Blood on the Floor: An Undead Adventure (33 page)

She slows to navigate a sharp bend and spots more ahead as the road opens out. Several groups all running staggered and drawn out but she can’t see ahead of them. They must be close. There’s no way Raj and Amna could run much further than this. Fast movement ahead. Something flashing in the sun. She guns the engine, building speed with a hand coming down hard on the horn that blasts out loud and angry. The infected turn with a synchronicity that is frightening to behold. All of them acting as one. Turning as one. Seeing as one. She sees it. She sees the hive mind at work as the closest half run at the car while the rest keep going. A decision made and executed with a precision that is terrifying. In the chaos of that moment she spots two infected kneeling in the road biting down into a woman that screams for the pain given. As the view opens she sees more of the same. More people torn from their feet to be bitten and raked. A flash of metal glinting in the sun far ahead. Fast movements of people fighting. Everything taken in with a blink of an eye and a beat of her heart.

She aims, pushes the pedal and runs the first one down. More come to vault over the bonnet to slam heads into the windscreen snarling and howling, impervious to pain. She doesn’t flinch. Not this time. She steers and weaves to hit more as they keep coming to thump into the sides and front. She aims the car to the two biting the woman and kills all three with a violent jolt of the wheels spinning to gain traction and crush the soft bodies. Carnage ensues. A chaos of noises and bodies slamming into the car. The rear passenger window smashes with a head coming through that drops out from the burst of speed applied. There is no time for thought but only to react from instinct and be guided by each new threat and sight. She fishtails the steering, slewing round with hard braking and even harder acceleration to clear the street. Those on the floor being bitten are run over with death given to infected and human alike.

There it is. The last stand being taken with Becky swinging her meat cleaver to slice through a lunging face with a bare few adults still on their feet fighting to protect the children behind.

‘RUN,’ Becky’s voice roaring in the noise of a war taking place. ‘FUCKING RUN…’ she turns to shove the children, bellowing with kicks to arses to get them moving. A vicious backhand from lightning reactions fells a big man coming in. Another adult goes down under a flurry of bodies lunging to dive and bite. Blood sprays in the air. Some of the children star burst from the sight. Some too scared to move get killed where they are. A pair of red shoes showing through the bodies fighting. A pair of red shoes on little legs that can’t run much further. Rajesh hefts her up, crying out to carry his little sister while his big sister shields both of them from the beasts.

Aye. That does it. That sends a pulsing rage surging up through Heather who aims to run the things down. She goes fast, braking at the last second with a hard turn of the wheel to fishtail the back end round that slams into several running at Becky. Door open and she’s out running flat for Subi, Raj and Amna. Paco behind her lunging into the fray to swat the things aside as they dive for Heather running through the battle. She powers on legs given speed by the sight of a big infected male running at the three children. She powers on with her eyes fixed and knowing she took one down before. She powers on knowing a dangerous monster covers her back so she only has to worry about the front.

‘DOWN DOWN DOWN,’ she screams with the last bit of air in her lungs to make Subi lift her head with eyes that go wide at the sight of Heather running towards them. ‘GET DOWN…’ A mothers tone. A tone that expects compliance. Compliance is given. Subi grabs Raj who holds Amna and drops down, taking her brother with her. The three land in a heap as the big man goes to lunge. Heather grunts and explodes forward to land on his back, her arms round his neck drawing in to wrench his head back with an impact that sends him off to the side away from the children. She hangs on for dear life, squeezing with every ounce of strength, feeling bones breaking in his throat. She feels it stagger round but holds on as Paco clears the ground around her, swatting and hitting to floor creatures that fly past. She roars with pain and determination. She grips harder, pulling tighter with veins in her neck and head bulging as the beast drops to his knees from the lack of air being taken in. She goes with him, forcing him down to the ground to jump up and stamp a foot on his skull. She kicks hard, driving feet into its face smashing the nose and jaw, fracturing eye sockets while heedless to the pain in her toes. The beast rears. The damage to his face is nothing to him. He will bite and rake all the same. He rises fast with a fresh lungful of air giving oxygen to muscles. She tries punching the side of his head but he shows no reaction and comes up with blood dripping down his ruined face. The meat cleaver swung by Becky takes him through the throat, severing his neck with such brutal strength his head falls to roll across the ground. Still no time for thought but only to react.

She runs back to find Subi and the other two but gets hit from the side by a body lunging in to take her down. She hits the ground hard, whumping the air from her lungs as the weight is suddenly taken away by Paco lifting the man overhead to be thrown like a ragdoll into more coming. She rolls, scrabbles and crabs on hands and knees through blood spraying and bodies falling. A woman lands in front of her, screaming with terror and pain from the beast sinking its teeth into her shoulder. A machete falls from her hand that cannot now tense and grip due to the tendon being bitten through. Heather grabs it and swings wildly, cleaving into the infected. She hacks harder, strength gaining with a weapon in her hand. She slams it into the back and shoulders slicing deep through flesh. On her feet, she boots the body away and without a thought in her mind she brings that machete down into the throat of the woman bitten in the shoulder. On she goes, staggering to her feet to see Amna’s red shoes underneath her brother being pinned down by Subi. Movement to her right, she spins and lashes with the blade swiping across a head that peels apart. She slices again, hacking to get it away. Sensation behind her. Paco leans past to stop a man lunging in to bite her. His fist gripping hair to yank and pull the man in so his neck can be broken.

‘SUBI…CAR….’ She grunts the words while dancing back to hack out at a hand coming to rake. Several fingers are taken off to fall like litter on the ground. ‘SUBI…CAR…NOW SUBI…’

She reaches back to grab Subi’s arm, lifting her up as Paco fights to keep her clear. ‘UP…RAJ GET UP…CAR NOW…’

She fight to cover them as Paco fights to cover her. A battle of filth and blood and snarling voices. Screams of pain score the air. The whole of it is sordid and terrifying but within that chaos she gets them through. Slashing anything that comes close. Digging that blade into a thigh then through an arm then higher into a neck as her hands and arms get drenched in blood.

‘BECKY…CAR…’ she catches sight of wild ginger hair atop a face as snarling and vicious as the infected. A woman, a mother, a wife who will fight until the last drop of blood in her body is gone. She snatches round to see Heather, calm in her eyes despite the battle lust etched on her face. A curt nod and she’s off to grab children who get propelled to run through the bodies to the car.

Those three hold them back. Becky with a meat cleaver. Heather with a machete taken from a woman’s hand who she just killed and Paco raging to destroy them with the ease of his virtue and right from having their blood in his veins. He doesn’t tire. He doesn’t get scared or feel fatigue and like them he feels no pain but tears human form apart to make the streets run red with blood. Becky sees it. In the utter depravity of that awful minute of frenetic motion she sees it and gives a prayer for his presence. He gets worse too. Faster. Harder. He breaks and stamps and punches with a strength that isn’t right to see.

Children are thrown into the back seats, wedged and pushed to make room for more that get shoved and screamed at by Becky and Heather. ‘IN…’ Heather yells at Becky, pushing her to get in the back. ‘PACO…’ she screams his name while going for the driver door to get in and start the car but the big man doesn’t run away. He stands and fights. Running away is not in his mind right now. ‘PACO GET IN,’ Heather roars the words but knows he won’t listen or pay heed. Go. Drive away. Get the children away from here. Now. Do it now.

‘Becky you drive,’ she’s out and running to join her man to fight and keep them back. She runs to swing the machete into the back of an old woman who goes down with a spray of blood. She hears doors closing, the engine starting and gains perception of the car moving through the battle to mow more down that get thumped and knocked aside.

‘GET IN,’ Becky slows to scream from the car.

‘GO,’ Heather turns, lashing out with the machete. ‘GO NOW…’

Becky nods frantically, knowing the children must be protected at any cost. She goes, pushing her foot down to give speed to get them away as Heather slashes and screams to stay by the man who saved her while he kills the last few infected.

Thirty Three

In silence she stands. The machete held low at her side dripping blood from the blade. Her hands sticky, her arms coated, her t shirt covered in gore. Sweat covers her face. Her hair slicked back against her scalp. She spits to the side and snorts to clear her nose.

They won. They remain standing while everyone else lays dead. She looks round with eyes now used to seeing such sights and checks for movement where there is none to be seen. Paco at her back, his arms out from his body, his stance wide. His face glistens wet, his hands drip blood like the blade on her weapon.

She goes to speak but her mouth is too dry. She sighs instead, heavy, deep and weary to the bone. Her bag is in the car. No water bottles. No anti-bac or detergent spray. No matter. Plenty of houses here and the fear of finding something inside is suddenly not so great. This is a new world where you take what you need.

She moves off, threading a careful course through the slain. She looks round to spot the nearest house with a busted in door and heads for that. She pauses at the threshold, head cocked and listening. She steps inside and inhales. No noise. No smell. Her feet leave a trail of bloodied shoeprints down the laminated hallway to the kitchen where the tap gets turned and left to run while she roots through the under sink cupboard to pull out the cleaning materials.

They wash before drinking with hands held under the flow of water while she uses a scouring pad and detergent to scrub the gore away. She takes his top off and throws it to the side. Hers is next, discarded to stand in just her bra to use cold water to rinse the sweat from their skin. His wounds are cleaned and dried but left open from lack of dressings.

Only then do they drink and slake their thirst from rinsed mugs with deep greedy gulps and eyes locked on each other with a bond that grows stronger by the hour. They keep going, refilling to drink and replace lost fluids. The bandage on his neck is filthy and stained with blood. She finds scissors and cuts it away to let it fall and cleans his throat. It still looks awful but it’s meshing back together as though his body is absorbing the folds of skin back into his flesh. They drink again. Filling mugs with water as their body temperatures ease down from hours of gruelling labour in an already blisteringly hot day.

She finds clean tops from the drawers in the bedroom of the house that once belonged to someone else but you take what you can and keep going. A few minutes later and without a word spoken they emerge to walk back into a death filled street of humidity. The machete in her hand gripped and held low at her side. Skin pink and scrubbed. Shoes and trousers sprayed with detergent. On they go.

People died here. Children. Mothers. Fathers. Strangers. They died and turned to come back and be killed again. She knows it but doesn’t feel it. Instead there is something else. An intrinsic knowledge that they did what had to be done. The woman who dropped the machete was alive when Heather brought the blade down into her neck but that woman already had tainted blood and would have come back. That’s the brutality of this world now. If you hesitate they get you. If you fail to react they will get you. Move fast. Be brutal. Be like Paco.

The machete held in her right hand down at her side. Her left hand entwined in his that she lifts to scratch her head, his hand lifts with hers. Organic and natural. His gait adjusts to allow for hers as does she for his longer stride. Done without thought. Without thinking. Without the need to think. She huffs from the heat and glances at him. He smiles. She smiles back and on they go through the world that is changing at a pace unknown in history.

‘Car,’ she nods to the driveway on the side and the big four wheel drive. A Toyota. Nice and sturdy with big wheels and she shows the lessons learnt by ignoring the hatchbacks and executive cars they’ve already passed. She gets to the door of the house and tries the handle. Locked. She knocks and steps back, rolling her shoulders with the machete gripped tight. ‘No one home,’ she says with a look at him. There it is. The understanding in his eyes. She turns to face him fully, her eyes searching his for something she knows is there. He holds still, expressive with a yearning and a confusion that hints of pain and loss and trying, always trying. ‘It’ll come,’ she says softly. She reaches up to kiss his cheek, her hand resting on his shoulder. He lowers to take the kiss in a way that makes her smile warmly. ‘Open the door big guy.’

She steps back and nods at the door. He looks at it then back at her. So close to grasping it. She could tap with her foot or kick it to show what she wants but holds off, knowing he can do it. She nods at it, smiling and urging with expression alone.

He explodes so fast she jumps back. A foot launching up to slam into the lock that blasts the door inwards with a shower of plaster and bricks raining down.

‘You are bloody awesome,’ she chuckles at the absurdity of life as it is now and waits for the sound of running feet or the stench of death to come out. Neither comes. She goes in behind him and finds the keys in a bowl on a small pine unit in the hallway. Smells reach her nose. She stops and listens, sniffing the air that isn’t stale or musty.

‘We need your car,’ she calls out and hears a faint scrape in the room above her. ‘Go south…Fort Spitbank. A man called Mr Howie is fighting back. Go there. You’re not safe here.’

She walks down the hallway as a door creaks open and soft footfalls treading across the landing carpet.

‘Where?’ A man asks, his voice timid and fearful. She looks up to see him standing at the top of the stairs. Pale and drawn, bags under his eyes. His hands tremble as he motions to someone else to stay back.

‘Place called Fort Spitbank. South. Go there…’ she turns to go and stops. ‘Sorry about your car but…it’s a four wheel drive…’ she looks out the door to the Toyota. ‘It’s good for running them over with,’ she adds as though the explanation helps.

‘Who…that name?’

‘Mr Howie,’ she shrugs, ‘never met him…I think I saw him earlier in an army truck but…’ she shrugs and sighs. ‘Maybe…go now though. There’s plenty of others cars to take. Don’t wait. Take what you need and move fast. If you see survivors you tell them the same thing…Fort Spitbank, Mr Howie…got it?’

‘Yeah,’ he whispers and goes to say something else but stops. She smiles at him, at the sadness of it all. ‘You’ll be okay,’ she says softly, ‘people are fighting back now…just move fast.’

The solid clunk of central locking and thankfully this starts with a proper key pushed into a proper ignition and she smiles at the manual gear stick in the middle. She watches Paco hesitate and glance at the passenger door and again holds off. He looks at her, she nods. He moves round as she leans over to open the door. ‘Hey,’ she says as he gets in. ‘Close the door…the door…close it…close it…good.’

She backs out into the street, selects first and moves off to follow the route Becky took in the Volvo that holds Subi, Rajesh and Amna who will reach that fort no matter what it takes.