Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel (47 page)

“
Look. He’s begging for his life,” Muz said earnestly.

“Don’t be so stupid. It’s dead.”

“He’s cowering,” Amy told Chuck from directly behind the two men, having slipped free of Tom’s hold and walked over, still holding onto the agitated Digby. “Zombies don’t cower.”

“And zombies don’t bleed either,” Chuck told
the little woman. “Let’s find out whether this one does.”

“Wait. Wait,” Muz continued to protest, struggling with his own thoughts at to what to do. He was just as nervous as Chuck but this guy wasn’t like all the others. “We’ve grown far too accustomed to no longer seeing these victims as people.”

“How have you managed to stay alive this long being such a fanny?” Chuck asked him, full of contempt.

The large African man stepped forward, lifting the candlestick even higher, readying himself to bring it down on the man shaking on his knees in front of him.

Just then, there was a sudden rustling in the branches of the tree on the grass area to their right. With cat-like grace, another man dropped down from the tree into view. Though he landed head first, he caught his own body weight easily with his arms and then gently placed his feet down behind him. Digging into the soil with those hind limbs, he sprung forward with a shockingly fast leap. Sprinting effortlessly and with athletic agility on all fours, he placed himself between Chuck and the deformed man.

Chuck staggered back, stunned, raising a shaking semi-automatic pistol at this new threat.

Raj slowly rose up onto his hind limbs and standing fully erect, defiantly stared back down the barrel at Chuck. The Indian man was dressed all in black. As his mental faculties had slowly begun to come back to him, his own body odour had become offensive to his new acute sense of smell. He had therefore found a flat in which to clean himself up and search for a change of clothes. Predictably enough on an estate like this, the clothing he had found was a pair of black jogging bottoms and a black hooded top. They were the clothing of choice for robbers or burglars – or maybe ninjas.

The way this man had sprung into action, leaping out of the tree, Muz thought, certainly had been ninja-like. The shaking of Chuck’s gun hand told the copper that the big man was in no fit state to take on a ninja zombie. He slowly and over-cautiously placed his hand over Chuck’s.

“Put the gun down, mate,” he said, pressing gently downward on Chuck’s hand. “They’re not a threat.”

Chuck didn’t budge though, refusing to lower the weapon even an inch. He looked thoroughly perplexed and terrified.

“I know that bloke,” Muz told him.

“What?” Chuck managed to blurt out.

“It’s the same bloke that saved me down by the shops.”

“Not that bullshit again,” Chuck said angrily, not taking his eyes from Raj for even a second.

“It’s him. I swear.”

Raj’s eyes glinted in a manner like no human’s as he stared at the gun, an extra thick photoreceptive layer that now covered his pupils catching the sunlight.

“I thought you said that was him that jumped off the roof of the train station,” Chuck said.

“It was… At least, I think it was,” Muz said. “I don’t understand it
, but it’s definitely him.”

Muz frowned, scrutinising the strange Indian man standing tall in front of him,
and began to doubt himself. He could just about make out the faint pale scar tissue in the shape of teeth marks on his neck and remembered how the man had been bitten while saving him back on Watling Avenue. He couldn’t explain how that brutal injury, only a few days old, had already completely healed, but this was definitely the same man.

“We’ve got to kill them,” Chuck said.

“They’re different from all the others,” Muz insisted.

“No. They’re just not fully turned yet,” Chuck told him, even though he knew the words were utter rubbish.

“Zombie save your life?” Tom asked. His large hammer was raised up, resting on his shoulder and his eyes were as wide as Chuck’s, as he looked at the two strange men.

Muz nodded at him.

“If that’s true, if this is the same zombie,” Chuck said, “what’s it doing all the way up here?”

“Maybe he’s been following us,” Muz guessed.

“That’s even more reason to kill it then,” Chuck said adamantly.  “If we leave it to carry on wandering around, sooner or later, it will catch us off guard and kill us.”

“He’s not trying to kill us now.”

“So?”

“So… Maybe he’s recovered,” Muz suggested, feeling foolish as the words came out of his mouth.

“Recovered,” Chuck laughed. “From being dead?”

“Maybe,” Muz mumbled. “Amy, please, help me out here.”

“What?” Amy said, startled at being drawn into such an intense debate. “What do you want me to do?”

“Check them over,” Muz asked.

“What? Are you being serious? No way.”

“Please,” Muz begged. “I’ve got a feeling that this bloke being different might hold the answer to what caused all this. He could be important.”

Amy didn’t move. She couldn’t believe what Muz was asking of her. Looking at Raj, she saw his eyes flick from Chuck and his gun to regard her now. Though his stare was intense, she could not read the emotion behind it.

“They’re not going to attack you,” Muz tried to assure her.

“How do you bloody know?” she barked back at him.

Trying his best not to show the fear he was feeling, Muz stepped forward in front of Chuck and tentatively held out his hand. Raj
’s glinting eyes regarded the proffered extremity a moment, before looking up and staring Muz in the eyes. Still trying to stop his hand from shaking, Muz was praying he was right and the man would accept his gesture of friendship rather than tear his arm off.

Raj turned to look at the mess of a man on his knees behind him. Dropping to his haunches, he picked up the large knife he had been carrying.

“Get back,” Chuck warned.

Muz stayed put, making sure he was positioned directly between Chuck and this other man.

Standing once more and turning again to face Muz, Raj flipped the knife over in his hand, catching it by the tip of the blade. He then extended his own hand to meet the police officer’s, offering Muz the handle. Muz took the weapon, his nerves so jittery that he almost dropped it.

“See?” he said, turning to Chuck in triumph. His
voice broke over the single word however, betraying the image of confidence he had hoped to project.

Amy slowly stepped forward, despite her fear
, directing Tom to take hold of the dog’s collar.

“I’m going to touch you,” she warned Raj before placing
an open hand as gently as she could against his chest, ready to whip it back if he so much as moved a muscle.

The Indian man
with the strange eyes remained motionless, though he watched her warily. Growing a little braver, she placed two of her fingers against one of his wrists. Still he gave no reaction. She then took his hand in her own and pressed the tips of his fingers, watching them turn white with the pressure then return to their normal colour when she released her grip.

“Don’t you eat me,” she whispered fearfully, as she stepped up to him even closer.

She reached up and peeled back one of his lower eyelids. The skin on the underside was pink and wet. Her attention was then drawn to the small lump and bruising on one side of his neck and the faded teeth marks on the other.

“Does this hurt?” Amy asked, brushing a finger against the wounds.

Raj didn’t respond. Flashing images of Kate’s screaming face superimposed themselves on that of the little paramedic.

“Can you understand me?”
the chubby woman then asked. She tried to maintain eye contact with the man, but his eyes burned with such vibrant intensity that she was unable to do so.

Still
, the tall Indian man showed no acknowledgement of her words. It was impossible to tell whether he knew what she was saying.

Without saying another word, she then brushed past Raj, knelt and performed the same checks on the deformed man, who was more afraid of her touch than she was of him.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she whispered softly when he recoiled from her.

She paid particular attention to his odd little arm. When
she held the tiny hand out, the stubby little fingers flexed slightly. She put her index finger in the palm and the infant-sized fist closed weakly around it. Placing her hands against his cheekbones then, she tilted his head up in order to examine that horrific wound to his face. The tongue was retracted, hiding in the neck, but it didn’t appear to affect his breathing. The skin around the edges of the huge cavity of his missing jaw had not only healed well, but she discovered that when she dared to press a little with her thumbs, it seemed new bone tissue was beginning to form beneath.

“Well?” Muz asked.

“Well,” Amy responded, getting back to her feet. She took a couple of deep breaths, dispelling the adrenaline that had been pumped into her system, pre-empting her need suddenly to run. “They have clearly both been exposed to the virus or whatever it is.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Chuck said
.

“They’re breathing though,” Amy continued.
“Their hearts are beating and their blood is circulating. Although they have both suffered terrible injuries, they’re exhibiting remarkable – unthinkable levels of tissue regeneration. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“So, they’re okay?” Muz asked.

“Okay? This one,” Amy responded, pointing at Raj, “is in incredible physical condition.”

“So, you think we should let them go?” Chuck asked.
Having watched Amy get up close and personal with the creatures without being attacked had given him the confidence to lower his weapons.

“Let them go?” Muz spat out, incredulous at the man’s lack of foresight. “These people have recovered.”

“So?”

“So, they could hold the answer to a cure,” Amy said.

“Exactly,” Muz nodded. “We need to protect them and let the army know what we’ve found.”

“You cannot be serious,” Chuck said. “What the hell do you suggest we do with them?
If we take them over to the cordon, the snipers are just going to shoot them – and probably us too.”

“We should take them up to the flat for now,” Amy told him.

“What?” Chuck almost choked on the word, unable to believe what the woman had just said.

“I would like to perform some more checks on them,” Amy said, refusing to allow herself to be flustered by the big man. “And we could then discus how we could go about handing them over.”

“No,” Chuck said. “Not a chance.”

“I’m not too keen on the idea either,” Muz told him. “But we can’t let anything happen to them.”

“No.”

From somewhere within the estate not too far off,
there suddenly came a series of tortured cries. It seemed that all the noise they had been making had drawn some unwanted attention. The survivors had been living this nightmare long enough now to know that the sounds were not made by mere human cannibals. The cries were the rallying calls of several afflicted animals. Exactly what species they were, it was not possible to tell and Muz didn’t care. He just knew that they needed to get back into the safety of the block. Even the two ex-zombies were looking back with open anxiety in the direction of the noises, which were drawing nearer.

“We need to get back inside,” Muz told Chuck apprehensively.

“I agree,” the military man said, “but these two aren’t coming with us.”

Amy however was already pulling the man kneeling in the road up to his feet and leading him over to the entrance to the tower block.

“Hey,” Chuck called after her angrily.

“We need to make sure we don’t get any of their body fluids on us, especially if anyone’s got any open cuts,” the little woman said, ignoring him. “Their blood and saliva might still be contagious.”

“This is insane,” Chuck yelled.

The cries of the unseen creatures that were drawing nearer became more insistent in response to the big man’s shouting.

Raj watched the small woman helping the shuffling injured man make his way to the block. Maybe these people were more than the animals he had previously decided they were.

“You coming?” Muz asked him.

Raj turned his eyes on the copper who literally winced in response. Jesus, he thought. The man’s scrutiny was unbearable, those eyes, so full of intelligence and burning energy, drank in every detail of whatever they observed.

“You’ll be safe with us,” Muz tried to convince him, avoiding any further eye contact.

Raj was not sure at all about that bold statement but he moved towards the block anyway, staying upright on two feet, so as not to unnerve the man. He could hear the police officer’s heart beating in his chest, and judging by the rate of its pace, he was far more frightened than his face let on.

As the group made their way over to the doors of Salisbury Court, both of the two ex-zombies looked apprehensively at the pile of blackened bones. Seeing what had drawn their attention, Muz averted his eyes from the single burnt skeleton lying aside from the rest.