The Fall of Society (Book 2): The Fight of Society (30 page)

            He took Katie’s hand…

            Several of the creatures ran for them…

            “Ready?” Paul asked her.

            “No!”

            The undead were halfway across the roof, less than twenty feet behind them…

            Paul spoke fast. “Ready, steady, go!”

            They ran together with everything they had, their feet pounding heavily as they approached the edge. They jumped and quickly arced down toward the iron fire escape. They crashed into it in unison and were just able to grab the railing before bouncing off to their deaths below. They winced from pain as they climbed over the railing and onto the landing. Suddenly, they felt and heard an impact into the fire escape and caught a glimpse of a fast mover falling down past them after attempting to jump. Three more jumped and bounced off the fire escape before falling to a crushing demise, trailing shrieks thinned out to nothing until impact.

            “Are you alright?” Paul asked her.

            “Yes. Very bruised and scratched up, but I’m fine.”

            Paul didn’t like what he saw through the window in front of them—there were dark shadows running around in the hallway of this building. Shadows that were on the attack. He quickly moved out of the window’s view so he wouldn’t be seen. He looked down and besides the smashed up undead in the alley, he saw some cars on the streets. “We’ll climb down here and see if we can take one of those vehicles,” he told her.

            “Alright then,” she answered.

            The dozen or so corpses on the roof across from them just stood there without knowing what to do. They swayed in place like ghouls and a couple more decided to jump after Paul and Katie, soon joining the heap in the alley. As Paul led the way down, he examined the handgun. He depressed a button on the polymer grip, and ejected the magazine. It fell before Paul could catch it, tumbling down the fire escape, hitting it many times until it landed in the alley. “Damn it,” Paul said in annoyance with himself.

            “What was that?” Katie asked.

            “The bullets for the gun.”

            “So we don’t have a gun then?”

            “I have the gun, but the clip or whatever they call it, fell out.”

            “You better hurry down and get it,” Katie said.

            “Right,” Paul said and climbed down a little faster.

            He made it to the bottom of the fire escape, which was one floor above ground, lowered the iron ladder as quietly as he could, and climbed down to the alley. Jumping off the ladder, Paul looked around cautiously for any signs of danger. It seemed clear but, at both ends that led to the streets, chaos could be heard and seen. He looked for the handgun magazine as fast as he could, but didn’t see it anywhere. Katie got the first floor landing on the fire escape, but decided to wait up there while Paul searched. Not too far from him was where all the undead had landed; they were mangled piles of permanently dead flesh—their brains had splattered on impact. Paul moved closer to look for the magazine and as he did, he noticed that one of them wasn’t totally dead—this male had landed on another one—its body was so destroyed it didn’t matter that its brain was still active.

            Its arms were bags of skin that held completely shattered bones, the thing tried to move, but only shoulder muscles worked and it couldn’t lift its mushy limbs. Its legs looked intact, but it didn’t matter—the creature’s spine was protruding out its stomach—there was no brain connection. Paul’s face wrinkled in disgust at the innards wrapped around its spinal column and he looked away to continue searching for the magazine. He did a double take at the broken beast as something caught his eye—the Glock magazine was stuck in the stench’s bloody guts. “Bollocks.”

            The magazine was pointed up, with only three quarters of it immersed in the infected entrails. The top end was clean. Paul moved in closer to the immobile corpse to grab it. He reached down, but quickly withdrew his hand as the thing lifted its head and took a bite at him, barely missing. It could reach farther than Paul had anticipated. “Be careful,” Katie said. She noticed something at the end of the alley. “Paul, behind you,” she said quietly.

            He looked over his shoulder and saw the corpse of a fat woman; it had seen him and was coming, but because of her age and size, was barely running—more like hobbling along. Even though, it would get to Paul in a matter of moments. He reached for the magazine again and was almost bitten by the snapping monstrosity. He couldn’t move to the other side of the thing because the ground was littered with bodies and he’d have no footing. The fat beast began to run faster as it caught the scent of Katie. “Hurry, Paul!”

            He wanted to shoot the fat thing that was running up behind him, but he had no bullets in the gun—he had to get that magazine. He reached for it again and the wretched thing almost got his fingers.

            The fat runner was almost there…

            Paul wouldn’t get the magazine in time.

            The thing was just steps behind him…

            He needed the magazine with the bullets.

            He had no choice but to turn and fight it barehanded…

            “Paul…?” Katie said in fright.

            He raised the empty gun with the intent of bashing its face in, then suddenly remembered something, but wasn’t sure.

            He had to be right or he was dead…

            At the last second, he aimed the gun at the charging corpse, and pulled the trigger…

            BANG!

            Paul flinched from surprise and, when his vision focused, he looked down at the dead thing that had a bullet hole in its eye. He looked at the gun in his hand; the slide was locked back, the gun now empty. He remembered that semi-automatic guns like this always had a round in the chamber once the weapon was loaded and fired, the bullets were automatically cycled into the chamber after each shot—he learned that from action movies.

            The dead thing with the magazine in its guts still tried to bite him, so Paul dropped his boot on its forehead and crushed its brain. He should have done that from the start, but these were his favorite boots. Not anymore. He picked the magazine from the dark slime and wiped it on the shirt of another dead thing. The magazine was made of steel that was encased in plastic, so it wasn’t damaged much from the fall. The bullet on the top still had a sliver of blood on it and Paul wiped it again. He looked at the magazine and saw the small holes in the back that displayed the amount of rounds in it. If he was looking at it correctly, five or six shots remained. He didn’t know that guns like this could hold so many bullets. “Come on down,” he said to Katie.

            Paul inserted the magazine into the grip of the gun and it locked into place.

           
“Now how do I load it?”
Paul thought.

            He remembered another film and pinched the back of the slide, pulled back until he heard a catch release. He let the slide go and it snapped forward. It was loaded. “Who says American cinema isn’t educational?” he said to himself.

            Katie made it down and joined him. Both ends of the alley looked equally bad, with people running for their lives from the undead. It was difficult to distinguish who was what. A car crashed into a wall at one end of the alley and Paul decided to go the other way. When they reached the street, they took cover behind a parked car. There were so many people embattled with one another, Paul didn’t know what to do—they heard screeching tires—they saw a vehicle stop because of people in the street blocking them. The female driver, who looked Indian, couldn’t run them over heartlessly, which was her mistake.

             Two of the people were cannibals and they reached in through her open window and yanked her out. The man in the passenger seat got out and ran to her aid, but other fast movers took him down. There was nothing Paul could do for them, but their car was just sitting there with its engine running. He grabbed Katie by the arm. “Come on.”

            They dashed for the car and hunched over to avoid being seen by the undead that were killing the couple on the other side of their car. Paul jumped in first and slid over to the driver’s seat, Katie got in and closed the door—two undead heard them and attacked—“Look out, Paul!” Katie shouted. Paul rolled up the window and locked the doors. One fast corpse slammed into the driver’s door and the other jumped on the hood and pounded on the windscreen.

            Paul put the car in gear and rammed his foot on the accelerator; the tires peeled rubber and they left them behind. One stench was still on the hood—the windscreen cracked and splintered—Paul jammed on the brakes and the dead thing flew off, tumbling head over feet until it settled on its back. He hit the gas and ran it over, hitting its face with the car’s grill as it sat up. Its brains showered the windscreen and Paul turned on the wipers to clear it, first smearing the tissue across the glass like two red rainbows.

            Once his view was semi-clear, Paul increased speed and the mid-size sedan sped away from the macabre scene. As they drove, they passed other outbreaks of undead attacks on the streets. Like packs of wolves, groups of the dead attacked anyone they saw—on the sidewalks, at doorways, in people’s cars—anyone in sight. A few of them ran at the car and Paul struck them without slowing down. He wasn’t sure if they were all infected, but he couldn’t slow down. A body burst out of a window in a ten-story building ahead of them and almost hit their windscreen, but Paul saw it. “Jesus!” he exclaimed and reacted at the last second by tapping the brakes—the car skidded and the body hit the street directly in front of the car—he sped up again and ran the thing over. The car jolted up and down as they smashed it.

            A car rocketed out of an alley ahead of them and crashed into a parked car, the windscreen of the car shattering as the driver and the passenger were ejected, along with four of the undead that were on the hood. Paul had to think fast. He jerked the wheel and steered onto the sidewalk to avoid a collision. The car jumped the curb and barely squeezed through as it hit a few parked cars, knocking off the side view mirror on Paul’s side, and scraped the hell out of the side of the car. Paul got back on the street after passing the blockage and continued their escape. They reached the bridge that Paul had crossed to get to Katie’s, but by now, many cars were on it as people tried to flee London. “Can we get across?” Katie asked with uncertainty.

            “We have to try, we can’t go back.”

            Paul had to slow down so he could navigate the traffic on the bridge. There were dozens of cars and it was slow going, but when he saw openings to advance—he took advantage of them and sped up to gain distance—he zigzagged through cars to gain ground.

            He tapped the brakes.

            Honked the horn.

            Hit the gas pedal.

            “Get out of the bloody way!” he cursed at slow drivers.

            The car’s engine revved high and low, as Paul worked it hard.

            The traffic flow suddenly came to an abrupt stop and Paul slammed on the brakes, causing the car to skid and collide into the rear of another car. “Damnit! No, no!” Paul shouted. The car wasn’t that damaged in the crash and the people in the car they hit obviously didn’t care because they didn’t get out to check; they didn’t even look back at Paul because like him, they were concerned about what stopped them in the first place. “Don’t get out of the car,” Paul told Katie as he exited. He looked ahead and saw the reason for the blockage. At the other end of the bridge a pack of stenches were on the attack. People were being pulled out of their vehicles and slaughtered.

            Paul got back in the sedan. “It’s blocked at the other end,” he told Katie.

            “Is it an accident?”

            “No, it’s them,” Paul said and looked behind them. “We have to head back on foot.” and then he looked in the back seat. “Oh my God!”

            “What is it?” Katie asked.

            She looked back and laid eyes on the three-year-old baby Indian girl sitting quietly in a car seat. Paul and Katie stared at her dumbfounded—she was a beautiful girl with glossy, long, jet-black hair, wearing little yellow ducky pajamas. The child’s big, innocent brown eyes stared back at them. Considering what she had been through, and the fact her parents were gone, this baby was incredibly calm. “The poor thing,” Katie said. The child reacted to her and extended her tiny arms so she could be picked up. Katie undid the child car seat buckle and the baby girl practically jumped into her arms. She wrapped her little arms around Katie’s neck tightly and she compassionately embraced the child. Katie now knew what it would be like one day when the child growing inside her would hug her in the same fashion and she was in bliss for these five seconds. “What’re you doing, Katie?” Paul asked.

            “We can’t leave her!” she replied defensively.

            “I know, I’m sorry, of course not,” Paul said to her. “We have to go.”

            They exited the car and, along with many other people, began to hurry back away from the beasts. “Where are we going?” Katie asked.

            “Down to the river to try and find a boat,” Paul replied.

            People began running by them and Paul glanced back to see that many undead were coming in their direction from the other side of the bridge. “Run, Katie!” she looked and horror widened her eyes. She held the child tightly and ran. “Hold on to me!” she said to the little girl.

            Paul suddenly slid to a stop. “Why are we stopping?” she asked. He was too scared to answer and then she saw it—a larger horde of fast moving infected appeared at the other end of the bridge—multitudes were attacking anyone they saw. One car with enraged ghouls on its hood careened out of control and crashed into the rear of another smaller car. Stenches flew into the air and the collision ruptured the compact car’s gas tank. A spark from its broken brake lights ignited the fuel and a fireball burst, setting both vehicles ablaze. People in the cars screamed as fire consumed them. Two of them jumped out of a car and ran ablaze, but several undead tackled them and consumed their cooked meals, even though they were set on fire as well.