Wild Strawberry: Book 3 Ascent (25 page)

             
The creatures hurled themselves forward with ferocious speed, with total disregard for their own safety.  As some tripped over the toppled bunk bed, those behind trampled over them to get to the living flesh they craved.

             
Jim’s head and heart were pounding, as if competing to see which could bring him to his knees first.

             
He had felt this kind of fear before, on the first morning of the End of the World.  But with Summer immediately in front of him and zombies close behind he felt that the end of everything good and precious had come.

             
The fear for his own life was terrible; the fear for his daughter was unbearable.

             
They raced down the corridor towards the last door: the door to the Emergency Exit air lock.

             
Jim swore.  There was nowhere left to go except back into the world outside.

             
Since the End of the World he had not heard of a single journey that had not taken its toll of the travellers.  He did not want to die and leave Summer unprotected, but to have Summer die would be far, far worse.

             
As he ran Jim felt the hands of the dead on his back. 

             
“Fuck!” he yelled, he had not realised they were so close.  He continued to run for his life.

             
“Go Summer, go!” he yelled as he pushed Summer ahead through the door.  Elsbeth’s teeth bit into his shoulder.  He knew the only way to give his daughter any hope would be to slam and seal the airlock door, separating them forever.  He closed the door and twisted the handle, pressing his face to the glass to have one last look at Summer.

             
She was lying sprawled on the floor, where she had been pushed forward.  She turned to see the door closed behind her.  Next she saw the window and her father’s pained face, looking straight at her.

             
Leaping to her feet Summer ran to the door, ready to let her father in.  She reached the handle before realising what had happened: he had pushed her in and locked the door to save her.

             
She couldn’t hear over the screams of the dead, but thought she could see her father mouthing the words ‘I’m sorry!’ to her.

             
She could see Elsbeth tearing at her dear father’s back and shoulders.

             
Then the window sprayed with blood: the view obscured by red.

*   *   *

Summer looked around.  There were a couple of primitive clubs propped up against the outer door.  One had razor blades welded into the end; the other had large nails hammered through it.

             
She chose the nails, as it seemed less likely that she would injure herself with that one.

             
Then she knelt down and prayed

             
“God, I think I’m about to find out if you are real or not.

             
“I really hope you are, because my dad just died to save me, and I want to see him again.

             
“There are so many people who have died: my mum, Mrs Southgate, Father James, Dan, Will, Elsbeth, Tina, Arlene: These were good people God.

             
“Why did you let them go?

             
“I hope you have given them peace.

             
“And now it’s my turn.

             
“I’ve been bit.  Look!”

             
She held up her hand wrapped in the bloody towel.

             
“It really hurts, God.

             
“But not as much as the next few minutes are going to hurt.

             
“If you
are
going to do something to save the world - you know - if this is all a part of your plan, now would be a really,
really
good time to do something.

             
“We had the cure, we almost did it ourselves.

             
“We tried our best, we really did.

             
“Enough!”  She shouted, to herself, to God, to the monsters hammering at the door.  “Father James said praying isn’t all about a list of requests, so I’m going to go out there, before I bleed to death, or starve to death or the infection gets me.

             
“See you in heaven, God.

             
“Amen.”

             
Summer stood, then bent double, breathing heavily.

             
“Here we go, here we go, here we go,” she chanted to herself.

             
Standing straight again she approached the exit, and brandishing her club up over her head she opened the door.

             
The moment the door was open a creature that had once been a young man wearing chunky gold earrings and necklaces, a shaved head and tribal tattoos lurched inside towards her.

             
She brought the club down squarely on top of the zombie’s head.  The creature flailed as the six-inch nails disrupted the actions in its misfiring brain.  The blow bought Summer a few seconds; she extracted the club, and struck again, this time a side-on blow, sending the nail into the creature’s head by its ear.

             
The creature was confused, but still clawing for her, so Summer used the club to swing it round, nails still deep in its head.  She forced it backwards, so that it fell to the floor.  Seizing the opportunity, she let go and, grabbing the club with the razor blades, ran out of the door into daylight for the first time in months.

             
She had forgotten how bright it could be outside, and the backs of her eyes ached from the violent light.

             
There was a huge mob of creatures by the Bunker’s main entrance, and more wandering around the area.

             
As soon as she became visible the clamour of the creatures told her that she had been spotted.

             
Squinting in the bright light she saw the clearest route and ran forward.

*   *   *

Summer ran.  Her lungs felt like they were bursting, her heart was pumping, each beat causing searing pain in her hand where she had been bitten.  Her face, usually pale from living so long underground, was flushed with exertion; her long blonde hair swept out behind her as she ran.

             
“Not fucking fair,” she hissed through teeth gritted in pain.  They were all dead.  She had survived for over a year since the world had ended: a year longer than ninety-nine percent of the human race.

             
She wondered why she was bothering to run.  Everyone was dead.  It was only a matter of time now: and that time would be counted in seconds rather than hours or minutes.

             
She felt a cold hand scrabbling at her shoulder, gripping her.  She shrugged off her red leather jacket, and with it came the blood-soaked towel from her hand, giving a fresh wave of pain to the reopened wound.  She ran on leaving towel and jacket in the zombie’s clutches, and she looked over her shoulder,

             
“Oh shit!”

             
There were hundreds of them…  actually millions… the whole world was like this now.

*   *   *

They had such high hopes: the Bunker had become a place of hope and life in a world overrun by horror and death.

             
It had all gone wrong when they had dared to think there could be hope.

             
“My God!” she cried as she turned a corner into a street where there were just as many zombies as in the road behind, “my God, why have you forsaken me?”

             
As she ran she screamed: a high-pitched wail that echoed around the buildings of the neighbourhood, a scream that echoed down the Medway valley, and could be heard for miles around.

             
There would be very few survivors in the area.  Most strongholds had fallen to the tearing hands and teeth of the dead.  Those who had not fallen prey to attack from outside had brought infection inside with them, and the fate of the whole world was acted out in microcosm.

             
There were still a few huddled survivors, in attics, in basements, in secured buildings, and they heard the scream.

             
They had grown used to screams.  The screams of the dead and the screams of the living as they joined their number.  But this scream was a wild cry of rage: of frustration at the injustice of the world.

             
Those very few who heard it flinched, and cowered, and pulled their ragged blankets over themselves.

             
Summer’s cry seemed to find an echo in the Heavens.  The whole world seemed to be taking up the chorus.

             
Looking around Summer saw the creatures were screaming.  They were going through one of their moments of clarity.

             
She fell to her knees, discarding her bladed club onto the pavement, where it crashed, shattering several of its razors.  “Why now?”  She had been ready for death.  The hope of the creatures’ distraction was too much.  “Just get it over with!” She yelled.

             
She knelt to the ground, her forehead touching the surface of the road, her eyes shut tight waiting for the end.

             
The screaming of the dead continued for what seemed like an eternity, or at least three times the normal length of time.  Then it stopped.

             
Summer took a deep breath and waited for the teeth to descend on her.

             
She whispered a prayer, her lips grazing the ground,

             
“Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in Heaven.  Give us today our daily bread.  Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.  Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For the Kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever.  Amen.”

             
Summer paused and opened her eyes.  She was still looking straight down at the black-grey ground.

             
It was silent.

             
She did not dare hope, but felt that the moment she looked she would see them running towards her and her life would end in a few intensely painful moments.

             
She breathed.  The smell of the tarmac, still damp after rain was the most acrid and beautiful thing she had ever smelled.

             
It felt fine to let the cold damp of the road seep through her jeans.

             
The air on her hair was fresh and bitingly cold.

             
Still death did not come.

             
She closed her eyes again and stood up.

             
Nothing happened.

             
She opened one eye.

             
All around her shapes lay crumpled on the ground.

             
The signal had worked.

             
Siobhan had managed to switch it on, and the dead were once again dead.

             
It had cost them dearly.  But it had worked.  Every zombie for miles around was now just a corpse.

             
She looked at her finger still oozing blood.  She held her hand up in the air, imagining radio waves passing through it and shutting down the nanites that were infecting her.

             
She looked at the transmission mast above the Bunker.  It was small, old and outdated.  She wondered how far it broadcast: how far was now safe.

             
She had to discover how to broadcast from other transmitters.  This code would have to be passed around the world.

             
The survivors were still outnumbered thousands to one.  The war was far from over.  Difficult times lay ahead.  She remembered something her father used to say whenever they had started some tedious job like gardening or vacuuming the house.  He told her it was something Winston Churchill said during the Second World War, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”