by Russ Watts
“Whales can go several months without eating and a crocodile over a year. Who knows what these things can do.” Kelly looked away from the screen too, unable to look at it anymore. The Deathless had been covered in gore. Red muscle and tissue had been torn from the body and thrown all around them. The contrast to the bright and deep greens of the trees and bushes next to them only served to heighten the image’s power.
“They’re not things, they’re people,” said Suzy. “Their biology is the same as ours.”
Claire had recovered and taken some sips of water from Suzy. She sat listening to the morbid conversation, feeling lightheaded and so not really taking anything in, just happy to hear life around her. Her life in New York now seemed like a dream and her mother only a vague memory.
“The Deathless are black, white, Asian, African, European; a mixture of the whole world. These unfortunate people were castigated by the whole world. They were brought here from all over the globe, wherever they were not wanted.” Suzy paused. “Maybe it would’ve been better to exterminate them all.”
“An extermination on that scale? That’s up to God, not man.” Mark turned his camera’s viewfinder off. “Tricia knows more about it than I do, but there are things we shouldn’t go messing with.”
“Perhaps we should start thinking of them as something else then, looking for answers elsewhere? God created many things and science does not have all the answers,” said Tricia. She remembered her old Bible classes at Sunday school and the sermons she regularly enjoyed on a Sunday; the values they had taught her held strong. Despite her scientific brain, she still believed in a higher power. On the road, she had prayed to Him silently, hoping He would hear her and send a message soon, ideally in the form of a large ship headed for New York.
“God didn’t create the Deathless,” Will shook his head. “Man did. It was tinkering with science that got us into this mess. It was well intentioned, true, but we got in over our heads and look what happened. As much as we’d like to think we have all the answers we don’t. I doubt if...”
“For fuck’s sake, you lot are having a fucking wet dream over this place, aren’t you?” Tug kicked a brass pipe on the floor and it clanged into the road, echoing loudly around the furniture store. “I see five minutes has turned into ten. How much longer do you want to sit around debating this bullshit? I’ve had it with you. I’m off. If you care to join me, I’ll see you at the coast where I’ll be sipping on a nice cold one waiting for you.”
“Tug wait!” Kelly jumped up out of the sofa. She could see the anger and frustration on his face. She knew they needed him. Whilst he was not part of the museum staff, he had still helped them this far. He had a logical way of thinking about things. He was far more grounded than Tricia and more focussed than Mark. Kelly couldn’t rely solely on Will and Suzy to help her with Claire. She needed Tug.
Standing just under the edge of the building’s wall, Tug picked up the backpack and slung it on before taking a step outside into the pouring rain. “No. I’ve had enough of this bollocks. I’m outta here.”
Tug stepped out into the street and from behind the wall of the adjacent building came a tall man. It staggered a few feet through the puddles of rain, his approach hidden behind the wall of water drenching Tug.
Kelly watched in horror as, almost in slow motion, she saw the tall, dead man, take hold of Tug and sink his teeth into Tug’s neck. She could see Tug trying to free the knife from his pocket, but it was too late.
Tug collapsed to the ground and the Deathless fell on top of him. Bright spurts of blood were flying through the air, mingling with the rainwater that puddled around him. Tug died quite quickly, his arms flopping uselessly at his side as his life drained away. It had all happened so quickly that he had not had time to react.
Kelly frantically tried to run to Tug to help him, but Will held her back. “Let me go!” she screamed, but Will held onto her tightly. She struggled and kicked, but he refused to let her go and held her in a bear-grip from behind.
“Wait!” Will barked. “We don’t know how many more are out there. It’s too late for Tug now. He’s gone.” Will felt the guilt rising again. Wilfred, Rasmus, and now Tug. Should he let Kelly go? Should he run out there to help? He looked at the man feasting on Tug. No, he wasn’t going to feel guilty this time. Tug had gone out there unprepared, letting his emotions cloud his judgement. This time, Tug had no one to blame but himself. Will had thought that if only one of them survived the island, it would’ve been Tug.
Another figure appeared in the street. Will strained to see, but couldn’t make out any features. The figure walked slowly toward Tug and then stopped. It looked down briefly and then looked through the curtain of rain into the furniture warehouse. It began shambling forward, its arms reaching out. The figure bent over Tug stood too and followed its compatriot. A low moan reached Will’s ears and the grey figures increased their speed.
“Okay, time to move, now,” said Will urgently. He released Kelly who instantly turned around and glared at him. They hadn’t the time to discuss the finer points of Tug’s demise now and Will set his eyes firmly back at Kelly’s. “Now.”
“Oh God.” Mark pointed outside at the figures emerging from the rain. There were three headed for them and more behind.
“Oh fuck,” said Suzy, grabbing Claire’s limp hand and forcing her to stand. She could see Tug’s lifeless body staggering to its feet, the Deathless now ignoring him. His face was a mangled mess; scraps of flesh hung in shreds and dark, black blood oozed from his mouth. “Claire, keep up with me, honey.” Suzy was worried that Claire might pass out again, but there was no way she would leave her behind. She couldn’t do that again. She knew she couldn’t leave anyone behind again.
“Let’s hope this place has a back door,” Will said quietly as he led them through the warehouse, winding his way between the scattered furniture.
At the far end of the building, there was a metal door. Will glanced behind him as he tried the handle. Mark, Tricia, Kelly, Suzy and Claire were right behind him. Past them inside the building were two of the Deathless and a newly reanimated Tug. He would probably be leading the hunt. His body was still strong; his muscles had not weakened by time and his senses were still attuned. He knew exactly where the others were and Will knew Tug would catch them soon if they didn’t hurry.
Will shoved the door open and was surprised to find himself back outside in an alley. He had assumed the door led into an office or staffroom of some sort, but the alley would do just fine. He looked left and right. Both ends led back out into the streets they had just been walking on and there were none of the Deathless in sight. There was a large graffiti covered wall opposite with a lone rusty door implanted into a recess, which was probably the back entrance to another warehouse. Will tried it, but the handle refused to budge. He pushed and pulled, but there was no movement. It was still locked. Perhaps it was for the best, he thought. It would probably only lead them into another building where they would be cornered.
“This way.” Will held the warehouse door open as the others filed through, out into the alley in silence. He wondered if he should try and put Tug out of his misery. He was an asshole, but he didn’t deserve to spend the rest of time wandering The Grave. Will watched as Mark and Tricia walked past looking like they were in shock; Kelly just looked furious.
As Suzy pushed Claire past him, she pulled the door shut thereby forcing Will out into the alley. “Don’t even think of being a hero now, Will.”
Kelly led the way down the alleyway, which stretched barely ten feet wide and thirty feet long. “Where did they come fr...oh shit.” She stopped and held her arms out so the others wouldn’t go beyond where she was standing. At the end of the alleyway, there was now four of the Deathless: four scrawny women, utterly naked, their bodies rotten and filled with a lust for raw meat, staggered down the alleyway. Behind them, Kelly saw more. Though the rain still fell from the dark sky above, she could make out the undeniable figures of
death in the gloom.
Kelly felt nausea rise in her belly. She turned around. “We have to go back. Go the other way. Go, go, go!” She literally pushed Mark and Tricia around who came face to face with Will.
“We can’t. Look.” Will pointed down the other end of the alleyway where more of the Deathless were congregating.
Just then, the door from which they had just left the furniture warehouse began rattling in its frame. The Deathless were banging on it from the other side.
“Fuck, how long will that hold?” said Mark. “Screw that idiot Tug. I am not fucking dying like this.” He spied a dumpster and jumped up to look inside. It was empty. “Damn it.” He crouched down onto his belly and dragged a piece of drainpipe out. It was about ten feet long and he tipped it up to empty out the rainwater. It was difficult to hold its entire length and he used both hands to wield it in front of him like a baton. “Let’s...fuck it.” The wet, dirty piping slipped from his grasp and it clattered to the ground.
“What are we going to do, Will?” Suzy looked up at him and again he was struck by her beautiful face.
Her skin was soaked and Will couldn’t tell where her tears ended and the rain started. Her face was imploring him for help, but he didn’t know where to start. Stand and fight their way through the Deathless seemed to be their only option. Yet he knew that one scratch, one bite, was enough to kill them. They wouldn’t make it. After all, they had been through they were going to die out here in a dirty alley; him and his friends would be eaten alive. He would never see his mother again. She wouldn’t understand what had happened to him and he hoped nobody would ever tell her. She didn’t need to know. He would never get to know Suzy as he wanted to. He knew she wanted him as badly as he wanted her, but it was never going to happen now.
He looked at Claire. She seemed unfazed by any of it. Her eyes were vacant and her face showed no recognition of the situation they were in. It was probably a good thing she was out of it. She shouldn’t be subjected to die like this, ripped apart at the hands of a monster, miles away from home, without having lived life.
Mark was trying to hold the piping again. Good on him, Will thought, going out like a fighter. Mark would put up a struggle; there was no doubt. Mark might not have the build of a fighter, but he sure had the attitude of one when he was cornered.
Will saw that Tricia had sunk to her knees and she was rocking back and forth. Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving, reciting some childhood prayer to a God she wasn’t sure she believed in anymore.
Kelly looked back at Will. For once, she was lost. Will could see the defeat in her eyes and couldn’t bring himself to look back at her. He turned his gaze to his shoes. It was better not to fight it. Let them do their worst. There was no way out now and no getting home. He knew he couldn’t fight them off with his bare hands. He had let everyone down.
Three short, sharp metallic knocks rang out and Will didn’t take notice of them at first. They sounded again and disturbed his thoughts. They were clearly not random or natural sounds. It was someone deliberately making them. He looked up into Suzy’s open face, her desperate tears still evident, her question unanswered. He looked over her at the Deathless approaching who were now barely fifteen feet away. Nobody in the alley was making the sounds. Puzzled, he turned to the door in the wall opposite. The rusty door he had tried when they had first run out here, the door that had been locked; it was now open.
From the shadows within, an arm beckoned them in. There was no mistaking it for one of the dead. The hand was firm and waving. If it had been attached to a corpse, they would have seen the rest of the body by now. Will watched as the arm continued to beckon them. There was no voice, no calling or shouting, just a lone arm, drawing them in through the now open door.
“That way,” shouted Will, and he pushed Suzy toward the door. He had no choice; they all had no choice. They had to accept this bizarre help, this strange open doorway that offered them their only shot at survival.
Too shocked to do anything else or think what may be behind the opening door, Suzy ran into the shadows, swiftly followed by Claire, Will, Mark and Kelly. She paused, ready to slam the door shut when she realised Tricia was still kneeling in the alley with her eyes closed in prayer. Suzy saw and smelt the advancing Deathless, the putrid moving corpses only feet away from her. “Tricia, hurry the fuck up,” she shouted. “Tricia!”
Suzy watched as Tricia opened her eyes slowly and looked up into the face of snapping jaws closing in on her. Tricia let out a yelp and bounced up quickly, punching the dead man in the stomach. It tottered backward momentarily giving Tricia vital seconds to escape its clutches. She bounded for the door and hurried through just as it began to swing shut.
A metallic boom echoed around the warehouse as the door shut behind them. Terrible moaning came from behind it as the Deathless tried to follow, unable to break down the solid, thick door.
“Where are we?”
“Who’s there?”
“I can’t see.”
“Will? Kelly?”
Their voices called out in the darkness. There was not a glimmer of light anywhere, not a window nor a crack in any part of the structure they had entered. Had they just jumped from the frying pan into the fire?
TWELVE
“Everyone, calm down. Just calm down for a second.” Will’s voice rang out above everyone else’s. He was trying to let his eyes get used to the dark. He had rushed inside and found nothing to hold onto. His boots found the surface solid, yet gritty, and he guessed they might be in some sort of manufacturing plant. It was cold and other than their voices, and the scuffling sounds of the dead from outside, he heard no other sounds at all. He knew if they started walking around in the dark, someone was liable to fall and hurt themselves.
“Will,” said Kelly, “where the hell are we?”
Before he could answer, another booming sound echoed around the dark room, and Will heard metal grating against metal, as if something was being pulled back sharply. He wondered if whoever had let them in had changed their mind and was unlocking the door again.
A low beam of light suddenly illuminated their way. A full sixty yards away, another door had opened. The faint light shone enough for Will to see that they were in another warehouse of sorts, full of rusting metal girders and trolleys. It was deserted though and it seemed they had no option but to follow the light.
“Let’s go find out.” Will followed the narrow angle of light and the group followed him.
Kelly scurried to catch up with him. “What is this?” she whispered. Despite their apparent secure surroundings, she was reluctant to speak too loudly. She didn’t know how safe they would be in here, or for how long.
“I don’t know,” came Will’s honest reply. He shielded his eyes as they closed in on the open door. “But whoever let us in here must be on our side. They could’ve left us out there to die, but they didn’t. So we’ll play nice, for now.”
Will stepped through the doorway and a barrage of smells and sights hit him. They were inside some sort of shopping mall. The light that had seemed so bright in the previous room now seemed incredibly dull. The source was natural sunlight, coming from a glass dome above them. The mall was two storeys high, and all around him were shops and cafes, bookshops, clothing stores, fast food chains and gifts shops, designer boutiques, jewellery counters and ATMs. Will had doubted he would ever see such things again. He certainly hadn’t expected to see them here. The riot of colour seemed at odds with the world they had just come from. Outside was dreary and dull, lifeless and moribund. Inside, scattered throughout the mall’s floors, he saw brightly coloured clothes, books, papers and defunct electronic devices everywhere.
After his eyes got used to the sights, he noticed the smell. It was bad. The air purveyed a sense of decay and had a fetid odour, yet it was not of death. The Deathless had a certain smell about them, like rotten meat combined with sewage. In here, it was a mixture of putrefied food and what he could only relate
to as BO.
“Holy cow...” was all Suzy could manage to stutter out as she joined them inside the mall. She let go of Claire’s hand, assured they were safely away from danger. She saw Will and Kelly looking around in wonder and Mark had already begun snapping away. Suzy watched as Tricia bent down to pick up a magazine.
“’World Soccer Special,’ July 2186. Wow, this is three years old.” Tricia let it fall back to the dirty floor, uninterested as ever in anything remotely sports related.
“I can’t say as I’ve read that issue yet,” muttered Mark.
The door latched behind them and they all whirled around, startled by the strange voice. They had almost forgotten their mysterious saviour and they were astonished to see a man locking the door and dragging a heavy wooden bench in front of it.
Claire let out a shriek and jumped behind Suzy. The man was short and thin, his face gaunt and pale, but he was dressed immaculately. He wore a dark suit over a crinkled, white collared shirt, which was open at the neck. He would have looked like the perfect businessman, if it wasn’t for his emaciated frame and the yellow and black striped sneakers he wore. His head was smooth and stubbly, his chin the same. Brown inquisitive eyes poked out from beneath a set of wire-rimmed glasses.
He turned around to look at the bedraggled group of people he had just let in. “Sorry about the cloak and dagger stuff. I’m Roach.”
* * *
“Mr Roach, I’m Will, this is Kelly. We...” Will ceased the introductions as he saw he had abruptly lost the interest of Roach. The man’s eyes were suddenly looking up at the ceiling and he had cocked his head to one side. Will looked up, but saw nothing that might be of interest.
“They’re coming, follow me,” said Roach. He sprang away down the littered mall, jumping over the mess. He paused twenty feet away and turned. “Come on, come on,” he said hurriedly.
