Hellspawn (Book 3): Hellspawn Sentinel

by Ricky Fleet

  “Why did he let them eat him?” asked the ashen faced youth.

  “I think it’s like the movies; you get bitten and you become one of them,” Winston said as he dragged the book trolley over to the door and tipped it over.

  “Don’t say that!” shrieked the boy, hiding his arm behind his back, “Why would you say that?”

  Drops of blood led in a neat row from the doorway to where he stood and Winston could only mourn the inevitable. The pasty, sweaty face was only due in part to the fear and the telltale lethargy was already taking hold.

  “Help me to pile the books on top of the trolley, it will buy us some time,” Winston tried to take the dying boy’s mind from the creeping darkness, “What’s your name?”

  “Toby,” he slurred, tossing a single book as if it weighed more than anything he had ever lifted.

  “Can we help?” called out a girl who had been hiding in the rows of literature. She was followed by a mixed group of international students who were on a study exchange. Tears flowed like rivers from some of the group and all looked utterly terrified.

  “Do you know what’s happening?” Winston asked, keeping a wary eye on Toby who was fading by the second.

  “We saw them from the windows and tried to warn the teachers but they just shouted at us,” said the girl quietly, “They ate everyone they came across.”

  “We need as much weight as possible to hold them off while I think,” he said but the group were already working industriously, forming a human chain to pass the thick tomes.

  “Is he ok?” she asked when Toby started to sway.

  “No, he’s not,” Winston tried to convey what was happening, but her face didn’t pick up the emphasis of the words. Unconsciousness beckoned and he fell to the ground in a faint.

  “Oh my God, help him,” she cried until Winston pulled her back. Taking the bitten arm, he held it aloft and she held her hand to her mouth in horror, “Will he...?” she gasped and Winston could only nod.

  Groans and dull thuds reverberated through the thick doors and the barricade team redoubled their efforts. Winston looked at the still form of Toby and then back to the pile of books which was being forced inwards. A cold, clammy hand grabbed at his wrist and he felt his chest clench with terror. The dead eyes stared up and the lips curled back in a grimace of inhuman hunger, revealing the white enameled plague bearing teeth.

  “I’m sorry,” Winston yelped and stabbed through the glazed eyeball.

  “No, no, no,” screamed one of the foreign students, raising his arms in surrender at the apparent murder.

  “I had to, he had turned,” Winston pleaded but their fear of him was greater than the unseen menace on the other side of the door.

  “No,” they all yelled as he walked toward them, bloodied knife still in hand.

  Caught up in the hysterics, they fled between the bookshelves like cockroaches when the lights turn on. The incomplete book blockade tumbled as more undead pressed their weight to the task. James had fully turned and his ravaged face snarled at Winston, straining to clear the widening gap.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jessica,” replied the girl, running from the monsters.

  “We have to take the fire exit,” Winston yelled, hoping the other pupils would forget their fear of him when faced with the rotting and shredded monsters who would soon be among them.

  Nobody answered his call, but he could see eyes peering at him between the shelves. Pushing on the bar, the door opened and daylight bore into the room, blinding him for a moment. The sound of muffled footsteps warned him of the danger a split second before his eyes could adjust to the glare. Stepping backwards, he tried to pull the door closed but a grotesque arm got trapped and prevented it from latching. More arms reached through the crack and even with his strength they pulled it wide open and poured in.

  “Fuck!”

  “What are we going to do?” sobbed Jessica.

  Winston looked around, but both exits were spewing forth a torrent of dead. The floor was solid concrete and the only illumination was from stripped fluorescent tubes and high set windows around the perimeter of the building.

  “We climb!” Winston shouted.

  Praying the college had abided by basic safety standards and bolted the heavy bookshelves to the floor and wall, he picked a section on biology. He sighed at the irony of climbing past the thick texts and their lack of any possible explanation for the walking dead. The girl climbed by his side, concentrating on the task instead of the approaching monsters. Screams of sheer agony carried from one corner of the room and Winston ascended with increased urgency. The wooden top was covered in dust and the corpses of hundreds of desiccated insects.

  “That’s gross,” complained Jessica, wiping at the surface to clear a patch.

  With one final heave, Winston pulled his bulk up and sat down, facing the room from his high perch. What he saw would forever haunt his dreams.

  “Oh my God, no,” he whispered.

  Desperate faces of the exchange students regarded them both across a chasm of death and they reached out imploringly for help. They had understood enough to follow his instruction, but not in the way he had intended. The three girls and one boy had chosen the closest racks to climb which stranded them in the center of the library, adrift in a sea of zombies. Undead flooded through the open doorways and filled any available gap to reach for the doomed youths.

  “Helping, please,” they begged in broken English.

  “Think, you useless lump, think!” Winston berated himself.

  “We have to help them,” she reached out with her arm toward theirs, as if she could magically pull them over the void.

  “That’s not helping,” Winston told her, scanning the room for a solution.

  The library was busier than it had ever been, hundreds of patrons reached not for the books, but what was on top of the books. That was it! The shelves.

  “Cover your face, I need to break the glass so I can balance properly,” Winston ordered and drove his elbow through the window.

  The safety glass crumbled into tiny fragments and rained to the ground below. Pulling the rubber seal on the double glazed unit free and throwing it aside, he shifted his weight further back. The shelf he was seated on was only about eighteen inches deep, and to reach his goal he needed to bend forward which would have only served to tip him into the waiting dead.

  “What are you doing?”

  “If I can pull the shelf loose, we can use it as a plank for them to walk across and reach us,” he explained, tossing books down onto the agitated zombies.

  Each side was mounted onto an upturned hook which stopped it being pulled forwards, but not upwards. Cheering with delight, the final books toppled and he claimed his prize.

  “Is it long enough?”

  “It has to be,” Winston prayed and held it out as far as he could reach.

  One of the exchange students took the offered end and sat it precariously on their shelf top. Two inches of support was all the wooden length allowed and if it moved at all during their passage, the dead would feast on their flesh.

  “Quickly,” the girl urged the frightened youngsters. It must have been unimaginable to be trapped in another country without knowing if this was localized or more widespread, worrying for the fate of loved ones a thousand miles away.

  “No!” Winston yelled, “Slow down, watch the ends.”

  The first student was in such a blind panic the timber plank was shifting dangerously and came close to sliding from the top. With a deep, shaky breath she resumed the passage, taking time to crawl slowly until she reached the safety of the outer cases.

  “Now you,” Winston smiled at the next young girl who was as white as a ghost and trembling. Making a ‘come to me’ gesture, he tried to break her paralysis with soothing words.

  “It’s ok, I’ve got you,” he tried to sound as friendly as possible but she only shook her head.

  The zombies were hammering at the free
standing structure and with each blow, the frame weakened. What had stood tall and proud for five decades providing educational resources, now creaked as the wooden joints started to break under the fluctuating weight of the dead flesh. The male student was trying to push the girl onto the rickety platform but this only made her more reluctant to take her chance.

  “Come on, you will be fine,” tried Jessica, “You have to move or you will get hurt.”

  Patience exhausted and driven crazy with fear by the reaching arms, the boy pushed the girl from the bookcase. The suddenness of the act didn’t give her an opportunity to scream as grateful teeth severed muscle from bone, tearing her to pieces in seconds.

  “Why the fuck did you do that?” screamed Jessica in horror.

  “It’s too late anyway,” Winston said in resignation as the bookshelf crumbled, pitching the remaining students into the thronging dead.

  “Thank you, thank you,” said the rescued Chinese girl over and over as the fresh bodies were dispersed across the library floor in gouts of blood.

  “Don’t thank me yet, we still have to get out of here.” Winston squeezed her hand in support as he planned their next move.

  Looking around the library, there was nowhere they could venture which wouldn’t put them within reach of the zombies. Turning around, he placed his legs over the edge of the window sill and the ground fifty feet below seemed to pull at him.

  “Whoa,” he gasped as the bout of vertigo passed.

  “Can we get down?” asked Jessica.

  “No. It’s a sheer drop straight onto concrete. We would be nicely tenderized for the waiting diners though,” Winston remarked at the growing group below.

  Jessica looked around frantically, “So we are trapped?”

  “Maybe not,” Winston pondered, carefully looking at the outside of the building from his awkward position.

  The window ledge projected six inches from the main brickwork to help with rainwater dispersal. Above them was a recess set in the external insulated metal cladding which had been installed to minimize heating bills. If they could shimmy along the rim, they could reach the flat roof of the construction department. The plan was met with trepidation and he could only offer his opinion that they didn’t have a choice. In the distance, screaming and crashing noises were coming from all directions as the plague spread.

  “We need to get out of the area while we still can, you know how these things go,” he said.

  “How what things go? A fucking apocalypse?” Jessica shouted.

  “We go,” nodded the Chinese girl, “We go.”

  From being seated on a fairly safe surface, to leaning out into nothingness and grasping upwards for the metal lip was a feat of superhero bravery. Winston’s legs quivered in fear and his throat was dry from looking down at the ground below.

  “Don’t look down, you moron,” he whispered as the fingertips found purchase and he stood.

  The wind was picking up and tugged at his clothing, like an evil spirit who wanted to see him fall. With his face pressed to the smooth metal covering, he moved away from the open window to allow the girls through. His figure would have ensured the task was impossible if it wasn’t for the handhold, the portly belly pushing him away from the wall. Trying to focus only on the grey painted metal made his eyes ache so he looked to the side to check the progress of his companions.

  “Ok?” he asked Jessica.

  “No,” she replied honestly.

  “Take it slow, we have about thirty-five feet to cover before we can jump down to safety,” Winston explained and started to shuffle sideways, inch by inch.

  The multitude of sounds intensified as they risked life and limb to reach safety. Groans and screams were intermingled with explosions and rapid gunfire. Risking a glance, huge plumes of black smoke rose from burning cars which had crashed while trying to avoid the dead. Dozens of blue lights flashed their warning of the police firearms unit which had responded to the attack on the college campus. The buildings were emptying of their newly turned pupils who streamed toward the officers. It was a timely diversion and Winston had to avoid the urge to watch the firefight, concentrating on the promise of safety from the roof instead.

  “The police are here, we should go back inside and wait until they regain control,” said Jessica with relief. Their crazy stunt was at an end.

  “Did you see how many zombies there are?” Winston explained, remembering the hundreds that were stumbling toward the officers.

  “Must go on,” said the Chinese girl sternly.

  “But I think…” Jessica started to protest until a huge spider scurried from the gap in the metalwork and onto her hand.

  With a shriek of disgust, she batted at the arachnid and lost her grip, arms flailing for purchase as gravity took over. In a moment of pure terror, she grabbed at the young Chinese girl to try and fight the inevitable. The sudden shift in weight was enough to pull them both free of the window sill and they plunged to the ground. Their screams were cut short by the hard concrete and blood spread around their broken skulls like a demonic red halo. The hellish symbolism held no fear for the reanimated dead who fed without complaint.

  “No!” Winston cried, hot tears running down his cheeks.

  Feeling the bile rise in his throat, Winston had to swallow several times to calm his churning stomach. He had failed those girls because of a fucking spider! Despair was spreading through his body and for a brief moment all the loneliness and sadness of his existence formed into a single thought, ‘let go’. His grip loosened and the wind increased in speed, an eager accomplice to the suicide. A twang of metal on metal made him jump and he clutched the rim harder again, suicidal thoughts evaporating. The smoking, circular hole was only two feet from his head.

  “What the fuck?” he questioned.

  More shots rang out as the police line was overwhelmed, fingers going into agonized spasm as teeth ripped into their bodies.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Winston channeled his inner wizard, willing an invisible shield into existence to provide protection as he sidestepped the last few feet.

  Nothing hit him, which was probably more down to luck than his prowess as an undiscovered arcane mage. The zombies followed as if sensing he wasn’t safe quite yet and the meal was still up for grabs. One small jump would take him to safety or death, and now he had reached the corner he could understand how awkward the angle would be. The construction department roof was set back ten inches when it had been constructed to allow for it to be properly tied in with the older library structure. The thin ledge ended and to make it down he would need to jump around the corner, which was nearly impossible with his size.

  “I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky,” Winston sang shakily, trying to build up his nerve.

  “What’s the problem, you were going to jump a minute ago anyway,” he closed his eyes and jumped.

  Maintaining his grip on the cladding for as long as possible served to pull him around the corner just enough and he sprawled face down on the bitumen coated roof. After his chest stopped pounding with the adrenaline, he crossed himself despite being an atheist. Someone was watching over him, a guardian angel perhaps. The skylights gave views of the workshops and after one, Winston had seen enough. The grey painted, easy sweep floors were covered with huge pools of red liquid and the figures that moved below had no urgency, the fighting was done.

  Taking out his phone, the screen had cracked but the touchpad could still be used. Dialing the number of his mother, she answered too early and he couldn’t miss the deep sigh of frustration at the call, “What is it, Winston?”

  “Something terrible is happening. I don’t know if I am going to make it, I love you both,” he said.

  “Are you watching those awful movies again?” she sighed again after hearing the screams.

  “No, I’m at college,” he protested.

  “I don’t know why you insist on lying to me? We didn’t ask to have you,” she said spitefully.

&n
bsp; “I love you, Mum,” he repeated, “Mum?”

  The phone was quiet; she had hung up.

  ***

  “Jesus Christ, how did you get from the college to the nunnery?” Mike said, shaking his hand with newfound respect.

  “I got over the motorway during the chaos,” Winston whispered, sitting back down. The howls of dying children were always fresh in his mind, a constant companion during the darkness.

  “So you think you’re a tough guy?” Debbie asked.

  “No,” he replied, “If I was I could have saved people.”

  “Ignore her,” Mike dismissed her with a wave, “You got out of the city, on foot! Shit, I hid inside the pub when the first zombie came knocking.” It was the first time he had admitted to any kind of weakness.

  “I’m going to hit the sack, and by sack I mean the captain’s chair,” Winston stood up straight, sucked in his belly and saluted.

  “Who’s going to keep watch?” Debbie asked, rubbing her grainy eyes.

  “Not you I’m guessing, sleeping beauty?” he replied.

  “Hell no, I need my eight hours,” she yawned.

  “You’ll take your turn and like it,” Mike glared at her, then turned back to Winston, “If you don’t mind doing first shift, mate, wake me in a couple of hours and I will take over.”

  “No problem,” Winston nodded, “Try not to dream about me while I’m gone.”

  Blowing a kiss at Debbie, she screwed her face up in disgust, “A nightmare more like.”

  “I’ll take it,” he chuckled and pressed his bulk through the thin door into the cockpit.

  Sitting in the pilot’s chair, he looked out at the vast, empty hangar and the last slivers of dying light. His cheerful smile faded and the images of the torn and bloodied children superimposed on the dark canvas of his mind. High pitched screams of the doomed infants of the clogged roads were joined by the more recent death wails of the convent. He shuddered with the knowledge that tomorrow they would reach the prison, and more people like Mike and Debbie.