Dead Days (Book 1): Mike (5 page)

“What are you going to do with
that?
”

The idea of using a weapon still seems ridiculous, and I feel myself turning red with embarrassment.

“Just in case.  I’ve seen those things up close, its better to have something.”

Cass gives me another appraising stare, but this time she looks more worried, less sceptical.  For a moment I think she’s going to say something else but she doesn’t, so I head carefully down the stairs to the front door.

   I see the huge crack that now runs down the centre of it, and I realise that the infected homeless man was probably only moments away from breaking in.  I hear Cass gasp behind me as she sees the damage.  I think she’s beginning to grasp the scale of what’s going on, maybe even better than I am.  I guess nobody believes in monsters until they’re crashing through your front door.

Damn that was almost poetic.

I peek through the crack in the wood in case the tramp is still around, but I can’t see or hear anything, so I tentatively open the door.  The street is deserted.  I beckon Cass to come out and I close the door behind me as she steps outside.

     I walk quickly to the van and open the driver-side door.  Cass walks round to the other side. 

The passenger door is locked and Cass knocks on the window for me to let her in. 

As I reach for the lock, my eyes widen in horror as the blood covered face of the tramp appears behind her, mouth yawning open, reaching for her with his filthy twisted hands.  She sees my expression and begins to turn as he bears down on top of her.

Fuck, he must have been behind the van!

Cass stumbles backwards into the door, I can’t open it because now the weight of both her and the homeless monster are pressing against it.  She’s holding him off but he is bigger, stronger and any second now he’ll sink his teeth into her.  I don’t want to see that, I don’t want to see Cass die.

      I don’t have time to get out the van and run around to help, it’ll be too late by then. 

      Frantically I wind the window down, and I give Cass just enough room to lean back as the tramp lunges forward, his teeth clicking shut only centimetres from her face. 

She is screaming. 

I drop the blunt knife and grab the hammer from the seat beside me.

“Cass duck!”

She hears me and slides down the door, and now I am in mister Tramp’s eye-line, he forgets all about her, and pushes through the window towards me.  I bring the hammer down reflexively, yelling as I do, a purely terrified instinct.  There isn’t room for a big swing, and I strike the hard part of his skull, the reverberation sending a shooting pain up my arm and I nearly drop it. 

      Through the windshield I can see Cass scrabbling backwards across the tarmac, her face a picture of terror.  Then the tramp is
pulling
himself through the window, his shoulders squeezing through as his hands snatch at my clothes.  In seconds he will be on top of me, in the cab with me, and I force myself to react.  I reverse the hammer and hit him in the side of the head with claw part.  There is a sickening, wet crunch as it sinks into his temple, gouting thick dark blood in a spray that hits the dashboard and windshield.  His right eye pops out the socket, dangling grotesquely onto his cheek. 

He spasms once then stops moving abruptly. 

All at once, I feel like I’m having a panic attack and I kick him hysterically back out of the window.  As he slithers onto the pavement, I hear Cass give another scream.           

      My vision begins to narrow into a tunnel and for a moment I think I’m going to pass out.  Then the door is opening, and I have a second to think that the tramp isn’t dead after all, that he’s come back to finish the job.

But then I see that it’s Cass, she has opened the lock through the window and is climbing into the van.  She has also retrieved the hammer that I left embedded in mister Tramp’s head.  She is pale and trembling but her eyes are blazing.

“Get…me…the fuck out of here.”

The world swims back into focus and I nod.  I start the van with shaking fingers and as I start to drive, I feel steadier.

      We say nothing, I concentrate on the road.  Cass’s view is obscured by the tramps blood but mine is ok.  She is staring into the middle distance.

“Is that where Tess is?  Surrounded by those things?”

I swallow once, then nod.

“And you think we’ll be able to get to her through them?”

“I don’t know.”

I almost jump as I feel her gently place a hand on my arm.

“I do.  Mike its suicide.”

I don’t have anything to say to that.

“Mike?  Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah I-”

My phone beeps.  I almost don’t understand where the noise has come from, and then, when I realise, I’m scrabbling for my pocket.  I see the message header.  It reads:

TESS

“It’s Tess!”  I turn to Cass.  “She got a message through!  She’s alive!  Cass she’s fucking-”

Cass’s face changes.

“Mike look out!”

I have a split second to see the truck barrelling towards us and I wrench the steering wheel to the left.  It hits us side on, and I feel the world turn upside down.  Cass is screaming beside me as we roll, over and over again, glass shatters, I hear the squeal of twisting metal, then something strikes me hard in the back of the head, and my own personal universe switches off.

NEXT: 

PART 2; TESS