Blood at the Premiere: A Day One Undead Adventure (19 page)

True realisation hits Henrietta. That the girl meant what she said and never before has such a selfish act ever been perpetrated in her presence. Hatred bubbles to the surface as she runs back with a face set and determined and strong arms that ram into Rose, driving her down into the ground with a whump of air that cuts the scream off. Rose goes to scream again as the split-second shock of being taken down wears off but a hand covered in shit clamps hard with two eyes glaring down and a look of absolute warning being conveyed. Rose’s eyes spread wide as the first real fact of the danger faced hits home. This isn’t a game. This is real. Henrietta Swallow is pinning her down on the ground smothering her mouth.

The silence that follows is loaded with malevolent intent. A precursor to the thing Henrietta knows must be coming. There’s no way that scream wasn’t heard. Her hand tightens the grip on the handle of the knife as she lifts her head up to stare at the hole in the chain-link fence.

Without taking her eyes from that point of entry she eases her hand down from Rose’s mouth and grips a fistful of the girl’s T-shirt. Gently, easily, slowly but with strength she stands up, forcing Rose up and onto her feet. The girl stays silent, terrified at the change in Henrietta who doesn’t glance away from the fence.

One second. Two seconds. Three. Four. Silence. Five seconds. Henrietta’s hand releases the T-shirt and slides round to Rose’s back and she starts pushing the girl behind her, making her walk, and this time Rose goes willingly.

The screech comes clear. A sound of animalistic rage that rips the air apart, ramping Henrietta’s heart rate as adrenaline starts coursing through her system.

‘Go…Go…GO.’ Henrietta heaves at Rose as the first sound of drumming feet reaches her ears. A dull growling noise comes into bearing. Directional and from both sides of the street. Henrietta turns to run but finds Rose still walking in dazed horror at what just happened. She slams into her, taking her down, but this time by mistake rather than by design. On instinct, Rose spreads her hands out to break the fall and lands heavy on a broken shard of glass lying unseen in the dirty long grass. She screams again but this time from pain in her hand that pumps blood thick and fast down her wrist. Another explosion of pain but from the back of her head as Henrietta grabs her hair and pulls her up onto her feet, forcing her on. ‘Move,’ Henrietta orders, growling the word out. ‘Fucking move.’

Henrietta doesn’t need to turn and see when she hears the impact of the bodies slamming into the chain-link fence. Dull thuds and the rattle of metal against concrete. More thuds. Growls and hisses as the infected catch sight of the prey they can smell.

Still holding Rose by the hair Henrietta runs on, propelling the girl in front of her. Rose brings her hands up to try to push Henrietta away but the blood has made her own grasp slick and wet. She wails louder, filled with terror and pain as Henrietta pushes harder.

‘Shut up,’ Henrietta begs with increasing anger at the selfish girl who keeps screaming out. She feels something wet spraying her face and flicks her head. Into the shadows they run. Brian now in the lead with Bennie and Dolan behind him and Henrietta trying to catch up with Rose wailing in pain. Dollops of liquid hit Henrietta’s cheeks. Again she flinches but hears the fence being torn down and the sound of bodies falling through. The pressure is on again. The chase has begun once more.

They follow the bridge running past the wide supporting columns, catching sight of the moon through the high-arched gaps. From deep shadows to moonlit scrub they run on with no idea of what is ahead.

Rose descends into a living hell of pain from her hand. Without conscious thought she slaps and works at Henrietta clutching her hair, trying to get the woman off.

Henrietta snatches a glance back and sees figures lumbering after them in that distinctive stiff-legged run that covers ground so fast. She applies more speed, powering her legs to pump harder. Stones and ruts dig into her bare feet. Sharp things that threaten to cut and open the skin, but she pays no heed and just the desire to survive and keep the others alive keeps her moving.

Lights ahead and the dark shadows of buildings silhouetted against the night sky. That could be good or bad. It’s a possible way out of this area but the chain-link fence might border the perimeter, effectively sealing them inside. They could veer off underneath the bridge, but an instinct tells her that is a bad idea. Land in London is always at a premium so the width of this space would not be great. Keep going. Head for the lights and hope for the best while planning for the worst.

Dolan starts dropping back. His wheezing is audible from the gasped breaths and the way his legs stagger ungainly as he tries to keep going. Bennie and Brian start slowing down, too.

‘The lights,’ Henrietta shouts the words out. ‘Go for the lights…’

The words give them a fresh burst of energy that suppresses the burning lactic acid in their thighs and the stitches forming in their sides. The lights get closer, the silhouetted buildings looming bigger and foreboding. Smaller lights fitted to the high end walls show now and Henrietta gains the impression of warehouses and commercial units.

Rose runs. She has no choice but to run, but the agony in her hand spreads down her wrist into her arm and every step taken sends a juddering spasm of fresh pain burning into her body. Her stomach heaves over and her mouth fills with saliva as she gets the tugging sensation at the back of her throat, preparing to vomit. Her vision starts to close in, becoming blurred and tunnel-like. Her hair is being ripped out in chunks from Henrietta gripping and pushing so hard and her legs don’t feel like her own now, but still she runs. Still she goes on with one step after the other in a never-ending nightmare of pain and terror.

Objects are stacked nearby. Planks of wood, machinery and piles of bricks and wooden pallets. Brian weaves them through and on towards the lights now shining bright and beckoning. Henrietta notices the things stacked and stored and makes the connection. There must be a way from that commercial area into this section. She spots the chain-link fence, high and well maintained, but there must be a gate, an opening, something, anything.

Brian reaches the fence slamming bodily into the wire as though hoping he could simply pass through it. He bounces off and starts running down the fence line searching for a way through.

Dolan and Bennie reach the fence with Henrietta pushing Rose right behind them. An air of rest, of needing to stop and draw air, fills the group but again Henrietta pushes, kicks and shouts at them to follow Brian.

‘Through here,’ Brian gasps with his spare hand scrabbling at the thick sliding bar of the gate. He shoulders into it, forcing it open and falling through with the knife dropping from his hand as he trips and goes down.

Henrietta shoulders Dolan through while using her leg to kick at Bennie’s arse to keep him moving, and all the time still gripping Rose’s hair to force the now-silent girl through the gate. She jerks Rose on, finally releasing her hair before darting back to slam the gate closed and push the thick metal bar in place. She looks down at the lock seeing the hole in the sliding bar ready for a padlock to be pushed through to lock the gate. No padlock.

The infected reach the fence, slamming into it in the same manner as before. The lights shine down on all their undead glory of shredded skin and teeth bared and gnashing.

They’ll get through the gate. It will only take an elbow to knock the bar. She scouts round for something to jam through the hole as Brian rushes to her side holding a thick screw which he jams and twists into the bar.

Brian gives the bar a quick test tug. It holds fast, buying them time to make distance, but that means more running and in turn that means getting Dolan, Bennie and Rose up and moving.

They find themselves in a compound with a flat expanse of ground between modern constructed steel-framed commercial units and a clear exit road leading away.

Rose sways on her feet. Feeling drunk, drugged. Her hand doesn’t hurt now. Nothing hurts. Everything hurts. She looks round, wondering where she is as her left wrist is grabbed and once again she gets pulled along. She tries to keep up but her legs feel so weird, like she’s wading through mud.

‘Stop that,’ Henrietta whispers angrily at her. ‘Pick your bloody feet up.’

‘Soz,’ Rose slurs and tries to walk with her feet up, taking big moon steps.

‘Down the road, yeah?’ Brian asks, turning round to see the infected piling up along the fence and working down closer to the gate.

‘I think so,’ Henrietta says. ‘We need a car. We
really
need a car.’

‘I can’t keep going,’ Dolan says weakly, clutching his sides and looking very pale. ‘Need to stop.’

‘We can’t,’ Henrietta says for the hundredth time while still holding that tone of respect and deference.

‘Shit.’ Bennie is first to give voice, wincing at the burn going through his retinas as the first sensor-activated floodlight comes to life, blasting the ground with pure white light that triggers the rest of the floodlights. Night becomes day. Pure bright lights designed to detect the smallest of movements. Hands lift with involuntary actions to shield pupils dilated from the darkness they’d run through. They hold still, wincing, blinking and waiting for their eyes to adjust.

Henrietta blinks down at the ground, shielding her eyes and looking at the filthy state of her feet so black and covered in shit, grime and dust. Red flecks of blood that go from her shins up her thighs and on her blackened hands. A loud bang comes from the fence with the body weight of a heavy-built woman crashing into a middle section that sags between the posts. Still blind from the light, but it’s time to go and the growling masses at the fence launch harder and more frenzied into the thin metal that will surely break before long.

‘Rose, come on!’ Henrietta shouts at the girl, dragging her on. Henrietta tries to look round to stare another warning at the girl but blooms of colour spread in her vision still adjusting to the floodlights. She pulls harder, cursing and feeling that angry hatred building up. ‘Stop being so fucking selfish…ROSE…stop dragging your feet…’

Still the girl plants slow, heavy steps heel first and sways side to side, yanking Henrietta back from the momentum gained.

‘ROSE.’ Henrietta turns on the young woman with fury spilling out that dries instantly at the sight of the ashen face and Rose’s eyes rolling back sickeningly in a face covered in blood. ‘Rose?’ The tone changes to instant concern as Rose’s legs finally give out. ‘Oh my god…Rose…’ Henrietta tries to catch her falling but fumbles and the girl hits the ground hard.

‘Fucking leave her,’ Dolan shouts, still shielding his eyes from the glare overhead.

‘She’s hurt,’ Henrietta says, scanning Rose’s face and trying to find the wound.

‘Was she bit?’ Brian drops back, trying to peer down.

‘No…she never went near them. Rose? Can you hear me? She’s covered in blood.’

‘So are you,’ Brian says, looking in horror at Henrietta’s face.

‘I don’t know where it’s from.’ Henrietta takes in Rose’s deathly pale skin that contrasts so starkly against the blood. ‘Where is she injured? Rose? Can you hear me? Where did you get cut?’

‘Fuck,’ Brian gasps, lurching forward, ‘her hand…look at her hand.’

‘Her hand? Oh shit…’ Henrietta grabs the girl’s wrist to lift the hand up and watches as the thumb flaps back, almost severed from the glass shard that sliced deep into the web of skin from palm to the ball of the joint. ‘Oh my god…’ Henrietta mutters at the sight of the bone on show and the noodle-like tendrils of nerves, sinew and muscle poking through the ruined layers made worse by the frantic, sustained run. ‘She was screaming…Rose? Rose?’ Henrietta looks up at Rose’s face and her lips moving as though mumbling. Blood has sprayed deep over Rose’s blue denim jeans and across the ground back to the gate they’d come through. Henrietta touches her own face, realising what was hitting her when she was running. Guilt and despair flood in. The torment of an instant awareness that Rose was screaming from pain. The wound is deep, too. Sickeningly deep and the agony must have been unbearable. Tears spill from Henrietta’s eyes as she looks round for something to use to tie onto the bleeding wound.

‘Leave the fat slut,’ Dolan wails, pacing round in a circle as he keeps looking back to the fence now thick with ranks of infected straining to get through.

‘We need a cloth, a rag…something to…Rose? Rose, can you hear me? You’re going to be okay.’

‘No, she’s bloody not,’ Dolan shouts. ‘Fucking leave her…’

‘The fence,’ Brian shouts as the fence starts to buckle from a horde of undead flinging themselves into the links, the posts and the gate that all start to give.

‘Give me your shirt,’ Henrietta shouts, trying to think of what to do. Got to stop the bleeding, but…she looks up at the thick trails of blood realising the damage is already done. Pints must have been lost.

‘Henri…the fence…’ Brian shouts the warning again, louder and more urgent.

‘Rose, you’re going to be okay…help me get her up…’

‘Fucking leave her,’ Dolan shouts, pacing away towards the exit road.

‘Brian, help me get her up.’

‘She’s too heavy.’

‘I’ll carry her,’ Henrietta snaps, grabbing at Rose’s left wrist in an attempt to pull her up, but Rose just swings round, a dead weight being dragged.

Brian grabs her under the right arm while Henrietta pulls at the left wrist, but it’s still not enough and Brian’s exhausted, shocked body starts to tremble and shake from the effort.

‘Dolan, help us…’

‘Fucking ditch the fat…’

‘BENNIE,’ Henrietta shouts, ‘help us…’

‘The fence, Henrietta,’ Brian sobs the words out, feeling impotent and useless. He drops to a crouch trying to push his hands through the girl’s armpits from the back as Henrietta grabs the top of her jeans. They heave together, getting Rose almost upright as Henrietta drops down to press her shoulder into Rose’s stomach while Brian pushes at her back.

‘It’s down,’ Dolan screams. The fence crashes with a sound of taut wires snapping and concrete posts breaking in half. A dull thud. A twang of metal and a roar of voices no longer human that fill the space with hunger and a need to rip flesh from bone.