As the Light Dies (52 page)

He leaned against the window with both hands and peered out. Andy came up beside him and sighed
,“C’
mon, he said
,“
i
t’
s just a drif...
.
”

“
HOLY SHIT!”
yelped Thom cutting him off and he flinched back from the window.

Andy chuckled and asked
,“
Wha
t’
s wrong
?
”

Thom was just staring at the hump. Andy knelt down beside the window asking him again what was wrong and before Thom answered he saw for himself.

His stomach turned over and his heart leapt in his chest.

He fell back from his knees and landed on his bum shaking, beside Thom who was shaking just as much. It was
n’
t a snowdrift the
y’
d seen, there was a body lying on the ground pressed up against the glass. The body was on its side turned away from them facing out in to the car park.

Before Andy even had time to take a second breath the body moved. It leaned away from them.

“Holy shit!”
said Thom
,“
do you think the kids were right
?
”

“
I do
n’
t know
,”
said Andy trying to get a better look realising what was at stake here. He reached out and knocked on the window. Nothing happened. He knocked again, harder this time but there was still no response.

“
W
e’
re gonna have to go outside and bring them in
,”
said Andy starting to stand back up.

“
Ok,
I’
ll go and get the jackets
,”
said Thom standing up with him.

“
No time for that Thom, we need to act right now.
I’
m going out there now
.
”

“
Oh, ok
,”
said Thom as Andy knocked again and this time he tried calling through the glass.

He leaned in close and called
,“
Hey, are you ok
?
”

The figure moved ever so slightly back to its original position
.
“LOOK!”
yelped Thom.

“
Yea I saw
,”
said Andy dropping back down to his knees and called again.

“
Hello? Can you hear me? Can you turn around
?
”

He did
n’
t get any response. He tried again
,“
W
e’
re gonna...
.”
he stopped dead as the figure started to turn towards him. It leant back against the window and tried to turn its head, trying to see them.

“Jeez!”
said Thom
,“
look at their skin! They musta been lying in the damn ash for God knows how long
.
”

The face that turned towards them was a patchwork of black and grey blotches. Thom went quiet; he did
n’
t know what to do next.

Andy called again
,“
Hey, can you talk? Are you ok
?
”

Both men watched intently as the person shuffled their legs a little and then their shoulders like they were trying to turn on to their back but were having to fight against the snow
.“
Yea, tha
t’
s it
,”
called Andy
,“
Keep going, yo
u’
re nearly there
.
”

Thom dared to come back in closer and stood over Andy watching as the person slowly shuffled themselves around to face them and as they did Andy saw the perso
n’
s face full on and he was horrified to think the ash might be able do this to a perso
n’
s skin.

“
My God
!”
Thom gasped.

Andy did
n’
t say anything, he dare
n’
t, he did
n’
t want to worry the person. They were obviously already in a lot of distress. He just waited for them to turn around in their own time. The person shimmied around so far that they half fell the rest of the way on to their back and stared straight up at them causing them both to gasp in horror.

Thom hopped back as Andy dropped back from the window and leant back on his knees and shimmied back a little
.
“
What the fuck?”
Andy said under his breath
.
“Jesus fucking Christ, that isn’t right!”

Thom could
n’
t speak, he tried to but only a faint whistle of air came out.

The figure was a young man that Andy recognised form earlier when h
e’
d been on his way back from the petrol station with the others having found Lara. H
e’
d seen the guy fiddling under the bonnet of his car while his wife and kids sat patiently inside the car. Andy had tried telling him that his best bet was to start walking as soon as possible because all the electrical currents were starting to jam up from the effects of the ash and that the car probably was
n’
t gonna be starting anytime soon.

The guy had spun round and told Andy to go and fucking ram himself spitting in his face with aggression as he did, then he turned back around and carried on tinkering. Andy did
n’
t try telling him again, and now the guy lay on his back staring straight up at them; a different person.

His face was badly discoloured; his skin was completely grey with deep black blotches all over, and his eyes were jet black. Blood was smeared across his mouth and chin. At first Andy had thought the guy mus
t’
ve slipped in the snow and burst his lip or something. But there was more to this than just a burst lip. He could feel it.

The ma
n’
s eyes were totally black like shiny little marbles
.“
Look at his eyes
,”
whispered Thom finding his voice, then asked
,
“Is that blood?”

Before Andy answered the man turned his head towards them and Thom backed up even further stepping down between two of the tills
.“
Oh shit
!”
he said.

The man watched them with a blank expression over his discoloured face, not moving, just watching, staring with those blank black eyes
.“
God, wha
t’
s happened
?”
said Thom and then the guy appeared to smile at them. Not much but enough to notice the corners of his mouth curl up.

“
What the hell
!”
said Thom transfixed
.“
Did he just smile
?
”

Andy nodded and the man started to roll over towards them like he was trying to face them. He brought an arm up and grabbed the narrow brick ledge along the bottom of the window and pulled himself up on to his side. The hand he used was in shreds. It looked like it had been through a wood chipper with pieces of flesh hanging from what was still left of the bony frame beneath. And
y’
s eyes opened wide seeing the hand and Thom gasped. The man peered in at them with what Andy thought was a look of bemusement on his face and his torn jacket flapped open blown in the wind. Thom clasped a hand over his mouth and turned away.

“OH MY GOD!
”
he yelped as Andy scooted even further back from the window and he bumped up against the back edge of a till. The ma
n’
s open jacket revealed wounds like neither man had ever seen or were ever likely to. Parts of his rib cage were visible in places through deep wounds across his chest and upper abdomen and below the base of his breast bone there was no stomach left. All that remained was a gaping hole where torn and ruptured insides hung out unravelling in to the black snow.

“
Ugh
!”
said Thom retching unable to look back. The ma
n’
s trousers had been pulled down a little and his groin and upper inner thighs had been gouged out. What was left clung to his partly exposed thigh and pelvic bones. All that was on display shook and quivered every time he moved or when the wind caught him. Andy could
n’
t take his eyes away from the ma
n’
s groin, it just was
n’
t there anymore! All that was left between the ma
n’
s hips was a bloody messy gouged out hole of torn muscle fibres and veins and some of his lower abdomen internals that had dropped down and sunk in to the meat basin where his genitals had been.

Andy looked on in sheer horror, he wanted to look away but could
n’
t, he needed to know what was happening. Needed to kno
w
Wha
t
had happened. He needed to understand. He just had to!

He could clearly make out the ma
n’
s large intestine; he saw that it had large pieces missing that almost resembled comedy bite marks. It was just clinging together held by the smallest slithers of membranous tissue. It jiggled threatening to tear apart as he moved.

“HOW THE HELL?
”
said Thom from behind finally managing to talk.... then he vomited over one of the tills and right then almost as though Tho
m’
s gagging was a signal of some kind the guys throat started to move, jerking up and down, slowly at first like he was trying to say something and then speeding up wildly to the point that Andy wondered if the guy was actually suffocating, maybe even choking on his tongue until he started making a horrible hollow clicking sound, almost like a croak to start with that made Andy want to clear his throat.

The clicks quickly got longer and deeper in tone
,
click, click, clug, clug
,
glug, glug, glu
g
. He continued to smile and started to sit up looking in at them. As he pushed himself up Andy saw that his other arm was nothing but a bloody stump sticking out from his shoulder. He twisted a little pushing up with his one mauled arm and fell back down.

He rocked trying to get his one arm back under him again to push himself back up, but could
n’
t. He became agitated and then he rolled over face down and started pulling and clawing at the ground with what was left of his hand still making that strange noise.

“
Wha
t’
s he...
.”
started Thom when all of a sudden the man pulled himself away from his own legs. Thom chose the wrong time to try looking back.

“
HOLY FUCK!”
he blurted and started vomiting again as the man dragged his severed torso right up to the window trailing his innards behind him and he started scratching at the glass with his bony finger tips
.
“
Holy shit”
said Andy scrambling across the floor towards Thom and Thom helped him up
.“
What the hell is that
?”
said Andy
.“
How the hell is that possible? It ca
n’
t be, it just ca
n’
t! It ca
n’
t even be fucking real
!
”

Thom tried opening his mouth to say something when from out of nowhere a large figure dark like a shadow crashed against the plateglass right in front of them.

As it rebounded another one came at the window with an enormous bang. The glass actually flexed under the pressure. Thom tripped over his own feet and stumbled to the floor with the shock. His face was pure white with terror. Andy hauled him back up
.“
Quick,
c’
mon
,”
he said
,“
the
y’
ll break through if they keep at it, w
e’
ve gotta go
.
”

In a blind panic they ran back the way the
y’
d come running along the length of the shop front behind the tills instead of down between the aisles and out of sight. As they ran Andy glanced at the windows thinking he saw movement and he saw one of the figures running along beside them just the other side of the glass. He could
n’
t make out any specific details, all that mattered right now was that it was following them.