by Luke Duffy
The man with the car was now behind the wheel and gunning the engine, screaming for them to get in. Kevin pushed at Roy’s back and forced him forward, and then his feet slipped from under him and he crashed to the ground.
Gary felt the sudden drag as Roy slowed without Kevin to push him forward and, after a moment, turned to see his friend sprawled on the floor ten metres behind him. He hesitated, and then dragged Roy past him hoping that the momentum of his sudden jerk would propel the dead weight of the useless Roy forward the rest of the way to the vehicle.
Steve clambered back out of the vehicle, shoved Roy into the back seat and turned to see Gary moving toward the collapsed form of Kevin as he struggled to his feet. “Gary, move,” he screamed at him. There was now a pack of seven infected racing toward Kevin who was almost back on his feet.
Gary was still moving toward them when they closed the gap and tackled Kevin to the ground.
“Kevin!” he cried.
He heard the crunch as Kevin and the infected crumbled to the ground in a ball of arms and legs. He charged at them, swinging his iron bar and smashing it into the face of one of the creatures that ran at him after it had broken away from the group. It hit the ground with a splat and remained motionless.
Steve grabbed him from behind and pulled him back; there were many more approaching fast and they needed to run. He saw Kevin struggling from beneath the pile of clutching and biting corpses that swarmed him, and he moved toward them with his axe raised, ready to help his friend.
Kevin was screaming as he struggled, and Steve saw a bloody tear appear on the side of his neck and across his throat as a set of teeth ripped away the flesh, tendons and veins. Kevin squealed and a cascade of bright red arterial blood sprayed onto the tarmac below his face, forming a large pool within seconds. His windpipe had been torn open, and he was now face-down, drowning in his own blood. His ruined tracheal reflexes squelched as his body continued to try and take in air.
Gary struggled against Steve and tried to break free, but Steve held his grip and pulled him toward the waiting vehicle and bundled him into the rear seat. Steve forced himself into the passenger seat and the driver released the clutch and sped away in a screech of smoking tyres, heading straight for the exit.
Gary was shouting and screaming, trying to reach out from the open window to help Kevin, who now lay motionless on the ground as hundreds of infected clambered over him and tore him to pieces.
Claire was gripping him around the neck with both arms in a strangle hold and, eventually, he stopped struggling as he went limp and lost consciousness in her grip.
The car bounced over the exit ramp and the driver slammed it to the right, ploughing through the few infected that remained on the road and toward the opposite side of the junction.
“Sorry about you friend, Steve,” the driver said.
Steve looked at him in surprise and confusion. “How do you know my name?”
The man behind the wheel turned and looked at him, a slight smile creasing the edges of his lips. The piercing blue eyes, thin wavy light brown hair, and that smile; a smile that Steve had seen a thousand times as if to say in complete innocence, ‘It wasn't me,’ and Steve’s eyes widened in recognition.
“Lee, Lee Gorman?” The man turned his attention back to the road.
“Yep, that’s me. I recognised you when I saw you up close, but I didn't think it was the best time to reintroduce myself. But really, I am sorry about your friend, Steve.”
“Me too, but I'm more sorry for Gary.” Steve indicated with his thumb to the unconscious form still in Claire’s arms. “They were close.”
Lee nodded, “Poor guy. What were you all doing back there?”
“Trying to get back to the Safari Park, we had an accident and had to abandon our car and we were hoping to find one at the drive through.”
“Well, you did find one. Why are you going to the Safari Park?”
“That's where we've been living. We came here to rescue my daughter’s Mum and bring her back. Obviously, things didn't work out as planned. Lucky we bumped into you though. Thanks, Lee.”
“Don't mention it, Steve. Mind if I come with you?”
Steve looked across at him in. He had already taken it as read that he would be coming along, but then he realised that he hadn't even considered that Lee could have others dependent on him.
“Of course not, you're more than welcome. You not got a family here now?”
“Nah,” Lee kept his eyes to the front. “My Mum died a few years back and my sister is living down South somewhere. Not got a missus at the moment, and I was only at the garage mainly through boredom. I didn't need the food but I just thought I would grab it while I was there.”
“Boredom,” Steve raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Lee patted the rifle by his leg, “I was just taking a few pot shots for a laugh.”
Steve looked down at the weapon and realised it was just an air rifle. “With that?” he exclaimed. “It’s nothing more than a toy.”
“Best I could get hold of though.” Lee couldn’t understand the problem that his old friend had with his statement as he shook his head and looked away.
Lee Gorman had been Steve’s childhood friend and, despite his instability, he had always been loyal and unflinching when it came to standing up for his friends and family. Steve knew that having him on board would be both beneficial and interesting in the same breath.
He looked back to Claire who sat silent in the rear seat, still holding the unconscious Gary in her arms. Tears poured from her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks. She hadn't known Kevin, but she had seen that he was a good man all the same. He didn't need to come with Steve and help him save her, but he had nevertheless, and he had paid with his life trying to save Roy.
Roy.
Steve glowered when he looked at him, his jaw muscles flexing and his teeth grinding. He sat huddled in the corner of the seat by the window, whimpering and holding the wound on his shoulder. Steve wanted to say something, to stop the car and leave him at the side of the road, but he knew that it would make no difference. Roy was going to die anyway. And Kevin had died trying to help a ‘dead man walking’.
21
His heavy feet scuffed against the surface of the road as he trundled into the outskirts of the city centre. Something familiar registered in his deteriorated mind and caused him to stop in his tracks and gaze around at his surroundings.
His instincts had guided him along for miles and miles, shuffling in the same direction, as though he had somewhere he needed to be. Nothing spoke to him inside or told him where or what he was headed for, he just kept walking. It was something deep down that surged him forward and to place one foot in front of the other.
He had trailed along streets, through residential areas and along open country roads. Nothing much along the way had enticed him to look up or even raise his head a little. For the majority of his journey he had stared at the unending and unchanging black tarmac below his feet as he shambled along.
It was only when his ears registered the sound of the leaves rustling in the trees, and the birds twittering away in the country lanes, that he became distracted from his line of travel.
The sun blazed in the sky and the billowy white clouds scurried across the expansive blue heavens as he gazed up. His eyes could distinguish the change in the brightness of the light as he stared straight into the large, glowing white ball of the sun, but he didn't squint, he had no desire to protect his eyes. He had no desire at all.
A light breeze caused the long grass in the fields to sway and he could feel, in a numb and deteriorated sense, the slight touch of the wind against the bare flesh of his fingers. He looked down to his hand as though expecting to see the source reaching up to him from the ground.
He had stood for hours below a tree, and looked out over the rooftops of the city in the distance. Something resembling appreciation took in the view ahead of him and a diluted sense of content seemed to wash over
him.
Something about the rolling fields and the crisscrossing walls and fences of the rural areas that led up to the dark blue silhouettes of the high buildings in the distance made him want to sit down, and he shambled across to a wooden bench by a gravel path that crunched below his feet as he crossed it, causing him to stop and look down at his feet in wonderment.
He sat and watched and listened. The only sounds he could hear were the birds and the wind, and the insects that swarmed him.
He looked down at his position on the bench and placed his hands either side of him, and slowly leaned back as a trace thought spoke to him and told him that that was what he should do.
Below his feet, stalks of green, topped with budding yellow petals, sprouted and he stared at them for a while, studying them, before he reached down and plucked one from the soil. He raised it close to his face and eyed it as he twisted it around in his fingers, before dropping it and reaching for another.
Nothing was encouraging him to move, and he felt no desire to. In fact, he didn't feel anything; he just sat there and stared out in to the far distance. Only when a bird landed close by did his attention shift. The flurry of its wings as it came in to land just a couple of metres away from his seat, caused his eyes to snap in that direction. It walked, bobbing its head and pecking at the ground.
A feeling, deep and undeniable, thrust its way through his body to the forefront of everything. It urged him to grasp the bird, to consume it no matter what. He didn't understand the feeling and nothing inside him tried to. It was so forceful and all consuming that his sole focus was now on the living warm flesh that moved about at his feet.
His hands pushed him up from the bench and a long faltering moan escaped from his throat as he lunged toward it. He tripped and stumbled as he closed in on the agile creature on the ground and just a step away, the bird took to the sky in a flutter of feathers and a squawk.
His cold, shrivelled hands vainly clutched at the air in its wake as it soared into the sky. He was left flailing his arms, not realising that even though his eyes could still see the creature, it was too far away for him to touch. His teeth gnashed together once, hands dropped to his side, and his attention was brought back to his staggering legs that began to shuffle back toward the road.
As he continued his mindless journey, he could see the other figures that shuffled and lurched close by as he stood in the open street of the shopping area, but he paid them no attention. It was the buildings themselves that he watched. The large glass fronts of the shops and stores seemed to ignite a deep forgotten memory in him and he glanced around in confusion as he searched for the source of the new thought pattern.
He was standing at the end of the main high street, lined with row after row of department stores and fast food restaurants. He swayed in the breeze and focused in on the nearest of the other shambling figures that moved about close by, aimlessly.
It slowly staggered across his path and lumbered toward the window of the nearest shop front. Its clothes were soiled and ragged, with speckles of dried blood all over and a large patch of the same blood around the shoulder of the once white blouse that was now a dull, mottled grey.
It had been a woman; maybe he had even known her, but there was no sign of recognition or familiarity now. Something was happening inside his badly functioning mind and it forced him to reach out to the body of the wandering corpse as it staggered by.
His cold hand grasped at the loose cloth of her shirt, causing it to tear across the front, exposing a shrivelled and bare breast that was a light greenish blue in places with weeping sores filled with puss and squirming larva.
The fingers closed around the upper arm and pushed through the top layers of the already paper thin and deteriorating flesh. She stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. She remained slightly hunched forward and her tangled hair hung toward the ground and ruffled in the breeze. The skin of her face was a pale blue with black tinges around the ears, nose and lips as they began to shrivel and rot away. A large festering wound down the side of her neck squirmed with hundreds of maggots as they wriggled and burrowed their way deep into her putrid flesh.
For a brief moment, their gazes met. Her eyes were much the same as his; flat and clouded with no signs of life or even a spark of thought behind the misted lenses. After the brief encounter, he released his grip and the woman shuffled sideways for a few steps before turning and walking away again.
He looked down at the hand that had grasped her. Coagulated blood and a greasy layer of her skin had remained on his palm as he released his grip from her. He looked at it and then raised his other hand to see if there was the same to be seen there. There wasn’t and he instinctively wiped the soiled hand along the length of the front of his jacket.
He shuffled toward the large window front of the nearest shop and caught a glimpse of movement beyond. He moved closer and reached for the moving figures and his hand suddenly stopped with a clunk. He pulled it back and tried again. It stopped again in the exact same place. He pressed both hands against the invisible barrier and brought his face closer, until eventually his nose and lips made contact with the glass.
It was cool and solid against his skin, and the change in the sensation caused him to remain that way for a moment before he pulled back. Then he saw the movement again and began walking the length of the window as he followed it. It was close, just beyond the barrier, but when he reached the end of the glass wall, the figure disappeared. Instead, he found himself staring at the reddish brown of a brick wall.
He stepped back and peered up the side of the building toward the roof top, then began to shuffle back the way he had come. He saw the figure again, moving with him in the same direction. He reached out with his grasping fingers and then he stopped. The vision on the other side of the glass was doing the exact same thing. It was reaching out for him and he stepped further back.
Staring at his fingers and then back at the window, a moment of clarity flashed in his mind. Somehow, he knew that he was seeing himself. He glanced around and then back to the reflection.
He stood with his shoulders slumped and his hands dangling at the side. He was wearing a dark bomber jacket and a dirty, grime-smeared pair of blue jeans. The front of his jeans had a dark expanding patch emanating from the centre of his groin area where his bowels and bladder had released their loads with nothing to keep the muscles contracted. He looked down and touched the area and a film of clear liquid transferred to his fingertips.
His skin was pale, his black hair was flat against his scalp and his features were saggy and lifeless. There was no indication of where his lips merged around his mouth. Normally they were a clear deep pink colour, flushed with blood and slightly inflated, giving them the appearance of fullness. Now, they were flat and colourless.
His legs swelled beneath the clothing around them, the blood having settled in his extremities while he had been upright. The fabric of his jeans was taught around his bloated lower limbs leaving his legs with the appearance of being waterlogged.
He turned away from his faint reflection and trundled along the high street. He heard the moans of the others around him and saw the tightly packed crowds that pressed themselves against shop windows and doors in an attempt to gain entry for whatever reason.
There were thousands of them in the streets, black clouds of flies swarming them and emitting a constant hum as they all buzzed together. Some of the dead were starting to swell, their internal gases expanding in their rotting stomachs and their skin stretching and forming ugly blisters as the outer layers began to putrefy. Now and then, a distended stomach would burst causing a loud trumpet of sound as fluids and gases escaped through the many orifices, including the rectum and mouth.
The ground was gluey with excreted bodily fluids and internal organs as some of the bodies, bloated from unreleased gasses, had exploded. Their innards had spilled out at their feet and become tangled around their ankles, and were then dragged and tripped over by the others i
n the street.
Some had lost the soft tissue of their faces already and some of them were blind as their eyes had been eaten away by the fat, bloated, squirming maggots that infested them. Lips and noses had receded and rotted away, creating grotesquely grinning expressions showing yellowed teeth that gnashed together over black, bloated tongues.
Most of them walked slowly along in no particular direction until something blocked their way and they would turn and follow the path of least resistance. With modern cities being designed specifically to keep the consumers in the high streets and stores, it was even easier to contain the mindless dead within the tightly packed walkways.
Nothing about the drab figures around him roused his attention and he continued shuffling along the street, now and then stumbling into others as they crossed his path. He scraped along walls and bounced from glass fronts, his eyes staring blankly at the floor and emitting the odd moan or groan.
As he came level with a particular shop front, he paused. He looked up and around at the faces that passed by, there was no life or spark in them to hold his curiosity, but something had. Something had caused him to stop and look up.
A glimmer of a memory, a familiarity hit home and for a fleeting moment as the electrical impulses fired and misfired in his partially working brain, he knew the place and a faint vision of figures, very much unlike the ones his damaged eyes could see now, passed in front of his mind’s eye and were gone just as quickly.
He moaned loudly and remorsefully and reached out, trying to claw back the vision and the healthy flesh that he had just, for a brief moment, witnessed. He stopped and turned around, studying the large glass front of a shop spanning wide in front of him. In the window, he saw the shapes of people in glamorous clothing and in different poses, smiling and looking every inch, the healthy human being.
Pressed against the glass, his face left a smear along the clear window as he travelled along it, slapping his open-palmed hands against it and trying to reach the people beyond. He slumped against the door and the weight of his body forced it open slightly. He looked down at the gap and pushed a little harder, expanding the gap and forcing his way through into the shop.
