Last Days With the Dead (34 page)

‘Move it!’ he growled, as Andrews ran past him, who for some reason was holding the baby, closely followed by Sinclair
, carrying the girl.

With their hearts hammering in their chests and with death on their heels, the soldiers ran past sad dilapidated gift shops and wild picnic areas
, overgrown and reclaimed by the plants around them. At one point, a dead boy of around seven, stumbled out from the foliage and into their path, but Pelling, without even thinking, reduced his skull to a pulpy mass with her crowbar within seconds.

‘Down here!’ Sergeant Ridge called, darting along a wider path that led to a huge domed greenhouse, ‘
Perhaps we can get through.’

‘Wait!’ panted Grimes, stopping when he noticed the grassy banks running either side of the path that rose to chest height by the time it reached the wide doorway
. ‘If we can’t get in, we’ll be trapped.’

But it was already too late, the others were already only a few metres from the double doors and Grimes could hear the cadavers closing in behind him.

‘Shit!’ he spat, eventually running forward even though he knew that if they failed to get inside the greenhouse, they would be trapped with the hungry corpses being funnelled directly along the path toward them and the bloody flesh they craved.

When Grimes caught up with the others
, it was clear from the dark smears and scratches covering the surface that the corpses had tried to get in here before. Whether or not that meant the domed greenhouse was secure, they would only know, once they got inside, or rather, ‘if’ they got inside. Already, the Sergeant was trying to shoulder open the door, to no avail. Each time he threw himself against the reinforced door, it would open only wide enough for a hand to pass through, before colliding with something large and heavy on the other side.

‘Fuck!’ Ridge snapped, looking through the gap
. ‘There’s some sort of cart thing parked the other side, we’ll have to find another way in.’

‘Well, we’d better fucking hurry up and think of something.’ Said Pelling, finally dropping her crowbar and slowly swinging her assault rifle from its position on her back, her gaze fixed on the mass of cadavers already appearing at the end of the path.

Glancing over his shoulder at the approaching horde, Ridge suddenly realised his mistake. He had led his team down a dead end, and unless he could think of something, this was not going to end well. It was then that he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Snapping his head to his left, he saw that four cadavers had dragged themselves out from the nearby foliage, and were now walking up along the verge towards them. The first, the decaying remains of a dead woman wearing a pair of filthy green overalls, was already only a few paces from the lip, and as it looked down at the group below, its film covered eyes held only a promise of death for those in its sights.

‘Sir
,’ cried Sinclair, looking to the Sergeant’s right where corpses were also starting to appear, ‘we’re getting surrounded, we need to do something!’

‘Get behind me,’ whispered Andrews, nervously pushing Lucy into the corner.

The woman’s corpse was only a step away from the edge of the verge now, and the Sergeant knew he had to act before she fell upon them. Darting forward, he scooped up Pelling’s now discarded crowbar and hoisted himself up onto the shoulder height verge.

‘Come and get me, you rank Bitch!’ he growled, trying to draw the corpse’s attention from the soldiers below, ‘Come on!’

Slowly, the woman’s body turned its head to look at the living man next to her. No sooner had she turned her hungry gaze upon him, than Sergeant Ridge quickly stepped forward. It almost looked as if he was to embrace her, but at the last second, he thrust his hunting knife upwards, deep into the withered flesh under her chin. With a grunt, he pushed the blade home, piercing through the roof of her blackened, fetid mouth, and up into her brain.

Pushing the now lifeless corpse away from him to fall in the tall grass, Ridge ran to nearest of the large hexagonal panels that made up the structure of the huge dome. With a glance at the corpses ambling closer towards him, he dropped his knife at his feet and took the crowbar in both hands. With as much force as his adrenalin fuelled muscles could provide, Ridge took a mighty swing
at one of the clear panels, praying it would break. With a dull ‘thud’, the end of the crowbar connected and bounced back off the surface, barely leaving a mark.

‘Come on, you fucker
,’ he muttered under his breath, drawing the bar back to take another swing.

Aiming for the same spot, the crowbar flew through the air again
, but this time, he was rewarded with a smallest of cracks in the thick Perspex panel.

‘Sir!’ cried Pelling behind him, her tone telling him it was nothing good.

Ridge looked back and saw that the main throng of the walking cadavers were only ten metres away now. With the prospect of warm flesh for them to dine on so close, they were doing all in their power to move their emaciated limbs as fast as they could to get to them.

‘Fuck! Pelling, buy us some time,’ he shouted above their deathly moaning, ‘Sinclair, you too
, I want controlled weapons fire, just keep those bastards back.’

‘About fucking time
,’ Pelling mumbled, raising her rifle to take aim on the nearest corpse.

Keeping an eye on the corpses getting dangerously close on the grassy verge behind him, Sergeant Ridge swiftly re-adjusted his hold on the crowbar and prayed he could break through the panel in time. Then in a hail of bullets, the shooting started.

***

‘Christ! It’s them
, we’ve actually found them,’ said Liz, looking through the binoculars as she clung with one arm to the top of the sign post. ‘They’re getting surrounded by the Dead. There’s something behind the door, they can’t get in.’

‘Is Charlie with them
,’ asked Phil, leaning back so he could look up at Liz through the side hatch, ‘can you see him?’

‘Er
m…’ Liz replied, looking from one unknown person in uniform to the next, ‘wait, yes, yes, one of the soldiers is carrying a baby, it has to be Charlie, right?’

In the shadowy interior of the cart, Phil met Patrick’s worried gaze. They both could hear the hope in Liz’s voice and silently wondered which of them would be the one to remind her there was a distinct possibility it could be Lucy’s baby the soldier held. Phil was about to open his mouth when Liz spoke again.

‘I can see one of the soldiers trying to break his way through the greenhouse panels,’ she continued, briefly glancing back at her friends. ‘Fuck, the Dead just keep coming, there’s just so many of them, there must be hundreds. They’re not going to make it. Christ, they’re not going to make it.’

‘So do we try to help them?’ asked Karen, looking from one concerned face to the next.

‘We have to,’ replied Liz, already climbing back down from the top of the signpost. ‘We have to save Charlie.’

‘Liz…’ Imran began, helping her back into the cart, ‘
it may not be Charlie, you do know that, right?’

Liz paused halfway in the hatchway, the realisation that the child could indeed be someone other than Charlie
, suddenly dawning on her.

‘It’s a baby, Imran
,’ she softly replied, a look of determination on her face, ‘whoever it is, it’s just a baby, and we’ve got to try.’

‘
Well, if the Dead are focusing all their attention on the soldiers, we’ll be no help approaching from the front. Did you see another way into the dome?’ asked Steve, finally breaking the silence.

Liz gave Steve a brief smile, relieved she wouldn’t have to battle to convince them this was the right thing to do.

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘there’s a smaller side entrance. If we can get through, we could try to open the door behind them.’

‘And if they do have Charlie?’ asked Karen, letting the question hang.

‘We get him back,’ Liz finally replied matter-of-factly, the sound of soldier’s gunfire still echoing ominously around them.

‘Right then
, which way?’ Phil asked, taking Samson’s reins in his hands.

‘Take the next right,’ Liz began, leaning forward to look over Phil’s shoulder, ‘then that pathway should take us to the side of the Dome.’

‘Let’s just hope we have better luck getting in than they did,’ Phil said to himself, giving the reins a sharp crack.

Just like all of them, Phil knew the soldiers would run out of ammo before the Dead ran out of hungry corpses. He had seen it before. The arrogance of
the military’s reliance on their precious killing toys, made them think themselves invincible. Surely, nothing could withstand this hail of bullets, not even this army of the Dead. But they were always wrong. This foe was like none other they had battled against before. The Dead were relentless and with their ranks forever increasing, the military would ultimately lose. So, urging Samson forward with haste, he hoped for once this battle could have a different outcome.

With huge overgrown flowerbeds and swathes of greenery flashing past them, Phil pushed Samson as fast as he dared along the cobbled pathways. The closer they got to the dome, the more they could hear the ceaseless moaning of the Dead beneath the rat-tat-rat sound of the soldier’s automatic
gunfire.

‘They’re starting to panic,’ said Steve, looking at Patrick, ‘you can tell from the breaks between the shots
. Whoever’s shooting, they’ve lost control of the situation and not taking the time to aim anymore.’

‘Shit,’ replied Patrick, nervously rubbing his scar.

‘Looks like we’ve got ourselves a break,’ interrupted Phil, suddenly pulling Samson to an abrupt halt by the side of the domed greenhouse, ‘the door’s ajar. We can get in.’

‘Thank
, God.’ said Imran, jumping down from the cart, his bow already pulled taught to give the others cover as they piled out.

As Liz landed on the
weed-choked cobbles by Imran’s side, she deftly clicked free her blade from the sheath on her back and looked over at the partly open doorway.

‘Don’t know if that’s a good sign or not.’ She
said, gesturing to the almost skeletal remains of a man with his skull caved in. ‘The door’s lodged open with the corpse of one of the Dead , which could mean there’s more inside, but then, at least someone had the wherewithal to smash his skull in. So perhaps it’s already clear.’

‘We’ll find out soon enough, Liz
.’ said Phil, grimly slipping one of their precious hand guns into the waist of his trousers.     

‘
It could get hairy in there,’ said Patrick, noticing Phil’s gun before turning to the only two members of the group with any real military training. ‘Steve, Karen, I’m going to need you both to give those bastards some incentive to give us the baby once we save their arses. Understand?’

‘Understood
,’ said Steve with a nod, swinging his rifle from his back, ‘whatever it takes, we’re not leaving without that child.’

‘Right
, let’s do this,’ said Phil, looking from one face set with grim determination to the next.

Stepping forward
, he effortlessly kicked aside the withered remains of the corpse and slowly pulled open the door. Karen and Steve darted through the open doorway and immediately dropped to one knee, their rifles up and ready should any of the Dead be lurking within striking distance.

‘Clear,’ called Steve back to the others, ‘doesn’t look as if anyone’s home.’

As the others stepped into the dome, each with their own weapons ready for attack, they were struck by the sudden rise in temperature.

‘Jesus, it’s hot in here,’ grumbled Phil, his face already becoming flushed from the heat.

‘Guess it was designed to stay at a certain temperature,’ said Liz, looking along the narrow path bordered by huge sprouting aloe plants and colourful protea plants just coming into bloom. ‘This is supposed to be copying the Mediterranean climate after all, right? But how come everything hasn’t just died off after all these years?’

As if to answer her, a
hissing sound suddenly came unexpectedly from one of the flowerbeds to their right.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the water pumps were solar powered,’ said Patrick, glancing at the water being sprayed from pipes running along the pathway, ‘it would fit with the Green ecological ethos of this place.’

‘Yeah, alright Teach, let’s get going,’ said Steve, his attitude all business as he moved forward, while his rifle was swinging back and forth in anticipation of unwanted company.

As the group began to move along the path, Liz suddenly turned back to the door they had come through.

‘Phil, catch the door!’ she said, already seeing the doorway beginning to swing shut behind them.

‘What?’ he replied, quickly spinning round.

But they were too late, as with a loud ‘click’, the security door locked, shutting them inside.

‘Damn
,’ she said. ‘Well, let’s just hope there’s another way out or we’re screwed.’

‘We’ll deal with that problem when it arises,’ said Patrick, stepping over the skeletal remains of a human arm, ‘let’s just get that child first
, then we’ll figure a way out of here.’