Blood at the Premiere: A Day One Undead Adventure

by RR Haywood

  ‘Whoa!’ Bennie says, swaying again. ‘No, like, I mean, didn’t you say that then Dolan said that and now…oh man, I am so fucking drunk.’

  Sometimes all that can be said has been said and the time for not saying anything is the time now.

  ‘But…’ Brian clearly doesn’t agree. ‘You said it, Henrietta…then Dolan said it and…’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Henrietta says, wishing she’d never said anything. ‘Just follow me to the last door.’

  A short walk across a moonlit rooftop and for a blessed few seconds they walk in a silence broken only by their feet shuffling and their clothes rustling and their chests wheezing and their mouths breathing too heavily and the vodka in the bottle swishing too noisily and Bennie swallowing too loudly. Henrietta winces. Curses inwardly. Purses her lips and furrows her brow but presses ever forward in her sole endeavour to keep Dolan, Bennie and Rose alive.

  They reach the last door without incident, which Henrietta takes as a triumph. She reaches out to gently turn the ornate brass handle down and her heart sinks at the realisation the door will be locked from the inside. Her mind fills with the problems that will be created by all of them having to go back and find something to use to force the door open then coming back and bickering over the actuality of beating a door down while worrying about the noise.

  However, and despite this being London where every door is locked, bolted and fitted with a camera, this door yields to the handle and swings out to her heart soaring from a full minute without anything going horribly wrong.

  ‘Is it open?’ Brian whispers disbelievingly from the back. ‘No way?’

  ‘It is,’ Henrietta says under her breath, holding the knife ready to plunge into the chest of any errant security guard waiting on the other side. All clear and the spoked, spiral wrought-iron staircase leads down without a single bleeding or bloodied person in sight.

  Taking advantage of the turn of luck, she heads down gaining a view of the bedroom as she turns through the twisting spiral down to the bottom. The rest file down in a single line to gather at the bottom, staring expectantly at Henrietta like cows waiting to be milked.

  Across the deep pile carpet she treads barefoot and into the hallway. Soft lights glow from nightlights left on but the apartment has that same lack of spark she felt when she knocked on the doors. A distinct lack of human essence and without knowing how she can tell the flat is empty.

  ‘Rose, who lives here?’

  ‘Some Audi prince but he’s never here,’ Rose whispers back.

  ‘Aldi prince?’ Bennie asks, screwing his face up. ‘Do Aldi have princes?’

  ‘She means the car manufacturer, you fucking idiot,’ Dolan cuts in scathingly.

  Silence. Silence that stretches. Cogs turning. Dolan glaring at Bennie then slowly becoming aware of Henrietta and Brian looking everywhere but at him.

  ‘I thought the Germans made Audi,’ Simon says. ‘Vorspring Dutch Technical…’

  ‘Vorsprung durch Technik,’ Brian says, correcting him carefully.

  ‘Yeah, so I’ll check the spyhole then,’ Henrietta says, whispering lightly with a slow, deep nod and still avoiding looking at Dolan blushing red and looking furious.

  ‘Yep,’ Brian says, copying her tone and motion. ‘Good idea.’

  At the door she leans in and slides the tiny metal cover over to peer through into the corridor that looks clear and empty. The angle is narrow, intended for use to see people at the door and not up the end. She closes her eyes, picturing the corridor and the distance to the stairwell door. A few metres? Maybe a bit more at the most. The carpet is soft and if they stay silent they might stand a chance of sneaking out.

  She presses her ear to the door next and listens intently but the door is thick and the modern luxury apartment block has been constructed to prevent anyone from hearing what the occupants are doing.

  She starts easing the lock over, wincing again at every tiny squeak and grind. The pressure of the mechanism releases and with her hand pushing the handle down it starts to open.

  ‘I’m going to look,’ she mouths back at the others but mainly for the benefit of Dolan in case he feels the urge to bolt past her.

  Cracking the door a few inches, she gets close to the gap and peers down but the angle is too tight so the door opens another inch, then another and more inches until the door is wide enough to let her slip through but still not enough of an angle to see down the corridor. She leans forward in tiny increments to see down to the stairwell door and the blood smeared all over the walls from that point on. The carpet is ruined. Filthy and still wet from the blood traipsed through and at the point of leaning further out to see the whole corridor a series of mental connections are made.

  There is no noise and there should be noise. The corridor should be filled with the sound of people attacking a door. Except it isn’t and as she looks down she spots the last beast staggering into the now open door to Rose’s apartment.

  The next connection is the route from Rose’s front door through the hallway into her father’s bedroom and up the stairs to the moonlit garden and across the roof to the door that they didn’t lock. At least she didn’t lock it and there is very little chance that any of the others would even think to lock the door.

  ‘Did any of you lock the door?’ she asks, turning to face them all. Shaking heads greet her as they look at one another. ‘Okay,’ she says calmly, ‘run.’

  ‘Sorry, what?’ Dolan sputters, moving swiftly into panicked mode.

  ‘I said run…RUN NOW…COME ON, RUN.’

  The first one fails to navigate the tricky spiral staircase and falls down with a sickening crunch of bones snapping. Another follows until like lemmings they cram and pour through the door on the roof garden to fling themselves down the stairs.

  No further invite is needed and as one the group in the hallway burst for the apartment door with Dolan screaming and Bennie trying to drink and run at the same time. Henrietta gets into the stairwell and pauses to make sure they’re all behind her then starts thundering down the stairs they came up just a short time ago. Down the first flight and a hard turn across the landing to drop down the next. Gravity assists their descent until their legs are stumbling rather than stepping and hands are slipping from the rail instead of gripping firm. Down, round and down. Down, round and down.

  Panic sweeps through them like a deadly infection that makes their pace faster and harder until there is no cohesion of movement but a half-controlled form of falling. Knife in her right hand. Left hand gripping the rail, Henrietta keeps at the front hearing the first of the things blunder, growling and hissing, into the stairwell above her.

  More coming up. Drawn by the smell of blood, perfume and fear. Henrietta going down with her group hard on her heels now carried by a momentum almost impossible to stop. Gasping for air, the survivors don’t hear the growling hisses of the horde that echoes and rolls to join the sounds of the horde coming down.

  They meet. On a landing on the second floor they meet. The collision is unavoidable. On one side the things are ramped with a thirst to bite and feast, driven by an urge coursing through every cell of their bodies. On the other side is fear, primeval fear and an absolute desire to not be in this place. Thirst against fear. Both are powerful needs that will drive the human body to incredible lengths. Add momentum to the mix and the result is a wild, screaming explosion of bodies hitting bodies and a knife driving deep through the throat of a small female that gets propelled back into her infected comrades that fall under the feet of the uninfected screamers.

  Henrietta goes down. Gripping the handle of the knife so hard, her brain can’t process the messages fast enough to send the signal to let go. She lands heavily on the small female with the jarring impact wrenching the blade free, which gets thrust up into the groin of a male still trying to move forward. The gush of blood from the opened artery is staggering. A jet of blood that sprays from the pressure driven by an infected heart. Pints empty within s
econds and weakens the male who sags to drop and gets slapped hard to the side of his head by Henrietta surging up to keep going. Dolan stamps down with hysteria now the spark of life within his mind. Bennie holds the bottles up, dancing on and over the infected that snap mouths at the legs going by. Simon screams at Henrietta being in danger and launches himself head first to fly past her, sending the few remaining infected sprawling. Brian at the back tries to guide Rose through the tangle of limbs.

  Henrietta doesn’t flinch and on seeing Simon go past and the path ahead clearing she reaches back, grips Dolan’s wrist and rushes on with a grunt at the effort of keeping the bigger man upright and moving. She glances behind him to see Bennie still alive and Brian working to guide Rose through the mess. The safety of the three are all that matter and together with Brian she gets them through the chaos to run round and down the next flight.

  ‘I’LL HOLD THEM BACK, HENRIETTA SWALLOW,’ Simon screams out. A quick turn and in that split second she sees the spark of life glorious in Simon’s eyes as his hands grip either side of a woman’s head and snap viciously to sever the spine. Terror all around but a new ripple of fear comes from the speed and strength Simon shows in a movement that looks so natural to him. The second the body drops from his hands he grips the topknot hair of a male courier cyclist, yanks the head back to expose the soft neck and throat punches into the infected man with a power that breaks the fragile bones that pierce the flesh into the windpipe. Blood pours from the cyclist’s mouth and down into his lungs, but Simon hasn’t finished and punches again, then again and again until his fist is a blur of sickening dull thuds.

  ‘IT’S OKAY TO FIGHT NOW, ISN’T IT, HENRIETTA SWALLOW?’ Simon shouts while punching, stamping, strangling, snapping and jabbing. A maniacal laugh joins the words that screech down the stairwell to Henrietta and the others running round and down.

  Chapter Ten

  A folly of an idea

  ‘Shit,’ Henrietta spits the foul utterance at the sight of the bodies strewn about the car park in a long line from the entry ramp to the door. Broken bodies with broken necks lying at funny angles, except they ain’t funny. Not funny at all.

  ‘Fucking psycho.’ Even Dolan snaps from his nightmare enough to make the connection from the mangled corpses to the crazed man still shouting in the building. ‘Nice stalker, Henrietta.’

  ‘Every cloud and all that. We need to run,’ Henrietta says, urging them back up to speed after stopping at the gruesome sight.

  ‘This is, like, totally believable,’ Rose imparts her learned view staring round with interest at the pools of blood and white shards of bones poking through torn skin. ‘Can I take a selfie?’

  ‘No.’ Henrietta lunges back to grab the girl leaning down next to a dead body with her iPhone held out. Too late; the snap is taken before the grinning girl gets pulled along.

  ‘I’M KILLING FOR YOU, HENRIETTA SWALLOW.’

  ‘So. Effing. Cool.’

  Back the way they came before Rose joined the troupe and they run staggering and exhausted across the car park and up the incline to the road and the night air proper as seen from ground level. Which way? Don’t go back. Go forward.

  No hesitation now, she guides them onto the main road and away from the town they ran from. Smoke hangs in the air that gets thicker and stronger with every few steps taken. Cindered ash still glowing red floats on the warm thermal currents forced through the gaps and alleys of the high buildings. Wood. Paper. Organic matter burning, but that almost pleasant smell is soon corrupted by the odours of rubber, paint, chemicals and harsh, stinging gases that bring tears to eyes. There is no choice but to keep running and going forward. No alleys to use now. No dark strips of land between buildings they can duck down and hide. No openings to take advantage of. Just this road long and straight that ends at the junction that seems so far ahead.

  She wants to sprint, to open her stride and power on knowing she could outstrip the staggering beasts with ease, but Dolan is already wheezing and Bennie is too pissed to sprint. Brian is suffering, too, while Rose is giving description to her name with a slow crimson spread through her alabaster cheeks.

  ‘Try and find a vehicle,’ Brian pants from his position at the rear.

  Henrietta turns to tell him this is London and the chances of finding a vehicle with keys in it are nil but the road behind Brian is now full of those same staggering beasts pouring from the underground car park to spread out in thick lines.

  ‘Just run,’ she urges, ‘come on, run…COME ON…FUCKING RUN…’ Power in her voice bellows the order and she sees the burst of speed applied to their legs in response. ‘They’re right behind you…run…RUN…’

  Feet pound on the tarmac and although the willpower to survive is strong they are just not fit enough to sustain this pace. How the hell are those things moving so fast? How do they keep going? And the wounds they’ve sustained should have them bleeding out to die or at least keeling over, but they’re still moving. She glances back every few seconds, gaining valuable snapshots of the infected running further down the road. She spots old people in their late fifties, sixties, seventies and older that are keeping pace with young people dressed for the evening. Obese people shifting to grind on with skinny rakes and gym bunnies. Some lag back but those are from awful injuries more than anything else. Some of these people should be dropping from heart attacks. She looks to Bennie then back at the beasts and each glance cements the word Bennie used to describe them. Zombies. The undead. Bitten. Infected. Dead. Reanimated and now living with a thirst to bite and pass that infection. That her mind can process the thoughts is testament to the slow pace her group are now running at.

  ‘RUN,’ she bellows again, sensing the increase in speed as they pick it up but their leg muscles burn from the lactic acid. Chests feel tight and vision swims and blurs from the lack of blood getting to their pounding brains and the sweat dripping down. Even the natural fitness of the young can’t keep Bennie and Rose moving for long.

  ‘Can’t run,’ Rose gasps, dropping from a run to a walk and waving her hand. ‘Like, totally…no more…’

  ‘MOVE,’ Henrietta shouts in horror at the girl puffing her cheeks out and looking somewhat rueful with a slight grin twitching at her lips. ‘No, like, seriously…edit this bit out so I can get some air. Like…’

  ‘Fucking move.’ Henrietta grabs her arms, yanking her on and balking at the reduction in distance between them and the undead still staggering towards them.

  ‘I said I can’t,’ Rose says petulantly, trying to pull her arm away.

  ‘We’ve been running for a minute…’ Henrietta rebukes, dragging her on.

  ‘So? Like, whatever. I don’t do running.’

  ‘You’ll die if you stay here…now run…’

  ‘Henrietta…get off…YOU ARE HURTING ME…’

  ‘I will fucking stab you if you don’t move. Now run, you little shit.’

  A shocked Rose blanches from the venomous words but finds herself dragged with a pain radiating from the tight grip on the soft flesh of her arm. She tries dragging her heels but Henrietta is too strong, too fit and too determined to allow it to happen and the pain in her arm only increases. In the end it’s easier to go with than fight against so she picks her feet up while trying to pout and show displeasure at the same time.

  ‘Fire…some…somewhere.’ Brian gets the broken words out while covering his mouth with his hand.

  Burning embers float down to lie on the road. Smoke clouds roll thick and visible across the junction they finally reach. Henrietta looks left to a frenzy of activity and figures running crazed in the shadows, and right to a street burning ablaze with flames scorching from a building to lick high into the night air. Sound joins the view and a roar of fire as hungry as the infected eating into the abundance of material. A sight to behold, and at any other time they would stare to gawp and watch, but this is not any other time. This is now and to go left is to die. To go back is to die. The only possible route is to go rig
ht. She looks left again just in time to see a figure running in the distance that gets pulled down by things giving chase, and the motion of them diving in to bite and feast is all she needs to see.

  ‘This way,’ she says and heads right. To a folly of an idea. To run towards a mountain of fire and a street clogged with smoke. Only fire service people in breathing apparatuses and fireproof suits would go this way and even then they would be armed with powerful hoses and people ready to drag them to safety. There is no choice, though.

  ‘We can’t, Henrietta.’ Brian says, giving voice to the fear they’re all feeling.

  ‘We have to…come on,’ she urges them on, still holding Rose by the arm and pulling her behind.

  ‘It’s fire,’ Dolan says, staring wildly. ‘No…no…please no…’

  ‘COME ON,’ she shouts with growing fury at the closeness of the infected coming down towards the junction.

  ‘No…’ Dolan’s mind starts to go. To unwind and unravel as the sights and senses are overloaded to breaking point.

  ‘We’re going.’ Henrietta gets behind him, pushing a hand in his back then grabbing Bennie to yank him on. She twists to push Brian while still gripping Rose. Another push to Dolan. Yank Bennie. Push Brian. Drag Rose. Yell and curse and shove, but she gets them moving. One step, two steps and up to a walk and faster to a jog with insides feeling like they’ll drop from arses and stomachs heaving with chests constricted and a whole new level of terror being reached.

  They have to run. They have to run towards the fire. She knows this. Keep Dolan, Bennie and Rose alive. This is the way to go.

  They get closer and the smoke starts to get into lungs but they have no choice to keep going or get kicked, punched and shoved hard by Henrietta tearing into them.

  The building line on the right is alight with thick, roaring flames spewing from the windows on every level but the building on the left is just as high so the heat and smoke hangs and builds in the street between. The smoke is so thick they can’t see through it and every instinct tells them to stop and turn away.