“What now?” Alice stares at me, pissed off.
Carrot Man is standing at the window.
1 3
I jump to my feet. There’s screaming. I don’t just hear it, I feel it; it slices through my ears and into my brain. Beyond shrill: piercing. At first I think it’s me screaming — my mouth is open and my throat is clenched,
so it might be — then I realize it’s Pete. He’s seen what I see. Smitty, too.
In fact, the only person who hasn’t seen it is Alice.
She stands there facing us, pouting and still holding the cord. Then
there’s the flicker of confusion, and finally the terror of realization that we’re not screaming at her.
It’s behind you.
She doesn’t turn to look, just propels herself forward instinctively. As
she leaps, she yanks the string of the blind, which clatters down over the window again. She slams into me — and Smitty, who is standing behind me — and we fall to the ground like human dominoes.
Pete is still screaming. Before I know how, I’m on my feet again
and all four of us stand squashed together against the back wall — as
far from the window and Carrot Man as possible. We all stare at the
closed blind.
“What. Is. It,” Alice rasps beside me.
Nobody answers her. We’re all staring at the blind, which is swinging
gently. At any moment glass could shatter and IT will be in the room
with us.
“What —” she tries again, louder now.
“Carrot Man,” Smitty whispers sharply from my other side. “Don’t
make a sound.”
“Yeah, ’cause we were so quiet before.” I can’t help myself. Smitty
gives a low snort, and I feel the thin wall gently shudder.
The blind stops swinging. I stare at the strips of white plastic with
the tiniest creases of bright light between them, and wish for X-ray eyes.
“Think he’s gone?” Pete wheezes.
“Want to go and check?” Smitty turns his head, raising his eyebrows
invitingly. When Pete says nothing, Smitty winks at me. I feel his body
begin to peel away from the wall.
“Don’t!” I shoot out an arm to stop him, my fist balled tight so I can’t
accidentally grab a body part. “Don’t you dare.”
“Someone has to check.” He stays in place on the wall regardless. I can
feel him smiling at me provocatively, but refuse to meet his eyes.
“Wait a minute,” Alice says beside me. “We don’t know Carrot Man’s
bad, do we?”
“I think the fact that he was handing out the killer fruit juice is pretty conclusive,” Pete gabbles.
“Vegetable juice, not fruit,” I say, like this makes a diff. “Maybe he
didn’t know what was in it? Maybe he’s freezing to death out there and
needs our help?”
“If he didn’t know what was in it, he probably drank it,” Smitty says
logically.
“Either way, he’s hardly one of the good guys.” Pete out-logics
Smitty’s logic.
“People!” Alice hisses. “I can’t believe we’re standing here even talking
about this! We need to get out of here.”
Pete steps away from the wall. “I think he’s gone.”
“Why?” Smitty takes a step, too.
Pete squints. “The light behind the blinds. Something changed.”
I frown. “I didn’t see it.”
He nods his head. “See the light along the windowsill? A shadow
moved along it.” He takes another step toward the window.
“No.” I ease myself off the wall, but stay rooted to the spot. “I was
watching, too. I didn’t see it.”
“Don’t touch that blind!” Alice begs, and as she does, the lights flicker
again, then extinguish, plunging us into darkness once more.
Before we can react, glass smashes and the blind bulges into the
room, light escaping around the sides. Out of the corner of my eye I
see Smitty — lit momentarily by daylight — lunging for Alice’s knife
on the table as something huge crashes onto the floor in front of the
window.
“Come on!” I cry, seeing the shadow of my backpack under the desk,
diving for it, and scrabbling to my feet again. In the dim half-light I can see that Alice and Pete are already through the office door into the café, and the knife-wielding Smitty is in a ninja squat a few feet from the writhing mound on the floor.
“Smitty!” I shout, not wanting to leave him. Then suddenly he’s ahead
of me, on the chair that we wedged in the doorway, his hand shooting
out to grab mine, dragging me out of the room. We run blindly through
the café toward the entrance. Alice is screaming and Pete is trying to pull down the barricade at the door. We pile into it, Smitty and me, frantically grabbing at the furniture and boxes we so carefully slotted together to make an impenetrable barrier. We never thought we might have to fight through it ourselves.
“Hurry!” Alice is screaming still, which is not exactly helping, apart
from being a gauge of how much longer we have before Carrot Man gets
here. Her shrieks suddenly multiply a gazillion times, and I know The
Furry One has made an appearance at the office doorway.
“Just this last one!” Smitty yells, and Pete and I help him yank a large
crate of water bottles away from the exit. As we do, the crate spills and
bottles roll out onto the floor. I see Alice take a step backward, and can only watch as a bottle rolls under her foot as if it were scripted. Her legs fly up into the air, she falls back onto her head with a thwack, and she stays there. As I feel the blast of icy air that means Smitty has got the door open at last, I run to Alice and pull her by the arms to the exit.
The Carrot Man is here, and we have to go.
Smitty scoops Alice up and throws her over his shoulder with sudden
and shocking Herculean strength, and we’re out of the door. I glance
back. Carrot Man’s arms swing up in front of him. The eyeholes in his
costume are cast into shadow. His green carrot leaf gloves are gone, and
his hands are dripping with blood. He groans and takes a heavy step
forward.
He’s one of them.
Pete has managed to get the bus door open, and we scramble onboard.
Our sanctuary once more.
“Start it up!” yells Smitty, bounding up the steps with Alice’s heading
bobbing over his shoulder.
“What do you think I’m doing?” Pete yells back. He’s in the driver’s
seat, fumbling with the keys, and I thank all the angels that he remembered to pocket them when we made our exit. Who knows what we’ve
left behind in the Cheery Chomper — water, food? No time to think about that now.
The engine starts with a sputter. Smitty hauls Alice unceremoniously
down the aisle and dumps her in a seat, shouting at me, “Guard the door!”
Grrreat. Human shield time again. I race past Pete, who is wrestling the unresponsive steering wheel, and make my legs skibble down the steps.
I fling myself against the frickin’ door, arms and legs spread like I’m
dancing a tango with it. Bang on cue, there’s Carrot Man, the whole
force of seven feet of orange plushy vegetable slamming itself against
the doors with such a ferocity I want to weep. The sheer weight of him
throws me off balance. The door shudders.
“Hurry!” I cry. Please hurry, Pete, please hurry, Smitty, please hurry, the Armed Forces who are — please God — going to sweep down with weapons of m
ass destruction and save us . . .
Carrot Man slams again. I press my shoulders and my arms and my
butt and my legs across the door, bracing for the next impact, hoping the
glass and metal and my spine and nerve will hold out.
“Why aren’t we moving?!” I scream up at Pete. He looks like a kid sitting on a coin-operated car ride outside a supermarket, wildly spinning
the steering wheel, jumping up and down in the seat, and going precisely
nowhere.
“The snow’s too deep, there’s no traction!”
I feel the wheels turning underneath us as Pete stamps on the gas.
“Smitty!” I yell as Carrot Man thumps into my back again. “I need help!”
“Here.” Smitty appears at the top of the steps with a snowboard. He
tosses it down to me and I catch it, swing around, and slot it across the
doors. “And another.” Smitty throws down a second board, and I fix it
in place beneath the first one. It works. Carrot Man senses the door is
not going to open, and he moves to the windshield and starts bashing
on that instead. Stupid orange meanie. I wedge myself against a step and brace the bottom board with my feet.
Pete frantically thrusts the gear stick in a different direction and the
wheels roar beneath me. But still we don’t move.
“Cack.” Smitty is still standing at the top of the steps but is staring out of one of the side windows. “Carrot Man’s got company.”
“What?!”
Smitty’s face contorts into a horrible grin. “Heeeeere’s Gareth!”
“No!” I run up the steps and look in the same direction. There, coming around the corner of the Cheery Chomper, is Gareth. Black pants,
white shirt, tie, and name tag, and a grotesque gobbling face. And you
know what? He’s still holding the laptop . . . but it takes me a moment to realize he only has one proper arm. There’s a stump coming out of the other shirt sleeve, a stump with a long, white piece of bone, as if something nibbled off the flesh like corn off the cob. I feel the sting of a sob clenching my throat.
“He never made it,” I mutter.
“No,” Smitty says quietly. “But he made some friends.”
I look through the snow. Shuffling figures — four or five, possibly
more — are coming this way.
“Pete!” Screaming, I turn to him. “Get us out of here!”
Something finally catches and the bus pulls forward slowly, gently
nudging Carrot Man to one side.
“Hang on!” Pete shouts. “I won’t be able to brake!”
There’s a sharp smell of burning rubber, and I cling to my seat as Pete
guides the bus through the snow. There’s no real way to know if we’re on
the road or not, but as long as we keep going, there’s no reason to care.
“Head for the exit!” shouts Smitty, pointing to the road that leads
away from the Cheery Chomper and back into the wilds of the Scottish
countryside. “It’s our only chance!” His words hang in the air, strangely
overdramatic, although if there was ever a time to shout something like
that, it would be now. He moves to the back of the bus, looking out to
see how quickly we’re being chased. I follow.
I press my face against the window and stare out at Carrot Man leading the charge across the parking lot. Well, more of a shamble than a
charge. The bus is moving slowly on the snow, but they won’t catch us so
long as we keep on truckin’.
Shit. Nothing in the tank.
I shake the thought away. The bus started, didn’t it? Even if we only
get a couple of miles, it will still be enough to outrun them. Glancing at the back of Pete’s head, I can see he’s as stressed as hell, shoulders up around his ears. But he’s not hyperventilating, and he’s wrangling the
wheel like he knows what he’s doing. He keeps this up, we’re golden.
I stare out at Gareth and his new companions. “Who are the others?”
Smitty has found the binoculars. “Remember the couple in the Mini?
And three blokes. At least, I think that one’s a bloke . . . oh, no. There’s a boob hanging out.”
“Where did they come from? And where’s Gareth been all this time?
Do you think they got him when he went to the Cheery Chomper?”
I rant. “Why didn’t we see them before now?”
“Won’t ever know,” Smitty says. “Might have got some answers if we’d
seen the end of that recording, but now —”
The bus screeches to a halt; I bang my face against the window. Pain
and the indignation of a bashed-up nose sweep through me. Tears prick
my eyes as my nose burns. I feel to see if it’s still there, and my hand
comes away covered in blood.
“What the hell?!”
Shouting, Smitty runs up the aisle to Pete. I gather myself. Don’t cry, you’re still in one piece. At the front of the bus, they’re yelling at each other.
I hear a clatter, and the unmistakable hiss of the doors opening. I spring up from my seat and head for the front, nose trauma forgotten. Hot blood drips down my face and splashes on my coat. Pete stands alone by
the steps. By the look on his face I know what’s happened.
“Smitty’s gone out?”
He nods.
“Why did you stop?”
“That.” He points.
Through the windshield I see a big white lump across the road. At
first I can’t tell what it is, then I realize the lump has branches and
roots. A tree has fallen across the road, blocking our way out. Smitty
is furiously running around it like a punk-rock ant, digging away at the
edges with his board, leaning into the trunk with his shoulder, trying to
push it, lever it, roll it. There’s no way he’ll succeed; ten people couldn’t move a tree that size. You’d have to have chains and a tractor and a good thirty minutes to clear the road before the monsters came. None
of which we have.
I shoot a glance back at our pursuers. We have a couple of
minutes, tops.
I jump down the steps, Pete behind me. “It’s no use!” I shout at Smitty.
“Can we go around it?”
Pete picks his way through the snow to the root-end of the trunk. The
base of the tree on its side is almost the same height as he is. I know the answer before he gives it. The road is raised, with a ditch on either side, and the tree line is only a few feet from the road.
“No way.” Pete bends low. “Besides, they put it here.”
“What?” Smitty’s face is red and steaming.
“Look, no hole where the roots were.” He scuffs his boot on the snow.
“This tree didn’t fall; it was never growing here. It was moved, probably
seconds after our bus arrived. Placed here to stop us from leaving. The
couple in the Mini? This is why they came back: They couldn’t get out.”
For a moment I think Smitty is going to try his snowboard decapitation trick on Pete. Then he flings the board down and stomps back onto
the bus.
“We need to go,” I urge them. “Walk out on the main road, take our
chances.”
“Maybe not!” Smitty shouts from the bus.
“We’ll get back onboard!” Pete cries. “It’s safe enough there!”
I dodge round the side of the bus. Carrot Man, Gareth, and the rest
are almost on the exit road. In a minute, they’ll be with us. “No way.”
I grab the snowboard from Pete’s feet. “There are seven of them. Adults.
They’ll break through those doors and it’ll be suppertime.”
&nbs
p; “What if we hide in the hold?” Pete’s face is stricken. He’s begging me,
and I don’t know if I want to hug him or slap him.
“For how long?” I shake my head. “We hit the highway, we keep
moving. They can’t outrun us.”
“What about Alice?”
Damn. I forgot about Alice and her lack of consciousness.
“We’ll work something out.” I pull him toward the doors. “Come on!
We have to gather our stuff, we don’t have any time.” As I reach the
doors, the bus engine cranks up. Smitty’s at the wheel. We leap out of
the way back into the snow as the bus reverses, engine revving violently.
“No!” Pete and I cry, both knowing what’s coming next.
Smitty pays no heed. He plows forward and rams the bus into the tree
as hard as he can. The tree hardly moves. Smitty reverses the bus with its beaten-up fender again, and tries a second time. This time the tree shifts a little. Thinking he’s onto something, Smitty reverses farther still and goes for third time lucky, hitting the tree with full force. The back of the bus skids and jackknifes, there’s a shattering sound, and the windshield cracks and falls away. Smoke rises from the front of the bus.
Our sanctuary on wheels has finally met its match.
I jump onboard. “We have to leave! ” I shout at Smitty, who is still gripping the wheel. “I’ll get your stuff, you get Alice!”
I throw our backpacks out into the snow and head to row 21 to fetch
some gear. If we can somehow pull Alice along on a board, or use skis to
carry her . . .
I glance outside; they’re almost with us. We have seconds. I load up
and begin back up the aisle. Smitty has moved Alice; we can make it.
The floor lifts up in front of me. Someone is coming out of the hatch.
I stop in my tracks.
A small blond head pops out. A boy, not more than three years old,
I’d guess. Then a second blond head. A girl, a couple of years older than
me. For a second I wonder how I know them. Then it comes to me. The
moody teenage girl in the café and her little brother. I raise a ski pole and brace myself to attack.
“Hi! Have we crashed?” The girl speaks with a lilting Scottish accent.
“Are they here?”
“Bumped my head,” the boy says.
I lower my ski pole.
The girl takes a good look at me and her face changes. “You’re . . .
Undead (ARC) Page 12
