Deadfall: A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller, page 4
A beam had fallen at an angle to the floor below, which appeared to be mostly intact. He pivoted his weight onto the slanted column then allowed gravity to pull him down it, falling away at the bottom, then winced when his right foot hit the floor.
He looked into a mostly undamaged open plan office. “Connie? Franz?” he shouted. He kicked himself for not getting the little girl’s name when he had the chance. “Anyone here?”
A whisper of smoke coiled beneath a door ahead of him. He swore on seeing it was the entrance to the stairwell. The lower floors were on fire. He could feel the heat through the carpet.
He moved as fast as he could across the office, limping past the door to the lower levels and kept on going to the other side of the large room, which looked northeast across the river. Gone were the floating bodies, and from what he could see the bridge a mile or so away was also clear.
He pushed the window open and looked down into an alley. Burned, soot covered people were aimlessly walking, bouncing off the walls that confined them. Just to the left, a wide, silver pipe, glistened in the afternoon sun. He tracked it all the way down to the ground.
Pushing the window further open, he squeezed between the glass and frame, reached as far as he could with his right hand, grasped a bracket, then did the same with his other hand, and saying a small prayer to any deity that would listen, let go of the window ledge, quickly grasping the pipe with his—
He felt the pillows of air before frantic claws dug into his head. The shock was worse than the pain though, and he swung his hand above, hitting then catching the bird’s wing and pulled the flapping creature into view. As it continued to flail within his grip, he looked astonished at the creature’s head which was half skull and sat at an awkward angle.
Its neck was broken, and one of its wings almost featherless. Its talons scratched at the back of his hand but soon fell limp after he drove the undead thing into the wall, near the pipe, then let it drop to the concrete below.
His other hand was growing numb. He needed to climb down before he fell.
He looked down once more. There was no growl or groans from the things below. Just the almost inaudible noise of boots and shoes scratching across a concrete surface. He let his grip loosen a little and immediately began to drift downwards, where his feet touched the next bracket. Then lower again.
He was now ten or so feet above the heads of the silent moving bodies, who appeared oblivious to his presence in their midst. And that’s how he wanted to keep it.
Waiting for one of them, a middle-aged woman with wild hair to pass, he dropped the final distance to the ground, hopping a little so not to have to put his whole weight on his right. He flicked his attention behind, into the alley. The people there had various levels of injury.
One of them, a man with his back to Joe, stopped, then slowly turned as if sniffing the air.
Joe stood, fascinated by this strange sight. The man fully faced him. His face was smeared with make-up of some kind. He started to slowly walk towards Joe, who did not move, instead something about the mans’s nails caught his attention. They were covered in dirt. Soil.
Not wanting this walking corpse to get too close, Joe turned and limped forward to the end of the alley where it met a small road which ran along the river. He looked up at the building he had just escaped. Part of this side had collapsed onto the road, creating a narrow barrier to whatever was on the other side, the section near the junction. He looked at the rubble, noticing a piece of black leather. Limping to it, he bent down, reached and touched what he recognised as the top part of his boot. More bricks and cement came with it and he fell back with what they revealed. Franz’s crumpled, bruised face looked up at him, with wide, empty eyes.
Joe swallowed his repulsion, taking his boot with him. He looked at the rest of the fallen side of the building, wondering what was beneath it.
Glass cracked, making him whip back around to the alley, which the things were emerging from. If there was anyone else under the rubble, they were dead, and even if they weren’t there was no possibility of hanging around to dig them out. He needed to go before all the things nearby would know he was there.
He shook his head, looking at the heap of broken parts of the building, trying not to look at the German tourist. “Connie! If you can hear me, make a noise. Anything!”
He waited, keeping watch on how close the dead were behind him, but no reply was forthcoming.
Wincing against the pain, he forced his foot into the boot then awkwardly walked across the street, and then down the steps to the small jetty. Three boats of various sizes were tied to iron rings, but he ignored all of them, instead he sat on the edge, and then let himself drop down into the middle of a small skiff, taking the rope it was tied with, with him. Picking up the oars, he steered it to his right and started pulling.
CHAPTER FIVE
LIZ
Liz sat at the dining table, watching the scenes on the TV and not believing or understanding what was being broadcast.
There were flames. People running. Soldiers firing their weapons, although she couldn’t quite get, what at. The presenters kept repeating that the dead were no longer… dead? That bodies were reanimated and worse were attacking people. That maybe a virus was behind all of this?
None of it made any sense. What the public was being told was some pseudo science nonsense, the kind you would see in a low budget movie. People don’t come back to life. Blood stops flowing and the body’s cells start to degrade and die. There is no way to reverse that. The damage is done. So something else had to be happening. Either it was some kind of end of the world hoax on a grand scale, or something strange really was happening, but that still wouldn’t involve the dead spontaneously being able to walk.
She looked at her phone. The network company had sent out an automated message to all its users, informing them that the network had been commandeered by the government for a ‘state emergency’ and private communication has been suspended until further notice. But she needed it to work. First Tia and her mother, and now Joe were out there amongst the—
A woman’s scream reverberated through the air from somewhere outside the front of the house. She had closed the curtains in the front room. She didn’t want people looking in and if she needed to look out she would go upstairs and use the front bedroom.
Joe was going to return with them. One of the things she had always admired about him, was his tenacity. When he was discharged from the army, with injuries from an IED, doctors told him he would never have full mobility from his left arm, but he got a gym membership and lifted weights almost every day for a year while holding down a full time job, and sure enough, he proved them wrong. The scars were still there, but he was even stronger than when he was serving queen and country. If anyone could find Tia and Ella, it was Joe, that she was sure of.
She just wished her damn phone was usable.
A name flashed up on the TV screen, one that she had been thinking about. Sentriculture. She turned up the TV to hear from one of the talking heads.
‘This contagion has to be connected with this company! Their ecological disaster has caused an even greater calamity for humanity!’ said a grey-haired woman, introduced as Dr. Helen Groves.
The male news presenter shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Well, with due respect, Dr. Groves. We don’t know what is causing this. So far the government scientists appear to be baffled as to the cause.’
A ‘Breaking News’ message flashed across the screen, the presenter holding his ear piece before composing himself to talk straight to the camera.
‘We are getting reports from France, that it is putting up a blockade for all incoming and outgoing travel including goods to the UK. And other countries are moving in position to make the same—’
“I…”
Liz turned around to face Alise who was standing at the back of the table, near the patio doors which light was now streaming through.
“I think, I go home.” The young woman turned and slid a door open. Sirens and the sounds of planes in the sky made themselves known.
Liz got up. “No. That’s crazy. You should stay. Listen to it out there. The whole country’s gone mad!”
Alise shook her head. “But I cannot stay here, and my—” she held up her arm. “— Not bleeding.”
“Of course you can stay…”
A scratching sound was coming from the dividing wall to the front room. They had laid Mrs Fletcher on the sofa in there an hour earlier, when she said she wanted to lay down. Her bleeding had stooped, which was a surprise to Liz considering how bad the older woman’s wounds were when she was first attacked.
She and Alise looked at the wall, with its vertical striped wall paper. A 1970s left over from the previous owners and Liz never had the heart to tear it down. It also held her biochemistry degree from Cambridge university, in a silver trim frame and family photos. Her memory wall she called it.
Alise looked at Liz. “You have dog?”
Liz continued looking at the wall, but shook her head. “No…” She got up. “It must be Mrs Fletcher. She must need something.”
“Okay…”
Liz turned back to the young woman. “Look. You can stay as long as you want. We have plenty of food, a spare room. I just think it’s better we all stay together right now. Even if we don’t know each other…”
“Yes, maybe for a bit longer, but I need to return to my apartment before it gets dark.”
“I… I’ll go with you when you do. Okay?”
Alise nodded.
Liz gestured towards the kitchen. “Get yourself another coffee or something to eat if you want.” As Alise moved towards the fridge, Liz walked into the hallway, moving towards the front room. She saw the shadow through the top piece of glass in the front door and stopped before the doorbell rang. Her heart rate increased with the momentary joy that came with hope. Hope that Joe was standing just a few feet away, with Tia and Ella by his side.
But the shape vaguely visible through the smoked glass was wrong. She knew her husband’s form better than her own. It was not Joe on the other side of the door.
“Who is that?” said Alise from the kitchen entrance, a packet of cheese crackers in her hand.
Liz turned around with a finger to her lips, then back to the—
A heavy thump landed on the solid door, then another and another, each impact making Liz shudder.
To her right, the living room door handle began to rattle then turn. She stood, frozen between doors hoping that those outside would leave.
The closest door handle clicked, and the door slowly started to open inwards.
“Mrs Fletcher,” Liz whispered towards the widening gap. “We must be… quiet…”
The elderly lady stood in the gloom, a few feet back from the entrance. Her heavily bandaged head was down, her chin upon her chest. Her face was fully in shadow, but a shaft of intense yellow light from a gap in the curtains cut across her body.
Liz looked back to the front door. The shadows were still there, but had fallen—
An ice cold, vice like grip held her forearm, making her spin around to face the old woman whose head was still limp on her chest. “No, Mrs. Fletcher. You need to—”
Liz’s shout was cut short by blood red nails sinking into her throat. The old woman’s head was upright, bandages hanging from ripped features and milky white eyes looking straight into her own. Liz thrashed her hands at the manic woman, trying to loosen the hold on her throat that was choking the life from her. As she fell back against the hallway wall, knocking a picture frame to the ground, conflicting thoughts ran through her mind. How was this old woman so strong? Why was she doing this?
As Liz’s world began to narrow and darken she became vaguely aware of the sound of heavy thuds then screaming.
CHAPTER SIX
JOE
Plumes of smoke hung above the rooftops, above the nearby railway bridge, smearing the blue sky with beige.
Joe limped off a curb to an SUV, left abandoned in the middle of a street. Ahead was a train station built into the bridge and behind him a sign mentioned a harbour.
He looked in the cabin, not being surprised at the lack of key fob. But that’s not what he wanted. He sat in the driver’s seat and pulled down the glove box on the other side, then pulled out a handful of A-Zs. Picking the newest, he flicked through the pages, finding the area he was in and looked at the station to his left. That particular line ended at Kensington station. It occurred to him that walking the railway track would be a good idea. Probably would be free of any of the things walking along it and if there were, he had the protection of the third rail, that’s if it was still being powered.
He pulled the driver’s door closed and placed his pack on his lap, then pulled out a small solar powered AM radio. Switching it on led to a flurry of static. Adjusting the frequency, it wasn’t long before he found a station and voices.
‘Mass panic continues across the nation, as people continue to witness what can only be described as human and animal corpses, somehow moving as if they are still alive. The UK government is reportedly in lockdown, in an undisclosed location, outside of the capital, which has seen a mass evacuation over the past few hours. All motorways and routes out of the capital and other cities, are blocked solid with citizens trying to get away from population centres. Emergency centres have been established in London, Manchester, Exeter and York, where the injured are currently being taken. The emergency centre in London is—’
A loud thud came from his right where a smear of dirt and dried blood from pale fingers scratched across the driver’s side window. A woman with sunken features and almost completely white eyes, looked at him. Naked from the waist up, there was a faint Y-shaped scar across her chest, while a shawl of some kind, hung from her lower half. Her mouth tightened, her top lip curling, showing yellow teeth and with that she charged at the car again, slamming her forehead into the glass, which was holding for now.
Joe switched his radio off, put it in his pack, slid across the seats, then pushed open the passenger’s door and ran across the street, glancing back to make sure the woman, thing, zombie, whatever it was, wasn’t following.
It was, but slowly and with some difficulty.
While keeping watch on her, he jogged up the steps and pushed open a glass door to enter the small train station. Leaflets promoting events in London, lay scattered across the glossy floor along with various piles of bags. He moved to the first and looked down at a large red backpack, pulling out its content which he mostly discarded apart from a zinc fire starter, which he believed you could never have too many of. The next bag was small, leather and contained a whole slew of credits cards. He looked at the first which mentioned a Cherry Watson. Dropping them on the floor he pulled a small water bottle from his own pack, took a swig then stepped out onto the platform, then lowered himself onto the track and began walking northwards.
Steep grassy banks either side of the tracks were littered with refuse. Beyond them towered blocks of apartments. One of which made him pause as it had a white blanket hanging from a balcony, and ‘help us’ painted across its surface.
A noise made him turn his attention to the track, which was still clear. He took a step when a woman’s voice echoed out from above.
“Hello!” shouted a twenty something woman from the balcony.
He looked up, cupping his eyes to better see through the blinding sun.
“Yes! You’re not one of the things!”
Joe looked at the bushes and small trees on the slopes around him for any sign of movement, but only the light wind caused any. He looked up again. “No! Are you okay?” He knew it was a dumb question, but wasn’t sure what else to say.
The woman pointed along the track. “You cannot go that way! Too many of the things! There’s a cemetery just around the next bend! Near the…”
A gust of wind took her words.
He held his hand up. “I have to!”
She did not reply and he continued heading north, being ever watchful of the long, hair-like reeds and grass on the slopes and the fences at the top of the banks.
As the track curved the high back of a sports stadium came into view and then burned, blackened bodies. Unfortunately the wind changed direction and the stench of cooked meat came with it, causing Joe to cover his mouth and nose for a moment.
Worse though, were the dead that were still partially complete, still had functioning skulls, functioning appendages. Some crawled across the gravel, others dragged themselves towards Joe as he moved amongst them.
Tracks of flattened grass were obvious on the bank to his right. At its top were glimpses of headstones, and the broken, ruined planks of what was a fence. Reeds and stalks had been pushed flat by a flow of hundreds, that had tumbled down to the tracks at the bottom. These things had come from within the ground. They had emerged from the soil. These were the newly buried.
He kept going, leaving them behind, wondering what kind of terrorist attack could cause corpses to be anything other than… corpses. They clearly were not the people they were before they had died. They were something else. Something mindless, other than the intent to attack those that still breathed.
Distant cracks and booms became apparent as he walked along the track, and as he moved around another bend there was a sea of movement half a mile or so ahead. Soldiers were scattering as smaller things leaped at them. Joe couldn’t see what was doing the attacking, but the men and women in uniform were running, turning, firing, then running and kneeling and repeating the procedure. Suddenly through the smoke a light tank laboured down the track, the clatter of its machine gun being obvious even from the distance he was. He recognised it as a Scimitar, an older style vehicle he had seen many times on his tours. Explosions of pebbles and dust flew up from the ground as the armoured vehicles’s weapon tried to target the fast moving small creatures, which were attacking on mass. Groups of them, swarming around the desperate soldiers, who were fighting back with anything they could.
