Wild Strawberry: Book 3 Ascent (15 page)

             
He twisted round, sending an exquisite electric shock of pain through his body.  His eyes widened seeing with horror the zombies leaping to their feet.

             
Some of those nearest had been badly messed up by the grenade; faceless and limbless they staggered blindly, hindering the undamaged monsters trying to push past.

             
The grenade had bought them a few seconds, but Liz would need more time if she were to get to the door.

             
Tears of pain welled in the corners of Benton’s eyes as he knelt, twisting his leg into an unnatural angle.  He took aim and fired in short, controlled bursts.

             
He took down at least ten of them before he had to reload.

             
He inserted his last clip and fired again.  They were closer now: he could smell them, and make out their bloodstained faces.

             
His firing was becoming more wild as they seethed closer and closer, like an unstoppable tsunami.

             
He magazine clicked empty.

             
Shit
, he thought,
I wanted to save the last bullet for myself
.

             
He pulled out his knife, and held it up in front of him, a futile gesture.  He sunk the blade into the mouth of the first zombie, stabbing up through the soft palate into the monster’s brain.

             
As he felt the teeth of another creature on his arm, he twisted the knife, and was gratified to feel the brains mush under him.

             
More teeth.

             
His helmet torn off.

             
A lump bitten from his cheek, an ear ripped away, he felt his own warm blood over his face and down his throat as his nose was chewed away.

             
His lips were bitten off in a hideous parody of a kiss.  He could taste rotten flesh along with blood.

             
His screams of agony echoed down the tunnels as the dead feasted on the young soldier.

             
At last his throat was torn, and he knew it would not be long now.

             
He prayed for death to come quickly.

*   *   *

Private Shaw’s ears were still ringing, but the sound of gunfire did manage to penetrate the haze.

             
She glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see her comrade running beside her.

             
Instead he was kneeling in front of the oncoming crowd, shooting.

             
Her steps faltered as she watched him fire his last bullet and the creatures overwhelm him.

             
She took one step towards him, but realised it was too late, then turned and ran more frantically than ever.

             
The floor of the tunnel was designed for tube trains, not; there were pipes and wires and all sorts of rubbish that threatened to trip or snag Private Shaw at every step.

             
As she approached the door to the laboratory she risked another glance over her shoulder and made a quick calculation.  They were close: she would not have time to unlock the door, get in and lock it again before they were on top of her.

             
She wanted to try the door, more than anything.  It was a slim hope, but it was her best hope.  More than likely she would just lead the zombies to the lab, killing the scientists (or at least the scientist who was properly alive).

             
“Something will turn up,” she assured herself as she sprinted past the door.  This had been the saying that had guided her through a difficult life.  With this adage she had found a school, a flat, a place in the army.

             
Private Shaw felt her backpack tugged backwards.  It had some rations, spare ammunition, rope, and other essentials that it pained her to lose, but if the dead had their rotting hands on it she realised it was already lost, and not worth risking her life for.  She let the bag slide from her shoulders

             
Having moved past the door there was absolutely no going back.  She had to decide where to look.  If she looked downwards she was much less likely to trip.  But if she looked up she may see an exit.

             
“Who are you trying to kid?” She said breathily to herself. 
Even if, best case scenario, I find a ladder,
she thought,
they’ll have bitten my ankles off before I’m half way up.

             
Something always turned up
, but perhaps in a world where every human being was going to end up zombie-lunch, ‘something turning up’ could be a quick death and being so totally eaten that she wouldn’t be able to come back as a mindless, flesh-eating monster.

             
No sooner had she thought this, than she saw a small opening to the left of the tunnel.  If she could squeeze through she could try to back away, fighting them off one at a time in the narrow passageway.

             
She hurtled round the corner, and straight into another person.

             
For a split second she thought she was safe, she had run into the arms of someone who would be able to protect her.  She imagined her father, of whom she had only had the most vague and distant memories and vivid dreams.

             
She actually sobbed, “Daddy,” before the stranger she had collided with took a bite out of her forehead.

             
She screamed and tried to push her attacker away, but it had her in its grasp.

             
Vomit rose in her throat at the smell of the monster’s rotting flesh and at the sound of it chewing then swallowing the flesh of her face.

             
She was bitten, and infection, death and undeath were inevitable.  It was futile to fight, but she could not give up.

             
She pushed at the zombie in front of her, even as she felt hands grab her from behind.

             
Zombies to the fore and rear grabbed handfuls of her hair as her head was now the centre of a sickening game of tug-o-war.

             
She dropped her weight to the floor, and for a moment found herself surrounded by the feet of the creatures: some were wearing trainers, some Italian leather, some booted and some barefoot.

             
She couldn’t angle her gun upwards to fire the necessary headshots, but she managed to spray bullets at the feet of the crowd.  Flesh exploded as bones were shattered and limbs shorn in half.

             
A zombie with both shins ripped apart by her gunfire landed on top of her, and bit deeply into the flesh of her upper arm.

             
The creature’s teeth were shockingly cold, in stark contrast to Private Shaw’s blood which was hot and flowing with alarming speed.

             
The floor around her was a mess of severed feet and gore.  She had taken out many, selling her life dearly.  She had crippled a fair few more, to give any other survivors a fighting chance.

             
As she felt another creature bite her legs she wished she had saved a bullet for herself, but that seemed to go against everything she stood for.

             
Not long now
, she thought.

*   *   *

The soldiers had been gone a long time.  Danniella’s head was hurting from staring too long at a computer screen.

             
She decided to stretch her legs, and went for a walk around the Down Street laboratory.

             
Just three months previously she had been excited to work here, to be at the forefront of nanotechnology and neurology.  Now there was the frisson of excitement again, but it was coupled with the weight of overwhelming guilt and the realisation that her research may be humanity’s last best hope.  It was a dizzying responsibility.

             
She walked around the once familiar corridors, made unfamiliar by the absence of her old friends and colleagues.  Not only that but also the lights were off in any room not in use, and dust and dirt were gathering, adding to the mess of bloodstains that gave the whole complex the air of a slaughterhouse.

*   *   *

“Well, I suppose, by some definitions I am, technically a zombie:  I can walk about up there and nothing bothers me; they can sense I’m infected and they don’t attack; I can get you anything you want.”

             
“Have you looked for other survivors?”

             
He looked down. “No.”

             
“Why on earth not?”

             
“I wanted to, I really did.  But I’m not sure how welcome I’d be, seeing as I’m infected – at best they’d see me as a risk, at worst a zombie that can think, but a zombie nonetheless.  And if my iPod ever runs out of charge I’m no different from the rest of them.”

             
Danniella nodded.  The scientist made her feel uneasy, but at the same time a chill ran down her spine as she considered how dependent on him she was for survival.

             
Danniella considered the severed head of her former boss.  It was still shaking and snarling.  Its eyes turned to hers and she saw the unmistakable hunger that characterised the undead.

             
“Here’s the problem,” the scientist continued, choosing to ignore the fear and disgust that Danniella couldn’t hide, “the signal-” he touched his headphones with his pale fingertips, “is helping the nanites keep my brain working.  But it’s not perfect, my brain is dying piece by piece.  Right now I’m in control, but my hold is slipping.  I’m a man with a taint of zombie.  If I become a zombie with a taint of man, you, and any other survivors in London are fucked.  If the hunger becomes my overriding desire and my reasoning power just gives me the ability to figure out how to get at the living, then it’s game over.”

             
“One day at a time,” said Danniella with a sad smile, “it’s all we can do.  I’m a biologist, I know next to nothing about radio waves.  Without your knowledge, we’re all fucked.  Don’t give up.”

             
“OK, but you need to be careful.  From now on you’ve got to chain me to the table, so you can get to safety if I turn.”

             
“You kinky devil!  I might have known you’d be into that kind of stuff.”

             
The scientist tried to smile, but his face was so pale and his eyes so glassy the effect was hideous.

             
Danniella flinched, and the scientist once more caught the distaste in her eyes.  They looked at each other, embarrassed by a social situation that nothing in their previous lives could have prepared them for.

             
The scientist smiled a genuine, though no less disturbing, smile. “They don’t mention how to deal with your revulsion when speaking to a zombie in Debretts Guide to Etiquette.”

             
Danniella breathed out, unaware that she had been holding her breath. “No, we’ll have to think about that for the new edition.”

             
“It’s almost a shame that they no longer publish
The Sun,
I could write to the problem page.”

             
Danniella smiled too as the scientist continued, “Dear Deirdre, the last man on earth happens to be a zombie, he’s starting to go off, and he’s developing an unpredictable temper.”

             
Danniella forced a laugh, “That’s not funny.”

             
“It truly isn’t, but laughter may just be our last defence.”

             
“To be fair, I’d prefer a chainsaw.”

             
“I’d go old school: a samurai sword.”

             
“Or a machine-gun.”

             
“Speaking of guns,” the scientist’s face was suddenly serious, “I wonder what’s become of our military friends.”

             
“They went out and didn’t come back.”  Danniella was grim-faced as she spoke, “I’m sad to say I don’t think there’s any mystery as to their fate.”

             
Danniella had never felt easy in the presence of the soldiers: she had never forgiven them for Tina’s ruthless dispatch.  However, the realisation that they had gone triggered the now familiar sense of grief and loss that felt like a weight in the pit of her stomach.