by Haywood, RR
‘Let go,’ Dave says simply, his voice flat and dull. A stab into the left eye. A stab into the right eye, blinding Anthony. ‘Let go,’ Dave says again, unable to cut into the neck with Meredith thrashing side to side.
Mo darts in. The opportunity is there. The legs exposed and he whips behind Anthony slicing through the Achilles tendons to the legs that suddenly cannot hold the weight of the body. They go down. Anthony with Meredith hanging off his neck and Dave hanging off his back and as they land so Dave steps away and stares down as Meredith finishes the job. Her paws now finding Anthony’s chest to gain traction and she rags the neck to bits. Biting in, wrenching left and right. Biting again and again as the artery is opened and the blood spurts far across the floor.
Paula, on seeing the others going for the attacker, heads straight to Neal. She gets to his side and rolls him onto his back. Her fear of the blood now less from the memory of her own mouth biting into the infected yesterday.
‘Oh shit,’ she gasps at the sight of the ruined mouth and the chunks of coffee mug embedded through the lips and cheeks. Teeth missing and blood spilling out from the holes. Neal chokes with an involuntary action as his lungs start to fill from the blood pouring down his windpipe.
‘Christ,’ Marcy at her side but she recovers her wits faster than Paula, ‘Neal…you’re okay….you’ll be okay.’ She gets to his head, staring down with an intensity as she cradles his dying form. Neal stares up. Conscious and alert to the spasms of pain running through his body. Blood seeps over her lap from the bite to his neck and Neal’s eyes fill with fear. This wasn’t meant to happen. He was safe here. This wasn’t meant to happen. Pain in his stomach and through the agony of the second his eyes go wide with realisation that the infection is inside him. He grunts, clutching the intense pain in his mid-section. He chokes again, coughing to get the blood from his lungs but it’s coming down too fast.
‘Cut me,’ Marcy wrenches her hand out from under Neal’s head and thrusts it to Paula, ‘cut me…DAVE CUT ME.’
Mo is there, running from behind Anthony to Marcy and his blade flicks across Marcy’s palm opening a wound.
‘Mo,’ Paula shouts, holding her own hand out. Another cut and two bleeding palms press into the wounds on Neal’s face. Embracing the man as he lies dying.
‘You’ll be okay,’ Marcy says, her voice soft and soothing, ‘you’ll be okay, look at me…look at me…’ Neal can’t look at her. Panic grips his body. Panic that tries to rid the fluid from his lungs and panic that finds his mind shutting down from the lack of oxygen and panic from the pain worsening in his stomach.
The mind shuts down as the body fights to get what little air it can get to the vital organs. Instantly the panic abates but the lungs are full. There is no air coming in. Only blood. The infection passes through every cell, turning and replicating as it commences the takeover of the new host body but that too needs oxygen and this body does not have any. It works to expend the fluids from the lungs, to clot the flow of blood seeping from the wounds. The lungs inflate. Desperately trying to suck air in but only pulling more blood.
‘He’s drowning,’ Kyle rushes in to Marcy’s side, ‘on his side, turn him on his side.’
'...fuck this is too cold,’ Cookey ceases the new sock dance and twists the dial to end the flow of water. A sound from somewhere in the hotel. Something heavy falling over and he holds still for a second before shrugging and looking round for the towel he was sure he brought in with him.
‘Brrrrr,’ Charlie rinses the last few bubbles from her hair and twists the dial to end the flow of water. Her towel was carefully placed and draped over the top edge of the cubicle and she reaches up to tug it down.
‘Fuck it,’ Cookey tuts at his own lack of forethought at not bringing a towel into the bathroom and steps naked from the shower cubicle onto the wet linoleum floor. ‘Anyone there,’ he taps gently on the bathroom door and listens. ‘Fuck it,’ covering his privates he pushes the door open to find the room empty and no spare towels, ‘twats,’ he mutters.
She wraps the towel round her body and steps out to push the bedroom door open and the second towel left in preparation for her hair.
Drip dry. That’s the answer. He starts bobbing on the spot to generate warmth and hoping nobody walks in now to see him dancing naked in the room spinning his arms round in circles.
She bends over to let her hair hang down and starts rubbing down the strands with the second towel. Spots of moisture on her arms and the bottoms of her legs left uncovered by the towel. A dull thud from outside the room and she turns her head at hearing what sounds like a door banging open.
Cookey freezes again. A door banging open in the corridor and he stares at the door leading out. It’s a heavy fire door and you’d need some welly to make it slam open. Mind you, the hinges are well oiled so maybe it was one of the kids running about.
The three surge from the room. The fight in the main room underway and through Anthony’s eyes it knows most of Howie’s group have been drawn into that area. Three adult males pumped with chemicals coursing through their bodies and with one urge pulsing through them. Bite. Pass the virus. Take more hosts. Bite. The first goes straight for the door opposite and charges into the room. The second goes right heading further down the corridor away from the reception area. The third goes left towards the direction of the fight in the dining room as the first one bites down into the sleeping man’s leg who wakes screaming.
The scream snaps Charlie’s head up with wet hair flying over to land soaked down her back. Her heart thundering in her chest and she moves to the door.
Cookey ceases the new drip dry dance as the scream erupts from several rooms down. Without hesitation he runs to the door and charges out with the sudden thought that he is still naked. A decision made to dart back in and at least grab his underwear when he spots the man charging at him and sees the awful red bloodshot eyes and the lips pulled back to show teeth ready to bite.
No time to shout a warning and the man barrels into Cookey who twists on the spot with reflexes honed from fights given every day. The door to their side opens as Cookey twists to slam the infected against the wall but goes through the open door and into the bed as Charlie yelps and jumps back from the sight of Cookey’s arse flying past.
‘Cookey,’ she gasps, ready to tell them to pack it in and get out. The man hits the bed and goes down with Cookey on top of him and in that split second she sees the red eyes as her mind makes the connection of the manner of movement and the hands clawed into talons. This isn’t play. This is real and she dives in to land next to Cookey trying to get a grip on the flailing man. He is charged up. Pumped. Strength beyond anything he could ever have imagined in life pulses through his limbs. The mattress beneath him is soft and yielding and as he bounces down he twists to get on his back. His arms flail wild and hard, whacking Cookey to the side who slides off the end of the bed as Charlie takes over. Her hands instinctually going for the throat to strangle and kill but the man bucks with such force she is lifted and sent sailing to land in the spot only just vacated by Cookey already on his feet and coming in for another go.
The knife of a handle poking from Charlie’s belt catches his eye and he lunges to pull it free as the infected man comes up hard from the mattress to drive him back through the open bathroom door. Charlie goes after them both, heedless to any thought to grab a weapon but only seeing Cookey lifted bodily to sail back into the bathroom. She jumps up, landing on the man’s back to get her arms round the front of his neck. Cookey punches hard into the face, smashing punches into the nose that breaks and sprays blood but the man closes the distance rendering the distance too shallow for hits to be given.
‘Knife,’ Cookey hisses, snatching his head to the side to avoid the headbutt aimed at him.
Charlie gains purchase and heaves back with enough strength to keep the man’s head back from impacting on Cookey’s face. She can’t let go now. To do so would mean the man can get fully at Cookey. She grips harde
r, trying to choke the man out but his rage is too great and he surges back, running from the bathroom back into the bedroom to drop on the bed with Charlie trapped beneath him. Cookey goes with the flow, running naked to try and pin the arms to stop the man raking at Charlie’s skin with his nails. The man rolls to the left, then to the right, twisting side to side to unleash the red mist in his head that tells him only to bite and rake and hurt and spread the virus.
Off to the side they go, rolling along the edge of the bed to the side and down into a heap trapped between the bed and the wall leaving the wet towel that was wrapped round Charlie’s body on the mattress.
Two naked forms gasping in the fight. Angling and twisting to get on top of the beast that fights like a demon beneath them.
‘Knife,’ Cookey gasps the word out slamming a fist down into the man’s mouth as he lunges to bite Charlie’s bare thigh.
‘You get it,’ Charlie gets the left arm pinned beneath her, holding it down with her body weight but still getting lifted inches at a time as the man tries to rise, ‘RIGHT ARM.’
Cookey grabs the wrist of the hand flying through the air towards Charlie. He grunts from the exertion, trying to push the arm back down and freeing his right arm to aim hard punches into the man’s throat. The infected man on his back but twisted to his left side. Cookey straddling his legs to try and hold them down. Charlie straddling his upper body just in front of Cookey and herself twisted off to the side to keep the left arms down. Cookey’s face pushed into Charlie’s bare back as she pushes away from the head lunging up to snap at her.
‘Get the knife,’ she grunts again.
‘You get it,’ Cookey counters, ‘I’m immune…’ he can get bit and raked. He can get blood in his mouth. Charlie can’t. She might be immune but the chance is too great. ‘Sorry.’ Cookey gives the apology as he slams his body into Charlie’s hard enough to send her flying over the man’s head and onto the carpet above his head. Her legs trail as the infected tries to snap to bite an ankle but Cookey is there. His hands gripping the head as he drives the points of his thumbs into the eye sockets.
Screams erupt in the other rooms. Screams of pain and terror. Meredith swooshes past the open bedroom door. Dave and Mo only seconds behind her.
‘Need help?’ Mo catches the door frame to stop at the sight of Cookey’s head poking up on the other side of the bed.
‘Nope,’ Cookey mutters as he drives his thumbs down into the pressurised eyeballs, ‘knife, Charlie.’
‘Yep,’ she scrabbles onto her backside, awkward and confined in the tight space. She heaves up to lean over the bed to reach the knife handle poking from her belt. ‘Don’t look...’ Her arse inches from Cookey who can’t stop his head from glancing up. He blinks once, stunned at the sight and quickly looks down.
‘Hockey sticks…’
‘You looked,’ she says as she drops back down with the knife held in her hand.
Cookey grunts, pushing harder as the left eye pops with a spray of goo spurting inches up into the air.
‘Ready,’ Charlie reaches forward, on her knees and stretching to get the knife ready to slit the throat, ‘lift up.’
‘Can’t,’ Cookey says, glancing up to see her naked body leaning towards him, ‘oh fuck.’
‘Well stop looking then.’
‘Sorry,’ he blurts, clamping his eyes closed.
‘I can’t slit his throat…you have to lift your arms a bit.’
‘Can’t see,’ Cookey grunts.
‘Open your eyes...’
‘Can’t…naked…’
‘You’ve seen naked women before…I cannot get to his throat.’
‘Yeah but not you…you’re like fucking perfect.’
‘Really?’ She asks, glancing up at his face flushed red and his eyes still clamped shut. ‘Well maybe you should open your eyes then,’ she quips, making his eyes snap wide to see a smile tugging at her lips, ‘now either lift up so I can slit his throat or move off.’
He stares into her brown eyes. Lost in the second of a fight with screams coming from everywhere as Howie, Clarence and the rest thunder past the door shouting to give orders and grab weapons.
‘He’ll rise up,’ Cookey says, holding the infected male’s head down as he stares deep into her eyes.
‘I have his hair, he won’t,’ Charlie says politely as Marcy, Paula and Roy pound past the open door.
Cookey glances down to see Charlie gripping the man’s hair in one hand while holding the knife ready in the other, ‘oh yeah,’ he says, catching sight of her thighs.
‘Take your time,’ she says softly.
He flushes, deep and crimson, his eyes darting back to hers, ‘shit sorry, Charlie…I ain’t a perve I promise.’
‘It’s okay,’ she smiles at him as the right eye pops to spray goo an inch into the air. The man writhes and bucks, lifting Cookey who goes with the flow. ‘Cookey?’
‘Yes, Charlie?’
‘You need to move back.’
‘…but you’ll see my willy.’
‘You’ve seen my boobs.’
‘I didn’t look,’ he says earnestly, still staring into her eyes.
‘No?’ She asks, cocking her head to one side, ‘and I can see your penis now.’
‘Eh?’ He asks.
She darts her eyes down then back up, ‘It’s right there.’
‘Charlie!’
‘Yes, Cookey?’ She asks and darts her eyes back down then back up, ‘I just saw it again.’
‘Stop it! Stop looking at my willy.’
‘Then move back so I can slit this chap’s throat.’
‘But…oh fuck…’
The man surges up. Blind to the world and blind to the pain. An explosion of motion and he lifts his upper body as Charlie tears chunks of hair from his scalp. Cookey is thrown backwards as the male continues his forward momentum with Charlie diving at his back to drive the knife into the side of his neck with a deep cut that misses the artery. Cookey is pushed onto his back. The man sinking down with determination to do damage before this host body is killed. Charlie climbs on them both, stabbing and slicing with grunts of effort until finally she cuts deep enough to spray blood onto the wall not inches to the side.
If anything, the beast fights harder as the life blood from his system pumps out. A crazed flailing of arms and legs and a hard head that batters down into Cookey’s shoulders. Charlie gets to the side, heaving and pushing to get him off Cookey. It gets wilder with a frenzied attack that builds with each passing second and it’s all Cookey can do to protect his face from the blows coming down as his chest compresses from the heavy weight. Blood everywhere and it mixes with the water still on Cookey’s body that makes him slick and wet. Charlie heaves, bracing against the wall to push the man to the side between Cookey and the bed but the infected isn’t finished yet and he lashes out with a hard hand that swats Charlie across the face and sends her smacking into the wall with a dull thud.
Cookey twists onto his side and grips Charlie to pull her down in the space between him and the wall, using his body to shield her from the raging demented beast thrashing in the tight gap behind him. A hand slashes down his spine raking the skin open. Cookey grunts and tenses. Another hand then both hands digging in with filthy torn nails that slice through the skin to gauge long welts from shoulder to arse. Again and again, like a thrashing machine of hands blurring to flail into Cookey who pushes harder into Charlie knowing the filth in the tainted blood can’t harm him.
Teeth join the attack. A hard bite that sinks into the hard flesh on his upper right back. Teeth that clamp and dig deeper to bite and tear the flesh. Cookey’s right arm slams out, hitting the wall over Charlie to hold himself braced and tense. Charlie staring up at his face contorting with pain and rage.
A long growl hisses from Cookey’s throat. He can’t do anything. He can’t lift up or go back. Any movement from this position will let those hands and teeth get to Charlie so he takes the agonising pain knowing the man must be ble
eding out. The pain builds and the growl erupts to a scream that he fights to end. His eyes were clamped shut but now they snap open. His right arm held protectively over Charlie and she feels his body go rigid with vibrations sent through it from the bites and rakes being given to Cookey’s back. She sees the veins bulging through the skin of his arm, pushed out by the hard muscles stretched and tensed. She sees a man biting the scream off to glare into her, through her, his blue eyes normally so jovial and full of humour now the eyes of a killer that only feel pain and hurt. His neck strains and swells. His chest showing the striations of muscles as he grits and quivers from the searing pain but fuck you if I will give in now, fuck you if I will move or yield. We do not yield. We do not yield. We hold. We protect our own.
‘COOKEY?’ Blowers voice screaming from the corridor.
‘COOKEY?’ Nick screaming from somewhere else.
‘FIND COOKEY,’ Howie erupting in fury as he slams his axe into the neck of a male charging into the corridor.
We hold. We are pack.
‘HOLD COOKEY,’ Blowers screams, ‘I’M COMING…DAVE…DAVE…GET TO COOKEY…’
Hold on, little brother. I come.
The energy flows into Charlie who pushes herself into Cookey to wrap her arms round his chest and bring him closer as the tears stream down his face and the blood pisses down his sides from the cuts and bites given so freely into his skin.
‘IN HERE,’ Charlie screams, trying desperately to reach round Cookey to fend the infected man off. ‘GET OFF HIM,’ Charlie screams in frustration, ‘IN HERE…GET OFF HIM,’ she slaps out but is unable to generate power or momentum and still the beast bites deeper, harder, gnashing with teeth that make Cookey tense that much harder.
Clarence storms the room and with one quick grip he flicks the bed away and rushes forward bent to scoop the man biting into Cookey’s bloodied back. He sees the rakes and torn skin and feels rage erupt as he grips the man and lifts him up overhead to slam down onto the floor with a crunch of bones breaking. His feet go to work. Stamping down as Meredith rushes in to latch onto the head which she rags side to side. A quick glance from Clarence and he spots Charlie lying naked under Cookey with her arms wrapped round his body while Cookey’s arm is braced against the wall to keep her protected as he took the beating from behind. A single stride from his long legs and he drops down to rest a hand on the lad’s head.
