Demise of the Living (36 page)

“
How’d he die?” Billy
asked. “From eating too many chicken nuggets?”

“
Is he
dead
dead?” Liz asked from the doorway.

“What do you mean?” Colin
asked.

“I mean, will he get back up
and attack us?” Liz said nervously.

“I... I don’t know,” Colin
said.

Billy raised his gun. “Stand
back.”

“
What for?” Colin
asked.

“I’m going to blow his brains
out,” Billy replied.

“What? Why?” Colin
spluttered.

“
Stop him coming back,”
Billy explained.

“No, no—wait. We can tape him
up or something.”

“Be quicker just to shoot him,”
Billy said.

“Think of the mess,” Liz
said.

“What?” Billy asked, lowering
the gun.

“
You blow his head apart
and it’s going to be sprayed all across this washroom. If he
is
infected, we’ll be covered in it.”

“She’s got a good point, Billy.
Be easier to tie him up and drag him out than wash his brains off
the walls.”

“Suppose,” Billy agreed.

“Liz, go get some duct
tape.”

Liz nodded and scurried from
the toilet.

“Shit, it stinks in here,”
Billy said, stepping past John’s body.

Looking into the vomit- and
paper towel-filled bowl, he spat out a glob of saliva and pressed
the flush button. With a swoosh, the toilet started to fill with
water. The paper towels and vomit swirled around the bend, then a
towel became clogged and the water started rising. A few lighter
chunks managed to stay on top of the deluge to bob around in the
clean water.

“Stand back,” Billy
advised.

Blocked by the towels, the
water rose higher and higher, getting dangerously close to the rim
of the bowl.

“
Shit. You’d better try
and unclog that before it overflows,” Colin said.

“I’m not sticking my hand down
there,” Billy replied.

There was a glug of air and the
water level dropped instantly. A second bubble and the towels began
to slip round the bend.

“
See? You just needed a
little faith,” Billy said.

When the waters receded,
there was still a few wayward chunks of vomit lazily circling the
bowl. Billy pushed the button to initiate a second flush, but the
cistern only gave out a light gasp.

“Fuck it,” he said.

“What is it now?” Colin
asked.

“Water’s off,” Billy
replied.

Colin shook his head. “It’s
just one thing on top of another.”

***

Stephen came to. His jaw ached
and his head thundered. He tried to move, but couldn’t. Looking
down, he saw he was duct taped to an office chair. There was a
teenaged girl he didn’t recognize sitting across from him. She wore
only an oversized T-shirt and was reading a celebrity magazine by
the light of a camping lantern.

Stephen croaked, “Hey, little
girl.”

“I’m not a little girl,” Karen
said.

Without another word, she stood
up and walked out of the empty office.

“Hey, come back,” Stephen cried
through cracked lips.

The door creaked shut and
he heard the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. Stephen
tried to call out, but his throat felt swollen and dry.

“Bitch.”

He pulled at his bonds. His
hands and fingers were curled round the arm of the chair,
restrained by the adhesive tape. His feet were bound together
behind the chair’s central strut. Testing all of his limbs, there
was the tiniest amount of play between his flesh and the arms of
the chair. He could slide his arms sideways a few millimetres left
and right.

He started wiggling his arms
vigorously, trying to find a weak spot or some purchase he could
exploit. The whole chair creaked and groaned at his efforts. The
chair started to rock and protest even more loudly.

“Come on,” Stephen urged,
hearing a crack.

The most noise was coming from
the right arm of the chair. He shifted his body weight into the
right arm and pushed and pulled harder and harder.

“Come on,” he said, spurring
himself on.

There was a crunching noise and
the chair’s arm broke loose.

“Yes!” Stephen hissed, holding
his arm out in front of him.

Dangling from his forearm was a
splint-like armrest. A pair of bolts dangled at the bottom corners
where they had been broken free.

Stephen brought his freed arm
up to his mouth and started feeling with his teeth for an edge to
the duct tape. His teeth found the end. He rasped his top incisors
down over the lip of the tape, trying to work enough of it free to
give himself purchase. With luck he could find the edge and pull
back enough tape and start to untangle himself from its sticky
grasp.

The door to the office
opened and Liz strolled in.

“Fuck,” Stephen cursed.

Liz stared at Stephen for a
moment as if she were trying to decide what to do.

She held the door open
and shouted back down the stairs, “Stephen’s trying to free
himself!”

There was an unintelligible
reply and Liz let the door swing shut.

Calmly she walked over to
Stephen and sat down on the edge of a desk opposite him.

“
Who bit you?” she
asked.

“
I don’t know. Some
random,” Stephen answered.

“Did you find your wife?”

“Fiancée. And yes.”

“She’s dead now, isn’t
she?”

“Yes. I got back to the house
just fine. We hunkered down for a couple of days, but they swarmed
the place. Every hour there were more and more of them hammering at
the windows and doors. We left it too late. There were too many of
them when we tried to fight our way to the car. She got bitten and
that night she died.”

Liz nodded after listening to
Stephen’s story.

“
I’m going to die, too,
aren’t I?” he whispered.

“That’s how it seems to work,”
Liz said.

“Oh, God,” Stephen said,
letting his chin fall to his chest.

“Is there a cure?” Liz
asked.

“How the fuck should I know?!”
Stephen barked.

“I just thought you might have
heard something on the radio.”

“I left her there,” Stephen
said, crying now.

“You left us, too,” Liz
said.

“
I dragged her out of the
car and left her by the side of the road,” Stephen wept. “I watched
her come back. I should have buried her or something. I shouldn’t
have let her come back.”

The doors to the office swung
open and Billy, Colin, and Sharon entered.

“Don’t let me come back,”
Stephen pleaded.

“You’ll be lucky to get the
chance,” Liz said.

She retrieved the roll of duct
tape from the desk and stood up.

“
I’ll take care of John.
You decide what to do with
him
,” she said, walking past the
others.

Sharon walked over to the table
and took up the position Liz had just left. Billy grabbed a chair
by the headrest and wheeled it over while Colin stood with his arms
folded.

“So what are we going to do
about you?” Billy said, sitting down hard.

Stephen stayed silent. He
shivered, not from fear, but from the infection eating him up.

“Because of you, two of our
friends are dead,” Colin said.

Stephen looked up at him, sweat
dripping from his forehead.

“I say we toss him out the
window,” Billy said. “Give the fuckers down there something to
occupy themselves.”

“Come on, Billy—let’s not get
carried away,” Sharon appealed.

“Mo and Thomas are dead all
because of this dick,” Billy pointed out.

“Mo’s a loss, but don’t kid
yourself. Stephen’s done our dirty work for us where Thomas is
concerned,” Sharon replied.

“So what do you propose we do?
Leave him tied up here until he dies?” Colin asked.

“Kill me,” Stephen said.

“What?” Sharon said in
surprise.

Stephen swallowed hard. His
saliva was thick and sticky in his burning throat.

He said, “I can feel it. It’s
eating me up from the inside.”

“So you admit you’re infected,”
Colin said.

“
Of course I’m infected.
One of those fuckers bit me,” Stephen replied.

“
Okay, we’ll kill you,”
Billy said. “But first tell us what it’s like out there. Where have
you been? Have you seen any supplies we can use?”

Stephen started to laugh, but
it quickly turned into a coughing fit. His cheeks turned crimson
and phlegm dribbled from his lips.

“
He’s choking to death,”
Sharon said. “Aren’t you going to help him?”

“A pat on the back is going to
help,” Billy said.

Slowly, Stephen composed
himself again.

“What’s it like out there?”
Colin asked. “Can you tell us anything that will help?”

“It’s all fucked up. They’re
everywhere and there’s no way out,” Stephen answered.

“No way out?” Colin asked.

“The roads are clogged with
abandoned cars and the west bridge was down. The only way out is on
foot, but with those fuckers following you, you’ve got no
chance.”

“Okay…Anywhere we can get
supplies?”

“How the hell should I know? I
wasn’t looking,” Stephen replied.

He started coughing and choking
again.

“Get him a glass of water or
something,” Sharon said, but no one moved.

“He’s of no use,” Billy
said.

“Why are we even asking? How
would we get out to go looking for supplies, anyway?” Colin
asked.

Stephen stopped coughing and
his head fell limp.

“Stephen?” Sharon said.

She lent in to check him when a
hand shot out and grabbed her by the arm. Looking down, she saw
Colin holding her back.

“
Don’t get too close,” he
warned.

“Is he all right? I mean has he
died? Should we check him?” Sharon asked, stepping back.

“Let’s just give it a moment,”
Billy advised.

They sat and watched, listening
to their breathing, focusing on the still body. Time stretched out
and slowed, counted only by their skittish heartbeats.

“There!” Colin pointed at a
muscle in Stephen’s arm.

They all looked and the muscle
twitched.

The slumped head twisted
quickly, then drew up straight. Stephen’s mouth was open, stringy
drool hanging from his chin. He looked at the three people around
him.

“Stephen?” Sharon asked.

At the sound of her voice,
Stephen’s head turned to look directly at her.

“Stephen?” she asked again.

Stephen’s lips peeled back and
a low moan issued from somewhere deep inside his throat. As he
tried to stretch out for his prey, the binds held him in place. He
looked down at the lashings of duct tape, but they were beyond his
comprehension. Ignoring them, he looked back up at Sharon and
stretched out his free hand, rasping out his discordant moan.

There was a flash of motion and
a wet thump. The sound stopped.

Billy stood, holding his
rifle by the muzzle shroud
.

Stephen’s head slumped forward
and fell to his chest. The head hung in an unnatural way, bobbing
about randomly like a ship on a swelling sea.

Billy became aware of
Sharon and Colin staring at him.

“What? It was less messy than
shooting him,” he said, justifying himself.

He swung the gun around and
examined the butt.

“Yuck. I’ll need to take some
bleach to that,” he said, seeing a chunk of scalp embedded in the
back plate.

Colin bent down, hands on
knees, and examined Stephen’s head.

“
Holy shit,” he mumbled,
using the lantern to highlight an inch-deep gash above Stephen’s
left temple. “Is he dead?”

“If you want to be sure, I can
go get my machete. Take his head off,” Billy offered.

“Christ, Billy—that was
uncalled-for.” Sharon turned and stormed out of the office.

“What’s up with her?” Billy
asked, watching her leave.

“Fuck knows,” Colin replied.
“Maybe she just wants out of disposing of the body.”

Billy slung his rifle on
his shoulder and spun the chair around. He placed both of his hands
firmly on the backrest and started pushing it to the door like a
wheelchair.

Reaching the end of the
office, he stopped. “Give us a hand and we’ll toss this fucker off
the roof.”

***

Sharon came into the office and
immediately noticed that all but one of the lanterns was off. No
one else was about and she suddenly realised how much noise the
door was making creaking on its hinges.

Softly, she walked across to
her own tent. It was late and the last couple of hours had been
exhausting. She knew she should slip into her sleeping bag and get
some rest, but her mind was still whirring around. Everything and
nothing assaulted her thoughts. Would they be safe now that the
foyer was breached? What had killed John? How long would the food
last? Would she survive all this or go the same way as Stephen, Mo,
or Thomas?

She bent down and unzipped her
tent. She may not feel like sleeping, but there was little else to
be done.

Something struck her. A
sound. Not a familiar one—not the soft breathing in the adjacent
tents or the moans of the dead outside. Something
else
.

She stood up straight and
listened. Someone was shouting. She looked up at the ceiling tiles.
Colin and Billy would be on the roof by now with Stephen’s dead
body, but there was no way she’d be able to hear them from down
here.