The Screaming (Book 1): Dead City (8 page)

              Zac started thinking about Clive. He didn’t even know him, but felt as though he had seen so much of that man in those short minutes. He imagined him working hard in the council car park to support his family. Perhaps he had children, who need him now more than ever, but would never see him again. Such a waste! Why? It was all too much to comprehend and there was little Zac could do, except send himself mad thinking about it. He was helpless to change anything, as the situation at the iron-gate had shown. Standing there, powerless, as Clive was eaten.

              Zac had the realisation that he could do one of two things. Give up and sit in the park in tears, or move on and try to get away. Time for a plan, He fished into his jeans pocket and took out his mobile phone. The screen had a large crack from top to bottom, but it still worked. He prayed for a message from Emma…

“12 MISSED CALLS.” The display read.

              He quickly opened the folder and scrolled through his missed calls.

“DAD MOBILE X 7”

“HOME X 5”

              He chuckled with excited relief, then pressed the call button.

“Hello?”

“Zachary Tennison, Where the hell have you been? I’m worried sick.”

“Sorry Dad, I’m fine.”

“Where are you? Are you at that Emily’s house?”

“It’s Emma and no I’m not. I’m in a park. Something really bad is going on down here.”

“I know, it’s all over the news. Zachary, listen to me. I’ve seen footage, on the TV. News helicopters flying overhead, have shown everything. Hundreds of people attacking everyone, women, children and then they…”

“It’s ok Dad, I know. I’m going to try and find help. The Police or something.”

“No, No not the Police, I don’t think there are any. The News showed row after row of riot police getting mowed down by hundreds of these stampeding rioters. They were eating them Zachary. Everyone’s trying to get out, but there are too many of them. The news says the Royal family and Government have even evacuated, to Scotland.”

“Scotland? How big is this thing?”

“Well there are reports of attacks in Watford and High Wycombe.”

“Fuck!”

“Zachary!”

“Sorry Dad, but Christ! I need to get out of here.”

“No, that’s why so many are getting attacked, they’re all in the open, trying to escape. Get to cover and stay there until it’s all over. Get to that Emily’s house or something. Promise me.”

“I promise. Dad? Dad?”

              The phone suddenly died, Zac stared at the screen. The words, Low Battery flashed on the screen. He jumped up and pulled his arm back to throw the phone at the closest tree, snarling through his teeth in anger. Then he unwound his arm, took a deep breath and calmly slid his phone back into his pocket. He looked through his backpack, hoping he had left some food or water in there. He rifled through clothes and toiletries but found nothing except mouthwash and toothpaste. He took a swig of mouthwash and swilled it around his mouth before spitting it out onto the bone dry dirt. He placed everything back into his bag and set off down the path.

              A mild gloom sheltered under the blanket of trees, offering relief from the sun and a sense of reassurance for Zac. He had to get his bearings if he was going to find his way to Emma’s house. He knew it had to be less than two miles away, but didn’t know which direction to take. All that had happened had knocked his sense of direction right out. He tried to use the sun to find east, like he’d once seen in a Bear Grylls documentary, but the sun was too high in the sky.

              He pressed on through the park, and eventually came across a clearing, the trees opened up to form a large circle. To one side of the circle was a large concrete platform, lined with a five foot granite wall, donned neatly with brass plaques. A large marble centre stone topped with a cross, read…

“1914 – 1918      1939 – 1945”

“FOR THE FALLEN.”

              Zac’s mild feeling of tranquillity and safety had gone, and fear had returned. He felt the panic build in his gut and his skin start to crawl with trepidation. The clearing was littered with the remains of people, men, women, the young and old. Suitcases and bags discarded like rubbish sacks. Blood dyed the ground a thick crimson and flesh and bone soiled piles of clothes.

They were in the park.

              Gravel flew from his heels as Zac hurtled through the park, sprinting as fast as he could. He had panicked, and made a mistake by running, potentially drawing attention to himself. He spotted a large grave with an angel statue keeping watch from its top and dived behind it, curled his legs up and slowly calmed his breathing. He peeked over the grave stone at his back, scanning for pursuers. Nobody had followed him, perhaps the attackers had long since moved on since the slaughter of the refugee families at the war memorial. He listened intently, sticks snapped far off, his head snapping to every little noise of the woods and the city beyond. Vocal outbursts of screaming monsters boomed across the city.

              A hand swept down and clamped on his head, finger nails snapped as they pressed into his forehead, Zac yelped and ducked down, dropping out of the woman’s stiff grip. The young Caribbean woman was stood there in nothing more than blood sullied jeans and a white bra. Her torso was torn and shredded as if she had run through barbed wire. Half of her once long dark hair was ripped from her scalp and minced, tattered feet barely supported her slight form. Glazed red eyes fixed on Zac, and shattered, stained teeth exposed themselves as she suddenly hurtled towards him. He stumbled backwards, tripping over a small broken grave stone and landing hard on his backside. He swiftly shuffled back on his hands and feet as the woman closed in.

“This is it!” he thought to himself.

              The young woman launched herself like a pouncing predator, Zac raised his legs and kicked out hard, catching the woman on the forehead, she fell to his feet and he quickly shuffled back again, until he found his back against yet another grave stone. The woman was quickly up and coming at him again, howling like a wild animal. Trapped, he frantically felt around for something to protect himself with, and found his hand passing over a broken piece of grave stone. He grabbed for the heavy chunk of rock, closed his eyes and swung it wildly as the woman swooped for another attack.

              Silence filled the baron woodland once again. Zac slowly opened his eyes. The woman lay motionless, face down at his feet. A large gash pumped thick red blood from her head, seeping onto his shoes. He quickly pulled his legs out from under her. She slumped onto the cold ground. Zac slowly raised himself to his feet, barely blinking as he looked down at the womans lifeless body. He kicked her shoulder, before sharply taking a step back and waiting for a reaction, but none came. She was dead.

              The fence line was close. Ahead was another large cast iron fence and beyond that a large gravel bank stretched up onto a railway line. Zac shuffled towards the fence. Physically he was moving but mentally he was still back in the park, stood over that woman, reliving it over and over in his mind. Despite her obvious uncontrollable urge to eat him alive, Zac struggled with the moral and physical aspects of having killed her. He looked at the fence, raised both hands to pull himself up and burst into tears.

Chapter Five

              The hospice was only built a few years ago. It contained all the latest facilities and so was understandably well sort after. Zac took his mother there three times a week and stayed with her throughout her physiotherapy sessions and interactive classes. She was at the later stages of the condition and only had months left. She could hardly even function, but had moments of normality that Zac cherished. His dad couldn’t face going along anymore, Zac guessed it brought on feelings of inevitability, that she was close to the end, and his father simply couldn’t face it.

              Every day, his mum would start her session with a physiotherapist called Annie, a young girl who had recently qualified, followed by art classes and talks on treatment before finishing with a cup of tea. As the months went on, the sessions became harder for Zac. His mother was slowly leaving her body, piece by piece, until she couldn’t even recognise him at all. One day she even yelled in panic when he tried to take her home at the end of the day, thinking he was a strange man trying to kidnap her. Obviously its times like that, that Zac found hardest to cope with.

              He took solace at the end of every session that something always stayed with his mum. Her faith. She hadn’t been much of a religious person before, but when she started to get sick, it gave her something to believe in. Zac would often tut and snigger as she read extracts of the bible to him as they sipped their tea. He struggled to believe in a god that would cause such a lovely woman to wither in such a heartless way.

              As they finished their tea and started to pack up to go home, she would read an extract from the bible. A different one every time, followed by…

“Think on that lad.”

              It was as though those moments were never forgotten, no matter how bad she got. He must have heard hundreds of quotes over those last months. But he can only recall one.

“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

It was her last.

              Midday. Sunlight pierced the overhanging trees from the park side of the fence. The long grass of the railway embankment cooled his exhausted body, as he lay staring skyward. Hours had past and he had simply lay there, hardly moving. The image of the young Caribbean woman’s broken lifeless body was carved into his subconscious and fighting to get to the front of his mind. The distant sounds of frightened panicking masses faded and were drowned by the calls of packs of roaming cannibalistic beings.

              He sat up and wiped his face, before searching for his backpack which was wedged between the bottom of the fence and the embankment. He reached into his bag and took another sip of mouth wash. Not even the slightest bit thirst quenching, but it offered a temporary relief to his burning insides at least.

              He slowly rose to his feet and edged up the bank until he was able to peer over the top. Two railway lines spanned the width of the raised embankment, leading off both east and west. Over hanging electrical cables shadowed the tracks in each direction. Beyond the railway was another woodland surrounding an old Victorian gas works. The fence on the other side was at least two foot higher than the park fence, it was one of those new tough steel fences they put up to stop kids roaming onto the railway line and was quite impossible to scale.

              He cautiously stepped up onto the tracks and looked them up and down. Zac was truly sick of railways after the experience on the underground, but it seemed like a relatively safe path towards Emma’s, for now. He slowly worked his way along the track, timing each step to land on a sleeper, which was so much easier on his feet than the gravel track bed. Every so often a noise would stun him and before thinking, he would find himself ducked down on the track, scanning the bushes for movement. It was slow going.

              The trees soon gave way to residential areas below, as the track passed from the embankment and on to a raised bridge like viaduct, which passed high over the streets. Zac braved a look over the edge. To his left were a number of apartments. The kind used by young city types, who feel the need to lie about their postcode. The car parks were nearly empty of the posh Audi’s and BMW’s as they had surely long since fled for their place in the country. The ground floor flats were encompassed with the familiar signs of attack, smashed, blood stained windows and caved in doors. Entrance ways were littered with the remains of former residents, dragged from the safety of their homes and devoured.

              Smoke billowed from the balcony of the penthouse. A banner made from an expensive bed sheet was draped over the balcony edge and was flapping in the wind.

“HELP US.” It read, in bright green paint.

              Despite the carnage, it was eerily silent. Zac moved back to the track so as not to be seen from the road and pressed on. He soon came to a fork in the track and took the route to the left, heading towards Stratford. He knew that Emma lived close to Olympic Park. He recalled the stories she had told him, of her trying to sneak into the stadium during the Olympics with her sister and getting tackled by security guards. The towering stadium on the horizon was his new target.

              Building after building passed him by on either side of the track, all with similar scars of recent attacks. Bodies lay in roads, torn apart, limb from limb. Cars left abandoned in the street, their engines still running. The metal railings that lined the track were replaced by brick wall as Zac came upon a large iron bridge that spanned a road and another railway line that passed underneath. A car alarm was sounding on the street below and Zac braved a look over the wall.

              Astonishment stupefied him as he stared down into the street. Below were hundreds of people. They filled the street from kerb to kerb and the length of the road, as far as he could see. No one moved, they stood still and upright in complete silence, their backs to Zac, staring off up the street. Tattered, damaged clothes hung from their motionless forms and faeces soiled their trousers and legs. Several had serious injuries, pools of red liquid formed at their feet as blood haemorrhaged from open wounds and severed limbs. Heads flitted from left to right as they sniffed at the air. A scattering of bodies lay on the cold concrete at their feet, the remains of their most recent victims.

              Zac knew instantly what they were, but was overwhelmed by the numbers. He felt more vulnerable and despairing than ever. Slowly he raised his head for another peek, resting his chin on the top of the wall. Suddenly a chorus of ear thumping, high pitched screams cascaded down the street through the crowd, like a Mexican wave of sudden emotion, until every single one, man, woman and child were wailing in a sustained high pitch. Zac covered his ears and ducked back behind the wall.

“Shit, shit, I’ve been seen.” He thought.

              He desperately looked around for somewhere to hide as the sounds of hundreds of feet on the move vibrated up through the bridge. He froze on the spot, cowering behind the wall. Nowhere to hide on the open bridge. Fear engulfed him as he listened to the cascade of heavy feet moving underneath. But slowly the sound faded, they weren’t coming up onto the bridge. They were running away. He cautiously raised his head onto the wall and gazed down. Below were hundreds of the creatures, rapidly moving off up the street towards the source of the sound wave. Some sprinting, barging past the slower older ones, the strong muscling the weak, who shuffled with equal enthusiasm, until the street was empty and silent. Only the blood stained road, dead bodies and a damp stench of fresh excrement remained.

              Zac wasted no time and set off on a quick, but quiet pace along the tracks towards the stadium, nervously checking over his shoulder every view paces. He couldn’t believe the scale of what he had just seen, the order and synchronicity of the horde of infected, who stood there still in the street, no interaction with each other, like soldiers on parade.

“Fucking unnatural.” He muttered to himself.

              Zac gingerly worked his way up the track, closer and closer to the sanctuary of Emma’s house. The Stadium, standing proudly at the centre of the Olympic park grew closer with every step. The ache of thirst and hunger was growing in his stomach, and the torturous midday sun was seeping what little fluids remained in his weakening body. The track slowly bowed to the left to reveal yet another bridge ahead, spanning a large road.

              Zac threw himself to the ground, his eyes widened as he scrutinised the bridge. Something was happening on the road below. A thick plume of smoke billowed from street level. Screams and cries rolled up the railway bank and invaded all his senses, sending shivers down his back. Something was different to before, these were screams of pain and anguish, not a call to arms. Zac pushed his arms underneath his body and raised himself up, but quickly second guessed his curiosity and dropped himself back to the ground.

“Don’t be a fucking idiot.” he scoffed.

              Slowly he crawled along on all fours, edging towards the bridge, the overwhelming call of inquisitiveness overpowering his survival instincts. A car alarm suddenly shrieked into life and breached the embankment, Zac dropped to his belly and listened again. Only yards from the bridge, he regained what little composure he had left and wriggled up to the iron wall, planting himself firmly behind it.

              Tormented cries resounded from every direction. Zac slowly raised his head above the bridge wall and peered down onto the street and was met by a devastating display of violent anarchy. Cars littered the road, an ocean of frantic bodies swamped the street. To the right a police station was swamped with infected cannibals climbing through windows in droves and throwing themselves at the large oak front doors, thick black smoke flowed from first floor windows, and people darted about on the roof, like rats scrambling about a sinking ship.

              In the road, a swarm of monsters landed wild punches at a car, smashing windows and beating on door panels, desperate to get inside like human tin openers. Screams of sheer pain bellowed from the car as a woman was dragged through the shattered windscreen kicking wildly as she was thrown to the ground and disappeared under a mass of predatory bodies, who tore through her flesh with bare hands and set about gorging on her tissue and organs. Others had split off into smaller groups and huddled around several blooded masses of fleshy remains, hastily skirmishing for the best pieces of meat.

              To the left, a large bald, mountain of a man emerged from a side road, brandishing a large wooden baseball bat. His tattooed arms tightly gripped the bat as he purposefully strutted into the middle of the street facing the otherwise distracted feeders.

“Fucking come on then.” He roared.

              He instantly received the attention he foolishly craved, as several blood drenched freaks, discarded their dwindling meals and threw themselves at the man. He raised the bat and swung wildly at the stampeding attackers, knocking several for six, before a female clamped herself to his neck and sunk her teeth deep into his artery. A crimson mist filled the air around him, he dropped to his knees, as his boldness rapidly drained from his hefty form and the bat spiralled off into a gutter. He fired punch after punch as hands and teeth set about digging their way into his steroid laden stomach, yelling like a soldier on a bayonet charge until he fell silent and his arms dropped to the ground.

              Zac found his attention locked on the massacre, unable to avert his gaze, regardless of the horror unfolding. Thick black smoke from the police station drifted across the road and hung in Zac’s throat and turned his head away, his eyes stinging from the fumes. His attention was drawn to an infected woman, walking along the pavement on the left, towards the bridge. She looked otherwise normal, if not for the gore of blooded froth oozing from her fragmented, torn face. She was carrying something in her hand, a doll, which swung upside down at her side, as she grasped its synthetic ankle. She slowly shuffled towards the bridge until she reached the shop front of a Kebab Shop, before plonking herself down in the doorway and shuffling up against the closed door. She raised her knees, placing the doll on her lap and sharply studied her surroundings before turning her attention to the plastic toy. Blood dripped from her hanging, shattered jaw, as she wheezed with every breath. 

              Zac was fixated on the woman, he wondered who she was, how she had come to be sat there gawking at a child’s toy, with the scraps of human flesh coating her slight form. Suddenly the woman tore the leg from the doll and as thick red fluid gushed over her relishing face, realisation hit Zac like a sledge hammer. It wasn’t a doll. It was a real baby.

              Tears filled his eyes as the woman gorged herself on the child’s newly severed limb. He felt mucus dripping from his nose as shock encased him in a grotesque bubble of revulsion. He sniffed, wiped his face and forced himself to look away from the woman. He found his gaze drift to a man. He was stood in the middle of the road, staring upwards, at Zac. Suddenly frozen in fear, their eyes locked. His plasma filled eyes shone a bright red in the sun light and his lower gum slumped over his chin, ragged from a past ravenous feed.