ZOM-B 11 (3 page)

But, seeing as how I’m an undead monster myself, I have nothing to fear. In fact, despite my earlier misgivings, I’m starting to feel at home — in the ragged remains of my
torn, bloodstained white dress, with all my injuries and disfigurements, I could easily pass for an otherworldly spectre. If I didn’t have a priceless cargo to deliver, this would be a
good place to rest up, wait for my senses to dissolve, then crash around in for the next few thousand years. I couldn’t do any harm down here, lost to the world of the conscious, out of
sight and out of mind.

As I’m edging forward blindly, thinking about maybe coming back here if I manage to complete my mission, I hear noises from far off. At least I think they’re far away, but it’s hard to be certain in this subterranean realm, where the tunnels do strange
things to sounds. Sometimes an echo carries for hundreds of metres, through a series of corridors, strong and vibrant. Other times a loud bang can be smothered by the hungry walls before it leaves
a room.

I can’t tell for sure whether the noises came from a near or distant source, but I know that they’re voices.
Angry
voices.

I pause and listen cautiously, but the voices fade away a few seconds later, plunging me back into silence. I could wait for the sounds to come again, but that would be suicidal. I know what the
voices mean. The alarm has been raised. The mutants are coming after me.

The chase is on.

I’d like to push the pace – I’m conscious all the time of the precious vial nestled inside me, and the need to get it to Dr Oystein as quickly as I can – but I
can’t go any faster. I’m too injured, too exhausted. Besides, I’m better off taking my time. Even if I was at my physical peak, I probably wouldn’t risk proceeding at
more than a crawl. In the darkness, with all manner of unseen obstacles to contend with, I’d be tripping over with every few rushed steps. Slowly does it, girl.

Voices carry to me every so often, shouts, grunts, hisses. But there are never faces to go with the voices. The mutants don’t cut across my trail, and I continue to huff and puff along in the dark.

Until suddenly I spot the light of a torch coming towards me. By the glow, I see that I’m in a long tunnel, one of the old, decrepit sections of the sewers. The light is coming from a
smaller, more recently constructed tunnel, ahead and to my left. I freeze and look for a hiding place, but there are no niches that I can duck into, no piles of debris to hide behind.

Fear lends me an unexpected burst of energy and I hurry to the opening of the side tunnel. As the person holding the torch draws close, I press myself against the wall, trying to disappear into
the shadows, hoping I won’t be noticed if the mutant – it has to be one of Mr Dowling’s team, it couldn’t possibly be anyone else – focuses their attention dead ahead,
where the beam is brightest.

Two mutants step out into my stretch of tunnel. The one holding the torch is a tall guy, his face covered in the scabs and sores common to his kind. He sweeps the beam left then right.
I’m almost directly behind him. For once I’m delighted that I don’t have lungs. It means I don’t have to hold my breath.

‘This is ridiculous,’ the shorter mutant snorts. ‘We’re never going to find her. It’s like –’

‘If you say “looking for a needle in a haystack” again, Glenn, I’ll throttle you,’ the mutant with the torch snaps.

‘Well, it is,’ the guy called Glenn complains.

‘Yeah,’ his partner sighs. ‘But Mr Dowling will know if we simply go through the motions. Kinslow told us to keep searching until we’re recalled. I’m not going to
ignore a direct order, not from that guy.’

‘Me neither,’ Glenn says. ‘But I think we’d be better off if the lot of us gathered round County Hall and blocked every approach. She’s bound to head there,
isn’t she? It would make more sense than wasting our time down here.’

‘Who made you the genius on the firm?’ the mutant with the torch laughs. He starts down the tunnel in the direction that I’ve come from. ‘Don’t worry, I’m
sure Mr Dowling or Kinslow has thought of that too. We’ll be packed off there if we don’t find her. But she can’t have made it out of the tunnels yet, so we might as well cast around for her while she’s on our turf, just in case.’

The dejected Glenn follows after his friend and my fingers clench into triumphant fists.

‘I suppose,’ Glenn concedes. ‘But I was enjoying myself at the party. We could have sunk a few more beers before we –’

The mutant’s foot catches on something and he goes down with a yelp. His partner laughs and turns to help him up. The beam of his torch swings round and I’m caught.

The taller mutant gapes at me. His jaw actually drops.

‘Don’t just stand there,’ Glenn huffs. ‘Help me . . .’

Then he notes the other guy’s expression and starts to turn.

I hurl myself forward. I jump on the sprawled Glenn’s back and use him as a springboard, targeting the torch. I’m a physical wreck. In a fair fight they’d
take me without breaking into a sweat. But if I can remove the light from the equation, anything could happen in the dark.

The mutant with the torch is lugging a crowbar in his other hand. He swings it at me as I jump, but he’s startled, clumsy, doesn’t take the fraction of a second that he needs to
judge his blow and bring the bar slamming down on my head. It only grazes my shoulder while I swipe the torch away.

The torch goes flying, bounces a few times across the floor, but doesn’t shatter. The beam is pointing away from us, so we’re in gloom, but not total darkness.

I jab the fingers of my right hand at the mutant’s head, planning to smash through his skull and destroy his brain. But in the heat of the moment I forget that some of
my finger bones were mutilated by the babies. I scratch the mutant, but nothing worse than that.

He drives an elbow into my ribs. Or rather into the space where my ribs should be. Not connecting as he expected to, he’s caught off balance. I grab him by the neck and force him down,
using his awkward momentum against him.

Falling on top of the mutant, I extend a finger that still boasts a bone, and try to poke it through one of his eyes. Before I can, Glenn lurches at me and knocks me off his colleague.

‘I’ve got her, Ossie!’ he roars, rolling on to his back and holding me pinned on top of him. ‘Finish her off!’

Ossie scrambles for his crowbar. I do my best to tear free of Glenn, but he has a firm grip on me and is shielding himself skilfully.

‘Hold her still,’ Ossie snarls, taking careful aim with the crowbar.

‘You bloody try it if you think it’s that easy,’ Glenn shouts, ever the moaner.

Ossie bashes my shoulders with the crowbar a few times. I yell with pain and lash out with a kick. He dances backwards, chuckling grimly.

‘Stop playing with her!’ Glenn screams.

‘I’m not playing,’ Ossie says, cocky now that he’s sized me up and seen how feeble I am. ‘I just don’t want to kill her if I don’t have to.’

‘They said that we could,’ Glenn squeals. He can’t see me as well as Ossie can. He doesn’t know that the fight was knocked out of me long before this pair of jokers hit the scene.

‘Yeah,’ Ossie drawls, ‘but think how pleased Mr Dowling will be if we bring her back to him in one piece.’

‘We’re not bloody heroes,’ Glenn protests, and despite my dire situation I find myself admiring his honesty. ‘Kill her while you can, you fool, before she turns the
tables on us.’

‘She won’t be turning anything,’ Ossie says, using the tip of the crowbar to poke my chin up, so that my head tilts back. His smile fades and his eyes go hard. ‘But
you’re right. We’re not heroes. Kinslow said that the vial was more important than the girl. Let’s make sure she has it. If she has, I’ll crack her skull open. As long as we
return with the booty, we’ll enjoy a hero’s welcome.’

Ossie retrieves the torch while I struggle ineffectively. He shines the light on me, my hands first, then the area around me. ‘Where is it?’ he asks.

‘Get stuffed,’ I growl, lashing at Glenn’s shins with my heels. He winces, but I can’t do any real damage because of the strips of cloth wrapped round my feet.

‘I don’t want to torture you if I don’t have to,’ Ossie says. ‘We’re not like that, me and Glenn.’

‘Yeah,’ Glenn says earnestly. ‘We’d rather kill you cleanly.’

Ossie nods. ‘Tell us where the vial is and I’ll make it quick. You have my word.’

‘You can stick your word up your arse, along with my fist and half the arm behind it,’ I jeer.

Ossie doesn’t take kindly to that. His eyes narrow and he raises the bar menacingly. Then he scowls and pokes the tip into the gap where my stomach wall should be. He starts jerking it
around, trying to hurt me and force me to tell them about the vial. But he’s an amateur. Torture’s clearly not his thing. He was telling the truth about that.

But what Ossie and Glenn lack in skill and temperament, they make up for with luck. It was the luck of the devil that they stumbled across me in the first place, and now that lucky streak
strikes again as Ossie’s crowbar bangs into the vial, tucked away deep inside me, and makes a dull clanging noise.

Ossie pauses. ‘No way,’ he mutters. Then he spies my appalled expression and hoots. ‘Thanks a lot, Mrs Dowling. You’ve made my day.’

‘What is it?’ Glenn pants as Ossie bends to root through the remains of my guts. ‘Is it the vial?’

‘Yeah,’ Ossie says. ‘Has to be.’

‘Well, don’t go searching for it now, you dope,’ Glenn yells at him. ‘Finish her off first. Otherwise she’ll wriggle free while you’re digging around, bite
through to your brain, and we’ll be up the creek without a paddle.’

Ossie thinks about that and sniffs. ‘You’re right,’ he says, standing and adjusting his grip on the crowbar. He closes one eye and lines up his shot. ‘Turn your head
away, Glenn. There’s gonna be blood, bone and all sorts of muck flying your way in a second.’

‘Just don’t miss her and hit me by mistake,’ Glenn says, shifting about beneath me, trying to hide his face between my shoulder blades.

‘If you don’t quit griping, it won’t be a mistake,’ Ossie says sourly, then draws back his crowbar and prepares to strike. I kick at him, hoping to catch him between the
thighs, but he’s alert to the threat and has positioned himself side on.

As I stare hopelessly at the raised bar, bitterly waiting for the end, cursing this sickening twist of fate, there’s a flash of movement and something small hurls itself at Ossie. His face
is obscured by a shimmering ball of white and red. He falls away with a yell, the crowbar and torch dropping from his fingers, hammering at whatever has attached itself to his head.

‘Ossie!’ Glenn screeches. ‘What’s going on?’

Muffled screams are Ossie’s only response. He thrashes around, blood spraying from his shredded cheeks, tiny hands ripping away at his flesh, razor-sharp teeth cutting in deeper.

Glenn curses and pushes me aside. He dives for the crowbar, picks it up and strikes at the creature attacking his partner. Unfortunately for Glenn and Ossie, it smoothly pushes itself clear
as the bar swings in. Instead of clobbering his assailant, the bar smashes into the side of Ossie’s head, and he falls to the floor, a silent heap.

‘Oh no,’ Glenn moans. ‘Sorry, Ossie, I didn’t mean to –’

Before Glenn can complete his apology, he’s attacked. His face becomes the centre of a ball of moving white, glints of red among the paleness. He screams and begs for mercy, but he’s
wasting his breath. I’ve identified his foe and I know that mercy isn’t in its nature.

Glenn’s throat is soon ripped open and he’s dead long before his attacker finishes with him and leaps aside, leaving him to collapse in a heap beside his unconscious friend.

The killer returns to Ossie and chews through his throat, then sticks a small hand up his neck and inside his head, yanking out bits of his brain, making sure he doesn’t spring any
surprises or send word of what happened back to base. It does the same thing with Glenn, taking no chances.

Then it turns to face me and glides closer. A tiny figure dressed in a white gown, the material soaked with blood. Red eyes. Fangs. A hole in its thin skull, which is a smaller mirror image of the hole in my chest.