Deadfall a zombie apocal.., p.10
Deadfall: A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller, page 10
A rush of footsteps from the stairwell proceeded a man appearing in the hallway. “Boss? We got a problem. There are more of those things than we can deal with. They’re everywhere! And more coming in this direction!”
Swanson looked down. “Look’s like we’re going to have to move, after all. Tell Mike to tell everyone to pack up their shit, we’re...”
He followed Mathew’s gaze to the window. Both men seeing one hand, then another, then a head covered with mottled hair, appearing within the broken window frame. “What the—”
His words were lost in the ear shattering boom from his gun. A bullet tore through the shoulder of the thing that had jumped into the room and drove towards him, pushing him against the door.
Mathew didn’t hesitate and ran from the room, Joe with him, both running past Swanson’s man who went to try and help his boss. They kept going into the stairwell. Shouts echoed and muffled pops filled the air as they descended. They quickly arrived on the ground floor, then bundled through the door into a cacophony of noise. Groans came from the injured on the floor, others, those at the grand entrance were fighting against the incessant horde that were trying to gain entry.
Joe flicked his attention in the opposite direction, towards the door marked with kitchen. “This way.”
They swiftly moved into the confined space of countertops and appliances. Joe pulled one then two drawers open while the ruckus continued out the front of the building. Finding what he was looking for, he pulled the long pair of scissors free. “Here, take these, cut the cords.” He turned around as Mathew did so, then he doing the same for him.
Mathew looked at the large window with bars. “There’s no way out!”
Joe looked at another door. “Let’s try the basement.”
“Are you nuts?”
Joe pulled the door open, looking into the dark space. “Trust me. These old places usually have a way out through the basement.” He descended into the darkness, Mathew close behind.
The heavy item in Mathew’s pocket banged against his thigh. “Oh, yeah. I got something you might want…”
They got to the bottom, immediately spotted the gate, and streetlight outside illuminating the stone steps.
“What?” said Joe, moving to the gate and moving the latch across. “This should take us to the rear of the building.”
“This…”
Joe turned around to Mathew holding the weapon by the barrel, then took it from him. “Where you get that?”
“One of the dead.”
Joe slid it behind his belt, at the back of his trousers then moved outside, peering up at the looming walls of the alley they were within, with only the slightest of light to see with. “Looks like some kind of yard that runs behind the old buildings.” He stretched his hands out ahead to avoid colliding with anything head on.
His fingers felt a rough wooden fence. Tracing the planks to the top, he jumped up then over, helping Mathew do the same. This area appeared spacier, cleaner. They moved across slabs, towards where the night sky reflected off large glass windows. Using the butt of the gun, Joe smashed the glass, the sound being easily masked behind the mayhem happening in the street. Knocking the loose pieces away, they moved inside to a large kitchen. Mathew grabbed a knife from a rack as they made their way into the hallway, where Joe pulled the front door open. A flood of shadowy forms streamed past.
Joe quickly pushed the door almost closed. “We wait for a gap, then we run out. Be ready.”
“I am! We need to head west to my mate’s.”
“I know.” Joe opened the door a small amount, allowing a better view of the street. To his left, large trees sat at the edge of a small park, to his right more elegant three-story buildings. Another group of the undead staggered past. “Now.”
They ran down the stone steps and—
Mathew clipped one of the things they had missed. He and it, a large decaying man, clattered to the pavement. The thing lunged for his outstretched leg, grabbing and digging nails into his calf making him scream out in pain. One of his hands searched for the knife, the other pushing out as decomposing appendages then torso bore down on him.
Joe stormed forward, swinging his boot into the things already ruined features where it met with a thud. Rather than knocking it clear, the thing arched its head backwards, opening a mouth of cracked broken teeth with a clear intent of what it was meaning to do with Mathew’s leg. Before its jaw got any lower the back of its head rained down on the paving slabs.
Mathew looked in shock at the gun in Joe’s hand, then scrambled to his feet. “Thank you, thank—”
Joe felt the wash of air but was too late to stop the shovel meet the side of Mathew’s head with a loud clunk. He collapsed as Joe swung the gun around, but that too met with the end of the shovel, dropping and skidding across the concrete of the road. The next upward thrust almost caught Joe clear in the throat but he pulled away just in time, then struck his fist into Swanson’s second in command’s stomach. The larger man staggered back winded, but before Joe could approach he coughed then laughed, standing upright, holding his own weapon.
“You can hit, I’ll give you that much,” said Mike. “The boss wants you alive. Think’s you know where guns are, but you and I know it’s all bull—”
The explosion of noise split the air. Both Joe and the Mike looked down, but it was Swanson’s man that saw the crimson hole in his shirt, directly in the center of his chest. He looked up, his face one of shock. Blood started to pour from his mouth and he slumped against the wall, then to the ground, his eyes fully open but unmoving.
Joe turned around.
Mathew lay in the middle of the road, blood dripping down the side of his face, the gun held in both hands, still aimed at the fallen attacker.
Joe ran to him. “It’s okay. He’s dead.”
Mathew looked up, blinking as if waking from a dream. “I… killed him.”
Joe carefully took the weapon. “You saved us. Now we need to—”
A shout from a man they both hated echoed around the Georgian buildings. They looked down the street to the far end, where it curved away from the park. Swanson was visible beneath a streetlight. Others soon arrived next to him, then began running towards them.
Instinctively Joe fired another shot, causing them to scatter. He whipped around to Mathew, taking his arm. “We gotta go!”
A bullet pinged off the concrete next to him, which appeared to snap Mathew out of whatever daze he was in. They both staggered across the street, diving behind a car. The windscreen shattered. Joe looked out from behind it. Three figures danced from one vehicle to another. “We can’t stay here. We…”
Mathew’s tapping on his shoulder, made him swing around. The undead, a wall of them so thick that it was hard to see the street beyond, were almost at them.
Joe grabbed the handle of the rear door, pulled it open and bundled Mathew inside, he following, pulling the door closed as limbs scratched and buffeted the dark coloured sedan, rocking it from side to side.
More gunfire crackled amongst the shuffling of hundreds of feet and shoes.
Joe waited for the slightest of gaps, then pushed open the door as the horde continued down the street, swamping any attempt to fight it.
“Now! We gotta make a break for it!”
A groggy reply came from Mathew and they ran from the car and into the darkness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ELLA
“Look to your left,” said the woman in the army clothes.
Ella wanted to do anything but. Her eyes were almost too heavy to move in any direction, but the nurse was the only one they had seen since they arrived, six hours earlier so she was going to do whatever the young woman asked.
“Now, right.”
Ella’s neck was stiff. She had to sit awkwardly on the train, due to the luggage and arms of people resting just above her, and she wanted to make sure Tia had enough space. Now, she was sat on a single bed, the kind usually reserved for prisoners, being just a metal grid covered in a paper thin mattress, but she was grateful for it.
“And can you open your mouth and stick your tongue out.”
Tia would have laughed if she had been awake. Ella did as requested and the woman stepped back. “Good. You seem fine.”
The nurse looked at the sleeping child. “Has she complained of a sore throat or aching joints?”
“No, just very tired.”
The nurse frowned. “If she starts to, tell one of the guards.”
“Of course.” The young woman began to walk a few feet to the next bed. “Um…”
“Yes?”
Ella slowly got up, the effort causing some complaining from her knees and walked closer to the nurse. She knew she was being watched by at least six occupants from the surrounding beds in the huge warehouse, but didn’t care. “I tried asking the soldiers earlier, but is there any way to use a landline phone?” She held up her own mobile phone. “This doesn’t—”
A middle-aged man, sitting on a bed to the left, with what Ella presumed was his wife, snorted.
The nurse shook her head. “Not my department.”
Ella opened her mouth to ask another question but the woman made it obvious she had had her allowed time, and was now solely focusing on the bed to the right, where a family of three were waiting.
Ella looked out over the expanse of beds and people. She had no idea how many there were, but a quick calculation gave her a figure of four hundred beds, and each one had at least two people, so perhaps a thousand people were stacked inside. They were the lucky ones. The building was one of a complex of many others, which in a former life had been a distribution center for a famous online retailer. Some of the shelves still sat at the edge of the cavernous space, now being used as rooms for men and women in military garb who sat at desks.
“You might as well throw that phone away.”
Ella turned around to the portly man. The similarly aged woman by his side looked away, not wanting to engage in conversation.
Ella carefully sat back down on the bed, not wanting to wake her granddaughter. She looked at the man. “It might start working again,” she whispered.
“Ha. This is all part of the plan. We’ll never have mobile phones ever again.”
The woman frowned. “Leave it, Jed.”
“People should know! They should know what’s coming!”
Ella turned away, placing her feet on the bed and laid back. Sleep came quickly.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LIZ
“Tia!”
Liz opened her eyes to shadows moving on the ceiling. At first she thought it was a car’s headlights, and she was laying in her own bed. But then the burning in her calf made itself known and with the pain came flashes of demonic faces containing sharp teeth that bit into her. She looked down at her torn jeans and the heavy bandage around her lower leg. On the floor was a blanket which she had thrown off, near a half empty glass of water and a packet of painkillers, two of which had surprisingly worked. Earlier she had felt as if her leg was going to come apart, the ripped muscle detaching from the surrounding tissue, but maybe the quick sleep had given her body time to heal. It still hurt, but she could tolerate it.
Using the glow from the streetlight, she looked around the room. It was smart with not much in the way of clutter. A few books could just be made out on a bookshelf. No photos. Maybe it was a painful reminder of James’ past, she thought. There was an impressive axe, mounted above the old fireplace. In the half-light, it almost looked like a prop from a film, too ornate to be real.
She looked at the tall window and the curtain across most of it, with enough gap to allow the street light to seep through onto the ceiling and wall. Within the slither of illumination were the occasional dark forms that passed through. She knew they were the things, staggering aimlessly. The dead…
She shook her head. She still couldn’t believe it. She flat refused to. That would mean the world, her life, had become a TV show. A horror fantasy made up in a writers’ room. And if that was the reality she was currently living in, it meant her daughter, mother and husband were caught up in it. Somewhere out there in the darkness, with her laying injured on some stranger’s sofa.
She squeezed a cushion that was on her chest in frustration, then threw it across the room where it hit the small bookshelf, knocking one of the books to the floor. She swore, letting her head briefly fall back to the pillow, then let out a breath and looked back at her bandaged leg. She knew she should rest. A thing… a person, dead or otherwise, had bitten into her calf. And done who knows what damage, but she also knew being immobile wasn’t really an option with how things were.
Very slowly she pulled her good leg in, then using it as leverage pivoted to her right, placing the foot of her other leg on the floor, where immediately she felt… a tinge of pain. She was confused. She looked at the silver sleeve of painkillers with two holes of missing pills. Maybe they were more powerful than she thought they were.
She lifted the damaged leg and wiggled her foot. The muscles of her calf tensed with only a subtle ache moving up her thigh. She wondered if she dared make an effort to stand. She moved her legs beneath her, sitting up, then using her hands and putting most weight on her good leg, stood. A rush of blood made her wobble a little, but she remained upright, then fearing the worst, she put her other foot down, letting the weight cascade through her ankle, then calf…
There was a pinch of pain which made her remove the weight, but then tried again, the second attempt being pain free.
“Hm,” she said under her breath. Could she walk?
She cautiously placed one foot after the other, her hands out, acting to balance or to catch her, if the injured leg suddenly gave out, but as she moved across the room to the curtains she gained more confidence and arrived at the window with relief. She pulled the curtain back a little, and took in a breath. The pavements and road were full of the… zombies. Slowly walking and bumping into each other, trees, garden walls and the abandoned cars. Amongst them were animals, some so small they could hardly be seen in the shadows.
She felt a little dizzy and for a moment wondered if she was still dreaming. It would explain why her leg felt better than it should. It would explain a lot of things. But her body felt enough of the warmth in the room to confirm that she was very much awake and the street outside was alive with the impossible.
She let her eyes sweep across her house, hoping she would see Joe looking back at her from a window, then turned away and walked to the bookshelf. Bending over she picked up the book. Something small and rectangular fell out, which she reclaimed.
It was a photo. She moved back to the window using the light from the street to look upon James and a young woman, who had brown hair with a purple streak. They were both smiling but the twenty something’s eyes betrayed her grin. Liz turned the photo over.
‘The beginning.’
The words were scribbled with no signature or date, although James looked similar to how he currently did, so she assumed it hadn’t been taken too long ago. She slid the photo back into the book and the book back on the shelf and taking some pillows from the sofa, positioned them on the chair near the window. She pulled the curtain back a little, then lowered herself onto the chair and returned to her vigil of her home.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MATHEW
Mathew looked at the shadow beyond the wall of a small garden. Did it morph into something else?
“Keep moving.”
“But… I thought I saw…” he said, breathlessly.
Joe pulled him forward again. There had been a lot of that for the past thirty minutes, or was it five? Joe told him he had been hit in the head with a shovel and some people were after them. He vaguely remembered firing a gun, but at what he wasn’t sure. Probably a zombie he presumed, but his head ached and the night was full of shifting shapes which offered nothing but potential danger. He just wanted to get to Greg’s place. He had said he would be there hours earlier. Even though the cell networks were down, they had been able to exchange messages through a two-way radio. Then he got rounded up by soldiers who told him it was for his own good, and his radio confiscated for the same reason. Luckily they didn’t get his computer tablet which he kept in his secret pocket inside his jacket. But that didn’t have radio capability. It did though have a USB card in it, with his survival data on it.
Most preppers have go-bags, but he had a go-data card. Everything you could think of to survive during and after the end of the world. Thousands of maps, documents on vehicles, buildings and devices. This was as well as a few hundred of his favourite films, tv shows and ten times that of his favourite books and music. If the world needed to be rebuilt he was ready and would be entertained while doing it.
But he was an amateur compared to Greg. They had met online some years back and quickly became friends, despite Greg being forty-years his senior and not being the friendliest of characters. He was former Australian special forces or something. Greg was always a bit murky with his past, but Mathew didn’t care. He just valued him as a friend and the insane knowledge he provided on underground bunkers, psyops and the new world order. He also made great soup from the various plants he grew.
If anyone had an explanation for why the world had turned upside down, it was him. So Greg was his second port of call after everything went to shit. His first being his sixty-year-old mother, who he got in contact with before communication went down. She didn’t know anything had happened, due to living in a small cottage halfway up a Welsh mountain. After telling her to avoid going to the local town, and being reassured she had enough food, he called the Australian. That was getting on for… He wasn’t sure how long ago that was. The whole day seemed like a blur, but at least it was warm. Too warm. And the night sky was full of funny colours…
