Blood at the Premiere: A Day One Undead Adventure (11 page)

They run until the pain is burning through their legs. They run until their chests are gasping for air. They run with the sweat stinging their eyes and the stitches radiating pain in their sides. Three of them suffer from pain, exhaustion and fatigue while one keeps going on legs trained to work with muscles toned to perform.

‘Gotta…gotta stop,’ Dolan wheezes. Falling back, his legs feel like rubber, but Henrietta grabs his wrist pulling him on.

‘Keep going…’

Crashing behind them, the things have got through the kebab house and into the rear yard to pour, frenetic and charged, into the alley.

‘HENRIETTA SWALLOW.’

Still Simon’s voice screams into the night, bellowing with increasing rage at being denied what he longed to have for so long.

Bennie pukes to the side, his guts reacting from the alcohol and the exercise. Brian snatches the bottle and pushes him on. Dolan wheezes and sobs for his life.

‘We’ve got to keep going…keep going,’ Henrietta urges them on, pushing Dolan, pulling Bennie, desperate to keep them alive to secure her own future. Brian has no value and is left to find his own stamina and motivation.

The alley ends and they run out into another wide street. More of the things off to the left attacking into a building. Pushing and straining to get inside and feast on whoever is in there.

‘This way,’ she whispers the instruction. ‘Stay in the shadows.’ She forces them to run along the building line while every few steps she turns to check the view behind. Seconds are all they gain before the first of the horde burst from the alley into the street. They don’t hesitate, either, but veer hard right straight after Henrietta and the three men.

She knows they cannot sustain this pace. She can, but these three can’t. Unfit and unconditioned with poor respiratory function, and it’s only a matter of time before one of them pulls a muscle. Again she searches for a way out. For something to show itself that she can use. Still not panicking, the desire to keep Dolan and Bennie alive keeps her mind functioning at that high speed. That motivation. That need to be a part of Dolan’s story that he’ll tell after this. She looks round at the three men with a flash thought of dropping Brian to give the chasers something to feast on. The consideration is put to one side.
Not yet.

This is no good. The shops are locked up tight. The cafés are the same and in between the retail outlets the commercial offices are dark and imposing in their fortress-like security.

‘Can’t,’ Dolan wails loud and frightened like a child in tantrum. Bennie pukes again and Brian’s face is flushed with deep red splodges blooming in his cheeks.

The building line on the right drops away to a road leading to an underground car park. She takes it. They head down the sloping ramp and hope to hell there will be a way out. The descending surface eases the expenditure of energy to keep running and they go faster with wild, almost uncontrolled gait, arms flailing for balance and feet slapping the ground. A security barrier lies ahead next to a kiosk made of wood and glass that’s brightly lit but now empty. She goes under and stops to get the other three past the obstacle and then off again. Plunging into the low-vaulted huge expanse of what should be a security-patrolled private car park.

Expensive motors lie hither and thither. Bentleys, Porsches, Range Rovers with blacked-out windows and Mercedes with long, sleek bodies and oversized bonnets. The parking bays are wide and the lanes between them wider still. Freshly painted hanging baskets full of ferns adorn the sides, and the whole area is well lit in a safe, secure yet subdued ambience.

Her mind still works. The thoughts link each image to what they mean and the many visits she has made to luxury apartments in big blocks accessed by private car parks like this. There will be a lift or a stairwell somewhere. There has to be. Rich people don’t like walking and sure as shit they wouldn’t walk up the ramp to get inside their building by the front door.

‘C…I can’t…’

‘Bit further.’ Henrietta pulls the whimpering Dolan harder, thereby expending more of her own energy to keep him moving. Brian looks ready to pass out and Bennie has gone very pale. She looks again at Brian, wondering what would happen if he did pass out. Would they stop chasing? Would it slow the attackers down? He catches the look and holds her gaze for a split second before wheezing and looking ahead.

Feet hit concrete and the horde pour down the sloping ramp into the echoing chamber of the car park. Their voices roll ahead, magnified and all the more macabre. A steel door embedded in the far wall must be the lift. A split second of calculation and she sprints ahead.

‘Don’t go…bitch,’ Dolan spits the words out but she can’t afford the air now to reply but runs flat out towards the steel door. ‘Whore,’ Dolan simmers with that petulant rage at being abandoned to die. ‘YOU FUCKING WHORE…’

She slams into the steel door and jabs her finger at the button that lights up. No keypad, code or swipe card access, but then with security on guard they wouldn’t need secure access. She jumps back to look up at the red LED display over the top of the door but just a discreet down arrow lights up.

She turns round, blanching at the sight of the spread-out horde now thick in number and deep in rank that stagger in that ungainly run. The sight is awful. A terrible thing and an image seared into her mind. People but not people. All of them cut, bit, bleeding, injured and running towards them.

‘RUN,’ Henrietta shouts to the three men urging them to keep going while inside she wills Brian to trip and fall to buy them time. She looks back at the lift, desperately jabbing her finger into the button. ‘Come on…come on…RUN.’ She twists round, showing the terror on her face at the nearness of the bloodied people gaining ever closer.

She looks back at the steel doors, waiting for eternity for the beloved ping, but it doesn’t come. The motor purrs. The red down arrow flashes. The horde gains closer, with Dolan, Bennie and Brian struggling to catch up to her.

‘COME ON,’ she vents at the door with the knife still gripped in her hand. Too late. It’s too late. She turns and glares with anger pulsing as she prepares to die but by fuck she’ll take a few with her.

Ping.

It comes. The lift doors swoosh open and she turns fast to run in as a big security guard with bloodshot eyes comes staggering out. The point of the knife drives deep into his chest and she powers him back into the lift to pin him against the side. Dolan in after her whacking his hand at the control panel. Bennie and Brian stagger through. The security guard stretches his neck, trying to bite into Henrietta who leans into the knife while weaving and ducking to avoid his snapping mouth. Straining and grunting from the effort of keeping such a big man stuck like a pig.

Ping.

The doors start to close but the horde are close and one fast female breaches the gap to lunge head first into the lift as the doors seal closed. The motor purrs with the sensation of lift being felt but it goes unheeded as three men scream in blind panic and pin themselves to the sides.

‘Fuck it.’ Henrietta looks down at the back of the female’s head then up into the frenzied face of the security guard. ‘Kick her,’ Henrietta shouts, her voice drowned out by the wails of the men screaming high-pitched in terror as they try to crawl backwards through the hard sides of the lift. Soft music plays, a concerto of taste and elegance that has a new drum beat added from Henrietta stamping her bare heel down on the back of the female’s skull. The female goes down with a crunch of bone from her nose breaking on impact with the floor. The tiny adjustment of movement gives the security guard the leverage to lunge forward with his mouth open and ready to bite. With an explosion of power she rams her shoulder back into his chest while gripping the knife in a two-handed grasp to twist the handle round. The female groans and starts to rise. Another hard foot slams down, once again driving her into the floor. The security guard feels no pain as his innards spill from his open guts. He tries harder to bite out with his arms flailing round and whacking Henrietta in the head and body. She stamps down on the female again then saws the knife harder. The wound in the gut opens big and ragged. Glistening sausage-like entrails spill out, foul-smelling and hot with sticky blood. The female rises to get stamped and in fury Henrietta pulls the knife out in one smooth motion and sticks it back in his chest. She does it again and again. Stabbing over and over with the muscles in her arms straining and pumped. A wild look in her eyes and the speed builds faster while she works to pucker his body, breaking ribs and puncturing his lungs that fill with blood. Still he strains and works to bite down. She yanks the blade out, twitches the handle to point the blade up and drives it spear-like through the soft flesh under his chin. The metal blade drives into his mouth, slicing through his tongue that pours more blood down his throat into his rapidly filling lungs. She twists and hacks, cutting him to pieces while screaming in wild abandon. The security guard slumps and she goes with him, pulling the blade out, which gets stabbed down into the back of the female. She goes to work again. Puckering. Stabbing. Killing and killing until the floor of the lift runs deep in blood.

Ping.

The three screaming men run from the lift into the corridor as Henrietta stabs frenzied and wild into the two corpses with hard blows that ease as her mind tells her they are dead. Heaving for air, she stands up and with blood dripping from the knife she walks unsteadily from the lift, pauses and goes back inside to grab the female by the ankle to drag the corpse over the threshold of the door to stop the lift closing.

Open-mouthed and gasping for air, she sags against the wall and bends double to stare down at the plush beige carpet being stained red from the blood dripping from her hands.

She looks down the corridor to Bennie flat on his back with his chest heaving. Brian kneeling nearby with sweat pouring from his face and Dolan curled up in the foetal position sobbing his heart out.

Henrietta’s mind still works clear and unimpeded. She is breathless but not exhausted. She is hot and sweating but not overly so. The lift is secure but there will be a stairwell. The security guard was in the lift. That means he was in the block, but what floor? What part? Did he bite anyone? Was he bitten in here or in the elevator? No. There was no blood in the elevator, she’s sure of it.

Beige carpet.

She looks down at the bloodied footsteps made by the four of them, but no other stains show. She steps back to the lift and looks down at the security guard, scanning his body until she sees the bite mark on the fleshy part of his right hand. He
was
bleeding but not on this level.

‘Where are you going?’ Dolan asks in a voice worried and accusing.

‘Just checking,’ Henrietta says, stepping back out of the lift.

‘You were trying to leave.’

‘No, Dolan. I was checking the injuries on…’

‘I’ll fucking sue everyone.’

‘What?’

‘Where the hell are the emergency services? The fucking army should be here…’

‘Oh no,’ Bennie says, sitting up and staring forlornly at the empty bottle. ‘Worst day ever now.’

‘Henrietta, knock on that door,’ Dolan orders, waving a hand at the closest apartment. ‘We need a landline…get the police here…I need an escort out.’

‘Can I have an escort?’ Bennie asks, looking up.

‘Not that kind of escort,’ Henrietta says.

‘Oh. You can be my escort, Henrietta.’

‘Thanks, Bennie,’ she mutters, tugging the hem of her dress down and fixing the loose strands of hair behind her ears while pointedly ignoring the thick, gloopy blood streaming down her legs, arms and hands before knocking on the door.

‘You alright, Bri?’ Bennie asks kindly.

‘Yeah,’ Brian whispers hoarse and quiet.

‘That was insane,’ Bennie says.

‘It was,’ Brian replies.

‘Did you see Henrietta?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Her boobs almost fell out when she was stabbing that bloke. Man, that was awesome.’

‘Bennie!’ Henrietta tuts.

‘I didn’t see that,’ Brian admits, looking down the corridor to the dead woman lying in the doorway of the lift.

‘No? Mate…like, totally awesome.’

Henrietta knocks again, sensing the apartment is empty. That feeling when no one is there. Like a hollower knock with a lack of humans to absorb the sound.

‘Next one,’ Dolan orders, still sitting on the floor with his legs splayed out and his arms limp at his sides.

‘We should check the stairwell,’ Henrietta says.

‘Should we?’ Dolan snaps. ‘Is that right, is it? Or should we find a landline and call the emergency services to get me the fuck out of here? Tell me, Henrietta?’

‘Okay okay,’ she says, knocking on the next door down. Empty again. She goes down to the next, knocks and waits. Empty. With the blood drying sticky on her hands she tries door after door with the same negative response. Solid wooden doors, too, and no hope of forcing one open.

Dolan stares at her balefully as she walks back to the group shaking her head. ‘Brilliant,’ he says, withering and full of contempt. ‘Just fucking brilliant. Well done, Henrietta.’

‘How is that my fault?’

‘HENRIETTA SWALLOW!’

Feet thunder up concrete stairs and a voice roars out. The noise comes from below with a crash of a door opening and Simon screaming her name before the feet start pounding back up the stairs coming closer until the stairwell door at the end of the corridor bursts open. Simon launches himself through. ‘HENRIETTA SWALLOW…’ he screams the words without looking round. Trapped in a fevered replay of action of searching and screaming the name but so driven by his obsession that he doesn’t look. He ducks back into the stairwell and thunders up the next flight of stairs with her name being repeated at full volume.

‘What the fuck?’ Bennie mouths as the sound of the stomping feet stop and Simon’s bellow cuts off midway. A second of silence and he drums back down to burst into the corridor with fresh hope in his eyes as the sights recorded by his brain play catch-up to his overly active mind.