‘What is this? Get Dean on the radio,’ he said. ‘Town hall to Dean, over.’ They waited and paced through the walkways between the bodies. The officers neared Harry’s position. Running to the rear entrance of the town hall was too risky. The officers might shoot him or mistake him for a criminal. Harry stayed put, he wasn’t risking anything.
The officer’s radio hissed.
‘This is Dean, what’s wrong.’ The officer held his walkie as if eating a hotdog. The other officer mazing around the corpses, he stopped at a bag. Harry watched closely. His partner was occupied with the radio. The officer bent down to the black bag, reaching for the zip. No, idiot, Harry thought. Harry couldn’t let the officer open the bag. Harry searched the floor for a stone and tossed it at the town hall. The stone made a knock on the concrete wall. The officer jumped to his feet. His partner was still on the radio.
‘What was that?’ The officer looked around. Harry hid further behind the dumpster. Harry heard Dean’s voice; he was in the carpark somewhere.
‘See.’
‘This is very bad. Get rid of them immediately, whatever you do don’t open them.’ Harry heard the officer reload their pistols, a metallic slide and click, then a snap.
Harry peered around the dumpster; Dean was gone. Harry saw the police pistols in hand, hesitating.
‘Take them out,’ one said. They watched the bodies moving.
They lifted their pistols and opened fire. The bullets impacted the wriggling corpse and it went still. They let off a round in each body bag. Harry saw a chance and ran for the rear door of the town hall, opening it and slipping inside.
CHAPTER 15
Power
A crew of police had been assigned to patrol the hospital twenty-four seven. Two police cars were parked in the hospital car park. Seven officers patrolled the perimeter and watched the hospital entrance. The door had been barricaded using the waiting room chairs and biohazard tape stuck across them. Two snipers were stationed on the motorway turnoff.
The police were drinking bottled lime juice and eating peanuts and dried fruit for snacks. Taken from the station canteen. They had been accustomed to having their lunches brought to them.
Two officers stood at the main entrance chatting. Another four officers circled the hospital perimeter in pairs, complaining of the moisture air. One officer sat on a plastic white chair on the motorway turn-off chatting to the snipers. One of the snipers interrupted the mundane conversation on energy saving light bulbs so he could announce his kill shot. He believed he found a survivor, but it turned out to be another monster.
The officers had been instructed to report each kill back to the police station, so they had an official body count for military arrival. Corpses raggedly straggled across the corridors briefly in view through the windows. When they shambled into sight it was difficult to get a clear shot. Using the rifles scope didn’t make it any easier. The scope lens glared in the sunlight, making any shot tedious. One sniper lay on the bonnet of the police car resting his eyes. Rifle by his side, waiting to take his position when the other rotated. They had successfully picked off the few corpses in the car park before barricading the front doors.
At the rear of the hospital the officers were under attack. The other police, and snipers lay oblivious to the threat. A breach had occurred. Two officers were tackled by the beasts as they fell from a broken first-floor window. The corpses smashed through the day previous unknown to the police. They toppled over the shards of glass poking from the window frame, guts split and fell onto the concrete. The beasts munched at the officer’s necks.
One officer grabbed his pistol and let a shot off. The beasts were relentless and crazy. He accidentally shot his leg amidst the struggle. They continued to topple out. At first ten or twelve, but fifty zombies had poured out from the hospital window. The patrolling officers were shredded to pieces.
Another window further along smashed. This time the officers at the main entrance heard and radioed the patrols at the back. They were met with death like screams dissipating into static. The sniper on the motorway turn-off ordered a round up at the main entrance.
The shambling blood drenched monsters hobbled, limped and stiffly marched on with broken bones protruding from the fall.
The recently deceased officers were amongst the horde as it wandered around the hospital towards the car park. The sniper panicked and struggled to cock his rifle. Then a crowd groaned behind him and tore into his arms gnawing at the flesh, tearing his ligaments. They ripped the intestines from the sniper laying on the police car and gouged the officer on the now red chair.
The four officers at the hospital entrance were swarmed. They open fired. Firing shot after shot into the undead, but they kept coming. The dead huddled round the officers and swamped three of them. It was a thunderstorm of killing. The guts of the officer squished under their limp feet. One officer made a run for it, to the rear dirt road of the hospital. There was no time for cars, the hospital and motorway were overrun. The officer tried to radio the station. There was no answer. The officer stopped and took off his bullet proof vest and tossed it to the dirt road. He set off running, back into town, the longest route.
***
On main street the remaining civilians had fled. The supermarket doors had been pulled shut, but they were broken and wouldn’t lock. The dead bodies had been removed. Those that were shot dead were now being covered by shamed officers.
Dean had decided to dump the bodies with the others in the town hall car park until they could be buried. They were dumped there without care and the officers returned to being order abiding robots.
A few pub goers shouted from the windows, taunting the police were corrupt. It was true, they were rogue.
Dean watched from the top floor of the station. He had seen people escape with hands full of things that would last two days at most. Food distribution was a big problem along with medicine. Dean’s friend Jamie lay in the carpark, dead. Jamie hadn’t intentionally gone into the supermarket; he was pushed by the mob. Dean had to watch as his friend had been trampled to death. Dean shed a tear and was interrupted by a radio call from the carpark.
He was back at that desk with neatly stacked paperwork and a stapler aligned with the corner of the table. His mug cold and adjacent to the papers. Dean adjusted the clock; somebody must have changed its position because it had to tilt to allow the small hand to tick.
Dean knew the mayor was asking for trouble. The mayor hadn’t done anything useful other than taking people’s liberty. Dean believed he could do better. He had to convince the current mayor to step down. If he resisted, something would change his mind like bribery, threats or a good old-fashioned coup. If the mayor had seen the hospital, he would be shitting his pants. Dean sighed and walked to the office door and left for the town hall.
Dean met the mayor with a flimsy handshake, a shake of the level of respect he had for him, quickly wiping it down his trousers. The mayor’s cocky smirk whipped Dean like ice.
‘I’ll get to the point, we need to start distributing food,’ Dean said. ‘My men have had to kill innocent people today, people who have no idea what is going on and are trying to get basic resources, how can you possibly expect us to suppress this any longer? They aren’t the threat, trust me.’ Dean slammed his fist to the wood table, knocking a statue of big ben over. The mayor looked fraught, glaring at Dean. The mayor cricked his neck and fiddled with his pen. He sighed at Dean.
‘Dean, Dean, Dean, why do you insist on coming here to tell me this? I have had contact with London. It’s over, there’s no hope, there’s no scientists or cures or anything coming to save us from it, we are one of the few remaining islands to survive this thing. I think we should very much be concerned with the food supply, because once it’s gone, we’ll have to start growing crops. It’s over, this is the end, Dean.’ The mayor had jotted a few notes. The mayor had an extremely irritating rung out voice. He sounded dry. Dean spotted a half full whisky bottle on the she
lf to the left.
‘I don’t believe it, the end of what? Your sanity?’ Dean snapped and grabbed the whisky bottle from the shelf showing it to the mayor. ‘Drinking on the job? What happened to you?’ Dean added. Dean launched the bottle across the office at the door. It smashed and glass and whisky decorated the walls and floor.
Jimmy the mayor jumped up off his seat. Dean approached him and grappled his shirt, shunting him against the window behind the desk, hard enough to make it crack.
‘Let go Dean, I’m not kidding, I’ll have you scratched from the force. It’s over, what more can I say, we need to pull together, not apart,’ Jimmy conveyed. Dean shoved him to the floor and Jimmy stumbled back up. ‘I’m in charge now, go home. If this is the end for us, then we need to start building the future today. I’m ordering police escorted food and medicine distribution of at least two weeks to every house in the town.’
Dean wrinkled his nose and walked to the office door. His feet crunched on the broken bottle glass and he left the office. Outside the office Dean gritted his teeth; it was the end. Dean marched back through the door.
Jimmy was sat down at his oak desk and held a large knife. Dean froze. Jimmy sobbed and stood up. Dean walked forward. Jimmy the mayor gave a final salute to Dean and slit his throat, ear to ear.
CHAPTER 16
Radio Apocalypse
The lone police officer gasped for breath on his run down the dirt road, he was nearing the motel. It was over a mile from the hospital already and a mile more to main street.
The officer stopped and equipped his pistol and then carried on running whilst spraying single shots into two oncoming undead. They fell in a synchronistical shamble. He unloaded bullets into the pursuing horde until his gun clicked empty.
He was out of bullets and he tossed the pistol to the dirt and continued to run. The horde stumbled over the corpses he had shot.
The officer only had one weapon now, it was a taser strapped to his leg. The officer limped and was nearing the motel and petrol station. The boulders to the right prevented him from cutting across to main street. The dirt road turned into concrete as he neared safety.
The petrol station was clogged with empty cars. The officer waved at the motel trying to catch someone’s attention. The creeps gained ground, nearing the officer almost within an arm’s reach of him.
The officer was reduced to a snail jog and almost tripped as he equipped his taser from his leg, it was black and yellow and loaded. There was a man stood outside the petrol station, but he soon turned and ran back inside at the sight of the horde.
The officer panted then stopped in a puddle. He turned, taser aimed. He shot the first one coming at him and it fell into the puddle where he stood. The electric taser surged through the water and through the officer. Their bodies buzzed until their skin burnt and they fried in the water. Other beasts clambered down onto the officer and ripped at his skin and face.
Charlie sat on the bed in the motel room talking to Delila, the prostitute he knocked up. She cradled a baby who was suckling on his milk bottle when the horde alerted Charlie.
Charlie walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, his razor was on the tiled floor. He’d pick it up another time. He lifted his chin and examined the stitches in his neck. The stiches were rough and bloodied. He couldn’t remember anything after Sheila slapped him.
Charlie walked back to Delila. She had placed the baby in his chaffed pram, the corners of the pull-down hood dog eared and ripped.
‘You can’t keep avoiding this,’ Delila pleaded. ‘He is your son, accept it.’ She sat with her petite pale hands between her jeans.
Charlie gazed out of the window. He saw the horde of beasts approaching. His muscles tightening in his face with sweat. The hospital was getting to him now. He must have been imagining the crowd and shut the curtains. He turned around and backhanded Delila’s face. She whimpered and covered her face with her hand.
‘How many people have you been with? I was with you a few times, god dammit there is no way this is happening,’ Charlie shouted. His voice startled the little baby boy who let out a cry. Charlie could unwittingly attract the munching creatures if they were real. Charlie was pacing the small room.
‘He is your son, I promise. Just accept it and we can move on.’ Delila carefully picked the baby up and held him to her chest. Delila took the formula bottle and hand fed him.
Charlie admired the tiny grips, one day they would be like his. He walked back to the curtained window and pulled the curtain out of the way. Charlie jumped back. A group of bloodied gnawing corpses clawed at the motel walls. The horde shambled moronically into each other. Charlie closed the curtains. He turned back to Delila, she had calmed the baby and placed him back into the pram. She sat wiping her tears with used tissues.
‘No one can know,’ Charlie grunted. ‘No one can know how I’ve knocked up a whore.’ He slid down against the door. He was close enough to realise the groans were real.
Hands scratched at the plaster walls. Other rooms were breached, Charlie heard windows being smashed followed by screams.
Delila looked startled and the baby began its painful cry. She couldn’t calm him. The more he cried the more they tried to find him. The more they groaned, the more Charlie sweated, the room looked like a pixelated video mirage.
‘Shush, it’s okay, shush.’ Delila calmed the baby to a snooze. Delila rocked the pram back and forth.
‘They won’t find out, I promise,’ she replied. She smiled at Charlie. Charlie was unimpressed, giving the thousand-yard stare with a grunt.
‘Look outside now.’ Delila walked to the window and looked outside. She gasped and retreated to the back of the room.
‘What the fuck are they Charlie,’ she shouted, the baby didn’t wake up.
‘The same things I saw at the hospital, now do you believe me?’ Charlie felt the weight of the beasts behind the door. It was thick wood and bolted and chain locked. The room was kitted out with hundreds of stolen cigarettes. They were no use unless Charlie set the place alight.
‘They can’t get little Samuel, they can’t,’ Delila cried to Charlie’s dismay.
Charlie crawled under the window and watched the corpses attempt to climb the boulders that separated the motel from main street. The wall that separated the rich from the poor.
‘They won’t get in. If they do then I won’t be waiting for you,’ Charlie said.
Charlie looked out the window and the corpses had wandered off. Charlie watched as Douglas; the petrol station attendant ran across the road for the boulders. Charlie remembered him, he was a good kid and a budding candidate for the club. Douglas was scrawny and into video games as he told Charlie. He ran for the rocks and mounted them. Charlie watched through the motel window. The dead were surrounding him and reaching for the kid’s arms. Douglas vanished into the sea of freaks. But he emerged from the crowd and clambered up the rocks to the top. Charlie grinned. Douglas was a survivor and someone Charlie might need in the future. Douglas looked to the motel and Charlie stood up. Douglas gave a sympathetic wave to Charlie who scorned and then Douglas disappeared behind the rock wall.
***
It was night and darkness filled main street. Harry managed to sneak up to the mayor’s office, determined to find an answer.
The building was empty, Harry had to sneak past a suited woman in the main hall but that was all. He had reached the mayor’s office without detection. He knocked on the mayor’s door and waited for an answer. Nobody answered and he pushed the office door open. It was hard to see, the window let in enough light for Harry to see the mayor’s body slumped on the desk chair.
Harry walked over the broken glass; the crunch surprised him. As he got closer to the mayor, he began to see blood dripping down the mayor’s shirt. Harry saw a large knife on the floor. The mayor was wheezing, and black gunk foamed in his mouth. Harry looked around for a weapon. The mayor stood up and straggled around the desk. Harry knew what had become of the m
ayor.
The creature dived for Harry. He dodged and lunged to the desk. A clear oval paperweight filled with bubbles caught Harry’s eye. He picked the paperweight up; it was the size of his fist.
As the dead mayor grabbed at Harry, he smacked him across the head with the paperweight. The mayor’s face caved in. A few teeth fell to the floor. Harry kicked its stomach and black pus poured from its mouth. It reached out for Harry.
Harry whacked the mayor in the forehead and dented the skull. Brain fluid oozed through the cracks in the skull. The paperweight was slippery in Harry’s hand from the blood.
It dived again. Harry threw the weight at its face and it impacted the head. The skull collapsed and brain matter mushed out onto to the carpet. Harry jumped back and struggled to see the beast in the darkness.
Harry booted the mayor’s ribs. The mayor stumbled back towards the window. Harry pushed the dead mayor, the window smashed, and the mayor was impaled on the window frame.
Harry tried to push the legs over the frame, but its body was impaled at the waist. The stomach began to tear open. Harry heaved and threw up over the carpet. The mayor’s stomach ripped open and his top half fell out the window to the car park below whilst the lower half remained impacted on the broken window.
Harry stepped back towards the office door. He daren’t look out the window. An acidic bile rose in his throat and he vomited again, this time on a bookshelf to the side of the room. The disease was rancid and stung his nose with each breath.
On the way out of the mayor’s office Harry overhead a radio that had been left on in another office. He waited and listened to it. Dean’s voice announcing the curfew. Getting to the radio station was his next destination. He carried on out of the town hall; there was nothing else to find here.
Harry walked across main street; it was deserted. Streetlamps were working, but for how long would the power grid stay on. Harry walked into the radio station, they had left the doors unlocked, not a wise decision.
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