by Luke Duffy
But Tony had accepted that he was different, and after finally admitting to himself about what made him tick, he had discovered a new peace within himself.
He heard footsteps behind him. The rapid hard pounding footsteps of someone sprinting along the street, and they were getting louder. Tony glanced to his left and right for somewhere to hide; he saw a low wall that was topped with a chain link fence. There was a gap where there would’ve normally been a heavy sliding gate, but it had been left open and he ducked behind it, out of sight from the street.
Crouching in his hiding place, he raised his head slightly and peered through the gaps in the chain link. Further down the street he could see a dark figure creeping along the wall of the warehouses across from him. He couldn’t tell whether it was friend or foe, and remained still and concealed in the shadows.
The figure came closer and he could soon distinguish the uniform of a police officer in riot gear. Whoever it was, they were hurt and limping. The officer stopped and dropped into a squatting position against the wall of the warehouse. Tony strained his eyes to see if he recognised them. He couldn’t, but he could hear sobs, and they sounded feminine.
He squinted at the end of the street, he saw no one else approaching and after a few deep breaths, he stood and walked out from behind the wall. The female officer hadn’t noticed him and he was ten feet away before she finally looked up.
Startled, she pushed her feet out, thrusting her upper body up the wall and forcing her upright. The back of her uniform scraped and scuffed against the rough brick and she stepped to her right as if about to make a run for it.
“It’s okay.” Tony was holding his hands in front of him, palm first to show he meant her no harm. “I was down there with you when they attacked us. I'm police too.” He swept his hands in front of him and downwards, as if presenting himself, so that she would recognise the uniform.
“Why are you up here? Did you follow me?” She looked scared and defensive.
Tony was doing his best to put her at ease. He relaxed his shoulders to reduce his height so they were closer to eye level and tried to soften his face and even offer a smile as he spoke. “I’ll be honest with you, I ran when everyone else did. The line was broken and those people were attacking everyone in sight. I was scared, to tell you the truth. I think everyone was. I've never been in a riot before. I'm normally sat in a patrol car or at the desk.”
She seemed to relax a little. “Yeah, I recognise you. You're Tony aren’t you? I've seen you about at the station.”
“That's where I'm planning on going now. There's no way I want to go back down there.” He vacantly swept a hand in the direction they had both come from. “You may as well come with me. What's your name?”
“Elaine,” she replied.
“Okay then, Elaine, we had better keep quiet and try not to attract any attention. From what I saw down there, I don’t fancy that mob getting their hands on me.”
Elaine looked at him, her face contorting as though remembering something terrible; the visions of the attackers clawing and tearing at her from behind the shields and then the images of her friends being attacked as they lay on the ground, hopelessly trying to defend themselves.
“They just didn't seem to care. No matter how much I hit them with my baton, they kept on coming at me. One of them even bit my leg.” She looked down and rubbed her wounded calf muscle. “I don’t think it’s too bad, but it hurt like fuck.”
Tony eyed her, weighing her up and wondering whether she was likely to be useful or a burden. “Yeah, I saw them biting people too. You think you can walk and run okay if need be?”
“I’ll manage.” She stood up straight and looked ahead. “We going that way then?” She pointed to the darkness at the end of the street.
“Yeah, hopefully we’ll be able to get back to the station within the hour.”
They began to walk. Elaine hobbled but she refused to allow herself to become a hindrance to Tony. She kept pace at his side; regardless of the pain she felt shooting through her leg with every step.
They covered the distance to the station in a relatively short space of time. It was late, close to midnight, and the streets and roads were deserted with no traffic or signs of life, otherwise they would’ve tried to flag a car down. Instead they had walked and now and then had been forced to hide in the shadows when they thought they heard people on the other side of bushes or walls that lined the side of the road. They took no chances; in the dark they couldn’t tell who would be likely to help them or attack them.
As they approached the station they began to hear the sounds of trouble. The bangs of gunfire and the crashing of heavy objects and the smashing of windows echoed off the walls around them. They were still close to the main road, but they were entering an area comprising of shops and restaurants. There were more buildings there, and the continuous echo bouncing from the hard surfaces made it hard for Tony to make an estimate of where exactly the noise was coming from, or how many people were involved.
They had no choice but to carry on, creeping closer to the station. They were just a hundred metres away from where they knew the station would be. They stealthily moved along the wall of a designer clothes shop, keeping to the shadows, toward the junction that would turn left into the street of the police station.
Tony paused before turning the corner, taking a deep breath; he held his hand out behind him, signalling for Elaine to stay where she was.
Quickly he forced his head around the corner and took in the scene that lay before them. Just as quickly, he retracted and backed up to where Elaine was still standing. He continued to back up and collided with her.
“Tony, what is it? Are they here as well?” she hissed in a whispered voice.
Tony had gone pale with fright, his eyes had grown wide and he stared back toward the corner. He stuttered his words as he spoke. “They...they're...every...everywhere.”
Elaine crept forward to the junction. She saw the roof of the station, and that was about all she could see of the building. Police cars and riot vehicles, some on their sides, lay abandoned in the car park in front. People crowded around the building, clambering and attacking the doors and windows.
Most of the glass had been smashed out from the windows and the attackers were climbing in through the open gaps. She could see silhouettes moving in the upper floor windows, some obviously her fellow officers, running from one room to another and battling to regain control of the police station, or just for their lives.
An officer stood on the roof of the building with, what Elaine assumed to be, a shotgun aimed over the edge, and pumped round after round into the crowd at street level. Even with people being killed around them, the rioters didn't seem to be fazed in the slightest and never let up their assault.
Elaine looked back to Tony, who still looked as though he were in shock. “What do we do? Should we try and help?”
Tony was just mumbling to himself, his eyes wide with fear, and slowly shaking his head, backing away all the time from the corner of the street.
She turned back just as two of the rioters rounded. She stepped back and gasped. They stopped for a second when they saw her, their bloodied mouths opening as if to speak, then suddenly snapping shut and grinding their teeth in anticipation as their hands reached out for her.
Their clothes were torn and covered in dark blood. Their hands, mouths and faces were also smeared with it and their eyes, even though they were fixed on Elaine and Tony as they backed away, were devoid of anything.
For a fleeting moment Elaine thought, they actually look like the eyes of dead people.
She backed up and this time, it was she that bumped into Tony. He was standing solid in his tracks and looking behind them. Others were approaching from the opposite direction. Tony, snapping out of his moment of inactivity, gripped Elaine by the shoulder, dragging her with him as he headed for the other side of the street, hoping to bypass the approaching rioters and flee to safety.
; “C’mon, head for the other side of the street,” he said, pushing her in that direction.
As they began to cross, more people turned the corner toward them from the direction of the police station. They shambled and hobbled, reaching out with their bloodstained hands and grasping at the air between them as they drew closer. There were now six of them in front and eight behind. The street was blocked by the approaching aggressors and so was their escape.
“Shit, what do we do?” Elaine was pushing back at Tony as he tried to guide her forward.
Tony glanced over his shoulder again, then back to the front. They were getting closer. Some moving much faster than the others as they staggered toward them on unsteady legs. He weighed up the odds and considered his options; he looked down at the back of Elaine’s head and shoulders, then back to the corner of the street where he had planned to escape.
“I'm sorry, Elaine,” he said.
She turned to speak but before she got a word out, she felt a heavy blow to the back of her head that knocked her off her feet and sprawled her on the ground. She wasn’t unconscious, but she wasn’t far from it. She could see the blurry silhouette of Tony above her then, felt the impact of his foot as he brought it down onto her left ankle. She felt and heard the bones break but the pain hadn’t registered.
Tony raised his foot again and quickly brought it down, heel first, on her other ankle. The bone crunched under his heavy boot and there was a clear audible snap as it shattered. This time, she screamed. A loud gut-wrenching scream that didn't seem to end. The sound reverberated around the street.
All the time, the bloodthirsty rioters closed in around them.
Tony stepped back and looked to the corner. Only two were coming from that direction. He glanced down at Elaine who was trying to get to her feet. She rolled onto her stomach and began pushing herself up onto her hands and knees. She managed to get a foot under her, but as soon as her weight rested on the splintered jagged bones of her ankle the pain caused her to cry out again and collapse.
He began to back away from her, checking over his shoulder to make sure no more people had appeared in his line of escape. It was still just the two and Tony decided that he could deal with that many. He would just run through them.
Elaine was sobbing and pleading with him. “Don't leave me, please, don’t leave me.” She reached out for him, imploring him to help her up, her face twisted in an expression of agony and desperation.
Tony turned away; he looked straight ahead and sprinted for the next street. The two shambling figures ahead of him, a man in a police uniform and a blood-soaked fat woman wearing a torn flowery dress, raised their arms in his direction as if he might give himself to them. They looked almost grateful as he closed the distance, reaching out to him and moaning in harmony with each other.
He dropped his shoulder and hit the first one, the woman, sending her flying away from him, arms and legs flailing in the air as she crashed to the floor, landing on her back. He handed off the man by slapping his hands away from him, sending the police officer spinning with a stupid and surprised sounding moan.
By the time he reached the corner and turned into the next street, Elaine was screaming. It was a piercing shriek that rang out in to the night. The pitch raised and fell as her flesh was ripped from her body.
The searing pain of teeth as they punctured her skin and bit deep into her muscle caused her body to spasm. She fought them, but their numbers and weight, coupled with her already weakened state, was too much for her.
Her fingers were bitten off as she tried to fend off the snapping jaws; she could feel them being crushed in the teeth of her attackers, then scraped and snapped away from her by jagged and broken teeth.
Her screams began to lessen as she became weaker, but she remained conscious for a long time. Her limbs were pulled from their sockets and her stomach was split open as cold hands and bony fingers clutched at the skin of her midriff until it broke, popping and splitting open like a thick plastic bag that had been over-filled, revealing her warm internal organs, which were wrenched from her rib cage and spread across the tarmac.
Fingers dug into her eyes and tore them away; teeth sunk in and gnawed at the soft flesh around her face and neck.
Within a matter of minutes, Elaine was nothing more than a butchered and dismembered carcass, still steaming as the blood continued to cool in the night air.
Tony was at the far end of the next street and continued at a fast walk to save his energy. He was grateful when the screams finally stopped. They could’ve attracted every one of the things in the area and he would never have been able to get away.
Elaine hadn't been a burden after all, he thought.
6
Marcus and Stu sat watching the news broadcast. It was the American version and the President had released his own statement of the situation. But the story was the same.
“Those who have recently died are reanimating and attacking the living.”
They looked at each other with wide eyes and slack jaws. Stu screwed up his face, “Is this some kind of wind up?”
“I don’t think so, Stu. The U.S President doesn’t strike me as the sort with a sense of humour.”
Around them, the whole compound seemed to erupt in a hive of activity. People had obviously watched the same news bulletin and began running around asking each other questions in the hope that they had heard the story wrong.
Running to the Operations Room, Marcus burst through the door to find out what, if anything, was being done by the company. Everything was in turmoil; phones ringing, computers beeping and the watch keepers doing their best to gain communications with teams on the ground, shouting over radios to bring them in. Marcus could get no sense from Mickey, who was very shaken and pouring with sweat as he scurried from one desk to the next, to a phone and then to the fax machine.
The only information he did gain from Mickey was, “Marcus, the military have closed down the airport and all airfields for the time being. Military personnel and high ranking government officials are priority for flights. It looks like they had it all in place because they slammed the doors shut the moment it was announced. They're pulling out and not pretending otherwise now. In fact, it’s a full blown retreat.”
Marcus wasted no time and called his team together. Eight of them sat, stood, crouched and squeezed into the small room where Marcus lived. Some of them were big men, and with very little air getting into the room, the atmosphere became claustrophobic and hot. Some had an expression of bewilderment on their faces, having obviously missed the news broadcast, and wondered what all the activity was about. Others stood with grave faces, clearly in the know.
Yan had just a pair of underpants on and flip-flops on his feet, having been dragged out of bed by Stu.
Eddie was sweating and still in his gym clothes, looking confused.
“What’s happening, Marcus?” Yan asked with his heavy Serb accent as he stood pulling his underpants out of his arse. His black hair was standing to attention on one side, making his usual ‘male model-style' looks seem comical.
“Well,” Marcus began, “some of you have seen the news, and a few haven’t by the looks. I dunno how to say this, but from what we just heard from the President on the news, dead people have started to come back to life.” He paused to let it sink in and noticed the faces of Yan, Eddie and Jim contort, then look about as if they were waiting for the punch line.
Yan motioned as if he were about to speak again, but Marcus cut him off, “On top of that, from what the reports from scientists are saying, the dead are now attacking the living as well and anyone they bite will die and come back as one of them. They think it’s all related to the flu. So, it looks like things are about to get a lot worse around here.”
“Jesus Christ, how the fuck could that happen?” gasped Jim. “I mean have you ever heard something as crazy as that? Are you sure about this, Marcus? I mean, you're a great Team Leader and all, but were you on the whisky last night, or an
y of that evil homemade shit that Yan drinks?”
Marcus was sat on the edge of his bed, hunched with his hands folded across his lap as if in prayer. “Fellas, I wish that were the case. But both me and Stu watched the announcement and saw the footage. Looks like Paul, Sini and Ian saw the same report.” He looked to them to confirm it and that he wasn’t just going mad.
Ian nodded slowly. “Aye, I saw it. As far as I can tell Jim, it’s true.” Sini and Paul nodded in agreement.
Eddie looked around. “Fuck me guys, so what is happening about it? Has anything been said about the situation in New Zealand?”
“I dunno, but I was told a few days ago, that I could be stuck here for months before they get me a flight. Now with this shit happening, even more people are gonna panic and head for the airport. Mickey told me just that the military have locked it down and the army have taken priority on flights, and that it’s gonna take quite awhile until or, if anything becomes available for the likes of us. Short of hijacking a plane, we’re pretty much fucked.”
The room broke out in hushed individual conversations as people swapped what information they had with the men that had been out of the loop.
Ian looked over at Marcus. “So, what are we gonna do boss? We can’t just stay here to rot. If this thing is as bad as it looks, and set to get worse, then we need to get home as soon as.”
Marcus peered back up at his short but heavy-framed friend. Short curly blonde hair and far from an oil painting, Ian was as tough as he was ugly.
“Not sure buddy, like I said, we can’t exactly steal a plane. The thought had crossed my mind, but with all the military around here we would be shot out of the sky as soon as we got airborne.”
Ian folded his arms across his barrel chest and let out a long sigh that turned into a low whistle toward the end through his crooked teeth.
It was Paul who spoke up, silencing the chatter within the room. Paul came from Australia, and as big as he was, he came across as being reserved and quiet, and rarely spoke in a volume higher than a calm, conversational voice. Now he stood, pushing away from the corner by the door, so that everyone in the room could see him and he had their attention.
