The Purple Haze (9 page)

She jumped at the sound and looked around to see Gaz, still awake and looking out the window.

“
Do you get your kicks out of watching me sleep?” she asked him, not trying in any way to hide her dislike of him, but at the same time keeping her voice low enough to not wake the other members of the group.

Gaz chuckled at her. “You know, you don't need to be a total bitch all the time,” he said through a smug expression.

Yvonne chuckled back at him. “Well, let me see? You break into my bank, you take me and the rest of my staff hostage, one of which you killed, and now I'm stuck with you all in this situation. If you think I'm being a bitch, you can go and fuck yourself.”

Gaz recoiled slightly, but was obviously not fazed too much by this. “Ouch,” he said, the sarcasm dominating every letter of the word. “Okay, I'll give you that. But at least look at it from our point of view. We do what we do, you do what you do. It doesn't make us natural enemies. I read in a book once that, during D-Day, a British officer and a German officer exchanged fire from machine guns, intent on killing each other, in a café in France. They missed completely with every bullet. Several years later, the British officer went back to that café to see what it was like post war, and just happened to bump into that exact German officer. Now, they meet there every year and like to mock each other about what crap shots they both were.”

Yvonne wasn't interested, and had no restraint in showing it. “Why are telling me this? In fact, I don't know why I'm talking to you.” She led back down and rolled over so she was facing away from him.

Gaz continued however. “I'm telling you this because in different circumstances, people who should be enemies can be friends. Yes, Colin did kill your friend, but he didn't mean too. Of all of us, he was the least likely to kill anyone. The only reason that he does this job is because he has been rejected by everyone he's ever known and every job he's ever had. So yes, we do bad things, but we do it out of necessity. We can't all have silver spoons in our mouths.”

Yvonne rolled back onto her back. She stared at the ceiling. “So what's your story then? You seem so bothered about explaining yourself, why do
you
do what you do?”

Gaz looked at her. He couldn't tell whether or not she was being sincere. “Why do
I
do it?” he said, “I do it because there's nothing else I would rather do.”

On hearing this, Yvonne sat up again. “You like doing this kind of crap?” she said.

“
Yeah,” Gaz said, “why wouldn't I? We had a decent set up. We split everything equally and we wouldn't kill anyone. The worst case scenario is we get caught and go to prison.”

“
And that doesn't deter you from doing what you do?” Yvonne asked.

“
Why would it?” Gaz said, again in a very matter of fact tone. “Prisons are a joke in this country. Look at it this way. You, as a bank manager, spend your days in a room that's about seven feet by seven feet. Prison cells are bigger than that. You get medical treatment, your meals prepared for you. Why would I be bothered about going to prison? Why work yourself to death when you can just take what you want and if it goes wrong, you get an easy life having everything handed to you?”

Yvonne shook her head. “I don't buy it, not at all. It's people like you that make this country what it is. A place where hard working people are forgotten and bastards like you get everything.”

Gaz looked away back out the window. “Well, think what you want,” he said, “but just remember that when the shit hits the fan, we've got the guns to protect you.”

Yvonne led back down again. “Look, let’s forget about this. I'm tired. I'm going back to sleep.”

Gaz smiled at her. “Don't let the bed bugs bite,” he said, and then he went to lie down next to Colin. Before he had made it to his makeshift bed, a scream from outside the bank stopped him his tracks. He looked at the window, then back at Yvonne, who too was looking at the window. The scream was muted slightly by the windows, but was audible enough to be identified as female, and definitely within mere yards of the bank. Gaz looked at the rest of the group who had been sleeping, but a human scream was enough to cause them to stir and wake up.

“
What was that?” asked James.

“
Someone's outside,” said Gaz, “sounds like they're close too.”

James jumped up from his bed and moved quickly to the windows. He peered out, trying his best to make out anything down on the street, but between the elevation of the building and the thickness of the fog, he could not see anything. He pointed at Gaz through the dim light. “You,” he said commandingly, “come with me.” He picked up his MP5 and flicked the switch on the torch mounted on the barrel. The room lit up, blinding the survivors for a moment. Gaz picked up his gun and checked the magazine, then reloaded and cocked his weapon. “Everybody else stays in here,” James said as he left the staff room, Gaz following closely behind him.

The two of them moved cautiously down the stairs. James led the way, lighting it with his torch. They reached the bottom and James opened the door leading to the corridor. He leaned out, weapon ready to fire at anything that may have got inside. He looked from one end of the corridor to other. All was clear. Without speaking he gestured with his hand for Gaz to follow, and the two of them moved quickly to the door leading through the cashier area of the bank. In a Crouching position now, James turned off his torch to hide his presence, slowly opened the door and quickly swept the area for any possible threat. The body of Simon remained on the floor, unchanged from the last time he had seen it. He motioned for Gaz to follow and keep low, and the two moved into the bank and squatted behind the cashier desks.

James slowly popped his head to look at the windows. He found it difficult to make out through the blood and brains smeared across them, but in the street he could make out the shapes of the shambling creatures moving away from the bank. He waited a moment until the last one had gone, then climbed over the desk into the lobby of the bank. He moved to the window and peered through a clear gap. He felt Gaz's presence as he moved in next to him.

“
Where are they going?” asked Gaz.

“
I've no idea,” James replied, “but it's clear somebody's out there.”

The pair watched for another minute before Gaz spoke again. “What should we do?”

“
There's nothing we can do,” said James, “we go out there looking for whoever screamed and we could end up lost out there in the fog.” They watched for another moment. Before long the crowd of walking corpses were neither visible nor audible. “We better get back upstairs,” said James, and the two of them moved away from the window.

Back upstairs the other survivors waited anxiously for James and Gaz to return. The sound of the scream had spooked them, Yvonne more noticeably than the others. She kept repeating things like “we aren't going to survive,” and “I don't want to die.” Craig was trying his best to comfort her, but it wasn't working effectively. The group jumped and turned at the sound of the door to the staff room opening. James and Gaz entered.

“
What was it?” Martin asked.

“
We couldn't see anything,” Gaz answered, “but those things at the window have gone. They must have followed the sound of the scream.”

“
Well that's good,” said Craig “means we can get away.”

“
Nobody's going anywhere tonight,” James said. “We all need to get some sleep. The fact we haven't been attacked in here so far shows they definitely can't get in, so take advantage and get rested. We'll decide what to do in the morning.” The group all moved back to their own beds and settled down. They didn't hear the scream again throughout the night.

Dave was the first to wake up the following morning. Despite the wound on his leg, he had slept okay. He had managed to swing his legs up onto the sofa in the staff room and was able to sleep in a comfortable position despite Mike's jacket wrapped around his leg. He looked around the room and saw that it was definitely day time, plenty of light was filling the room from the windows. He could clearly see the rest of the survivors. Gaz and Colin were still asleep in one corner of the room, Mike was asleep in another corner along with Craig and Yvonne, and Martin and James were sleeping about as far apart as they could get along another wall of the room. He thought this odd since they had worked well when they had to go out on the street the previous night, but it was obvious that James didn't trust Martin. He didn't blame him for this, being a police officer it would be impossible for him to completely trust a group of bank robbers.

Dave swung his legs around carefully, trying not to cause any more pain than he was already in. He sat upright for a moment, listening to the air around him. He couldn't hear anything from the streets, but without getting up and going to the window he couldn't be sure that the streets were clear, and he didn't want to get up on his own and run the risk of falling down and then not being able to get up. He looked down at his leg. An overwhelming desire took him over to see the wound on it clearly. Given the commotion from when the wound was inflicted he hadn't had a good chance to see it. He lifted his leg slowly and propped it up on the table in front of the sofa. Gingerly he began to untie the knot holding the jacket in place and he carefully unwound it. What he saw frightened him so much it took the wind out of his lungs. The wound was horrible. Blood was still seeping from the gauge, and the skin around it was covered in blisters not unlike the boils that covered the faces of the creatures outside. His breathing quickened. He didn't know what to think. Were the bites infectious? Was he going to die from this wound? He shook the thoughts out of his head quickly. Apart from the pain in his leg, he felt all right. Nothing was going to happen, he told himself. He wrapped up the leg and leant back into the sofa.

Colin stirred and woke up. He sat up and looked around, seeing that Dave was awake. He got up and went to sit next to him.

“
How are you doing?” he asked him.

“
All right, I think,” replied Dave, “my leg hurts like a son of a bitch but I'm okay.”

“
That's good. As long as you feel all right then you shouldn't have too many problems.” Colin stood up again and looked out the window. He was amazed at what he saw outside. The fog had cleared away quite a lot during the time they had been sleeping. He could now see across to the other side of the street, and everything in the street, but not quite all the way to either end of it. The police vehicles and the ambulances were still there, the blue lights now no longer flashing. Apart from the vehicles, the streets were deserted. There was no trace left outside that there ever was a crazed horde of apparently cannibalistic creatures intent on getting into the bank and attacking them, apart from the few that had been killed by Martin and James when they went out there. He turned around at the sound of rustling, and he saw that Craig was waking up. Colin looked back out the window. He still didn't want to talk to Craig because of the guilt he felt over shooting his colleague. He heard footsteps, and felt the presence of someone next to him. He looked and saw it was Craig.

“
How's it looking out there?” he asked him.

“
It looks clear,” replied Colin “I can't see anyone out there.”

“
Good, let's hope we don't see any of them again.” Craig looked at Dave sat on the sofa. “How's he doing?”

“
He seems okay, considering he's missing a chunk out of his leg. Says he's in pain but feels all right.” Colin continued looking out the window, not really wanting to speak to Craig too much. Craig picked up on this.

“
Look about last night,” he said.

“
I don't want to talk about it,” Colin replied sharply.

“
I know you didn't want to kill anyone. What happened to Simon was an accident. I know it isn't the best way to meet anyone, being taken hostage and what not, but looking at what we are up against now, we need to put it behind us. We need to work together.”

Colin looked at Craig. He saw sincerity in his face but it didn't really make him feel any better. He was glad that Craig had spoken to him because he at least felt like he could talk to him if he needed to, but the guilt still lingered heavily inside him.

James woke up sharply. He hadn't slept too soundly through the night. The thought of the creatures outside trying to get in had woken him up a couple of times, but when he was sleeping he was having nightmares about his family and what could have possibly happened to them. He’d had vivid dreams of them being killed by a group of those creatures, only in his dreams the creatures had bigger mouths filled with razor sharp fangs that shredded the flesh off his wife and children while he stood powerless to do anything. The worst dream was one of his wife, now one of those things, ripping his daughters limb from limb then feasting on their legs like they were chicken drumsticks, the eyes of his dead girls wide open looking right him.

He tried to banish the images from his mind. He wiped his eyes and looked around the room. Craig and Colin were stood at the window looking at him, Dave was sat up on the sofa and everyone else was starting to wake up. James stood up and went over the window next to where Craig and Colin were and looked outside. He was surprised at how much the visibility had improved and he scanned the street for any signs of the creatures that had attacked him. He only saw ones he had killed. “Where the hell have they gone?” he said aloud.