Swarm (Book 2)

by Alex South

  Swarm II

  By Alex South

  Book Cover by Todd M

  Edited by Jay Wilburn

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 1

  There are only two reasons to run: to get away from something, or to get to something. For John it was both. Sunlight hit his eyes and brightened the car park. Their groans – a churning, collapsing wall of sound – swirled with everything that lay behind his vision, so that it seemed a single glance over his shoulder would be his end.

  Ahead, the buildings rose and the roads stretched, all of it crying out for the past with its lifeless, empty form – a sprawling maze of narrow spaces, a hulking brick jungle waiting to draw boundaries around him.

  Out of all of them, Laura was the only one not running. Her pale hands pushed against a red stain, starkly contrasted against her white shirt – a shrapnel wound. She was in the arms of ‘Dreadlocks’. His nickname spoke of a different time — he had a shaved head. Everyone did.

  They came to the edge of the car park and stepped over a low wall. Now they were at the centre of a T junction, with one road running horizontally in front of them – which they crossed over – and another leading on ahead – which they now followed.

  Houses grew around them, watching indifferently with their still curtains and windows that flashed sunlight. Their route curved left. A fog of discoloured skin, dirty clothes and lost faces smeared the horizon.

  The infected.

  The group stopped. Distance was everything. On this street, with these figures, the distance was merciful. There was time to think.

  “Laura, is there another way we can go?” Duke said.

  Laura tilted her head to see better, staring at the horde, then closing her eyes.

  “Um… yeah… yeah… can you see that alleyway?” she said a few seconds later.

  “Where?”

  “Where that blue car is. Take it, and then go straight on when you come out.”

  The group moved again. At first John did not see it. Then his eyes caught the thin passage on his right. It led through a gap between two houses. They came closer, moving around the blue car. Now some of the group were forced to stop as they all switched into single file. John was the second in, with Duke in front of him. Tall walls of chunky mismatched stones grew on either side. John’s lungs ripped air.

  Duke came out of the alleyway first. He stared left. John caught up. Now he saw it too. A thick crowd of zombies blocking the road, this time much closer. John could see the detail of their faces – each dead stare kicked him in the gut.

  They had hit a corner. The undead had consumed one direction. John and Duke continued on in the other. The zombies crept closer. The rest of the group came out from the alleyway with Dreadlocks and Laura at the rear.

  They all ran.

  “You want some help?” John asked Dreadlocks.

  “No.”

  They advanced down the road – long and straight. On either side, houses boxed them in, standing shoulder to shoulder like proud soldiers. The only break in these barriers came in the form of a junction, which seemed very far away on the stretching street. John’s mind was a torrent. A rushing cry, with no singularity. He wanted to be surrounded by secure walls – far, far away from open spaces, and hidden corners. A lone figure stumbled into the junction ahead. The group stopped.

  “Come on! We can take it!” Duke shouted.

  They started moving again, but this time only walking. Everyone was breathing heavily. John kept his eyes on the figure; it was looking towards them. And now, as they closed the gap, it began to slowly change its direction, making a laboured, ninety degree turn to point itself at the group.

  “I’ll shoot it!” Duke said.

  John knew that he, too, could quickly put a bullet in its head if Duke needed back up. A voice told him not to waste ammo – that was important. His mind traced lines past the zombie. They had space to dodge around. He could see that. He could see that Duke didn’t need to fire. Yet his fear held back his judgment. He couldn’t make that call; he couldn’t take that risk.

  Another figure came into view. They could still dodge around, thought John. A new zombie came into the road, this time from a different direction. Something sank inside John. He watched as more and more figures started to file in.

  He looked back, seeing that the undead behind him had advanced to block any possible retreat. He was caught in a pincer movement. They all were.

  “Fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck,” Duke muttered.

  “I’ll use the grenade,” said John.

  “Laura, how do we get off this road?” said Duke.

  Laura looked around. “I don’t… I don’t think you can.”

  “I’ll use the grenade!” John shouted again – thinking that Duke hadn’t heard him.

  “Can you get off this road? Yes or no?” shouted Duke, trying to get something concrete from Laura.

  “No,” said Laura.

  “Duke!” John shouted, desperate to get his attention.

  “There’s too many,” said Duke, addressing John now.

  John looked again at the crowd ahead; it was still growing. Duke was right. The blast wouldn’t be strong enough.

  “We have to go to the houses,” shouted Elena.

  “Shoot the window!” Jess shouted, “Shoot the window. We’ll go through!”

  Jess ran towards one of the buildings. They all followed, jumping over a small wall, and into a front yard. Duke held his pistol up to the glass and looked away.

  “Bang!”

  A small bullet hole had appeared in the glass, but it had not shattered. Duke stared at it for a few seconds and then shot again. Another bullet hole appeared below the first. They stood frozen. Then Jess lifted her foot and slammed her heel into the window – creating a large gap. Now Duke and Elena joined in with kicks, punches and elbows.

  With everyone crowded around, John could not get close enough to help. His eyes moved to the zombies advancing down the road. With each second their inevitability spread. They would always be coming for him. Always. Even if they caught him, even if they infected him, they would still find a way to draw closer, closer, closer. Forever closer.

  Duke was the first to climb in, and, before John could follow, Duke had opened the front door from the inside. John entered the hallway, joining the others.

  He followed them now, coming to a kitchen. He could see bright grass through the windows.

  Elena approached the back door. The key was in the lock. They all exited back into the sunlight. Elena locked the door behind her. Tall wooden fences marked the sides of the narrow garden.

  “Wait, we can stay here!” said Jess.

  Duke looked at her. She continued. “We can just block the window.”

  Duke shook his head. “No way. They’ll be in the house too fast.”

  “We have to try,” said Jess, moving back towards the building.

  Elena took hold of her. “No, we keep going,” she said.

  “Jess, come on.” said Duke.

  “How far is it?” said Jess marching over to Laura. “How far is it?”

  John left them and walked to the back of the garden. Looking over an old wire fence, he saw a steep slope leading down to train tracks. Duke had grabbed Jess. She was screaming and thrashing in his grip. John came back to them and sh
outed, “There’s train tracks back there! I think we can take them!”

  …

  John was the first to make the descent from the garden to the tracks. Once there, he turned and watched the others follow. Jess. Elena. Duke. And finally Dreadlocks, with Laura in his arms. Now they all stood together.

  “Which way?” Duke asked.

  Laura pointed and they began to walk.

  It seemed they were now much lower than the rest of the town. On both sides of the tracks, steep slopes full of tangled plants rose to touch the backs of gardens, which were weakly separated by battered wire fences — in many places seriously deformed by the growth of trees, and in others deformed for no obvious reason.

  The tracks were surrounded with gravel. John realised that he could walk on the wooden connects in-between the metal tracks to reduce his noise. He told the others to do the same.

  After some time, a steel bridge over the track came into view. It was wide and seemed to be for vehicles. As they drew close, sun-lit, dishevelled figures stumbled along it. The group froze. One of them, a woman, twisted her neck in their direction. Duke kept his eyes on them as he spoke, “All right… run under before they have time to react.” He was already moving before anyone could voice an opinion.

  As they drew closer, the groans grew louder. John kept his eyes on the bridge, watching it pass over his head. Now he came out the other side. After becoming sure that there was no risk of them falling on him, he allowed his attention to drop back down to the ground in front of him. Once he was comfortably far away, he glanced back. He could only see the back of the zombies’ heads. They were all facing the wrong direction. John realised that the simple act of passing underneath had confused them.

  “Fucking idiots,” John muttered, hit by a sudden stab of confidence.

  The undead gave no indication that they were about to jump down. Despite this, the group kept running.

  …

  They arrived at a small, two-platform station – which consisted of a one-story building on either side of the track, a few benches and a shabby looking bridge for passengers to cross over the rails. Laura confirmed that it was the right place, and that she knew where they were. The design of the platform meant that, at its edges, it sloped down to the level of the tracks, which allowed everyone to simply walk up onto it.

  John saw that at the side of one of the buildings were some ticket gates, which led straight onto a road. The buildings in the distance seemed to be waiting for him. John could feel their intent, their hidden spaces. These were no longer human structures. They belonged to the dice-roll struggle between hunted and hunters. And John could not enter them as anything but prey.

  “I need to rest,” said Dreadlocks. In one movement he turned and sat down on one of the benches. Laura’s body remained horizontal in his arms. Duke joined them, kneeling down to Laura’s level.

  “How far is it?” Duke asked.

  …

  They left the station, having climbed over the ticket gates, and walked quickly along the road. A new-build estate rose up around them – a crisscross grid of near-identical houses.

  “I can hear groaning,” said Dreadlocks.

  John strained his ears. He could hear it too, a slight mummer dancing on the wind. They kept walking, the noise growing louder.

  “Laura, can we go another way?” Duke asked.

  “No, this is it,”

  “But if we go a little bit in that direction…” he pointed, then lowered his arm and pointed in a different direction, “because I think they’re that way.”

  “I can’t… I need to get to Poppy,” said Laura.

  “But these streets link up, so…” Duke began.

  “No…” Laura interrupted.

  Duke started at her.

  “We can outrun them,” said Dreadlocks, “Wherever they are, we need to get Laura some help. We can’t delay that.”

  “All right, all right,” Duke said.

  On they walked, the noise growing louder and louder.

  “It’s there, that path,” said Laura.

  John looked ahead. The road he was on stretched forwards to join another road, running horizontally in front of him. It was at this point that the entrance to the path stood. They came closer. A figure burst around the corner. A woman, overweight and naked – appearing as a rush of pale, bruised flesh. Her skin hung in loose folds. Her eyes locked onto them – wide, urgent, hungry.

  John lifted his gun. He closed his left eye and aimed down the barrel – the distance between them quickly shrinking. He fought against an urge to pull the trigger. She was still too far away. He couldn’t afford to miss. He had to wait; he had to make sure.

  The heavy flesh cannonballed on. Closer. Closer. A growing target at the end of his gun. His hands shook. His wrist made slight adjustments as he tried to find the perfect moment.

  His finger tightened.

  “Bang!”

  The zombie gave no reaction. She was seconds from him now. He could see the detail of her skin. He shot again.

  “Bang!… Bang! Bang!” The others were shooting also.

  The woman fell, carried by her own momentum to land face down.

  “Fuck,” John whispered.

  “It ran,” stammered Jess.

  “Come on,” said Duke. They moved onto the next road, closer to the path. John’s eyes caught movement on his right.

  Something inside him pulsed. He saw figures, framed by the shape of the street, their bodies angled and tilted, their arms pointed, their legs stabbing downwards at the asphalt.

  They were sprinting.

  “RUN!” shouted John to the others. They already were, leaving the road and heading down the path. John followed. The new world conspired to flank him, drawing thick hedge rows on his left, and a large wall on his right. It gave him just one direction, forwards down its thin line of dirt. The air filled with the sound of a dog barking. The hedgerow ended, replaced by a steep drop into a small stream. Scores of zombies stood in a perfect line as the water passed their feet. Now they moved, scrambling up the ditch.

  As John chased the footsteps of his friends, the top of the wall crawled with movement – arms looping over the tall barrier, grasping and pulling, as more of the infected climbed over.

  John increased his speed, grimacing as he forced himself on; his eyes were on those scaling the wall. His body, lungs and spirit cried out for him to pass these faces – these blank spectres lifting themselves to fall onto his path. The first one dropped – a hulked figure hitting the ground ahead of him. John’s mind flashed. He dodged around it.

  So close… he was so close to bursting past them all.

  Something smashed into his back. He stumbled and rolled, glancing at his assailant – a male, with baggy, tattered clothes – he saw Jess barge past it, followed by Elena, who pushed it down. John found his feet and ran. The others thundered past – knocking more undead to the side as they continued to drop.

  Their small path ended. A rectangular park unfolded ahead. But something was wrong. The scene lay distorted, corrupted by the countless bodies that covered the area – lying completely still, facing the sky with closed eyes or resting face down in the grass. All of them lay alone, with a tiny perimeter of space between them and the others.

  There was no time for him to think about it. The others in his group were already running.

  John took his first step into the still crowd, putting his foot onto the back of a man wearing a suit. His mind traced a path. He concentrated on moving fast without tripping. As this mess of clothes, flesh and matted hair drew him close to its centre, a primeval knowledge overcame him, an awareness from somewhere beyond his life. His very physicality had recognised itself in the motionless flesh, and now it cried for him to escape. Ahead lay rolling fields, separated from John by a low stone wall. This became his target.

  Some way off, his eyes picked out the figure of a little girl moving back and forth on a swing. She was human.

  “Come
here!” The child called.

  Movement rippled through the bodies. John froze. A field of yellow eyes flicked open.

  Everything collapsed into one terrible realisation.

  He ran, standing on a chest, now jumping over another. The earth crawled with movement. He stumbled. The creatures were rising, rows of figures finding their feet — lifting their darkness to steal the horizon.

  John pushed them out of the way. The softness of hair. The cold rubbery skin. Individuals in form, but in their knocks and blows, in their resistance as he pushed through, they were one entity. The world screamed for him, calling him out of this closing mass. His arms found the spaces; his legs pushed the ground away.

  One of them smashed against his shoulder, sending him off balance. Their darkness grew as he fell. He threw his hands into it. Finding himself, rising back up to struggle on. Faces came in and out of view, their eyes piercing his soul. Hands closed around his body. A squirming, hollow denial filled him. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. Anticipation showed him the bites, the infection, the madness.

  He tried to grab his gun. He would kill himself. Yanking, pulling, twisting — it was no use. His arm remained locked in place by the crowd.

  The seconds danced as he struggled. Not like this. He closed his eyes, catching one last glimpse of the discoloured faces that would make him theirs. His mind had entered a sort of paralysis, a cessation, as if a part of him knew that thoughts didn’t matter anymore. And so, in this final moment, there was a kind of silence.

  …

  Elena opened her eyes and scanned their faces – all of them staring into some unknown distance. They weren’t trying to bite her, she thought.

  “Come here and play!”

  It was the voice of a little girl.

  “Come here and play!”

  Groans shuddered in the air, breaking the silence. Elena flinched. Some of those near her backed away, creating space. Now more and more moved. A thin, uneven passage grew in front of her, leading to a small child on a swing.

  The hands jerked Elena forwards. She didn’t resist, allowing herself to be taken towards the swings, roundabout and other play equipment — all boxed-in by a wooden fence, which they slammed her against. She let out an involuntary cry of pain. They lifted her up and tipped her into the enclosure. She put her arms out as the ground rushed up to hit her. Now on her front, she lifted her head.