by Perrin Briar
In the rear view mirror, Jordan watched the figure lying in the road. It didn’t move. He found himself praying Queenie was dead once and for all. They rounded a corner and Queenie disappeared from view.
111.
“Wrap her leg with something,” Stan said. “Staunch the bleeding.”
The muscle had been stripped away like a piece of lean beef. The tendon was white, frayed in the middle from where it had snapped like an overstrung guitar string.
“How could they know we would be coming this way?” Anne said as she tore her T-shirt into strips and wrapped them tightly around Selena’s calf.
“They didn’t,” Jordan said. “They just found the least congested road in the area, cleared it, and put a single car there for us to get out and push.”
“They set a trap?” Stan said. His face was drawn and pale. He looked like he’d aged ten years.
Anne turned to Selena’s back and paused. Blood seeped out like water from a squeezed sponge. Selena’s shoulder blade jutted up like an alien object. Her flesh was torn and ragged, hanging in lumps around the pit Queenie had dug.
“Aren’t we the idiots,” Selena said through bloody gritted teeth. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
The car sped past a sign that read, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING REEDHAM.
As the car zipped down the road, clumps of overgrown grass on either side slapped at the car wheels. Thick hedges ran along either side, blocking the view of the fields beyond.
Jordan pulled the car over. Up ahead were a series of terraced cottages built bluff to the country road. The first signs of the approaching town.
Selena convulsed, her body becoming stiff and rigid, her tendons standing up like they were trying to escape. Anne brushed the spittle off her chin. The convulsions relaxed.
“I… I don’t want to be a nzambi.” Selena’s eyes were full of tears.
Anne looked around at the others. She opened her mouth but no words came.
Stan tapped Jordan on the shoulder and gestured to a Lurcher crawling down the quiet country road, its exposed spinal column leaving a thin bloody trail.
“It’s the blood,” Stan said. “It’s attracting him. There’ll be others.”
“Throw me out,” Selena said, coughing up a clot of blood.
“Don’t be stupid,” Anne said. “You’re going to be-”
“Bline?” Selena said. The word ‘fine’ had been corrupted by the congealing blood on her lips. She reached for the door handle, but lacked the strength to grasp it.
Stan pulled Jessie over into his seat and hugged her close. He ran his fingers through her hair, making soft shushing noises.
“There is nothing… nothing you can do,” Selena said. “Dump me out.”
“We’re not going to dump you,” Anne said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Selena’s eyes were bloodshot-red, pupils dilated. Her body shook.
“There must be something we can do,” Anne said, looking at the others. None of them met her gaze.
Jordan reached into his pocket and came out with a yellow pill. “It won’t save her, but it might help with the pain.”
“What’s that?” Anne asked.
There was a spark of recognition in Selena’s eyes. “W… Where did you get that?”
“Sergeant Marsh gave it to me.”
“What is it?” Anne repeated.
“Medicine,” Jordan said. “Or, at least, I think it is. Marsh said it somehow erases our blood, so there’s nothing for them to feed on. The soldiers use it whenever they get bitten.”
“Give me it,” Selena said. “Please. The last thing I want is to give… give those things a snack.” She swallowed the pill, her face scrunching up as it got stuck in her dry throat. “Before I go, I want to tell you all that… that the past few days have been about the best of my life. Thank you for saving me. You saved me from a fate worse than death. Thank you all. God bless you.” Selena’s skin cooled rapidly, losing its natural dark tint.
Selena locked eyes on Jordan. “Hope,” she said, a faint smile on her face. Her eyes fluttered closed and she reached out for something that wasn’t there. A lump caught in Anne’s throat. Selena’s body convulsed and shook.
“We have to put her outside,” Jordan said. “The body rejects the blood.”
“We’re not going to just dump her on the street like she’s rubbish,” Anne said.
“I didn’t say dump.”
“It was what you meant.”
“We have to lay her outside if we’re going to keep using this car. Her blood will attract them for miles.”
Anne shut her eyes and nodded. She opened the door and fed the body out, like a baby entering the world. “I’m sorry.”
Selena stared unblinking at the sky. Red blotches grew and spread across her skin like filter paper. Over-saturated, the blood flowed freely, staining the tarmac and grassy verge. It was like watching a volcano erupt in slow motion. Her pores opened wide until they could stretch no further and then the body’s liquids began to seep from it. Selena’s clothes became saturated as her body shrank into a puddle.
The Lurcher crawling along the street hissed at an able-bodied Lurcher as it limped toward the beaten-up car. The thick hedge rustled and shook as yet another Lurcher walked through it. It snagged its skin on a thorn but kept walking forward. The skin tore from its face down to its neck and shoulders, the fragment left to hang on the bush like a gruesome Christmas tree decoration.
Some of the Lurchers circled the car, but most were interested in the bloody puddle on the verge. The Lurcher with the skin stripped from its body supped on the blood. It paused, turning to look through Anne’s open door at them all.
“Anne,” Jordan said. “Shut the door.”
Anne stared at the puddle, too shocked to speak.
“Anne.”
The Lurcher stood up and stepped toward them. Jordan reached over and slammed the door closed. The Lurcher beat on the window, making handprints with Selena’s blood.
“Anne, what’s wrong with you?” Jordan’s anger dissipated when he saw Anne’s head go down and she began to weep. “Let’s get out of here.”
Jordan hit the accelerator. A corpse bounced off the bonnet and smacked against the windscreen, cracking it. The Crawler reached up for the car as it approached. Jordan turned the steering wheel. The front tyre ran over the Crawler’s skull, barely registering inside the car.
They were silent a moment.
“What did she mean by ‘hope’?” Anne asked.
“Our boat name,” Jordan said. “She wanted to name it ‘Hope’.”
112.
The terrace houses backed onto one another, their roofs jutting up at odd angles. The buildings leaned toward the street with arched backs, and away from the River Yare as if shunning it. A series of cobblestone bridges crossed the river at irregular intervals.
The beaten-up Vauxhall Cavalier took a hill as it headed into Reedham town centre. The car made the rise and descended down the other side at speed.
“Oh my God!” Jordan said.
Stretching from the riverbank on the left to the shops on the right was a large space usually reserved for local markets and public events. Today it hosted an entirely different kind of visitor. They stood still, barely moving. Most were naked, their skin a mottled grey. They were covered in scratches and scars, their heads perched on their shoulders. They turned on shuffling feet to see what had disturbed their slumber.
Jordan took his foot off the accelerator. They began to slow down.
“No! Don’t stop!” Stan said. “Keep going.”
“But we’ll crash into them,” Jordan said.
“Stop now and they’ll surround us. We might never get going again. Plough through them.”
Jordan slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The car pulled forward, pushing them all back in their seats.
The Lurchers in the front row raised their arms, and smashed forward, their heads bouncing off the bonnet as
the Vauxhall Cavalier ploughed into them. The right wing mirror snapped off, quickly followed by the left, hanging by internal wires.
The Lurchers turned and ambled toward the car. Jordan turned the wheel to avoid them, but it was no use. There were no empty spaces. They thudded against the car like horizontal rain. Heads exploded like balloons across the windscreen. Jordan hit the window wipers lever. They wiped off the thick congealed blood and green pus, but left dirty black rainbows across the windscreen. Each impact caused the car to slow a fraction. Jordan dropped a gear, revs ringing high, and the car began to pick up speed again.
A Lurcher with a mohican landed on the car bonnet. Its legs had been torn off, its spinal column hung on the front grill. The Lurcher reached up to the bonnet, found a handhold and pulled itself up.
“We’ve got a Klingon!” Stan said.
Jordan spun the wheel left and right to dislodge it. It lost its grip with one hand, but still clung on with the other. The mohican Lurcher turned three hundred and sixty degrees. The arm would have dislocated on a normal person, but the mohican Lurcher held on.
Another Lurcher, female and almost skeletal, latched onto the side of the car, her tiny breasts pressed against Jordan’s window. Jordan swerved, took the curb with a sharp scraping sound, and brushed her off with a brick wall.
Stan held Jessie close in the front passenger seat, shielding her eyes and holding her in a tight embrace. The mohican Lurcher pulled his arm back and punched the front windscreen. Shards of glass sprayed Stan and Jessie.
Lurcher bodies pummelled the car, slipping under it. The wheels bounced over the bodies. The car bucked like a mechanical bull. The mohican Lurcher’s hand, cut and congealed with blood, reached into the car, flailing. It put its head to the hole, trying to squeeze through the gap. It groaned and stretched for Stan’s face. Stan leaned back as far as he could. The arm kept coming. Stan’s hand found the chair lever. He turned it, and the seat lowered back.
Jordan hit the brakes and accelerator in quick succession. The mohican Lurcher jolted back and fell from the bonnet. The car bounced as it drove over his head.
“Where the hell’s the bridge?” Jordan said.
“Straight on,” Stan said, spying a sign. “Five hundred yards.”
The fuel light blinked on.
“Shit,” Jordan said. “We’re running out of fuel.”
“We can’t be out of fuel already, can we? The tank was full when we started.”
“I don’t know. We might have damaged the fuel tank when we hit the kerb.”
The sound of Lurchers thudding into the car slowed, as if they were coming to the end.
“Stop!” Stan shouted.
Jordan hit the brakes. The car skidded to a halt. Everyone jerked forward, then back in their seats.
A flood of Lurchers at least as thick as the horde they’d just passed through stumbled toward them, their inhuman moan loud and cacophonous. Stan hugged Jessie close, shielding her ears. The mass of Lurchers they’d avoided staggered toward them from behind.
“Where the hell did they all come from?” Jordan said. “A town this size shouldn’t have more than a few hundred Lurchers at most.”
Stan shrugged. “Maybe they just wandered down here.”
“For the fresh air?”
A stiff breeze fluttered a banner that hung across the street. It was smeared in red and torn, but the writing was still legible:
NORFOLK FAYRE THIS WEEKEND!
BRING THE FAMILY!
“Well, that explains it,” Jordan said. He shifted into first. “Hold on.”
“Take Jessie,” Stan said.
Anne double checked Jessie’s seatbelt and braced her arms on the front seats.
Stan took off his jumper and jammed it into the hole in the windscreen. He nodded. “Let’s do it.”
The Lurchers from behind scraped their fingernails across the Vauxhall’s boot.
Jordan performed a wheel spin, took off the handbrake, and the car leapt forward, out of reach of the Lurchers behind, but into the reach of the Lurchers ahead. The revs roared high and Jordan shifted into second gear. Then third.
They slammed through the first wave of Lurchers. They bounced off the car like they were made of rubber.
Jordan shifted down a gear and they picked up speed again. They powered through the horde. Blood splattered over the front window. A hand flew out and grabbed the driver’s side window wiper. It snapped off. The bloody rainfall continued, obscuring Jordan’s view.
“How are we doing, Stan?” Jordan asked.
Despite the hole, Stan’s windscreen was clear. “Just up ahead. We’ll be there in a few seconds. A little to the left.”
Jordan turned the wheel slightly.
“Now a little to the right.”
The car hit another Lurcher, and as it sunk beneath the car, there was a sharp crack! and the car careened to the left.
“To the right!” Stan said. “To the right!”
Jordan wrestled with the steering wheel. “I can’t! It’s stuck! Something must have clogged up the drive shaft!”
“Hit the brakes! We’re going to crash!”
Jordan mashed his foot on the brake pedal, but it was too late. The car hit the bridge with force, the bumper crunched and scraped across the bridge apex, sending the car up into the air. Anne screamed. The car landed heavily on the other side of the bridge, spinning like a top on its roof. It came to a stop and didn’t move.
113.
“Next time,” Stan said, “I’ll drive.”
He had a cut above his eye. The blood ran into his eyebrows and stained them pink. There was the sharp burning tang of petrol, and the flicker of flames from somewhere in the engine. Through the back window the bridge obscured any Lurchers that might be coming, but did nothing to shield the groans that gradually grew in volume.
“Are you guys okay in the back?” Jordan asked.
Anne unclipped her seatbelt and fell on the roof. “Never better.”
“Jess?”
“She’s fine.”
Jordan coiled up his leg and kicked at the front windscreen. It fell from its plastic surround.
The road ahead wound sharply, disappearing around the corner. Up ahead beyond the verge was a sparse clutch of trees that led onto a dense forest. The sun had begun its descent, playing peekaboo behind the foliage.
“If we can get to the woods,” Jordan said, helping pull Stan clear, “we might be able to get away.”
Jessie had a cut just above her right ear. Stan looked at it, telling her to stay still.
Jordan reached inside the car for Anne. “Take my hand.”
“I can’t,” Anne said, grunting. “I’m stuck! It’s my leg. It’s trapped under the front seat.”
Jordan crawled into the car. The seat had been forced back and down, tightening around Anne’s leg. Jordan reversed out of the wreckage.
“Stan, take Jess and head for the woods. Keep walking till your feet get wet, and you’ll know you’ve made it to the ocean.”
“But you and Anne-”
“We’ll catch up.”
“Jordan-”
“Just go. We haven’t got much time.”
Jordan hugged Jessie close. “We’re going to be all right, Jess. You just wait and see. We’ll be with you again in no time.” He put a hand to his cheek. It was wet. “Jess, you’re crying!” Jordan hugged her tight. “Stan, look at this.”
“She must be waking up or something.” Stan smiled. “Car crashes. Good for what ails ya.”
Jordan kissed Jessie on the forehead. “You take care of Stan, okay?”
Stan put an arm round Jessie and led her away.
“Stan,” Jordan said, “just what did Mary say to you on the day she died?”
Stan smiled. “Meet us between here and the ocean and I’ll tell you.”
Stan and Jessie paced off, heading toward the woods.
The death groans rose in volume, but there was still no sign of the Lurchers. Jordan craw
led inside the wreckage.
“If you’ve got any bright ideas,” he said to Anne, “now might be the time to tell me. I don’t really want a rusty old Vauxhall Cavalier to be my tomb.”
114.
Jordan climbed into the front seat, lifted the seat adjustor latch up, and pulled it forward. It didn’t budge. He sat up and looked at the tracks the seat was supposed to run along. They were bent crooked.
“It’s no good,” Anne said. “I can’t get out. You should go.”
“You should know better than that,” Jordan said, clambering into the seat beside her. “Since when would I leave you behind?” He put his back to the seat, and his feet on the chair in front. “I’m going to push. I want you to jiggle your leg and try to get it out, okay? On the count of one. One!”
He pushed. His back arched with the effort. Anne jiggled her leg, twisting and pulling in every direction. Jordan’s face turned beetroot red, but it was no good. It wouldn’t come free.
“Go, Jordan,” Anne said. “Get out of here. I don’t want you to die for me.”
“If I die here, believe me it won’t be for you. Let’s try again.”
Jordan pushed the chair again. His body shook with the strain. He came to a stop, out of breath. It still hadn’t budged.
Anne put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay, Jordan.”
Jordan shook his head. “It’s not okay.”
“You have to go.”
“No.”
“Don’t you think I would leave if the situation was reversed?”
“Definitely not.”
He kicked and punched at the front seat, going into a mad berserker rage. He swore and roared and screamed. Strength waning, Jordan’s blows slowed, then stopped altogether. He rested his head against the seat in despair.
“Thank you for trying, but you have to go.”
Jordan shook his head. “Mary, Stacey, Selena… We’ve lost too many already. I can’t lose you too.”
Anne smiled. “That’s sweet.” She put a hand to his cheek. “I like you, Jordan.” Her cheeks blushed red.
