She turned her head and tried to cough into her arm. Tobias was glad she turned her head away from him, even if it meant she was coughing on others. And had he heard her say she was bitten?
His mind flashed back to the man who had his throat ripped out. It probably wasn’t as bad as it seemed. He did get back up. Same with Lucas. But then, why did he attack someone else? Shock. He must have been in shock and thought he had to defend himself or something. That was probably it. Yeah, that was it.
While Tobias tried to convince himself that nothing was as bad as it seemed, the girl next to him dropped to the ground. Thankfully, the people behind her noticed and managed to stop before they trampled her.
“Hey!” Tobias didn’t dare bend down. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand back up even without the camera on his shoulder. “Hey, come on, you have to get up!”
The people behind the girl nudged her with their feet, trying to coax a response from her. Her body suddenly jerked just like the guard’s, and just like Lucas’s.
Somehow, Tobias’s body still had adrenaline to pour into his system, which it unloaded by the dump truck. His eyes widened again and he struggled desperately to get through the crowd, but he couldn’t get anywhere. There was literally a wall of flesh and clothing.
He looked back down over his shoulder and watched as the girl lifted her head. She lashed out and grabbed hold of the nearest leg. Her teeth sank deep into the bare calf. Screams of pain ripped out of the victim while more screams of terror and shock escaped those who witnessed it. One of the loudest was Tobias’s own, but he was completely deaf to it all.
Before he knew it, he had grabbed his bag off his back and shoved his camera into it along with any slack from the wires. A brief thought about just dropping it crossed his mind, but because of the wires attaching to the battery system, harnessed around his waist to the camera, he wouldn’t be able to unhook himself quickly. He slung the bag over his shoulder once more, its earlier weight now unfelt. Tobias then grabbed the shoulders of the nearest person and pulled. The combined weight of his body and his camera nearly crushed the man as he climbed on top of him. He then proceeded to crawl across the heads and shoulders of everyone, not caring about, or even hearing, the cries of protest and pain from those beneath him.
Although he never stopped moving forward over the mass of people, he did take a look around. Behind him, a ring was slowly pushing outward from where the sick girl had fallen. Even farther back, a much larger ring had formed where he had left Lucas. They reminded him of pebbles being dropped in a pond, the ripples all headed outward. It looked like even more people were attacking others, some in the strange biting manner of the first attackers. Others fought with each other as they tried to get away. There were other places in the crowd where these pockets, the ripples, were forming. Screams were now the predominant sound. They were near constant. What had started out as screams of joy was now ending as screams of terror.
Tobias watched as one man dropped beneath the flood of people. He had been pushed over. No one stopped for him as they had for that girl. His head never popped back up. Tobias wasn’t the only one crawling across flesh and hair. Several other people had the same idea, responding to the same drive: the need to flee.
The crowd had become bottlenecked at the gates, but many had stopped bothering with them. Several concertgoers were climbing up and over the stone walls to get out. Tobias figured they had the right idea, especially because he was closer to the wall than he was to the gates. Also, with the height he had already gained from his position on top of others, he was halfway up the bricks before he even reached them.
When he finally did reach the wall, he hauled himself up onto its large, flat, stone top. Once balanced up there, he sat for a moment, trying to catch his breath. How much time had passed since Lucas Jonas first noticed the disturbance, anyway? Lucas...
Tobias pulled his camera back out of its bag. He was amazed that there wasn’t a single scratch on it. It was also still running, still filming. Tobias hadn’t bothered to stop it at any point. He began using it to scan the crowds, trying to find Mr. Jonas or Bruce.
Lucas Jonas was actually easier to find. He was still at the edge of the largest growing space, still tearing into people with his hands and teeth. What made it especially eerie was that he could still hear the attacks coming through the headphones. He quickly unplugged them. The umbrella appeared to be gone. It had been replaced by a gaping hole straight through his torso. It was so absurd, it seemed unreal. Tobias suddenly felt very sick. He leaned over and puked on the sidewalk that ran along the outside of the wall. His revulsion, making him want to turn away, was the only thing that saved the crowd on the other side from his bile.
What was going on? Tobias couldn’t understand what was happening. His head spun and he had to grab hold of the wall to keep from falling off. He took several deep breaths, trying to clear his head. Maybe he’d think about things later, when he wasn’t sitting on the park wall.
He looked up and finally noticed what was happening outside the park. The flood of people was dispersing in all directions. Several people had gotten to their cars and had tried to drive away, but in their haste, had caused accidents and traffic jams. People ran in all directions, panicked. Police, firefighters, and paramedics were all over the place, trying to help and to create order. So far, they weren’t succeeding. Some people even seemed to be looting, as if they were at a riot.
The attacks were happening outside the park as well.
* * *
Tobias decided he needed to get out of there, find somewhere safe, maybe get home if he could. Although he didn’t know how safe his tiny and empty apartment would be, it seemed like a better option than staying where he was.
He looked around from his high position on the wall and spotted all the media vans, including the van he had come in. Too bad they were parked several blocks away and across the park. Tobias used his camera to see if anyone he knew was there. Several reporters and other cameramen stood on top of the vans, filming the surrounding chaos. Tobias thought he might have recognized one of the cameramen, but it was hard to tell. Cameras had a habit of blocking the faces of those who held them.
As Tobias watched, an arm reached up and grabbed one of the reporters. He was pulled off the van and Tobias could no longer see him from his vantage point. His imagination did a good enough job to fill in that part, though. The cameramen over there all turned and filmed the reporter being attacked. No one tried to help.
“Hey! Hey, can you help me? Please!”
Tobias lowered his camera and looked around. Down beneath him there was a young girl looking up. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen, and her eyes were filled with tears, causing her mascara to run. She was reaching up to him, the tips of her fingers cut up and bleeding. Her hot pink and black painted fingernails were all broken.
“I can’t get up on my own!” she cried up at him.
That was when Tobias realized even more people were flooding over the walls. One glance at the gate showed why. An attack had started in the middle of it. Another ripple. Tobias figured the girl’s fingers were bloody from trying to climb and falling. Several other people climbed over on either side of him, and more were pushing to get at the wall, knocking the girl repeatedly into it.
Tobias thought of the camera crew and his own earlier, selfish actions. He put his camera back into the bag and lay on the wall, stretching his hand down to the girl.
“This is as far as I can reach. You’ll have to do the rest yourself!” Tobias called down to her. If he tried to reach any further, he knew he would be pulled off the wall the moment she took his hand.
The girl began trying to climb again. She got close several times before falling away, her fingertips brushing his.
“Come on!” Tobias did not like the position he was in, but now that he was committed to helping this one girl, he couldn’t leave her. “You can make it! Try harder!”
“I am trying!” She mis
sed again, but this time when she dropped back, the crowd pushed someone right under her. She used the man’s shoulders to boost herself up and finally reach Tobias’s hand. He pulled as hard as he could, straining the muscles in his arm, almost over-balancing and tumbling off the other side. It was a good thing he was used to carrying heavy weights.
“Thanks,” the girl panted on the wall beside him, “I’m Tammy.”
“Tobias. Let’s get off this wall before someone pushes us off.”
“Good idea.” The girl dropped down the other side easily, landing on her feet and avoiding the puddle of puke.
Tobias cradled his camera bag and dropped after her. He wasn’t nearly as graceful, but he also managed to miss the puddle. He hit the sidewalk hard and fell to one side, scraping his arm on the cement. It stung, but wasn’t a bad injury. Tammy helped him get back up on his feet.
Tobias held Tammy’s hand to pull her across the car-choked street. He didn’t want to be near the wall and risk someone landing on their heads. Eventually, they stopped in the service doorway of a restaurant to catch a breather from the chaos. They were sheltered there for all the people continuing to move past.
“You by yourself?” Tobias asked Tammy as he poked his head out, looking for street signs.
“I came here with some friends. Ashley, my best friend, her parents won a bunch of tickets from this radio station and offered to take us all. We got separated when everyone started screaming and running. What’s happening?”
“I have absolutely no idea.” Tobias pulled his head back into the doorway trying to visualise a map of the city in his head. He didn’t have a very good sense of direction, though, and only knew his way around his work and apartment, both of which were across the city. “Do you have somewhere to go?”
“Ashley’s mom was supposed to take us home.” Tammy started to fidget with one of the three necklaces she was wearing. Her fingers looked raw.
“Was there a place where you were supposed to meet up if you got separated?”
“Yeah.” Tammy pointed one of those raw fingers back at the park. “By one of the souvenir stands.”
“Well then, that’s out.” Tobias took another quick look up and down the street. “Look, I’m going to get a police officer over here to help you, okay?”
“What? No.” Tammy grabbed Tobias’s arm.
Tobias shook her off. “Look, they’ll be able to help you a lot more than I can.”
“But they’re already dealing with all those people.” With a grip like a bear trap, Tammy grabbed him again.
Tobias was beginning to regret his decision to help her. “I don’t know what to do with you. I’m going to try and head home and I don’t think you should come with me.”
“Just help me get to the subway station,” the young girl pleaded, her eyes welling up with tears. “I know how to get home from there.”
Tobias thought about it. The subway did seem like a good way to get out of here. That was until he thought about being jammed in a car with all the other people fleeing the area. He had had enough of shoulder-to-shoulder crowds for one day.
“I'll get you to a station, but don’t expect me to come with you. I’m walking where I’m going.”
“That’s fine, just help me get there.” Tammy smiled as she shifted her grip from Tobias’s arm to his hand.
Tobias sighed. Perfect. This girl probably always knew how to get what she wanted. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the nearest subway station is, would you?” Due to his fear of crowds, Tobias avoided subways whenever he could.
“Oh, hold on one minute.” With her free hand, Tammy reached into a pocket and pulled out a smart phone. It had a sparkly red cover wrapped around it. “I have a maps app.”
Tobias thought about how many people had told him to get a smart phone, and how he always avoided them, thinking they were a waste of money. He didn’t think he’d need all those fancy apps, just something to send and receive text messages on and make the occasional phone call. Maybe after he got home and had a beer, or ten, he’d look into them.
“Got it.” Tammy held out her phone so Tobias could see the little digitised map on the screen. “The nearest one is on the other side of the park.”
“No good,” Tobias shook his head. “Where’s the next closest on this side of the park?”
“Umm...” Tammy used her thumb to scroll around the map, an expert with the touch screen. “Here. We have to get to those lights over there, and then head about five blocks down.”
“All right, let’s go.” Tobias was about to step back out onto the sidewalk but stopped. “Actually, can you give me my hand back, so I can get out my camera?”
“What do you want your camera for?” The girl held on tighter, suspicious.
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “Maybe if I record some stuff and give it to the authorities, it’ll help them figure out what happened here.”
“Oh, okay.” Tammy let go, but watched him carefully.
Tobias hauled his camera out of the bag for what felt like the hundredth time. He thought about putting it on his shoulder, but then decided just to cradle it against his armpit so that it wouldn’t block his vision. It was also still recording. He was going to have a lot of footage of the inside of his bag to edit out. At least he had the new drive loaded, the one that could record hours and hours of footage. Once the camera was settled in a way that it would record whatever was in front of him, Tammy grabbed his free hand again.
The two of them headed up the street. Tobias let Tammy walk next to the walls and shop fronts, taking the brunt of the passers-by to his shoulder. He worried about his camera being knocked out of his arm, since he was still attached to it. Almost everyone was running in one direction or another, heading to destinations unknown to Tobias. Several people were just standing still, not knowing where to go or what to do. A few even broke down and sat crying in the street. As Tobias watched, a man went running down the centreline of the road. Close on his heels was a woman with blood running all down her front. Her teeth were bared and she kept reaching out, trying to grab the terrified man. They were gone before Tobias could even think about doing something. He just hoped the man wouldn’t trip.
When Tobias and Tammy reached the corner, they started heading down a new street. The mayhem continued block by block, but so far, no one paid any attention to them. The crowd thinned out the farther they got from the park, until they finally reached a pocket where they had a considerable amount of space between them and the next group of people.
As they passed in front of an alleyway, a bloodcurdling scream burst out of it. They both turned and found at least five people clawing and biting at what must have been a sixth down on the ground. One of the attackers was the screamer. She stood up and started running at them.
“GO!” Tobias pulled on Tammy’s hand, half dragging her, as he started to run. Thankfully, Tammy kept pace, because all five of the attackers ran out of the alley and started chasing after the two of them.
“Drop the camera!” Tammy shouted as she took a quick, panicked look over her shoulder.
“I can’t just drop it! It’s strapped to my waist!” Tobias cursed the harness that helped hold his gear. “You go!”
“What?” Tammy looked up at Tobias.
“You go ahead! Get to the subway! I'll draw them off!”
“But...”
Tobias let go of Tammy’s hand and half shoved her ahead of him. “Just do it before I change my mind!”
After one last look at Tobias, Tammy took off at a speed Tobias couldn’t match even without the camera. He headed into the clog of cars hoping his pursuers weren’t as agile. It turned out to be a good idea. One nearly had him but she clipped her hip on a bumper and was completely spun around. Too bad, she didn’t stay that way, because she quickly resumed the chase. Tobias weaved around the cars, but he knew he couldn’t keep it up forever. It was like when he was in high school and played for the school’s football team. Only this t
ime, the goal posts were nowhere to be seen, and his camera weighed a lot more than a football. Not to mention that being tackled meant losing his life.
He finally spotted a pizza shop that had its door open. He headed straight for it, listening to his pursuers pounding along behind him. Tobias rounded one last, sharp turn and headed straight into the pizza shop.
The reason the door was open was because the door had been ripped off. Shit, well there went that protection.
He spotted a door in the back and jumped over the counter. Here was the agility he had been missing earlier when hopping off the wall. Apparently, he just needed even more adrenaline for it. His pursuers slammed into the waist-high counter, knocking themselves flat across the top of it. Any normal person would have been badly hurt and winded, but these guys just started crawling across the counter as if nothing had happened.
Tobias ran into the back room and slammed the door shut. Great, this one had no lock. The first thing he spotted was stairs, so he decided to head up. If he had taken more time to look around, he might have spotted an exit door in the back of the kitchen. It was too late now though.
Tobias climbed flight after flight, listening to the sound of the others coming after him. They must be getting tired, right? Tobias was exhausted, so shouldn’t they be as well? There were just too many stairs.
Finally, he reached the top of the stairwell and burst out through the door up there. He was in sunlight, up on the roof. Nearby were several wooden beams, and without thinking about what they might be for, Tobias started bracing them against the door. Someone thumped into the other side and started hammering away just as the last board was wedged in place. The wood dug into the gravel rooftop and managed to hold, but it wouldn’t last forever.
Tobias ran to the side of the building and looked over the edge. Aw hell, he was at least four stories up. There was no way he could jump that. He looked up the street but couldn’t spot Tammy anywhere. He guessed she got away. He hoped she got away. He told himself she did get away.
White Flag Of The Dead (Book 8): The Zombie Wars (The Enemy Within) Page 16
