As the Light Dies (63 page)

“
Ther
e’
s too many arms, we ca
n’
t get it shut
,”
said Collin as Leann used her foot to slide the plant pots back up against the door now that Andy had helped close it a little.

Andy watched her and backed away!

“HEY
!
What are you doing
?”
she yelped.

“
Just keep the pressure on
,”
he said moving towards the thrashing arms.

He watched them for a second, thrashing aimlessly at the air hoping the
y’
d get lucky and land on one of them if they did
n’
t manage to force the door open. He braced himself and then reached out and grabbed one with both hands and started forcing it back out!

“Be careful!”
shouted Leann as he pushed it back out, then quickly grabbed another and forced that one out as well. Then he had to stop the first one pushing back through again before grabbing another arm and forcing that one out, and then another. They were strong. It took both of And
y’
s arms and all his weight to push one of theirs back. He used his foot to get rid of another arm, kicking at it repeatedly until he got rid of it. He did
n’
t want to touch it with his hands, it was half eaten and covered with black goo that he was almost certain was infected blood!

The infected people were fast and strong but they did
n’
t have any co-ordination, they just thrashed blindly at the door until their arm eventually found its way through the gap. Andy forced another arm out and then had to fight frantically to pull his arm back when one of them grabbed a hold of his wrist and tried pulling him through!

“ANDY!”
shrieked Leann, as he shot back freeing his arm and as he pulled free he caught a glimpse of the impaled man behind them, he was face down on the floor now having worked his way to the end of the pole
.
He’ll be free soo
n
, he thought and as soon as the thought crossed his mind the bar dislodged from the linoleum and toppled over like a fallen tree and freed him! He looked up straight at Andy locking eyes with him and started making individual hollow clicking sounds and started to crawl towards them! Andy yelled out with rage and started maniacally forcing the thrashing arms back through the door, he kicked and pushed as Collin and Leann kept the pressure on and gradually he started to make a difference, he was pushing them back faster than they were coming through but only just.

“C’
mon! Push
!
PUSH!”
he yelled
.“
W
e’
ve nearly got it
.
”

Collin and Leann heaved as Andy grabbed the last arm and forced it out, and finally the door banged shut with Andy only just getting his fingers out in time. Collin quickly slid the floor and ceiling bolts in to place while Leann locked it.

“
Thank fuck
!”
said Collin panting as he turned around to see Andy rushing towards him at full tilt, he raised his arms in defence, baffled as Andy pushed him to the side and kicked the head of the infected man away as he reached for Colli
n’
s calf with his mouth wide open!

“
Whoa
!
Holy shit!”
yelped Collin jumping out of the way, as Leann shrieked
,
“Oh my God Andy! What have you done?”
when she saw the infected man.

The man clicked and gurgled at them, reaching for them with his dismembered, bludgeoned hands as they oozed black fluid. Andy ran around the man and grabbed his kicking legs by the ankles and started dragging him away from them, back down the corridor. The man tried to reach around for Andy but he was ready and kicked the reaching arms away. When he thought h
e’
d reached a safe distance Andy let go of the man dropping his legs and rushed over for the steel pole and grabbed it struggling to get a firm grip of it through all the slippery black fluid and it slipped out of his hands! He grabbed it again and dropped it again!

“SHIT!”
he cursed as he reached for it again. He picked it up again, barely managing to hold on to it as the infected man started to get back up on to his feet. He was slow, slipping as he tried to push himself up with his slippery stumps for hands. The pole nearly slipped from And
y’
s grip again
.

“Holy Shit!”
said Collin, and he ran and grabbed one of the ornamental flower pots from behind the door and lifted it up high, ready to throw it.

Andy pulled his sleeves down over his hands and wiped down one end of the pole working as fast as he could as the infected man rose up and started towards him. He took a hold of the pole, and this time he managed to get a firm hold of it and without aiming, before he even looked up, he swung the pole hard like he would a baseball bat and slammed the bar off the side of the ma
n’
s head with one of his bludgeoned hands just inches from his throat! Leann and Collin cringed as the ma
n’
s neck let out a sickening pop and his head swung over to one side and bounced off his right shoulder as he fell back on to the floor. Andy did
n’
t stop there! He swung the pole up over his head and brought it down hard across the ma
n’
s chest.

“Andy!”
yelled Leann
,
“
what are you doing?”

Andy did
n’
t look he just swung the pole up over his head again, and pulled down hard as the man tried to get back up again! The pole landed between his head and right shoulder similar to how Collin took down the bearded hulk on the supermarket floor. His collar bone snapped and his shoulder blade split in two.

“ANDY!”
Leann shrieked again.

Andy did
n’
t stop to look at her, but he yelled back to her over his shoulder
,“
Look at him
!
Just look at him
!
Ther
e’
s no stopping him! Do you wanna end up like Thom
?
Or even one of them
?
Yo
u’
ve seen their wounds! Some of them have been attacked already, just like Thom. I
t’
s probably how they got infected
.”
He was practically screaming at her as he finished.

The infected man still tried to get up despite Andy hitting him with as much force as he could muster. He brought the pole down again putting the man back down and then he quickly hit him again before he even had time to move, and then again and again.

Leann looked away, she just could
n’
t watch
.“
H
e’
s gonna kill him Collin. H
e’
s gonna kill him
,”
she said
.
He’s going to kill that man!”

“
I think he has to. I mean, I do
n’
t think he really has any choice
!”
said Collin, and seeing that Andy was doing ok with the pole, he took the fake plant pot back over to the doors and wedged it back in place without so much as a glance at the little windows and the tormented faces beyond.

Finally Andy stood over the man gasping for breath and he looked down at him. His head twitched and his eyes flickered. He rolled his featureless eyes towards Andy and bared his teeth, he clicked a couple of times before the sound coming from his throat turned in to that horrible gurgle and he started opening his mouth wide in a slow controlled movement before snapping it closed again as he twitched his head towards Andy. The rest of his body was limp and broken and lay in a tangled inky black heap but he still wanted to bite Andy.

“LOOK!”
Andy said to the others
.
“Come and LOOK
!
H
e’
s still trying to get me. Or one of you two! Any one of us would do. And look at his blood, its black. Tha
t’
s what that black gunk is. It has to be! The
y’
re all the same, they all bleed black! Something drastically wrong has happened somewhere for this to happen. Were in big trouble! All they want to do is tear us apart. They want to fucking eat us, all of them do
.
It’s all they want to fucking do!”
He paused for a second and looked around. He looked at the mess, he looked at what h
e’
d done
.“
Tha
t’
s why I had to do this Leann. You saw how hard it was to stop him. Christ I still have
n’
t stopped him, look at him, h
e’
s still moving, still wants a chunk of me
.
”

Just then the man spat at Andy spraying his face with black specks!

That was it!

Andy raised the bar once again and brought it down squarely across the ma
n’
s forehead.

The bar smashed through bone and tissue and silenced the man!

Leann ran passed crying, without looking. She held a hand up to the side of her face to hide the view as she rushed towards the doors at the other end of the overpass that led in to the Eastgate Shopping Centre.

Collin walked over to Andy
.“
You ok
?”
he asked.

Andy looked up slowly and Collin saw there were tears running down his face.

“
I ca
n’
t believe I did this
,”
he said, then he looked back down
.“
Look at this. Look what
I’
ve done! What the hel
l’
s happened
?
”

Collin nodded uneasily
.“
You did what you had to do! W
e’
ve all seen what they can do! You saved us Andy
.
”

Andy shook his head and said
,“C’
mon, we still gotta get through in to next door
.
”

The three of them took turns with the bar trying to break through the doors in to the shopping centre, and it was proving harder than Andy had hoped it would.

They were all exhausted after a long day and their escape from the supermarket, but they kept at it. They had to! They each took turns to give each other a break and Collin was starting to wonder if they were going to manage to break through. He watched as Andy took his turn, struggling with the doors, prying and levering the pole repeatedly having no effect. He wondered how long the doors behind them would hold up, with all the infected pushing against them, desperate to get in at them. He dared to look back at them. They were constantly shoving each other out of the way to get a look at them through the small square shatterproof windows.

The little square windows were smeared with black fluid that the
y’
d all agreed must be blood. One discoloured face after another pressed up against the little windows peering in at them like they were prey caught in a trap! One face slammed against the little piece of glass and seemed to look right at Collin! It locked eyes with him which was terrifying because Collin was sure that it did
n’
t have any. H
e’
d seen enough, he turned back around leaving the infected to rage on and pound the doors screeching their clogged calls.

“GOT IT!”
shouted Andy straining to hold the bar in between the doors as he tried to prise them open.

“YES!”
yelped Leann, jumping over to help.

“C’
mon Andy yo
u’
ve nearly got it, keep going, keep going
,”
she said helping him push as Collin joined them, and tha
t’
s all it took.

As soon as Collin joined in they all heard a loud crunch and the door simply pushed open. Leann burst in to the Eastgate Shopping Centre and stepped to the side and out of view from the infected. She was relieved to be out of their sight and away from the one that Andy had killed. She took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. She did
n’
t like being observed, especially by people that wanted to eat her. Knowing they were watching her every move with their beady little black eyes had weighed her down. It had gotten to all of them.

“
Thank God
,”
she said taking another deep breath, as Andy and Collin pushed the door closed behind them.

Andy looked at Collin and said
,“
We need to barricade the doors
.
”