Demise of the Living (26 page)

Karen and Billy turned to see
Thomas standing up at the front of the mini bus.

“What is that scaffolding bar?”
Billy asked.

“It’s an outer strut of one of
those temporary mesh barriers we tore down. It was imbedded in a
radiator.”

Billy shook his head.

“Can we fix it?” Karen asked.
“I mean, we’re at a garage, right?”

“Yeah, sure I can fix it,”
Thomas answered.

“Don’t be stupid,” Billy
said.

“You don’t think I can fix a
simple radiator?” Thomas asked, offended.

“I don’t doubt you could, but
how long will that take? Two hours? Four?”

“
Maybe, if I find the
right parts. Or I can weld it closed. It’ll be messy, but it’ll get
us home.”

Billy marched up to a beige
metal box fixed to the wall inside the workshop. He pulled at it,
but it didn’t open.

“What’re you doing?” Thomas
asked.

Ignoring him, Billy
picked up a wrench and smacked the metal box. The front snapped off
its hinge and flew open. Billy casually tossed the wrench to the
floor and tilted his head sideways to scan the keys on the
rack.

“Got you,” he said, plucking a
key from its hook.

“What’re you doing?” Karen
asked.

Billy walked over to a
large black people-carrier and hit the unlock button. The vehicle’s
lights flashed and the doors unlocked with a chirp.

“Give me a hand hooking this
thing up,” Billy said, nodding at the toe hook on the back of the
car.

“Or we just jack a new ride,”
Thomas said.

Billy looked over at the
young girl. She had her arms folded over her chest as if she were
cold. She was maybe two foot shorter than him and he guessed one of
his arms weighed more than she did in total. In spite of her frail
frame, he could see intensity in her eyes.

“
What about you, kid? Can
you drive?" Billy asked.

“
I’m too young to have a
license,” Karen replied.

“
I didn’t ask if you had
a
license
, kid.”

“I’ve driven Nate’s round a
parking lot,” Karen said.

Billy looked at Thomas and they
held their gaze on each other for a while as if they were
communicating telepathically.

“Fuck it,” Billy muttered.

He walked over to the metal box
on the wall he’d prized open and pulled down a key. It had a fawn
cardboard tag with a registration number scrawled across it. Billy
didn’t even read the tag. He held it aloft like a magi about to
start an incantation and press the button.

The lights flashed on the Audi
up on the workshop ramp.

“Not that one,” Billy said as
he tossed the key aside.

He picked up another key and
pressed the button. This time a saloon car chirped and flashed.

“
That’ll do,” Billy said.
He tossed the key over to Karen. “Load it up with as much stuff as
you can from the bus. Doesn’t matter what, just get it in there. It
won’t be long before we draw in company. Soon as we do, get in and
follow Thomas.”

“
How do we know the car
will work?” Karen asked. “We’re in a repair shop, after
all.”

Billy tilted his head to get a
better look at the car.

“
Don’t look fucked up,”
he answered glibly.

Karen still looked worried.

“It’s a dealership, kid,” Billy
explained. “These guys are in for their free service: fresh air-con
cartridge, oil change—you know, ten thousand-mile service.”

“Stop gabbing and give me a
hand with the trailer,” Thomas demanded.

Billy scurried over and started
to help Thomas move the trailer from behind the bus and onto the
tow hook of a people-carrier.

Karen walked over to the car
and eyed it up like it was a threat. She had driven around the odd
empty parking lot, mainly with Shan’s boyfriend, but these had been
ten-minute affairs with plenty of room to make mistakes. She looked
out of the open workshop doors. On the forecourt there were rows of
burnt-out cars. Karen had held out little hope of finding a
replacement vehicle as they chugged up to the dealership in the
ailing mini bus. The glass facade of the show room was smashed in
and the cars either stolen or wrecked. The rioters had obviously
ignored the workshop at the back of the showroom in their orgy of
theft and destruction.

The world had collapsed
and in its dying gasps people hadn’t fought to survive—they had
fought to acquire a better car or to vent their frustration on
these inanimate shells of metal.

“Don’t just stand there—get
packing,” Thomas said from behind her.

Karen looked round to see Billy
and Thomas finish hooking the trailer up to the people carrier.
They were now grabbing arms full of supplies from the back of the
broken down mini bus and transferring them to the newly acquired
vehicle.

“I’m not sure about driving the
car,” Karen confessed.

“Can you start it?” Billy
asked.

“Of course,” Karen
answered.

“Can you turn the steering
wheel?” Billy continued.

“Yeah.”

“
Then you’ll be fine. The
rest is gravy.”

“
Let’s face it,” Thomas
added, “you’ll not have any cops pulling you over and asking for
your licence just because you failed to stop at a
light.”

“Thomas here will take the
lead, you in the middle, and I’ll follow up in the rear with the
people carrier and the trailer,” Billy said. “Colin’s in the back
with me and I’ll keep the passenger seat free. If anything goes
wrong, I’ll pull up alongside you and you can ride shotgun with
me.”

Karen nodded and let a slight
smile grace her lips.

“Good. Now load as much shit in
these cars as you can before we start attracting attention.”

Comforted by Billy’s words,
Karen opened the back door to the car and started filling it up
with the various cans and bags of food from the mini bus.

“Should we search the garage
for useful stuff?” Thomas asked, holding an armful of dried
goods.

“
I don’t know,” Billy
said. “What are we likely to find? A vending machine and some key
fobs?”

“It’s a garage, man—there’s a
ton of tools and kits here," Thomas said.

“What would we do with
them?”

“I don’t know…fix things.”

“I don’t think it’s worth the
payoff. If we’re going to raid places, we should go for high value
targets like food depots.”

“
But we’re here,” Thomas
argued. “We don’t need to go out of our way just take the
opportunity.”

“Wait—be quiet a second,” Karen
said.

Everyone stood still.

Karen peered out of the
open entrance. The narrow view was the same as before, torched cars
and debris.

“What is it?” Thomas asked.

Karen cocked her head. “I
heard something. It was...”

A moan drifted towards them on
the acrid wind.

“
Shit,” Billy cursed
softly. “Get in the cars.”

“No, wait,” Thomas said. “Keep
loading. I’ll take care of this.”

He bent down to a square
red jack on the floor. He placed one foot on the body of the jack
and quickly unscrewed the long metal handle. He held it in one hand
and tapped the shaft against the palm of his other hand.

“Right, let’s shut this fucker
up,” Thomas said, taking long strides out of the garage doors.

Billy got back to loading
up the supplies, but Karen watched as Thomas quick-stepped up the
short incline from the service bay. When he disappeared out of
sight, she turned back to loading up the car.

“Do you think Shan will be
okay?” Karen asked.

“
You know her better than
us,” Billy replied. “What do you think?”

“
I guess she can look
after herself,” Karen said. “I mean, I
know
she can look after
herself, it’s just that she can take things too far. You know, go
over the top.”

“Yeah, I know,” Billy
agreed.

“She can look after herself,
but she needed me to hold her back a bit—not that I could
sometimes.”

“
I know exactly what you
mean,” Billy said. “I used to ride with a guy just the
same.”

“Do you think he’ll be okay?”
Karen asked.

“Doubt it. He was fond of a
drink and didn’t have the sense to leave his bike. Got a call one
morning from his maw that he was in hospital. He’d lost control
coming home from a session and got himself in an argument with a
truck. He lived just long enough to sober up and realize how stupid
he’d been.”

“Oh,” was all Karen could
say.

Looking at the young
girl, Billy realized he had spooked her a little. Embarrassed, he
broke eye contact.

“Where the hell is Thomas?” he
asked. “You keep loading. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Marching out of the doors,
Billy stood at the top of the incline that led into the workshop.
He looked around, but couldn’t see Thomas anywhere.

The moaning that had led Thomas
out of the garage had ceased, but there was a distant humming, like
bees in a swarm.

Billy walked up to the right to
get a view of the way they had come. He turned the corner of the
car dealership and was afforded a view that struck him cold.

Down the road they had
just taken from the school came a wall of undead. Still a quarter
of a mile away, the zombies had been far out-paced by the ailing
school minibus, but they were doggedly following its
course.

Billy turned tail and ran
back. He went straight past the entrance and down to the left side
of the building.

On the gravel verge by one of
the billowing dealership flags, there lay a soldier dressed in
battle armour and wearing a helmet. Through an eye socket there
protruded the red powder-coated handle for the jack.

Billy shouted, “Thomas!”

There was no reply. He took a
few paces further and cupped his hands around his mouth.

He called again, “Thomas!”

Thomas appeared from behind a
brick wall. He was grinning from ear to ear.

Draped from his shoulders
were four or five assault rifles.

“
Ah, you’ve seen my
handiwork then,” Thomas said, looking at the immobilised zombie.
“Took forever getting him pinned through the eye; bloody helmet
getting in the way.”

“Where the fuck did you get
those?” Billy asked in amazement.

“
Back there.” Thomas
nodded over his shoulder. “There’s an army truck on its side.
Thought they’d come in useful.” He trotted past Billy, carrying the
heavy guns. “There’s more stuff in there, but be careful,” he added
with a mischievous laugh.

Billy jogged around the corner
to see a massive jeep-type vehicle on its side. There was a fresh
scrape up the road where it had obviously skidded over.

“Must’ve been going some speed,
boy,” Billy said to himself.

The truck was tan
coloured, either destined for or recently returned from a tour in
the Middle East. Behind the thick metal mesh that screened the
whole vehicle, Billy could see the driver slumped at the bottom of
the cab, blood on the inside of the windshield. Halfway out of the
machine gun turret hung a second body, that of a young soldier. His
left arm lay under him and must have dislocated from the
shoulder.

Billy walked to the back of the
massive six-wheeler to where the rear hatches were open. There was
some banging from inside.

Cautiously, he peered
through the open doors. Immediately the zombified soldier groaned
and lunged at him.

Billy stepped back, but
then realised he was in no danger. The hapless soldier was strapped
firmly into a seat with a four-point harness. On its forearm it
sported a blood-stained bandage, no doubt from the wound that
originally infected him.

“Poor bastard,” Billy said.

“
Who?” Thomas asked,
coming up behind him. “Oh, Private Gibson there.”

“We’d better work quickly;
there’s a mob of those dead fuckers following us from the school,”
Billy said.

“This was a stroke of luck,”
Thomas said.

Billy shook his head.
“Not for them it wasn’t.”

Chapter
13

The elevator pinged and
the doors slid open. Mo stepped out onto the third floor. A couple
of days ago he was mentally berating John for his laziness in
taking the lift, and now here he was doing the same.

But Mo’s laziness wasn’t
physical. He could easily jog up the stairs. Mo was purposefully
avoiding Sharon and the confrontational attitude she’d taken
towards him this morning. Mo didn’t know what he’d done to provoke
her displeasure. He’d encountered prejudice and hate many times in
his life, none of it based on anything tangible. Being the
pragmatist that he was, he didn’t waste time trying to figure out
what, if anything, he’d done to incur Sharon’s anger. So Mo decided
to take the path of least resistance and avoid Sharon as best he
could.

He stood with his hands
clutched round the cold railing, looking down the stairwell. It was
void of signs of life.

Sharon and
Melissa must still be in the first floor office
, Mo thought.

His stomach made a
growling noise so loud that the rumble echoed off the walls. He was
hungry, but wanted to avoid going to the canteen for as long as
possible. Sharon might go off at him again, or John might make some
snidey
comment.

The hunger was no worse than
fasting and far less of a discomfort than having to deal with
Sharon and her crony, John.