Deadfall: A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller, page 3
There was a snip sound, followed by a puff of dust and a piece of masonry fell to the ground in front of Joe. Without thinking, he grabbed up the girl into his arms and crouch-walked around the side of the column, then another and another, a blur of people knocking into him, just to his right.
A door appeared at his left, which he charged into, pushing it open in one movement. It swung closed behind, turning the sound of madness into a muffled din.
He was in a lobby for a company of some kind. Papers were strewn across the carpeted floor, which a table and two sofas sat upon.
Something slammed against the door, making him skip forward, but before he could lend his weight to keep it closed, it pushed open, and a twenty something man and woman squeezed inside. The man pushed the door closed then leant against it.
There were streaks of blood across both their clothes which were those of tourist. Shirt, shorts, each one carrying a backpack of some sort across their shoulders.
Another impact hit against the door, almost knocking the man from it.
“Help me!” he said in a German accent.
Joe had no time for this. He was needed somewhere else, but he placed the young girl on the sofa. “Don’t move!” he said to her.
She meekly nodded and he ran to the door and gave his weight to it. The shuddering stopped but the screams and gunfire continued. If anything they were intensifying.
“We can’t stay here,” said Joe. “We need to get to a higher floor.”
The woman, who had blonde hair and a fair complexion, nodded. “Ya, ya. We go upstairs!”
Almost missable amongst the maelstrom of noise coming from outside, was the sound of scratching at the other side of the door.
With his free hand, Joe gestured towards the nearest sofa. “Drag that over here!”
The woman moved to it, then with some effort pulled it. Its wooden legs scraped against the rough textile. When it was a few feet away, Joe made a grab for it, and pulled it the rest of the way, sliding it up against the door, which continued to shudder.
The woman pointed upwards. “We go, now.”
Joe nodded, ran forward and picked up the—
The floor, ceiling and walls shook from a violent boom, but he kept going, through the lobby and door marked ‘stairwell,’ then up the steps. The couple were speaking in German, any of which he had long since forgotten. They opened a door, but he wanted to keep going higher. He needed to get an idea of what the hell was happening around the building and plot a path north.
They let the door close and followed him past landing after landing, until eventually he got to the top, and let his shoulder push open the door there. A plain corridor with five white doors greeted him, each one with a plaque next to it on the wall, mentioning various company names. He chose the nearest, but the door was locked. The man and woman tried the others, but all were the same.
He placed the girl on the floor, telling her to stand back then looked at the guy. “We smash this door open. Understand?”
The man nodded he did, and then both took a step back, then charged forward, slamming into the door which gave a little but held. The second attempt tore it open though, and an open plan office was laid out in front of them, as well as large glass windows, one of which was shattered, letting the sounds and smells from the street filter upwards. Nobody registered them though, for they were too taken by the scene they could see from their lofty six-story position. A large column of smoke was rapidly rising in the distance, while other smaller plumes rose from various points across the city. Within the grey smudges, dark rectangular shapes slid across an otherwise cloudless sky.
The bridge had mostly cleared, apart from bodies that were strewn at angles across the four-lane road. Some though, were still moving, even stumbling forward as if they were lost. But what was worse were the elongated shapes floating amongst the brown waves of the old river. Hundreds of bodies filled the frothy semi-translucent water that separated the north and south banks.
Joe looked to his right, to the other bridge. People were falling from it, while a mass of others were just visible filling its road.
“I… get no signal,” said the German woman.
Joe whirled around to her. “Can I use your phone?”
She nodded, handing it to him. “My name is Constance. Connie. My husband is Franz. You?”
“Joe.” He typed his wife’s number on the keypad and hit call. The screen immediately displayed. ‘Network busy.’ He shook his head and handed it back.
She looked at the kid. “Your daughter’s name?”
Joe moved closer to the window. “She’s not mine. I found her outside.”
“Oh…”
There was sudden movement on the other side of the nearby bridge. A car, one which bore stripes and had a flashing blue and red light on its roof, tore down the centre of it. Rather than dodge the aimless, listless people it slammed into them, knocking into them like skittles and kept on coming.
Joe turned from the window and ran back towards the hallway.
“You going?” said Franz.
“I need to stop that car!”
Joe ran down the stairs, jumping three, four at a time, getting to the lobby then wrenched the sofa clear, flung the door open and staggered across the arms and legs of the fallen. The engine of the police car roared as it approached the junction, bumping over bodies, some of which Joe noticed were still moving.
He ran out into the middle of the wide street, skipping over more of the dead, standing directly in the path of the oncoming vehicle, and waved his arms as vigorously as he could. The SUV came off the bridge onto the main road, swerved left a little to avoid an abandoned truck and headed straight for him, while he was still waving frantically to be noticed.
“Hey! Stop!” He jumped out of the way, seconds before the car raced past, doing at least fifty, it swerved again, but this time not enough to avoid clipping the side of a double-decker bus, and spun, around and around, coming to an abrupt stop when hitting up against the tall pillar of a streetlight. Joe had been running towards it before the car’s motion had ceased and got close to the driver’s door before he staggered to a stop with his hands raised.
“Keep back!” shouted a middle-aged policeman. A stubby rifle, which Joe recognised as an MP5, stuck out of the half-open window.
“I need your help!”
The policeman looked at his dashboard, swearing at the lack of ignition from the vehicle, while still holding the weapon on Joe.
“I need to get across the river. I need to get to Kensington!”
The policeman looked from within the gloom of the car’s cabin at Joe, then turned and tried the key in the ignition again, but to no avail. He slammed his hand on the wheel, then looked back at Joe. “Stand back!”
Joe took a few steps away and the man pushed the door open and got out, keeping the rifle aimed at Joe. He propped himself up against the side of the police car, looking across the bodies littering the junction and shook his head. “No… no, you can’t be here. We can’t…” He leaned back into the vehicle and grabbed a backpack.
“I need your help! What’s happening? I need to get—”
Something touched Joe’s foot. He spun around. A woman with a heavily bruised face was reaching for him.
“Don’t go near her!” said the policeman, whose weapon was now pointing at the woman.
“Why? She needs help!”
The policeman slid backwards, down the side of the SUV, whipping his head and barrel from one body to another. “They’re dead… but they ain’t…”
Joe walked towards the man, then stopped as the weapon flicked in his direction once more. “What are you talking about?”
“Look!”
The man’s hand extended. A single shaking finger pointed behind Joe, who turned around to face those that were moving across the bridge. They were now within range and clearly visible in the sunlight.
He squinted regardless, stepping over a body, moving closer to those that were stumbling, staggering towards him. A man in a suit, just twenty-feet away, walked awkwardly, as if his ankle was broken. His eyes locked with Joe’s and he reached out, changing his course. At first Joe couldn’t see what was wrong with this individual, but a few more steps revealed the strange shape of the man’s head. A section at the top of the skull was missing or perhaps crushed, for there were still strands of hair there, tangled within gloops of blood. The scene made no sense. A woman behind this person was injured worse. Both of her arms were severed below the elbows, blood dripping from a frayed white shirt, leaving a glistening trail in her wake.
“How are they even walking still…” He turned around for an answer, but the policeman was gone. Across the junction, limbs and appendages that belonged to those presumedly dead were twitching, shuddering. Fingers scratching at the concrete, arms beginning to push the damaged torsos free of the ground. Heads were lifting and eyes turning their attention to Joe. Those that had passed beyond were awakening.
“Get back inside!”
Connie shouted from the open doorway of the office building across the street, as bodies began to stir.
Instinctively he darted towards the police car, looking inside and saw something of use. A radio. He reached in and grabbed it just as a hand landed on his back. He pivoted, bringing his hands up to push away a woman, her chest cavity exposed as if something heavy had crushed it. Her eyes looked past him, but her hands still tried to bring him towards her.
Using his boot he kicked her momentarily away. She lunged again but he was already hopping over another grasping body, his focus on the tourist in the doorway, waving him on. The junction was deathly silent but the things which littered the ground were now almost upright, and like fragments of lodestone, were all directing their attention towards the man running through their midst.
“Come on!” shouted Franz, beside his wife.
A hand containing bloodied nails swiped where Joe’s head just was, but he had ducked, then bundled into a man or something, Joe had no idea what had become of these people, and pushed the heavy-set person off to the side, clearing a path to the doorway, which he ran through, the German couple closing it behind.
Joe bent over, out of breath, while the other two pulled the sofa back in-place. Something hit up against the door, causing the piece of furniture to move away a few inches.
Joe moved to the second sofa. “This one as well.”
With the help of Franz, they pulled it over and then lifted it on top of the first, the weight curtailing any further movement within the doorframe.
“What is happening to those people?” said Connie. “It was Chaos across the river. We saw…” She swallowed. “People die… others were attacking them. They were like those outside. They were…”
“Dead…” said Joe.
She looked at him, shocked.
“I don’t know how it’s possible. But those… things outside, weren’t people. Not like you and I. Something has happened to them. They had—” The door creaked and they all looked at it. “— injuries that would kill them. But they still walked… I don’t understand it, but it’s happening. Where’s the kid?”
“Upstairs.”
He jogged to the stairwell, the others following and was soon back inside the open place office, glancing at the girl who was scribbling with a pen on a piece of paper. He walked to the missing pane of glass with the intention of looking at the junction, but instead looked at the bridge. “Fuck me…”
“Mein Gott,” said Connie, seeing what he had.
A new crowd had formed on the bridge. Walking not running. Bumping into each other and walls at the sides.
Franz threw a hand in the direction of the river which was alive with froth and filth. “Look!”
Like sharks in a feeding frenzy the waters of the Thames were a maelstrom of thrashing arms and limbs.
Joe grimaced. “They’re coming alive…” Mud soaked bodies with drenched clothes were emerging from a set of stairs that ran down to the small jetty, where in a different time, boats would arrive and depart. He knew the term ‘alive’ wasn’t accurate to describe what was happening to those that had passed, but he had no better word for it. He also knew there was another term that would fit but was loathed to voice it out loud. Luckily, he didn’t need to.
“Zombie,” said the little girl, who was standing nearby without them noticing. Her tiny hand and even smaller fingers were pointing at the bridge and the masses congregating across its four-lanes of blood-soaked road.
Connie led her back to the desk she had previously been sitting at, picking up the small writing pad the child had been drawing on, then stopped. A shiver ran down her back. On the piece of paper were figures with missing parts and others on the ground, ink lines spewing across the page.
Near the window, Joe looked to the opposite side of the river with a small pair of binoculars he had taken from his pack. Through the twin lenses he could see the windows of buildings of similar height. He wondered if in them, there were people alive, looking back at him. Or had the entire city of London succumbed to whatever this event was?
Guilt began to creep up from somewhere deep inside. He had left Liz to get to his kid and had failed. Where could Tia and his mother-in-law be now? Should he try to go on or turn back?
Unlike most people, he had been faced with similar situations before, on tour in Iraq and then Afghanistan. And he did not quit then either.
The bridges were not an option. He looked out of the window, looking almost straight down. Small boats bobbed amongst the waves, their owners long since gone. He turned to Connie. “I’m going to take a boat across the river. You’ll need to look after this child. Do you understand?”
The couple looked at each other, then back to Joe.
“You cannot go across river,” said Franz.
“Why not?”
“Only death there,” said Connie.
“Zombies. Yeah, I get it. I can deal with slow moving people, who are dead. It’s not a problem.”
Franz shook his head. “No. You not understand.” He pointed to the street below which had completely filled. “This, slow.” He pointed to the north. “There…” He looked to Connie, speaking in German.
She replied for him. “Others. Animals. Faster moving. Killed many. Why do you want to go there?”
“My daughter is in Kensington. Or at least, that’s where she was… With her grandmother.”
“I am sorry.”
Joe didn’t want to hear it. He placed his eyepieces back in his pack. “I hope you find a safe place, but I need to—”
He picked up a distant sound and looked back out, across the river, buildings and rooftops. Something dark was on the horizon and growing in size. It moved through a series of columns of smoke. He reclaimed his binoculars.
“It’s a helicopter, an… Apache,” he said to the others.
“That’s good, ya? The army—”
His eyes grew large, seeing the small puff of smoke from the front of the aircraft, then the snake-like trail of displaced air that was racing towards them. He turned, shouting for the others to get down, just before the flash of light.
CHAPTER FOUR
Joe was under water. Or at least, that’s how his brain interpreted where he was. He moved with the currents, being tugged and thrown, while waves crashed above him. Bubbles floated from his mouth, containing his silent screams as he sunk deeper into the abyss, the pressure crushing his bones.
His eyes sprung open then immediately closed again from the thick layer of dust in the air. He coughed, spluttering more of the dry particulate into the space around him and tried to move without any success. Within the swirling gloom were shafts of light, highlighting the fallen beams and masonry which lay at awkward angles all around.
“I’m here!” he shouted. The effort producing another cough. “Anyone?”
His body was a patchwork of numbness and burning. Ignoring the soreness in his hands he gripped the piece of wood across his chest and heaved it to one side. It was a desk and from it slid an LCD monitor and keyboard. The floor he had been on had collapsed to the one below, but luckily no further and he had landed on his backpack, softening the blow a little, although he didn’t think his binoculars had survived unbroken.
He looked up at what was left of the ceiling, some fifteen-feet above. Cables, pipe and strings of tiles hung down.
“Is there anyone here!”
He looked at his legs. There were still there, but one of his boots was missing from his right foot, his light coloured sock, not so light anymore. He could feel the burning below the sticky cotton, and decided whatever injury he had below was best left covered.
He turned onto his front, then crawled a little into one of the columns of light. His eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the brightness, but through the glare came an image of devastation. Smoke bellowed from a massive crater where the junction had been. Within twisted pieces of railing, street signs and vehicle parts, burned clumps were moving. Limbs which were little more than stumps were still functioning, still trying to propel what was left. At the periphery, buildings were on fire, while other bodies stood barely erect, slowly shuffling through the smoke which was filling the streets.
He looked at his wrist and the watch that was still there, although with a cracked screen. It was early afternoon, meaning he had been out for at least a few hours.
In the sunlight he looked at his hands, which were covered in dried blood amongst scuffed skin, but still worked. He felt his head. There was a small lump at the top of his skull, no doubt the reason for his unconsciousness and the throbbing pain pulsing across his brow. He looked back into the darkness. There seemed no obvious route through the disorder, and trying might just bring the whole lot down.
He grabbed the side of a piece of masonry that used to be the exterior of the building and pulled himself further into the light. Small pieces crumbled within his grip, then rolled off the edge, which he did his best not to follow to the pavement thirty-feet below, where they exploded in small puffs of dust. The fires now beginning to rage disguised any sound of the impacts, but the ruined beings that were loitering around were the last thing on his mind.
