They reached the desks where eager passengers would show their airline tickets. A giant ‘27’ flickered and jittered above the desk. The power was failing, and the timetable where flight numbers and destinations usually shone was nothing but a blank screen.
Blood stains splashed the counter, and a pen lay broken in a pool of dried blood. Behind the counter was an airport worker. She looked tired and dirty with blood, dust, and zombie flesh stuck to her crumpled uniform.
“Hang in there,” was all Captain Petrus could come up with as they passed by. He couldn’t bear to look at her in great detail. He knew that she would soon be dead from the falling glass.
The tarmac shimmered with the falling rain. The rain clouds were sparse along the horizon, showing the sun setting over the rest of airport. A palette of breathtaking colors greeted them. The orange hue mixed in with the pinkish haze and oncoming purple night sky. The night was coming fast, and that could mean trouble, especially with the limited electricity. Darkness could mean death.
Harrison and Captain Petrus stopped in awe at the setting sun. It was unreal that something so beautiful was unveiling itself while something so terrible was happening. The sun slipped behind the building so only a mixed flow of different colors stenciled the sky like a giant stained-glass window sparkling from within.
The captain sighed at the poetic colors, and it made him even sadder to see the sunset.
Harrison grunted. “Yes, some of the saddest things come from the most beautiful.”
Chapter Twelve
Harry pedaled faster than before, hoping and praying the long-handled spade would cause enough damage. The rough spike on the end glinted as the rain continued to drizzle. The sight of the weapon made Harry feel proud and powerful, like a cavalry soldier triumphantly riding into battle, confident and ready to win the fight before him.
“Eat this, motherfuckers!” he yelled as he struggled to control the bike one-handed. The rain was making the bike slip and slide as he cycled, but nothing was going to stop him.
Oliver watched as Harry charged at the zombie closest to him. The enemy was mere feet from the end of dangerous spike. He felt confident they would beat the zombies and rescue George quickly before his parents even noticed they were gone.
“Take that, ya fucking piece of shit!” He joined in yelling as the spike found its first fleshy victim.
A loud crunching noise came as the spike buried deep in the zombie’s chest. The force made Harry and his bike swerve and wobble out of control. Isabella flipped off the back, hurling a newspaper at the zombie as she went. The tired bike teetered and toppled, dumping Harry, the newspapers, and the spade on the wet pavement.
Harry rushed to his feet, his entire body aching from the fall. Blood gushed from an open wound in his knee. “Oh, shit no…” he moaned as he saw the spike poking out from the zombie. It had bent and snapped. “Fucking hell. It didn’t work,” Harry reluctantly admitted.
Oliver skidded to a halt next to them, looking at the broken shovel. The bent piece of metal was a sorry sight. “Well done. What now?” he spat, angry that the plan had not worked. There was still a long street brimming full of the enemy to get down.
“Look Oliver,” Harry was suddenly full of rage. He hadn’t meant to break the shovel, and Oliver had been fully supportive of the plan until it failed. “Don’t throw the blame at me, buster.” He shot the words at Oliver, not caring about the zombies coming towards them.
“Damn right it’s your fault!” Oliver screamed, kicking the useless metal away.
Harry picked up a soaking wet newspaper. The papers were dripping black ink and heavy. He threw the paper into the red milk crate. “No, this isn’t my fault!” Harry yelled back. “You were all for it until it bloody failed.” Harry was seething mad at Oliver. He didn’t know what to do about the rest of the zombies.
Oliver gestured down the road. “Well, smart ass, you should have thought about a silly bit of metal not being able to defeat a horde of FUCKING ZOMBIES.” His voice got louder as he spoke.
“BOYS.” Isabella was tired of hearing them argue. She’d finished picking up the wet newspapers and was balancing Harry’s old bike awkwardly. “We have to hurry; night is coming.” She knew the roads would be more dangerous at night. With the lack of electricity and the grey figures moving freely, it would be close to impossible to get around.
“Shut it,” Oliver spat. “It’s bad enough you want to bang him. Why don’t you prove yourself useful for once in your fucking life!”
“Don’t you dare talk to her like that!” Harry said, coming closer to Oliver. He was ready to beat the shit out of his friend.
Isabella sighed, stepping between the two boys. “It doesn’t matter right now!” she yelled over them. “This is about getting to George. The poor guy is stuck, and we still have to rescue him.” She paused, thankful the two boys had stopped yelling for a short time. “It’s getting dark, which will make this a suicide mission.”
Harry opened his mouth to yell anything that came to mind, but he immediately closed it. Isabella was right. The roads were dangerous in the daylight, but once it got dark, they would turn into a wet slaughterhouse. “She’s right, mate,” Harry mumbled, feeling a bit defeated.
“Fuck off. That still doesn’t fix the road ahead,” Oliver quietly spat. The argument had alerted the zombies, and they were getting even closer to the trio.
“Zombies come to the noise. Once they hear a human and single them out, they latch onto their smell,” Isabella said, flicking her soaking hair heavily over her shoulder. Water dribbled uncomfortably down her back. “If we’re quiet, we could make it, but I don’t know if that will work now.”
“It wouldn’t,” Oliver said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.
Harry thought about her ideas. The road was dangerous, and the odds were good that they wouldn’t make it to the other end alive, especially now that they’d drawn attention to themselves.
“We need to find another route, a less popular one,” Harry said, thinking of alleyways close by. He’d used back streets a lot to buy time when he had to go home, and he always found the longest route to go.
Oliver scoffed, looking down the street at the oncoming zombies. They were getting closer. “We gotta be quick, or we’ll be zombie food. They’re slow now, but if we run, so will they.” His voice was calmer than before. He was still angry about their failed plan, but he knew they had to get out of there as soon as possible.
“Follow me,” Harry said, swinging his leg over the bike. The wet newspaper added a lot of weight on the back of the bicycle. The wet road was not helping with the speed, but the added weight helped to stabilize the bike as he pedaled.
Oliver spun his bike around just as the zombies broke into a run and quickly closed in. He panicked as the first zombie brushed against his back tire. “Harry, we have to go now!” he yelled, pedaling faster to outrun the zombies behind him.
“Take this!” Isabella screamed into the rainy wind as she hurled a heavy ball of dripping newspaper at Oliver’s attacker.
The balled-up newspaper soared through the air. “Look up!” Oliver screamed, catching the zombies’ attention. One of the zombies gazed open-mouthed at Oliver as the soaking wet projectile struck the zombie’s skull, knocking the grey, lazy figure off balance and causing him to trip over his own feet.
Isabella cheered triumphantly as the zombie crumpled to the ground, allowing Oliver to pedal free of his attacker. Harry skidded around the corner, heading back towards the fading daylight. He knew of an alleyway that would lead them closer to the park.
Harry blinked the water out his eyes. “We’re nearly at the back road!” he told her. His eyes burned with the rain and wind blowing in his face.
Isabella struggled to hear Harry as he talked. “Is it safe?” she asked, hoping it was the right answer to whatever he had just said.
Harry was dying for a pair of goggles. It was as if a thousand knives were attacking only his eyes. He tried
to nod to tell Isabella it was all going to be okay, but it hurt more to move. His body still ached from the fall.
Harry pedaled slower, wondering how Oliver was coping in the rain but he knew that he would complain to no end about the hardships of cycling in the rain. Harry kept his head down as he slowed the bicycle to a stop. The rain was coming down heavier, making it more difficult to cycle. Oliver slushed through a puddle, and the water splashed up over his trouser legs and shoes as he pulled to a stop beside Harry and Isabella.
“Why have we stopped?” he asked, brushing the water from his face.
Harry pulled his long hair back. “Can you cycle in this?” he asked, trying to squeeze some of the water out of his mass of hair.
Oliver nodded. “Of course.”
Isabella rolled her eyes, knowing that Oliver was lying. “We have maybe two hours left of daylight,” she said, ignoring the other two. She didn’t want another bickering match. “We have to hurry.”
“Where are we going to put George once we rescue him?” The thought had only just come to Harry. He had Isabella on the back of his bike, and the thought of George and Oliver on the other bike was comical.
“I don’t have room,” Oliver said firmly. No matter what happened, he refused to the have the Walnut Whip king on the back of his bike.
Harry looked at Isabella. “I can’t take him, and I’m already overweight here as it is.”
“Doesn’t he have his own bike?” Isabella asked. The three of them each had newspaper routes, and George had a decent bike to use—or so she thought.
Harry remembered earlier that Sunday morning they had been delivering papers. It was hard to imagine that everything had happened in just the span of the day. “Yes, he does have a bike…” his voice trailed off.
Isabella knew Harry had more to say, but the rain was getting heavier, and the sky grew darker the more they talked. “I’m sensing a ‘but’ here,” she egged him on.
“But he might not have it,” Harry finished.
Oliver slowly nodded, not really following along with the conversation. They were still a fair distance from the park, and they had no set plan of how to defeat the zombies there, rescue George, and then get him safely back to his house.
“That doesn’t matter. The problem right now is how do you safely cycle in heavy, painful rain like this?” Isabella asked urgently. They needed to get back on the road as soon as possible.
Oliver shrugged. He had been thinking of the same thing. He couldn’t cycle with the rain and wind blowing so forcefully in his face. “I’ll put a bag over my head,” he said sarcastically.
Harry smirked. “Please do,” he said harsher than he’d intended to. Oliver shot him a disapproving look, and Harry fully smiled. “Just joking, mate.”
“Now is the time you magically produce some swimming goggles or something,” Oliver said, breathing out slowly. “You know, like in all those books or movies where they miraculously have everything, they need on them.”
Isabella giggled at Oliver’s desperation. “Sorry, Oliver. We gotta figure this one out for ourselves. There’s no author to write us out and no movie director to tell us what to do.”
“Back to the bag idea I suppose,” Harry said defeated. “Let’s go. We’re running out of sunlight.”
Soaking wet, tired, and aching all over, Harry led Oliver through the winding alleyways of the city. The darkened areas were usually home to at least one drug addict getting his fill of drugs.
The rain continued to fall heavily as they raced through the empty alley. Not a single human or zombie lingered in the overcast back street, and the thick foliage covered the alley, bringing on the darkness. Harry was eager to get out of the creepy walkway. He never liked using them, but they suited his purposes perfectly.
“There it is!” Isabella said, pointing ahead of them. “There’s the park!”
A tall fence enclosed the muddy fields, and a gate swung in the breeze, reflecting the grey clouds in its metal structure. Two tall zombies stood guard at the gate. Their high-visibility vests and long camouflage pants confused Harry as he pedaled closer.
Did they want to be seen or not? The figures were sluggish and swayed like tree branches in the downpour. Their arms showed stitched emblems of different army divisions. One of the zombies had just one stripe, and the other had three stitched perfectly on his sleeve.
The zombies were soldiers.
Harry shoved his foot down, stopping the bike uncomfortably. “Oh my God. Their soldiers!” he pointed at them, so the others could see.
“Great. Thanks, captain obvious!” Oliver said, groaning at another stop. The rain wasn’t letting up, and the three friends were soaked through to the bone. “So what?” he said, hoping to get quickly to the point.
Isabella looked from the zombies to the ground and back again. “I think I know what you mean.” She breathed quietly.
“Guns,” Harry simply said.
Oliver searched the ground and saw two rifles laying a few feet from the zombies. The rifles were soaked through and slightly bent, and the men had evidently left them when they turned from soldiers to zombies. He felt excitement and relief as he found the weapons, but he wasn’t sure if they would work in that condition.
Harry had a plan. “We need to distract the zombies to get the guns,” he said in a rush. “Isabella and I will handle that.”
“How?” Isabella asked, nervous about what she might have to do.
Harry pointed at the red milk crate full of the soggy newspapers.
“Newspapers.” Isabella beamed, just like old times.
Harry nodded, grinning back at Isabella. “Yep, newspapers.”
Oliver butted in urgently, “Okay, so newspapers. Then what?”
Harry cleared his throat, wiping his forehead in a vain attempt to keep his hair out of his eyes. “We’re going to make a hell of a lot of noise. Once we’ve distracted them, you grab the rifles. Simple enough?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Oliver muttered under his breath. Instead of voicing his concerns, he decided to go along with it. He certainly couldn’t think of anything better to do. “Let’s do it!” he said louder, forcing a smile onto his frightened face.
Harry kicked off the bicycle, propelling it into motion. “Hey! Yoohoo!” he began yelling as he zoomed past the zombie soldiers. His voice attracted their attention quickly. “Hey! Yeah, you zombies! Over here, suckers!” He pedaled faster. “Fresh human meat over this way!”
Isabella grabbed a fistful of soggy newspaper. The zombie soldiers were following them. They dragged their legs with slow, mechanical motions. “Come and catch us if you can!” she happily yelled.
Harry slammed on the brakes and sent the bike into a skidding turn, kicking up mud and pebbles as they rounded. He rushed past the slow-moving figures, yelling everything and anything he could possibly think of.
Isabella waited for the perfect time to throw the soggy paper. The bike brushed between the zombies. “Hey, zombies!” she yelled as she hurled the ball of wet newspaper at them. “Got something for you.” The ball soared through the air, landing at the zombies’ feet.
“Oh, we are the champions!” Harry sang as he turned the bike again, heading back towards the confused zombies.
“We didn’t hit them, Harry!” Isabella called back. The zombie soldiers stepped forward, crushing the newspaper into a large puddle underfoot.
Harry soared through the two zombies again, continuing to sing and ignoring Isabella’s comments.
Oliver could not believe what he was seeing. Harry and Isabella cycled in circles, distracting the zombies into walking slowly in a lopsided circle. He took his chance and ran quickly to the rifles; this was his time to shine. Oliver reached the guns just as he heard a strange noise coming from the bush.
“What the fuck?” Oliver said to the green leaves. He grabbed the rifles with haste before pedaling slowly over to the bush. It was making a soft sort of purring noise.
Oliver c
ould hear Harry singing as he circled back around. “We are the champions!” There was a tired pause. “Oliver, hurry the fuck up!” Harry screamed as his lungs burned.
Oliver snapped back to attention. He strapped the rifle to his chest and swung the other one over his shoulder before pedaling as fast as he could through the park gates. “Harry, I’m done! Come on!” he yelled back to his friend who was making yet another circle.
“We’re out of newspapers!” Isabella announced as they passed the gates.
Harry pulled the bike beside the bench where Oliver was shoving bullets into a magazine. All around them, the bushes growled and grunted. The occasional zombie dragged himself down the path. One unfortunate man was stranded in the middle of the pond, standing there without moving much at all.
“Where the hell is George?” Harry asked over the din of the rain. The grey clouds were getting darker and heavier.
Another bullet slid from Oliver’s wet hands and clattered to the pavement under their feet. “I don’t know. Why don’t you go look for him?” he said sharply. He was getting frustrated that bullets kept falling from his fingers.
“You shouldn’t even have a gun,” Isabella cautioned as another bullet fell to the ground. “It’s dangerous.”
Oliver shot her an angry look. “Then why the hell did we just go through all that? You know what? Okay fine. You defeat all these fucking zombies with only a stupid bunch of woodworking tools.”
“We’ll go look for George,” Harry said cautiously, walking away from Oliver and his rifles.
The bushes rustled as they made their way through the park. They tried to be extra careful not to make any noise. Harry pulled out his phone and saw that it was running low on battery power. He had to be careful how he used it. He couldn’t afford to be out in the darkening park with no cell phone.
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The park was large, and exploring every nook and cranny was going to take forever—time they did not have. The overcast clouds were getting darker as the daylight faded into the night.
Pandemic Z | Book 2 | Pandemic Z 2 Page 11
