The Undead | Day 25 [The Heat]

by Haywood, RR

  Then the second horde reanimated, and they too charged for the team, and I knew in my heart it was all over, and I watched those three brave young men as they swung their axes and fell back over the bodies of their fallen comrades.

  Then I stopped and frowned because I could hear music coming through the radio. Something jaunty and fun. An old pop song from decades ago. But if Tappy was down then who was playing it?

  Dave

  We had to run fast, but it was very hot, and the smoke was coming into us from the fire on the pier. That meant the wind had changed because smoke only drifts in a breeze.

  ‘The wind has changed,’ I told Mr Howie because I knew that people like to make conversation about the weather.

  ‘Storm,’ Mr Howie said. I thought that was a very short conversation about the weather. Then I realised Mr Howie was struggling to get enough air. We were running very fast, and I was shooting infected to keep them out of our way.

  But they were coming in faster, and Mr Howie had to draw his axe and I had to draw my knives so we could fight through them.

  We then heard that Tappy was not responding.

  We then heard Joan directing Charlie to get to Danny and Mo.

  Those things happened very quickly. But things happen very quickly in a battle.

  The infected then attacked us with greater aggression and we could not make much progress to where we needed to be.

  Then Reginald was shouting into the radio. ‘Charlie is down! Danny and Mo are down! Howie. You have to detonate! THEY NEED THE HIVE MIND!’

  ‘Dave! You have to go,’ Mr Howie then shouted at me. I did not know if he wanted me to go back and help the team, or finish what we were doing.

  ‘Go where, Mr Howie?’

  ‘JESUS FUCKING CHRIST NOT NOW, DAVE.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr Howie.’

  He chopped a head off and looked at me. ‘I’m so sorry, Dave. Please go and blow something up.’

  ‘I can’t leave you, Mr Howie. There are too many.’

  ‘Dave, go!’

  ‘I won’t leave you, Mr Howie.’

  ‘I SAID FUCKING GO!’ he said, and I saw that thing in his eyes. I can’t read people or their expressions, but it’s different when Mr Howie does that. His eyes get darker. His whole face gets darker and his energy changes. ‘Make it big, Dave. It has to be big. The biggest you’ve ever done. Go!’

  He turned away. Then I turned and ran too because the I could feel the thing inside when we all connect. I could feel the energy coming from Mr Howie.

  I could feel his rage.

  Carmen

  It all happened so fast. One minute we were telling the cops and soldiers where to position and fire from when the final breach came. Then the radio traffic was going nuts with Reginald trying to raise Tappy who wasn’t responding, and Joan telling Charlie how to find Danny and Mo.

  Paula looked stricken. ‘I have to get out there,’ she said. I held her arm and said we had to stay where we were. ‘My team need me!’

  ‘Seven hundred survivors, Paula,’ Henry said. ‘This is the plan. We hold our ground.’

  But I knew what Paula meant because it didn’t feel right. I could see it in Frank’s face, and I think even Bash looked worried. The comms were getting worse by the second with a rising panic in Reginald’s voice.

  ‘I need a door out,’ Paula said.

  ‘Paula, please. I need you here,’ Henry said.

  ‘They’re my team, Henry!’

  Then the transmission came.

  ‘Charlie is down! Danny and Mo are down! Howie. You have to detonate! THEY NEED THE HIVE MIND!’

  Then two things happened at once.

  The first was that we heard Karma Chameleon coming through the radios. And the second was that I could feel this rush of energy inside bringing forth a rage unlike anything I have ever felt before.

  Natasha

  I thought I felt the hive mind. I don’t know. I was dying. But hearing that song gave me peace in a weird way. Like this sense of calm, but I couldn’t understand why the music was getting louder.

  Reginald

  I felt the hive mind which told me Howie was alive, but the smoke was billowing across that airfield blocking my view. I couldn’t see Charlie or the lads. I couldn’t see anything and all I could do was beat my swatter at my desk in pure frustration.

  I’d taken my team in and got them hurt, possibly killed. I’d done that. My folly and pride had done that. What a ruinous awful human being I was to do such a thing. To have such arrogance to take a small team and pit them against an enemy so many times our number. I thought of the Churchill quote I used earlier in the day and felt like I had abased the memory of the true and valiant.

  The truth was that Mr Howie’s hive mind could not save us this time. It was a matter of science. We were simply too few. And to make matters worse, those survivors had not left. They were still clustered near the train station on the monorail.

  The team would fall. The north terminal would be taken, and it would all have been for nothing.

  I sat down. Slumped and defeated and lowered my head in shame.

  Natasha

  I was at the brink of death. I knew that. My heart had slowed. I couldn’t breathe or move or do anything other than listen to Boy George singing Karma Chameleon.

  But then it got louder. Like it was coming closer, and I felt the world tremble a little. Then a bit more until the bodies on top of me started to shift and move. Then the big twat that was squashing me shifted enough so I could turn my head and cough the blood from my throat. But that tremble kept coming. Like the mound of bodies above me was shifting and I could feel the pressure of the bodies on top of me was reducing, then all of a sudden, I could see daylight the bodies slid away as though something was pushing them from the side.

  And honestly. Seriously. I’m not lying but that whole mound seemed to slide off me until I was lying on a bed of gore and bodies with the Saxon creeping forward pushing them all away. Then it stopped and I’m lying between the two front wheels listening to Karma Chameleon through the speakers. And I don’t know why I thought it, but Paula said we had to write down any weird stuff, but I’m lying there and all I could think of was this is what my dad would do. He was big and strong and if I was down like that, he’d stand over me with a fucking big wrench in his hand until I was safe. That thought was just there in my head while I was still puking and coughing and trying to breathe. That it was my dad that moved the Saxon over me. It had to be.

  Then someone grabbed me, and I started fighting because no fucking way was I going to get crushed again. But they were strong, and they dragged me out. I got a headbutt into one of them then felt hands on my body as I was lifted off the ground.

  ‘I’ve got her. Behind you, Mads!’

  I came awake enough to feel Booker holding me from behind as he carried me away while Maddox fired his rifle at the infected coming round the corner. Then Books was dragging me into the Saxon and Mads was in the front. I tried to get free, but Booker was holding me too tight.

  ‘Get off!’ I shouted and he finally let go, but I was angry and scared and full of that rage Mr Howie has when he goes nuts and I’m crawling over the back seats and telling Mads to let me drive.

  ‘Fuck off, Tappy. Just rest.’

  ‘Let me fucking drive!’ I yelled and started heaving him out of the seat. He called me a twat, but he got out and I got behind the wheel spitting blood and still heaving for air.

  ‘Your nose is broken you crazy bitch,’ Maddox yelled.

  ‘Yeah, said the cunt in the police hat,’ I said as Meredith jumped back in and politely requested Maddox to move out of her seat.

  ‘Just get to the others,’ Maddox said as Meredith bit his arse.

  I turned to look at him and Booker both wearing police flat caps and shook my head while still thinking maybe I did die and that was some weird fucked up afterlife.

  It got crazy mental after that, and a few minutes later
I really did think I was in the afterlife cos the world went white.

  Charlotte

  I was down and getting swamped, and every time I fought to get free, someone else hit me from behind or from the side, and I went down again, but the worse thing was seeing Danny and Mo getting ripped off their feet. Especially Mo. He’s one of our best fighters and if even he was going down then I knew it was bad.

  But we weren’t finished yet and we fought like filthy dirty bastards. Oh my good lord, we bit and gouged and we clawed and hacked and stabbed eyes out and heaved our way over the bodies to stay on top. It was the most violent thing I’d ever done. I bit into flesh and opened arteries with my teeth. I pushed my thumbs into eyes and felt teeth on my skull while I bit fingers off.

  I watched as an infected spat Danny’s fingers back at him, and I saw Mo pull his head back from a female with her teeth on his ear lobe, biting it clean away.

  Then Blowers, Nick and Cookey were in amongst us and for a second, I felt hope that we’d get free, but the infected charged even harder and I saw Nick go down with a male biting into his face while he clubbed at the head until he got the thing off, but his face was pouring with blood.

  We felt the rage coming from Mr Howie, but it wasn’t enough. We fought harder and nastier, but the numbers coming against us were too many.

  Then Cookey landed next to me with one biting into his arm and another slashing at his face with sharp nails. Scoring cuts over his eyes. I got over the top of him and took the pain in my back like he’d done for me in the golf hotel. And during that I saw Blowers was the last one on his feet. His axe was lost. He had no weapons other than his fists that were clenched and up as he boxed and punched them down one after the other. They couldn’t touch him. He was too fast and too strong.

  Then one jumped on his back and bit into his neck, and I saw Mo leaping up to take that infected down into the heap. Then another female went in on top of Mo. Then more swarmed over Blowers as more and more infected came charging in.

  My apologies for cursing. But we were fucked. There was no hope of fighting free. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. None of us could, but in that moment, right at the brink of death I felt the greatest surge of energy I had ever experienced.

  It was stronger than anything we had felt before and it was growing stronger by the second. I struggle to describe it. But it was like this wave of pure strength was coming at us. And it wasn’t from one source. It was from lots of different sources all at once.

  That’s what the hive mind is. That’s what happens when we feel each other. When we truly open our minds and let it happen and within that crushing darkness, I felt only light and hope with an instinct pushing into my mind.

  Hold on.

  Hold on.

  Pack are coming.

  Pack fight.

  And they were coming. I felt them all one after the other like different wavelengths of energy. Each of them unique and individual. I could feel another one of them too. Not human. Not Meredith. An energy of a different sort that ran like the wind with muscles that dwarfed Clarence’s. An energy within a beast that hated people and loved biscuits and oat milk and snorting lines of chocolate powder. A strong willed, grumpy, violent, angry creature filled with rage as she ran across that airfield slamming them aside. Faster than they were. Bigger and stronger. I felt her coming. I felt her energy as I screamed out and started to push and fight to get free and as my head finally got clear I saw her leap over the mound and slam into the horde coming at us.

  Then another force of energy hit us as Clarence steamed in and started grabbing at bodies to fling them aside as he went into full berserker rage. The strength of him was astonishing as he picked large adults up to fling away like they were made of nothing. I wriggled and pushed to get clear of the bodies, but the infected were still writhing and biting, and hands were clawing at my body, pulling me back down.

  That’s when a large female jumped on Clarence’s back. He reached back to grab her hair, but she bit down hard into his shoulder. He roared in anger and twisted on the spot as another one jumped onto his body from the side, then another from the other side, and another on the front. They were so fast and just kept coming. I tried to shout and scream. I tried to get free, but my legs were trapped. Clarence stayed on his feet and flung one away, but two more slammed into him. He took the impact and wrapped his arms around two males and squeezed so hard I heard the bones snapping from metres away. But still they bit into him. Then more were on his back, and more were going into his legs. How he stayed up is testament to his raw strength, but against so many even he buckled and fell to a knee. The infected immediately howled even louder as though sensing victory from one who had killed so many of them, and my god they swarmed into him. One after the other after the other. I was screaming. I saw Nick trying to get free. His face drenched in blood. I couldn’t see Cookey or Blowers or anyone else, and when I looked back Clarence was toppling over. I heard him roar. I heard the huge bellow coming from him then his right arm shot out and started grabbing at bodies to fling away. I felt a surge and knew he’d rise. Nothing could defeat him. He was too strong and too big, but a rangy male with big buck teeth dove in and clamped his jaws on Clarence’s wrist. Blood sprayed out thick and fast then another did the same and bit deep through the flesh. Severing tendons and tearing at the sinew and muscle like starving hyenas on a flailing wildebeest. The whole mound seemed to heave and still I screamed at him to rise, but he couldn’t, because even he, our strongest by far couldn’t fight against so many, and that blood poured from his wrist, opening it deeper and deeper.

  Then with a flash Jess was there rearing up to slam her front legs down into the lot of them. I don’t know if she knew Clarence was there, but she did it twice then a third time until they were falling away, broken and ruined then she turned like a whip and backkicked the lot with her hind legs and sent human beings flying off into the ranks.

  I knew Clarence was there and, in that instant, I feared Meredith would kill him. It was all so fast. Like a blur of motion then I bucked and thrashed to try and get free and when I focussed again, I saw the Saxon flying by, scooping dozens of infected away and Mads and Booker pushing at Jess to get her away before they heaved at the bodies on top of Clarence.

  Then Paula was there, diving in with a scream as she leapt into the mound, tearing at limbs and heads to heave them aside with a strength drawn from her gut.

  Carmen was at her side. Then Bashir. All of them working with Mads and Booker as I caught sight of Frank behind them, keeping them clear with a machete in his hands. An older man that moved like Dave with simple steps and sweeping strikes and everything he touched seemed to drop and die.

  I felt air part past my head and saw an arrow sticking out of an eye then I twisted to see Roy striding through the smoke firing arrows faster than I could see. They were flying past me and each one was a kill. Each one was slamming into a head, through an eye, into a neck.

  When I looked around I wilted back and thrashed from a female charging in with her red bloodshot eyes fixed solely on me. Her lips back showing me her teeth as she screeched. I couldn’t get free. I couldn’t do a thing and at the last second as I roared with defiance and prepared for the impact she was taken off her feet by Mr Henry stepping in front and flipping her over his hip. Then he simply lowered to drive the point of his knife into her neck while firing his sidearm at another infected. Two in the head and it dropped. Another one behind. One through the eye. More shots fired until the magazine clicked empty and he started to rise to fight with his knife as Mr Howie swept in front of him. Taking two down with his axe then booting one back before lashing out to take more off their feet.

  I felt the force of him. That primeval dark energy that flows when this happens. When we get cornered and trapped and we start getting hurt, and by far this was the worst we’ve ever known. The onslaught was unceasing. They just kept coming, but Mr Howie. I don’t know. It’s hard to describe what he does in a fight like
that. But his aura projects out. Now we know more I’d say he is the CP, and we are the horde. That’s how we connect. That’s how we can feel each other, and I think we all felt him then. That absolute fury, but it was different because it wasn’t just coming from Mr Howie.

  It was coming from Mr Henry too. It was that same energy, less powerful perhaps, less raw, more refined and directed maybe. Different but the same. It was only there for a flash, but it was there and it seemed to give us enough to fight and scream and withstand the pain long enough for Clarence to finally surge up as the thunder rolled overhead. Deep and booming and the bolts of lightning razed the sky. Crackling with electricity as Clarence fought to rid the infected still clawing at his body.

  Pulling them back with his left hand to slam his forehead into skulls. Killing then outright while the bone poked through the flesh of his right wrist. The hand limp and ruined and only held on by a few thick ligaments and tendons.

  It didn’t stop him. He didn’t even seem to notice, and the second he was up, he grabbed a thick leg from the ground with his left hand and used it to beat the infected away while the blood sprayed from his right.

  I saw Nick pulling Cookey out of the mound and watched as he slapped Cookey in the face to rouse him while shouting. ‘GET UP! GET UP!’

  Cookey shook his head and staggered back then caught sight of me and lurched over to grab at bodies. Pulling them away as I fought clear while others got Danny and Mo out, but Danny was out of it. Not responding. Mo was struggling to breathe and hurt bad as Mads and Booker fended the infected off while Paula slapped at his cheeks.

  I got free and tried to rise and fight but I stumbled and fell to my knee. I tried again while sucking air in as I saw Howie grab Henry’s arm and shout something. Then they both turned and shouted together and the next thing I know we were being grabbed and heaved and told to move, but the infected were still charging in so we had to run and fight.