Changeling: Zombie Dawn (16 page)

Lucien glanced across at the sorceress, and was taken aback by what he saw. She was shaking violently, her body convulsing as if she were being electrocuted in the same way that those on the other side of the Shield had been when in contact with it.

As if on cue, the walls of the rectangular opening began to bow inward. No longer clean, strong lines, the edges of the rectangle were now undulating.

Those on the other side still trying to get through saw the same thing, and a sense of panic went through the remaining escapees.

Tom had taken up a position as close to the opening as possible, barking out orders for everyone to keep moving.

‘This thing’s going to close, Lucien!’ he shouted back at the vampire. ‘We need to get in there now, or we’ll be of no use to those remaining trapped inside!’

Lucien nodded, but looked towards the opening again. Luckily, the initial stampede of people had lessened considerably, and those coming through now were people who had been further back from the outer circumference. At the sight of a means of escape these people had charged forward, sprinting for all they were worth up the road and from side streets so that they too might escape that hellish place.

‘Just a few moments longer! We can still get more out!’

But as he spoke the breach suddenly contracted to about half its initial size. Lucien turned to look at Hag again. The convulsions that racked her body were worse than ever, and she was being thrown around on the spot like a rag doll, her arms and legs flying out in all directions.

‘GO!’ she screamed at him, her black eyes staring straight ahead of her. Small rivulets of blood ran from her nose and ears, droplets of the stuff spraying into the air as the spasms shook her. ‘Go now before it’s too late!’

Robert Holt peered out of a small gap in the curtains covering the windows and front door of Mr Lipman’s tailor’s shop. He’d been standing in the same position, staring out into the street for about an hour now. Earlier, Jake had been with him when they’d seen one of those zombies come down the road, people scattering in panic in every direction at the sight of the creature. Robert recognized it as the male he’d seen emerging from the black tower, but it was in considerably worse shape than it had been earlier. One arm hung uselessly down by its side, the bone which should have connected into the shoulder joint sticking out from its ruined clothing, and it dragged one leg along the ground as it shuffled up the road. For any living creature the pain would have been unbearable, but the undead zombie seemed not to notice. As they watched, the creature snarled and made as if to lurch towards the fleeing people who ran up both sides of the street, hugging the shops and restaurants. Robert sensed it was looking for something, its head slowly sweeping from side to side, milky, dead eyes seeking out its prey. Suddenly its head snapped towards a woman who was unable to run as quickly as the others – she was hobbling a little on an ankle that she must have twisted at some point. Like a lion spotting the weakest member of the herd, the zombie let out a terrible blood-chilling scream and loped off in the woman’s direction. Despite its own injuries, it moved at terrifying speed.

She was not alone. Her husband or partner put himself between the woman and the approaching monstrosity, making a last stand against this creature from hell. Those watching from the safety of the shop knew that it was a futile gesture.

‘Go and sit down,’ Robert told his son, pulling the curtains shut so that the boy would not have to witness what was about to happen.

‘That thing . . .’ Jake said, crying. ‘That woman can’t get away, can she? We’re in here, safe, and she’s stuck out there with that terrible ... thing.’

The father sat next to his son on the red sofa. ‘I know it’s hard. And I wish you hadn’t seen what just happened. But if we open that door and let them in we’ll be putting ourselves in terrible danger.’

‘We should do something!’

Mr Lipman came in from the door at the back of the shop. The old man had gone upstairs to see if his sick wife needed anything, having earlier explained that she’d recently come out of hospital and was still convalescing. He’d clearly heard their conversation. He walked over to the curtain to peer through the gap.

The man and the woman were both dead. They lay in a mangled heap on the floor, an island of wrecked flesh floating in a sea of red.

Mr Lipman turned and nodded at Jake. ‘To keep yourself and those that you love safe is not cowardice, Jake.’

Earlier, when Robert had explained to the old man and his son everything he’d seen since the black tower arrived, the tailor had simply sat in silence, not interrupting once, even when Robert had told him about the two zombies.

Now Mr Lipman had seen it for himself. Robert took in the old man’s reaction, and was surprised again at how calm and detached the tailor was.

‘What are we going to do, Dad?’ Jake asked.

The father took his son’s hand. ‘Someone will come and rescue us, don’t worry.’

‘They can’t get in. You saw that police car!’

‘Someone will come,’ his father repeated.

The old man had sighed then, turned on his heel and walked back through the shop. After he’d left, Robert had taken up his position at the curtains, peering out through a tiny gap at the nightmare world on the other side. He’d stayed there, unmoving, until now.

Something caught Robert’s eye. Something about the way the few people he could see at this end of the street were looking and pointing up the road, in the direction of the force field that he and Jake had seen earlier. Robert opened the curtains wider and stepped through the gap so that he could press his face up against the glass of the shop door. He strained to see what it was they’d been gesticulating at, and his frustration grew when he was unable to make anything out. There was something about the expressions on the survivors’ faces. He turned to check he was not imagining things.

And there it was.

The look on their faces told Robert everything he needed to know. Fear was replaced by hope, and that could only mean one thing surely – somehow the invisible barrier that they’d been trapped within had been breached.

‘Wait here,’ he said to his son, who, sensing the change in his father’s mood, had come to stand by his side. He reached out for the bolts that secured the door from the inside.

‘Don’t go out there, Dad. Please!’

Robert dropped down on to his haunches so that his face was level with his son’s. He smiled reassuringly. ‘I won’t be long. I just need to check something out. Wait here.’ He straightened up and slid back the two heavy bolts. He paused for a second as he wrapped his fingers round the door handle, psyching himself up, before pulling it open and stepping outside.

He could already hear the change in the noise of the crowd – there were excited voices among the shouts. He walked out into that ghastly purple gloom again and looked to his left.

There was a huge opening in the wall at the end of the street where it straddled the shops on either side. The light coming in through the gap was bright and of an earthly hue that made Robert’s heart jam up against his chest, so that it was as much as he could do not to cry out in joy. A deluge of people flooded through it. He could hear voices somewhere on the other side, directing the escapees to hurry up and giving them instructions about where they should go.

Other people in the street had also seen the breach. They grabbed their loved ones, hauling them forward in a sprint to try and escape.

It took Robert less than a second to realize that this was his chance to get Jake to safety. He ducked back inside, shouting out to his son that they were leaving. He was already halfway across the shop, heading for the small glass-panelled doorway in the back that Mr Lipman had disappeared through, when he heard a shout of dismay from outside. There was something about that noise that spurred him on even faster. He took the stairs up to the apartment over the shop three at a time.

There was frosted glass door at the top. Robert pushed through it, hardly taking in the living room on the other side as he sought out the bedroom that Mr Lipman and his wife must be in. He was in luck: the first door he tried on the far wall opened on to a darkened room, the heavy curtains drawn against that terrible light outside. Lying in the bed was Mrs Lipman. One glance at the woman was enough to tell Robert that her husband had brought her home from hospital to die. Stick-thin, with hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes, she could have been one of those creatures roaming about outside. She didn’t even look up as he came in. The tailor, who’d been sitting in a chair beside his wife’s bedside, stood up, her hand still in his as he turned to face the intruder.

‘We have to go,’ Robert said, looking between them. ‘I think we can get out.’

The old man slowly nodded his head as he took this in.

‘We have to leave now. I don’t know how long we’ve—’

‘No,’ the old man said. He smiled sadly down at the tiny figure in the bed next to him. ‘My Rosa’s not well enough to go anywhere.’

‘I’ll carry her,’ the younger man said, taking a step into the room. ‘Jake can hold your hand and I can carry Rosa. It’s not far.’

The tailor cut him off with a shake of his head. ‘No,’ he said again.

Robert went to say something, but the sound of his son’s voice on the stairs below stopped him from arguing any further.

‘Dad!’ Jake called up. ‘There’s something happening to that hole. It’s... wobbling.’

Robert cursed himself for having left the front door open. How could he have been so
stupid?

He glanced at Mr Lipman again. The old man had already stepped around the bed, and was shooing him out of the room. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Get that boy of yours out of here.’

‘Thank you,’ the younger man nodded, grabbing hold of the tailor’s hand and pumping it up and down. The old man waved him off, pushing him towards the doorway. Robert Holt stopped, turned and looked back at the frail old woman in the bed, her eyes still closed. ‘Will you be OK?’

‘We’ll be fine,’ the tailor said, gently shoving the other man out of the room and closing the door behind him. ‘As a boy I survived the Nazis. I’m sure we’ll make it through this.’

Jake and Robert ran from the shop, the father dragging his son along behind him. The hole was significantly smaller than it had been when he’d first seen it from outside the shop, and with each step his heart sank as it continued to shrink. Whatever the exit was, it was clear it was becoming increasingly unstable and could shut at any second.

We’re not going to make it!
Robert thought.

Up ahead, a man threw himself at the breach. Robert watched, gasping as the gateway made another of those violent spasms just as the man dived towards it. The edge nearest to the escapee shifted dramatically and he plunged head first into the invisible barrier, screaming out as he convulsed wildly, before being thrown backwards to the ground, where he lay unmoving. At the sight of this, many of those running down the street cried out and faltered.

Robert and Jake were no more than ten metres or so away when they heard somebody shouting from the other side in a loud Irish accent, saying something about getting through to the other side before it was too late. This voice was answered by another that agreed, adding orders to grab their weapons and enter the hole immediately.

Father and son could now make out the people these voices belonged to through the gap: a tall bald man with the freakiest orange-gold eyes was throwing back one side of his coat, his fingers curling round the handle of the biggest knife Robert had ever seen. Another man, equally tall with close-cropped grey-and-black hair and an ugly scar on his face, was about to step through when he saw the father and son hurtling towards the hole.

‘Wait!’ he shouted in a broad Irish accent. ‘There’s a little lad and his dad coming.’ He took in the two of them, his eyes narrowing for a second. ‘Stand back and let them through!’

Something happened again to the hole. It closed for a moment, the healthy, hope-filled light that had come through it disappearing, replaced by that sickening purple colour. Robert cried out in anger and frustration. But the hole opened again. It was even smaller – no more than a metre across and two high – and the edges shifted to and fro.

‘COME ON! You can make it!’ Robert heard the Irishman shout. He could see him crouching down, peering through the gap at them and wildly urging them on with his arm.

Robert didn’t hesitate. He strengthened his grip on Jake’s hand and threw himself forward.

The humans tumbled through, landing in a heap on the tarmac road which greedily skinned the flesh from their hands and knees. Robert was aware of a high wailing sound and turned, realizing it was his son’s voice. He pulled the boy to him and held him tight. He looked up at the late afternoon sky and thanked the gods for saving them both.

A shout from behind caused him to look back in the direction from which they’d come. Time seemed to slow as a number of things happened at once.

The Irishman had gone through the gap followed by the tall bald man, who turned to look through the hole from the other side, his gaze resting for a moment on the father and son. In that terrible light his eyes, already a bizarre colour, seemed to glow with a fierce golden luminosity. He shifted his attention and called out to the three remaining men on the outside. As he did so, Robert noticed the vicious-looking fangs in his mouth.

A vampire,
he thought. It was strange, but after everything else he’d experienced already that day, the sight of the creature did not fill him with the horror it should have.

The hole shrank, almost closed and opened again, and it was clear that it was at its most unstable. A female voice cried out, and Robert turned to look across at Hag for the first time, his mouth falling open at what he saw. She was not standing on the ground. Instead the old woman was suspended in the air about a metre above the road surface. The sight of a human levitating was shocking enough, but what was happening to the rest of her was truly horrifying. The old woman’s body was being slammed around in the air, her head snapping back and forth, arms and legs flying out from her sides with a violence that was sickening. She looked like a life-sized marionette being controlled by a cruel puppet master intent on wrecking the toy.