by Paul Kane
But his arrogance once again proved his undoing, as the sergeant bent forward, pitching Timms over his head. Baker’s mask came off in the process, but it didn’t really matter now he’d taken the antidote. “Goddamn it!” he shouted, then parroted Bridget’s line: “I’m sorry.” He drew his pistol and ran off with the case – up the corridor, presumably so he could make a play for that ambulance he was talking about. Jackson made to follow but Strauss called him back.
“Let him go. We’ve got more important things to do.” He held up another one of the needles, which he must have hidden before Jackson got to them all. Jackson smiled, then realised that there were three people now who could really use that injection.
“Pissing well hand that over,” Timms demanded.
Jackson let out a disappointed moan. “Why did you even bother doing that, eh?”
“Well,” said the insufferable Brit, “for one thing that knobhead’s been getting on my nerves the whole time we’ve been here, dishing out orders. And for another… nobody’s offing you but me, Monks. You still owe me money.”
“Look,” said Strauss, “only one person is getting this.” He brought the needle round and planted it in Suzanne’s arm before Timms could say another word.
“That’s just fucking perfect,” grumbled the Brit, after the fact.
Strauss glared at him as he pumped the antidote into Suzanne.
Nothing happened.
There was a commotion from down the corridor. Jackson took a look out and saw the door there bowing. The Sleepers inside the hospital itself had finally woken, no longer held back by Suzanne. “We need to get out of here,” he said.
Timms reached down and grabbed Coleman’s rifle. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all fucking day.”
“Dr Strauss,” called Jackson from the doorway.
“I don’t understand it,” he was saying, shaking his head. “She should be awake now.”
“Come on!” shouted Timms.
Strauss snapped out of his daze, then gathered up Suzanne in his arms. Good, now they could go. Baker’s idea of an ambulance hadn’t been a bad one, there were loads of them downstairs and they were fast. Now all they had to do was reach the bay before–
The doors at the far end that had been holding back the Sleepers were groaning with the sheer weight of numbers pressed against them. Jackson could see the faces there, one piled on top of the other; could imagine a conga-line procession of them stretching all the way down to the outside. The recently “wakened” in the hospital now joining forces with their brethren from the street.
The emergency exit was a no go too, however. Baker must have jammed it from the other side after making his escape, effectively trapping them.
“Shit!” said Timms, stopping to rest, bending over with his hands on his knees. “Now what?”
Jackson looked around, thinking fast. “Got it!” he pointed to the lift doors over on their right.
“But we fucked them up, remember?” said Timms. “Dropped a grenade down there.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t climb down, right down to the ambulance bay hopefully. Here, help me. We don’t have long before they reach us.”
Jackson and Timms prised open the doors. There was a ladder on one side, but they could barely see the charred remains of the carriage at the bottom.
“That’s a long way fucking down,” Timms said.
“Then we’d better get a move on,” Jackson replied, pushing Timms in the direction of the shaft.
“Fuck off!” growled the Brit.
Jackson offered to take Suzanne, carry her down over his shoulder. “I’ve got it,” Strauss insisted.
“Okay, then you guys go first – but we’d all better move it. Her friends are on their way and they sound real pissed to me.”
Thirteen
Norman and Betty Eley had been dreaming. Or at least it felt like it.
They were young again, on holiday: one of those package deals the travel agents organised, including lots of sand, sea and… It had been a long time, a very long time, yet here it had been no time at all. The years had fallen away and when they got to their hotel room they’d barely been able to keep their hands off each other. Norman was just so wiry, Betty curvaceous, with no sign yet of the pounds she’d pile on later in their marriage.
They’d spent what seemed like an eternity in bed, carrying on like teenagers – though, to be fair, they were only just out of their teens. Back then they’d made all the decisions together, in fact Betty had loved it when Norman stood up to her and made a few himself. When had the change come? That she’d had to be the strong one, the person in charge? She had no idea and didn’t want to think about it right now; she was too busy having a good time, giggling as Norman covered her naked body in kisses.
When they finally did emerge, they’d bumped into that nice rep who was looking after them all here. She’d introduced herself on the bus when they arrived. Now what was her name… Sarah? Sandra? Suzanne, that was it. Betty had caught Norman staring at her and elbowed him, though she couldn’t really blame her husband. The woman was stunningly gorgeous with all that blonde hair, and that sweet voice which put them at their ease, made them want to stay here forever. In their favourite memory, in this–
“I hope everything’s to your satisfaction?” she’d asked them down by the pool.
“I’ll say,” Norman had told the woman, and grinned.
Suzanne smiled back. Betty had pinched his side, in a playful “you’re mine” kind of way. But she knew he meant he was satisfied with her, that the hours they’d just spent exploring each other had been some of the best of their lives. So good they could still recall every moment, used as the basis for this–
It was perfect. Everything was perfect. They didn’t want to go back, and as they jumped into the pool, splashing each other, they saw no reason why they should. But didn’t they have to be somewhere, doing something? They both felt it, an overwhelming compunction to be…
That was when the clouds passed over the sun, darkening everything. Darkening the sky yet filling it with colour at the same time. The children throwing a beach ball to each other nearby tossed this in the air, and it suddenly multiplied – cloning itself until there were many more like it, each a different shade of red, yellow, blue, green.
The man had appeared out of nowhere, at the pool with the pistol, firing into the crowd of people. All Norman and Betty could hear were the screams. But it was just one man, alone. The holidaymakers rose up, Norman and Betty joining them, climbing out of the pool to make a wall, a mob to chase after this interloper who’d breached the peace. He couldn’t shoot them all, in fact those he had shot at were getting back up again.
They were all being given special abilities, filled with a strength they’d never known in order to tackle this menace. It was like they’d been turned into superheroes. And now they were chasing him, even as he tried to make it to one of the holiday buses nearby. They weren’t about to let him get away with this, no sir! Of the blonde rep, there was now no sign; but that didn’t matter. Betty was quite pleased in a way, because she had Norman to herself again and they could pursue this nutter together. Well, together with all the other holiday people. Those they shared a certain strange kinship with even though they hadn’t really got to know them all that well.
It struck them as being like a more serious Benny Hill sketch, but where Benny had just fired into a crowd and was fleeing the scene. Somehow, they also both knew that Benny had something they needed to get back, needed to destroy. He was carrying it in that case of his, and it would affect their whole future if he got away with it. The round coloured globes in the sky were telling them that, so it had to be true.
The man was climbing into the bus, gunning the engine. He paused to lean out of the window and fire off a couple more bullets into the crowd. Just who did he think he was?
“Right,” said Norman, taking the initiative again, “we’ll show him.” He led the charge, dress
ed only in his trunks. Betty and the others followed and they clambered onto the sides of the bus, on its roof. A couple even broke into the back through the emergency exit.
The bus was on the move, the man trying to escape – but they wouldn’t let him. More holidaymakers piled inside, some grabbing at the man as he drove, others leaning in through the windows to snatch at him and the wheel.
Norman saw where this was heading before Betty, but neither of them had a chance to jump clear before the crash. The bus struck the side of a nearby building head on. It slammed to a halt and a couple of the holidaymakers, Betty and Norman noted from their position – thrown clear on impact – were retrieving the case from the man slumped over sideways at the wheel.
They’d done it, though; achieved their objective. But there was more work ahead, the spheres in the sky were telling them. More bad people to catch.
Some holiday this was turning out to be, they thought.
Fourteen
They’d witnessed Baker’s crash from around the corner.
Just as they’d reached the bottom of the lift and scoped out the lobby area, which was teeming with animated Sleepers, they’d seen the sergeant break cover. He’d made his way down the east side of the hospital, but still had to cross this patch to get to the ambulance bay. That’s when he’d run into trouble.
Their descent hadn’t exactly been uneventful either, Andrew could testify to that. Halfway down the shaft they spotted a figure above, standing and looking at them… yet not really looking, because how could you look when your eyes were healed over? He’d begun following them anyway. At first they’d thought it was the Sleepers who’d broken through the locked double-doors, but then Jackson recognised his comrade hanging there – mask gone now, re-animated by the virus that was all around them. “Shit: Coleman.” His voice echoed up the shaft and seemed to urge the man on, as he leapt into the shaft – though not onto the ladder. He seemed to be able to stick to the walls like Spider-Man, making his way down much quicker than they had. Coleman padded along the walls, the secretions holding him to the surface like Velcro knitting together.
Andrew continued to climb down the ladder, Suzanne over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Timms, hanging on above, but below Jackson, was the first to shoot up at the thing…because it was no longer a man, no longer technically alive anymore – which caused another problem for those trying to combat the Sleepers. If the virus was inside you when you died – the air getting to Coleman’s bullet wounds as he lay bleeding to death – then apparently it wouldn’t let you go without a fight. They hadn’t hung around to see, but maybe back there during the first battle the burnt up Sleepers had carried on searching for them, ready for round two. Andrew shuddered at the thought.
As indeed he had when Coleman drew closer. Jackson and Timms were the only ones under threat of coming down with the virus if Coleman touched them or ripped off their breathing gear; Suzanne already had it and Andrew had pumped himself full of the antidote. But Coleman was heading for them first, weaving around the soldiers as if recognising that this first pair presented the greater problem.
Timms kicked out, but missed entirely – and at the same time Coleman dropped to make a grab at Andrew and Suzanne. The doctor pushed off the ladder, swinging sideways to avoid Coleman’s attentions and almost lost his grip on Suzanne in the process. But the creature that had been Coleman simply stuck to the opposite side of the shaft, twisting his head at an impossible angle to search for his prey again.
Timms shot at him once more, and the bullets were just absorbed into the thing’s body. What harm could they do, anyway? He’d been full of lead when he died. It was Jackson who’d come up with the solution in the end. Just as Coleman was about to pounce again, the private peeled off a piece of charred wall and dropped it on Coleman.
The added weight threw him off balance and he fell down the shaft. Andrew thought he might cast out a web on his way down like the superhero he’d resembled, but he didn’t. He simply fell away into the blackness, landing with a thump.
Carrying on their descent, they were cautious when they arrived at the burnt-out husk of the carriage. Coleman was there, wedged in the gap between the lift and the wall, stuck and unmoving. It was only as they stepped onto the top of the cab, attempting to force the ground floor doors open and climb through, that he made a grab for their legs. He caught Andrew’s ankle, and held on tight – forcing him to hand over Suzanne to Monks.
“We have to get out of here!” said the private, jabbing a finger upwards. The shaft was filled with Sleepers now, all making their way down as Coleman had done, but in their dozens. Those who’d been trying to force their way into the ward.
Timms brought his boot down hard on Coleman’s hand, the crunching of bones echoing off the walls. They had to shift some wreckage, then forced open a crack in the doors. Jackson and Timms scrabbled to close them again once they were all clear, hoping that might keep their pursuers at bay for a little while. They just got them shut as the first of the Sleepers reached the carriage.
Running to the ambulance bay, Andrew carried Suzanne over his shoulder again and followed the more experienced men, used to moving silently through enemy territory – though you’d swear Timms had had little or no training at all. “Can’t you be a bit quieter?” Andrew said to him, but the man just grunted.
It was then that they saw Baker, as they hid behind a wall to avoid the Sleepers down here. He was being chased by quite a number of them. They watched as he shot at the ones after him with his pistol, then tried to get away in an ambulance that his pursuers clambered all over until he went slap bang into the wall of the building opposite. The front end of the vehicle crumpled like a concertina. The Sleepers then retrieved the case with the virus and antidote inside.
“That’s what they were after,” Andrew said. “They couldn’t let him get away with it.”
“Do you think he’s dead?” asked Jackson.
“Who the fuck cares? I fucking hope so,” Timms replied, as diplomatic as ever.
Jackson rankled. “He’s my commanding officer.”
“He was also ready to hand you over to the Sleepers to discharge his orders,” Andrew reminded him. “Come on, now’s the time to go while they’re still distracted.”
They made their way over towards another untouched ambulance, but it wasn’t long before the Sleepers had spotted them and were giving chase, just like they’d done with Baker. They didn’t want to end up the same way as him.
Jackson and Timms argued about who should be driving, while Andrew carried Suzanne into the back. “Just decide, and do it quickly!” he snapped.
In the end Timms elected to ride shotgun, sticking the rifle out of the passenger side window – for all the good it would do.
“Hold on to your hats, this is gonna be just like Death Race 2000,” Jackson warned. “Only not nearly as much fun.” He revved the engine and put the ambulance into reverse, swinging it around. As he set off forwards something thumped onto the roof.
“Fucking already?” snarled Timms, who hadn’t been expecting the crowds to be on them this quickly. But as a figure crawled down over the windscreen, they saw it was the disjointed body of Coleman, smashed in the fall down the lift shaft.
“Christ on a bike!” bawled Timms.
Jackson stamped on the accelerator, lurching forward, and the Sleepers that had gathered at the hospital mixed with those emerging from inside to give chase. He slammed on the brakes when he was going fast enough, banking on the fact Coleman hadn’t had time to find proper purchase yet, even with those sticky fingers of his. The broken shell of a man was flung off the front of the ambulance. Just in time, as well, because he was about to smash the windscreen.
Jackson was going to drive round Coleman, when Timms tugged on the wheel and they ended up running right over the body, the ambulance lifting slightly as they did so. “Just to make sure,” he said.
Monks wrestled the steering wheel back under his control, zig-zagging s
o they avoided the Sleepers to the left and right. “Hold on,” he called back, then rammed the vehicle forwards so it hit the edge of a ramp. The whole thing lifted a few feet into the air before crashing back down again. Jackson accelerated off, leaving most of the Sleepers behind.
“That was close,” he said, whistling as best he could through the mask.
Then they turned the corner and saw it.
The entire street was blocked off by Sleepers laying in wait.
***
Bridget had seen it all, having crawled along the ground in an attempt to make it to the front of the hospital.
Her left leg was broken, and at least one of her arms severely injured, but she’d managed to get this far. Where she was going, she had no idea, she just had to get away. She didn’t know what had come over her back there, about to slit the woman’s throat while she slept. It was just the culmination of looks Andrew had given Suzanne (even her bloody name was pretty!), the brushes of the hand when he thought nobody was looking... Bridget couldn’t stand it any more. Whether this was the girl he’d dreamt about or not, Andrew believed it was, and he’d fallen for her hook, line and sinker... without her even having to wake up.
And shooting that gun? What she’d done to that soldier – accidentally, though, accidentally, she reminded herself. She didn’t know why she’d picked the thing up in the first place, it was just there, next to Timms. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but then she’d turned it on Andrew. The man she claimed she loved.
Bridget let out a whine. What had happened to her? Andrew was right, it wasn’t like her. She’d come into this city to:
Keep an eye on Andrew, be close to him?
To save lives.
Not take them.
But events near the ambulance bay interrupted her thoughts. Andrew... her Andrew; she saw him through the cracks in her visor.
