Dead Stop

by Mark Clapham

  Melissa walked straight through the window. Even though she must have been approaching in plain sight, I jumped. I’d allowed my attention to drift and my mind to wander.

  ‘Get ready to go,’ she said. ‘Security at the gate are having their last stand, and that’s the distraction we need.’

  Following her lead, I walked over to the fire door and gently squeezed the release bar. The door opened with a low click.

  ‘There’s bushes outside,’ Melissa said. ‘Take cover and wait for it.’

  Wait for what? I guessed I’d find out. As Melissa had suggested, I pushed the door open, and ducked down as I slid out, moving as quietly as I could into position behind the kind of ornamental bushes that were planted around sites like this to make them seem more pleasant. I took the shotgun off my back and held it two handed, as Mike had quickly drilled me to do. He’d also explained that if I needed to use it I should raise it to my shoulder, one hand steady on the butt, finger on the trigger, the other holding the barrel. Brace, point, shoot down the sights.

  Thanks, Mike. I hope you gave the ones that bit you a good big electric shock from your twitching body.

  With that tutorial given, I was sure I could do this. A human being, even a dead twitchy one, was a much larger target than a clay pigeon, and would be a lot closer, too, if I needed to shoot it. I was sure I’d hit something, even with my lack of ability in this area.

  My main concern was what happened after the shot, when every zombie in the vicinity was drawn towards the very loud bang.

  A demonstration of how the zombies responded to loud noises came a few seconds later, when there was a tremendous sound of something collapsing, and the gunfire became louder, accompanied by very human shouts and screams.

  ‘They’ve got into the security hut,’ said Melissa, appearing at my side. ‘Stay low and start moving that way.’

  I nodded, and started to move towards the admin block, staying low behind the bushes. Looking through the foliage, I caught glimpses of shuffling figures moving in the opposite direction, drawn by the sounds of screams and gunfire.

  Then the gunfire stopped, and there were just screams, rising in intensity, turning into cries of pain.

  I was scuttling around the edge of a central square, with a dull water feature in the middle, and could hear the sploshing of zombies wading through the pool. The majority of footsteps were further away from me, though, the pack mentality dragging them in the same direction.

  I don’t know what was worse, those last screams from the people at the gate, or the collective hungry moans of the zombies as they all moved towards their victims. There wouldn’t be much left for the stragglers, yet still they moved en masse. It was pitiful, yet terrifying, a very human hunger tied to inhuman savagery, a bestial stupidity.

  I was rapidly running out of bushes, but I had sight of the double doors I was heading towards. Unfortunately, one zombie hadn’t got the memo about the tasty treats at the gate, and was still shuffling around. It was a young man, shambling between the corpses strewn across the open area—clearly the zombies didn’t feed on the bodies once they got cold—and every time its shoes hit a body, stopping it in its path, it changed direction.

  I was going to have to get rid of it, quickly, without raising attention. I turned the shotgun around in my grip, so that I was aiming the butt rather than the barrel in the direction of the zombie. Then I waited for the thing to turn around so that it was facing the other way.

  When it had its back to me, I ran, closing the space between me and it as fast as possible. My footsteps were light on the soft tarmac surface, and it—he, not too long ago—didn’t even turn around as I slammed the butt of the shotgun into the back of its head.

  It went down hard. The jolt of the blow shook through my body, and I worried that I’d dislocate my shoulder if I had to take another swing like that again. Before I even had time to see if it was going to get up again I slammed the butt two, three, four times into the back of the zombie’s skull.

  The back of its head caved right in, and it stopped moving. Under the harsh light, I saw more than I wanted to.

  I looked down at the butt of the shotgun, covered in... well, covered in brain matter. I didn’t want to touch it. As far as I knew, it was infectious material. But I couldn’t get rid of the shotgun just yet, it was the only weapon I had.

  Holding the gun by the barrel, I ran towards the doors of the admin block.

  I grabbed a handle, and pulled. Locked.

  ‘Here,’ said Melissa, who had remained silent as I dispatched the zombie. I think she was holding her breath, even though she didn’t have any. ‘I can handle...’ she said, trailing off as she reached down to belt level, then froze.

  ‘Seriously?’ I said.

  ‘You need a pass,’ she said, bewildered. ‘I don’t know what I was thi—’

  ‘Don’t go senile old ghost on me now,’ I hissed. ‘Concentrate. Where do I get a pass?’

  ‘Anybody that’s recently been killed,’ she said. ‘The entrance is low security, and the admin block doesn’t lock down like the high level labs.’

  ‘Okay. You hold it together, I’ll find a pass.’

  I could see it in Melissa now, the vagueness that all the other ghosts I’d ever met had, the confusion. I needed to keep her from going completely gaga until she’d finished helping me, or I really would be screwed.

  There were a lot of bodies, but the most promising was one that looked like it was wearing a security guard’s uniform.

  I turned the body over, glancing towards the gates. There seemed to be a hundred zombies milling around there. How long until the new bodies were cold and they lost interest and started drifting back towards me to hunt for fresher prey?

  I winced at the corpse. It was the body of a woman, heavy set, virtually decapitated. The uniform was soaked with rainwater and blood, and a baton was hanging from one hand, the leather loop still caught around the woman’s wrist.

  Should have gone for something more powerful, I thought, and then saw that she had a gun holstered at the waist, a pistol. There was also a staff pass with an unflattering photograph clipped to her belt.

  ‘Thanks, Sandy,’ I whispered, gently lowering my brain-stained shotgun to the ground, then taking the pass and pistol. ‘I’m sorry.’

  It seemed the thing to say. It seemed stupid that a trained security guard had died, and I was still alive.

  Towards the gate, I heard a bellow, and looked across to see movement.

  Fuck. One of them had spotted me, and the rest were following as it shambled towards me. The same hungry moan, that battle cry of the dead, rang out across the square as the horde as a whole began to stumble back in my direction.

  ‘Get over here,’ snapped Melissa, who seemed to have regained her senses.

  I ran over to the double doors.

  ‘Is it safe in there?’ I asked, nodding to the admin block.

  ‘Probably not,’ she said. ‘Show me your gun.’

  She hurriedly talked me through taking the safety off—it was harder to move than I expected—and how to aim when entering a building.

  Accountant, right. Even as a white collar embezzler, she should have no reason to know half the shit she did.

  Firearms lesson two of the evening done, I swiped the card in the reader and it beeped, a green light flashing.

  Sod it, the zombies were coming already. I pulled the door open fast, not caring what noise I made, and entered the admin block, pistol raised.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I HURRIED INTO a dimly-lit reception area, checking both ways, gun raised, to make sure nothing lunged at me as I entered.

  Deserted. The whole place was a mess, but it was open and bright enough to give clear line of sight in all directions.

  I pushed the door closed behind me and it shut with a reassuringly heavy click. For the moment, I was safe enough.

  The inside of the building had switched to some form of emergency lighting, with every third li
ght lit. It meant that I didn’t need my torch to look around, but it also created a really creepy atmosphere, the corridors leading off from this central area spotted with pools of shadow.

  It was quiet—a clichéd part of my brain instantly added ‘too quiet’—with only the background hum of air conditioning to break the silence.The reception area was a roughly circular room, high-ceilinged with corridors leading off. There was a free-standing reception desk between two of the corridors, but no barriers or gates. Presumably anyone who swiped their way in was considered clear to move freely within the building.

  I guess they didn’t get many casual visitors popping in to their remote lab in the woods.

  While I couldn’t see any bodies, there were plenty of signs of a recent struggle—a bland painting on the wall was set at a wonky angle, the glass in the frame cracked and a dark stain splashed across its dull rural scene. There were similar stains smeared across the walls and floor, and a deeper pool of something under a cream padded bench opposite the reception desk. Random office junk was scattered all over the place.

  ‘Shit,’ said Melissa. ‘This could be bad.’

  ‘No zombies,’ I said. ‘It’ll do for me.’

  ‘No zombies. Or corpses, or anything. There might be a clean-up crew on site already.’

  ‘I thought you said they’d take a while to get here?’

  ‘They could have assembled a small team from the staff here. Under direct executive control. If so, we need to be careful. They’ll be protecting their assets until the full team get here.’

  ‘I guess assets don’t include the security personnel?’ I said, thinking of what I just saw, or more importantly heard, outside.

  ‘Don’t think sentimentally. They won’t. If I say so, just run. You’ll be better off with the zombies than these guys.’

  ‘Okay. So what do we do next?’

  ‘You stay here. It looks relatively safe. I’ll check ahead and find a clear route. Don’t move; I’ll be back in five minutes.’

  Before I could ask any further dumb questions, she walked through a wall and was gone, leaving me to contemplate exactly how doomed I’d be if she went flaky again while wandering the corridors.

  I could hear scratching and scraping from outside, and I moved away from the main doors. There was the odd bump, as if a zombie had tried to ram the door, but the doors themselves didn’t even shake.

  Of course not. This was what they were built for.

  ‘I’M STILL DOWN there,’ said Melissa, making me jump out of my fucking skin. She jumped too, spooked by my reaction, I guess.

  I couldn’t blame her for being on edge. I expect staring at your own zombified corpse will do that to you.

  ‘You still want to do this?’ I asked, raising the pistol slightly. If Melissa didn’t want to see me put a bullet through her head, I could live with not doing it.

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said, firmly if a little sadly.

  ‘Fine. As long as you’re sure. So, where do we go from here?’

  ‘I’m in a store cupboard near the server rooms on sub-level two. Easiest access is by the elevators, but those are out, so you’ll need to go down the stairwell at the end of the west corridor.’

  ‘Anything I need to worry about on the way?’

  ‘No sign of the clean-up crew, but they’ve done their work well. Very few zombies left around. There are a couple in the stairwell, though. Guess the guns took the east wing stairs instead.’

  She hooked a thumb in the opposite direction from where we were going.

  ‘You think you can deal with two zombies?’ she asked.

  I lifted the pistol.

  ‘With this? I think so. Besides, you can check ahead so I have the drop on them.’

  ‘Go teamwork,’ she said drily. ‘Let’s move. But keep your eyes open, I took a direct route down so there might still be some surprises off the beaten path.’

  ‘Oh, goody,’ I said. Then, realising how dumb I sounded, I shut up and followed her down the corridor, glancing constantly to the left and right.

  NOTHING JUMPED OUT from any of the doors on the west corridor. No zombies, no evil corporate SWAT teams with big goggles and those little torches taped to their guns, nothing. From what I could see of the rooms we passed, the admin block was exactly what it sounded like—a great big place of dull office work, with cubicles and water coolers and all that stuff.

  I guess a place like this required a lot of paperwork.

  Most of the offices didn’t seem much affected by the outbreak, but I suppose very few people would have been at work this late. Nevertheless, there was the odd sign that someone, whether zombie or company goon, had charged through the office space—a chair knocked over here, a cubicle wall kicked down there.

  Whoever or whatever it was, they were gone.

  At the end of the corridor we reached a fire door. Melissa nodded and walked straight through it, then reappeared about thirty seconds later.

  This time I didn’t flinch. Supernatural abilities seem much less threatening when they’re being used to keep you alive.

  ‘One zombie halfway down the stairs,’ Melissa said. ‘Good clearance between this door and its position, so you won’t walk into it. Other one seems to have gone for a walk.’

  ‘Could you be more specific?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s not in range for now, that’s all you get. Let’s deal with this one and I’ll check ahead again after.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, and took the bar on the fire door in my left hand. It meant I had my back slightly turned to the opening door as I pushed through it, but I’d rather that than hold the pistol in the wrong hand. As quietly as I could, I clicked the bar down and shoved the door open.

  Compared with the main part of the building, the stairwell was brightly lit, breezeblock walls painted in we-couldn’t-be-bothered-to-think-about-it white. I blinked as I entered, letting go of the door so I could hold the gun two-handed, not just because of the light but because the stink of zombie in the air was eye-watering.

  The stairwell went up as well as down, and I came out of the door facing the stairs going up. Glancing up I couldn’t see anything of interest, so I quietly side-stepped across to the stairs going down.

  A few steps down was the zombie that Melissa had told me about. A real stinker, wet with decay, gender unidentifiable, slouching across a single broad concrete step, staring at the wall. It moaned quietly and left a stain behind it, a moist trail that led down to the lower level.

  I wouldn’t have wanted to go near it when it wasn’t moving, and certainly would prefer to keep a wide berth now. But that wasn’t an option, so as quietly as I could I stepped down, closer to it.

  I briefly regretted abandoning the shotgun in favour of the pistol at this point. Though it was an unwieldy weapon, and I’d rather messily stained it with crushed zombie skull, I was sure I could have hit a zombie from a good few paces away with enough force to at least knock it over. With the pistol, I’d need a good head shot.

  Closer, closer. The thing was still staring at the wall. I tried to keep the gun level in both hands, closing the gap between us, but my hands were shaking.

  ‘Keep calm,’ cautioned Melissa. ‘Then take the shot.’

  I looked down the top of the gun, the zombie’s head aligned with the notch on the barrel. I was only a couple of feet away, in lunging distance.

  I squeezed the trigger carefully...

  —the zombie swung around to face me, its rotten face studded with yellow teeth hanging from a slack jaw, mouth gaping towards me—

  ...and I pulled the trigger the rest of the way, the gun jerking back in my hands as the zombie lurched forward, the bang echoing around the stairwell, ringing in my ears.

  The zombie snapped back, half its head splattering across the white wall behind it, body swinging around and slamming into the steps, slithering down to the next level with sodden lifelessness, a succession of thumps following its fall.

  I�
�d dropped the gun in shock. I was shaking, I felt like I’d scorched my palms.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, pick it up,’ snapped Melissa, and I scrambled to do so, reaching for it a couple of steps below, fumbling.

  I was afraid the zombie’s body would get back up again, but it remained still, utterly dead.

  There was a moan from above, and I glanced up to see a dark shape toppling over a railing.

  ‘Shit,’ Melissa and I said pretty much simultaneously, as a zombie dropped straight past me and landed with a crunch on the stairs. It bent in horrible ways, limbs twisted, and for a moment I thought it had died on impact.

  Then a clawed hand grabbed my leg, fingernails sinking agonisingly into my flesh.

  It pulled itself up with that hand, rotten face twisting around towards my leg, mouth gaping. It pulled me down and I fell flat on my arse, the edge of one step slamming into my back with excruciating force.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ I screamed. I still had a grip on the gun, so I raised it one handed and fired. I fired a couple more times when the initial shot didn’t seem to have any effect.

  The hand let go and I scrambled backwards, my heels slip-sliding on the wet steps as I scuttled ineptly, my back and leg aching.

  When I was back on the higher landing I pushed myself back into a corner and stopped, swinging my gun around in all directions, panting heavily. I found I couldn’t breathe, and the edge of my vision was getting blurry. I wanted to vomit, and shit myself, and go to sleep, and run away, all at once.

  Shit, shit, shit, oh, shit.

  ‘David,’ snapped Melissa, and she was virtually nose to nose with me now, concern in her eyes as she stared over the top of her glasses at me. ‘You have to breathe and calm down right now, or you’re going to go into shock.’

  She did some breathing motions, soundlessly. No air came out of her mouth, which was close to my cheek, and I looked down to see that where she was kneeling, her legs passing through one of mine.