by Russ Watts
“Go!” screamed Kelly and they all ran toward the embassy.
Suzy was first, hopping over the fallen tree and into the yard. She swung the metal pole and knocked two of the dead over. Another lunged at her from the side and before she could swing again, its head exploded. Suzy heard Roach shoot again and a dead woman in front of her went down, half of her face missing. Suzy ran.
Kelly and Mark caught up with her, fending off the dead as best they could. Kelly whirled the tyre-iron like a baton, bringing it crashing down onto reaching hands and arms, shoving the dead away as they swarmed through the yard.
Mark hacked his way through the dead, showering himself with dried blood and limbs, separating shoulders from sockets and heads from shoulders. He slashed at anything in his way, lopping off bones and fingers as if he were pruning an overgrown walking hedge.
Roach skirted around the worst of the carnage, firing until his gun chamber was empty. He could hear the rapidly approaching helicopter and knew they had to make it inside unseen. If the military saw them, they would lose their advantage of surprise.
Suzy reached a door first and pulled on the handle. Nothing happened. She pulled and pushed, but it refused to budge. There was an entry keypad to the side and no place for a key.
“Damn it,” she said and turned around just as Kelly reached her. “The door’s locked, I can’t open it,” said Suzy breathlessly.
“That way,” said Kelly, spying another door ten feet away. They ran past a brick wall to the door as Mark caught up. Roach was sprinting behind them, sticking to the path they had cleared through the walking dead.
There was another keypad and despite their best efforts, the second door wouldn’t open either. Suzy pounded on it in frustration and screamed.
“Leave it,” said Kelly. There was a small glass window in the wall nearby, just big enough to squeeze through. She aimed her tyre iron and threw it at the window. The glass shattered instantly and she shouted to the others to get inside.
Suzy cleared away the broken fragments of glass with the metal post that was now smeared with blood. She discarded it and crawled inside, swiftly followed by Mark. Kelly took her gun out and ordered Roach through. As the Deathless advanced upon her, she fired off two more rounds, taking down the closest of the Deathless. The rest were far enough away for her to make a break for it, so she clambered through the small window, letting Mark and Roach pull her in.
Kelly’s head hit the floor hard as she was dragged through the open window. No sooner had she gotten inside than arms and hands reached through trying to grab her. She stood up in the dark room and fired off one more round as one of the Deathless threatened to get inside. With the dead body now slumped over the windowsill, it was blocking the rest from getting in. The moaning from outside only grew louder though and it was only a matter of time before they got in. The dead body acted as a buffer between the inside and outside of the embassy, but it would only stay in place for so long with the dead pushing against it.
“Where the fuck now, Roach?” said Kelly annoyed, remembering she had dropped the tyre-iron outside. She now only had one bullet left.
Roach looked around the dark room, which was a small office containing nothing but a shelf full of files, an empty desk and a clock on the wall that had stopped ticking years ago. “I...I don’t know...I think...”
“Where the fuck now, Roach?” Kelly screamed at him. “Where the fuck do we go now?” She brought her gun around to face him, pointing it at his chest. “Well?” she screamed.
“Kelly,” said Mark, “I don’t think...”
“Shut up, Mark. I know what I’m doing.” Kelly had no intention of shooting Roach, but she needed him to start thinking. They had just fought their way through a bloodbath and the helicopter could be landing any minute. She didn’t have time for Roach to lose it now and she knew a gun trained on him would do wonders for kick-starting his brain.
Roach looked around the room frantically. He had never actually been inside the embassy, so he was going to have to go by gut instinct. He had an impression of the building as to where the roof was; he just needed to find the way up. There was a solitary door in the gloomy room and he prayed it would be unlocked. If they could find some stairs, they would be able to get to the roof.
“There. That way.” Roach pointed at the door.
Kelly moved first, holding the gun out in front of her. She tried the door handle and the door pushed open easily. She walked into a small carpeted corridor. There was very little light inside, despite the bright sunlight outside. There were various doors lining the corridor, with a lift at one end and a reception desk at the other. Next to the lift, she could just make out a staircase.
“Kelly, be careful,” said Mark behind her in a low voice. “We don’t know for sure that this place is empty.”
Kelly regained her composure and crept forward. She wanted to run, to run as hard as she could up the steps and find the roof. However, she knew she had to take it slowly. One false move, one bite or scratch, and she would be dead.
Last out of the room, Roach closed the door behind him, but he heard thumping sounds as the Deathless made it in. He could hear them barging around the room, looking for the way out. It would only take them a moment to find the unlocked door.
Up ahead, Kelly found the building horribly quiet. She half expected one of the Deathless to jump out at her at any time. The potted artificial plant, the doorways, and the lifts all offered a place to hide. Stealthily, she continued down the corridor to the stairway.
There was a steady dripping coming from a loose pipe somewhere in the distance, a regular plopping noise that echoed around the corridor to them.
“You think we’re alone in here? You really think they’re all gone?” asked Mark nervously. He kept his voice to a whisper, not wanting to give away their position.
“Seems like it, but I’m not counting my chickens just yet,” said Kelly. She reached the stairs and looked up. They were empty and so she proceeded up them. At the top was another corridor, this one lined with pale blue tiles and whitewashed walls. She glanced up and down the corridor but still couldn’t see any sign of life, or death, inside. To her right there was a blank wall and a door with a glass partition. The other way stretched for about fifty feet and then there was another door. This one had bright sunlight streaming through a small glass in the top and she could see blue sky. The roof was within sight at last. She motioned for the others to come on up.
“That it?” Kelly asked Roach.
He saw the doorway ahead and nodded silently.
Mark looked through the closest door and whistled. “This must have been the original place. It looks like a mad scientist’s lair.” He could see row after row of medicine cabinets, desks cluttered with papers and binders, and test tubes. On one wall, he saw hundreds of photos of bodies in varying states of decomposition and a gurney in the centre of the room with skeletal remains still tethered to it. There were white coats hanging on a stand just inside the room and blood splatter was on the other wall.
“I guess they didn’t try to work it out for too long,” said Mark. He wished he had his camera on him right then, but patted his pocket, reassured he had everything he needed on the memory card that was still stowed away securely.
“Holy cow,” said Suzy looking over Mark’s shoulder.
“Um guys, we need to move,” said Roach uneasily. “They’re in downstairs. I heard them. They’re all over the place and they’ll be up in here in a minute. Can’t you hear them?”
Kelly smiled. “Yeah, but they’re downstairs and we’re up here. Don’t worry, we’ve made it. That door leads to the roof, doesn’t it?”
Roach looked at the blue sky outside through the door’s small window. He saw the chopper coming down to land, hovering twenty feet above the roof, and he saw the vague, dark green outfit of a soldier who was sat in the cockpit. He smiled back at Kelly. “Ready?”
Kelly opened her mouth to speak, but Roach never heard
her reply. A loud boom echoed around the building as another earthquake began to shake the embassy violently. The quake was tearing through the whole city and the vibrations were causing the building to sway so much they could no longer stand up.
Suzy screamed as Kelly shouted at them to run for the roof. It was impossible to run, walk, or crawl though, as the shaking got worse. The quake was much larger than they had experienced before and the longer it went on, the stronger it seemed to get. The rolling and jolting of the building increased as the massive earthquake rippled through the city.
Mark was thrown backwards as Kelly and Suzy tried to get to the doorway. They ran a few steps down through the corridor before they were thrown off their feet and catapulted against a wall. Roach almost fell back down the stairs, but managed to grab the handrail before flinging himself to the undulating floor.
Ruptures appeared in the walls ahead of them as the shaking continued. A three-foot crack appeared in the floor and rapidly shot up the wall halfway down the corridor. Tiles and plaster began to crumble away, exposing the wiring and pipes behind. A brown sludge spurted from a broken pipe above spraying Mark with slime and gloop. He wiped the noxious substance quickly from his face, careful not to let any into his mouth. He stood to help Kelly and then the earthquake cranked up another notch, shaking the embassy to its foundations. The laboratory door shook off its hinges and fell away, just as Mark was thrown back against it. He skidded to a halt beneath the gurney and everything went black.
A fluorescent strip light back in the corridor jolted free from its joints and swung down, smashing into Kelly’s side. She was winded as the floor rippled and bucked beneath her and she lost sight of Suzy. The earthquake refused to die down and if anything, it seemed to be still growing. Overhead tiles rained down, striking them and leaving cuts all over their faces and scalps.
Kelly tried to get up and heard a tremendous tearing sound as the floor was ripped away from under her feet. She felt hands grab her waist and Suzy tried to pull her back from the cavern opening up where the floor had been. Kelly fell and found herself lying on a mass of under-floor pipes. She felt Suzy’s hands slip down to her feet and heard the shouting and screams, but she couldn’t focus on what Suzy was saying. Through the pipes on which she lay, on the level beneath them, were the Deathless. On the ground floor, the dead were waiting, oblivious to the earthquake and the damage being wrought upon the building. Kelly could see them being thrown around, but they were all looking up at her. She felt hands upon her arms and screamed.
“Kelly, Kelly, it’s me.”
Electrical wires twisted around Roach and pulled him down, entwining themselves around his arms rapidly, looping around him leaving him as if a fly caught in a giant web. An ocean of the dead crested beneath him, clamouring for him and trying to grab his feet. He had been sucked into the collapsed floor too and if it were not for the wires holding him up, he would already have fallen.
“Kelly, you’ve got to get out of here,” he shouted. The moaning of the Deathless below and the building collapsing around them meant he had to shout to be heard. “Focus on my eyes, Kelly. Look at me.”
Kelly let out a scream and then looked at him. He had lost his glasses when the quake struck and he was looking at her with those beady eyes of his. Kelly was gasping for breath, the adrenalin surging through her body. Not like this, she thought, please not like this.
“It’s subsiding, but you haven’t long. The helicopter is going to leave. Get out. Get out now while...” Roach slipped further as the shaking continued and he held onto Kelly. He knew if he let go, there was nothing to support him and he wasn’t going to make it.
“Tell Stella I love her. Tell Bobby I’m sorry.”
The building was still shaking, but not as violently as before. Roach slipped and Kelly looked at him helplessly.
“Get Agnew for me.”
Kelly understood Roach was stuck and she nodded. Roach slipped a few inches down and he screamed. There was a sickening crunch as one of the Deathless snapped their teeth around his ankle, stripping it of flesh and scraping their teeth along the bone.
Roach screamed again as he felt more teeth sinking through his flesh, ripping open his legs and snapping tendons. Sharp incisors sheared the skin from his shinbones and his toes were broken off as his feet were savaged. Blood spurted from his mouth and he grabbed Kelly.
“Please...” His eyes widened as he slipped once more, pulling Kelly with him.
Kelly fought back the tears and shouted for help. Roach was right. They had to hurry. With the earthquake rocking the building like this, the military weren’t going to hang around.
“Mark? Suzy, help!” The weight of Roach was dragging Kelly down now and she could see the terror in his face. She could feel his helplessness and his agony as the Deathless began to devour him. She couldn’t bear to watch and forced herself to look down through the mass of tangled wires, tiles and plasterboard. Another tile fell away and the hole in the floor widened. Kelly could see the Deathless thronging below as the earthquake continued to expose them, their hands reaching up, and their eyes all upturned and boring through Kelly’s. She could see them beyond Roach’s twisted body, clawing at his legs, and she knew that she would swiftly follow him down of she stayed there much longer. The building was still gently shaking and the floor was giving way.
“I can’t pull you back, you’re stuck,” shouted Suzy.
Kelly tried to shuffle herself backwards, but it was useless. She realized her arms were wound around some cables and she would have to free herself so Suzy could pull her back. The only way to do that would be to let go of Roach. Kelly rested her forehead on the water pipe that was holding her up and closed her eyes. He had been so close. He had survived The Grave for years before they had come along. It wasn’t fair, none of it was. She looked up at him. He had stopped screaming and writhing and she realized he was dead. His eyes were closed and he actually looked peaceful. At some point in the last minute, when she had turned away from him, he had died, probably from shock or blood loss. She looked down and his feet were gone. Now his legs were just bloody stumps that ended at the knee.
“Sorry, Roach.” Kelly freed her left arm and let go so she only held him by her right hand. He dangled there, caught up in the broken ceiling and Kelly let go of him with her other hand, expecting him to drop into the sea of dead below. Instead, she found his hand suddenly gripping her arm and she looked up at him, confused. He had reanimated already and his hand became firmer around her arm.
Roach’s eyes were open, but lifeless. His body began to writhe and squirm again as his dead body tried to pull Kelly closer. Blood spurted from his mouth and cascaded over Kelly’s face. She tried to turn away and closed her mouth, making sure she didn’t get any inside her. She briskly wiped her eyes and saw Roach’s mouth open wide, exposing his bloody tongue and throat. Roach had joined the Deathless. One scratch or bite from him and Kelly would be dead too.
EIGHTEEN
Kelly recoiled as Roach’s grip tightened and she felt herself slipping toward him. The rocking of the building had slowed, but had not ceased entirely.
“Suzy, quick, where the hell is Mark? Fuck.” Kelly tried to swat Roach away with her one free hand, but he had a strong grip on her. She reached over for a pipe and tugged on it, hoping it might come loose so she could push him away, but it was stuck fast. Thinking quickly, she used it to force herself backwards. She could feel Suzy pulling on her legs and with Roach still fiercely holding her arm, it felt as if she was being torn in two.
To be so close only to die like this was unbearable. She knew the helicopter was just feet away on the other side of the wall. The thought of giving up and just letting herself fall didn’t even occur to her. The more Roach’s dead body pulled her down, the instinct to fight and live only grew stronger. Kelly struggled with him, trying to ignore the baying mob of dead below who were waiting to eat her alive. Kelly couldn’t release herself from his grip and screamed at him to let go. I
t did no good though. Her face was only inches away from his and if anything, his grip only tightened as she tried to free herself.
“Watch out,” shouted Mark, suddenly appearing beside Kelly.
A fire extinguisher swung down, barely millimetres in front of her face, and the blunt base crashed down onto Roach’s head. Instantly, Roach lost his grip on Kelly and swung away from her. Roach dangled there like a deranged angel stuck in a Christmas tree wrapped in coloured wires and cables. Now released from Kelly, the wiring refused to take Roach’s weight any longer and he sank beneath the waves of Deathless beneath him. His body was engulfed by the dead and Kelly lost sight of him.
Mark grabbed Kelly’s arm as she felt the room open up below. “Climb up,” grunted Mark as he dropped the fire extinguisher.
Now free of Roach’s death grip, Kelly swiftly disentangled herself from the cables and wires and pulled herself up. Mark dragged her away from the growing hole in the floor and they collapsed back at the end of the hallway.
“Are you all right?” asked Suzy, looking at Kelly. Suzy’s face was red from the exertion of trying to pull Kelly back. Her arms were trembling and she sank back against Kelly gratefully.
Kelly just nodded. “What the hell happened to you, Mark?”
“It just knocked me off my feet. One minute you were there and the next...I fell and hit my head and when I woke up, I heard you screaming. I jumped up and that fucking skeleton in the lab was trying to grab me. I just kicked the trolley away and grabbed the first thing I could. I saw Roach had...turned.”
As the earthquake subsided, and the shaking of the building decreased to a calm rolling motion, they heard shouts and gunfire coming from the roof.
Kelly got up and wiped Roach’s blood from her face. She pulled the gun out of her pocket and knew she had only one bullet left. She would make it count and was grateful it was still there and hadn’t fallen out when she had been fighting Roach. “Let’s go. Just stay behind me and don’t hesitate.”
