Hamsikker 3 (18 page)

Lukas was stood in ankle deep water now up ahead of Dakota and Jonas. Pushing open a door carefully, he looked inside, turned around and smiled. “What did I tell you? There’s a staff kitchen in here. Looks like we’ve hit the jack…”

With a huge cracking sound, Lukas suddenly disappeared. Jonas was looking at him, and the next he was simply gone. The cracking sound grew louder, and was replaced by what sounded like thunder. The water around Jonas’s ankles began to rush forward, threatening to sweep him off his feet.

“Jonas?” Up ahead Dakota turned and reached out for her husband.

As Jonas tried to grab hold of her, she disappeared too. Her scream bounced off the walls as she fell, and then Jonas felt the floor beneath him give away too. Finally, he understood. The whole floor was giving away, probably weakened by the flooding, unable to withstand the weight of the three of them walking on it. A torrent of water cascaded over his head as he fell, and though it was only seconds, it seemed like an eternity before he landed. He tried to look for Dakota, but it wasn’t just water that obscured his vision. Floor tiles and plaster bombarded him as he fell, and he became completely disorientated. Waiting for the inevitable impact that would surely kill them, or at least render them incapable of walking, he wished he could see Dakota one last time. He wished he could drag her out of this place and send her some place safe, perhaps back to stay with Bishop. He tried to call out for her, but his mouth filled with water. He flapped his arms as if he could fly, and then abruptly hit the water below.

It was like he had jumped into the ocean, so cold was the water that surrounded his body. He kicked furiously, trying to reach the surface, desperate for oxygen to replace the water he had swallowed. He blinked his eyes open, but as soon as he did they stung, and he caught only a glimpse of light before he had to close them again. Kicking his legs out, and trying to swim upwards, he finally broke the surface of the water and coughed.

“Dakota? Dakota, where are you?” Jonas retched, and spat out the foul water that had gotten into his mouth. It tasted like a foul cocktail of chemicals and blood. Was there chlorine in there or bleach? He spat again, and wiped his eyes.

“Dakota!” Jonas shouted for her, wishing she would scream. At least then he would know she was all right.

Jonas looked around, trying to find her, trying to figure out where the hell they were. Evidently the floor they had been walking on was directly above the center’s vast swimming pool, and they had landed directly in the middle of the main pool. To one side of the huge room they were now in Jonas saw a row of seats. To the other side he saw two open doors that led to change rooms. There was a high diving board beneath a clock that had stopped at three o’clock. A tearing sound filled his ears, and then more plaster rained down on him. The ceiling was giving way, and more of it was coming down. They had to get out of there quickly. He was treading water as best he could, unable to feel the bottom of the pool. He knew Dakota could swim, but in this mess, with the roof caving in on them, anything could happen. He had to get her out of there.

Jonas became aware of a body slipping by him. It was face down, and not moving. The brown hair was wrapped around the woman’s face, and the skin on her arms pale and wrinkled.

“Dakota?” He pushed the body over, preying it wasn’t her. When he saw the face, grossly disfigured, the skin covered in teeth marks, the eyes pulpy and creamy white, he wished it had been her.

The zombie reached out an arm, and began to thrash around, trying to get to Jonas. Its rotten teeth clacked together, and its eyeballs rolled in its head.

“Fuck.” Jonas tried to push it away, but every time he did, it just seemed to bring the creature closer. He aimed a punch at the zombie’s head, and he succeeded in hitting in cleanly on the side of the head. Unfortunately, the zombie had spent so long in the pool that its skin had become nothing but a rubbery soft mush, and Jonas only succeeded in cleaving off its skin, leaving him with a gooey pink mush enveloped around his fist.

“Get the fuck off me,” he shouted, as he tried to swim away from the zombie.

“Jonas?”

Suddenly she was behind him coughing and spluttering.

“Dakota…get out of here.”

A floor tile that had fallen down with them floated within reach, and Jonas grabbed it. He kicked upward, got himself a couple of inches extra height, and brought the tile down on the zombie’s head. Swathes of hair and skin came away with the tile, exposing the dead woman’s pure white skull, but the zombie kept coming. It had no idea how to actually swim, but the way it kept flailing its arms around kept it afloat, and Jonas knew it was next to impossible to get away from it.

“Dakota, get the hell out of here.” Jonas swung the tile down again, hoping he could smash through the thing’s skull, but the tile broke in half, and the zombie just kept on coming. Its hands grazed Jonas’s face, its pudgy, dead fingers clawing at his skin, touching his cheeks, his jaw, and his nose. Jonas shuddered. It was disgusting, and it needed putting down. Kicking as frantically as he could, he tried to put some distance between himself and the zombie. He tried swimming after Dakota toward the edge of the pool, but every time he thought he was going to get away, the thing wrapped its fingers around his ankles and pulled him back. Putrid water rushed into his mouth as he gurgled and coughed, trying to get away from the zombie’s deadly clutches. He spat the gross water out, and took in a breath before he was pulled under the surface.

With the zombie grasping him tightly, Jonas had no choice but to let it pull him down, and he twisted to face his adversary. Under the water Jonas had no momentum, and though he tried to push the zombie away, all he succeeded in doing was slicing off more foul skin. They were slowly sinking, further and further down toward the bottom of the pool. Jonas tried to stop it, but the pressure in his ears grew, and no matter what he did, they were sinking inexorably, inescapably, to the bottom. The zombie continued to pull at his legs, and Jonas felt a burning in his chest as he struggled for air. His eyes felt like they were on fire as chlorine and stagnant water stung them. His feet touched the bottom of the pool, and he realized they weren’t going any further. The zombie was trying to pull him toward it, toward its gaping open mouth where a rubbery tongue was flicking in and out of its engorged mouth, darting in and out like a small pink fish in a dark cave. Jonas tried to get himself around the back of the woman, to keep himself away from her mouth, but it wasn’t easy. He managed to maneuver himself away from the zombie’s head, but it kept twisting and turning, just as he did, and he knew very shortly the dance they were doing was going to stop. His lungs felt like they were exploding, so desperate was he for air, and he tried to use the bottom of the pool to kick upward. The zombie kept dragging him down, though, and Jonas could feel himself weakening. He looked around for anything he could use as a weapon, hoping to spot a piece of piping, perhaps something that had fallen from the upper floor that he could use to leverage himself free.

There was nothing.

The bottom of the pool was lined with square blue tiles, and all Jonas could see were more bodies. All of them were in varying stages of putrefaction, some appearing to be perfectly preserved, whilst others were ragged corpses held together only because they had not had time to decompose. The zombie’s faces were swollen, their stomachs were burst open, and exposed entrails bobbed around in the water like a fleshy seaweed. Jonas noticed movement amongst the bodies, and thought that his fight with the zombie must have disturbed the water. Some of the arms and legs of the bodies were moving, swaying irregularly, undoubtedly disturbed by his macabre dance with the dead woman. Jonas heaved with all his might, and pulled the zombie toward him. It was all he could think to do, and the last chance he had to escape its clutches. He used the zombie’s forward momentum to make it go over his head, and the zombie passed above him like the hull of a ship. Its hands lost their grip on him, and he was finally free. The problem he had now was that the dead body was floating directly above him, and he was going to have to swim out sideways to avoid it.

With his body aching, he placed his feet flat against the bottom of the pool and pushed. He was aware of a distant noise, of shouting and screaming, but he couldn’t make out what was being said. The shouting was probably coming from Dakota on the poolside, but he had to trust she was safe. All he could do now was get himself to the surface. He longed to take in a long deep breath, and knew he couldn’t last more than a few more seconds underwater. As he pushed off, a body slipped beneath him, and he looked at its face. The thing blinked, and reached up for him, its clammy hands grabbing hold of his belt. They weren’t just bodies in the pool, they were zombies. When he had seen their hands and legs waving around, it hadn’t been the fight disturbing them in the water. They were trying to get to him, and he glanced around, noticing more and more of them all heading toward him.

Startled, Jonas opened his mouth. His scream was muted by the water, and as the last of the oxygen in his lungs rushed out, filthy, bloody water rushed in.

The zombie beneath him kept hold of his belt, and all of Jonas’s impetus was lost. His legs buckled as he felt himself being pulled back down again. The zombie beneath him was once a man, and long black hair flowed around his face like an octopus’s arms. Thick strands of hair on the dead man’s head writhed around in the water like spindly hungry worms. The man wore only a pair of board shorts, and they were straining to be freed from the man’s extended gut. Jonas felt the zombie that had been above him grab his left leg, and though he fought it, he couldn’t shake off two of them. He wriggled around, trying to get free, but drained of energy and air, the game was up. He tried to suck in more air, but all he could do was swallow the water that continued to burn its way down his throat. The zombie beneath him was getting closer and closer, and he could see straight into its eyes. The man had bite marks all over his face and neck, and as he opened his mouth to bite, Jonas thought of Janey. She was waiting for him with her three kids. She was less than a mile away, and he wasn’t going to make it. He wasn’t going to see her. He wasn’t going to get his chance to tell her how sorry he was.

Jonas didn’t have time to dwell on his thoughts, as the world around him began to turn black. It felt like his blood was bubbling, and his brain was freezing, and he desperately kicked out, praying he would finally be able to kick the zombies away and get out of this pool.

His feet connected with the zombie that held his left leg, but the dead woman grabbed his other leg. The zombie beneath him had one arm wrapped around Jonas’s right arm now, and was close enough to taste. He was trapped like a fish in a net. Jonas looked at the others crawling across the bottom of the pool toward him, their revolting faces staring at him, and he swallowed one last mouthful of sickening water. He could feel his body tensing up, and his brain was screaming at him to get out of this, to get back up to Dakota, to get out of the pool, to find air, to find freedom, to find Janey.

But he couldn’t do it.

Jonas felt his life ebbing away. Grey spots flashed in front of his eyes, and they merged together, growing larger until he saw nothing but a dim, dark blackness. He prayed that Dakota was at least safe. He wanted more than anything to be a father, to spend his life with her, but he couldn’t fight it anymore. His eyes closed, and his body went limp as the life drained out of him beneath the turgid water. Jonas slipped into a horrible blackness that engulfed his entire being, and the zombies claimed their victim.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Lukas ripped off his shirt, revealing a smooth chest and muscled physique that surprised Dakota. He was so young, so quiet and unassuming, that seeing him spring into action was unexpected. She thought he was more likely to have his head in a book than be found at a gym.

“Stay here, and get ready,” said Lukas as he looked into Dakota’s eyes. “If I don’t come back up with Hamsikker, you need to get the hell out of here.”

Lukas looked at the pool, the water sloshing around as the zombies tossed and turned in the water, thrashing like dying animals. There were so many of them. When he had landed in the water, he had been surprised. The floor above had given way so quickly that there had been no time to plan what to do, so he had gone with it, and waited for his body to smash into the lower level. He knew with two broken legs it would be the end of him, but when he fell into the soft landing of the swimming pool, he took his chance and got out quickly. He hadn’t even noticed the dead bodies as he swam away. It was only when he crawled out and turned around that he had seen them. There were a dozen or more bobbing in the water, and he saw even more were beneath the surface. He wasn’t sure if they could get out, but he didn’t intend to wait to find out. He had heard two more loud splashes behind him as he got out of the pool, and knew it must be Dakota and Hamsikker. As he looked at the pool now, its churning water turning red, he feared the worst. He had helped pull Dakota out of the water, but when they had gone back to pull Hamsikker out he was gone, sucked beneath the surface by a zombie. So much time had passed as they waited for him to resurface, that Lukas knew something was wrong. There was no way Hamsikker would be able to hold his breath this long.

“I’ll get him, I promise,” said Lukas. Dakota was shivering, yet through fear or cold Lukas wasn’t sure. The whole place was like a huge fridge. Going back into the cold water wasn’t an appealing prospect, but he couldn’t just leave Hamsikker to drown, not like this. He grabbed a jagged, broken piece of piping that had come down from the ceiling, and braced himself.

“Lukas, be careful. Don’t…” Dakota’s words were lost as he dove into the water.

For a moment time seemed to stand still. Dakota watched as Lukas disappeared beneath the water. It didn’t make sense. One moment Jonas was there, helping her, the next he was gone. He was a good swimmer, but something had gone wrong, she knew it. She couldn’t see what was going on down there, but in her gut she just knew something bad was happening. The prospect of Jonas not making it was unbelievable. She couldn’t lose him, not now.

Dakota needed to do something to distract her from what she suspected was happening, and she looked around for something she could use to help. There was a lifesaver on the wall, and she plucked it from its case. She looked eagerly back at the pool, but there was still no sign of Lukas or Jonas. Dropping the round lifesaver at her feet, she realized it would be of little use. Down at the shallow end of the huge pool Dakota saw a form stumbling up the steps and out of the water. It slipped as it took its first tentative steps on the poolside, and landed on its back. Like a crab, it wriggled for a moment, arms and legs waving in the air, before it found traction on the slippery tiles, and stood again. The zombie was thin and weak, yet Dakota knew it would find her quickly. She looked at the water again, peering beneath the surface, trying to find them, hoping they would come up and tell her everything was fine, that they were going to all be fine, and that this was just a horrible dream. The surface of the pool was covered in parts of the roof, and more kept falling as she watched.

Dakota couldn’t convince herself that everything was fine, and her heart pounded fast.
Please God, not Jonas, not now
, she thought. She knelt down at the edge of the pool, but through the murky water she couldn’t see anything. There were lots of bodies down there, but who was living, and who was dead was impossible to tell.

“Come on, damn you, come on.”

There was a gurgling noise behind her, and Dakota spun to see a zombie stood right behind her. Her heart lurched, as the thing reached out for her. It couldn’t have come from the pool, as it was dry, so must’ve found another way in. Dakota was through screaming, and as it attempted to grab her, she sidestepped quickly out of the way. Teetering on the edge of the pool, she did the only thing she could think to do, and pushed it in, hoping it wouldn’t get in Lukas’s way.

The rake thin zombie from the shallow end was halfway around the pool now. Dakota knew she couldn’t sit around waiting for it to get to her. When Lukas brought Jonas out, they were going to need to move quickly, and she looked around for something to use as a weapon. When she’d fallen she had dropped her gun, and presumed it was now somewhere at the bottom of the swimming pool. Dakota noticed a pole of some sort on the tiled floor, and ran to pick it up. It was a telescopic pool cleaner, and she flipped it around so the net was in her hands, and the main blunt end of the pole was pointed at the zombie. She approached it carefully, and then whacked the side of it, intending to knock it off balance and into the pool. The rod was too long, and didn’t carry enough weight to dislodge the zombie, though, so the dead man kept coming, batting away the rod with ease. It opened its mouth to moan as it neared Dakota, but only water came out and dribbled down its dislocated jaw.

Bending it over her knee, Dakota quickly grasped the cam and snapped the rod in half. Now it was much shorter, but she had the equivalent of a javelin, and as the zombie threw itself at her, she raised it quickly at the dead man. With a sickening crunch, the zombie impaled itself on the rod, and Dakota was thrown beneath it as she held onto the broken rod. It had entered the zombie’s chest, and Dakota knew it wasn’t going to be enough to stop it. She kept a firm hold on the rod, not wanting to let go for fear of the zombie freeing itself. She was sandwiched between the cold tiles under her back and the zombie above. Only the rod kept it at bay, yet the zombie was slowly, so slowly, sliding down the pole toward her. As it kept coming toward her, more water spewed from its mouth, and she could smell its foul innards mixed with the chlorine. There was shouting coming from the pool, too, and she knew Lukas had found Jonas. They needed help, and she’d had enough of fighting this zombie. With a surge of energy she slid out from under it, letting the zombie fall where she had been lying. Darting away from its groping hands, she grabbed the other end of the discarded broken rod.

Dakota let the zombie roll over and stand up. She dare not push it into the water for fear of simply pushing it toward Lukas or Jonas. The zombie uttered a groan, and then Dakota jammed the rod into the zombie’s eye, ramming it through the socket and up to the hilt. Blood trickled down her forearm, and began gushing from the exploded eye. She shoved the zombie backward until it was pressed up against the wall, and then she pulled the rod out before quickly ramming it into the other eye.

“Fucking die!” she screamed.

Now blinded, the zombie fumbled for her, but Dakota could tell it was weakening. She twisted the road around until it hit the tiled floor, carving up the zombie’s face like a Christmas ham. Smearing the zombie’s brains onto the tiles, Dakota thrust the rod into its skull into it finally stopped moving.

“Dakota, come quickly.”

She dropped the rod. Turning to see Lukas bent over her husband on the side of the pool, she ran to them.

“What happened? Is he going to be all right?” Dakota looked at Jonas knowing full well he wasn’t all right at all. His face was pale, and his lips blue. “What do we do? I don’t—”

“He’s not breathing,” said Lukas calmly. “I need to clear his airway.” Lukas began to blow into Jonas’s mouth.

“Oh God.” Dakota looked on horrified, and clutched Jonas’s lifeless hands. He couldn’t leave her now, not when they were so close. She watched Lukas breathe for Jonas, and then pump his chest in an attempt to restart his heart. Nothing seemed to happen, and Jonas lay motionless.

A clatter behind her forced Dakota to turn around, and she saw a zombie stumble from the change rooms. It immediately began to head for her, and then she saw another behind it. The place had a seriously bad zombie infestation.

“Lukas, please…” Dakota rubbed Jonas’s hand, trying to get some warmth back into him. She squeezed his fingers, and ran her hand up his forearm, hoping he might respond. His skin was cold, and as Lukas kept giving him CPR, she saw nothing was happening. She had to give Lukas more time, and the zombies weren’t waiting.

Lukas rocked back on his heels. “Dakota, I’m sorry, but he’s not responding.” Lukas saw the zombies approaching, two men with bite marks all over their bodies, and he prepared to get up and fight. “Dakota, Hamsikker is go—”

“
Don’t
you say it, Lukas, don’t you
dare
fucking say it. I’ll deal with them.
Keep going
.”

Dakota got to her feet and faced the zombies. “He’s not gone yet, Lukas.”

Though he felt like it was a waste of time, Lukas resumed CPR. He could hear the zombies splashing around in the pool, and knew that some would eventually get out. It wouldn’t be long before they were surrounded. They couldn’t afford to hang around much longer if they wanted to get out.

“Keep going,” shouted Dakota as she ran toward the two zombies. She plucked the broken rod from the skull of the one she had just killed, and skewered the first zombie she came to. She thrust the rod into its neck, and the zombie’s hands flailed as it tried to reach her.

“Not today, motherfucker,” she screamed, and with all her might she yanked the rod to the side, sending the zombie into the small children’s play pool. The zombie floundered in the shallow water, surrounded by inflatable penguins and bloody armbands. Dakota was angry. She was not going out like this, and neither was Jonas. The aching in her bones, the coldness that seeped through her damp clothes to her skin, and the constant tiredness and headaches had been a drain before. She had a child inside her, and a husband at death’s door, and she was fucking pissed. She summoned up all her energy and used her anger to spur her on.

“Throw what you can at me, ‘cause I’m not stopping now,” she said, and she charged at the oncoming zombie. Dakota had no more weapons. The guns were gone. She had nothing left but her own hands, and she grabbed the dead man by the hair as she shoved him to the ground. The dead man was young, and his hair was long and curly. With both hands she began to smash his head back onto the tiled floor. What had been a clean white floor was soon a dark bloody red color. Dakota kept smashing his head back until the bone cracked, and his brain was exposed.

“Dakota, stop, it’s okay,” said Lukas.

Still, she kept going, her face contorted with rage, her eyes burning with tears as she killed the man. She was oblivious to everything else around her. Why did they think they could take Jonas away from her? Who did they think they were, these stinking walking corpses? They deserved to die. They should be rotting in hell.

“Dakota, come on,” said Lukas gently. He put a hand on her shoulder. “We have to get out of here.”

When the zombie beneath Dakota stopped moving, she kept smashing his skull back until his face was obliterated and there was nothing but a pinky-white pile of mushed brain and bone. She pulled her hands up to smash his head again, but there was nothing left to hold onto, and she stared at her hands that clutched nothing but strands of coarse hair. Blood trickled through her fingers, and only as she began to accept the monster was truly dead did she realize Lukas was beside her. She looked into his eyes, scared what she might see. She didn’t want to know Jonas was dead. She didn’t need to see the sympathy in Lukas’s eyes or feel his consoling touch. She needed her husband.

“Dakota, he’s okay.”

A ripple of relief washed over Dakota, and as Lukas stepped aside, she saw Jonas sitting upright coughing painfully. She was surprised and elated at the same time to see him sitting up, and she ran to him.

“Oh, Jonas, I thought…”

Dakota wept as she held Jonas, and she tried to hold him close to her, to give him some of her little body warmth. He was ice cold, and she looked him over. “Jonas, are you okay? What happened?”

“I’ll be okay, thanks to Lukas. I remember being at the bottom of the pool, and then it’s all a blur. They were down there. There were too many.”

Dakota embraced her husband tightly. “You’re okay now, I’ve got you. You’re okay, Jonas. We’re okay.”

“Um, guys, I hate to break up the reunion, but we really do have to go,” said Lukas. He spotted a zombie crawling from the pool at the far end near where the ceiling had collapsed. “We can get out the main entrance. The parking lot looks clear, and we need to get away from this pool as soon as we can.”

“Can you walk?” asked Dakota, as she helped Jonas to his feet.

Jonas nodded. “I feel like I’ve gone ten rounds with Tyson, but I’ll be okay.”

Dakota put an arm around Jonas to support him. “Lukas, how do you know CPR?”

“First aid course. My employer made us take it last year. I thought it was pointless, but turns out it was the only good thing that came out of me working there. Good job my Mom made me learn to swim at high school, too, huh?”