"What-do-I-do-what-do-I-do " Geri recited, uselessly, to herself, finally reaching for the door handle and pushing it open with her teeth gritted. Outside, she could almost taste them in her throat. Their decrepit flesh was not only rough on the eye; they weren't smelling so hot, either. Their acrid stench weighed heavy in the air, and she felt herself gagging.
Most of the dead seemed to be fascinated with Lark's merry mayhem, so she was able to move fairly quickly around them, going unnoticed. What looked like the body of a young boy reached for her, though, just as she made the front garden path. She screamed blue hell at it, shoving her gun in its very mouth and blasting, repeatedly. Bits of its head exploded all over her with the first shot, the second and third finding their way through its devastated skull to shatter the kneecap of a second creature, sending it to the ground, also. Geri kicked the first corpse as it fell, like a mangy dog, backing further up the path.
"Open the fucking door!" Lark was still shouting, banging his hands so hard that they were bleeding.
Geri pressed her back against the front window of the house, both hands shaking. She was pointing her gun in the direction of the remaining dead. They began to close in on them, just like the others downtown, earlier. They were working together. Working as a pack. She could hear their growling, almost harmonising with one another as they closed rank, as if they were communicating. She could smell them, taste them, almost feel their touch on her skin as they ebbed closer.
"Fuck this," Lark spat, turning the rifle in their direction, leaning back against the door. His silenced muzzle flashed once, twice, cutting another two of them down in a haze of scarlet. Geri opened up, too, her gun's sound ricocheting through the street. The blood-soaked chest of an old woman shattered under fire, her wiry legs seeming to lose balance. A young kid, wearing a football jersey and piss-stained pyjamas, lost the side of his ear in a crimson spray. He reached his hand to where it had been, moaning as if the prelude to full-on yapping.
"Jesus fuck!" screamed Lark, a mixture of fear and excitement in his voice. The nerves were affecting his aim. He fired repeatedly at the depleting numbers, his bullets straying high, wide and on target. Eventually, the rifle clicked on empty. He continued to bang on the trigger, nothing happening past a stark, empty round of clicks. "Ah, for -" he began.
Just then the door opened, a ski-masked face appearing.
"Get in, get in!" yelled McFall. He reached out and grabbed Geri by the back of her collar, just as he had done that first day, dragging her in.
Lark rushed past him, slamming the door shut once everyone was inside.
"Where were you?!" he barked, as the other two joined him in the living room.
"Sleeping," McFall answered, rubbing his eyes through the ski-mask, "until all of this woke me up."
Chapter Seventeen
The quarantined flats disturbed her the most. Their doors and windows were boarded up, but it didn't stop the sounds from inside escaping. The hoarse, gravelly growling. The awkward shuffles. The occasional plate or glass falling and smashing. Sharp bangs at the door every now and then. The dead were with her. Inside the apartment block, riled by her every move. Karen knew they couldn't escape, but they still freaked her out. Much more than the ones she could see.
They hadn't ventured as far down as this before. Pat had thought it best to start from the top and work their way down with their campaign of pillaging. The stairwell had allowed them to bypass each floor without moving through it, even when travelling to the entrance of the apartment block. But now she stood in front of flat 23, gripping her handgun tightly.
This had clearly been the scene of a particularly brutal quarantine. The pale, grey pallor of the concrete walls and corridor were stained with splashes of rich, mahogany red. The welding on the metal sheet covering the door looked hurried and unfinished. Karen ran her finger over the join, noticing how bumpy and uneven it was, as if the welder had been rushing the job. A few bolts were missing. Some yellow tape hung off the wall half-heartedly, instead of running the full 'X' across the scene, like most of the other quarantined flats.
Karen noticed the door of flat 27, further up the corridor, hanging open. It was swaying slightly, as if dancing. Her heart was beating in time with the rhythmic slap against the door frame. Karen walked towards it, nervously. She raised her handgun as she moved. A single fly buzzed out of the doorway, making her jump. She raised her gun at it, without thinking, before checking herself.
She looked inside the flat, reluctant to actually set foot in it. A breeze blew out at her, as if one of the windows inside had been left open. A rich cocktail of smells drifted out the doorway. They were smells she was starting to become accustomed to. The thick, heavy scent of sweat. The sickly sweet taste of death, tickling the back of her throat. Rotting food and putrid dairy products. A failed sewage system. All mixed together like some hellish perfume.
Cautiously, heart still tripping, Karen moved inside. The hallway was stained with similar blood splatters as she'd seen in the corridor, slightly more vivid against the floral wallpaper. Pictures and ornaments lay in pieces on the carpet. An overturned vase, still intact, comforted its long dead flowers. Crushed china dogs ground against the carpet like delicate road kill. A smashed TV set lay crash landed on the carpet. There had obviously been a struggle here.
Karen moved through the hallway, glancing towards the bathroom. The door remained closed, a quaint picture of a cottage nailed to the wall beside it. The picture was the very antithesis to the home it had decorated. A quaint, countryside image that no longer said anything about the flat or its contents. It probably said even less about its occupants.
She inched the living room door open a little wider, peering in from a safe distance. The carpets were thick with blood, smeared across the inanely dull pattern like jam. It was as if bodies had been dragged from the scene after a rather violent struggle. Karen began to wonder about the sheer scale of what the flats had suffered before being evacuated. She knew things had got bad. God knows, she was in the heart of most of it, like everyone else still surviving. But she had left home early on, going to the church before things had really gone to hell. Now she began to wonder just what those who had stayed at home, or been forced to stay, had put up with before entire housing estates were closed down and quarantined the same way flats were.
A sudden movement behind her made her jump. Turning, gun raised, Karen noticed Pat standing in the hallway.
"Whoa," he said. "Only me."
"Sorry," she replied, lowering the gun. She was still angry at him from before. Angry as well as scared. She had never thought that he could hurt her like that. So violently
"You didn't wait for me," he said, sounding almost hurt.
"I know," she said, worried of what might happen if she upset him again, "I-I didn't know where you were. I thought you might be sleeping or something."
"Oh," he said. "Fair enough, then." She watched him run his eye over the chaotic looking living room. The smashed television, its glass gathered, for the most part, in large shards just by the fireplace. Curtains wrested from their railings. Creased blinds. An overturned bucket, dried puke hardened in the carpet beside it, next to the smeared blood stains. "What a mess," he said, pursing his lips.
"You can say that again," Karen said meekly She couldn't even look him in the eye, never mind talk to him comfortably.
"Find anything useful?" he asked.
"Smell the place," she replied, turning her nose up. "Hardly worth even looking for anything eatable." But she wasn't looking for anything to eat. She was looking for somewhere to hide, somewhere that was away from him. She couldn't tell him that, though.
"Fair enough," he said for the second time. It was such a 'Pat' comment. So guarded and lazy, giving nothing away or expressing any real emotion. That was probably why he used it so much.
Another sound disturbed them, this one coming from back down the corridor. It was a high pitched sound, somewhere between a cry and a moan. At firs
t Karen thought it was just the dead, perhaps becoming as scared and frustrated and restless as she was. But when it sounded out again, Karen noticed something unique about it
Chapter Eighteen
"And you just left them there?" said McFall, after Geri had told him the story. They were sitting in the living room. McFall had made some tea, using a tea bag he had liberated from the bin. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
"Well, it's not like they're locked in the patio, is it?" she countered, "With no food for three days?"
McFall thought about that for a while, then shrugged. He couldn't believe she was still hung up on all of that.
"They'll have everything. An almost endless supply," Lark offered. "Not that they'll need it, of course. That big fucker will be dead within a day."
"You don't know that," Geri said, sharply. It seemed she was obviously feeling guilty for leaving them. McFall was starting to wonder if they should have left her in that damn patio for good. She was too emotional, too unpredictable. And those weren't the ingredients for a quiet life. God knows what she'd do if push came to shove.
"Well, it's pretty likely that you'll pick up a fucking airborne virus from a bite," Lark said, sarcastically. "And, by the way, it wasn't only me who decided to leave them, was it?"
"Well, it wasn't me who decided to shoot at them!" Geri yelled back at Lark.
"Jesus, calm down, for fuck's sake," McFall said to both of them, shaking his head. "It's done, now. And probably for the best. That bigger one was a complete prick. I'm glad he's been bitten, to be honest with you."
"How can you wish that on anyone?!" Geri screamed at him. "You've seen those things out there! Can you imagine actually becoming one?" McFall thought about that for a second. He couldn't imagine it, really. He hadn't really thought past getting infected, or maybe being eaten alive by them at the very worst. To actually become one of them had never entered his mind.
"That other cop will deal with him," said Lark. "George, or whatever his name is. He'd never let his mate end up like that. No one would."
"What about George, then?" Geri asked, antagonistically. "It's pretty fucking likely that he'll end up the same way, with no one to deal with him!"
"It's not our problem!" snapped Lark. "Jesus, if you felt so bad, why didn't you stay with them."
Geri put her head in her hands, deflated. It sounded like she was crying. McFall almost felt sorry for her. He never liked to see a woman cry. He'd made his wife cry over the years they were together - mainly for stupid things, like getting into a fight or losing his job. It always made him stop and think when he'd driven her to tears, though. It was like the final straw, the blaring foghorn on a ship rolling in on a rainy night. He always worried she might leave him when she was crying.
"Look," McFall said, sighing, "the whole world's fucked over, love. You can't let this thing get you down. You gotta look out for number one, now. That's the bottom line." He was trying to comfort her, but it seemed to have the complete opposite effect. She immediately jumped up and ran upstairs, slamming the door shut behind her.
"Fucking women " Lark muttered to himself. "Jesus H Christ "
"What if they come back?" McFall said to him, speaking even more candidly now that the girl was gone.
"What if who comes back?" Lark replied, impatiently.
"The fucking cops!" McFall exclaimed. "They know where we live."
Lark just looked at him, seemingly dumbfounded.
"I think they'll have enough on their minds without
"Wanting to fuck over the guys who shafted them, left them to die a horrible death? Come on, mate, you've already said yourself that they're pretty much screwed. They won't have much to lose, then, by trying to get their own back "
Lark looked scared as the sense of what McFall was saying hit home.
"Okay," he said, finally. "Guess we've got to hit the road, then."
"Do we take her with us?" McFall said, quietly, pointing in the direction of the stairs.
"What?" Lark said, sounding surprised. But McFall knew he'd heard exactly what he'd said.
"I'm only saying, like. She's been nothing but trouble. Might be worth just slipping out, like, and saying nothing."
Lark glared at him, that all too familiar expression of disbelief spreading across his face.
"You're such a dick," he said, finally. "Of course we take her. We're not fucking monsters." And with that, Lark disappeared up the stairs leaving McFall alone again.
He stared over at the TV set in the corner. He suddenly remembered his wife's favourite show. It was a holiday programme, full of sunny beaches and deep blue skies.
She would watch it and then turn around to him and ask him why they never went on holiday any more. Of course, McFall could only say things like I'm too busy with the taxi driving, or, Sure, we have everything we need here. The real reason, of course, was that McFall was a man who feared change. He liked the status-quo. He liked his routine and he liked having a life that was predictable and safe.
He suddenly felt bad that he hadn't taken the missus on her holiday. He thought of all the cash in the bank he'd clocked up - all worth absolutely nothing, now. He could have used some of that to take her away. It would have made her happy. Now it was too late.
His eyes lingered on the television, a machine unlikely to ever work again. Dust had gathered in a thin veneer over the flat screen. It almost looked like sand.
Chapter Nineteen
"Where's it coming from?" Karen asked.
Pat wasn't sure, of course. The old hearing was never the same since his rifle had misfired back in '87. His orders were to take out a fairly well-known loyalist politician. He had the bastard in his sights, but a dodgy shipment from Libya meant not all the rifles were in tiptop condition, shall we say.
"It's definitely somewhere on this floor," he said, lying, unable to hear the damn noise, at all.
"That's what I thought," she whispered, as if worried whatever was making the noise would run away if discovered. They moved back down the corridor to the flat she had passed earlier that day. Flat 23. As they drew closer to it, Karen's ears seemed to prick up, again. "It's coming from that flat," she said.
"Which flat?" Pat asked, still clueless.
"Can't you hear it?" she said, suddenly perturbed. It was as if she wouldn't believe the sound was real unless he could also hear it.
"Not really," he said, laughing uncomfortably. "My hearing's a bit gone, you see."
But she wasn't interested in Pat's hearing. Her own ear was pressed against the door of flat 23. She pulled her hair back with one hand, still gripping her handgun with the other. She looked like she was tuning a radio station, eyes narrowed in deep concentration.
"What is it?" he asked, "What do you hear?"
"Shhh " she said.
He noticed the light catching her face, now her hair was pulled back. A huge bruise spread across her cheek, where he'd hit her with the rifle. A sharp pang of guilt ran across his chest, almost causing him to cough. But then she jumped, and Pat jumped with her. Whatever it was she was hearing had sounded again. Only, this time Pat thought he could hear it, as well.
"Oh my God!" she said, turning to look at Pat.
"I definitely heard that," he said. And he had. It was a banging noise, as if someone or something were behind that door. At first he thought it was one of the dead, locked into their death bed, like all the other quarantined. But when he listened more intently, turning his good ear towards the door and tuning in just as Karen had done, he could hear something different. It wasn't just the banging, there were other sounds, too. Not the hoarse, croaking coughs of the dead nor their heavy, sombre footsteps. These sounds were different. They were more animated. More human.
Jackson awoke with a start, finding himself on the ground of the control room. His eyes looked around, noting that Gallagher, the private and everyone else was where they had been earlier, all eyes on the monitors. The pilots of the helicopter had returned; both m
en now sat with the others.
Jackson struggled to pull his tired, wounded body against a nearby cabinet, leaning back and wincing against the sharp pain of the bullet wound. He noticed the shell on the floor. It had gone right through him. It was a clean wound. Yet, despite this small blessing, he was powerless to do anything except keep his eyes fixed on the screen like all the others.
He watched as Gallagher quickly moved to a nearby filing cabinet, reaching to open it before flicking through various bits of paper and card. "We have records, here, of all the new occupants of the target areas," he mumbled to the others. "Even when the project was drawing to a close, it was still thought best to keep the records up-to- date just in case "
His eyes suddenly fell upon Jackson. "Ah, you're back with us, sir," he said. "And not in the undead sense, it seems."
"Fuck you," Jackson said, his voice weak and raspy.
Gallagher laughed. "Please, Major," he said, returning to flick through the files, as if Jackson were only of limited interest to him. "There's no need to be so uncouth."
"Sir, you might want to see this," the private said, interrupting them. Both Gallagher and Jackson looked towards the screen. The private had moved the view to outside the flat, again, where Jackson had first noticed the signs of quarantine in the first place. The monitor now showed two survivors, a man and a woman, standing outside the flat as if about to enter. Even though the image was not entirely clear, it was most likely to be Patrick Flynn standing there at the door.
"Patrick, Patrick," Gallagher said. "Looks like you and I are going to have that chat, after all "
Chapter Twenty
The storeroom was cool and damp. Boxes stood tall and broad, stacked in large cubes throughout the main storage area. A small office ran off the main room, several dusty computers, untouched for weeks, resting on the desks of admin staff who were most likely dead (or undead?) now. Filing cabinets, packed to the gills with archived invoices and stationary, remained locked up tight, as if valuable. They had no value in the new world, though. They would remain locked tight, for the duration of time, never to be opened again.
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