian or prim schoolmistress – had run at them from opposite directions the instant they opened the van doors.
Purna’s first shot at the long-haired guy had been a bad one for her; the blast had gone low, taking away most of his left hand, but barely slowing him down. The second shot, by which time he was less than ten metres away, had ripped off the top of his head. He had kept running for maybe two steps, and then, as though realizing what had happened to him, had collapsed like a felled bull.
By this time, however, the schoolmistress was on them and targeting Xian Mei. As she leaped like a panther, her teeth bared and fingers hooked into claws, Xian Mei spun and side-stepped, bringing the machete round in an upwards sweep. It was such a perfect stroke that it separated the woman’s head from her shoulders with almost surgical precision, her now lifeless body continuing to fly forward before thumping to the ground and skidding along the tarmac. Her severed head, meanwhile, spun over and over in such a high, wide arc that it bounced on the roof of the van and looped away out of sight before eventually hitting the ground with a wet crunch.
Now, having despatched their attackers, they were moving towards the ‘Staff Entrance’ door. It was Xian Mei who noticed that someone had taken the door off its hinges, and she who warned Sam to be careful.
Sam turned and glanced at her briefly, flashing a wide but nervous grin. ‘Careful is my middle name,’ he murmured, and reached out to pull the door open.
It came free with a splintering creak, listing slightly. Sam steadied it, at the same time peering into the gloom of the high-ceilinged warehouse beyond. He could see nothing but rows of tall metal shelves stacked with boxes. There were no sounds of movement, no sign of anything shifting in the shadows.
‘All clear,’ he said, glancing at Purna, who was standing with the shotgun raised, alert as ever. She nodded and they moved as one into the warehouse, their eyes darting everywhere.
Immediately they became aware of the low buzzing of flies and a faintly unpleasant smell. They edged to the left, where both seemed to be coming from. They crept from the top of one aisle to the next, halting to peer around the end of each row of shelves. Eventually, after checking out five aisles and finding nothing, Sam peered around the corner of the next row along and instantly drew back. ‘There’s something there,’ he whispered.
‘What?’ asked Purna.
‘I can’t make it out. It’s too dark.’
Cautiously the three of them peered around the corner. Sure enough, about halfway along the aisle, was a bulky dark shape. From their position it looked like a crumpled tarpaulin or a collapsed tent. The lazy drone of flies was louder here, and they could even see flies looping and hovering above the shape, like flecks of static in the gloom.
‘It’s something dead,’ said Xian Mei. ‘An animal maybe.’
Sam broke cover, machete in one hand, flare pistol in the other. ‘Let’s check it out.’
They crept along the aisle towards the shape. It didn’t move. It was only when they were a few metres away that Sam realized what it was.
‘Aw, man,’ he muttered.
It wasn’t a single shape, but several – several bodies, in fact. It looked like a family: a man and a woman in their mid-thirties, a girl of maybe six or seven, and a boy wearing nothing but a nappy and a white T-shirt, who could have been no older than three.
They hadn’t been killed or eaten by zombies, but shot through the head. The man, who looked as though he might originally have come from China or Vietnam, was lying on his back, half across the woman, a stubby black handgun in a pool of blood on the floor by his outstretched right hand. Both the children and the woman appeared to have been shot through the backs of their skulls, the bullets having erupted out of their faces. The man’s exit wound, however, was in the top of his head, suggesting that he had put the gun in his mouth and angled it upwards towards his brain before pulling the trigger.
Xian Mei looked at the carnage sadly, wafting at the flies that buzzed above the corpses. ‘This was an act of love,’ she said.
Sam turned his head away, sickened. ‘That don’t mean it ain’t fucked up.’
Purna stepped forward and bent to pick up the gun, glutinous threads of blood remaining attached to it for a couple of seconds before snapping. ‘Waste not, want not,’ she said, handing Sam the man’s gun and her own. ‘Hold these a second, will you?’
She squatted down and began to go through the dead man’s pockets.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Xian Mei.
‘Looking for ammunition,’ replied Purna. There was a metallic jingle and she nodded in satisfaction. Holding up a handful of loose cartridges, she said, ‘It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.’
Sam had been spattered with a lot of zombie blood over the past few hours, but feeling the cold, sticky, almost jelly-like blood of the dead man that coated one side of the gun was worse somehow. Grimacing, he wiped as much of it as he could on the side of a cardboard box on one of the metal shelves. Then he took the cartridges from Purna and loaded the gun, making sure the safety was on before slipping it into his jacket pocket.
They spent the next half-hour checking out the shelves in the warehouse, selecting provisions and stacking up boxes to the left of the loading-bay doors. They went mainly for bottled water and non-perishable goods that could be eaten cold if necessary – tinned food, crackers, biscuits. They also grabbed themselves a few essential toiletries – soap, shampoo, toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste. When they had chosen what they needed from the warehouse, they moved deeper into the building, towards the double doors at the back of the room that led on to the shop floor.
The right-hand door opened easily and they slipped through into the public part of the supermarket. The neatly stacked shelves, silent aisles, unmanned checkouts, stacks of baskets and rows of trolleys were curre
ntly bathing under a softly glowing half-light, everything set out and ready for another day’s trading. Standing there and looking around, it suddenly struck Sam that it was a day that would never come. He couldn’t imagine when life would return to normal here on Banoi – or, indeed, if it ever would. Certainly it seemed likely that long before then the fresh fruit and vegetables would have withered or turned to gloop, and the bread and cakes would have gone green and rotten in their cellophane packets. The meat, too, would decay, and before long the entire building – like many other buildings on Banoi – would start to stink like a charnel house. The sheer horror of that prospect all at once threatened to overwhelm him, making him feel breathless and sick.
‘You OK?’ asked Purna, frowning.
Sam pulled himself together with an effort and gave a curt nod. ‘I’m cool,’ he muttered.
Xian Mei pointed off to the right. ‘The pharmacy counter is over there. Aisle two.’
Purna nodded. ‘OK. Let’s take this slowly.’
They moved forward, Sam’s rubber-soled shoes squeaking slightly on the polished floor. There was the faint hum of fluorescent lighting overhead but no other sound. Xian Mei had suggested that as well as looking for Mr Owen’s Nadolol, they should also stock up on basic medical supplies, dietary supplements and vitamin pills. She grabbed a metal basket from a rack, which provided an almost comical contrast to the blood-smeared machete in her other hand. When they reached the pharmacy section, Xian Mei rounded the counter while Sam and Purna kept watch. Swiftly the Chinese girl scanned the shelves and began filling her basket with vitamins, painkillers and other over-the-counter medication.
‘There’s no Nadolol here,’ she said. ‘If they have any it’ll be in the back.’ She crossed to a white door at the back of the counter and tried the handle. ‘Locked. Though I think I could probably kick it open.’
Purna nodded. ‘Go for it.’
Xian Mei stood back, centred herself, then kicked out at the door. She did it twice more in quick succession, the flat of her foot impacting just to the right of the handle. In the silent, high-ceilinged room, the sound boomed and echoed, causing Sam to grit his teeth. On the fourth kick there was a crunch and the door flew open.
Xian Mei entered the tiny, shelf-filled room and emerged within fifteen seconds, holding up a number of white boxes. ‘Success,’ she said – and then her eyes abruptly widened. ‘Sam, look out!’
Sam turned just as an enormously fat man in a gore-spattered green T-shirt burst from the cover of a nearby aisle and crashed into him. Both he and his attacker went down in a heap, Sam smashing his head against the bottom of the counter. The gun flew out of his hand and skidded away across the floor. Dazed, he could barely defend himself as the zombie snarled and snapped like a rabid dog, baring its teeth and lunging forward in an effort to tear out his throat.
Unable to risk shooting the zombie for fear of hitting Sam, Purna flipped the shotgun around and smashed the butt of it into the side of the creature’s head. Its cheekbone broke with a brittle crunch and its head snapped back, but it was only a momentary respite. Eyes fluttering, Sam raised his hands to keep the creature’s teeth from his face, howling in pain as it bit into the side of his wrist. Purna hit the zombie again, catching it just behind the ear, but again the blow seemed to have little effect.
Xian Mei vaulted over the counter and joined in the fight. She hacked at the zombie’s back with her machete, opening terrible wounds which gushed with foul-smelling, partly congealed blood. Purna, meanwhile, rammed the stock of the shotgun between Sam and the creature, trying to prise the zombie off him, or at least prevent it from tearing out his throat. Composing herself, Xian Mei took aim and then brought the machete down with precision, slicing through the back of the zombie’s neck and severing its spinal cord. The creature began to thrash and convulse, its limbs jerking spasmodically. Putting aside their weapons and working together for a moment, Purna and Xian Mei were able to haul the creature off Sam. It lay on its back, its mouth opening and closing, like a fish washed up on the shore. Xian Mei picked up her machete, stepped forward and beheaded the creature with two blows. The rage faded from its eyes and it stopped moving.
Semi-conscious, Sam writhed and muttered, his eyelids fluttering. His wrist poured with blood where the zombie had bitten into it, and while Purna stood guard with the shotgun, Xian Mei grabbed some more bandages and antiseptic ointment from a shelf to supplement the ones she had already put in her basket and quickly patched him up. By the time she had finished, he was coming round, rubbing his head and wanting to know what had happened.
‘Tell you later,’ said Purna. ‘You OK to walk?’
‘I think so.’
‘Here’s your gun.’ She thrust it at him almost brusquely. Scowling, she said, ‘From now on, we keep our wits about us at all times.’
They took the rest of what they needed and hurried back through the double doors into the warehouse. Xian Mei knew that Purna was angry with herself as much as anything; because of a split-second’s distraction back there, Sam had almost died. The Australian girl strode through the warehouse as if defying anyone to mess with her, and across to the broken staff entrance door, which they had pulled back into place as they entered. Pushing the door open, she checked outside, then said, ‘Right, open the loading bay doors. I’ll get the van.’
Two minutes later Purna had backed the van into the warehouse. She and Sam quickly filled it with boxes while Xian Mei stood guard. The car park was quiet and they were able to complete the task without interruption. Climbing into the van, Sam said, ‘How much of this stuff we giving to those guys?’
‘Just enough to carry in one trip,’ Purna said. ‘Somehow I don’t think the infected will stand by and watch us unloading box after box, do you?’
‘What if they decide they want more?’ said Xian Mei.
‘Then they’ll have to come out and get it themselves.’
They drove out of the car park and back round to the main street. The situation was pretty much the same as before, the infected congregating largely at the far end. As they parked at the foot of the steps outside the police station, a naked man in his early twenties wandered in front of them, his legs, buttocks and torso covered in bites. They watched him silently until he was about thirty metres away, then Purna unclipped her seatbelt and climbed over the front seats into the back of the van. She passed over two boxes of canned goods and a 12-litre plastic-wrapped pack of bottled water, before climbing over the seats into the front again.
‘We take one of these each, run up the steps and let ourselves in. Sam, once we’re inside, don’t let the guys know you’ve got a gun – just in case.’
He nodded.
‘Everyone remember the code number?’ Sam asked.
‘Four-two-seven-four,’ Xian Mei replied without hesitation.
They looked out of the windows and in the mirrors, checking every direction to ensure none of the infected was close enough to surprise them. Then Purna said, ‘Go.’
Throwing open the doors, they jumped out of the van and ran up the steps. With one hand curled around the provisions tucked under their arms and the other clutching their weapons, they felt weighed down, encumbered. The naked man spun towards them immediately, like a radar dish picking up a signal, and broke into a shambling run. Sam turned halfway up the steps, but paused a moment, not wishing to waste his shot. He allowed the man to get within five metres of him before pulling the trigger. The bullet hit the man in the jaw, shearing half his face away and spinning him round in a clumsy pirouette. He rolled down the steps, but at the bottom he picked himself up and doggedly started climbing them again. Two more of the infected were now homing in on the steps behind him, but Xian Mei had reached the door and, after putting her box of food down on the floor, tapped in the four-number code.
To her horror the red light failed to change to green. Thinking she must have done it wrong, she tried again, forcing herself to concentrate, knowing that all their lives depended on
it.
Once more the red light remained constant.
‘It’s not working!’ she shouted.
Purna put down her own box of food and stepped forward, face set. ‘Let me try.’
Although she was certain she had done it right, Xian Mei knew this was no time to argue. She stepped back and allowed Purna access to the keypad. A few feet away Sam pulled the trigger of his gun and out of the corner of her eye Xian Mei saw the naked man’s head become a crimson spray. As the zombie pitched backwards down the steps, Purna punched in the four-number code. It gave Xian Mei no satisfaction to see the light remain stubbornly red.
‘Shit,’ Purna muttered and stepped away from the door. She turned to assess the situation, raising the shotgun.
Two zombies were coming up the steps towards them, an old man and a teenage girl. The old man was shambling, dragging his left leg behind him; the girl was running, almost scampering, lips drawn back in a snarl, the metal braces on her teeth clogged with blackening meat. Further away, other zombies seemed to be receiving the signal that there was fresh meat to be had here, and were turning round, sniffing the air, homing in.
Clinically, Purna took the girl out, the shotgun blast hitting her right in the centre of her face, reducing her features to pulp.
A few steps below her, Sam glanced round. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Those bastards must have changed the entry code,’ Purna said.
‘How they do that?’
‘They’ve got Dani, remember?’
‘Shit!’
‘We’d better get back to the van and rethink this,’ Purna said.
‘What about the food?’ asked Xian Mei.
