After Darkness Falls 2 - 10 Tales of Terror - Volume Two

by Matt Drabble

  Leonard’s ears started to clear as he limped his way along the hallway. He could hear running footsteps on the lower floor’s stone ground. He raced forward as fast as he could manage but he had to turn and fire at more shapes emerging from the shadows behind. He hit several in the head, more through luck than good aim, and the bodies that fell soon entangled and slowed their fellow horde companions.

  He tried to keep track of the bullets that he’d fired but soon realised that it was pointless as he had no idea. He scolded himself for not checking for extra clips on Jenkins when he’d taken the gun but what he had now was all that was left.

  There was one last set of double doors at the end of the corridor and the shelter lay beyond that. He ran as quickly as he could manage, stumbling and shuffling. His ankle felt soft and spongy now and he felt lacerations on his arm where the Chancellor’s nails had dug into his flesh deeply. He could feel a lump swelling on the back of his head where his old friend had pinned him against the wall. His vision wasn’t the best but still he pressed forward, praying that he wasn’t already infected.

  He reached the doors and saw two silhouettes standing on the other side. The figures seemed to be standing in one spot but swaying back and forth as though listening to an internal beat. Leonard looked at the gun and tried to remember how to check the magazine to see how many bullets were still left, but he soon gave up; there wasn’t the time.

  He knelt by one of the doors and pushed it open slightly, just enough to look beyond. He could see that both figures wore military uniforms and had their backs to him. From his crouching position he eased the weapon up and took careful aim at the first man, narrowing his eyes and squinting as he lined up the man’s skull.

  He squeezed the trigger gently and grunted with satisfaction as the bullet struck home and the monster dropped. He swung the gun to other man who was turning and just had time to line up the shot. He squeezed the trigger gently when he was sure but this time there was nothing but an empty clack as the gun ran dry.

  He fought his panic as the thing reached for him. Leonard shoved one of the swing doors with his shoulder, catching the monster by surprise as the door hit it full and hard in the face. The figure dropped to the ground in front of him and Leonard reached out and grabbed the zombie by the hair, pulling its head through the doorway. He quickly scrabbled to his feet and placed his left foot against the bottom of the left hand door, taking hold of the handle and holding it firmly in place. With his right hand, he grabbed the right hand door and slammed it shut as hard as he could manage, sandwiching the monster’s trapped head. He thrust open and slammed the door shut over and over again until his arm could take it no more. The thing lying beneath him now looked like a pumpkin that had been dropped from a great height onto solid concrete. Pulp and grey matter were splattered on the ground. Leonard’s stomach wretched and he vomited violently to one side. Before he even had himself under control he could hear the footsteps echoing behind him and he walked through the mess on the floor, ignoring the sickly squelches beneath his feet.

  He took the key from around his neck and opened up the shelter. It was an old solid structure built in the days of the Cold War. There was no other key apart from the one that he wore around his neck now. When the infection had started, it was decided that this place would be their final fallback, their last stand.

  He unlocked the door and had to use his remaining strength to push open the heavy doors with his shoulder. The pounding footsteps were growing closer and the ensuing panic fuelled him to go the last inch. He stepped inside and strained every sinew to close the door behind him and seal it shut.

  The lights flickered into life as the power kicked in. There was a large silver console that started to glow as banks of small lights sparkled and grew in strength. The science in here might have been old but it was all perfectly functional, enough to get the job done.

  Leonard heaved himself into the central chair at the console and started to methodically go through the pre-launch checklist. It was all simple to him now; there was no more life left to save, only his to give. The UK had fallen and all he had left open to him now was to protect the rest of Europe from suffering their fate.

  He started to punch in coordinates targeting all of the UK’s major cities. The nuclear warheads would sink the island and destroy every last one of the horde in a blinding flash. He wasn’t a scientist and he didn’t know just how much fallout there would be onto the rest of mainland Europe, but he knew that saving most of them was better than losing all of them.

  He shook away the gnawing tiredness from his head and stamped his shattered ankle down on the floor hard, stifling the scream that rose to his lips as the sharp burst of intense pain woke him just enough to complete his task. Outside the door to the shelter, fists pounded helplessly against the solid metal bunker.

  ----------

  “What the hell is he doing in there?” the Deputy Prime Minister, James Burton, demanded. “I don’t understand how the hell he got out of his private quarters. He was supposed to be under strict guard until the doctor arrived.”

  “It was Sir Nicholas; you know how close those two were,” the Home Secretary answered sheepishly. “The General wanted to try and reason with Leonard, try and get through to him, try and reach the man before it was all too late.”

  James Burton had been the Prime Minister’s right hand man throughout the campaign, and his Deputy since they had won the election. When Leonard’s pregnant wife had died in a car crash two months ago, the man had slowly retreated into himself until no one was able to reach him anymore. They had done everything possible to keep his slipping mental health state from the public right up until his total breakdown last night. James still found it hard to believe that the man ranting and raving about a zombie apocalypse was the same man that he had known for over 20 years. “When is the psychiatrist getting here?” he snapped at the senior ministers surrounding the old nuclear bunker.

  “Any time now,” an army officer stated coldly. “I want to know what we’re going to do about that murdering bastard in there?”

  “Watch your tone, Colonel” James warned him.

  “Watch my tone?” The Colonel laughed incredulously. “That maniac has murdered several of my men including my commanding officer, not to mention several of your staff. I want that door busted down and I want that lunatic dragged out and shot!”

  “No one is breaking into there,” the Home Secretary interjected. “That’s a nuclear bunker designed to withstand a full on nuclear war. You’re not going to crack it open with a crowbar.”

  “He’s right,” the Deputy Prime Minister sighed heavily. “We just have to wait until the psychiatrist gets here and tries to talk him out.”

  “Excuse me?” a voice piped up from the back of the group.

  James turned towards the voice and saw a young junior minister from somewhere like agriculture or pensions or something like that. “Yes?”

  “I was just wondering…, I mean it is a nuclear bunker…, He couldn’t do any damage from in there could he? Like launch any missiles?”

  The group fell deathly silent as the words permeated until the Colonel spoke up. “No, don’t worry. It takes two to launch any strike and he’s all alone in there. The other man needed would be General Sir Nicholas Fotherskew, who’s the head of the armed forces, and unfortunately he’s lying dead upstairs.”

  The group let out a united nervous laugh as eyes flickered around. They were all wondering just what might have happened with a Prime Minister suffering a complete mental breakdown and able to launch a nuclear strike.

  ----------

  Leonard heard the horde continuing to pound and wail outside the bunker’s solid door. He finished programming the console with all targets selected and acquired. He lifted the first of two small plastic scan pads and placed his eye on the scanner. He lifted the second pad and reached into his pocket.

  When he’d returned back to his private quarters, he had not just taken the gun f
rom his friend, General Sir Nicholas Fotherskew. He withdrew his hand and held the soft sticky eyeball over the second scanner as the automated system recognised the necessary authorization for launch and sent the missiles flying.

  TALE 8.

  “THE AGENCY”

  “You can’t be serious?” Becky Finn exclaimed, shocked.

  “Why not? I mean, if you’re going to marry the guy then you’ve got be sure right?” Jeanne Ringwood replied with a shrug of her petite shoulders.

  They were standing outside a small and discrete office that had no signs outside the doors. The windows were covered with elegant venetian blinds that obstructed anyone from seeing inside.

  Becky looked at her friend and, as always, started to feel the slip of control that occurred whenever they were together. Jeanne was a bright shining star, a beautiful flower immaculately dressed in the latest and most expensive labels with a shimmering glow that suggested she had just stepped out of a beauty salon.

  They had been friends since university or, to put it more accurately, Jeanne had permitted her to tag along since university. Becky often thought of herself as Jeanne’s pet project, a charity case to make the more glamorous woman feel like she was contributing something to the world, other than just being in it of course. It was an uneven relationship and Jeanne would often bang on her door in the middle of the night to whisk her away to some exotic party or opening. Becky had soon discovered that she was little more than Jeanne’s personal cheering section. She didn’t mind all that much; well, not really. It was good of Jeanne to take an interest in her as they would not have naturally moved in the same circles.

  Where Jeanne was tall and athletically toned with long professional styled blonde hair and perfectly applied makeup, Becky was short and somewhat rounded. She wore large glasses as she still couldn’t quite get used to pushing contact lenses into her squishy pupil without flinching and dropping the small disc. Where Jeanne favoured short fitted outfits to show off her exquisite figure, Becky stuck to baggy cardigans and long floral print skirts that skimmed the ground.

  Jeanne had married a very successful barrister and saw her job to be a trophy on his arm. She spent his money with abandon and suffered his touches without complaint. It was a job as far as she was concerned and she was damn good at it.

  Becky, on the other hand, worked at a local newspaper office. She ran research assignments for the journalists at the paper and enjoyed her job immensely as she worked alone and away from the busy boisterous office in a small basement room surrounded by files and computers. Her life was relatively simple except for the occasional Jeanne whirlwind; that was, until she had met Pete.

  Peter Shire had come to the paper at a time when the air was full of the talk of redundancies due to falling sales. The general opinion was that the printed word was dead and they were all dinosaurs waiting for the meteor to land. But somehow Pete had managed to turn things around, stripping the antiquated pool of journalists down to the bare bones without missing a step in output quantity. He had streamlined their product and set up an online version of the paper which had already doubled the sales’ figures. He was a man who walked on water as far as the owners and the remaining staff, especially Becky, were concerned.

  For some reason she had found him coming down to her basement more and more often. To start with, she was surprised as he often gave her work assignments or requests that he could have easily carried out himself. She had started to wonder if the man’s reputation was somewhat spurious until she had told Jeanne during a rare lull in her monologue, when Becky had found a small opening to voice her news.

  “He just wants to get into your pants,” Jeanne had slurred, slopping a little of her martini over the side of her glass and looking down quizzically at the now empty contents.

  “I don’t think so,” Becky had responded quietly.

  “What is he, ugly? Old? Fat? Bald? A weirdo of some kind?”

  “No, he’s quite handsome actually and about my age,” Becky had said, slightly blushing.

  “Maybe he’s just a chubby chaser,” Jeanne had laughed. “Or maybe he’s into some kinky shit. I knew this guy once who liked to...”

  Becky had stopped listening at that point as Jeanne had launched into another long and rambling story about herself. They often went on a long while and didn’t really require Becky to actually be present.

  To her shock, about two weeks later Peter had actually asked her out for a drink with an awkward shyness that she knew only too well from looking in the mirror. She had been even more shocked to find herself agreeing and thus had started the first serious relationship in her life. She hoped that it would be the only one.

  At first, Jeanne had treated the courtship with mild scorn and much hilarity; that was until it started to impinge on her. Suddenly, Becky was not available every time that Jeanne came calling and she had even found the temerity to say no when Jeanne kicked up a fuss.

  Peter gave her a sense of strength and worth and Becky had suddenly found herself believing slowly that perhaps she did deserve some sort of happiness. Peter had proposed quietly and without any pomp and ceremony, merely producing a ring and asking her shyly if she would marry him. She had been overjoyed and said yes immediately, snatching the ring out of the box quickly as though, in some kind of psychological fear, he might suddenly change his mind.

  Jeanne had been relatively uninterested at first, preferring to talk about her upcoming dinner party that she had to organize. Apparently, it was a major pain as some politician’s wife was a vegan. Peter had spoken to her gently several times about her friendship with Jeanne, calling it unhealthy. Deep down, she knew that he was probably right but she also knew that if her life with him fell apart - as it might just do any minute given that she didn’t deserve him in the first place - then all she would be left with was Jeanne.

  “Come on, sleepy head, I’ve got a wedding present for you,” Jeanne had boomed down the intercom earlier that morning, her voice distorted as she leant too close to the mic.

  Peter was working but it was Becky’s day off. She had planned to spend the day working on the wedding plans but old habits die hard and she soon found herself hastily dressing and following her friend down the street. They’d grabbed a cab as Jeanne stuck one perfectly toned long leg out as she waved a taxi down. The driver had screeched up to the kerb in eagerness and whisked them across town until they stood outside of the aforementioned anonymous looking building.

  “Tell me again,” Becky countered nervously.

  “Look, it’s perfectly simple. These people will find out if Saint Peter is everything that you think he is and a suitable man to marry.”

  “Find out how?”

  “Oh, I don’t know! That’s their business. Look, don’t you want to know if he’s a cheater? For all you know he might be banging half of the town behind your back,” Jeanne laughed.

  Becky couldn’t help but wonder what outcome her so called friend was hoping for in this scenario. Maybe Pete was right and she should cut this dysfunctional cord once and for all, but her ties ran deep and she followed as Jeanne barged the door open.

  Inside the building was a cool and calm reception area. Neutral colours lined the walls with a pastel taste and the floor was a darkly stained hardwood. There was no one visible and only a small seating area, presumably for visitors. There was a desktop counter that looked like a hotel desk but with no paperwork or leaflets of any kind. In fact, there was no sign whatsoever of the place being a business or even open.

  “It doesn’t look like there’s anyone here,” Becky whispered timidly.

  “HELLO?” Jeanne bellowed, shattering the silence. She walked up to the reception desk and banged loudly on the counter. “SHOP!”

  Becky cringed and hoped that no one came but in the distance she heard the click-clack of spiked heels on the wooden floor approaching.

  “About time,” Jeanne said, turning to her with a broad smile.

  Becky couldn’t help but g
rin a little as Jeanne’s smile faded when the woman appeared. To date, Becky would have sworn that there was no one capable of holding a candle to Jeanne when it came to the looks department but the woman now smiling politely behind the desk blew her out of the water without even trying. Suddenly, Jeanne seemed to shrink and fade as the woman’s radiance was blinding. Her face was exotic and mysterious with high cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. Her eyes were so dark as to seem almost black and her mouth was full and enticing. Her clothes were elegantly tailored to showcase every swell and curve, with a glimpse of cleavage that seemed to defy gravity and legs that were impossibly long and smooth.

  “Can I help you ladies?” the woman asked or, more accurately, purred through full pouty lips.

  “I telephoned yesterday. I was interested in purchasing your services for my friend here,” Jeanne said and Becky noticed that she was standing on tiptoes trying to look taller as the beauty behind the desk towered over her.

  “I see, and would it be the full service that you’re interested in, Ms Finn?”

  Becky felt things were moving too fast and still did not fully understand what Jeanne was buying.

  “That’s right,” Jeanne smiled brightly. “Nothing but the best and money’s no object.”

  “Your friend must care a lot about you,” the woman said to Becky who could only nod in agreement. “Well, my name is Celestine Carressa and I shall be your handler,” the woman said, smiling warmly. “Shall we?” She indicated for them to follow her through the reception area. Jeanne dragged her after Celestine.

  The next 10 minutes or so were a whirlwind of questions fired at such blinding speed that Becky could barely keep up. The exotic woman was asking them as quickly as Becky could answer and she desperately wanted to pull the handbrake up but there was never enough of a gap for her to venture into.

  “Well, I think that’s enough for us to be getting on with,” Celestine said as she finished typing into the swish laptop on the glass table.