Last Hope, Book One: Onslaught (32 page)

The alleyway Brooks had motioned towards was about fifty feet ahead of them, and was one of the few that lined the side of the road that fast-movers weren't spilling out of onto the pavement. The way ahead was clear of obstructions.

The passageway occupied the space between two three-story buildings, with the route fading into the shadows and fog that filled it, obscuring any view of what lay ahead. Even when Budd was at the alley's opening, peering in with his Glock raised and Juliette at his side, he had no clue as to where it would take them.

My boots felt like they were filled with lead. Going into the alley left us with just two choices. To go on, or to go back. And back wasn't an option, not with what was chasing us. So that left just one—forwards.

And who knew what might be coming the other way...

Budd looked over his shoulder at Captain Brooks, who was still back in the center of the road. There were two more of the beasts dead at his feet, surrounded by splashes and pools of blood. One of them convulsed on the ground, the jerky movements flicking gore from the shattered hole in the back of its head. Bits of brain, seared and shredded by the passing bullet, slopped out onto the damp pavement.

Bogey, Chris, and Father McGee had disappeared.

Captain Brooks looked over to Budd and Juliette and then waved at them to continue. He moved after them, but kept turning in a steady circle, his Glock at the ready.

The horde from the underground was still approaching at breakneck speed, devouring the space between them. “Come on,
Monsieur
Ashby,” Juliette said, and she tugged at his arm.

Budd's heavy feet resisted at first, but there was nowhere else to go. He started into the alleyway, fear and adrenaline making his head spin as he stepped into the enclosed space. He eased ahead of Juliette, limiting their pace to a jog.

The brick walls that rose on either side of them were damp with the foggy air. There were no windows or doors on the ground floors of either building, but Budd could see several windows on the floors above. The glass panes glinted white in the gloom.

Budd rounded a pile of black bags filled with trash. A few feet beyond was a corpse, splayed out on the ground in the middle of a dark pool of congealed blood. The body's soft tissue was gone, torn from the bones, the chest cavity ripped open and desecrated. A few fragments of flesh remained on the face, revealing a half-eaten tongue that lashed around inside a prison of teeth. One eye watched Budd and Juliette as they approached, but there was not enough of the body left for the beast to propel itself into motion.

Budd jumped the body and kept going. Juliette released his hand and skirted around it.

Ahead of them, a metal-framed spiral staircase wound up the wall of the building to their right. Budd kept going, conscious of the sound of Brooks firing his handgun.

The time between the shots was getting shorter.

Light appeared at the end of the dark alleyway.

Fifty feet ahead of them, the buildings gave way to another street, a road lined with trees.

Maybe, just maybe...

A man stepped from off the street into the alleyway's opening. Naked and bloody, his face was half-eaten. He had no fingers on his left hand. The stumps were jagged and uneven.

The naked man lurched towards them.

Oh well...

Budd took aim and fired three times.

The naked man's head snapped back as the third bullet perforated his skull and allowed a reddish mist of blood and brain to spray from the gaping exit wound. The gore splashed across the faces of a half-dozen more beasts that had entered alleyway's mouth.

Budd knew he couldn't defeat them all.

They were trapped.

We were dead...

Juliette tugged at his shirt, pulling him back the way they had come. He took a step back to relieve the pressure, then fired three more shots at the nearest beast.

At the back of the group, a small boy, perhaps ten or eleven years old and dressed in a pair of pajamas adorned with a bright green alien, slunk back away from the barrage of fire, vanishing around the corner and back onto the road. He had a handful of bluish organs in his hands.

The others, all adults, including a postman and a nurse in a torn and blood-stained uniform, were oblivious to the threat and charged.

“Up here,” Captain Brooks shouted from back down the alley. He was at the base of the spiral staircase. His feet banged noisily on the steps as he started to climb.

“Go, honey,” Budd said, and he jerked his body away from Juliette, prying his blue shirt from her grasp. He caught her eye from a moment and saw the look of fear on her face.

She ran towards the staircase. “Come on,
Monsieur
Ashby.”

Budd chased after her, abandoning his efforts with the Glock. Both ends of the alleyway were swarming with the beasts, the thick mass of bodies now unstoppable in their approach.

The air was filled with their eager howls.

Juliette spun at the bottom of the stairs, starting upwards.

Budd was three paces behind her.

The spiral staircase was constructed from steel rods and plates, and was bolted to the brick wall it scaled. Around the outside was a cage-like structure of vertical rods fitted six inches apart. It was study and strong with no way in beside the door at the bottom.

The alleyway rumbled with the footfalls of the fast-movers, the groups converging from both directions, surging for the stairs.

Budd looked for a way to secure the staircase door.

He couldn't see one.

There was no latch, no lock, no way to slow the fast-movers' progress. Budd pushed the door closed, then sat on the bottom step, his back pressed against the central column and his legs locked straight with the soles of his boots against the door.

He took a deep breath.

Don't get me wrong.

I wasn't trying to be a hero.

Heroes get killed, and I had no intention of sacrificing myself for some noble cause. If anyone was gonna to be sunning themselves on a beach drinking Mojitos at the end of this nightmare, I wanted it to be me.

With Juliette.

She'd look great in a bikini.

But as we'd been running for staircase, I had already seen what Brooks would find out when he reached the top. It didn't lead anywhere. We were on a fire escape and, while there were a couple of doors, they wouldn't open from the outside. Otherwise any old Tom, Dick or Harry could wander in off the street.

Sure, we weren't being eaten.

But the best we could do was play for time...

Juliette lurched back around the central column. “Come on,
Monsieur
Ashby.”

“Find a way out, honey. I won't hold this long.”

“You cannot,” Juliette said, but her sentence trailed away. She ran back up the stairs again, calling for Captain Brooks.

Budd looked out through the metal framework of the door, bracing himself for the coming impact.

The first beast crashed into the pillar beside the door and collapsed backwards, only to be trampled over by the next few to arrive. More of them fell, tripped by the flailing limbs and torsos of those already on the ground.

A mound of writhing bodies started build, obstructing each new arrival.

Hands plunged through the gaps in the rails, wrapping around Budd's pants and boots. Others slipped in from the side, reaching for Budd, trying to drag him to the outer edge where their faces were pushed to the bars, a host of open mouths waiting, snapping and grinding their teeth. A fat, bearded man in a long white shirt and nothing else was pressed so hard that his eyes bulged, threatening to explode under the pressure. Saliva cascaded down his hairy chin.

The ambient light of the alleyway was obscured by the number of beasts around the staircase, their bodies blocking the foggy white luminescence. Budd felt himself sinking into the darkness and his mind clogged with the beasts' howls and screams.

Everything else was drowned out.

He squirmed as close to the central column as he could, but still the fingertips brushed his clothes, edging closer. He felt his legs begin to tire, the pressure building beneath his kneecaps as he struggled to keep them locked, to keep the door closed.

It was sheer luck that I'd held it for the handful of seconds I already had.

The pile of bodies on the ground prevented the worst of the pressure falling against the door; most had been diverted to the framework on the side.

But it wouldn't last.

There were hundreds of them; the alleyway was chock-full, and each one was clawing and pushing to reach us. At any point, the pressure would shift and the door would open.

I closed my eyes.

I didn't want to see...

“
Monsieur
Ashby,” Juliette screamed, her voice cutting through the unintelligible howling that surrounded the staircase. “Use this.”

Budd tilted his head back to look at her.

She was clutching a three-foot long industrial television antenna, the fingers of which had been bent and deformed. Budd looked blankly at her, unsure what she intended for him to do. She stamped on a hand that was stretching across the step she was standing on. The finger bones snapped as they were crushed against the metal ridges beneath them and splintered white bone burst through the skin. Still, the hand kept grasping for her, the appendage flopping impotently, unable to grip.

“Jam it between the door and bars,” Juliette said, offering the antenna.

Budd reached back and took it.

From where he sat, he thrust the tip of the antenna through a gap in the door, easily bending the last few of the remaining prongs. Then he slid the other end back through the gap of the first vertical rail and released the pressure in his knees, hoping to ease the door back against his makeshift locking-bar.

There was no such grace. The instant he allowed his knees to bend, the door jolted inwards.

Budd's heart leapt as he feared the plan would fail, but then the edge of the door struck the antenna's pole with a clang and went rigid, trapped between the wedge and the weight of beasts beyond it.

If they were smart, we were screwed.

All they needed to do was release the pressure on the door and slide the aerial free. Then they could adjust their napkins, take out their knives and forks and chow down.

I tried not to think about the one who'd been smart enough to dodge my bullets.

Mind you, releasing the pressure would be easier said than done—what with their fellow flesh-munchers pushing from behind. Juliette had brought us some time.

I wanted to kiss her.

Again...

Still in a sitting position, Budd bumped himself up one step at a time. The hands reaching from the side of the staircase brushed his body, the fingertips trying to snare his clothes. He wriggled and batted them away until he was high enough that they couldn't reach him. When he got to his feet, Juliette wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his chest. “You are safe,
Monsieur
Ashby.”

“Well,” Budd said, surveying the length of the alleyway, which was now packed with bodies, “I wouldn't go that far, peaches. But thanks.”

“Captain Brooks broke it from the wall. He is trying to open the door.”

“I hope he's quick. That won't hold long.”

Juliette released Budd and stepped back from him, going higher around the spiraling staircase. Suddenly, she screamed and reached to the back of her head. Too late, Budd saw the hand that had grabbed the collar of her leather jacket, pinching a handful of her dark hair in the process. The beast yanked her off-balance, pulling her towards the outside.

She jerked like a rag doll to break free, but she could not escape.

Budd looked along the extended arm to see a bald-headed man's face squeezed between the vertical railings, his face distorted with savagery. The beast had climbed the outside of the staircase and was ten feet above the alley floor, well beyond the reach of his massed brethren.

Budd knocked Juliette aside and rammed the barrel of his Glock into the man's snarling face. He fired before the beast could react. While blood and bone sprayed out like crimson rain, the limp body fell away from the railings, landing upon the fast-movers below.

They dragged it down out of sight.

Juliette sunk to her knees on the steps, her hands nursing the back of her neck. From the way her body shuddered, Budd could tell she was sobbing.