Remains of the Dead (9 page)

Then from through the gap in the door he saw a zombie.

Ali froze. The creature swayed as it stumbled forward. It gazed into space like an addict in a chemically induced trance. It looked straight ahead as it shuffled round the landing.

In profile now, the zombie staggered into full view. Its face was grey with deep lines. Its hair sat in short curls that under the filth could well have been blond. Then, without turning its head, it shuffled past the half open door and continued up the stairs.

Ali stood there, his heart pounding, his jaw open. The impaired creature had failed to spot him. Just a few metres away and it hadn’t even bothered to look through the doorway.

A voice inside his mind suddenly bellowed, “Shut the door!”

Ali vaulted the chair. As he landed a jolt of pain from his leg thundered up into his skull. The shock stole the strength from his muscles. His injured leg slid away from him and he toppled to the floor. The broken hairdryer shattered under the weight of his impact, but the hard metal parts punched him hard in the chest. Ali spluttered out a wheeze as the air was thumped from his lungs. He rolled over, tears of pain clouding his vision. The water stained ceiling above undulated and throbbed in rhythm with the throbbing of his head. A low groan issued from Ali’s mouth as he tried to snatch his breath back.

A second groan joined his.

When it sounded a second time he could hear feet dragging against the mulched carpet tiles. His face contorted by the pain, he rolled over onto all fours. With a steadying hand to the wall, he pushed himself up. A tight grimace was clasping his lips shut. He panted for breath as he slid along the wall.

As he reached the open door, he came face to face with the zombie. No longer in profile, Ali could see the right side of its face was peppered with holes. The tone in its face hardened and the necrotic muscles pulled back its jaws. As its mouth widened it looked for an instance as if the zombie was breaking into a smile.

Ali threw his whole body at the door. The collision shuddered through his aching bones and flesh. With a reluctant squeal the door started to move. A dark shape loomed from the landing outside and dry moans echoed up the corridor.

“Shit,” Ali gasped as he heaved against the door.

The warped wood of the floor screeched as it gave way and outside the cries of the dead raised to match it.

Just inches from shutting, a dead arm thrust its way in. Ali kept pushing, pinning the dead flesh between the wall and the door. The blue tinged arm flailed and pawed at the air, desperate to capture the living being it knew was inside. Ali leaned against the door with all his bulk, but no amount of effort would close it now.

Just inches away from Ali’s face, the arm continued to thrash. The appendage had been trapped above the elbow, leaving the zombie no real range of movement. It flailed up and down, causing the corner of the door to rip into its perished flesh. The translucent skin buckled and puckered as it split and peeled back. As the paper-thin skin curled away it revealed the raw wet infected meat underneath.

A waft of choking decay found Ali’s nostril. The curdled human fluids and the slow mouldy rot of its flesh assaulted his senses like a mix of rancid blue cheese and fresh vomit, astringent and gut wrenching.

Ali stifled a gag and mustered his fortitude. If he opened the door a crack he might be able to push the zombie’s hand back through the door and close it before it could reach out again. But judging by the excited moans there were already more undead outside. One of them might just as easily grab Ali’s arm and start gnawing down on it. If he retreated to the living room there was no door to block them off. Ali guessed he could up end the couch and use that to block the opening, but he wasn’t confident he could do it quickly enough to block them off. He could hide behind one of the closed doors in the hallway but he had no idea what was behind them. A bedroom? A closet? And would he want to be trapped in a closet with no way out?

Ali kept his weight against the banging door behind him. There was little enough pressure from the zombies on the other side. He had time to think.

Something snapped with the twang of an elastic band breaking. Ali looked round to see the zombie with its arm wedged in the door had succeeded in sawing through a tendon. Part of the forearm now looked flat and limp, the tension lost. Along with shavings of skin and thick black ooze, the door now had a morsel of finely grated muscle clinging to it.

“If I wait long enough you’ll saw your own arm off. Save me the trouble, eh?”

The zombies on the other side retorted with their customary clumsy moans.

The door behind Cahz shook violently. The mob of hungry dead pushed desperately to get in. Individually their putrid muscles held little strength, but behind that fire door were probably hundreds of rotting infected corpses, all adding their impetus to the pressure.

But Cahz wasn’t paying them any attention. With his right heel jamming the door shut, he’d lent forward, his carbine raised and pointing up the stairway.

The snarl came again, this time accompanied by a growling.

“What is it?” Elspeth asked, taking a worried step back.

Cahz didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer; he had no idea what was making that sound. There was a loud bang from somewhere up on the first or second floor; not a gunshot, more like a door being kicked open. Then came a screeching noise as something heavy heaved its way towards them.

The snarling gave way to grunting and the sound of something metal clattering echoed down the stairwell. Cahz kept his weapon trained on the stairs. He listened intently for a clue to how close the threat was, but Elspeth and the child’s sobs combined with the ragged moans to overwhelm Cahz’s senses. A bead of sweat escaped the corner of his eyebrow and trickled down his cheek.

With a tremendous crash something thunderous came barrelling down the stairs.

Cahz opened up, firing a three round burst into the skin of the foe. The bullets popped straight through, punching a neat hole in the grey aluminium.

The filing cabinet lay wedged at an odd angle, almost as if it had been killed. With a reluctant squeak a drawer slid open and a cascade of paperwork tumbled to the floor.

“Fuck!” came a voice from up the stairs.

“Boss?!” came a second.

“For fuck’s sake didn’t you dicks think to warn me?!” Cahz shouted back angrily. He was as mad at himself for being so jumpy and for wasting the ammo as he was at Cannon and Ryan. “I could have killed you!”

Cannon clambered over the blockage. “Shit, boss, no need to be so jumpy.”

Cahz thumbed at the door. “Cannon, there are half a million ravenous corpses behind this door. Of course there’s a need to be jumpy!”

“Okay, okay. Point taken,” Cannon apologised as he started manhandling the long tall cabinet down the last of the steps.

“What took you so long?” Cahz asked. “Trouble?”

The cabinet thumped with each step as Cannon and Ryan hauled it to the bottom. Cannon looked over his shoulder, still heaving at the oblong of aluminium. He said, “Trouble came and went from this place, boss.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Before Cannon could answer, Cahz pointed at the cabinet. “Anyway, what are we going to do with this then?”

The grey paint had been scraped clear where it had been dragged along. It sported bashes and bullet holes and it was slightly twisted off true.

“I was hoping it’d be long enough to wedge between the door and the first step.” Cannon scratched behind his ear. “But it’s not…”

Cahz took a calming breath, and although his heart was still pounding he’d calmed himself down. “It’s not a bad idea even if that thing’s a little short.”

“There’s plenty more office furniture up there,” Ryan offered. “We’re bound to find a desk or something the right size to fill the gap.”

“Okay, get to it,” Cahz said. “But this time holler down before you start chucking stuff at us.”

“Will do, boss.” Cannon gave a sloppy salute before nodding to Ryan to follow him.

Cahz closed his eyes and slumped against the door. With his eyes shut the vibrations from the door against his back were magnified. A dull ache made its presence felt in the back of his head.

He unscrewed the lid from his canteen and took a swig. The slug of water didn’t shift the bitter taste on his tongue.

“Could I have some?” The woman’s voice was shaky and uncertain.

Cahz held out the canteen. “Sure.”

Elspeth was gazing down at the baby. The child had reduced her crying to a more tolerable whimper.

“She okay?” Cahz asked, peering over as far as he could. It was the most tactful way to ask if the baby had succumbed to the infection.

Elspeth rocked the baby gently. “I think she’s calming down.”

Cahz held in his relief. Both the woman and child were infected and it was only a matter of time before they joined the ranks of the living dead. In just a few short hours the contagion would infest every cell in the woman’s body. And maybe less time than that for the child.

Elspeth took a long drink and passed the bottle back. “You’ll have to screw the cap back on. My other hand’s full,” she said, rocking the baby.

On cue there was a slight gurgle as the child made a sucking reflex.

“She’s such an angel,” Elspeth said.

Even with the nasty looking scrape down her face, Cahz couldn’t disagree.

“The others keep telling me how she looks like Samantha, but she doesn’t… Well, not that much. She’s Ryan’s—you can see that in her face.” Elspeth was crying now. “She’s got Samantha’s eyes but that smile’s Ryan’s.”

Cahz nodded and smiled as he lifted the canteen to take another drink.

He panicked and tossed the plastic bottle across the hall. The clatter startled the baby and she resumed her piercing wail.

Elspeth jerked backed. “What is it?”

The canteen rocked to a sloshing halt, the water glugging from its open neck.

“You took a drink, lady,” Cahz yelped, “and I was just about to drink from it too.”

Elspeth was puzzled. “So?”

“You’ve been bit…” Cahz’s voice trailed off as he realised how insensitive he had just been. The last drips of water trickled over the lip of the discarded canteen, sending ripples across the newly formed puddle.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he offered, but it wasn’t enough. Elspeth was in floods of tears.

Cahz leant hard up against the door, his head tipped back and his eyes closed. All he could hear were the sounds of crying in front and the moans behind.

Please God, just get them to shut up, please
.

There was a loud crack from somewhere outside like the whip of a circus performer.

“What was that?” Elspeth asked.

Cahz looked at his watch. “That’ll be Bates’ homemade time bomb.” The door behind him groaned further at the pressure of the undead pressing against it. “I thought the explosion would waste a few and draw more towards the noise. Guess there’s just too many of them to make a difference.” Cahz pulled his gloved hand across his face, wiping his chin. He looked down to examine his hand to see if he had removed any of the imagined contagion he felt creeping across his flesh.

“Gardyloo,” came a call from above, followed by several loud thumps.

Something heavy came crashing down the stairs. With a sharp crack of plastic shattering, a photocopier tumbled into view. Shards of the beige plastic casing pinged off and flew down the stairs.

Ryan and Cannon quickly followed and kicked the office stalwart the last few feet. It cartwheeled over the last steps to land with an almighty crunch half on top of the filing cabinet.

Cahz lent back against the door, looking up at the ceiling.

“Get that wedged in place,” he ordered without looking back at his subordinates.

“Sure thang, boss,” Cannon complied.

With a few moments hauling and kicking, the two pieces of office equipment were solidly wedged against the door.

“Okay, let’s get away from this noise,” Cahz said, rubbing a thumb and finger across his eyebrows, trying to dispel a burgeoning headache.

“Just a minute,” Cannon said.

The big soldier stood with his support weapon slung over his midriff and his hands casually folded on top like he was about lead a battlefield prayer.

“Cannon?” Cahz asked.

“There’s…” Cannon paused. “Well, you’ll see. It’s just bit fucked up.”

“What is?” Cahz asked.

“Masada,” Ryan said.

“Masada?” Cahz echoed, puzzled.

“Three,” Ali said. “Two,” a little louder.

“One!”

Ali pushed off from the door and ran down the hallway. He half vaulted, half clambered over the chair blocking the way to the living room. As he landed a rip of pain spread out from his leg, but he ignored it.

The groaning of the zombies now mixed with the groaning of the front door as the weight of numbers forced their way through.

Ali cast a glance back to see the first of the undead pushed through the widening gap by the horde behind.

He picked up a small coffee table and hurled it at the full-length windows. The cheaply constructed table bounced off the glass and split in two as it crashed to the floor. The window remained intact except for the kaleidoscope crack that radiated from the impact point.

Ali stomped his foot into the weak point and the crack widened. He suddenly had an image of his foot knocking a neat hole through the glass—a hole that would lacerate his calf and leave him snared, unable to escape.

He picked up the larger half of the broken table and started hammering at the crack. Shards of wood splintered away with every swipe. As he hammered at the glass, the cracks zigzagged out longer and thinner, but with each blow the joint in the ruptured table gave a little more. Finally Ali battered the window and the table disintegrated in his hands.

He screamed as slivers of wood slashed into his skin. He looked down at his wounds to see toothpick-sized splinters of jagged wood in his palms and fingers. Blood wept from some of the larger punctures as he plucked out the slivers.