Blood on the Floor: An Undead Adventure (41 page)

At the front Heather scans ahead. Listening and trying to sort through the noises of the children behind her. She hears the snarl of the infected woman and casts a quick look to see Paco slicing through her neck and the head falling with a thump as the body runs another step from sheer momentum gained. Other noises in the air. Howls and screeches. A way of communicating to say where the infected are. Movement. There. A flash of the moon reflecting from a pale torso. She lifts, aims and fires. The sound of branches breaking from a heavy body crashing into the hedgerow. ‘Shell,’ she pants the word, breaking the shotgun open to eject the used cartridge. The new one goes in, the gun snaps closed.

‘Heather!’

Subi gives the warning, her keen eyes spotting the two running straight at them. Heather lifts, aims down the barrel and plucks the first trigger. The spread of pellets hits both, sending them reeling back. The one on the left sprawls out. The one on the right gains balance and keeps coming with blood pissing out from the wounds inflicted on his chest and stomach. Heather fires again, blowing him back off his feet. ‘Shells,’ she opens the gun, pulls the two used ones out and takes two more handed from Subi’s shaking hands. A glance back. Paco is right there. More howls rip through the air in response to the new shots fired. Direction of the potential hosts has been gained.

‘Can’t…’ Christian cries out. His arms burning in the sockets from the weight of Amna.

‘Put her down, Amna you have to run...’

‘Carry me…’

‘I SAID RUN,’ Heather bellows the words out, making five children flinch and one little girl lift an eyebrow with an expression of mild distaste etched on her face. ‘Fine,’ a change of tactic, ‘stay here then…’

She runs on, noticing the shock on Amna’s face who immediately starts running, her little legs working furiously to keep up with the others. Rajesh grabs her hand, forcing her to keep pace.

‘There,’ Subi shouts again. Heather fires from the waist. Both barrels one after the other. Three drop but more are coming.

‘Stop…shells,’ she brings them to a halt, dropping to a knee to break the shotgun and load two more shells. She lifts, aims and fires. More drop but more are coming. She breaks the gun, reloads, lifts and fires. The sound is immense. The recoil slams her shoulder until she learns to brace. She reloads and fires. Sending hundreds of shots down the lane that lacerate, wound and kill the infected.

‘Okay…move…’ she aims and fires into the head of a crawler, exploding the skull that blows apart sending a shower of sticky grey matter over the bushes behind. Bodies on the floor. Blood on the floor. Blood and gore everywhere. They weave through the corpses. Heather fires into another crawler, wasting valuable shells. Over half a dozen shot down but more are coming.

A grunt from behind. Paco slams the machete into the neck of one while lashing a hand out to grip the hair of another trying to run past him. He twists hard, flinging the body down to the floor before stamping on the face with such force the bones are driven in.

Shots from the front. Another one gunned down. Three from behind. One of them aiming for Paco while the other two aim for the children with a cohesion of effort. Heather turns, aims and blasts one apart. Paco swats aside the one coming at him and runs to intercept the other. Heather goes wide, shooting into the head of the one Paco felled with the swat.

On they go. Bodies left to bleed behind them. Chests heaving. Legs burning. The minds of the children grow dim from the sustained peril and shock. Another bubble forms around them. A bubble of noise and gore but they keep going. The running eases. They cannot keep the pace up despite Heather bellowing at them. Amna is too little. Tommy is struggling to carry Oliver and puts him down. They walk fast instead at a pace that Heather finds crippling.

‘Shells…’ she slides them in and snaps the shotgun closed, turning to see Paco walking backwards with the machete held out to one side. That he’s using the weapon is not lost on her.

The lane bends and snakes between high hedges. Moonlight bathes the land giving shape to silhouettes that loom in the distance. Farmhouses, barns and stables blocks. They pass five bar gates and junctions to other lanes and footpaths. She takes lefts and rights, desperate to lose the infected but knowing that each shot fired is akin to a flare sent in the sky
we are here, come find us.

She saw the number on the side when she picked the case up. Fifty shotgun cartridges would be enough for any sport shooter. Fifty shells would last a farmer a long time. Fifty tonight go fast. Two at a time fired at shadows flitting to burst from hedges. When they come hard she stops to kneel to speed the reload and fire at anything making noise or giving sight of movement. The children stop flinching at the sound but use those breaks to gasp air and claw back what energy they can. Ten cartridges are used within the space of a few minutes until she snaps the order to move on.

Into the night they go. At times their noise is the only sound to be heard bringing false hope that they will be able to find somewhere to hide but then more come and the shotgun fires again that sends the signal flare to the others.

Paco is kept just as busy and with only the machete it means they get closer before he can intervene to kill them. Ones and twos are easy. Three do not pose a problem. He is fast, strong and vicious beyond compare. He is a dangerous monster given to snapping necks with one arm while slashing the machete with the other. Four can be handled but five become a problem. Two charge directly at him, demented at a level just below biting their own flesh. Three more just behind them aiming for the children.

‘ETHER,’ his strangled voice gives the shout, unable to say her name. She snaps the shotgun closed while turning and lifting to aim and shoots one down. A twitch of aim and she fires again killing another one. Three infected left. Two of them attacking Paco with a wild rage that makes them impervious to the wounds of the machete hacking them apart. The last one runs past to charge at the children. Time slows. Heather can see it coming and knows there isn’t time to reload. Paco has already taken one arm off and slashed so deep the innards of the other attacking him fall out but still they bite and rake into him.

‘PACO,’ she screams in warning while running with the shotgun held in two hands but gets slammed back by the power of the infected man who lunges to bite with wild snaps that make her dodge left and right while trying to brace the shotgun against him. She can’t run backwards fast enough and goes down hard, driven into the ground with a whump that drives the wind from her lungs. Stars in her eyes. Her senses overwhelmed. The head comes down to bite. A sensation of another impact. Rajesh lands on the man’s back, wrapping his small arms round the head to try and prise it back. She screams for him to get back but forming words in the midst of such a thing isn’t possible. An arm lashes out knocking Rajesh off to send him flying across the ground. Heather rallies, bucking and writhing to get the shotgun up. She gets the barrel into his mouth like a stick for him to bite. She heaves and pushes, forcing his head back as he bites on the metal so hard his teeth fall from his mouth. Her knees start cycling, slamming into his groin and arse then he’s gone. Ripped back one handed by a man who shows what pure rage is for the temerity to touch that which he loves the most. The man flies up high with a surge of strength pulsing through Paco. Down into the ground, bones breaking. Paco stamps hard. Snapping the neck. His hands comes down, grips Heather’s top and lifts her bodily up onto her feet. She rises stunned and frozen, her eyes wide at the look on his face. Another comes in from behind. Paco pivots from the waist, slamming his elbow into a throat that gets crushed and broken. The thing drops, trying to suck air that can no longer be drawn. He strides off to pick Rajesh up and back onto his feet.

‘Run,’ the broken voice comes but the word is clear.

They run. They go on shaky legs tight together. Subi handing the shells to Heather who fires into the night while Paco gets faster, stronger, angrier. He shreds them with ease. The weapon becomes an extension to his body. He swings that blade with power behind it that forces it through bone and sinew.

Heather covers the front while they blunder through lanes, roads and footpaths. At times the canopy of the trees blocks the moonlight plunging them into near on pitch darkness. They hold hands and keep going. Never staying still other than to fight out of a melee and then only long enough for the last body to fall. The case of shells in Subi’s hands grows lighter as the valuable rounds are expended time and again. Break the shotgun, load, snap closed, fire once, fire twice and on it goes, unceasing, unrelenting. Mouths become dry, throats parched, legs so heavy the children trip and fall continuously. Heather’s eyes become sore from straining to see in the darkness. She starts second guessing herself and fires at a signpost that ricochets the pellets with loud metallic pings.

That small group claw their way through a twisting nightmare of a night where everything is sent against them. Headaches bloom in the back of skulls from dehydration. Eyes become dry but still they go. Still the shotgun fires and still Paco lifts to slam bodies and break necks.

There is no concept of time or direction. There is no concept of anything other than absolute hell. Ollie goes down, simply unable to keep walking. His mind shuts off and he slumps unconscious. Heather grabs his arms and heaves him up onto her back.

‘Hold on,’ she hisses at him, trying to get his arms to wrap round her shoulder but he stays limp. She tries shouting but the effect of her voice was lost hours ago. She eases him down, turns and hefts him across one shoulder then rises to keep going. Within a few minutes pain blossoms in her side from having to walk leaning over. She grits her teeth, snarling through the agony that grows.

Paco’s voice. They come to a sudden stop. She drops to one knee to breathe and ease the pain while lifting the shotgun ready to aim and fire. Noises behind. Hissing breaths that come closer and closer as they charge faster and harder. The machete’s blade loses the edge and becomes a thing to bludgeon and break bones with instead of being used to cut and slice.

‘Run…’

Up she goes, growling with the effort of carrying Ollie. Movement ahead. She fires from the waist trying to brace and absorb the recoil in her own body to negate the boy being thrown from her shoulder.

She breaks the shotgun but can’t hold the boy and get the shells out at the same time. ‘Subi…’ the girl gets the cartridges out, puts new ones in and helps close the weapon. Tommy comes forward, reaching up to hold his brother on Heather’s shoulder while she fires.

‘Raj, help Tommy,’ Subi says, her voice lost in the boom of the shotgun. Raj and Christian cluster to Heathers side with small hands reaching to keep the boy in place.

‘Shells,’ Heather grunts the word, breaking the shotgun with Subi’s help to eject and reload.

‘Ether…’

A glance back. Several running in towards Paco already fending two off.

‘Done,’ Subi says, ducking as Heather swings the barrel over her head to aim down the lane. The two boys rotate round with her movement. Tommy holding his brothers legs, Raj holding his arms. Heather plucks the first trigger and watches as several are blasted back.

‘Front,’ Subi says.

Heather turns, the boys going with her. She fires the second barrel into the woman charging at them.

‘Run,’ Paco’s broken voice urging them on. They start going forward again, clustered together. Silence comes. This will never end. They will run out of shotgun cartridges. The machete will break. They’ll be engulfed from the front and back at the same time. Determination exerts stronger than the fear trying to rise in Heather’s gut.

The children cannot keep going. Days of being cooped up hiding in houses and then made to walk for miles in search of a place that gave hope for the security of living in safety. Constant fear, sustained peril. Families killed. Walking all day in heat that sucks the moisture from their bodies. It cannot be sustained but sustain they must. Heather refuses to give in. Her mind narrows to a pinprick of focus to do this one thing. To keep moving and keep the children alive. To keep going when every bone in your body is begging you to stop. To fortify against the exhaustion, to hold nerve and withstand the pain. Paco is vicious but Heather is ruthless. Emotion evaporates. This will be done. They will prevail. The inner core running through her soul refuses any other option. So she loads, fires and loads again. She carries Ollie over her shoulder and feels Amna’s hand clinging to the material of her trousers. She listens to Paco and turns when he needs help then keeps going to keep moving to claw their way out of this mess. The night cannot last. The sun will rise. Whether it will bring any refuge is another matter but it’s all she can hope for now. Hope for the sun to rise and hope for something to give that breaks this situation.

Rajesh goes next. Staggering almost drunk from fatigue. He tries to keep going but his body is small and the lack of nutrition from the long days in the supermarket have made his body weak. Heather doesn’t falter. She doesn’t speak but drops to get him across her other shoulder and rises once again to plough on. The pain in her sides and back is indescribable. Muscles cramping from lack of water and the pressure of the two children bearing down. She fires from the waist, leaning ever so slightly forward to stop the children sliding down her back. Tommy and Christian doing what they can to help. Amna still clinging to her pocket. Subi breaking the gun to load and pass it back and all the time Paco walks behind them taking punishment from a never ending onslaught of infected charging at him.