Drums held his breath, realising he had been sucked in. He would swear later that he heard the thing utter a word that could have been ‘sorry’ in a throaty gurgle. He saw that it would be a simple matter for that huge, heavy hand to flash out and grab him by the throat…
Except it didn’t. To Drums’ shocked amazement, the Thinker gave an approximation of a sad smile, its whole body a picture of deep and bloody regret.
Then Drums sensed another change in mood; one he more readily associated with zombies in general, Thinkers in particular. As if it was an actual element, the air was once again heavy with violence.
He recoiled, at once tense. This was going to be bad, he knew it; yet some part of him, some primeval vestige deep in his own brain, told him that he was not in danger.
The Thinker that had smiled him in that unexpectedly heart-wrenching way, suddenly jerked its neck. It was such a forceful movement, Drums heard bones snap, The Thinker’s head immediately lolled to one side, the rotting tendons and veins there pulled taut against the fragile skin. It made a fascinating, fearsome map of decomposition.
The weird angle the Thinker’s head now lay at was not enough to stop its onslaught against itself. With the arm the same side on which the head now lolled, it reached up and, to Drums disgust and horror, proceeded to tear at the skin at its neck, exposing fatty tissue and red-raw muscle beneath.
As if inspired, the second Thinker plunged its hands deep into its own stomach, ripping a gaping wound that let out a waft of foul air. Drums retched at the stench, recoiling and turning away. He had seen enough. The noises reaching him on his rooftop refuge were sickening on their own; he had no wish to see further the actions that were causing them.
Like a child again, he put his fingers in his ears, hunching his shoulders up tight against the sounds, hoping it would be over soon.
*
It stopped at last, an absolute silence falling with stillness of night. When Drums finally removed his fingers from his ears, stretching out from the foetal bundle he had curled himself into, he had no doubt whatsoever that he was totally alone.
Stars had begun to litter the open skies above. He couldn’t believe now that he had earlier considered slipping under the covers in the bed below and stealing a few hours’ sleep. All he wanted was to get away from the place.
He slid over to the far side of the van, the one free of the debris of self-destructed Thinkers. The snow on the ground, the cloudless sky, a ghost-white moon rising, all meant that the night was not too dark to navigate.
He lowered himself down, bracing himself for the impact as he hit the deck, only to find it nicely cushioned by a well-placed drift.
“About time something went right,” he said aloud.
*
Yasmin and Naomi huddled together in a corner of the roof. The advantage of being largely out of reach of zombies was outweighed by how exposed they were, especially as night drew in.
There had been some awkwardness between the girls at first, after they had been left alone. Yasmin, consumed with guilt at her ignorance, had gone from bouts of uncertain silence, to periods of near-babbling; talking too much, too fast, not really saying anything. In contrast, Naomi couldn’t find words to express her humiliation, her embarrassment; her fear for the future. In the end, she sought out the meagre shelter of the corner, surrendering herself to its hard edges and cold surface. Yasmin watched her, standing there uncertainly. Naomi caught her eye, patting the cold and uninviting spot next to her.
Yasmin took her place there, wrapping a protective arm about Naomi, at last realising that the time for words was long past. She was relieved when Naomi didn’t shove her arm away or reject her.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“Nothing for you to be sorry for,” Naomi replied.
Yasmin nodded, “But I’m sorry anyway,”
“I know,” Naomi allowed. She wrapped her arms around Yasmin’s waist in turn. Deriving what little warmth they could from one another, crystals forming in their hair, on their clothes, they drifted into fitful sleep.
It was Naomi who woke first, groaning at the stiffness in her neck. Rubbing the area to return some warmth to it, she sat up, gently removing herself from Yasmin’s embrace.
Something had woken her, she didn’t know what. She stood on legs shaky from cold and exhaustion, loathe to take a step as pins and needles set in.
“What is it?” Behind her, Yasmin woke too, rubbing her eyes, blinking to rid them of blurriness, “What’s the matter?” Concern creeping into her voice as she came more fully awake.
“Nothing, my leg’s gone dead that’s all,” Naomi said, raising and lowering the affected limb gingerly.
She froze, her foot resting on tip-toe; awkward and uncomfortable, but she was suddenly scared to move. She heard Yasmin scrambling to her feet behind her, felt her draw level, her body tense and alert.
“What the hell is that?” Yasmin’s voice, barely a whisper, was full of trepidation.
Naomi lowered her foot fully, ignoring the little pricks of pain that rushed to greet her, “I don’t know!” she hissed, “Listen,”
Both girls stood stock still, listening intently. There was something out of place above the sounds of the night; something that didn’t belong.
A drawn out scraping sound. A picture of long nails grinding down on bare brick entered Naomi’s head. She winced at the image, bunching her fists in reaction. It was followed by a heavier sound, as of something heavy dragging across a solid surface. A pause, then came the scrape, once again followed by the drag. The pattern repeated itself twice over as they listened, then silence fell once more.
“What the hell was that” Yasmin repeated, stepping closer to Naomi.
Naomi shrugged, looking around for signs that the others were coming back. She looked over the sides of the roof for any indication of movement. There was none that she could see. Yasmin, following her like a shadow as she paced along the roof’s edge, voiced her thoughts.
“Nothing down there,”
“No,” Naomi chewed her lip thoughtfully. Nothing they could see, anyway.
“Maybe we should move?” Yasmin suggested tentatively, “We don’t even know if they’re coming back,”
“Maybe,” Naomi said, dread making her stomach drop. She wondered if the life growing inside her could feel it, “Where would we go?”
In answer, Yasmin raised both hands high and let them drop, as if to say, ‘How should I know?’
They both jumped when something banged hard below them. Naomi grabbed Yasmin’s arm, horrified to see how close they had come to the gaping hole in the roof. Yasmin let out a soft, “Oh my God!” when she saw, clutching Naomi in return, drawing back a step.
“Stop!” Naomi urged as Yasmin tried to pull her further away, “We need to see what that is!”
Yasmin let go, hands balling at her sides. She was breathing heavily, her eyes wide. Naomi saw she was frightened.
“It’s okay to be scared Yasmin, I am too,”
“You don’t look it,” Yasmin countered.
Naomi thought of Lavender; small, feisty, not to be messed with. It gave her some encouragement to think she might be rubbing off on her.
“Well I am,” she admitted, “look, we have to see what that is. If trouble is coming for us, we need to know about it,”
Ignoring the look of doubt on Yasmin’s face, Naomi approached the hole warily. She peered down into it, expecting to see the collapsed form of the zombie the others had dropped the solar panel on earlier.
There was nothing on the ground below, save a few dark shapes that she assumed were broken fragments of the solar panel and other debris.
Another bang. This time, she cried out loud, wondering how she could have missed the weird shape to the left of the picture; the one that she now saw was the cause of the noise.
It took a while for her to understand what she was looking at; the shape was so contorted and
strange. She shifted position, moving carefully around the hole to allow the moonlight to illuminate the scene below.
She gasped. A small noise that had Yasmin scurrying back to her side. Together, they peered into the gloom below, Yasmin swearing softly in disbelief.
A zombie. Its neck was obviously broken, its head lolling almost on its chest. If its eyes were still functioning, the most it could possibly see was the ground beneath its feet. There was a huge chunk of the solar panel embedded in the creature’s neck. It lay almost flat, like a tray, as the girls looked down on it. Jagged edges gave it the appearance of an especially stiff and uncomfortable collar.
The creature seemed to have found itself cornered. It kept shuffling back, only to shuffle forwards again, banging the panel into a filing cabinet, atop of which balanced a ladder. Each time the zombie careered into the cabinet, the ladder bounced and clattered, threatening at any minute to fall to the ground.
“I thought they said they had killed this one?” Yasmin whispered huskily.
“Apparently not,” Naomi retorted, “that must be the ladder they climbed down on. If that thing keeps bashing away like that it’s going to fall to the ground and break,”
“I think we’ve got bigger problems than a broken ladder!” Yasmin shot back, “If the others do make it back tonight, we need to warn them there’s an undead down there,”
“You think it is much of a threat, in that state?” Naomi looked doubtfully at the broken and bent creature, wondering how its neck was managing to keep the head on at all.
“I wouldn’t want to take any risks, would you?”
Naomi sighed agreement, “No, I wouldn’t, you’re right. Well that’s that, then; we make sure we stay awake and keep an eye out to warn the others, if and when they get back,”
Yasmin nodded, crossing her arms about herself for warmth, eyeing Naomi’s jacket longingly, “Right,” she agreed, looking away, “I don’t think I could sleep now anyway.”
Naomi remembered seeing Lavender stuff a spare jacket into the sack they had carried from the fairground. It was up here on the roof somewhere. She would find it, give it to Yasmin. It might make her feel a little better.
The Cage
Joel had begun to stumble as they moved on, as if his feet were suddenly too big for him. More than once, Harris had to jerk him upright, holding on to him as he found his footing in the snow and steadied his pace. Lavender was glad when the club came into view, her pace quickening as she drew nearer.
“Wait!” Harris placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, the other resting on Joel’s chest, forcing him to a stop, “We always check before we go in; always,” he said, stepping in front of her. He raised a silencing finger to his lips, then began mounting the steps one by one, pausing to listen each time.
Lavender watched him go, reflecting on the irony of the situation. Here he was, checking for zombies, when they had just brought one home with them.
She kept a weather eye on Joel. He had stopped more or less where Harris had halted him, staring stupidly ahead, a line of drool weaving its way down his chin. She wished Harris would hurry up; it looked like Joel might be turning sooner than expected.
Praying she was right and that he would become a Thinker, not one of the moronic and shuffling undead, she shoved him forward, unwilling to wait for the all clear. Sometimes you just had to face things head on.
Joel moaned; not quite the hollow, hopeless moan of a zombie she knew so well, but a fair approximation. He glared at her, “Touch me again, bitch!” Slurring out the words like an angry drunk.
Lavender raised the circular-saw club until it filled the space between the two of them, pointing it like a finger, “Just fucking move, scum!” Her voice low, deadly serious.
Joel grinned. For a heartbeat, Lavender thought she was going to have to fight the man. Part of her was just looking for an excuse to cut him down. As if he could read the intent in her face, he shuffled forward obediently, “Just don’t fucking touch me again,” he said, in a voice so soft it sent shivers down her spine.
She kept him at arm’s length as they entered the club. She heard Harris spin, swear under his breath, collecting himself before saying, “I thought I told you to wait?”
“Not much point,” Lavender gestured to Joel from behind his back, “besides, time’s wasting,” she added meaningfully. Doubt reared its ugly head. The next bit would be the challenge. She didn’t think Harris would take much persuading on the subject of getting Joel into one of the cages, but how they were going to do it was a detail she hadn’t had time to worry over. She gave a mental shrug; if Joel wouldn’t cooperate she would just kill him on the spot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
The last thing she wanted to do was alert him to her plan. She let him continue to shuffle his way across the dancefloor, beckoning discreetly to Harris.
“What?” he asked, irritation beginning to show.
“How are these cages suspended? I mean, I don’t see any walkway leading into them, they’re just dangling there. You must be able to lower and raise them, right?”
Harris gave her a look, “That’s right. There’s a winch up there, on the gangway. Used to be mains operated but there’s a manual override,” his face clouded over with dawning suspicion, “Why?”
Lavender hesitated, checking on Joel’s whereabouts before explaining. She didn’t want Harris thinking she was crazy, even if she wasn’t sure of her own sanity anymore. She needed him on side. She would have to choose her words carefully.
“I’ve been watching these Thinkers for some time now,” she began, “Just lately, I’ve noticed a pattern. It’s got me wondering if they haven’t somehow, I don’t know, evolved; mutated, whatever the term is,”
“What are you talking about?”
Lavender sighed, starting again, “The Thinkers. There’s something happening with them. At least, I think there is. It seems that they reach an advanced state of zombeism, and then they change. It’s almost as if part of their brain becomes suddenly clear. Like for a moment they can truly understand what they have become, maybe even remember what they have done. Can you imagine that?”
Harris gave a low whistle, “Jesus! No, I can’t imagine that. That would be…” he raised his hands, searching for the word, “that would be torture, Lavender. Hell on earth,”
“Right, which would explain why in the next minute they seem to implode.” she shrugged apologetically, “I’m sorry, but that’s how it seems. They turn on themselves, attack themselves. I don’t want to read too much into it, but it’s almost as if that sudden rush of rage and grief prompts them to, well, to kill themselves.”
Harris stopped dead, staring at her, digesting her words, “They kill themselves? You think all zombies go through this process?”
Lavender allowed herself to breathe a little easier. It seemed Harris was buying into her theory.
“I don’t know about all zombies, but Thinkers, yes. Maybe.”
“That’s why you want to get our friend there into a cage? So you can watch him close up, check your theory’s right?”
“Show you and the others too, get your opinions. Yes,”
“Wow!” His voice was soft, impressed, dubious all at once. He looked across the room at Joel, who had simply stopped where he was and appeared to be doing absolutely nothing.
“I think we’d better get a move on if we’re going to do it,” his tone started the first stirrings of alarm in Lavender. Harris was right; Joel was doing nothing overt, but there was something in his stance that spelled trouble ahead.
“You sure he’s a Thinker?”
“No,” Lavender asked honestly, “but there’s only one way to find out. Question is, how do we get him into a cage? He’s not going to just step into one,”
“Leave that to me,” Harris said confidently, “I just hope he’s still got enough brain power left for this to work,”
He was crossing the room before she could say a word.
She watched as he placed himself in front of Joel; saw the man lift his head in acknowledgement of his presence. Watched as, in one fluid flash of movement, Harris bunched his fist and punched Joel hard in the temple.
For a fraction of a second, she thought nothing would happen. Then Joel’s knees buckled and he folded in on himself, lying in a heap at Harris’ feet.
“Best get moving,” was all Harris said, crossing to the ropes still hanging where they had left them. He shimmied up one of them easily and disappeared across the gangway. She heard him straining with effort up above, heaving against a winch handle that might have rusted out of use for all she knew.
On the floor, Joel groaned softly.
“He’s waking up!” Lavender shouted up to Harris, “Hurry up!”
Harris didn’t waste breath or effort answering. She heard him straining against the handle again, then a hard expulsion of breath as the handle finally gave.
The chain supporting the cage slowly and noisily lowered its way to the ground. Lavender rushed to open the door, seeing Harris descend the rope at speed as she did. Between them, they manhandled the confused Joel into the cage. Lavender slammed the door shut, seeing at once what she had overlooked.
“Shit!” she cursed, “He can open this easily and get out anytime he wants! Damn!”
“Don’t panic, let’s just think about this,” Lavender wasn’t sure if the advice was meant for her, or if Harris was talking to himself.
“I’ve got it!” he said, “Wait a minute,”
“What is this? What are you doing?” Joel’s eyes had taken on a tinge Lavender did not like at all. The drool spilling down his chin was tinged red with blood, his cheeks blackening. He was attempting to rise.
Lavender looked from him to Harris, near ready to abandon her plan and simply take his head clean off there and then.
Again, Harris impressed her with his penchant for acting without preamble. He reached down, grabbed Joel by the scruff of his neck and aimed a second blow at his temple. This time, the man collapsed so completely she thought it was possible Harris had killed him.
Mindless Trilogy (Book 3): Brutal Truths Page 15
