‘Do you mean this mini church in here, or the real one upstairs?’
He laughed, the sort of sound whisky would make, if it could. ‘This is the real one. What, you think the Father wanted his power on show, for the whole world to see?’
‘Who’s the Father?’
‘Has Luke told you nothing?’
‘He hasn’t really had time. We’ve been fighting zombies non-stop before we came in here to rescue Krystal and since then we’ve just been running.’
‘Don’t forget killing Az’s baby. He won’t be pleased about that.’
‘It was a zombie. Who’s Az?’
The angel nodded, lustrous eyebrows coming together. ‘Yes it was, and didn’t we get that one wrong? Still, live and learn.’
‘Who’s Az?’ Krystal had recovered enough to ask a question and the angel blinked and looked at her. ‘Impressive. I understand Bayleigh having the requisite trauma to break free, but you should still be well under. Don’t you find me appealing to look at?’
‘You look like an arrogant dick to me. If you weren’t you wouldn’t have assumed I don’t have any trauma. I hate people who think kids have nothing to worry about.’
The angel smiled and inclined his head. There was something insufferably smug about him but caring at the same time, like he was fighting the desire to be friendly and nice. ‘Goodness, I am sorry. What are you doing here?’
‘We asked the question first, who’s Az?’ Ed blurted out.
The angel turned to him with a less-friendly smile. ‘You aren’t in the playground any more, little boy. It’s not about who asked first. It’s about who has the power to tear whose head off. And in case you’re confused, it’s me.’
‘So if you’ve got the power, what harm is there in answering the question?’
Bayleigh squeezed Krystal’s hand, inordinately proud. The angel looked from Krystal to Ed and back again. ‘I can see the Father made particularly annoying choices with you two. Az is my friend. He is a demon of the eighth level. I’m sure you’ll meet him soon enough. Especially now you’ve come to stay with us.’
‘We aren’t staying anywhere. We’re leaving just as soon as you get out the way.’
Bayleigh stepped forwards and pushed the kids behind her. She stuck her chin out and waited for the inevitable blow. The angel chuckled. ‘Very impressive. Let’s do this properly, shall we? My name is Seph. You are Bayleigh, Krystal and Edward and you are here because the Father is a tricksy and conniving being who takes great pleasure in torturing his son. I am here for reasons of my own which I won’t bother you with. Now, why are you in my church?’
‘We’re trying to escape. But the lights went out so we came here to get a torch.’
‘And just thought you’d take a look at my machine at the same time.’
Ed pushed past Bayleigh. ‘It’s really cool, what does it do?’
Seph didn’t seem to move, but suddenly he was right beside Ed, crouched down with an arm around his narrow shoulders. ‘Well, son, it is cool, isn’t it? Let me tell you all about it. On second thoughts, how about I don’t?’
He closed his hands around Ed’s head and lifted him from the floor. He screamed and lashed out with both feet before the angel threw him across the room. The crack of his body striking the wooden pews made Bayleigh cry out and rush to him. She saw his leg immediately, the bone jutting from the flesh and blood seeping into his trousers. She didn’t see anything else before the haze came down and she stomped back across the church.
She stormed towards Seph, fists raised. ‘How could you do that? You’re an angel, how could you do that?’
‘How could I do that? I’ve just masterminded the destruction of the human race and you ask how I could injure some little brat? Your priorities are somewhat misaligned, I must say.’
She slammed her clenched fists against his chest, which felt like hitting the ground. He grinned down at her and she noticed that his teeth ended in sharp points. He grabbed her wrists. ‘I have little patience. I love my brother and I need him, so I will spare your lives. Take a torch and get out.’
His voice was low and made her stomach twist, then he tossed her onto the floor and her teeth slammed together. She rested her forehead against the stone for a moment, taking deep breaths before she pushed herself up. Krystal was hovering around Ed, looking at him with frightened eyes.
When had she last slept? When had she last eaten anything? The headache that lurked behind her eyes was becoming an old friend and she wondered if it would ever leave. If they could just get back to the hospital they could lock themselves in a room and sleep.
Ed was bent at a strange angle over the benches and dragging him upright was harder than she’d expected. He was far heavier than she’d thought, but she hoisted him over her shoulder, grunting with the effort. Blood trailed from his leg and as she turned, his foot caught against one of the pews. He tensed and screamed, hands batting her in the face.
Seph watched them, eyebrows raised in a sign of mild interest, but nothing more. He didn’t care.
He was an angel.
‘How can you just stand there? You’re supposed to do good.’
‘I’ve done good for longer than you can imagine. My entire existence has been dedicated to serving others and making their lives better. But things change, Bayleigh. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching the human race all this time, it’s that things change. So why not me?’
‘But why does change have to be bad?’
‘Isn’t that what you think? Isn’t that what all you people think, scurrying around down here, chasing after routine, after safety and security? I’ve seen only a handful of you for whom change is a good thing, and even then it’s a struggle. Change is hard, Bayleigh, and difficult. But you will see, in the long run, that it is all worth it.’
She spat at him. It fell short and she stared at it in amazement. Her cheeks flamed up and she tried to stammer an apology but he cut her off.
‘I understand. You’re struggling with the truth, of course you are. Give it time and you will understand. Now get out.’
‘But what about him?’
She raised Ed up, his blood dripping to the stone floor, his face ashen.
‘What about him?’
‘He’s going to die. I don’t know what to do.’
Seph frowned. He rested his chin in one hand and cocked his head to one side. ‘That would be a shame, wouldn’t it? Luke does need him alive. But perhaps his death will make him more inclined to agree to the plan.’ He waved a hand. ‘Best of luck.’
He turned and swept out of the room, wings closing in tight to his back as he strolled through the door. She watched him go, unable to shout or do anything at all.
He’d gone.
He’d just left without helping, without doing anything. She and Krystal exchanged a look and she could see the girl thinking the same thing. He was an angel and he’d left Ed to die.
Her lip curled back from her teeth and she took a step towards the door. Krystal put her hand on her arm. ‘We need to help Ed. He’s not gonna.’
She didn’t want to accept it, but it was the truth. She laid Ed on the floor and cushioned his head beneath her hand. Krystal was touching his leg like it was a bomb. ‘What do we do?’
Bayleigh shrugged. ‘We need to tie something around the wound to stop it bleeding.’
‘But the bone’s in…’ She trailed off, putting her hand over her mouth, and Bayleigh patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. She’d read about this enough times. It seemed to happen all the time in war stories and fantasy books. You shoved the two pieces back together and wrapped it in a bandage and forty pages later the person was up and running around.
She grabbed hold of his leg on either side of the break and tried to ignore his whimpers. She gritted her teeth as she tried to straighten his leg like she would a piece of bent metal. It went together far more easily than she’d expected. His leg felt horribly fragile beneath her fingers. Blood bubbled
up and Ed cried out, his eyes flashing open.
‘What’s happening, what—’
His eyes closed as she pushed the ends of the bone together. Surely they had to be touching to reknit? They had no bandage so for the second time that day she pulled off her top and she and Krystal tore it up into bits. She strapped it around the wound until the blood stopped showing through. She tied the final knot than wobbled on her knees away from Ed and vomited.
She stayed where she was, trying to breathe shallow so as not to smell the pool of stomach acid that lay on the floor. She needed to curl up somewhere and sleep and never get up. But they had to get out. They had to get to the hospital where maybe one of the others could help Ed. She wouldn’t think about the chances of him being dead before they got there.
She carried him, slung between arms that felt ready to drop off. Krystal took the torch and together they found the exit and trudged through the tunnel. Where the torch flickered, shadows danced and spun on the walls of the tunnel and she expected zombies to leap out at any moment. Every part of her ached when they saw the door ahead. When she saw that it was open and Luke and Alex were coming through it, she collapsed to her knees. Someone took Ed from her arms and it was the last thing she knew.
Alex
‘Luke, it’s not stopping.’
‘Yes, I noticed that. Got your sword?’
‘No, you gave it to Bayleigh.’
‘Oh, of course. Here.’
Luke pushed a knife into his hands and he took it, staring at the curved edge. It was one of those knives you saw in films with deserts and genies in and looked very sharp. There wasn’t a chance he would be able to use it properly. Luke swept away from him, moving like he was on rails, shoulders perfectly still.
His sword came out of his scabbard and whistled through the air like he was a samurai. One side of the zombie’s face came away and hit the floor with a dull slap. Alex clapped a hand over his mouth and tried not to smell anything. The creature hit the floor and Luke stepped over it.
‘Come on, we need to reach the garage.’
‘Right, cos we’ll be safe there, with our device that works perfectly and couldn’t possibly go wrong.’
‘Yes, well.’
Luke pulled the device from his pocket and studied it. ‘It’s gone cold, like the power’s run out. Any ideas?’
Alex pored over it as they strode down the corridor. He almost missed the next attack, Luke putting his blade through the zombie’s face before it came out through one of the side doors. It was quieter down here and Luke dealt easily with their attackers while he examined the tiny machine.
They reached the garage and Luke pushed through the door into the dark subterranean car park. There were still cars in here, the keys for which would be littering the hospital. It was an opportunity, if they got the chance to take it. Luke hauled open the garage door to the secret tunnel and hunkered down, stretching his back and sitting on the concrete.
‘There’s a port in this thing.’ Alex said. ‘It’s like USB but smaller, iphone 5 maybe. I guess you could charge it through that.’
‘So we need an iphone 5 charger?’
He shook his head. ‘Not quite. It’s not exactly the same. I’m guessing it does more than that as well. It’s like one of the older ones, with different size pins in it. It’ll be specific to the device.’
‘So we have to go back in there to charge it.’
Alex groaned and joined him on the concrete. ‘It appears that way. But aren’t we going in there anyway, to rescue all those women?’
Luke rested his back against the wall beside the garage door and let out a long breath. ‘How do you do it, needing all the sleep and the rest?’
‘We make our beds the most comfortable place to be. So you look forward to lying down.’
‘But there’s so much to do. We don’t have time to sleep.’
‘Funny, I thought that when I was doing my end of year exams. Collapsed halfway through a chem final and woke up on the floor. There’s always time to sleep.’
‘Why did you become a scientist?’
Alex raised an eyebrow and examined the man next to him. Had he really just asked a personal question? He’d got nothing but boredom and contempt from him so far, but this felt half genuine.
‘Um, don’t know, really. I was good at it at school. That’s as far as my career guidance went. What are you good at? Okay, do that then.’
‘So you didn’t have some burning passion to create a plague or anything?’
‘I’ve always been interested in warfare. No, that’s not true. I’ve always been scared by warfare, by where it’s going. I read comics when I was a kid about guys with guns, but these days it all about drone strikes and gas attacks and bombs and stuff. It hasn’t been about guns for a long time. So then I watched Iron Man and saw his crazy rocket-bomb thing and that got me thinking.’
‘Hang on. You created a plague because you watched a movie?’
‘Not exactly. But the idea of it, the weapon you only needed to fire once. I just thought if you could create something so frightening—’
‘Frightening’s right. Didn’t it occur to you that using it once would still be too much?’
‘I didn’t… I just…’ He shook his head, cheeks heating up. Luke sighed and turned away, looking into the darkness. The silence felt awkward and Alex cast around for something to say.
‘So, what did it feel like being cast down?’
Luke turned back, one eyebrow raised like Spock. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Uh, nothing, don’t worry about it, sorry I—’
‘No, it’s alright. Being asked that where I come from is like being asked how it felt when your mother died or your sister was raped. It just doesn’t happen. But why not?’
Alex turned away, face burning.
‘It was like going deaf and blind at the same time. Everything I knew was taken away. At the same time I was put in this place that was grotesque and violently against everything I’d spent most of my existence fighting for.’
‘Most of?’
‘There was a reason I was cast down. But it was rebellion, like you might expect from any wayward son. Just punishment might have been banishing me from Earth for a century or two, or taking my wings away for a while. He sent me to Hell.’
Luke leant closer, wagging his finger. ‘And what was worse, Hell was right on the edge of collapsing into complete chaos.’
‘Isn’t Hell supposed to be chaos?’
‘That’s past tense. And no. It needs to be organised far more than anywhere else. How can you deal out suitable punishment if you don’t have systems in place?’
Alex chuckled and shook his head. ‘You sound like my lab technician.’
‘Same thing. A designated space in which specific things have to happen.’
‘Way to make Hell sound like a office.’
‘There was nothing mystical about it. It was a functional place, nothing more. Until he closed it, of course.’
Alex was about to speak when he saw the light. It came gradually closer, flickering and swaying in the darkness. A face came into view, lit yellow by the torch, and he saw Bayleigh, her face drawn and eyes half closed. He rushed into the tunnel, Luke beside him.
She carried Ed in her arms and he scooped him from her. The next second she collapsed forward into Luke’s embrace. Krystal looked up at them from beneath the torch. Her eyes were almost zombie-like, red-rimmed and sunk into her face.
‘Hi, guys. Any chance of a bed?’
Alex woke with an aching neck and leant slowly forwards, easing it off the back of the chair until it cracked. Bayleigh and Krystal were in one bed and Ed lay in the other. It was to the second bed he looked. Alex knew as much about medicine as he did about building space ships. Both were vaguely connected to his field and he thought he should know more, but he didn’t. He did, however, know considerably more than the others.
Ed’s leg was a mess but he thought it was clean. He’d covered
it in antiseptic and strapped it again with proper bandages, and Ed seemed to be asleep now rather than unconscious. His colour was still poor and he hadn’t eaten anything in far too long, but Alex was cautiously confident he’d done everything he could up to this point.
He clambered out of the chair and crossed to the window. The morning sun was breaking over the buildings opposite and it looked to be a rather lovely day. The last wisps of cloud were making an unhurried exit over the river. On the street below, the zombies made their own, equally laid-back way around. He narrowed his eyes and tapped the window.
His original plague formula was intended to damage certain parts of the brain and return the afflicted to a primal state. The equivalent of turning the evolutionary clock back ten thousand years. Add to that the rage brought out by a mix of hormone enhancers and depressors and you had a classic zombie.
The creatures below followed all of those things. But there was more as well. He hadn’t accounted for the physical changes, the brittleness of the skin and the immediate rotting of the innards. It made them easy to kill. Not that he found it in any way easy. Easy was, in fact, the last word he’d use when he was face to face with one. But the fact was, they were physically fragile, and he hadn’t expected that.
He also wasn’t convinced they’d regressed as far as he’d intended. There was intelligence in some, a willingness to try things and experiment. There was also memory. He watched a woman in a suit approach an office building. The doors slid open and she stepped inside. Through the window he saw her walk up to the elevators. At this point her hands let her down as she clawed ineffectually at the call button. Eventually she gave up and sauntered deeper into the building and out of sight.
She was replaying what she probably did every morning. She remembered. Perhaps it was muscle memory. Had something in the plague enhanced the innate muscles while destroying her conscious brain? He tapped the window once more and turned away. Luke stood in the doorway and they sneaked out into the tiny room that lay beyond.
Thirteen Roses Book Three: Beyond: A Paranormal Zombie Saga Page 6
