by Luke Duffy
More of them were on the stairs, creeping up to the first floor as they chased after Molly, following her after the back door had collapsed and they had cast eyes upon her warm flesh. Now, they scrambled at the doors to the upper rooms, smashing their way through, searching for the vibrant human being that they had seen just moments before.
Molly's panicked screams, as she barricaded herself in her room, drew their attention and they soon converged and began to assault the door, smashing their decaying hands against the hard wood and gnawing at the frame, desperate to get at the living person beyond the barrier.
Andy looked up at the packed staircase in horror, feeling a crescendo of emotions fall upon him. Fear, panic, desperation and rage; they all assaulted him as one. With a roar, he raised his weapon above his head and ploughed, headlong, into the mass of stumbling corpses that dragged themselves up the stairs.
He began pulling at them, ripping their clothing and flesh, tearing limbs from their sockets as he fought his way through. Moaning figures tumbled down the steps and fell from the banister as Andy flung them aside, still howling and hearing the helpless screams of his friend as the barricaded door began to crumble.
He was halfway up the stairs, and still had a long way to go, when he heard the distinctive sound of splintering wood.
The moans of the dead grew in volume and tempo as they sensed that their goal was within reach; Molly's blood-curdling screams of alarm and fright rang out around the house.
"Andy," Molly cried, her pleading sobs reaching him as he continued to fight his way up the stairs.
"Andy, please help me."
He groaned helplessly as the compressed bodies in front of him halted his advance. He continued to drag them away, tossing them down the stairs behind him as he reached the top step, but more of them greeted him on the upper floor of the house.
They were shoulder to shoulder and packed in tightly as they surged towards the room where Molly had hidden, her horrified screams driving them into a state of frenzy, as they battered at the failing door.
A loud crack rang out, louder than the excited cries of the dead. Andy's head snapped towards Molly's room, recognising the sound as the lock finally gave way, the weight of the crowd continuing to push against the frame.
Above the mass of bobbing heads in front of him, he could see the top of the door. It moved, pushing away from the frame and then slamming shut again, as Molly threw her weight behind it.
"Andy, please, the door," she screamed beseechingly.
"They're coming in."
Renewing his efforts and attacking the backs of the figures in front of him, Andy continued his assault, pulling at the crowd and pushing his way through the slightest gap.
Another crunch rang out and he saw the door burst open. Molly's screams erupted from the room as the ravenous creatures poured in through the gap.
Andy cried out, his rasping wail drowning out the moans of the bodies around him as he heard the horrified voice of Molly calling out for him. He rushed forwards, but was shunted aside as the crowd surged, forcing him against the banister of the stairs. He was pushed further and he found himself unable to move as his back began to arch over the wooden rail.
The figures swelled and rushed forward towards the room, Molly's echoing cries exhilarating them and sending them into a state of energized rage, as their lust for warm flesh and blood filled their every sense.
In the sudden flood of putrid flesh, Andy was launched from his precarious position that he clung to on the banister, sending him hurtling down the stairs, landing on the heads of the dead that continued to climb the steps, following the cries of anguish from the rooms above.
He tumbled and tripped, landing face down on the hallway floor with a bone-rattling thud. The feeling of powerlessness was overpowering as he climbed back to his feet, moaning wretchedly as Molly's heart-rending screams changed from cries of fear, to shrieks of pain as the mass of gnashing teeth and tearing hands ripped into her soft flesh.
Her yells and screeches echoed through the house and far beyond, into the fields and through the trees outside.
Molly's howls of agony shook Andy to his core and his legs weakened at the realisation that he could not help her, that he had failed to keep her safe. He tried again to climb the stairs, but there were just too many of them blocking his path.
Molly's painful cries continued, mixed with the animated wails of the monsters tearing into her, and Andy was forced to listen. Her voice grew weaker as her life drained from her body in torrents of blood and flesh ripped from her bones.
His back crashed against the wall of the stairway and his body slid downwards as he listened to his friend die, sitting on the stairs, pounding his fists against the wooden steps in grief, anger and frustration through his powerlessness to help her.
He wailed loudly, howling above the din of the dead that filled the house as Molly's screams stopped and her voice ceased calling out to him.
He was overcome with sorrow and regret at not being able to save her and he hung his head in the realisation that it was all over.
Molly was dead.
For a while, Andy remained sitting on the stairs, groaning and whimpering as the bodies continued to stagger into the room to feast on the remains of his young friend. He heard the distinct sound of tearing cloth, the grunts of satisfaction and the slurping and smacking of lips as they sucked the flesh from Molly's bones.
Looking up, the rage flared inside of him, reaching heights that he had never before experienced. He growled and snarled at the backs of the figures that continued to climb the steps, his eyes glaring at them, seeing them for the monsters they really were.
He stumbled back down the stairs, grunting to himself and pushing against the bodies that continued to force their way in to the house. He fought his way through, knocking them to the side and pulling at their decrepit clothing and festering flesh.
He barged into the sitting room and stormed towards the fireplace. He reached up, grabbed the tin of fluid sitting on the mantle and began to pour it over the floor and furniture around him. He snatched the box of matches from the table, knocking more of the creatures out of his path as he continued to squirt the flammable liquid onto the floor and walls, even the numerous bodies in the house around him, before leaving a trail out towards the front door.
He wrenched the door open and, immediately, a mass of rotting skeletal faces rushed in towards him.
Andy pressed himself against the wall, allowing them to pass, resisting the temptation to begin fighting them and possibly disrupt his plan.
Slowly, he pushed his way through the doorway and out into the courtyard, still pouring a trail of fluid out from the can and dousing the clothing of the shambling creatures that passed by as they piled into the house through the open front door.
Finally, at the bottom of the steps, he stopped and turned, a scowl secreting from his rasping throat, his incensed eyes fixed on the mass of bodies crammed on the steps leading up to the house.
With an overpowering feeling of revenge bursting from his core, he pulled out a match and struck it against the rough material on the side of the box. The small thin piece of wood flared and hissed as the sulphur ignited and Andy stared at it for a moment, mesmerised by the brightness and dancing flame that seemed to have a life of its own, as it grew brighter.
Raising his head and glaring at the vile and repulsive figures that had killed his friend, he dropped the match.
The fluid ignited instantly and a glowing blue flame began to spread, racing up the steps and towards the house. Within seconds, dozens of the dead were ablaze as their clothing and parched flesh easily caught fire.
They staggered through the house, oblivious to the danger and searing heat that began to engulf them. They crashed into one another, spreading the fire, and soon the bright yellow and orange flames grew and filled the lower rooms, flickering brightly through the blackened glass in the windows and licking at the wooden frames.
Wit
hin minutes, the whole of the ground floor was burning, with black smoke pouring out through the doors and the windows, as the glass cracked and shattered from the heat.
Andy moved away, walking back across the courtyard as more of the wretched and unthinking figures stumbled by him, headed towards the house, ignorant of the flames and the searing heat that were now spreading to the upper floor.
As he reached the row of trees flanking the track, he stopped and turned, taking one last look at the place that he had grown to love, and remembering Molly, who had become the sole reason for his continued existence.
He turned away and grunted.
His body felt heavy and his legs barely had the strength to carry him forward. Sighing heavily, and wracked with grief, he stumbled away down the track and towards the open road.
Molly was gone.
Now, Andy was alone again, and lost.
EPILOGUE
Steve adjusted his position. He had been sat in the same spot for hours, staring out over the dead land, daydreaming and reminiscing, and his backside had begun to grow numb.
He glanced across to his left, across the sprawling suburbs that spread out from the city, slowly giving way to the expanse of countryside stretching out towards the west. The sun was beginning to sink towards the horizon, its rays turning the western sky from a bright blue to a radiant orange. Far to the east, the darkness was coming, creeping up on the earth as the sun began to set.
It would be time for him to leave soon.
Even after twelve years, he still did not like to be caught out in the open after dark. The dead still ruled the land and the living only borrowed it from them during the hours of daylight, when they could see clearly and had time to react.
In the darkness, the only light that the living had was the moon and stars, leaving much of the world in shadow.
The dead; they lurked in the shadows.
They never rested and the slightest sound or clumsy movement always attracted them. To be out after dark, miles from his home base, would be a death sentence for Steve.
He looked up again towards the skyline. The city was silhouetted on the horizon as its tall, black buildings reached towards the heavens.
It was hard for him to believe that the decaying metropolis had once been part of the life centre of civilisation. Its roads were slowly being overgrown with plant life, and the numerous buildings were now home to all manner of wildlife that scurried and scavenged through their rooms and hallways, claiming the old realm of man for their own.
Steve smiled to himself, thinking about how wrong humanity had been. The priorities of the old world had been backwards, and it had taken the rising of the dead to put things into perspective for the survivors.
In his mind, civilisation had already been on its head, and only when corpses began to reanimate and attack the living did their species correct its mistakes.
He guessed that by now, probably ninety-nine percent of the human race was dead, with a large majority of it roaming the earth as the walking dead.
Now, as an endangered species, humans had grown to understand what was important in life, and it was not their bank balance, their job or their car; it was survival and the safety of the people they cared about.
Steve had begun to realise that very early on, but it was not until the arrival at the holiday resort, nestled amongst the beautiful and protective mountains, peaks, and lakes that Mother Nature had created, that he truly understood the scale of the disaster that had hit the world, or enlightenment as he had come to see it.
After the death of Marcus and with half their number killed during the evacuation from the park, Steve had led the survivors on towards the north, continuing with the plan of reaching the safety of the Lake District.
It had taken them two days to get there, circumnavigating large built-up areas and continually having to fight off the swarms of rotting corpses littering the roads, sometimes completely blocking their path and forcing them to detour.
Once in the protective cover of the steep hills and valleys, the numbers of dead declined rapidly. Crossing mountains and fording rivers and lakes were not activities that came natural to the reanimated, and as the living had noted on so many occasions, the lifeless figures roaming the land always followed the path of least resistance, unless something attracted them to veer away from the flat tarmac that shuffled by beneath their feet.
As suspected, people had already taken refuge in the resort; close to one hundred survivors occupying the lodges and cabins, making a safe haven for themselves, tucked away in the middle of nowhere, far from the dangers of the urban areas.
Steve and his band had been welcomed with open arms, adding to the steadily growing community that began to thrive in the foothills of the mountains. The heavy weaponry that they carried with them had been a tipping point in the considerations of the people already there.
It was not long before Steve began a sudden rise to power, despite his reluctance. People naturally turned to him for guidance and looked on him as their leader. At first, he had fought against it, shunning the responsibilities of command, wanting to be left alone to get on with rebuilding his life and looking out for the people he cared for, but it was for this same reason that Steve found himself drifting into the seat of power. He was unable to control it and before he knew what was happening he was the mayor of their small colony, making the decisions and setting down the template for their continued survival.
They set about turning their original plan into a reality, and they took back the town, destroying the hordes of dead infesting the place, blocking off the entrances by sealing the roads that filtered into the area. They secured the perimeter, reinforcing the fences and walls, and setting up guard towers and early warning systems with alarms and cameras.
Within a year, people in the settlement had fallen into a routine of something that resembled an ordinary life.
Children went to school and every adult had a job; whether it was part of the protection force and long range scavenging teams, or growing crops, tending to cattle or part of the builders guild that had started up. It did not matter because every position was considered vital.
Every occupation that civilisation truly needed to survive, the colony had and the only payment that was required from anyone was the fact that they continued to live, in peace and safety, alongside the people that they cared for.
Steve let out a long sigh, his reminiscing coming to an end as he looked out across the land, a slight smile creasing the corners of his mouth. He glanced back down at the rifle in his lap, remembering Marcus, and feeling a strong link between him, the rifle and his brother.
"You would've been proud, bro," he whispered to himself, stroking the dull black metal of the weapon.
"We're a community now and we don’t live in fear anymore."
A thin layer of tears formed in his eyes as he thought about Marcus and all he had been through and done for them, sacrificing his life for them before ever reaching their final destination.
The man had become a legend amongst the survivors, even to the people who had never met him. The teachers taught the young children about him, telling them about what he had been through, crossing half the world with his men, fighting every step of the way and then continuing to fight when he had finally made it home.
Each year, on the anniversary of their arrival at the resort, many parties and drunken toasts were held in his honour.
Liam and David, Marcus' two sons, had grown to be very much like the man that their father had been, strong and determined. Natural leaders, living up to the legend and becoming valued members of their little society.
Everybody spoke of Marcus with a great degree of respect and admiration, and they all paused occasionally to say thank you to the man who had led them from the darkness.
Steve laughed to himself.
"You're revered almost as a God, brother."
He sat for a few more minutes then began to climb to his feet, wiping the traces o
f tears from his eyes and snorting back the strong emotions he felt bubbling up inside him.
He missed his brother, even after all this time.
Down the hill, the lone corpse continued in its attempts to climb the slope, still struggling to negotiate the slippery grass that hindered its progress.
Steve watched it for a while, seeing its frustration as it fell once more, sliding down the hill after fighting so hard just to gain a few metres towards its goal. It grunted, climbing back to its feet and staring up at Steve, letting out a long, mournful and frustrated wail.
Steve turned to leave, heading to his car to begin the journey back to the colony, but another moan from the bottom of the slope made him stop and turn.
It was not the usual poignant groan of the dead; long, lonesome and thrown out to no one in particular. This grumbling cry seemed to call out to Steve, directed at him specifically, as if to say, 'hey you.'
He stood still and watched the body below him. It did not try to climb the hill again and stood, staring back at him.
Steve watched for a moment, studying the figure, sensing that there was something different, something out of the ordinary from the usual dead that he came across.
Curiosity got the better of him and he began to carefully descend the hill, watching his footing and the corpse alternately, afraid of slipping and landing in the waiting arms of the creature below.
The reanimated man did not move, nor did it get excited or animated as Steve approached. It remained rooted to the spot, intently watching the living man walking towards it.
The hairs on the back of Steve's neck stood out from his flesh and a shiver ran down his spine as he closed the gap, still cautious of where he placed each step. When he was just five metres away, he stopped, gripping the rifle tightly in his hands, ready to put a bullet through the creature's head.
Gingerly, he took a few more steps as the dead man's eyes remained locked on his.
