Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel (51 page)

He tried to slam the door back in its frame but it wouldn’t close properly, due to the damaged lock.
As he did so, he heard the stampede of multiple tiny feet racing up the stairs.

The three of them pressed their combined weight against the door again, just as young small fingers began to protrude through the gap between the door and its frame, clawing at the wood. The hissing and growls of the cannibal class told the survivors that they were still desperately hungry. Though the kids couldn’t have been more than
seven years old, the weight of their superior numbers against the damaged door was too much for the three adults to hold off indefinitely.

Pushing with all his strength back against the door, Muz found himself looking at the far wall. Mounted there in a frame was a motivation
al poster, depicting a cat hanging from a branch by its paws with a comically worried expression on its face. The writing at the bottom read, ‘hang in there.’

As a slender fresh-skinned arm pushed its way through the widening gap, Muz pulled out his Taser. He had already used the one probe cartridge he had found with it
, but he could still use it at point blank range. Without the probes, it wouldn’t lock up the muscles of a person’s body, but it would cause them a shit load of pain, equivalent to that of being stabbed. He pressed the weapon against the grasping arm and pulled the trigger. The nails of the protruding hand just dug deeper into the wood, causing a couple of them to tear free and hang from their cuticles. Muz pulled the trigger again and again, until he smelled the child’s skin burning. Still, it had no effect.

“
Piece of crap,” he shouted, tossing it across the room and knocking the framed poster to the floor.

More young arms began to worm their way through. Then the gap became wide enough for a head to appear right next to where Jay was stood. A big shiny badge pinned to the child’s T-shirt read, ‘birthday boy.’ The boy’s wild eyes and masticating teeth caused the youth to yelp with fear
, but he didn’t run, knowing that as soon as he let go of the door the pre-teen horde would come rushing through.

Margaret, even now, couldn’t bear to stab a child in the face. Instead, she reached out and picked up a ball cactus by its pot from the nearby desk. Turning and leaning over Jay, she repeatedly stuffed it into the young boy’s face. When she stopped, though the
boy’s forehead, nose and cheeks were covered with tiny red holes, he continued to fight his way through.

Bracing the door with one foot, Jay then spun and hit the boy in the head so hard and fast with his baseball bat that a piece of young soft skull flew away. Though the terrible blow had exposed his brains, he still continued to push through unabated, without even so much as a
pause. Straw-coloured cranial fluid spilled from the open cavity and dribbled down the wood of the door.

Though the others thought by now that he had left them to die, Chuck came piling back into the room.

“Down this way,” he yelled. “I’ve found an open window.”

Not requiring any further prompt, Muz, Margaret and Jay let go of the door and ran towards Chuck. The door flung inward and a river of insane children rushed in, falling over each other with the sudden motion.

The adults managed to reach the corridor and Chuck, and slam the door there in place before the young horde caught them. Again, they felt the force of the kids throwing themselves at it full pelt from the other side.

“Where’s the lock? Where’s the lock?” Muz asked frantically.

“There isn’t one,” Margaret told him.

“Don’t you go anywhere,” Muz said to Chuck, as the bigger man looked as though he were about to run off again. “We need you to help us brace the door.”

“You’ve been bitten, haven’t you?” Chuck asked Margaret, as he saw the blood coursing down her arm.

“Yes, I’m afraid I have,” the woman told him solemnly.

“You’re infected then,” Chuck added.

“We don’t know that,” Muz said.

“Nah man, dat don’t mean she’s infected,” Jay said, jumping to the woman’s defence.

“I’m not willing to take the risk,” Chuck told the youth.

“Yeah? Try it, blood. Test me.”

Even with Chuck’s considerable body mass helping to hold this new door in place, it was already beginning to weaken. The room at the far end of the corridor lo
oked a long way off, baring in mind that as soon as they let go of the door, it would come crashing in. Those kids, possessing the lightning speed of the freshly infected, would easily run them down before they managed to get to that other room.

“We need to run for it. Those little shits are going to break through,” Muz declared.

“The open window is in the far wall of that room,” Chuck told the others. “Don’t waste any time. Just dive straight through it. There’s a low sloping roof on the other side that should break our fall. It looks like it ends about seven feet above the ground.”

“I feel… strange,” Margaret said woozily.

She had indeed been infected, the foreign amoeboid cells already coursing through her bloodstream. Her age-depleted biological defences and racing heart rate allowed the cells to multiply and spread within her at an incredible rate.

Chuck immediately backed away from the door.
As he did so, the constant thumping against it caused a long crack to appear in the plaster of the wall beside it.

“Get back here,” Muz yelled at him.

“I told you she was infected,” Chuck said.

“No. She’s just tired,” Jay shouted, refusing to accept it.

“I’m sorry, Jay,” Margaret said, turning to face the boy bracing the door at her side. “But it would seem they’re right.”

“No,” Jay said again in sheer denial, tears beginning to well up in his eyes.

“The three of you should make a run for it,” Margaret said in resignation. “I’ll try to despatch as many as I can and afford you a few seconds.”

“No,” Jay yelled at her. “I’
m not goin’ wivout you.”

Chuck was already heading off down the corridor.

“If you don’t leave right this second, young man..., you’re going to make me… very angry,” Margaret told him as sternly as she could manage. Her speech was slow and beginning to slur a little.

“I’m stayin’,” Jay replied adamantly.

“You’re fifteen. Go now.”

“Come on,” Muz said to him.

He tried to take Jay by the arm but the youth just shrugged him off.

“I’m gonna take care of you,” Jay told Margaret.

“Jay, you can’t,” the elderly woman replied, tears spilling from her eyes. “I’m infected. It won’t be long now.”

“No, I mean I’m goin’ to take care of you,” Jay explained. “We’ll fight dem togeva as long as we can. Then I’ll take care of you. I won’t let you become one of dem tings.”

The next crash against the door was a big one, several of the children having by coincidence hit it at exactly the same moment. It caused a split to run the centre of its length.

“You’re not afraid of dying?” Muz asked, astounded by the boy’s fearless resolve.

“Yeah, course I am, but I ain’t stupid eiva,” Jay told him. “Yous lot fink you can still survive dis, get outa da quarantine. It ain’t gonna happen, cuz. Dem government people will keep de barriers up ’til every last person is dead an’ rotten. Believe. Ain’t no one eva getting’ out.”

“We’ve got to keep fighting,” Muz told him, trying to talk some sense into the youth.

“I’d prefer to go out makin’ a stand, innit,” Jay replied.

“You’re a noble and brave man, Jay,” Margaret told him.

“Yeah, woteva.”

The crack running up the centre of the door splintered further still and it began to bulge inward.

“Last chance,” Muz said nervously.

“Go,” Jay told him.

Muz looked deep into the youth’s eyes; he wasn’t about to allow him to change his mind. Without another word, Muz turned and ran.

“You ready for dis?” Jay asked Margaret.

The woman leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

“Let’s merc’ them,” she said with grim determination, stepping away from the door. “Is that how you say it?”

“Yeah. Let’s fuck ’em up.”

The door sn
apped in half and the two pieces came crashing inward. Crazed children swarmed through the door and Margaret and Jay laid into them. Working together, the old woman and the teenage boy put up a good fight. Margaret slashed away at anything that came near her, while Jay bounced the end of his bat off every head that came within range. Numerous young cannibals dropped before them, forming a pile of small twitching bodies at their feet.

One of the children, a freckled red-headed girl, had a severed arm. The broken ends of the exposed radius and ulna bones of her forearm had tooth marks in them
, from where her classmates had gnawed at them, attempting to draw out the marrow. The way the bones had snapped left them sharp.

Eying up her prey, she leapt
with a gymnastic lunge over the growing pile. Slamming into Jay, she stabbed him with the tips of her bones in his shoulder. He screamed and pushed her off, as Margaret cut her throat right through to the spine and worked the blade between the bones.

The two of them continued to drop anyone who came at them
, with practiced proficiency, gradually thinning the numbers of the children more and more. Eventually, there were only two kids left, clambering up the far side of the six-foot tall pile of dead children that barred the doorway.

“Hey, we’re actually doin’ okay,” Jay said surprised, doing his damnedest to ignore the hot pain in his shoulder.

As he glanced across at Margaret, he saw her just standing there, glaring at him, teeth bared.

“Oh fuck.”

As the woman sprang at him, Jay smacked her round the side of the head as hard as he could. The knife flew from her hand and he caught it. Turning it over in his hand, he stabbed at her neck, his eyes red with tears. He screamed like he never had before, the very act of what he was doing causing his mind to break. He stabbed at her faster and faster, until her head was almost completely severed. His face took on an abstracted emotionless expression and he began to giggle. Dropping the knife and looking at the blood coating his hands, his odd laughter grew louder.

With the two remaining children on top, the pile of bodies then spilled over onto him. Though he was pinned from the waist down under the weight of the kids he had killed, his arms we
re still free. He could have attempted to defend himself, as the two children pounced on him, but he didn’t. As they held him down and tore into his skinny body with their milk teeth, he continued to giggle. Only when one of them bit down into the carotid artery of his neck and drank thirstily, did the expression of mirth fade from his face.

Muz slowly began to regain consciousness. His head hurt like hell and he felt like he was going to puke. His left shoulder was throbbing with pain too
, but it didn’t feel broken. What had happened, he asked himself, fighting to regain his memory of recent events. He was lying on the ground, his left cheek pressed against the wet tarmac. Chuck was standing over him, frantically going through his pockets.

“… the fuck off me,” Muz said groggily, swiping at Chuck with one arm. “Where’s Jay and Margaret?”

As he asked the question though, the memory of what had happened came back to him and he looked up at the window he had just thrown himself through.

“Get up,” Chuck shouted. “Get in the bloody truck.”

With Chuck helping him, Muz got to his feet, swaying slightly.

“Gimme the keys,” Chuck said. “You’re in no state to drive.”

“Piss off,” Muz told him and climbed into the driver’s seat.

He started up the engine and looked up again at the window, hoping to see Jay climb out.
Deciding it wasn’t going to happen, he was just about to drive away, when a figure did appear at the window, silhouetted by the light within. As the young boy sprang out onto the roof though, Muz was able to see it wasn’t Jay. The child hissed, his face sprayed and dripping with hot blood.

Engaging the gears, Muz began to pull away, when the boy sprang from the low roof with Olympic grace and power, landing on the bonnet. Both Chuck and Muz locked their doors. The copper then sped away, the wheels of the truck spinning and screeching. The boy, caught off guard by the sudden forward motion, slammed painfully into the cage covering the windscreen.

Driving around to the front of the restaurant, Muz spun the steering wheel hard to the right, as he hit the A5. He had hoped that the dramatic change in direction would dislodge the mad junior but he managed to cling on, his little fingers clasping at the metal mesh.

They were once again in view of the perimeter cordon and little red dots danced all over the vehicle. One nervous soldier from his position on top of the roofs opened fire. The report of his weapon caused a knee-
jerk reaction from the other Marines lining the roof tops and the speeding Jankel came under a barrage of fire.

Muz floored the accelerator pedal. He wasn’t sure whether the soldiers were trying to help by picking off the kid or whether he and Chuck were just as much targets as the undead schoolboy.