The Dead Spore Collection, page 12
“Don’t you worry about that, Mon. I can carry them.”
“No, Daisy. We need to stick to dried stuff only. Look, as soon as we’ve found another place, somewhere safer, we’ll start to forage again. Don’t you worry, honey. I don’t think that is the last tin left around here.”
Daisy shook her head. “Don’t believe you.” She took the tin off the shelf and dropped it into her own rucksack.”
“For crying out loud, Daisy,” gasped Jennifer. “What is wrong with you?”
“Yeah, you take her side. You’re just as bad as the bitch, you are. If food’s that easy to find out there, then why are we risking our necks taking a few packets of shitty soup?”
“Jesus, stop it, the pair of you. Daisy, if you want to take the hot dogs, then do it. Just don’t start moaning at me cos it’s too heavy.” He reached into the cupboard and pulled out the last of the packets. Not that she blamed the girl for trying. After spending all these weeks on having to live off all of this rubbish, Monique would probably feel the same way if she was to be denied her favourite food. Unlike the girl though, Monique had been craving for ripe strawberries, freshly cooked bread but above all that, a cake big enough to sleep in.
Instead, they had to make do with instant mashed potato and pasta meals and all of this would be no good if they couldn’t find a source of fresh water. Monique dropped the lot into her rucksack, silently wandering exactly how much weight that last tin of pineapple chunks would add. He picked it off the shelf then stopped dead, the tin hovering a foot above the shelf. The kitchen had fallen completely silent, apart from the sound of deep breathing and it wasn’t coming from her.
Monique slowly turned her head only to discover that huge, muscle-bound monster blocking the doorway and staring at the two girls. It was grinning while clenching its huge fists. A scream rose from the put of her stomach, lodging tight in Monique’s throat. Her worst nightmare was about to come true and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
“Shoot it!” hissed Daisy, grabbing the other girl and dragging her immobile body over to Monique. “Please, Mon, kill the thing!” Tears ran down the girl’s cheek. She looked up at her, those huge brown eyes pleading for Monique to make this thing go away.
The creature took one foot over the threshold, its eyes roaming from one girl to another, not even bothering with Monique. Oh no! It wasn’t vile beast wasn’t after food after all, at least not yet, not until it had fulfilled another desire.
What the fuck was she going to do? If Monique did shoot it, the noise would surely wake up every other one of these things. There’s no way they be able to reach the safety of the roof in time, even if they did get there, these bastards would know exactly where there had gone this time. She raised the pistol and pointed it at the advancing creature’s head, knowing she had no other choice.
A tin of hotdogs flew from Daisy’s hand, hitting the creature square in the nose. It grunted once, swatting the air around it. Monique didn’t hesitate and flung the pineapples too before pushing the two girls over to the door. “Run!” she urged.
They both pelted out of the kitchen with her right behind them, until Monique felt something grab her ankle. She crashed against the tiles, the side of her face smashing into the hard surface.
She cried out as she was forcibly turned onto her back. The snarling beast’s huge fingers dug into her flesh and effortlessly pulled her away from the open door. Monique kicked it in the face with her free leg but it didn’t relinquish its grip on her other ankle.
The creature then dropped to its knees and fastened its hand around Monique’s other ankle and forced her legs wide apart. The realisation of what it intended to do hit her suddenly hit her. He raised her head, gasping then howling in terror when she saw the size of its genitals.
It bared its teeth, thick drool hung from both sides of its mouth. She took her eyes away from that nauseating thing and swivelled her head form side to side, realising she must have dropped her gun in the struggle. It lay on the tiles, beside the table leg, just inches from her grasp.
The panting creature pulled her even closer, its fingers riding up her legs, reaching her knees. She cried out in agony as it pulled them further apart. Monique tried to sat up, she still had her hands free. Fuck this dirty, vile bastard. She wasn’t going to let it violate her. She growled deep, flinging her chest up, desperate to get close to that face. All he had to do was to push her thumbs deep into her eye sockets.
It suddenly stopped pulling looked up, into Monique’s face, before she could even react, it lamed its forehead into Monique’s mouth. She fell back against the tiles, unable to stop the tears course down her face. She stifled a cry when she felt its fingers push up between her inner thigh and her panties.
“Please don’t!”
A shadow appeared above her. Monique just knew that another of them had woken up. Oh Christ, the bastards were going to share her around! She felt its rough skin dig into her flesh. Monique bucked her body and kicked out, so trying to do some damage, to do anything to stop this. Another shadow blocked out what light came in form the hallway, before two figures rushed past her.
The creature’s fingers pushed hard into Monique’s flesh before they loosened and finally pulling away. Monique heard the wet sound of something hard smacking into skin and bone.
Both Jennifer and Daisy had returned! Daisy grabbed her hand, pulling Monique away from the creature while Jennifer swung the cricket bat one more time into the side of its head before dropping the weapon. The girl scooped up the dropped gun and passed it back to Monique.
“Come on!” she cried. I think the others are starting to wake up.”
Monique stared at the gun now in the palm of her hand, not exactly sure how it got there. Only the deep aching from that bastard’s fingers mattered. She took one step towards it, gratified to so much deep red blood streaming out from the ugly wound above its ear. It wasn’t quite dead yet though, the creature still managed to raise its head and glare at the woman, defiant right up to the end. He pointed the gun at its face. Two voices behind her begged her not to do it, but they, like how she got the gun, didn’t matter.
Monique squeezed the trigger twice. She would have fired until the she’d emptied the magazine if it hadn’t been for both the girls slapping the smoking weapon out of her hands before dragging her out of the kitchen.
All around her, she heard the noise of dozens of infected monsters beginning to stir. A few of them were already on their feet, jumping and climbing the creatures still not aware that human intruders were now among them.
Monique got enough wits back for her to realise exactly what she’d just done. She turned around and shrugged off their hands. “Get to the roof!” Two of them were within metre of them now. “Go on, run!”
She ran back down the steps, into the kitchen and picked up the gun and the closest rucksack. One of the infected had reached the door. She turned and fired, the round taking off the top of its head. Monique charged forward and fired again, taking down the other one.
Now that they saw the plight of their two comrades, the others weren’t so eager to run her down. “Just try it, you vile fuckers,” she snarled, making her way up the stairs. Once she reached the top, Monique raced towards the demolished door, aware that Harry was waiting for her and of the sudden eruption of howling threatening to burst her eardrums.
Harry pulled her into the room, his shots adding to the deafening noise. Monique grabbed the boy and pushed him towards the hatch. She fired at another infected, the back of its head spraying across its companions. As soon as that one collapsed, she fired again, this time only clipping one of the shoulders. She spun around and dived into the hatch, passing the rucksacks to Harry before heaving her body inside and closing the hatch behind her.
“That’s not going to hold them,” he said.
“Never mind that, just make sure the girls are okay.” She waited until he had reached the top before tearing a strip of material from her sleeve and wrapping it around the handle. She then wedged her knee under it.
There’s no way they were going to come through way, not a chance, those fuckers weren’t going to harm anyone in her protection ever again. The only other way to the roof was through the door and along the street and there wasn’t a hope of any of them living through that, not with all those dead thing out there.
She gritted her teeth when the handle jerked down. Monique didn’t think it would be long before one of them figured out where they went. The handle pressed against her knee. The pressure was slowly building up. Oh God, how long could she keep this up for?
Three faces appeared above her.
“Get up here, Monique!”
“I’m sorry, Harry. That’s not going to happen. If I move, there’ll all swarm up there. I’m not going to risk your lives. I’ll be okay.”
Harry tapped Daisy and they both pointed pistols at Monique.” Two guns and six boxes of bullets say otherwise.”
Jennifer climbed into the hatch. “Come on, move yourself or I’ll have to start tickling you.”
She looked past the three kids, into the starlit night, wondering exactly how long it was before the sun came up. Monique gritted her teeth as the handle dug into her knee. They weren’t going away, not this time and the pressure would only build up. If she didn’t move, her poor legs would last another five minutes never mind another five hours. She nodded then reached up at grabbed Jennifer’s hand.
“You will need to move quick, Mon,” said Harry. “They’re going to be right behind you.”
“Okay, pull!”
Monique cried out in pain, feeling her leg click as the girl hoisted her out of the hatch. The door slamming open drowned out her sound of the woman’s cries. Monique fastened her fingers on the edge and, with Jennifer’s help climbed onto the roof. Both Harry and Daisy fired. She looked back, watching the others pull their dead comrades out of the way before they scurried up the ladders. Another round of bullets took care of them but this time, the ones below didn’t clear away their dead.
Monique got to her feet, not believing what they were now doing.
Jennifer emptied her gun before gazing frantically at Harry. “What do we do now?”
“Reload!” he shouted. “Harry fired once, he then paused, watching the shield of bodies move steadily towards them. He fired again, this time the bodies fell back into the room below when his shot took one of the ones hiding under the dead, in the neck.
Monique took the other gun out of Jennifer’s shaking hand. “Go with Daisy. Find another way off this roof!”
“There isn’t one!”
“Just do as you’re fucking told!” Harry yelled. “There’s no way I’m dying on this roof.”
She gave the loaded gun to Harry and took his empty off him. They weren’t giving up on their assault, if anything, the bastards were speeding up. Monique held the other gun in both hands, her head ringing from the continuous firing. She waited until for a clean shot and fired. Her round took one of the living ones in the ankle. It didn’t kill the bastard but the creature did lose it grip.
“There’s just too many of them!” aid Harry, pissing his now empty gun back to the woman. “We can’t keep this up, we…” he then tapped Monique on the shoulder. “Oh crap, come on, look at that!” He scooped up one of the ammo boxes and ran over to the girls.
She fired twice before grabbing the remaining box and running after him.
Michaela was already three quarters of the way along a narrow wooden plank stretching from the church hall to the next building.
“I’ll take it all back,” Monique muttered. “She isn’t such a bitch after all.”
“Look out!”
She took Harry’s warning and turned around. Two of the infected were now climbing out of the hole. She got on one knee and shot them both dead. “You two, follow her across!”
Harry joined her. The boy killed the next one who poked its head out of the hole. Unlike the two she took out, this one fell back inside. Monique turned around and gasped. Michael had reached the other side and was stood on the edge, waving. Jennifer was already halfway across. Daisy had just started her slow crawl. The woman on the other side had her foot beside the edge of the plank. It was plain what the evil cow intended to do.
“No!” screamed Monique, “You can’t do that!”
The large grin spread across the woman’s face told a different story. Monique saw no other answer. She turned the gun on Michaela and squeezed the trigger only to find she must have emptied the magazine already. “Harry, shoot her!”
He was too busy to stop the approaching monsters to even hear Monique’s cry. She stood up and ran towards the plank only to see the hatch on the other building start to shift, she moaned in horror knowing the other building was infested too. Harry’s gun dry fired.
That’s it, they were all dead but at least she’d have the pleasure of knowing that traitorous bitch wouldn’t survive either. The other hatch fell onto the roof. Michael spun around in surprise. Harry ran up to Monique and snatched the other gun out of her hand fired twice before dropping it on the floor.
A single figure climbed out of the other hatch and ran towards the woman. She squealed and dropped to her knees, still determined to drop the plank into the dead mass below them. The figure reached Michaela, saw what she was trying to do and kicked her in the side, she rolled onto her back screaming. The figure then kicked her again, knocking her off the roof.
Harry took Monique’s hand, pulling the woman over to the plank. Events were moving way too fast for her to process. She saw Daisy and Jennifer get to the other building then heard more shots, only they wasn’t coming from Harry. It was the other figure shooting at the infected who were almost on top of Harry and Monique. The boy urged her to get on the plank. Then dropped to the floor himself, and reloaded.
By the time she was across, Harry had already begun his journey while their unknown rescuer took out any infected who got to close to that plank. It took the boy another couple of moments to reach safety. His last task before joining Monique was to kick away the plank.
Now that Harry was safely across, Monique turned around to find a very familiar figure grinning back at her. “Conner, but how?”
Chapter Twelve
In the hour or so since he had become aware of his surroundings, their new arrival gave him nothing but icy stares intermixed with the occasional glower. Not that he blamed the girl for her hostility. His dad believed the story that Dominic spun about his body suddenly failing due to the stress of the situation. Even to his ears his hasty excuse did sound rather lame.
He doubted that no matter how believable he had made the tale, that girl knew what almost happened to Dominic, He’d no idea how the girl had come by this information, perhaps he’d seen it in his eyes or might have seen something like this before. Only she knew and that girl sure as hell wasn’t spilling the beans.
It must have taken some guts, strength and well as a huge portion of ingenuity to move Dominic’s dead weight from off the road into the top floor of that tobacconist. How dad managed this seemingly impossible feat wasn’t his first thought when he opened his eyes, saw the stars framed in the metal window and smelled the toxic odour of the massed dead below him.
A young female voice asked a question to which his dad responded with a light chuckle. The girl joined in. The sound of laughter brought a smile to his face. It was so refreshing to hear something not related to agony or misery. Dominic couldn’t place the voice. He wanted it to be Monique yet that wish remained unfulfilled when his dad and a teenage girl walked back into the room.
The frivolity on her face quickly changed when the girl saw he had awoken. From that point, their new arrival didn’t speak another word.
This time, every thought and action from when he’d been under their influence burned deep into his mind. The girl might not have welcomed Dominic back into the land of the living but his dad certainly did.
His old man threw his arms around him, making it difficult to draw breath. That very act alone made him glad he hadn’t fully changed. Hell, his response almost made Dominic forgive the man for his earlier crimes. Almost.
How had the creatures done it? Dominic had been that close to completely disregarding his human existence and joining that tribe. Without his dad’s intervention, he would have changed. That much was certain. Thing is, Dominic wanted to change, at least at the end.
In his past, quite a few illicit substances had found their way into his body, yet none of them could compare to the high promised by the others once his transformation was complete.
Maybe they secreted some kind of chemical, a pheromone or something that reacted with whatever was in his body. Fuck, it could be mind control for all he knew or cared. The fact of the matter was if they could do it once, then it could quite easily happen again and the next time, Dominic might not be so lucky.
His dad reassured him they were all safe now. There’s no chance the dead would get in here, not with the metal shutters over the door and the shop windows. Of course, there was no food left. Looters had emptied the place weeks ago. They’d even taken the chewing gun. That sparkle in dad’s eyes suggested to Dominic that the old man might have had something to do with the clearing out.
It took some persuasion to convince dad that the dead weren’t the problem.
Dominic winkled his nose, watching the other two join him in the sewer, under the shop and wondered exactly how he’d even managed to convince the pair of them to join him down here.
He had no other choice though. The longer he spend in that tiny bedroom, listening to his dad go on about that the infected wouldn’t be able to get them in here, the more he wanted, he needed to tell the pair of them the dirty truth about their predicament.
Something else had happened to him while he’d been under their influence, it had taken a few minutes to solidify though. Dominic had picked up some of the primal and disjointed thoughts emanating from the minds of some of the infected.
