The Grave: A Zombie Novel (34 page)

Kelly let out a scream and then looked at him. He had lost his glasses when the quake struck and he was looking at her with those beady eyes of his. Kelly was gasping for breath, the adrenalin surging through her body. Not like this, she thought, please not like this.

“It’s subsiding, but you haven’t long. The helicopter is going to leave.
Get out.
Get out now while...” Roach slipped further as the shaking continued and he held onto Kelly. He knew if he let go, there was nothing to support him and he wasn’t going to make it.

“Tell Stella I
love her. Tell Bobby I’m sorry.”

The building was still shaking, but not as violently as before.
Roach slipped and Kelly looked at him helplessly.

“Get Agnew for me.
”

Kelly understood Roach was stuck and she nodded. Roach slipped a few inches down and he screamed
. There was a sickening crunch as one of the Deathless snapped their teeth around his ankle, stripping it of flesh and scraping their teeth along the bone.

Roach screamed again as he felt more teeth sinking through his flesh, ripping open his legs and snapping tendons. Sharp incisors sheared the skin from his shinbones and his toes were broken off as his feet were savaged. Blood spurted fro
m his mouth and he grabbed Kelly.

“P
lease...” His eyes widened as he slipped once more, pulling Kelly with him.

Kelly
fought back the tears and shouted for help. Roach was right. They had to hurry. With the earthquake rocking the building like this, the military weren’t going to hang around.

“
Mark? Suzy, help!” The weight of Roach was dragging Kelly down now and she could see the terror in his face. She could feel his helplessness and his agony as the Deathless began to devour him. She couldn’t bear to watch and forced herself to look down through the mass of tangled wires, tiles and plasterboard. Another tile fell away and the hole in the floor widened. Kelly could see the Deathless thronging below as the earthquake continued to expose them, their hands reaching up, and their eyes all upturned and boring through Kelly’s. She could see them beyond Roach’s twisted body, clawing at his legs, and she knew that she would swiftly follow him down of she stayed there much longer. The building was still gently shaking and the floor was giving way.

“I can’t pull you ba
ck, you’re stuck,” shouted Suzy.

Kelly tried to shuffle herself backwards, but it was useless. She realized her arms were wound around some cables and
she would have to free herself so Suzy could pull her back. The only way to do that would be to let go of Roach. Kelly rested her forehead on the water pipe that was holding her up and closed her eyes. He had been so close. He had survived The Grave for years before they had come along. It wasn’t fair, none of it was. She looked up at him. He had stopped screaming and writhing and she realized he was dead. His eyes were closed and he actually looked peaceful. At some point in the last minute, when she had turned away from him, he had died, probably from shock or blood loss. She looked down and his feet were gone. Now his legs were just bloody stumps that ended at the knee.

“
Sorry, Roach.” Kelly freed her left arm and let go so she only held him by her right hand. He dangled there, caught up in the broken ceiling and Kelly let go of him with her other hand, expecting him to drop into the sea of dead below. Instead, she found his hand suddenly gripping her arm and she looked up at him, confused. He had reanimated already and his hand became firmer around her arm.

Roach’s eyes were open
, but lifeless. His body began to writhe and squirm again as his dead body tried to pull Kelly closer.  Blood spurted from his mouth and cascaded over Kelly’s face. She tried to turn away and closed her mouth, making sure she didn’t get any inside her. She briskly wiped her eyes and saw Roach’s mouth open wide, exposing his bloody tongue and throat. Roach had joined the Deathless. One scratch or bite from him and Kelly would be dead too.

EIGHTEEN

Kelly recoiled as Roach’s grip tightened and she felt herself slipping toward him. The rocking of the building had slowed, but had not ceased entirely.

“Suzy, quick, where the hell is Mark?
Fuck.” Kelly tried to swat Roach away with her one free hand, but he had a strong grip on her.  She reached over for a pipe and tugged on it, hoping it might come loose so she could push him away, but it was stuck fast. Thinking quickly, she used it to force herself backwards. She could feel Suzy pulling on her legs and with Roach still fiercely holding her arm, it felt as if she was being torn in two.

To be so close only to die like this was unbearable.
She knew the helicopter was just feet away on the other side of the wall. The thought of giving up and just letting herself fall didn’t even occur to her. The more Roach’s dead body pulled her down, the instinct to fight and live only grew stronger. Kelly struggled with him, trying to ignore the baying mob of dead below who were waiting to eat her alive. Kelly couldn’t release herself from his grip and screamed at him to let go. It did no good though. Her face was only inches away from his and if anything, his grip only tightened as she tried to free herself.

“Watch out,” shouted Mark, suddenly appearing beside Kelly.

A fire extinguisher swung down, barely millimetres in front of her face, and the blunt base crashed down onto Roach’s head. Instantly, Roach lost his grip on Kelly and swung away from her. Roach dangled there like a deranged angel stuck in a Christmas tree wrapped in coloured wires and cables. Now released from Kelly, the wiring refused to take Roach’s weight any longer and he sank beneath the waves of Deathless beneath him. His body was engulfed by the dead and Kelly lost sight of him.

Mark grabbed Kelly’s arm as she felt the room open up below. “Climb up,” grunted Mark as he dropped the fire extinguisher.

Now free of Roach’s death grip, Kelly swiftly disentangled herself from the cables and wires and pulled herself up. Mark dragged her away from the growing hole in the floor and they collapsed back at the end of the hallway.

“Are you all right?” asked
Suzy, looking at Kelly. Suzy’s face was red from the exertion of trying to pull Kelly back. Her arms were trembling and she sank back against Kelly gratefully.

Kelly just nodded. “What
the hell happened to you, Mark?”

“It just knocked me off my feet. One minute you were there and the next.
..I fell and hit my head and when I woke up, I heard you screaming. I jumped up and that fucking skeleton in the lab was trying to grab me. I just kicked the trolley away and grabbed the first thing I could. I saw Roach had...turned.”

A
s the earthquake subsided, and the shaking of the building decreased to a calm rolling motion, they heard shouts and gunfire coming from the roof.

Kelly
got up and wiped Roach’s blood from her face. She pulled the gun out of her pocket and knew she had only one bullet left. She would make it count and was grateful it was still there and hadn’t fallen out when she had been fighting Roach. “Let’s go. Just stay behind me and don’t hesitate.”

The walls stopped shaking, but
Suzy’s hands did not. She had no weapon anymore, no gun, no knife, nothing. The Deathless were still below them, waiting for the floor to give way completely, and offer them up fresh meat. Suzy carefully stood. “We need to get out of here.”

Kelly barged into the door at the end of the corridor feeling sick and it blew wide open. She rushed out onto the rooftop and was dazzled by the sunlight. The oppressive heat struck her and she tried to take everything in. The sight that confronted her threatened to overwhelm her senses and she found herself holding her breath as her mind reeled.
It was like doomsday and at first, she missed sight of the soldiers and helicopter.

A plume of smoke was billowing out as the tall block of flats opposite crumbled. Each floor collapsed onto the one beneath
as if it was made of cards. Glass fanned out in all directions and a tumultuous fire raged on the ground. Further afield, she could see other skyscrapers in the city doing the same, falling like a stack of dominos. Massive clouds of black smoke were drifting up into the sky and it felt like the world was imploding.

She saw two soldiers
sitting in the cockpit of the helicopter and the blades were speeding up. They were clearly getting ready to take off. Three bodies lay in the middle of the roof. Their bodies were riddled with bullets and bright red blood lay pooling around them. There was one soldier looking over the side of the building, down into the yard, shaking his head. Another man wearing an orange jumpsuit was on his knees sobbing. A soldier was standing behind him, holding a gun to the back of his head. The soldier looked up in surprise as Kelly burst through the door.

“Who are
…”

The soldier failed to finish his sentence as Kelly fired
her last bullet into the soldier’s head. She raced past the prisoner and reached the other soldier who turned just in time to find himself staring down the barrel of Kelly’s raised gun.

“What the fuck are you?”
asked the soldier as he tried to raise his rifle.

Kelly smashed her gun onto the bridge of the soldier’s nose and he crumpled to his knees, blood pouring between his fingers.

“Shut the fuck up,” shouted Kelly. She grabbed the soldier’s collar and pointed her empty gun at the back of his head. The soldier began whining and pleading for mercy, but Kelly ignored him. “You in the helicopter - put your hands up, now!” she shouted.

Mark had witnessed what Kelly had done and
he was impressed. She had taken charge of the situation quickly. There had been no hesitation and she hadn’t waited to see how things developed. She was a natural leader and Mark felt his confidence growing. He ran over to the prisoner and prised the gun from the dead soldier’s hand who was lying on the rooftop. The prisoner looked up at Mark.

“Thank you, thank you. T
hey just shot them all. Oh, sweet Lord, thank you.”

Mark smiled casually at the man and then walked over to the helicopter, holding the rifle out in front of him
and training it on the pilot. He could see the shock on the soldier’s faces. Finally, they had the upper hand. Mark watched as Suzy walked over to the man in the jumpsuit and helped him to his feet. It was his lucky day.

Responding to Kelly’s demands and seeing their colleague held at gunpoint
, the two soldiers raised their hands. Mark went over to them and pulled open the cockpit door.

“Afternoon
, gents. Fancy taking us for a spin?” Mark said, pointing the rifle at the pilot’s face.

“Who are you? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
asked the pilot. “You just shot Sergeant Brooks. We’re U.S. soldiers, you can’t do this.”

“
It’s done. Just hand over your weapons and do it slowly. I would hate to have to fill you full of lead.”

Mark waited as the two men slowly
unholstered their weapons and threw them out onto the roof. Mark picked up the magnum the co-pilot had discarded and swapped it for his rifle. It was much easier to hold and was more practical. Even though the soldiers were unarmed now, he didn’t trust them not to try something. Satisfied they were of little threat now they had no guns, Mark called Kelly and Suzy over. Kelly came dragging the bleeding Sergeant Brooks with her, whilst Suzy brought the chained prisoner. Mark hopped into the back of the helicopter, keeping the gun trained on the co-pilot at all times.

“Right, here’s what’s going to happen,” said Kelly talking to the pilot. She stood outside the chopper, her gun still pointed at the Sergeant. She asked Suzy to pick
up the soldier’s discarded guns up whilst she spoke. “You’re going to take us out of here, back to your base. All of us. No questions, no radio contact with anyone, just fly. Got that?”

“Don’t do it,” said Brooks, “
Remember what Warwick told us? Nothing ever gets off this island. They’re infected. They’re...”

Kelly smashed the butt of the gun down on his already broken nose and he screamed out in pain as more blood spurted from his face. “You fucking bitch,” yelled Brooks.

“Okay, okay,” said the pilot. “Just get in and...”

A deep rumble interrupted him and then the violent shaking started again as a
huge aftershock tore through the city, threatening to bring down any buildings that were still standing. As Kelly struggled to remain standing, Brooks seized his chance and pushed her over. He grabbed a rifle from the floor and pointed it at Kelly.

Brooks leered at her from the shaking roof.
“There’s no way I’m letting you off this island. We’ve never returned to base with anyone and I’m not starting now. You’re dead, you hear me, dead.”

A single shot rang out and Kelly stumbled backwards. She looked down at her chest, looking for the blood. She hadn’t felt any pain, but knew he couldn’t have missed from that range. She frowned as she patted herself down, unable to find any blood
or wound.

Brooks’ body keeled over, dead, and behind him stood Suzy. She lowered the gun she had picked up and calmly walked over to Kelly. “You wanted this?”