Remains of the Dead (13 page)

“Fuck!” Ali screamed as he grabbed for the empty window.

He pushed off with his feet but the energy of his spring was lost as the decking sheared its last brackets and went into free fall. A tortured screech of metal shot out as the metal body pivoted away from him.

The smashed window unit slipped from the decking and clattered its way down the side of the building. With a dull squelch it collided with a clutch of unsuspecting zombies in the street below.

Still attached to the wall by one wrought iron tie, the balcony hung, uneasily swinging to and fro.

Ali gasped for breath and hung on to the side of the wall. He had both hands tightly gripping on the exposed brickwork left bare when the window had sheared free. His arms were sore, from the wracked shoulders, to the battered elbows to his aching wrists and hands and all the burning muscles in between.

The pain, Ali surmised, would only get worse.

The last support ruptured with a screech and the decking smashed its way down the side of the building. It bounced and tumbled as it fell, skelping off the balcony below. Ali looked down just in time to see the metal decking splat to a halt in the mob of undead.

Determined not to meet the same fate, Ali tried contracting his arms to pull himself up but he lacked the strength. Sweat cascaded down his forehead with the effort of holding on and he desperately wanted to wipe the stinging perspiration from his eyes. He felt out with his feet, trying to find a toehold.

He strained his neck looking down for some kind of purchase but his body obscured the view. He could easily drop down to the balcony below but he might not be able to climb up again. What’s more, the balcony below could have been weakened to the point of failure from the debris that smashed off it. The extra weight dropping onto it could be enough to cause it to collapse.

Ali knew his best option was to get through this window.

Taking a frantic second look to his right, he saw the railing from the flat below protruding from the wall. Ali swung out his leg in an attempt to gain the purchase he needed. The brick overhead crumbled, sending a shower of grit tumbling into his face. Ali spluttered out the dry dirt from his mouth and tried to bat away the dust in his eyes. The masonry crumbled again, taking the security from his grip. He slipped. His foot hit the railing and slipped free. As his fingers slid loose of the brickwork, Ali threw his foot out again. It connected with the railing. Quickly he pushed against the solid footing and heaved. He kicked out with his injured leg. Fear robbed his senses of the pain as he pushed against the brick. Using the push he scrambled up the wall.

Throwing his elbows over the lip of the windowsill, he tumbled through the gaping hole in a cloud of plasterboard and masonry.

He squirmed his way to the floor, wheezing from the lungful of powder. A dry hacking cough rasped its way out of his chest as he belched out the dust caught in his throat. He lay on the dirty floorboards gasping and clutching his chest, spluttering dark droplets of spit from his lips with each breath. As he lay on the bare floor he had a sudden disturbing thought.

He craned his neck up and called out in a trembling voice, “Is anyone home?”

Ali didn’t expect a response, at least not a human one.

Motes of stour wafted in the empty room, lit by the strong morning sun. The wind whistled past the exposed brickwork accompanied by the groggy moans outside, but the apartment was quiet.

He blinked back the particles of dirt from his eyes as he rolled over onto all fours. As his breathing steadied, twinges of pain burst along his nerves. Now that the adrenaline was subsiding the various disparate injuries were vying for his attention.

Slowly Ali stood up. He dusted himself off. With a few watery blinks his eyes started to focus on his surroundings. This room was a barren copy of the first floor room he’d escaped. No breakfast bar, no cupboards, no furniture or flatscreen TV. The room was dusty and empty. There were paint-splattered sheets against one wall and a couple tins of paint accompanying them. The power sockets and lights were hanging limp from the wall, suspended by a few inches of electrical wire.

To replace the inoperative lights there was an adjustable stand with a caged light bulb. The power cable for the portable lighting trailed off down the hall. Quietly Ali followed the wire round. The hall was as empty as the main room but Ali was relieved that although the lock had been smashed open, the main door was firmly shut.

“Looks like your decorator won’t be finished on time,” he quipped as he opened the closest door to him.

The door swung open to a gutted bedroom. A number of the floorboards were up and piled up to one side. A drum of white sheathed electrical cable sat in the middle of the room, reminiscent of a coffee table. Sitting on top of the makeshift table was a toolbox.

Ali opened the lid and looked inside. There was an array of screwdrivers, a couple of tools that looked like pliers and what Ali guessed were numerous ends for phone lines or the like. Riffling pass some kind of meter Ali found a few rolls of electrical tape and a slim black and yellow retractable knife.

He smiled as he held the cheap plastic tool in his hand. It was a disposable blade, the type where you could snap off the leading dull edge and push the fresh blade from the hilt. But this simple tool would increase his chances of surviving a hundred fold. It would be a useless weapon against a zombie, but a blade had a thousand uses in any survival situation.

Buoyed on by this small quantity of luck, Ali scanned the rest of the room.

The morning sun was shining strongly through the bedroom windows and on the windowsill was a plastic bag. Ali stepped over to the window and opened it up. Inside were the unwanted and unwelcome remains of some contractor’s packed lunch. Along with the discarded wrapper of a chocolate bar and sandwich, long since devoured, were the less palatable items of the workman’s lunch. The largest item was the half drunk bottle of what would once have been a carbonated fizzy orange. Ali twisted the cap off but there was no hiss of gas. The drink had gone flat, possibly years before.

Like a wine connoisseur Ali held the bottle to the light and swilled the contents around. The liquid was translucent but clear of any foreign bodies and not cloudy. He placed his nostrils over the lip of the bottle and sniffed. There was still a sweet fruity odour from the contents.

Ali placed the bottle to his lips and took a swig. The drink was flat but a few full gulps and Ali let out a satisfied gasp. Even a stale, warm and flat drink was still ambrosia to him.

Next Ali examined the foil wrapper of the unopened low salt, low fat granola bar. There was a huge list of ingredients that Ali wasn’t at all sure could be all that healthy but eventually he found the sell-by date. The bar was three years out of date—not that that would stop him from eating it.

The only other item was a crumpled packet of cigarettes. Ali picked the pack up and gave it a shake. Something hard rattled inside. He flipped the carton open and inside were two cigarettes and a lighter.

“Way hay!” Ali found himself shouting.

He didn’t smoke and even if he did he reckoned the tobacco would be ruined. What had excited him was the lighter.

The transparent pink body of the disposable lighter showed an ample reservoir of fluid. Ali gave it a shake before flicking the igniter down. With a click of the flint a tall yellow flame burst forth.

Not since a long forgotten childhood birthday did he think he’d been so pleased to receive such a cheap gift. He had never received any formal survival training, only the lessons he’d learned from staying alive, (which, considering the dead wandering around outside, was no mean feat.) With a knife, a lighter and some ingenuity, Ali knew he could survive the day. One thing his otherwise stoic grandma had taught him was to treat each day as a gift.

Stuffing his newly found trinkets into his pockets, Ali moved on to check the other two doors in the hallway.

The first door was a dark and empty closet. There was no natural light and of course the power had been dead a long time. Ali guessed this side of the apartment must back onto the mirror version apartment next door.

He moved to the last door and tentatively opened it. The door swung to with a loud creak. As the diffused light of the hallway crept in, something caught his eye. The bathroom was as vacant as the rest of the apartment: A bath, a sink, a toilet and no other fixtures, not even a toilet roll holder—but there was one extraneous item sitting on the toilet cistern.

Ali stretched himself into the gloom, keeping a foot wedged against the door less he lose the source of light.

He snatched up the dusty paper and brought it back into the bedroom. Sitting down on the roll of cable, Ali carefully unfolded the newspaper. It was remarkably well preserved for being abandoned some four or more years ago. The pages were still crisp and rustled as Ali flattened them out.

CRISIS!
The headline cried in thick bold letters.

Ali smiled as he read the half truths and fantasies that were passed off as news. Even as the world had collapsed the media was turning a buck. He remembered the trouble the copywriters had had keeping up the panic. Every day dozens of broadsheets and tabloids had to think up a new and more frightening headline to trump the last. After
THE DEAD WALK!
there was very little impact any others could make. And for once the scaremongering of the media was deficient.

Ali opened up the paper to see a picture of the Eiffel tower listing and broken, smoke billowing from the Parisian skyline. The unenlightening article was entitled ‘Paris falls’. The one telling line wasn’t in the piece, it was under the picture. In small letters it read ‘Representation’.

Ali smiled again, looking at the mocked-up photograph.

“Why’s the Eiffel tower bent?” he asked the newspaper as if he expected it to answer. “What are the dead doing gnawing at the steel girders?”

Ali laughed at this notion. He gnashed his teeth at the newspaper and laughed. He laughed at the world that had to re-enact scenes from war of the worlds to enthral ignorant readers.

Ali laughed until he became aware of how lonely a sound it made echoing off the bare magnolia walls.

Cahz looked down at the city from his vantage point. It was a different sight to the one he had experienced flying over at daybreak. The height of the chopper was comparable to the elevation of the office block he now stood on, but it was very different. Maybe it was the changing light—the pinks and golds giving way to broad daylight? Maybe it was the fact Cahz knew he was stranded.

Cannon interrupted his commander’s thoughts. “So, boss, what do you think?”

Cahz slowly circled round the flat roof. “I’m no expert, but it sure looks big enough.”

“Good. So, what now?”

“What now, indeed,” Cahz replied, looking at the bristling mast of satellite dishes and aerials. “We’ll need to fell these antenna.”

“Blow it with one of Bates’ claymores?”

Cahz stepped over to the steel structure and tried to rattle the solid struts. He rubbed his chin. “Hmmm… I don’t think the claymore will have enough power to take it down. There was some D.I.Y. store stuff in one of the crates. If we can find a torch, or even just a saw in there, we’ll be fine.”

“If not?” Cannon asked.

“Adapt, improvise, and overcome,” Cahz replied.

Cannon gave a snigger.

“It might not be enough though,” Cahz said, looking down at the canyon between the office block and the next. Half a dozen storeys below, the streets were packed with the undead.

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know anything about wind shear and that sort of stuff,” Cahz admitted and he spat over the edge of the office block. The white spit tumbled down the gap between the two buildings for a moment before being whipped violently to one side by a gust of wind.

There was still a bitter taste on his lips like he’d spent all morning licking envelopes. He scraped his tongue against his teeth, trying to abrade the taste away. The frothy white spit was caught by the wind and dashed against a window long before it hit its intended targets on the street.

Up here their moans were softened somewhat by the wind. However, the stench wasn’t tempered by the breeze. The wind direction had changed from their dawn insertion and was now blowing out to sea. With it came the reek of the rotting dead mixed with the tang of smoke.

Cahz looked out onto the horizon. Just beyond the ragged skyline and the random pillars of smoke was the ocean. Out on that ocean was their base ship, a refuge in the middle of nowhere. Safety.

“Wish I’d paid more attention sitting up front all these missions.”

“Wind shear?” Cannon parroted. “It doesn’t feel that windy to me.”

“Not to me either. Just some LZ’s I thought looked fine, Idris would veto ‘cause of wind shear or cross winds or something like that. I didn’t pay any attention. I don’t know how to fly, so I didn’t bother to ask.” Cahz gave Cannon a friendly tap on the shoulder. “Still, buddy, it looks good to me and at the worst I’m sure we could get winched out one at a time.” He cocked a finger at the communications tower. “I’m sure we’ll be sound just as long as we get rid of that thing.” He took a few steps away from the edge of the roof and looked out over the city. “We can hold out here until the pickup. We’ve got water and some food. The entrances are secure. We just need to sit tight and wait.”

“Makes me wish I’d brought some cards with me,” Cannon said. He burbled up some phlegm and shot it out at the throng below just as if he were ridding himself of a cherry pip. Turning back from watching the spit’s descent Cannon caught Cahz’s eye. He said, “We do have one problem, boss.”

Cahz turned back from his companion and looked towards the service entrance that led back into the building. “Yeah, I know. Elspeth.”

“She’s gonna turn.”

“I know.”

“You know what needs done,” Cannon said, his voice betraying none of the emotion behind the issue.