by Luke Duffy
Where the legs should have been there was nothing; Claire's fingers pressed deep into the warm, blood-soaked intestines and smashed pelvic bone that hung from the lower part of the body.
She gasped at the realisation and began to scream in both horror and anguish.
"Sarah," she screamed again. "Baby, no…"
Suddenly, a fragile and frightened voice spoke up from within the darkness of the deformed helicopter.
"Mum," the voice croaked desperately, "Mum, I'm here. Where are you?"
A flood of relief swept through Claire's body. She was almost overwhelmed by it and knocked unconscious again.
"Thank God," she whispered hoarsely. "Thank God."
Straining, she pushed the mutilated body away from her. It slumped to the side with a sickening thud as its exposed flesh and entrails smacked against the bare metal of the passenger compartment ceiling.
"Sarah, I'm here. Where are you?"
Claire reached out into the gloom and felt her hands touch the soft, warm face of her daughter. Immediately, she pulled Sarah close, squeezing her tightly as she cried uncontrollably with relief that she had been spared.
With a lot of effort and pain, Claire climbed from the downed aircraft and out onto the cold wet grass, dragging Sarah with her. Outside, she dropped to the ground, feeling the damp soak into her back. Her head throbbed and the pain in her neck and shoulder made her feel as though they were on fire.
Somewhere inside the twisted and mangled fuselage of the helicopter, someone groaned. She heard the thuds as a body moved and whimpers of pain and suffering drifted to her ears, forcing Claire to her feet and into action.
"Wait here, Sarah," she instructed her daughter.
She crawled back towards the carcass of the machine and forced her head and shoulders back in through the smashed and disfigured doorway.
Inside, her senses were overpowered by the smell of aviation fuel, oil, blood and human faeces. The reek almost made her vomit as she clasped her hand to her mouth, fighting hard to keep the bile at bay that was threatening to rise up from her stomach.
In the semi darkness, she could see a number of dark figures writhing in a tangle of arms and legs, mixed in with debris and equipment.
Somebody groaned close by, to her right. Claire turned to reach out to it and felt a hand clasp hers and begin to pull against her.
A sudden and horrific thought occurred to her:
'What if those who were killed have already turned?'
She began to panic, trying to break the hold that the dark figure below had on her hand. She pulled hard, trying desperately to get free. She reached out and began to pound her fist against the forearm of her attacker.
The body let out a yelp and immediately withdrew its hand, releasing its grip on Claire and sinking back into the darkness.
"Stop, stop… What are you hitting me for?" the faceless voice growled in anger and pain.
Claire paused, feeling ashamed as she recognised the voice below her.
"Sorry, Sophie," she began, "I thought you had turned into one of those things."
"Well, I'm not one of those things," Sophie hissed in reply. "Are you going to help me now, or just frigging stand there?"
Claire helped Sophie from the smashed helicopter and out onto the wet grass, placing her down beside Sarah.
Sophie groaned and rubbed her head as she looked around her, trying to find her bearings and make sense of what was happening.
"Are you hurt, Sophie? Are you okay?" Sarah asked in an innocent and genuinely concerned voice.
"Just my head, I think."
She looked up at Claire pleadingly. "What happened? How did we crash?"
Claire was about to return to help more of the survivors.
"I think we were shot down," she said, causing Sophie's eyes to bulge and a gasp escape from her throat.
"Who…," she began in astonishment, "who shot us down?"
Claire had already turned back to help the others.
More cries for help came from within the darkness of the passenger compartment. Claire's eyes had adjusted to the gloom; she was now able to distinguish a number of wriggling bodies in the tangle of flesh and helicopter.
She looked to the front, to where Kelly and Joey had been. There was virtually nothing left of the cockpit and Claire assumed the pilot and co-pilot were dead.
A noise to her right, outside of the wreckage, caught her attention.
It was a voice, carried to her on the wind from some distance. She stepped back and looked across the grassy hillside, and saw a number of torch beams bouncing in the darkness, coming towards them.
Instinctively, she knew that they could only be the people that shot at them. She suddenly felt exposed, caught in the open and vulnerable to another attack, as she heard the excited voices getting nearer.
Claire glanced at the helicopter, and then back at Sarah and Sophie, who had also spotted the lights in the distance. Both of them were climbing to their feet, their heads turned in the direction of the approaching menace, fear glinting in their eyes as they turned back towards Claire, searching for answers and instructions.
Leaning back into the passenger compartment, Claire hissed at the darkness.
"Someone's coming, you need to get out, now," she said urgently.
All she got in reply were more groans and whimpers from the injured survivors. It seemed that everyone that remained alive were either too hurt to help themselves, or in such a state of shock that their bodies refused to comply with what was needed of them.
"Come on," she tried again, hoping to force some of them into action.
"Come on, I'll help you out. We need to move, now."
Still, no one seemed coherent enough to understand the importance of the situation.
"Shit," Claire cursed as she pulled herself back from the door.
She turned to her daughter and Sophie.
"We can't do anything for them," she said in a quivering voice; her face was awash with shame.
She glanced down at the ground, then over towards the approaching lights and voices.
"We have to leave them." Sophie spoke the words for her, understanding the dilemma and regret that Claire fought with inside her.
Sophie grasped them both by the hands and turned away from the wreckage.
"Come on, we need to find somewhere to hide."
They ran away from the helicopter and towards a large, thick clump of trees that they could see in the distance against the slowly brightening sky as dawn approached. Their breaths came in gasps as their legs forced them forward, continually threatening to trip them as they waded through the long grass.
After a few hundred metres, Sophie's chest burned and she began to slow, but Claire dragged her on as she drew on her reserves, strength and fitness from all her years of running.
Claire continuously spoke to them in a hushed voice as they ran towards their new sanctuary, giving her daughter and Sophie words of encouragement, and reminding them that the tree line was just a couple of hundred metres away, and then they would be safe.
Claire glanced back and saw the shafts of light converge on the wreckage of the helicopter. She counted six torch beams dancing around in the darkness and guessed that there were probably more people with them.
As far as she could tell, the people around the helicopter had not noticed them as they ran for the woods; she hoped beyond hope that they could make the last one hundred metres without being detected.
With burning legs and pounding hearts, the three of them finally made it into the safety of the trees. They collapsed onto the soft pine leaves covering the ground, panting for breath and feeling the relief of having survived the crash, and then escaping the people who had shot them down.
Claire was more relieved over that fact that Sarah was safe and unhurt. She reached across, still on her knees, and pulled her daughter in close to her, stroking her hair and kissing her on the forehead.
"It's okay," she whispered gently as Sarah sobbed in he
r arms. "We're safe; no one's going to hurt you, now."
Sarah looked at Claire, her eyes filled with emotion. She snorted back tears.
"What about the others? Are they all dead?" her voice trembled.
"I don’t know, sweetheart, but we had to leave them to get away from the bad men that were coming."
"What about Dad?" Sarah questioned her mother, as she became filled with concern and trepidation.
Before Claire could answer, a crack rang out from the darkness of the woods, echoing around between the tightly packed trees. It sounded like a branch being snapped under somebody's foot.
"Oh, I'm sure he'll be fine," a voice called out from the gloom. Its tone was of a mocking reassurance and Claire pictured a sneering smile behind the words.
A dark figure stepped out from between the tall trees and moved towards them. More dark shapes joined the first, appearing from all sides, surrounding the three crash survivors that had taken refuge in the woods, believing they were safe.
"Who are you?" Claire demanded, pulling her daughter even closer.
"That doesn’t matter right now," the man replied in a calm but menacing voice as the men with him, pointing their weapons at Claire, Sarah and Sophie, closed in.
"What does matter; is that you're unhurt, which I am pleased about, of course, and now I must insist that you come with me. You can be my guests, if you like?"
Claire felt helpless; a tight knot began to form in her stomach. She knew that the offer of going with them was not really something she had the option of refusing.
31
The rain had started up again. Much lighter than it had been before, but it was heavy enough for Jim to judge it was time to flick on the windscreen wipers.
He concentrated intently on the road ahead of them, picking his way through stalled traffic and debris that littered their path on every stretch of the dual carriageway. The interior of the Range Rover was silent, except for the swish and thump of the wipers as they swept across the windscreen rhythmically, almost hypnotically and nearly sending Jim into a state of autopilot.
He knew he needed to stay focussed and alert, and tried to keep his mind occupied. It was not an easy thing to do. After barely making it out of the park, they had piled into the vehicles and headed through the country lanes and towards the north, pushing hard for the rendezvous with the group in the helicopter.
Now, with the adrenaline free from his system, and the fear and excitement of the events at the Safari Park left far behind them, fatigue had taken control and he faced a new battle to remain vigilant.
The bright beams of light that pierced the darkness before them, guiding them on their journey, illuminated the evidence of the mass chaos and confusion that had befallen humanity at the outbreak of the plague. Everywhere he looked, he could see the evidence of panic and fear strewn across the roadsides.
Jim was exhausted.
His eyes burned and his body ached, particularly the slowly healing bones in his fractured arm. His brain screamed at him for a rest, but he forced it to stay awake, fearful that a lapse in concentration could put them all at risk. If he allowed his mind to wander, he could plough into a static vehicle, or one of the many hasty blockades that they had passed through. Even worse, he could fail to notice a crowd of dead, blocking the road ahead of them, until it was too late and driving them straight into an ambush of rotting flesh and gnashing teeth.
He looked to his left with the intention of engaging Marcus in conversation, but just one glance at the man told him that talking was not an option. Since leaving the park, Marcus had barely spoken a word.
Now he sat silent, staring at the road ahead, deep in thought with a look of exhaustion on his face that made him appear close to the point of collapse. His eyes were sunken and almost seemed to glow red in the dark interior of the vehicle. His cheeks were withdrawn and his skin looked pale with a glistening layer of sweat coating the surface.
"Hey, Marcus," Jim said with concern, "you okay, man? You really look beat."
Marcus did not reply. His eyes remained fixed on the road, illuminated by the powerful beams of the headlights, as he continued to grip his rifle between his legs, continually looking down at the dull black metal and nervously checking that the magazine was still securely fitted.
"Marcus…" Jim repeated as he watched the man with growing concern.
"What?" he snapped back, sounding annoyed and in no mood to talk.
Jim stared at him for a second, watching his features and glaring eyes as they remained fixed on the windscreen.
"Hey, look," sighed Jim, sounding just as agitated. "I just want to make sure you're okay, man. You’ve hardly spoken a word since we left the roof of the house. Are you worried about the others?"
"I'm fine, Jim," Marcus grumbled, "just keep your concentration on the road. The last thing we need now is a drama because you wanted to talk about the fucking weather."
Jim glowered at him and even considered swinging his arm back from the steering wheel and smacking him in the mouth. Marcus may be his commander and his friend, but Jim had never allowed anyone to speak to him in such a manner.
After a moment of thought and reflection, Jim swallowed his anger down. It slid along his throat stubbornly and he gritted his teeth with enough force to shatter them while his rage threatened to burst through his composure. His knuckles had turned white from gripping the wheel too tightly but finally, he shrugged.
"Fuck you then, Marcus," he huffed and turned his attention back to the road.
The convoy continued to weave its way through the detritus that filled the roads. Overturned and crashed vehicles were everywhere. Personal belongings lay strewn on the rain-drenched tarmac and stray bodies, roaming the land aimlessly, continuously stepped out ahead of them. They lunged for the vehicles, colliding with the heavy bumper with which Stu and his work parties had reinforced the lead vehicle. The dead were mown down, crushed beneath the heavy wheels or flung to the roadside, broken and smashed as they squirmed in their own entrails.
They were making good progress, sticking to their plan and filtering their way through the back roads, only venturing onto the main highways when it was necessary. Marcus' vehicle took the lead, with Jim behind the wheel while Stu and Steve brought up the rear in the second Range Rover. Helen was partnered with Jake in the first of the people carriers and Lee drove the second, with Kieran in the passenger seat.
"So," Lee began, keeping his eyes fixed on the road while he balanced a glowing cigarette between his lips.
He puffed on it, blowing out choking smoke that filled the interior of the people carrier.
"How long you been a bender, then?" he asked casually.
Kieran looked up from the cold tin of baked beans he held in his lap; the spoon was full and rising towards his mouth when Lee's question struck.
"A 'bender'?" Kieran asked incredulously.
Lee nodded, glancing at him before pulling his eyes back to the road as he blew out another cloud of grey cigarette smoke.
"Yeah, you know, a bender, a chutney ferret, an uphill gardener."
Lee looked at Kieran again, noting the expression on the big man's face and mistaking his annoyance for confusion.
"Okay, a homosexual. How long have you been gay?"
"I knew what you fucking meant, Lee," Kieran growled at him. "I just don't want you referring to me as a fucking 'bender'."
"Right then," Lee acknowledged, nodding to himself as he took note of Kieran's sensitivities. "Sausage bandit it is, then."
Lee began to howl with laughter as Kieran's face turned red while his blood boiled below the surface.
"One of these days, I'll lose it with you, big time. You're a fucking cock, Lee."
Lee continued to laugh, but after a while, he settled himself and turned to glance at the infuriated Kieran again.
"Okay, okay," he conceded, "I'm sorry, Kieran, and I don’t mean any offence by it; well, not that much. I just love taking the piss and now that there are t
wo of you, at least Jake could never say that I am picking on him or singling him out."
Kieran thought for a moment then shook his head, a smile creasing his face despite his determination to continue his angry appearance.
"You really are a dick, aren't you, Lee?"
Lee shrugged, pulling the cigarette from his mouth and folding his bottom lip up over the top and towards his nose as he considered Kieran's statement.
"I suppose I am, but you should be the first to recognise a dick when you see one, with you being dick daft and all that."
Both of them began to laugh as the convoy continued to head northwards, winding its way through the country and the remains of civilisation that now stood in ruins all around them.
Steve drove along at the rear of the convoy, carefully keeping his distance from the vehicle in front in case of them suddenly stopping and him needing to avoid colliding with the rear of them.
The first shimmering rays of dawn were beginning to brighten the sky to the east as the gaps in the dark rolling clouds to their right, changing from a deep purple, almost black, and slowly shifting to deep orange, becoming brighter by the minute as the sun began its slow climb into the winter sky. It would still be another hour before it was fully daylight, and Stu calculated that at their current rate, they should reach the first rendezvous within a couple of hours of first light.
Within forty minutes, the sky had brightened substantially, giving them a better view of their surroundings. The sun had still not risen above the horizon but the sky, cluttered with dark clouds, allowed enough light through for them to see the landscape beyond the beams of their headlights.
They had recently turned off from a junction and now found themselves on a stretch of carriageway, two lanes wide and running in a straight line, with hardly a kink in the road. To their right, a valley stretched off far into the distance with rolling countryside and small villages and towns dotted amongst the vast expanse of greenery.
To their left, and beyond the crash barrier at the side of the road, the ground rose up in a steady slope that was covered with long grass, swaying in the cold winter wind. Patches of snow still clung to the landscape, slowly melting away as the rains arrived. At the top of the rise, Stu could see it was crowned with a tree line that ran north along the crest of the hill, paralleling the road.
