by Chris Welsh
Chapter Twenty-Two. 06:50pm
WHAT NOW?
Susan got over her disgust and sipped at a steaming coffee, sat with her back against the counter. She talked quietly about our options.
"It's getting late, it's quiet and it's gone dark outside. It can't be long before someone on the other end, some family member of SOMEONE in the building, notices they haven't come home, right? So they'll report it, the police will find out no one has shown up where they're supposed to, and come looking."
"How will they get here?"
"If not aircraft then trucks along the back roads. It'd take a while but they'll arrive eventually. Might even use the train."
"Okay, so say there's even anyone left to notice people are missing - bearing in mind we have no idea what's going on, or if it affects anywhere other than this building...What if they don't notice? Even if they did, how would they know where we work?" I said.
"What do you mean?" Susan asked.
I gave them a second to cotton on, but neither did.
"The confidentiality clause in our contracts. Non-disclosure thing. No? I had to sign this gigantic tome of a document before I started, saying I wouldn't reveal my role or the location. Didn't you?"
"I don't think so," said Stuart with a bit of an incredulous chuckle. Susan looked just as nonplussed.
"I don't remember anything like that," she said. "If I did sign it, I definitely didn't read it."
"Oh. Yeah, it was all over the papers I signed. Tim would have probably known, working in the HR office and all...shame he died. Well, anyway. I can't think of anyone on my end who'd report me missing even if they knew where I worked," I said. "My house-mate might notice I'm not there but all he'll do is have sex with his girlfriend in the living room because he can. Probably on my bed too. They bang like rabbits. Another day or two will pass before he wonders where I've gotten to."
"Same here," Stuart said. "I work nights sometimes without telling anyone, if Brian offers me a double shift late in the day. It'll be a while before my partner thinks anything is off."
Susan's face lit up like festive lights. "Partner?!" she said. "I had no idea! What's his name, what's he like?"
"Oh, didn't you know? Yeah, his name is Stuart too, and he's great."
"Doesn't that get confusing?" Susan asked. "What do you call each other?"
Stuart hesitated, picking his words. "Well, no, we call each other Stuart."
"Oh. Right. Yes. What does he do?"
That question, the one everyone hates but asks anyway.
"Works in this Americana diner-cum-restaurant in town, serves burger and fries and shakes, that sort of thing, and..."
"Please," I stopped him. "Don't say the B word. I can't think about them."
Burgers. My everlasting love; a burning desire not even three bags of steaky potato slices extinguished. I wished they were burgers. A gently toasted bun with at least two meaty patties, a slice of cheese as thick as a bible and perhaps a rasher or two of bacon, garnished with a dollop of red sauce.
Susan informed me I was drooling.
The thought preoccupied me so much I missed my chance to make a crack about Stuart saying 'cum-restaurant'.
"Sorry," Stuart said, apologising for mentioning the hallowed food of Gods. "Try this." He proffered a napkin and a sandwich; this one identified as 'BEEF' but again looked like a green-filled monstrosity.
"This is the worst sandwich I've ever seen. You mention the food of kings and hand me this? I should put a horses head in your bed for the disrespect. People exchanged actual money for this? That poor cashier girl must have spent the day taking shit from enraged customers about the state of these things."
"They're gourmet, they're supposed to be healthy," said Susan.
"Is that what gourmet means? I thought it meant like...'good'."
"I think it means small and overpriced," Stuart said.
"Then this sandwich is, I concede, gourmet."
I munched on another bite, plucked a soggy lettuce leaf from my mouth and tossed the whole disastrous thing toward the 'TRASH' chute. "This is the worst day of my life. I hate, well, hated, my job. I hate that I work here and I hate that 'here' is full of dickhead zombies. And I hate that I can't get home or eat a burger."
"We are truly having a shit day. I quite enjoyed my job though, before all of this, obviously. Not the worst place I've worked. I like walking around the building, enforcing security on everyone. I'm built like an underfed schoolboy but everyone treats me with a teeny bit of fear. Which is nice. I like to make people think I know they're up to something, even though they probably aren't and I don't really care."
"That's good of you, you shady git," I said. "Where's the worst place you've worked then?"
"Well, I worked in a sex shop."
"Ha! Yeah?"
"Indeed. A proper back-alley one too, not one of the high street ones that shills lacy lingerie and erotic novels. I made my money selling hard-copy porn to internet-shy old timers. And dildos. So many dildos."
His eyes took on a faint, haunted glaze, as if ghosts of rubber cocks danced in a dimension only he tuned in to.
"Is that what made it such a terrible job? Dirty old people and fake penises?"
"Not by a long shot. Well yes, but they weren't the worst things. It was the other staff, creepy as hell. I worked there for the money and quiet shifts. It never got 'busy', you know? There just aren't that many people wanting to buy filth over a counter these days. But the other guys...well, they were there because they loved porn; selling porn, watching porn, being near porn. Reaching out an arm and touching something wretchedly filthy really instilled job satisfaction. One of them called himself an EXPERT in cock rings. Can you imagine?"
I shook my head. I couldn't imagine, though I did wonder how many different types there could possibly be. If there were only, say, five different types, then becoming an expert probably took half a day.
"I've got a story about them actually, if you want it."
"Involving the cock-ring guy? I'm not sure I do."
"I do. Carry on unabated, my friend," I said.
"Yeah, him. Hated working near him, always thought I heard 'vibrating'. The other guy used to stare at me sometimes, for a second or two longer than normal. Urgh. Anyways, okay, we used to get these sex dolls in from China or somewhere. Real enough to bang, I guess, if you're into that sort-of thing, but still... intensely weird items. I couldn't look at their eyes or anywhere else. Creepy, altogether too life-like. We'd get two a month in. They were expensive so they didn't sell well, but people still bought 'em on occasion. Well this one time, a customer brought one back.
"How do you return a fuck doll?" I asked, laughing.
"As a rule, you don't. Highly unprecedented. He came in carrying this nude approximation of a lady under his arm, her squidgy tits unsheathed, demanding the store manager. I was the only one in so I called my boss and waited half an hour for him to show up, all while making small talk with this irate doll-fucker. The thing, he reckoned, was second hand. He said it had been used before and he was furious. He'd found a pube or something, like, up inside of it, then he showed me his hairless pubic area. He just kept shouting 'How'd it get up there?!'"
"...how did it get up there?" I asked.
"Well, my manager knew it didn't belong to me for, well, for obvious reasons, but he suspected one of the other guys might have been sampling the goods, as it were."
"Sampling the goods?" Susan asked. She hadn't twitched a single muscle in minutes, completely enraptured by Stuart's sordid tale.
"He means one of the creepy blokes had been porking the doll's rubber vag before it sold."
"Oh. Ew."
Stuart nodded.
"Yup. So he refunds the guy and offers to replace the doll, free of charge. Nice of him. Customer strolls out happy, asking me to personally call him when the doll arrives. My boss orders two more from the suppliers, but to his home address this time. He takes the returned one and puts it back
on the shelf in the back room. But before he does, he puts an eggcup-full of this glow..."
"Why an eggcup?" asked Susan.
"What?"
"Odd turn of phrase. An 'eggcup' full of something."
"He literally scooped it from the jar with an eggcup. Anyway, he puts this glow-in-the-dark lube stuff up inside of it. And he books us all in for a Saturday shift, 9-6, all three of us. He works it so we're all alone in the storeroom for at least an hour each, stacking shelves or doing inventory. At the end of the shift he calls us all into his office and locks the door. He makes us all drop our pants. Me too, so it didn't seem weird."
"Yes, that makes it perfectly normal," I said.
"Well, if he hadn't the others might have gotten suspicious. I guess they were already suspicious, but you know, they were seedy as fuck. Dropping trou probably didn't strike them as a big deal. So we're there, my boss staring at our dangling cocks, me and my two despicable co-workers...then he flicks out the light. I look left and see two glowing, shining members. They'd been fucking the same fake girl. Neither knew. They argued as they yanked up their pants, which turned into a fistfight until my boss pulled a gun out of his desk drawer. Then he gave them their marching orders, sacked them both on the spot. One guy snatched an armful of hentai on his way out."
"Your boss had a gun?!"
"Yep. It was a sketchy wank emporium, people tried to rob the place every couple of months. We had a bat behind the counter with nails in it. Covered in bloodstains, too."
"Did you work there much longer?"
"Not even another hour. My phone rang as I walked home from the illuminated knobs incident; it was a HR bod offering me this job. I gladly accepted, started the following Monday."
"At least there were no zombies there."
"I would have traded either of those people for one zombie. I'd have to move around the shop a lot, but at least I'd know why they were staring at me with hungry eyes. Speaking of, hand me one of those chocolate bars."
Before I got it out of the box we were on our feet and moving.
Unexpected sounds from outside snapped Susan out of her story-induced funk; she shot up like a firework, hurriedly slipping her shoes.
"Whawasthat?" Stuart said, following her through the swinging door.
Some piece of machinery was up to something. A mechanical, grinding 'WHIRR' filled every centimetre of silence. Floodlights clunked on near the gardens, the glow visible through the glass, helping to locate the source. The former humans in the foyer hardly reacted to the excitement outside. The ones that did only shuffled to aim their faces idly at the noise; from the mezzanine, at the crest of the stairs, I saw one tilt to look at the lights and topple, it'd forgotten its feet moved. It wriggled in an effort to get back up, before succumbing, accepting a new life down on the ground.
"Should we go see what that is, then?" Susan said, calm in her voice but panic escaping through her wavering, unsteady arms. She headed off with Stuart, putting me at the rear of our three-pronged pack. Navigating through the disinterested zombies a second time was simple and a little sad. I felt like a troll at a singles night, completely ignored on a flesh-filled dance floor; except there was no music and, earlier in the day, my fellow dancers wanted to eat me. The threat of attack lingered but the fear had slunk away, crushed under the crisps and chocolate.
Outside, a circus had arrived.
The out-building lit up like an overly decorated Christmas tree with swirling lights blasting strong beams, lining the roof and brightening the area better than daylight. The boxy, metal structure was trapped in a cocoon of effervescent activity. The roof folded like a ring-pulled lid on a tuna can, powered by some hydraulic engine which was even louder outside than in.
"I'd like to state, for the record, that I have absolutely no idea what's going on," I said, mirroring the zombies with a dazed stupor. A few basked in the light like disciples; one had its arms raised up, leaning forward, arching its back and grasping empty air, meaning it'd soon be face down with a mouthful of gravel.
The roof created a deafening, bass-heavy clang as it came to rest, fully folded, overlapping the edge of the building. A tower of light radiated from the opening. When the motorised din ceased, we waited patiently in silence with only the chilling wind and a smattering of reanimated dead for company.
"I know what you said, but if you feel like hazarding a guess, go nuts," Susan said, keeping her voice low.
"If this was Thunderbirds, a rocket would shoot out of there any moment, sound-tracked by a triumphant, orchestral score. We'd be caught in the flaming blast of the engines and die, but it would look really awesome right up until it fried us."
I felt upbeat.
"If this was Thunderbirds, these zombies would all be puppets and we'd see a big bloke standing over the horizon messing with strings. Rockets don't blast out of the ground in real life, Wes, as much as you might want them to," said Stuart.
"I just think it would look pretty cool, is all."
"I'm not so sure," Susan said, cautiously retreating through the foyer doors, crushing pieces of glass under her filthy, blood-sodden shoes; the fact they were still recognisable as footwear was a testament to wherever the hell she got them from.
She mentioned another sound coming from some distant and unseen place. Another piece of machinery warming up. I was tiring of such sounds, to be honest. They started as ominous but devolved to humdrum, cheap, and too familiar. I'd soon be capable of identifying every different 'machine powering up' sound anyone could toss at me. We marched through the smashed entrance and paused in the limbo between the sets of doors, zombies behind us and the unknown in front.
"You hear that, right?" Susan asked.
"Might be a rocket," I said.
"It isn't a rocket, Wes."
"I think it...I think it's a helicopter. Sounds like spinning blades. Fut fut fut fut fut, getting faster, futfutfutfut," Susan said, mimicking the din. Sadly she didn't stick her arms out and spin, completing the impression.
We fell back to silence, calibrating our ears to locate the noise, when a crunch of glass swiftly localised our attention, reeling it in. I turned to greet a dead-head two feet away. It had no arms.
Stuart let out a surprised cry and lashed a kick to the monster's midriff, making it stumble back. "Where did this prick come from?!"
"No idea!"
It was a mystery; I hadn't seen any armless zombies. No others showed as much interest in us as this one did. I'd have remembered such a beast because I wouldn't resist saying it was 'armless', in a hilarious play-on-words.
Now that it was so close, it was anything but... it moved with purpose, biting air like a baby waiting for a spoon of flavoursome mush. Long, rotted teeth jutted out from greying gums mounted on a sturdy, snapping jaw. Teeth marks dug into its forehead and a big chunk of hair had been torn out. Dry threads of blood lined its pale face, giving it the duelling tones of a macabre Zebra.
The gaunt thinness of its cheeks and its wrinkled, peeled lips obscured and twisted the guy's true face, but I recognised the eyes from somewhere. I knew the guy's name but couldn't recall it; the information camped on my tongue and refused to budge. The pass dangling around its neck on a grubby Tall Trees lanyard had worn down through overuse, obscuring the inch-high picture of what the ruined face once looked like. It still wore a tie and a fancy suit jacket that matched the colour of the pants, making it a very well dressed and fashionable zombie, even if everything usually attached at the shoulders, flesh and clothing included, was missing. I felt certain that, if it had the appropriate appendage, it would wear a very nice wristwatch and have finely manicured fingertips.
Stuart repeatedly kicked it in the face.
"Burst, you bastard!" the little man screamed, shovelling attacks on to the doddering thing's head. We knew from experience that one quick stomp flat-lined the freshest of creatures but this one boasted an apparently iron skull, resisting any pressure or force used against it. Even Stuart's previously eff
ective 'boot to the face' technique failed.
We quickly learned that a zombie can't be knocked out; at least, not this one. Try as we might, it clung hopelessly to consciousness and stuck around after every hit. The best Stuart managed to give it after a short but sustained volley of volleys was a wonky nose and minor damage to the exposed teeth.
"Leave it!" Susan said, pulling Stuart's arm. "It has no fucking arms! What do you think it's going to do? Do the worm after us? Move!"
She was right, of course, but we had lost Stuart to a dream world of determination. His eyes narrowed and he barely acknowledged her words. The instant as she released him he snatched a sizeable shard from the floor, an acute triangle of glass, and embedded it deep into the creature's throat. A potent brown fluid leaked from the corners of its gargling mouth, but otherwise it didn't notice the neck laceration any more than I might notice a feather brush my leg. Stuart shoved a second icicle-shaped shard into the persistent bastard's mouth, clacking it against its remaining teeth. This caused the creature some discomfort. He dragged it out, missing its point and dripping with foul porridge, and stuck it in the left eye. There was a pop, a squelch, and it gave up all movement.
"Wait! I know! He's my boss's boss!" I said, elated at the memory. It flooded back to me as the zombified fight drained from its eyes, taking on the weary, uninterested glaze of most middle managers. I'd met him only twice, the second time in a disciplinary meeting about something or other.
"Bitch!" said Stuart with a surprising gruffness, collapsing to the floor and leaving his makeshift stabber stuck deep in his opponent's face. He examined the fresh slices on his hand and said "Owwww, it stings!"
Two straight lines seeped with blood; not deep enough to kill him but probably enough to require basic medical attention. The cuts in his skin separated like two pairs of lips when he flexed his fingers.
In a bold move, Susan tore some lining from underneath her skirt and grabbed ruthlessly at his wrist. She tied the cotton material tightly around his hand, where it did a minimal job of soaking up the blood. Scorn furrowed her brow, the look of an irritated mother dealing with a rascally child.
"I told you. Tried to stop you. But would you bloody listen? No, you wouldn't. Look what you've gone and done."
"Sorry," he said, dejectedly rising to his feet. The cuts remained the sole focus of his attention as he fiddled with the damp shred of skirt. In the meantime, the foyer zombies became a concern, more animated than previously as if the scent of real human blood in the air gave them hunger boners which they intended to sate. Well, most of them anyway. Some still tottered side to side, staring vapidly into oblivion with the mild disinterest usually spent on daytime TV.
"The sound is louder now. I think it's definitely a helicopter. I can hear the blades spinning."
Susan was right. 'Fut fut fut fut', as she put it, but faster, almost a constant thrum. Yet we saw no helicopter on the horizon or indeed anywhere else. The building remained lit up and creased in half, but we were still none the wiser as to its intentions. Several zombies crossed the smashed glass, forcing us further from the doorway and down the entrance stairs. In that bewildering moment with the mysterious sound, the rock-headed zombie and the glowing light-show, I felt no inclination to fend off advances of more abominations. It was easier to walk away, to observe.
I wanted to find this fucking chopper.
Stuart led Susan away from the building as she scoured the darkened skies for any sign of a flying vehicle. The horribly implacable noises tormented my ears, coming from all directions and ricocheted mischievously off the tall office block.
One pursuing zombie tripped whilst navigating the first sheer step and landed with a volatile splash. The second one slipped on the slimy innards of the first, snapping a foot clean off at the ankle and shattering the bones in its forearms upon landing. White segments jutted through the skin and its left arm crumpled, giving it the look of a second elbow. It didn't seem too distressed.
"Back to normal then?"
I might have gotten a reaction were it not for the sudden appearance of the object we eagerly searched for. Though really it shouldn't have been any great surprise; it burst from the newly-ventilated roof and hovered twenty feet in the air like a sinister wasp buzzing around a pint of fruity cider.
Not much wider than a set of burly shoulders, with stumpy blades and no doors on either side. Two parallel rails served as landing feet off which a pair of white-suited Nelsons dangled and fought for purchase. One lost the battle and fell, breaking up like a meteor before it landed. The other either had more determination or better grip, until a solid kick from a shoeless foot sent it crashing to the ground where it turned into pâté.
A third clone clung to the thin tail on the backside of the machine, which ended in a smaller set of machete-like blades. His arms and legs wrapped tightly around it as if shuffling along a rope threaded across a yawning, rock-filled ravine. The helicopter tilted backwards, expertly controlled, until its nose pointed at the stars. We watched in abhorrence as the unsteady Nelsonite slid achingly to his whirling, bladed doom. Gravity didn't take long to claim victory. A rain of red accompanied the grinding meat, before the chunks rained down like hail and the helicopter levelled out.
The raggedy remains, split into halves, dropped.
"Where's the real Nelson?" Stuart said.
"Might have been that one for all we know, the poor mite..." Susan said.
The chopper sat in the sky for a few seconds, bobbing on the breeze. It was tiny, a wonder of engineering, but apparently tough to keep stable, even if the person helming it was skilled enough to manoeuvre in such a way that caused the death of three men. I'd witnessed bigger flying machines hover with ease as if gravity was their loyal bitch, but this one was a slave to the weakest gust; something the pilot constantly corrected for.
The pilot, to the surprise of no one, was Nelson's beloved mother. She popped her fat head out the side and stared us down with a wry smile on her blemish-ridden face.
"__________________________," she said, triumphantly.
We exchanged glances. The thudding machinery that encased her drowned every noise but its own.
"What?" Stuart screamed back, cupping his hands into a fleshy megaphone. His tie repeatedly slapped him in the face. Bits of gravel crawled like rampaging insects under the force of the mischievous blades. A zombie caught in the whirlwind acted thoroughly confused and unhappy about its location. After some thrashing around against the surge, all jerky movements and uncomfortable muscle twitches, it fell to the ground in limp defeat.
"__________________________!"
She had murderous eyes and frothed at the mouth in a rabid tirade, complete with furious fist waving. And pointing, lots of pointing, accusing us of something.
Stuart kept trying to communicate until Susan placed a hand on his shoulder, met his eyes and shook her head. I gave the lady in the helicopter an exaggerated comedy shrug with down-turned lips, hoping to convey the fact that shouting beneath such a cacophony was utterly, incredibly pointless. With an incensed scream of anguish (I think...I can't say for certain since I didn't hear a thing) she gave up talking and whipped a handgun from between her legs. For some reason, she was resting a handgun there. The one place I wouldn't put a gun even if you paid me a lot of money.
"____!" she yelled as she lined up her first shot. I took to running, zig-zag formation, across to the lit building she'd spouted from. Susan followed a yard or two behind me but Stuart apparently hadn't gotten the memo about running from guns and stood panicking in no-man's land. The first bullet missed but not by much. A handful of stones spat up from the impact and snapped him out of his frozen state. He ran back to the main building, sprinting like a gazelle as three bullets burrowed into the ground.
I didn't dare take a breath until I saw him safe inside. Another shot shattered one of the remaining panes of glass from the front of the building. He hovered near the door for a few seconds, peering out, and then vanish
ed into the dark guts of the foyer.
The chopper turned slightly, dancing on the wind, aiming its nose at the corner where Susan and I cowered. It stayed there momentarily, lit by the glow of the floodlights. She searched for us. A lamp on its nose burst into life, shining a bright beam down at the floor. The circle of light scanned the ground and dove inquisitively into shadows.
"What are we going to do?" Susan asked, pulling me back from the corner and trying to sink into the metal wall. We were in a wide alley between two identical buildings, beneath crazily bright lights, feeling vulnerable.
"The other building, quick! Go!"
We moved fast, diving behind the next green-metal construction that had no lights. I thought we made it safely until a bullet struck the wall in front of us. It was the tall outer wall that surrounded the whole place, too high to climb and topped with barbed wire anyway.
"Keep running!" I said. And we did. Moving from the second unit to an identical third, skidding on the loose gravel. The chopper stayed overhead firing the occasional gunshot, but her attention had apparently wavered. Another piece of glass smashed somewhere on the building.
"What's going on? Why does she have a personal helicopter?!" Susan asked, demanding answers I couldn't provide.
"It's probably a pre-requisite for the average mad-scientist. Underground lab, henchmen, ghoulish facial features, mental transport. I don't know!"
Susan rounded the corner of the building, after checking it was safe, and inspected a door. "Same as the one Nelson opened! Keypad thing!"
I asked if she knew Nelson's date of birth, the code he'd used earlier.
"No, of course I bloody don't! I wasn't paying attention to his fingers, he punched it in and it opened."
"It was the year, wasn't it? How old is he? 30-odd?"
"At least."
"Try a few! Start with 1984 and work backwards."
She did. It beeped with each pressed then gave us the same caustic error as the lift. 'KKRRN'. No luck.
The spotlight drifted near the edge of the metal structure.
"Hide!" I whispered.
We returned to the shadowy gap near the wall, desperate to avoid the mad, gun-toting madre. We heard a boom from very close by and felt the corrugated wall vibrate. At first I thought it was a bullet, but it was too toll-like, too resounding. Then there was another bang, and another, and eventually a tortured scraping followed by a heavy grunt.
Around the corner I saw the door agape, slowly closing over under its own weight, digging through the gravel. I stared until it was almost back in the frame and saw another clone jogging alongside the container, huffing for breath. He wore the white plastic suit without the head-covering helmet and carried a long black bag with a wide strap hooked over one shoulder.
I followed it quietly, indicating that Susan needed to stay where she was by crouching and showing her my sweating palms.
I fully intended on taking the Nelson down, right up until he reached the end of the building, dropped the bag, and casually whipped out an assault rifle as if he was pulling change from his pocket. The bag's open zip revealed an arsenal of similar guns, a sight which sent me scurrying back to Susan, all the while expecting a flurry of bullets to poke holes in me.
"Bastard clones have armed themselves! Not shitty stun sticks, either. One there has ten big, fuck-off rifles."
My swearing increases when I'm terrified.
"Sure it's a clone?" she asked.
"Looks like Nelson, is wearing a suit, is carrying a weapon. Yeah, I'm fairly sure."
I ducked involuntarily when the bullets started flying; each burst tore filthy great holes in the evening air. Automatic gunfire is, it turns out, pants-wettingly petrifying when up close. Stream after stream of bullets sprayed at a target we couldn't see. I avoided thoughts of Stuart all alone, dodging gunfire.
Susan did no such thing.
"Stuart!" she screamed, barging past and charging to the end of the building. The Nelson stationed there had stepped away from the bag, firing away at something. The odd bullet from someone's return fire smashed near the feet of the foolhardy copy. With almost no regard for their own safety, I briefly wondered how effective the clones would prove in any real war-zone.
Susan was almost at the bag when the impotent click of the clone's gun indicated a spent clip and he turned to rush back for a reload.
"Susan!" he said, as she lifted a gun of her own and pointed it, sort of, at his face. Her aim wavered all over the place, from side to side, but only upon hearing her name did she decide to not pull the trigger.
"Nelson?!" she said instead, lowering the weapon slightly.
"Where the fucks have you been?" I said.
"No time! Shoot the bloody thing down!"
"Shoot your mum?"
"Yes!"
Okay then.
