by RR Haywood
The window gives first with a thunderous crash as bodies fall through to be trampled underfoot. The door gives a split second later with a tearing noise of wood splintering and glass fracturing. Blood sprays to coat the walls and tiled floor from the cuts inflicted, but they pour into the eating area to slam against the counter. For a second, Henrietta fears they will vault over and be into them but the press of so many pushing forward prevents them from rising and instead they crowd harder and deeper with animalistic voices howling, groaning and hissing with hunger.
A squirt of liquid jets over her shoulder to coat the faces driving into the counter in red goo. She turns to see Bennie squeezing the life out of a bottle of ketchup with a look of drunken fury on his face. Brian grabs the mayonnaise and adds to the assault by slopping the white gunk at the hordes pushing in.
A sizzling noise and a smell of burning. Henrietta snaps her head left to see a basket of chips bubbling in the fryer with the chipped potatoes dark brown and burning from the sustained cooking. One thought leads to another and the sight of Bennie and Brian trying to fend them off with condiments has her grabbing the handle of the basket and twisting her upper body to fling the super-hot contents over the counter. The oil and chips land on flesh burning through with horrific speed that melts skin with red blisters forming instantly to pop and sag. The chips bury into hair that singes and curls up. She lunges forward, pressing the end of the basket into a face, gaining height to get over the counter. The skin sizzles but the beast shows no discernible reaction. The wire mesh melts down to the bone that shows white until covered with pouring blood. She hits out, slamming the basket left and right into heads that get walloped and knocked, but it’s not enough.
The long, heavy knife sharpener left on the side under the turning rack of meat presents itself and she takes it up to swing out. Such a heavy implement would knock a normal person aside, but she slams it into their heads again and again with no effect. Her strong arms work furiously to wield the weapon with brutal action. Condiments fly from the kitchen as Bennie and Brian grab what they can to throw. Burger cartons, chicken pieces and cans of fizzy drink get launched to whack into faces that do not flinch from the impact.
‘Dolan, find a way out,’ Henrietta shouts, hitting an elderly woman across the face with the knife sharpener, peeling the old, thin skin apart that bleeds gently. The old woman gnashes her teeth with increasing frustration at not being able to bite what she can see. Still they come. More and more coming through the ruined window and door to push harder into the kebab house.
‘DOLAN, FIND A WAY OUT.’ Henrietta snatches a glimpse of the man still whimpering with tears coursing down his face. ‘BENNIE…’ she shouts, seeing Dolan is rendered useless, ‘FIND A BACK DOOR.’
‘I’d like to find your back door,’ Bennie sniggers, shoving a handful of cold chips in his mouth.
‘HENRIETTA SWALLOW…’ Simon’s voice bellowing from outside, unseen but close.
Oh my god why isn’t he dead yet?
The danger increases another notch as the barrier between them suddenly looks too flimsy and too low. The ones at the front wriggle to rise up and lean over the counter to lunge with biting snaps at the people in the kitchen.
‘Stop bloody eating and find a way out,’ Henrietta yells, snatching the long, bladed knife that was next to the sharpener under the carcass of meat turning on the spit. A shift in mindset and a thing done that can never be undone. To use a knife is bad. To stab or cut another person is wrong, but she doesn’t hesitate or ponder the consequences of the action. There is no doubt in her mind. No lingering voice that says don’t do this. There is life and there is death, and she wants life.
She swings round, slicing the knife across the faces lunging over the counter. A keen edge made sharp by the gifted hands of the owner that prided himself on having a sharp knife to cut the thinnest strips of meat in an effort to increase profits. It bites through flesh and whispers across skin, opening them up one after the other.
Blood pours across the counter from the cuts given, but the swing wasn’t hard or deep enough. With a grunt she sticks the sharp point into a stretched neck and yanks the handle up and down with such vicious motion that it opens the artery that sprays hot blood over the faces of the gnashing things. The artery releases the blood from the pressurised system of the body that fights to close the wound, but too much is being sprayed out and the heart cannot cope with such loss. The body groans and slumps down out of view with the first kill given.
A lesson learnt and as the corpse drops so she slams that blade into the next one, cutting into the neck. She lifts up and chops down, removing fingers that lie like fat sausages on the high-gloss counter. Frenzied now, Henrietta stabs and cuts at the things, killing them one after the other. Throats cut. Faces slit open. Noses chopped off. Eyes popped from the point driving through into the brain, but a new danger is presented. As the bodies drop to fall and lie on the tiled floor so they are trampled down by the rest still pushing in. They gain height from those bodies, using them as steps. They bend further over the counter, sensing they are closer, and the blood pours from the worktop to drip down on both sides.
‘Back door,’ Brian shouts. Henrietta stabs forward, killing a bouncer with the blade plunging deep into his throat. She twists and yanks the knife back as the ragged hole left in the flesh fills with crimson liquid that bubbles from the ruined airway.
She backs up with her chest heaving under the expensive designer dress and her eyes blazing in challenge at the wild beasts still cramming into the kebab house.
‘Go…GO.’ She spins round to grab Dolan and launch him through the rear door into a staff room full of boxes and crates of drinks. Brian runs ahead, pulling bolts back on the exit door and pushing it open to run out into a high-walled yard. She follows out with Bennie and Dolan to look round and spots the gate. More bolts. More locks, but they get pulled back and the gate is wrenched open. They run into another alley but this time they don’t stop to worry about a torch or fat rats eating tramps. Instead they run. Henrietta in the lead, clutching the knife now dripping with blood. They run deep down between the brick walls and past the barred windows, heading in an unknown direction towards a destination they do not know.
Chapter Eight
Ping
They run until the pain is burning through their legs. They run until their chests are gasping for air. They run with the sweat stinging their eyes and the stitches radiating pain in their sides. Three of them suffer from pain, exhaustion and fatigue while one keeps going on legs trained to work with muscles toned to perform.
‘Gotta…gotta stop,’ Dolan wheezes. Falling back, his legs feel like rubber, but Henrietta grabs his wrist pulling him on.
‘Keep going…’
Crashing behind them, the things have got through the kebab house and into the rear yard to pour, frenetic and charged, into the alley.
‘HENRIETTA SWALLOW.’
Still Simon’s voice screams into the night, bellowing with increasing rage at being denied what he longed to have for so long.
Bennie pukes to the side, his guts reacting from the alcohol and the exercise. Brian snatches the bottle and pushes him on. Dolan wheezes and sobs for his life.
‘We’ve got to keep going…keep going,’ Henrietta urges them on, pushing Dolan, pulling Bennie, desperate to keep them alive to secure her own future. Brian has no value and is left to find his own stamina and motivation.
The alley ends and they run out into another wide street. More of the things off to the left attacking into a building. Pushing and straining to get inside and feast on whoever is in there.
‘This way,’ she whispers the instruction. ‘Stay in the shadows.’ She forces them to run along the building line while every few steps she turns to check the view behind. Seconds are all they gain before the first of the horde burst from the alley into the street. They don’t hesitate, either, but veer hard right straight after Henrietta and the three men.
She kno
ws they cannot sustain this pace. She can, but these three can’t. Unfit and unconditioned with poor respiratory function, and it’s only a matter of time before one of them pulls a muscle. Again she searches for a way out. For something to show itself that she can use. Still not panicking, the desire to keep Dolan and Bennie alive keeps her mind functioning at that high speed. That motivation. That need to be a part of Dolan’s story that he’ll tell after this. She looks round at the three men with a flash thought of dropping Brian to give the chasers something to feast on. The consideration is put to one side. Not yet.
This is no good. The shops are locked up tight. The cafés are the same and in between the retail outlets the commercial offices are dark and imposing in their fortress-like security.
‘Can’t,’ Dolan wails loud and frightened like a child in tantrum. Bennie pukes again and Brian’s face is flushed with deep red splodges blooming in his cheeks.
The building line on the right drops away to a road leading to an underground car park. She takes it. They head down the sloping ramp and hope to hell there will be a way out. The descending surface eases the expenditure of energy to keep running and they go faster with wild, almost uncontrolled gait, arms flailing for balance and feet slapping the ground. A security barrier lies ahead next to a kiosk made of wood and glass that’s brightly lit but now empty. She goes under and stops to get the other three past the obstacle and then off again. Plunging into the low-vaulted huge expanse of what should be a security-patrolled private car park.
Expensive motors lie hither and thither. Bentleys, Porsches, Range Rovers with blacked-out windows and Mercedes with long, sleek bodies and oversized bonnets. The parking bays are wide and the lanes between them wider still. Freshly painted hanging baskets full of ferns adorn the sides, and the whole area is well lit in a safe, secure yet subdued ambience.
Her mind still works. The thoughts link each image to what they mean and the many visits she has made to luxury apartments in big blocks accessed by private car parks like this. There will be a lift or a stairwell somewhere. There has to be. Rich people don’t like walking and sure as shit they wouldn’t walk up the ramp to get inside their building by the front door.
‘C…I can’t…’
‘Bit further.’ Henrietta pulls the whimpering Dolan harder, thereby expending more of her own energy to keep him moving. Brian looks ready to pass out and Bennie has gone very pale. She looks again at Brian, wondering what would happen if he did pass out. Would they stop chasing? Would it slow the attackers down? He catches the look and holds her gaze for a split second before wheezing and looking ahead.
Feet hit concrete and the horde pour down the sloping ramp into the echoing chamber of the car park. Their voices roll ahead, magnified and all the more macabre. A steel door embedded in the far wall must be the lift. A split second of calculation and she sprints ahead.
‘Don’t go…bitch,’ Dolan spits the words out but she can’t afford the air now to reply but runs flat out towards the steel door. ‘Whore,’ Dolan simmers with that petulant rage at being abandoned to die. ‘YOU FUCKING WHORE…’
She slams into the steel door and jabs her finger at the button that lights up. No keypad, code or swipe card access, but then with security on guard they wouldn’t need secure access. She jumps back to look up at the red LED display over the top of the door but just a discreet down arrow lights up.
She turns round, blanching at the sight of the spread-out horde now thick in number and deep in rank that stagger in that ungainly run. The sight is awful. A terrible thing and an image seared into her mind. People but not people. All of them cut, bit, bleeding, injured and running towards them.
‘RUN,’ Henrietta shouts to the three men urging them to keep going while inside she wills Brian to trip and fall to buy them time. She looks back at the lift, desperately jabbing her finger into the button. ‘Come on…come on…RUN.’ She twists round, showing the terror on her face at the nearness of the bloodied people gaining ever closer.
She looks back at the steel doors, waiting for eternity for the beloved ping, but it doesn’t come. The motor purrs. The red down arrow flashes. The horde gains closer, with Dolan, Bennie and Brian struggling to catch up to her.
‘COME ON,’ she vents at the door with the knife still gripped in her hand. Too late. It’s too late. She turns and glares with anger pulsing as she prepares to die but by fuck she’ll take a few with her.
Ping.
It comes. The lift doors swoosh open and she turns fast to run in as a big security guard with bloodshot eyes comes staggering out. The point of the knife drives deep into his chest and she powers him back into the lift to pin him against the side. Dolan in after her whacking his hand at the control panel. Bennie and Brian stagger through. The security guard stretches his neck, trying to bite into Henrietta who leans into the knife while weaving and ducking to avoid his snapping mouth. Straining and grunting from the effort of keeping such a big man stuck like a pig.
Ping.
The doors start to close but the horde are close and one fast female breaches the gap to lunge head first into the lift as the doors seal closed. The motor purrs with the sensation of lift being felt but it goes unheeded as three men scream in blind panic and pin themselves to the sides.
‘Fuck it.’ Henrietta looks down at the back of the female’s head then up into the frenzied face of the security guard. ‘Kick her,’ Henrietta shouts, her voice drowned out by the wails of the men screaming high-pitched in terror as they try to crawl backwards through the hard sides of the lift. Soft music plays, a concerto of taste and elegance that has a new drum beat added from Henrietta stamping her bare heel down on the back of the female’s skull. The female goes down with a crunch of bone from her nose breaking on impact with the floor. The tiny adjustment of movement gives the security guard the leverage to lunge forward with his mouth open and ready to bite. With an explosion of power she rams her shoulder back into his chest while gripping the knife in a two-handed grasp to twist the handle round. The female groans and starts to rise. Another hard foot slams down, once again driving her into the floor. The security guard feels no pain as his innards spill from his open guts. He tries harder to bite out with his arms flailing round and whacking Henrietta in the head and body. She stamps down on the female again then saws the knife harder. The wound in the gut opens big and ragged. Glistening sausage-like entrails spill out, foul-smelling and hot with sticky blood. The female rises to get stamped and in fury Henrietta pulls the knife out in one smooth motion and sticks it back in his chest. She does it again and again. Stabbing over and over with the muscles in her arms straining and pumped. A wild look in her eyes and the speed builds faster while she works to pucker his body, breaking ribs and puncturing his lungs that fill with blood. Still he strains and works to bite down. She yanks the blade out, twitches the handle to point the blade up and drives it spear-like through the soft flesh under his chin. The metal blade drives into his mouth, slicing through his tongue that pours more blood down his throat into his rapidly filling lungs. She twists and hacks, cutting him to pieces while screaming in wild abandon. The security guard slumps and she goes with him, pulling the blade out, which gets stabbed down into the back of the female. She goes to work again. Puckering. Stabbing. Killing and killing until the floor of the lift runs deep in blood.
Ping.
The three screaming men run from the lift into the corridor as Henrietta stabs frenzied and wild into the two corpses with hard blows that ease as her mind tells her they are dead. Heaving for air, she stands up and with blood dripping from the knife she walks unsteadily from the lift, pauses and goes back inside to grab the female by the ankle to drag the corpse over the threshold of the door to stop the lift closing.
Open-mouthed and gasping for air, she sags against the wall and bends double to stare down at the plush beige carpet being stained red from the blood dripping from her hands.
She looks down the corridor to Bennie flat on his back with his chest
heaving. Brian kneeling nearby with sweat pouring from his face and Dolan curled up in the foetal position sobbing his heart out.
Henrietta’s mind still works clear and unimpeded. She is breathless but not exhausted. She is hot and sweating but not overly so. The lift is secure but there will be a stairwell. The security guard was in the lift. That means he was in the block, but what floor? What part? Did he bite anyone? Was he bitten in here or in the elevator? No. There was no blood in the elevator, she’s sure of it.
Beige carpet.
She looks down at the bloodied footsteps made by the four of them, but no other stains show. She steps back to the lift and looks down at the security guard, scanning his body until she sees the bite mark on the fleshy part of his right hand. He was bleeding but not on this level.
‘Where are you going?’ Dolan asks in a voice worried and accusing.
‘Just checking,’ Henrietta says, stepping back out of the lift.
‘You were trying to leave.’
‘No, Dolan. I was checking the injuries on…’
‘I’ll fucking sue everyone.’
‘What?’
‘Where the hell are the emergency services? The fucking army should be here…’
‘Oh no,’ Bennie says, sitting up and staring forlornly at the empty bottle. ‘Worst day ever now.’
‘Henrietta, knock on that door,’ Dolan orders, waving a hand at the closest apartment. ‘We need a landline…get the police here…I need an escort out.’
‘Can I have an escort?’ Bennie asks, looking up.
‘Not that kind of escort,’ Henrietta says.
‘Oh. You can be my escort, Henrietta.’
‘Thanks, Bennie,’ she mutters, tugging the hem of her dress down and fixing the loose strands of hair behind her ears while pointedly ignoring the thick, gloopy blood streaming down her legs, arms and hands before knocking on the door.
