The Words of Their Roaring

by Matthew Smith

  She was regressing, and he didn't know how to stop it; indeed, wasn't even sure whether halting it was the correct thing to do. Where once she had been trapped between life and death, the moment of her passing held in stasis by the virus, now it was as if the reanimation bacteria was struggling to stay in control, losing its grip on her central cortex. While he had witnessed other undead growing more intelligent over the years, she was the first to take the backward path. Her speech and sense of balance were becoming unstable, she was increasingly unresponsive, and she was losing her ability to comprehend those around her. He didn't know why it was happening, or where her decline would take her. Towards a true death? Or to become one of the shambling hordes? He could not accept that, yet he had no good reason why he shouldn't just let her go. She had lived this half-life for over a decade, ever since he had shot through her to prove his strength of will to Goran Vassily, and had hovered on the cusp of mortality, a prisoner inside her own skin. The kindest act would be to finish it, to set her free, to lead her into the weed-ridden gardens and place a gun to the back of her head. But he was too much of a coward for that, he could not bear the weight of that responsibility; and in truth, he did not want to lose her, because once she was gone, nothing would stop his transformation into a monster. Her presence reminded him of his past deeds, of what terrible crimes he had committed, a wound that he would never allow to heal. If she was gone, then all would be consumed - identity, history, love and regrets - in the pursuit of power, and he would no longer recognise his own reflection.

  "I've always cared for you, Anna," he said, reaching out and stroking her hair. She flinched at his touch. "If I could do anything to bring you back to me, I would."

  "Just let me g-go," she whispered, her head bowed.

  "What?"

  She looked up at him, her eyes glistening. "I'm t-trying s-so hard to leave, to end this. S-scared of dark, don't want to close eyes, but I know it's only w-way of escape."

  Flowers knelt quickly, placing a hand on her knee, the fingertips of the other holding her chin. She was as cold as porcelain. "What are you saying? That you're bringing on this decline yourself?"

  "Only way... to escape you. I w-won't be held here anymore."

  "No, please, Anna, don't do this. I need you here—"

  "I want... to go..."

  "Anna—"

  It was then that the first of the explosions rocked the mansion, and the alarms started to wail.

  Twenty-four hours earlier...

  "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just rip your fucking throat out," Gabe rasped, holding Gannon by the lapels. "Tell me why I wouldn't be doing the human race a huge favour."

  "And you think that will change anything?" the former scientist replied. "You think that's going to magic the world back into what it was fifteen, twenty years ago?"

  "It would make me feel better."

  "And once that feeling had passed, what would you be left with? Just another corpse on the floor, and a host of unanswered questions. Killing me will solve nothing."

  Gabe considered this, then released the man. They were standing in Gannon's makeshift laboratory, a collection of tables and rudimentary scientific equipment that he'd looted from various sources and collected together in a long-abandoned back room of a chemist's. His jottings and diagrams were tacked to the walls and covered the work surfaces, while a few works in progress were evident, scattered about the space: a severed ghoul's head was held in a clamp, it's brain exposed, another was wired up to a car battery. Everything looked crude, filthy and incapable of bringing usable results.

  "Some sense at last," Gannon muttered.

  "Pal, there would be a queue of people from here to the Watford Gap trying to get hold of you, if they knew where you were. In fact, a few survivors that I met recently probably wouldn't mind five minutes alone with the man who destroyed their lives."

  "We've all suffered, believe me."

  "Yeah? So what happened to you?"

  He shrugged. "I was called to my superior's office in London once the outbreak hit, part of an MoD convoy that got caught in a riot. I managed to make it to a government station, and was working on containing the crisis. Unfortunately, the safety of the outpost was compromised."

  "Compromised?"

  "The infection got inside and spread like wildfire. I was bitten, end of story."

  "Well, not quite. You're standing here talking like me, completely self-aware and an evolutionary step up from those deadheads outside. That doesn't sound like the end of the story to me." The stiffs that had initially appeared with Gannon had remained on the street, watching over the vehicle while Alice and the rest had made some attempt to repair the damage done to the tyres. Gabe had had to give a brief explanation of why they were travelling in one of Flowers' trucks, and their business of infiltrating his mansion.

  "True," the scientist said, nodding. "HS-03 has developed beyond all my expectations. If it keeps growing at this rate, we could have a new species of human being in the next thirty years." He studied Gabe, his eyes roving over him with clinical dispassion. "Your strength and intelligence makes me wonder if it did have military applications after all..."

  "I'm not one of your test subjects, Gannon."

  "Don't you see, you're the next generation. The mindless carnivores were just the first stage. HS-03 is constantly evolving the dead to an incredible degree."

  "You must be very proud." Gabe gestured to the experiments dotted about the room. "So what are you doing here? Trying to replicate it?"

  "I've got some advanced cultures, yes. But I'm also trying to control the Returners, make them reasonably docile and open to instruction. I was working on something similar before the outbreak. As you've seen from the little band outside, I've had some partial success."

  "They'll do what you tell them to?"

  "Up to a point. Interesting thing is, even they are growing quite territorial - they're recognising that those trucks you came in are removing all the warm flesh from the area. They're conscious that the ruling elite is getting all the food, while they are being left to rot. It's a simple animal deduction, but they're smart enough to have laid the stinger trap."

  "My God."

  "Like I say, that's HS-03's evolutionary power." He chuckled to himself. "The dead aren't taking it lying down anymore."

  "So the zombs are no fans of Harry Flowers either."

  "Few are. They're as much under the cosh as the humans."

  Alice entered, her expression grim. "Wheels are screwed, Gabe. Too shredded to be repaired."

  "Damn," he murmured. "We've just lost our way in." He slumped against a table. "No way we're going to be able to get past Flowers' security, not without some kind of cover..." He looked up suddenly and grabbed Gannon by the arm. "Wait a minute - Doctor, you want to go some way to compensating for the shitstorm you landed everybody in? You want to claw back a few brownie points? And your undead friends out there want to grab a piece of the action they're being denied?"

  The scientist blinked, bemused.

  "You think you could you could control more of them - a regular army?"

  Gannon nodded. "If we could round them up."

  Gabe smiled. "Then I think I might have a solution."

  "Which is?" Alice asked.

  "We're going to do this the Harry Flowers way. We're going to storm that fucking mansion head on."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  "What the hell is going on?" Flowers roared as another explosion rent the air. He clattered down the stairs, drawn like the rest of his men racing across the hallway towards the open main doors by the pulsating warble of the perimeter alarms. To his ears, it could only mean one thing: the fences had been breached, and the detonations were the landmines grouped sporadically within the mansion grounds being triggered. The rattle of gunfire drifted in, short bursts at the edge of the gardens. The enemy was at the gates, he thought. But who would dare take him on?

  He heard his name called, and saw Hewitt pushi
ng his way through the throng heading outside and making his way towards him. The kid had an Uzi held down at his side, and he looked harried: his grey face was etched in a grimace, anger and perhaps a touch of concern visible in his eyes. He met Flowers at the foot of the staircase.

  "Who is it?" the older man demanded.

  "We're not sure," Hewitt replied. "At least, not yet." If Flowers didn't know better, it was almost as if the kid was breathless. He couldn't possibly experience exhaustion, yet here he was, looking for all the world like he was about to keel over. He kept glancing back towards the grounds and fingering the weapon in his hand nervously. "There's an army of deadheads massing at the fences; I mean, a lot. Where they've come from, we have no fucking idea."

  "But the defences are holding?" Flowers asked impatiently, if a tad relieved that he'd been premature in assuming that what he could hear were the sounds of intruders entering the gardens.

  "Yeah, at the moment. They're just hitting the electrified perimeter fences and going up like fucking rockets. But they keep on coming, hundreds of them, and we're worried that the sheer weight of numbers is going to put a strain on the gate. Plus the burning bodies could end up short-circuiting the security system."

  "So there's a chance they could get in?"

  "I can't see them getting even near the house. If they get past the gates, they've got the tripwires to deal with, and us." He held up the Uzi. "But why should they want to get in here anyway? We've got nothing a pusbag would want. Even if they could sense the meat we've got in the stores, it wouldn't bring them in droves like this."

  "Somebody's behind them."

  Hewitt nodded. "This isn't some wandering bunch of zombs that have stumbled onto our land; they were directed here and instructed to attack. But why? What can they hope to achieve? The fucking things are just destroying themselves."

  "It's to wear us down. Like you say, sheer weight of numbers to put a strain on our defences. Somebody wants in, and is using the stiffs as both barrier and distraction."

  "Humans, you think?"

  "Seems to be on too grand a scale for a bunch of shit-scared survivors," Flowers mused. "They wouldn't be able to get deadheads to do what they want anyway. No, this has the fingerprints of a Returner all over it. A new rival, deciding to piss on my territory." He turned to Hewitt. "Let's take a look at them."

  "Are you sure, Harry? I mean, I don't think we're in any danger, but all the same, it would make sense for you to stay in the house."

  "I'm not cowering from uninvited guests," Flowers said sternly, already walking towards the doors. He beckoned to one of his men. "Tate, ensure that the entire perimeter is monitored. I don't want anyone sneaking in under the radar while we're dealing with the frontal attack. Oh, and see if you can reset the alarm, it's doing my head in." The man nodded, and jogged away around the side of the mansion, a pair of his colleagues following.

  Hewitt scurried to keep up with his boss as the old man strode down the drive, feet scrunching on the gravel, and stopped at the edge of the lawn, raising a hand over his eyes to shield them from the glare of the rising sun. Nice touch, Flowers thought, initiating an assault at dawn. Several metres away, a knot of his men were spraying the fence with automatic fire, though it was difficult to see the targets they were aiming for; the invading zombies were turning into a charcoal morass, impossible to determine one from another. Immediately beyond the gate was a row of blackened cadavers, fusing to the metal as they melted from the high voltage running through it. A few were on fire, hair crisping, bones popping, as they jerked and danced from each power surge. Behind them, more ghouls still came, stumbling blithely into the fence - those that could actually get near it - and exploding as they brushed against the wire. Flowers watched one's ribcage flung open like shutter doors, the organs sizzling as they plopped onto the grass.

  Christ, they're disintegrating, he thought, studying the figures with grim fascination. The things are burning up before my eyes.

  "Cease fire," he yelled. The gunshots dribbled to a halt. Glancing at the kid beside him, he added: "Pointless to try to hit them through that barbeque. Just a waste of ammo."

  "What do you want to do?"

  "Give me contact with the watchtowers." He held out his hand, and Hewitt passed him a walkie-talkie. Flowers lifted it to his lips. "Simmons, what's the news?"

  "Not good, sir," a tinny voice replied in his ear. "Got maybe three hundred flesh-eaters backed up against the wire, and the system is not looking healthy. It's showing signs of overload. Could start to spark any minute."

  "You see anything else apart from the deadheads? Someone controlling them?"

  "Nope, just wave after wave of brainless maggotdicks. They're relentless, coming right across the fields, straight for the house."

  "Roger that." Flowers clicked off the two-way. "They're coming out of London, I'm sure of that," he said to Hewitt.

  "London? Who's left that we know could—"

  The old man held up a hand for silence, and pondered for a few moments. Then he raised the walkie-talkie once more. "Simmons, shut off the power to the fence."

  "You sure?"

  "If it blows, we could risk losing the power to the whole mansion. Or fire could spread across the gardens. Turn it off."

  "Wilco." Seconds later there was a buzz followed by a whine, and the microwaved dead ceased their convulsions. In its stead, the early-morning air was filled with the groans of the ghouls, the jangle of the gate as many bodies incessantly pressed against it, and the crackle of burning flesh, pungent smoke drifting into the sky.

  "Double the guard on the perimeter," Flowers told Hewitt. "Keep an eye out for any breaches in the fences, any weak spots. Also be prepared to move back to the house if need be, to defend that." He turned and headed back towards the front doors. "This was just the beginning. Whoever's behind this will be making a move - be ready for it."

  "Right," Hewitt acknowledged, then coughed. He frowned and rubbed his throat, then coughed again, as if trying to rid himself of an irritation lodged there.

  Flowers halted, and turned around to study the kid. Their eyes locked in puzzlement. Then they heard retching coming from across the grounds.

  "They've turned off the power to the fence."

  "So we make a move?" Alice asked.

  "Not yet," Gannon replied. "Give it a few more minutes for the agent to disperse. No point going in there and suffering the ill effects ourselves. Wait for it to take hold."

  They were crouching in the peripheral scrubland to the left of the mansion, hidden enough to not be discernable from the watchtowers but at a vantage point from which they could monitor the situation. Fortunately, Flowers' guards were preoccupied with the stiffs accumulating at the front gate, spraying those that were still alight - and those they could reach through the tangle of limbs and charcoal skeletons - with extinguishers. The zombs that hadn't been fried continued to tug at the fence, the wire rattling wildly. Evidently, the triggermen had been ordered not to fire upon the dead, as the battering went unchecked, those inside the mansion grounds watching the assault impassively. More guards were being deployed at regular intervals along the perimeter, all hefting semi-automatics.

  "They're increasing the security," Gabe said. "They know we're coming."

  "They know someone's coming," Gannon corrected. "They don't know exactly who they're expecting."

  "Are they all Returners?" Beth enquired. "Flowers' soldiers, I mean."

  "Yeah. He made his workforce turn after he resurrected," Gabe murmured. "Always likes to be in control, does Harry... He wouldn't have humans alongside him - considers them beneath him now. Only one place for the living and that's on his dining table."

  "Aren't we kind of adopting the same position?" Alice said, nodding to the zombs hammering against the fence. "We're using deadheads 'cause we think they're expendable, and a lesser species than ourselves. We've got more in common with them than the humans."

  "They're test animals," Gannon answered bluntly
. "Mindless automatons to be directed as we instruct. We've got no more in common with them as we would a lab rat."

  "You told them that?"

  Gannon frowned. "Meaning what?"

  "Meaning how do you know what's going on inside their heads? You think they're happy being used like this?"

  "They're barely aware of where they are, of what they're doing. There's no cognitive reasoning in their brains at all, just what they've been told."

  "Only because you've tampered with them—"

  "Can we have this argument another time?" Gabe interjected, silencing the pair. "I have to say, I'm not happy about using them as mobile dirty bombs, but if it knocks Flowers' outfit onto the back foot, then I say we take the advantage." He turned to Gannon. "Must admit, doctor, they've worked like clockwork. It's almost as if you've rewired their internal circuitry."

  The scientist shrugged. "I've been studying HS-03 for over ten years, had experience of it at first hand. I know now how to modify it, how to get it to work on certain urges and act upon it. The corpses are vehicles driven by the virus, nothing more." He looked off towards the stiffs slamming against the fence, and sighed. "This would've been my army, this is what I was working towards. If only I'd had more time, I could've perfected it..."

  "Wait," Alice said, indicating towards the mansion. "I think the agent's doing its stuff."

  They all turned their attention towards the house and watched the guards begin to exhibit signs of infection. The sound of coughing reached even their hiding place, drowning out the mournful wailing of the dead. Some were bent double, their guns shouldered, spluttering into the lawns. Others scratched at their pallid faces and arms, shavings of cold flesh fluttering to their feet, fistfuls of hair pulled out in clumps.