Blood on the Floor: An Undead Adventure (11 page)

Thirteen

She stares down at the pavement with her heart fracturing into a thousand pieces that crumble down into the void where her soul used to be. She becomes numb, deaf and blind and trying desperately not to believe this is a purgatory that will continue for ever more. A never ending walk through a town that runs thick with blood. Tears fall from her eyes but she doesn’t weep or wipe them away but waits until Paco follows her out of the shop to stand swaying in front of her. She looks up, seeing his chest heaving and the skin on his face looking drawn and tight. He mouths too, opening and closing his jaw. Not like he wants to speak but something else that she can’t understand. She doesn’t try either but stares at the blood pouring down his arms and hands. So much blood. She can’t tell what’s his and what’s from the kills.

A need to break the silence but shock renders her quiet. Instead she walks on in her new shoes with her new bag on her back. He trails behind. Stinking and breathing heavily. All that matters is leaving this town and getting out. Just that. A singular objective to be reached with a monster that clings to her wake to kill the other monsters.

She hooks her thumbs into the straps on her shoulders and drops her head to stare down at her new shoes that walk one step after the other.

They almost reach the end of the road before the next attack comes. Nine of them this time. Not as many as in the shop but these look different. Five adult males. Three adult females and one child walking shoulder to shoulder in one line across the road in a sight that is the most terrifyingly morbid thing Heather has ever seen. They have order and purpose which makes them seem so much more powerful and deadly and even the sight of the child doesn’t diminish the visual impact. If anything it makes it worse.

She feels Paco change without needing to look. Like in the shop it’s as though the air around him becomes charged with static. When she does glance he is staring past her with that sharpness back in his eyes flicking left to right to take them all in as though assessing the threat with his lips pulling back to show teeth stained with blood.

She waits for him. This is the order of things now. She doesn’t know why but only that to get out of this town she has to wait for this monster to kill the other monsters. He doesn’t move but watches and in that second it’s as though she can take in every detail of his form. The cuts and nicks to his face. The darker shades of bruises. The skin around his right eye all swollen and puffy. His lips are cracked and dry. His clothes torn and hanging like rags. Heather stares as numb as before but with the belief that Paco will kill them and keep going until she can finally get away and hide. All that matters is surviving and leaving this town. Just that.

The nine come on at a pace that seems to take forever until Paco strides past her with a motion that seems to provoke a reaction that makes them charge and they come fast. Incredibly fast with a speed that makes her heart miss a beat as she sinks back into the wall.

Their line collapses to flank and come in at Paco from all sides. Of the five men, two are big and strong. Workmen like the builder. One is old with mottled skin and wispy hair and by rights he should be in a care home feeding through a straw. Instead he moves as fast as the others. One of the women is big with a solid frame, meaty thighs and heavy breasts that swing side to side as she runs. The other two look like normal mothers. Early thirties with short hair and creased faces from the stresses of modern living. The child is ten. Gangly and thin but with something awful and terrible in the evilness projecting from his eyes. They rush to impact at the same time and as strong and seemingly indestructible as Paco appears, even he cannot withstand the surge and goes down in a savagely violent flailing of limbs. Nine mouths and eighteen hands find skin to bite and gouge with a determined effort to draw blood and weaken him. His hands find the throat of the old man sinking in to rip it free with the first kill given. The heavy naked woman dives forward to cover his body with hers as she tries to bite down. She is next to be killed when his mouth finds the side of her neck that he bites to open the artery. Two kills given in seconds but the others keep biting and writhing while the fat woman’s dying corpse pumps blood into his mouth. A foot boots the child away. He gets a hand gets free, whacking another woman to be sent sagging back. Mere seconds are gained before the child rushes to sink his teeth into Paco’s leg.

Heather watches and waits for Paco to get up and finish them. His feet will stamp and his arms will break necks. He’ll fling the men aside and make the street run with more blood. He doesn’t feel pain or fatigue. He is one of them. A monster. All that matters is getting out and finding somewhere to hide.

He had gained an equilibrium with the infection suppressing the memories and images while something in him suppressed the urge to bite and infect but that equilibrium now tilts and swings side to side with increasing speed. Images and memories surge in to ebb away. Depth of feeling then nothing. A rush of emotion then a void. He thrashes wildly to rid the weight pinning him down with a fresh surge of unrestrained strength pulsing through his body. In the midst of the frenzy he finds a head that gets wrenched with a dull crack that reaches Heather still frozen to the spot.

It shifts again. Flashes of memory come back. Feelings, sounds, smells and sights. A dog. A woman. Another shift and the hint of the man fades to be the beast.

He rallies. Fighting harder than even Heather has seen before. Pain means nothing to him. His feet batter and his fists hammer. His head smashes into soft bodies that sink back from the barrage. He gets on all fours then on his knees and rises up onto his feet in a sight that makes Heather’s heart thrill and whump in her chest. He stamps down to break a neck but one of the women is on his back biting into his shoulder. He pulls her overhead to be smashed down into the ground. Another one on his leg biting hard gets shaken loose and kicked away. A man running from the side is flung into a wall. He is winning again. He will kill them all and come back to drool and be a puppy.

He does win. He kills them one by one but for each kill so he is bit, cut, raked and gouged. In the intense heat of a street made worse by high buildings and lack of any breeze he fights and wins. The nine become corpses the same as all the others as Paco sways and mouths while gulping air into his lungs. His fists clench and loosen then clench again. His muscles bulging but covered in filth. Finally he turns and walks back to Heather. His feet dragging on the road. His head drooping but he comes back the puppy to stare and wait.

She looks past him to the bodies then up to the deep blue sky. It’s so hot. She’s sweating just standing still. She needs water. She walks on, going wide round the mess in the road to reach the other side. Paco follows. His breathing easing slowly. Becoming less ragged and more normal but he still stinks. He stinks so bad. Everything here stinks. This town stinks. She wishes she never came here.

The next attack comes seconds later. Two men and a woman that come pumped and charging to die as Heather sinks back into the wall to wait until it’s finished.

A few more steps. A small distance gained and they come again. Four males from ahead that Heather stares at emotionlessly as Paco stamps two of them to death while the others bite into his shoulders and rake his arms. He kills them the same as all the others. One with a neck twist that severs the spinal column and the other decapitated by a shard of glass from a plate glass window he is thrown through. Paco comes back. His head lolling side to side. His mouth yawing open and closed. His eyes blinking rapidly. She walks on.

She doesn’t stop walking when the next attack comes from behind but keeps on with her head down and only slows when it goes quiet and then only long enough for Paco to catch up.

So it goes. All the way down the street with ones and twos coming from the front and the back that get killed. All that matters is getting out of the town. Nothing else. She waits when she has to and keeps on when she can. Paco does the work. He is the monster.

Then it’s done and they reach the edge of the town centre to make a thankful transition into suburbia where the buildings are smaller and that feeling of being trapped starts to ease. Minutes go by without a snarling beast in sight, other than Paco that is and he doesn’t snarl now but shuffles with feet scuffing the ground while his arms hang limp. Heather scans ahead, the sides and the back and stays quiet. Listening intently. She knows this town isn’t big so it doesn’t matter which direction they go. Eventually they will reach the safer countryside.

The houses here look damaged the same as the rest and it takes a while for her to realise those signs of damage are increasing. Doors to houses broken and wide open. Windows smashed with the curtains hanging out. Bodies too that get more numerous with every street they enter.

Paco starts to react with that shifting equilibrium still struggling to gain an even keel. He whimpers and makes noises through a damaged voice box while his older injuries keep healing and his fresh ones clot the blood and start to scab. Not that Heather notices that rate of healing. She’s too focussed on passing from the risk of instant death that was the town centre to the doom laden air hanging over the suburban streets. She takes it all in with eyes that flicker from the shiny spent bullet casings to the pockmarks in the walls and houses. More bodies with every corner they reach. Bodies that have been gunned down and shot to bits. A dead man catches her eye and makes her look harder. The way he’s lying on his back with his throat so torn up. She edges closer, taking in the puncture wounds and bite marks then looks again at Paco’s neck. They’re the same injuries. She’s sure of it. For a second she forgets she’s staring at a corpse but takes in the pattern of teeth marks and the way the flesh has been torn. Like an animal has taken a grip with its mouth then ragged side to side. When she looks round she spots more of the same but with differing levels of results. Some have had their throats ripped out completely, leaving gaping and now festering wounds.

Whatever killed them attacked Paco. Her mind fills with an image of a wolf but this is England. We don’t have wolves here. We don’t have any wild animals other than foxes and badgers and they sure as shit don’t tear throats out. Badgers would if they could but they rather lack the height. She looks quickly round to check the ankles of the fallen in case they too are savaged and bitten with a sudden idea of an errant zombie fighting badger ripping infected off their feet to chew on necks. No. All the ankles look okay.

Bullets everywhere too. Piles of them that mark where the shooters stayed still then scattered trails as the people ran on.

She spots other injuries from looking so closely. Injuries that haven’t been done by guns or badgers or wolves. Dogs! Why didn’t she think of it before? The idea pings in her head with the realisation that a big dog could easily bite like that. Like a police dog or something. Yes. Now she thinks of it so it makes sense. Bullets and dogs. It must have been the army or the police, maybe both of them came through here. Paco was bitten by a police dog. She remembers she was looking at the other injuries of limbs that have been cut off and throats cut. Bladed weapons did that for sure. Who on earth would get that close to cut a throat? What about the limbs chopped off? You’d need swords for that, or machetes, or axes. Something big with a long blade. The police don’t use swords. They use batons and pepper spray and anyway, most of the police she ever saw were fat. The army don’t have swords. Who uses swords? Knights? We don’t have knights these days. They’d be fat knights who moaned about pay and conditions if we did have them. They’d have formed a union and refuse to work on Sundays.

So. Someone came through here shooting guns, using swords or big bladed weapons and they had dogs. Whoever it was killed a lot. Really a lot. Like lots and lots. The trail of bodies get thicker and she spots garden fences that have been pulled down or ran through with obvious lines of attack. What she doesn’t spot is Paco yawing his mouth and twitching with memories as he walks through the place he died in. Images and memories whirl in his mind. Feelings and emotions. The image of a dog. The essence of a dog. He can see the dog. He can smell her, feel her but only deep inside and not on any level that makes sense. He was here. He fought here. His legs drag more. His arms hang heavier and as time draws and the heat of the day builds so his head begins to droop.

She spots the centre of the battle. A garden where every fence is destroyed and the bodies lie thicker and denser in almost concentric circles. She stops to look as Paco twitches with spasms rocking his rapidly fatiguing body. It’s silent in this place. No birdsong. Not a breeze or gust of wind to disturb the morbidity. Flies everywhere hovering to drop and lay eggs. She doesn’t know she stares at the spot Paco went down to wake up in the true state of being. Paco doesn’t know either. Not on a conscious level. Inside, deep inside where the flashes strobe his mind there is a signal desperately trying to be understood. Instead he spasms, sways and finds his eyes growing heavier while his mouth yaws.

Heather shudders with distaste showing on her face as the smell of Paco and this place sink in. She blanches, pulling her head back then scowls and walks on.

Paco follows. His eyes flicking to the garden that means something that means nothing. Heather leads him down the street and away. Away from here. Away from a memory that keeps trying to take root.

‘Thirsty,’ Heather mutters with a need to make sound to drive the demons of this place back. ‘Need a drink.’ She won’t stop here. Not anywhere near this terrible place. She’d rather be thirsty than suffer another second here so she pushes on. Thumbs hooked into her bag straps while Paco staggers drunkenly behind.