Surviving the Fall: How England Died (41 page)

Chapter 9

At first it was one scream. Ear splitting and coarse. It took a few seconds for Grace to realise it was a man screaming. The sound was so piercing, so visceral, that it immediately struck cold fear into her.

Within seconds, more screams followed, like a wave, increasing in volume, spreading like fire through the large hall. A sudden surge of movement pushed against Grace and Harry, away from the door of the hall towards the elevators.

“What’s happening?” shouted Grace.

“I don’t know,” sad Harry, frantically looking around.

Grace grabbed Harry’s hand, suddenly accurately aware that she didn’t want to lose sight of him.

“This way,” shouted Harry. He wrapped his arms arm Grace, in a loose bear hug, and pushed through the crowd, towards the wall, towards Taylor.

They were bumped and pushed by the mob. Harry and Grace fought hard to keep their trajectory steady, and away from the drag towards the elevators and the building sardine crush.

A monetary break in the crowd offered Grace a window of sight to the doors of the hall.

A man in a suit stood there. His shirt was covered in deep red blood. His face was also covered in blood, dripping in thick rivulets from his open mouth. His lips curled back, like a rabid dog. The right side of his head was missing skin. His skull was plainly visible, dabbed in globs of thick purplish material.

The man opened his mouth and let out a moan - a huge, sky-filling moan that silenced the hall for a few deathly seconds, before the screams began again, louder, more acute, more desperate.

The man, the zombie, hissed and slowly lurched towards the crowd. It latched onto a middle-aged woman and tore into the flesh at the back of her neck. Blood spurted high into the air.

Grace closed her eyes and held in a scream. Harry ploughed through the crowd, eventually reaching the wall.

Grace breathed fast. She felt nauseous and her legs shook.

“What is it, are you ok?” said Harry.

She nodded, trying to catch her breath. She managed to say, “Did you see that?”

Harry shook his head. “Saw what?”

“The man, the zombie.”

“Here?”

She nodded frantically. “Here.”

They were pinned against the wall, bodies and panic encasing them in a pulsating wall of flesh.

Grace looked towards the elevators. It was now the only way out.

“We have to get in the elevators,” she shouted.

Harry wrapped his arms around her again and set off towards them, pushing, shouting his way through. Grace thought she even saw him snarling. She felt him breathe, felt his heart beat fast, felt his muscles strain as he fought his way through the crowd. It was a battle for life.

An old woman, Grace recognised her as one of the cleaners, fell as Harry barged passed her. She disappeared into the forest of entangled limbs below.

They reached the elevator door. It was full.

Harry and Grace pushed through, displacing a number of older and weaker admin staff. Harry received a punch, but continued his drive through. They needed to get away from the door, or they would be caught in a continuous fight to hold their place.

They reached the middle of the elevator. Grace, who was facing over Harry’s shoulder, looked back to the door. Row after row of heads trying to get in, trying to live.

The lift doors tried to close, but met resistance, and opened again.

A few feet away from Grace, just outside the lift, blood spurted high into the air. A guttural scream accompanied the sight. Panic spread through the lift like a raucous beast, every member of the lift trapped, staring at the new arrival, a zombie, only feet away.

“Override, dammit, the door override!” A lonely, but loud shout from the back of the lift.

Grace realised this voice had been shouting over and over since she had entered the lift, but it had been lost in the other voices, until now, until the voices had stopped and panic had taken over.

Whoever was at the lift controls seemed to understand, for suddenly the lift doors closed, and did so with a vicious authority. They stopped for nothing, but ran across feet, legs and faces, sheering skin from those on the boundary.

They shut with a majestic clang, and accompanying yells of agony from a few by the door. The inside of the doors were covered in thick rorschach patterns of blood.

“My hand,” shouted one man, “my fucking hand!”

But no-one cared because the zombie was outside and the doors were closed.

The elevator shuddered and whining electric motors reverberated through the metal walls. An expectant silence settled on the occupants, joined in panic, fear, and anticipation.

The sound of creaking metal cables came from above and the lift began to slowly ascend.

“There’s too many of us,” whispered Harry. They were still crushed together in the middle of the elevator. The breath and sweat of the crowd was raising the temperature. Perspiration broke on Grace’s back and forehead.

The elevator moved, but slowly. There was a long way to go.

Grace shifted and Harry loosened his grip on her as much as he could. She looked up at him, and him down at her. They smiled, but just for a second.

The elevator shook and a high pitched whipping sound rattled in the shaft above. They all lurched to the left with a chorus of screams.

“There are too many people,” said a powerful voice from the back. The voice was deep, and it brought silence to the crowd.

“There are too many people, we need to lighten the load,” repeated the voice.

Grace looked for source of the voice.

Taylor.

He was in the corner of the elevator, standing straight, his manner relaxed and calm, his expression imperceptible.

All eyes were on him.

“If we don’t lighten the load, then we are all going to die, and rather soon.”

Silence settled over the occupants in the elevator. As if to underline what the man, Taylor, had just said, a loud and pained creak vibrated through the elevator. It swayed gently.

“The longer we refuse to take action, the closer we all are to plunging to our deaths.”

The elevator had stopped rising.

A few muffled sobs were heard. Fear spread quickly like a white flash through Grace’s body. Harry’s heart, pressed against hers, thumped strongly. The elevator, a few seconds ago their sanctuary, now felt like a tomb. The bodies pushing around her felt like many flesh vices slowly squeezing the life from her.

Silence. The weighing up of the meaning of Taylor’s words.

Grace looked up, trying to catch Harry’s eye, but instead her attention was drawn to the ceiling.

What looked like a service hatch.

“What about that,” she said, tying to point, but unable to raise her arms, pinned by the weight of the crowd. “Look above, the hatch, maybe we can get out there,” she shouted.

There was a gentle commotion in the elevator as the others looked up.

“She’s right.”

“Let’s use the hatch.”

Taylor interrupted the brief celebration. “And then what, we sit on the roof?”

Grace felt anger overcome her fear. It was if he wanted to see people die.

“There should be a ladder,” said Harry. “There’s bound to be some sort of service ladder.”

More voices joined in agreement.

Grace and Harry were below the service hatch. Harry turned to the man behind. “Climb up on my back, open the hatch.”

“I don’t know if I-”

“Do it,” said Harry. A number of agitated voices cajoled the man into doing as Harry had asked.

The man, slight and in a suit too large for him, clambered clumsily onto Harry’s shoulders, helped on by many a pushing hand. The man balanced on his knees and reached up to undo the simple catch before opening the hatch. After a few tries, the hatch went up and over, and clanged to rest on the elevator’s roof.

A draft of cool air blew in, and Grace felt immediate relief. Not only physical; a weight left her heart. The tyranny of the metal coffin had been broken.

“Can you pull yourself up,” shouted Harry.

“I’ll try.” He pulled until his head and shoulders were through the hatch.

“What do you see,” shouted Harry, “any ladders?”

“Yes, there’s a ladder. It looks like it goes the whole way up.”

Sighs of relief echoed throughout the elevator. A few nervous laughs.

“Thank God,” said a voice from somewhere behind Grace.

The man pulled himself up onto the ceiling of the elevator. Metallic footsteps echoed from above. He called down. “The cable has snapped, only partway through though.”

“Will it hold?” shouted someone behind Harry.

“I think so. I can hear engines whirring, but nothing’s moving.”

“One at a time everyone,” said Harry, “then help the next person up before you get the ladder.”

“What about you?” said Grace to Harry, quietly.

“I’m ok. You go next.”

Grace shook her head. “No, I got you into this, I’m staying here to help.” She looked at Harry, giving a look she hoped indicated there was to be no discussion. It worked.

“Ok, come on!” said Harry.

The crowd came alive again as people jostled for position, trying to get closer to the hatch.

“One at a time,” shouted someone.

“Stop pushing.”

“You’re making it swing.”

A woman clambered up on Harry’s back, and with the help of those below and the man above, she was soon onto the roof.

Another woman followed, and then a young man in a technician’s uniform. The crowd waited with a nervous patience. Thank God, thought Grace.

It was after six people had got up and out that everything changed.

It started with a panicked voice from the corner of the elevator. “Oh my god, let me through, get me out of here! It’s one of them!”

Chapter 10

Screams rang through the elevator and it swung from left to right as the weight shifted under the panicked stampede away from the corner.

A man on Harry shoulders, about to pull himself through the hatch, fell as hands grabbed at him. He disappeared into the throng of legs below.

And then there was a pause in the chaos…

A terrible, deep noise. A moan that filled the air, an eruption of dread from the corner from the elevator.

Desperate cries of anguish cut the thick air in response. All semblance of order evaporated. Harry pushed himself and Grace away from the under the hatch as they suddenly found themselves under a mass of bodies trying to climb out.

“Come on Harry, to the wall,” shouted Grace.

Another soul wrenching scream, and a fountain of blood spurted high. It splattered a dark red pool like squashed coral on the ceiling. It was followed by the hideous sound of bones crushing and tendons ripping.

Grace and Harry reached the wall. She could see Taylor, only four people away. So close. He stood still in his corner, placid; although a few strands of hair had escaped his lacquer’s hold and hung over his face.

A man nearby pulled himself up on the lady’s shoulders in front of him. She buckled under the weight and they both fell.

“What now?” said Harry.

“I don’t know,” said Grace. She hugged him tighter.

She saw Taylor move from the corner of her eye.

Taylor’s hand moved into his suit jacket and emerged with a gun. The gun that had killed the Professor.

He raised it into the air and fired. A deafening bang split the air of the elevator and a sharp clang followed as the bullet passed through the metal roof.

Another second of silence, another shock.

Renewed panic.

A moan, answered by another, then the crunch of something breaking, maybe a bone. The ripping sound of flesh. Screaming again in earnest. The death throes of a crowd of people with no way to escape.

Taylor fired again, and again.

“Open the doors!” His voiced boomed like the voice of God. It cut across all the screams, all the terror.

Eventually silence.

He leveled his gun through the crowd and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit a woman with red hair and a white suit in the head. A small hole in her forehead, but the back of her skull opened like a garish orchard.

“Open the doors or I’ll kill you all, before they do.”

He fired again and this time a young man, Grace recognised him from the canteen, fell back, his head dashed with thick rivulets of red.

The elevator lurched to the left as the people shifted, away from the man with the gun, away from the zombies.

One person had been paying attention though. The doors hummed into life and they swished open, quickly. The black walls of the elevator shaft stood empty against the lights of the elevator, like the abyss. There was a gap of a few feet between the doors and the shaft wall.

“Puuuushhh!” shouted Taylor, suddenly a circus ringmaster. He was smiling. The men around him were smiling. And they pushed against those nearest to them.

Like a wave, their pushing rippled through the crowd until it reached those at the edge of the door.

The front line grabbed the side of the door, grabbed other people, knuckles white with desperation.

“Help!”

“Please, stop!”

“No!”

One by one, they slipped over the edge. Some pushed by those next to them.

Screams sounded then diminished in pitch and volume as their owners fell down the shaft to the ground below. A series of sickening thuds punctuated each dying scream.

One after another. And still the people pushed.

Grace buried her head in Harry’s shoulder, and she screamed into his chest. Her heart beat viciously.

“Puuuusssssshhhhh!” shouted Taylor above the pandemonium. Over and over again.

The pressure against her and Harry diminished. They had room to breath.

Room to despair.

More screams, more thuds.

The moaning had stopped.

The was a jerk, and the whine of machinery.

The lift started to move, slowly at first, then it picked up speed. A bump as it passed over the damaged part of the cable.

Grace took her head out of Harry’s shoulder and pulled back.

The lift was nearly empty, only ten people were left; her and Harry, Taylor and his four friends, and two men and one woman, standing still, staring at the lift shaft, tears streaming down their faces.

One of the men was jabbering, repeating over and over again, “We had to do it, we had to do it, we had to do it.”

“Well done everyone,” said Taylor. He walked to the door of the elevator and looked over the edge.

She could run now, and push him, She could kill him just like that.

Taylor turned and looked Grace in the eye, holding her gaze.

She was rescued from his stare by a series of heavy thumps on the ceiling. It was the people who had made it onto the ladder.

Feet appeared in the hole and then a woman dropped down. She landed with a bump and looked around the elevator; confusion.

“Where is everyone?”

No one spoke.

The rest of those who had climbed dropped back in, one by one. The same confusion, but they didn’t ask any questions.

“It looks like we are going to make it,” said Taylor.

Grace opened her mouth and moved forward. Harry put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her. He shook his head, tiny movements.

Grace stopped and stood back against the cold elevator wall, waiting for them to reach the top.

The motors whirred quietly.

There was a blood stain on the floor of the elevator door. Five longs lines, where fingers had tried to grip, before their owner plunged into a literal and figurative darkness.

She was aware of Taylor’s presence, just behind her. She could feel it like a homing beacon in her brain. Anger seethed through her body. She clenched her teeth and gripped her hands into a tight fist. Her nails dug hard into her palms.

But Taylor was right, they would have all died if he hadn’t opened the door.

Her anger grew.