Domain of the Dead (25 page)

Caught off guard by the speed of the clip, Sarah fumbled to stop it hitting the floor. As she did she skiffed a broken finger across the butt of the gun.

“Shit!” she cursed through pursed lips.

The magazine tumbled to the deck and clattered to a stop.

“Do you know what you’re doing there?” Nathan asked.

“Sure,” Sarah lied, trying to sound confident. “Just banged my finger, that’s all.” She reached down and grabbed the clip even before she’d finished speaking to Nathan.

The magazine was slender and long. From the movies she’d been dragged to by tiresome boyfriends, she had the impression that all ammo clips were square chunky things. A copper bodied bullet with a dull gunmetal grey head sat at the top of the magazine. The ammunition was tiny, like it should belong in a toy, not a real firearm. Sarah dispelled that thought; having already witnessed the power of these unimposing shells, she knew how deadly they were. She had hoped that when she removed the clip it would be obvious to her how many shots were left, but it wasn’t. There were a series of small holes up the face of the magazine but she couldn’t angle enough light to see if there were any bullets inside. She surmised that there would be some kind of spring arrangement that pushed the bullets up into the breach of the gun and that theoretically she would be able to unload and reload the clip. But she had paid enough attention during those bad dates to know that guns jammed and she didn’t know enough about guns to trust herself to reload the clip correctly.

“Are you
sure
you know how to use that thing?” Nathan asked again.

“Yeah, I had every season of
Twenty-Four
on DVD.” Sarah slapped the clip back up into position with a satisfying click and tried to look nonchalant holding the gun.

Nathan sat himself down next to the Bunsen burner. “So we’re just going to walk out there?”

“We have to,” Sarah said.

They both found their gaze had settled on the Bunsen burner’s flame. The primordial comfort of the fire wasn’t enough to dispel their fear. The door still shook as the groaning zombies tried to force their way in.

Sarah took a deep breath, signifying the end of the respite.

She stood up and waved the gun at the door. “You open the door and stand back. I’ll shoot them as they come in.”

“How may shots you got left?” Nathan asked.

Sarah looked at the gun. “Enough... I hope.”

Nathan presented the palms of his hands to the flame from the Bunsen burner to warm them up.

“You cold?” Sarah asked.

“Freezing. What about you?”

“I’m fine.” Sarah paused for a second. “But then I haven’t just heaved my guts up. Are you up to this?”

Nathan shrugged. “I’m going to have to be.”

“Here, take my shirt,” Sarah offered.

“Are you sure?” Nathan half-heartedly protested. “I mean, won’t you get cold?”

Sarah unbuttoned the garment, revealing a tight white vest underneath. “I’ll be fine. It’s too big for me anyway,” she said, handing it over.

“Thanks,” Nathan said as he put it on, carefully rolling the sleeves down to further hide his injury.

“Okay, let’s do this. You get the door and I’ll shoot them,” Sarah said as she took up position a few feet from the door.

“Will you be okay to shoot that?” Nathan asked, looking at Sarah’s bandaged fingers.

“I’ll just fire left handed. How much more difficult can it be?”

“Fuck.” Nathan shook his head as he crunched his way over to the broken fridge. He bent down squat and with his hands hooked around the top of the fridge he hauled it out of the doorway.

The noise of the fridge scraping along the deck excited the zombies even further and they increased the ferocity of their pounding.

Nathan stepped to the side of the door and nodded to Sarah.

“Go!” Sarah ordered and Nathan tipped the door handle.

The door flew open, spilling a torrent of cadavers into the room. The first few, unbalanced by the push behind them and sudden opening of the door, toppled to the deck. Before they could make to get up the creatures behind had surged forward, trampling their compatriots.

Sarah aimed the gun at the lead zombie and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked wildly in her hands, throwing her aim up and off. The explosion from the shot made her blink, shutting her eyes instinctively and the thunderous bark of the gun meant that she recoiled as much as the weapon. When she opened her eyes the uninjured zombie was still advancing on her. She fired again, blinking her eyes shut at the sound and the flash of the shot. When she looked at the zombie she’d been aiming at, it was struggling to its feet, a smouldering hole in its shoulder.

She aimed and fired again. This time the bullet found its mark and the zombie crumpled to the ground. The next zombie in line stumbled forward, showing no regard for the corpse it trampled over. Sarah aimed the gun again, this time with a stiffer grip, and fired.

The shot missed, but this time she hadn’t flinched. Levelling the gun at the zombie’s head she fired again.

A huge chunk of scalp flew out from the back of the zombie’s skull and it collapsed to the floor.

Three more zombies were still bearing down on her. One shambled ahead, its arm outstretched pawing at the air. The other two were staggering to their feet, having been knocked over as the door opened.

Sarah took a couple of steps back to keep her distance from the approaching corpse. She took aim and this time her shot hit home.

The two remaining zombies behind simply pushed passed their fallen brethren and continued to advance.

Sarah tried to step back but her retreat was over. She had reached the hull. Cornered against the wall, she fired at the closest one. The shot burst its skull open, sending it tumbling to the deck.

The last creature, undeterred, reached out its arms to grab her.

The ghoul was so close that the barrel of the gun touched its forehead. Sarah pulled the trigger and heard an empty click.

Her heart sank and she became suddenly aware of the pounding in her ears and her shortness of breath.

The zombie grabbed Sarah by the hair and started to pull her in.

There was a loud crack.

“Ow!” Nathan screamed.

The zombie collapsed to the floor and behind it stood Nathan, nursing his right hand.

“What happened?” Sarah asked, trying to catch her breath.

“I smacked it one with the fire extinguisher and the fucking thing’s taken a chunk of skin off my knuckles.”

Sarah stepped forward. “Let’s see.”

Nathan held out his hand. There was a tiny gash across the joint of his first two fingers. “It was the squeezy bit.” He could see Sarah hadn’t understood what he was talking about. “The trigger thing… I was holding it.” He shook his head. “Ah, never mind.”

“Get a dressing from the first aid kit. You’ll be fine,” Sarah said as she opened the cupboard beside her. “Oh, and thanks.”

“Anytime,” Nathan said, rooting around the first aid box. He glanced over at Bates. “What are we going to do about him?”

Sarah opened up a second cupboard. “Take him with us.”

Nathan looked anxiously at the open door. “Not just lock him in here?”

Sarah was pulling out bottles and squinting to read the labels in the dim light. “I don’t want to double back if we can avoid it. And we’ll need him to radio the Russians and stop them from nuking us.”

“Okay, but we can’t carry him… What are you doing anyway?”

“This.” Sarah opened up a small bottle and knelt down next to Bates.

“Jeez, what the hell is that?” Nathan asked, screwing up his face. “It smells like rat piss.”

Sarah was wafting the bottle under Bates’ nose. “Ammonia. It’s what smelling salts used to be made of.”

Bates took in a gasp of air followed by a long splutter of coughs. His eyelids fluttered open.

Sarah shook him by the shoulders. “Bates? Bates?”

All Bates could manage was a groggy, “Uh…”

“You’ve been bit,” Sarah reminded him. “But we’ve stopped the infection from spreading. We need your help. You’re going to have to walk.”

Bates held out his injured arm in front of him. There was a fresh white bandage a few inches below his elbow where his arm now terminated.

“My hand! My fucking hand! Fuck it hurts!”

“I had to stop the infection from spreading,” Sarah said as justification.

Nathan looked down at his own arm. The whole thing ached and felt numb. He tried to suppress his dry cough and shivered from the effort. His throat was scratchy and the headache from being seasick was getting stronger. He had hoped the oppressive cold was from the storm outside, but seeing Sarah comfortable in a vest made him realise just how sick he had become.

“Now on your feet soldier!” Sarah barked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Bates replied back out of instinct.

Sarah extended her arm and helped Bates to his feet. “I couldn’t find any morphine. Do you know where it will be?”

“There’ll be some in the infirmary, but that’s backtracking,” Bates said. “I’ll be fine.”

“You need to lead us to the armoury,” Nathan said. “Are you up for it?”

“Sure,” Bates replied with a pained gasp.

“This is yours,” Sarah said, passing Bates the gun. She added, “It’s empty.”

Bates reached out with his severed arm. He looked down at the empty space where his hand should have been, and snorted.

“Don’t matter,” he sniggered. “I can’t fire it anyways.”

“Use your left hand, you idiot!” Nathan snapped. “Now can we get out of here?! That door’s wide open and those shots will draw every zombie on board!”

“Okay, let’s go,” Bates said, and stepped out of the lab.

Sarah and Nathan followed.

* * *

As the three figures moved down the corridor, a zombie shuffled after them. Something caught its eye—a flickering movement from the room beside it.

Professor Cutler shuffled into the room. There were a number of bodies lying on the ground which made getting into the room difficult for the stiff-legged zombie. It ambled over to the source of the movement. The creature which once spoke four languages fluently let out an unintelligible grunt. The noise was made all the more horrific as it gurgled out past the mashed-up flesh and bone that used to be his lower jaw. Part of the professor’s ear had also been obliterated from the shots Bates had fired at him. Drawn deeper into the room, he bent down to see the dancing yellow shape more closely.

The light from the Bunsen illuminated what was left of Professor Cutler’s ashen face. The only colour was his brown hair and the crimson ooze around the edges of his ragged flesh. He seemed ignorant to the fact a large portion of his face had been blasted away by a gunshot. All that captured his attention was the dancing light in front of him. He reached out a hand to grasp the movement but he couldn’t clutch hold of it. Instead it ran up the sleeve of his crumpled and gore splattered white shirt. This astounded the professor, who stood and watched as the yellow flame engulfed him.

Swatches of the burning shirt sloughed off and floated to the floor. Flame dripped onto the gurney where the tethered zombie lay concealed under a sheet. The covers ignited. Flames gusted up, touching the ceiling and dripped down, wafting to the floor. In turn, these offspring ignited the clothing of the corpses on the deck and within moments the whole lab was burning.

Strapped to its gurney, the specimen zombie could do nothing but watch the flames engulf him for as long as his eyes still worked.

Professor Cutler shambled out of the lab, his body a flaming torch. The movement and light from the flame had caught his interest for a moment, but his primordial drive compelled him to search out victims to infect, regardless of his physical state.

* * *

“It’s not far now,” Bates said. “Just a few more feet.”

“Fuck!” Nathan swore as he stumbled. He tried to hold his balance by pushing his foot out, but it slipped on a wet patch. Nathan threw his arms out and landed on something cold and soft. A tirade of mono-phrase profanities spilt from his mouth as he jerked back up to his feet.

Sarah bent down to see what had caused such panic in her friend.

“What is it?” Bates asked.

“Dead bodies.” Sarah looked up at Bates. “Or should I say dead W.D.’s.” She turned her focus to Nathan. “You okay?”

Nathan blew out a puff of breath. “I’m covered in shit.”

“Are you okay though?” Bates repeated Sarah’s question.

“Yeah, sure, I suppose.” Nathan replied, punctuating his answer with a dry cough.

“You sure?” Sarah asked softly. “You don’t sound too good.”

Nathan snorted and wiped his nose. “Yeah, I told you I’m fine. It’s just this seasickness.”

Sarah stood up and went to place her hand in Nathan’s, but in the darkness she misjudged his location and instead touched his arm.

Nathan winced and jolted away. “I’m fine!”