by Jack Lewis
“There he is,” said Faizel, and pointed.
I followed the direction of his outstretched hand, my eyes peeling away the layers of darkness until I saw what he meant. The infected in the business suit was slumped against a bench as if he were killing time in-between meetings.
Glass clinked behind us. Dan picked bottles from the shelf, held the labels close to his eyes and strained to read them. He was probably looking for whisky; that was his drink of choice, and unlike most things it actually improved with age.
Faizel put his hand on my shoulder. “Your knife will be better for this. Get as close as you can and kill it.”
I grimaced at the idea of approaching the infected in the dark. What if I tripped over something or made some other noise that got its attention? The last thing we needed was a fight. I knew I was being irrational. I’d spent years in the Wilds, and I knew how to be quiet when I needed to be.
I moved forward, my boots treading lightly on the floor. My ears were sensitive to every sound, and even my own breathing was like a gush of wind. A shiver ran through my chest.
I stopped a few feet shy of the infected, let my raging pulse settle. The infected didn’t sense that I was behind it, and if my hammering heart made any sound, the infected obviously couldn’t hear. I took a deep breath, clenched my knife in my hand. One short stab in the temple. That’s all it will take. I tensed my arm, pulled it back and got ready to plunge it into the infected’s head.
There was a crash behind me, the sound of glass bottles smashing onto the floor.
“Shit!” shouted Dan.
The newsagent’s floor was covered in broken glass, and liquid seeped out onto the floor. Dan stood with his hands against the row of bottles and tried to steady the ones that hadn’t fallen yet.
The infected behind me groaned. By the time I faced it, the monster was already climbing over the bench to get at me. Other shuffling sounds came from the shadows of the lobby, and black shapes lifted creaking limbs off the floor and straightened themselves. All of them turned in my direction and walked.
Adrenaline burst in my chest, bled into my bloodstream. I took a step back and let the infected fall over the bench and topple face first into the floor. I bent down, twisted my knife through its skull until the tip drilled deep into brain tissue.
With shaking hands I searched through the infected’s pockets. I touched the leather of a tattered wallet, loose change, scrunched up paper. My nerve endings fired as I searched, a mad panic flowing through me. I closed my fingers on a sharp set of keys.
“Got them,” I said. There was no point being quiet anymore; we just needed to get the hell out of there.
“Oh fuck!” shouted Dan.
An infected lurched across the shop and dived at him, and Dan crashed back into the liquor shelf. The remaining bottles rolled onto the floor, smashed, sent vodka and whisky spraying over the shop, the alcohol fumes strong enough to pinch my nostrils.
Faizel ran into the shop. He grabbed the infected by the shoulders, dragged it back. Two more lurched out of the shadows and took hold of Faizel’s shoulders. One lowered its head at him, gnashing its teeth toward his neck.
Dan pounced forward, grabbed it by the hair. He pulled its head back and smashed it into the corner of a shelf, and there was a cracking sound as the metal pierced the infected’s skull.
A cacophony of groans rose behind me. The infected walked in my direction, their feet dragging on the lobby floor. Some retched, others coughed as if their throats were clotting with blood. I put the keys in my pocket and gripped my knife tight enough for the handle to pinch my skin, as if cutting the blood circulation to my hand would somehow still the feelings of panic rushing through me.
Faizel pushed one of the infected away from him, sent it spinning into the magazine rack. He slipped his fire axe from his belt, span to face the other infected. He was a second too late, and as he readied to strike, the infected opened its mouth and bit into his arm.
Faizel let out a shout, grabbed the infected by the neck and smashed the blade of his axe into its head, carving through the bone and slicing into the brain. He pushed it away and let the corpse sag to the floor. He held his bicep, inspected the bite marks on his arm. It was a jagged row of dents that cut into his flesh, and dark blood spilled through the grooves.
Dan straightened up. He looked at Faizel’s arm, and then looked at me. No words needed to be said. We knew what this meant, but there wasn’t time to process it.
I gripped my knife, held it ready to strike as we made our way to the doors.
***
I had never been so glad to feel cold air rush at my face. It reminded me that I was alive, that I wasn’t going to be trapped in the service station with the infected, doomed to spend the afterlife trying to fill a never-ending hunger.
Faizel followed me, his back bent. He clutched his arm and blood seeped between the gaps between his fingers and ran down the back of his palm. His face was twisted as though he was fighting back shouts of pain.
Dan shut the door behind him, slid his hammer between the bars. He looked up to the sky. His cheeks were pure white, and he sucked in breaths so deep it was like they were going to be were his last. He looked at Faizel, and his eyes narrowed.
“He’s losing pints,” he said, eyeing the blood that oozed from Faizel’s wound, welled between his fingers and dripped onto the floor.
There was too much to process. Faizel was bitten. The infection would drip into his veins and spread through his blood stream. His antibodies would go to war, and ultimately they would lose. We could stop the bleeding, but we couldn’t stop the infection.
Faizel took a faltering step then sank to his knees. I put my arms around his waist, heaved him to his feet and threw his arm over my shoulders. Dan looked back at the service station doors, then took Faizel’s other arm.
There was a scream across the car park. Alice stood in front of the car, Ben hidden behind her. Her wide eyes stared at something on the ground, but my view of it was obstructed by a four by four that was parked across two spaces.
“Alice,” I said. A jolt of panic shot through me for the woman who had knocked me out hours earlier.
Faizel tried to hurry, but his energy drained and after a few steps he dragged his feet across the floor. When we moved clear enough of the four by four to get a view, a sudden shard of ice stabbed through my chest. I stopped, my legs heavy.
A stalker prowled across the concrete toward Alice and Ben. It moved on all fours, two thin legs pushing it forward and claw-capped hands scraping on the floor. It sniffed at the ground and slid its red tongue across the stone, a wheezing growl coming from its throat.
I stopped. My natural defence mechanisms fired, and every instinct at my body told me turn in the opposite direction. I knew how dangerous stalkers were, and how quick they could move. Whatever mutation had diluted their DNA, it had twisted their human form, made them more agile. Alice had seconds at the most. I tried to put a foot forward, but it was like moving lead.
Faizel coughed. Flecks of blood spat onto the ground. His left hand was completely covered in blood, and the crimson flowed down Dan’s supporting shoulder.
Alice took a step back, pushed Ben even further behind her. She held her crowbar in a death grip and raised it ready to strike. Even thirty metres away, I could see how her hand hands shook as she wrapped them around the iron.
Dan and I moved forward, heaving Faizel along with us. Every so often he stuck a foot out and pressed it into the floor, but he only managed one step before he switched back to dragging them. With his added weight, I would never get to Alice in time. I took his arm, wound it off my shoulder.
“Put him down,” I told Dan.
We lay Faizel on the floor. Behind us, infected reached the glass service station doors and banged at them, their primal senses telling them that they needed to break the glass to get at us. Hopefully, with Dan’s hammer barring them in place, the doors would hold.
“Stay with
him,” I said to Dan.
I expected him to refuse, but instead he looked down at his friend, his face pallid and his shoulders tight, and then nodded. On some level, Dan must have understood that this was his fault; if he hadn’t decided to stock up on alcohol, Faizel wouldn’t have been bitten.
I ran toward Alice. Each step on the concrete jarred my busted leg, but I winced through the pain and carried on. Thirty metres lay between Alice and me; the stalker had only five feet.
The creature slid into a crouch, ready to pounce. Sweat ran over the skin of its back, and muscles rippled between the framework of bones that stuck out from its spine.
My heart exploded in my chest. I’m not going to make it. I can’t get there in time. The hopelessness of it nearly sank me to my knees.
Alice turned her back on the stalker. She pushed Ben hard so that he stumbled back. I was close enough to hear her now. “Run,” she told him.
Ben’s eyes were black discs. “But mum -”
“Just run!”
She shoved him away from her, and then turned to face the stalker. In the face of death her eyes turned to stone. She gripped the crowbar tightly enough to drain the blood from her fingers.
I stumbled through the pain, closed the metres. I ran as fast as my leg let me, but it wasn’t quick enough.
The stalker coiled its body and got ready to spring. The seconds dragged, as though my brain were forcing me to experience this moment in as much detail as possible, as though it wanted me to watch Alice die. I would never get there in time.
A shadow stepped from behind the four by four behind the stalker, a small figure with a black hood over their head. They walked up to the stalker and raised their hand. A machete gleamed in the moonlight. The stalker sensed the person, but before it could turn round they sank the blade deep into its back.
The stalker opened its mouth and wailed. Alice’s instincts fired, and she stepped forward and slammed her crowbar into its face. The hooded figure pulled their machete out of the stalker's back, steeled their grip and then plunged it back in.
The stalker twisted in pain. In a fair fight, the stalker versus both people, the stalker would always win. The element of surprise was the only thing that had let them beat it.
The hooded person put a boot on the stalker’s back pushed the creature onto its belly. They stood over it, raised their machete. The sleeves of their coat slid down and revealed a bony wrist with veins pressing against the skin. They brought their machete down with a grunt and sliced halfway through the stalker’s neck, spilling blood that was as dark and thick as tar.
The hooded figure stepped back, caught a breath. They lifted their hand to their hood and pulled it back.
16
It was a woman with a slim build and thin face. The shadow of a tattoo covered her neck, but I couldn’t make out the details in the dark. Her blonde hair was cut into a short bob, the roughness of the strands marking it as a job she’d done herself. Her face was dirty, but blue eyes shone from the grime. She scowled at me as I approached.
“Thank you,” said Alice, then she turned to find Ben.
The woman stepped behind Alice, grabbed her by the neck and held her machete to it. Alice struggled, but the woman’s grip gave her no movement.
“Don’t move.” Her voice was hoarse, as though she hadn’t used it in weeks, and her accent was Mancunian.
I walked forward, clutched my knife. My lungs churned air and my blood pumped it through to the extremities that had been numbed at the sight of the stalker.
The woman gripped Alice and pivoted them both until she faced me.
I held my hand out. “Take it easy,” I said.
The grip on her machete relaxed a centimetre. Alice shoved her weight into her and slammed the woman into the car. The woman span around, raised her arm and smashed the handle of the machete into Alice’s head. Alice fell to the ground.
“Mum!” shouted Ben, and ran over to her.
The woman pulled Alice upright, making no work of heaving a much heavier woman to her feet. She held the machete back to her neck and pressed it tight against the skin.
There were footsteps behind me, and Dan stood at my side with Faizel leaning into his shoulders. Faizel’s face looked like it was made of cold crystal, and his eyes were glazed. Dan looked at the woman and his face twisted. He lowered Faizel to the ground and took the fire axe from the dying man’s belt.
The woman pressed the blade of the machete tighter against Alice’s neck. A millimetre more pressure and she would puncture the skin.
“Drop your weapons, all of you. Especially you, tubby.”
Dan’s eyes cooked. “Fuck you.”
The woman didn’t even blink. She nodded at her machete that connected with Alice’s throat, only a thin layer of skin stopping the blade from drawing blood. “I’ll slit her throat, and you can watch her bleed.”
Blood pounded in my ears and my throat dried. After all we’d been through to get the car keys, I wasn’t going to let this ruin everything. For a second, fury gave me tunnel vision. It blinded my thoughts and blurred the danger of the machete against Alice’s neck.
“Touch her and you’ll die before she hits the ground,” I said.
“Maybe, but I’ll have still have time to kill the boy,” she said.
Ben looked at her and took a step back, his face a screen of fear.
I could tell she was serious. In the Wilds I’d seen enough of the dark side of people to know the difference between those who threatened violence, and those who were capable of it. The grime on this woman’s face didn’t cover skin, it covered cold stone.
I let my knife clatter to the ground. I looked at Dan and nodded. At first he tightened his grip around the handle of the axe. Then he looked at the woman, and he came to the same conclusion as me. He threw the axe on the floor.
The air was thick with tension. Hearts hammered, and frayed nerves took on more strain. Someone was going to snap, and it seemed to me that we were in the losing position. Faizel twisted on the floor beside me, clutching his bitten arm close to his chest. We couldn’t afford more bloodshed tonight.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“The fuck you care?” the woman spat.
I kept my voice level. “This will go better if we all calm the hell down. Maybe we can help you.”
The woman gave a flicker of a grin as sarcastic as it was fleeting. “Name’s Lena-Lou. Friends used to call me Lou, but they’re all dead now.”
Alice twisted in Lou’s grip, then gasped as the woman pressed her machete deeper. The blade broke skin, and a sliver of blood trickled from her capillaries.
I held my hand up. “Easy, Alice.” I looked Lou in the eye. “I’m Kyle. These guys are Dan and Faizel. The boy there is Ben, and that’s his mother you’re holding.”
Lou nodded down at Faizel. “What’s wrong with him?”
Faizel groaned. I’d never seen him show pain before, never even seen him complain. To watch his face twist and unnatural moans spit out of his mouth sent a shock of ice up my spine.
“He needs help,” I said. “Leave us be and that'll be it. I don’t know what you want, but I promise you we don’t want anything to do with you.”
Lou reached out her free right hand and tapped the roof of the car. “This your ride?”
I nodded.
“Give me the keys.”
I took a step forward.
“No, idiot. Throw them to me.”
I dug the keys out of my pocket, twisted the keyring in my fingers. I gave a weak underarm throw and they landed a few feet short of Lou.
Lou stepped forward whilst keeping her grip on Alice, but this time it seemed a struggle, as though the strain was getting to her. She closed her eyes, gave a sigh.
“Okay, genius. You’re going to have to pass them to me.”
I picked up the keys. Lou stretched her arm out toward me. As I passed them, I slipped a key between my fingers and clenched my hand into a fist. Too quick for
Lou to react, I threw a punch at her face, sinking the end of the key into her cheek.
Lou shouted in pain. She stumbled back, clutched her hand to her cheek. Alice squirmed from her grip. Blood rushed to her cheeks and left her bright red. She steadied herself, and then shifted all her weight into Lou, slamming her into the side of the car.
Lou’s legs gave way and she fell to the floor. Alice stood over her, swung her leg and sunk it deep into her ribs with a blow so hard it made me wince. Lou groaned with pain and clutched her elbows toward her ribs. Alice readied for another kick.
