“Oh, hey, buddy, what did you find? Anything good?” asked Brad.
“Yeah
, we got a decent bag full of sandwiches here. It’ll do for now. You?”
“Hi
, Brad!” chirruped Jessica from behind Parker.
“Nothing, just this.”
Brad showed Parker the bag of food, ignoring Jessica.
“Well we can help you, mate. You were checking eighteen weren’t you?” Parker said taking a step down toward the door.
“Yeah, no, thanks, buddy, but I’ve got it covered.” Brad stood in the doorway. “We searched everywhere, there’s nothing left, trust me.”
“Al
l right, your call. Hey, where’s Chloe?”
Brad forced himself to smile.
“She went on ahead of me back to sixteen. Said she needed the ladies.”
“I’ll go find her,” said Jessica pushing past them, down the stairs. From behind Jessica another figure appeared and Brad frowned.
“Who’s this, Parker?”
“Oh, shit
, sorry, forgot to do the intro’s. Brad, this is Christina.” He stepped aside and Brad saw a woman in a dark business suit step out, offering her hand. She looked tired but trim. She was what, forty, forty five? Brad flashed her his best blue-eyed smile.
“Morning
, ma’am,” he said briskly shaking her hand. He tried not to let the surprise show when she grasped his hand back and shook it vigorously. No limp fish here, no sir.
“Brad.” She said his name in a monotone voice; as if she was seeing him but not all there. He let go of her hand.
“She all right, buddy?” asked Brad as they continued together downstairs back to sixteen.
“Yeah
, I think so. We found her on the top floor. Her office was a mess and I don’t think she’s eaten much in the last twenty four hours.” Parker looked over his shoulder at Christina. She was holding onto the bannister, looking down at her feet, not paying any attention to the two men in front of her.
“Another mouth to feed, huh?
Hope Benzo got something tasty from the cafe, buddy.” Brad walked on ahead and Parker sighed. Sometimes Brad could be a real dick.
“Come on
, Christina,” said Parker. He took her hand and guided her down the steps toward floor sixteen.
* * * *
Jackson walked back into the office on floor sixteen and saw everybody was sat around in the centre of the office. Some were on chairs, others just lying across the floor or draped over bags. It was like they were at home now, all pretensions of office etiquette long gone. He and Troy had not turned up much of use. Troy retreated to a corner of the room on his own, leaving Jackson alone. They had hardly talked the whole time they were searching. Jackson went into the kitchen to see what they had managed to amass so far. There was a reasonable selection and it would probably last them another day. But then what, he thought.
He ran his hands under the tap and splashed water over his face. What on earth would his wife
be thinking now? Poor Mary; she wasn’t used to being on her own. Jackson tried to send his thoughts through the air to his beloved wife: lock yourself in and don’t try to come looking for me. I’ll be home soon as I can, honey. Just stay safe, please, stay safe.
He used a paper towel to dry himself and went back into the office. N
ow, he looked again and noticed some new faces. So they had found more than just food and drink. There was a couple, looking very tired, sat on a couple of chairs. Then there was an older woman in a suit and a man in overalls. Twenty five floors and that’s it? There must’ve been over two thousand people working in this building and they were all that was left? He couldn’t see Jill; she must still be hiding in her office. Jackson sat down and listened to the conversation going on.
“The foyer was scary, I tell you,” said Tom. He was holding court whilst the others sat around him. It was as if he was telling a story around the campfire, thought Jackson.
“There’s certainly no way out through the front door. They’re packed right up against the door and the walls. It’s like being an animal at the zoo. They’re just staring in at us; watching us watching them. When Freddy and I moved, they moved with us. They were biting and scratching and kicking, thousands of them, fighting to get in, to get to us. They obviously know we’re in here.”
“Or there’s nowhere else they want to go,” said Parker absently.
“Maybe they want do the filing,” said Brad. Nobody laughed. Jackson fought the urge to wipe the smirk from Brad’s face.
“
I hate to say it, but there’s nobody alive out there,” said Tom. “Not in the plaza at least.”
“Figured as much,” said Reggie sucking his teeth. “I
ain’t seen much of the world with these eyes, but I know death when I see it.”
“Anyway
,” said Tom as he went on, “Freddy and I tried the reception phones but they’re all dead, just like ours. So we decided to try and find security, see if we could find their office or something. There was a door behind reception so we did some exploring. There are lots of smaller rooms down there, probably for building management or admin’ or something. We almost got lost down there, it’s like a rabbit warren. Behind one, there was an almighty thumping, like something was trapped in there.”
“Or someone,” said
Caterina.
“
Well, we tried opening the door but it was locked. We asked if there was anyone in there but nobody answered. The banging went on and on, and in the end, we gave up. At least if it’s locked, whatever is in there can’t get out.”
“So how did Freddy get hurt?” said
Jenny. Jackson looked around the group and noticed that Freddy wasn’t there. His stomach turned over.
“Well
, we found a room that led to another stairwell, separate from the one we’ve been using. We went down and at the bottom, another door led into an underground car park. It was dark, really dark. We called out, but it was empty. Nobody answered us. There are a couple of cars down there but otherwise it’s empty. Well, sort of.
“
We were about to leave when Freddy shouted something, which I won’t repeat, but it involved a lot of words starting with f and s. I turned around and he was dancing up and down on the spot like a bloody madman. He kicked his legs around and a rat flew out of his trouser leg.”
“Jesus, a rat?
Ugh.” Kate sunk deeper into Philip’s arms.
“The rat flew back against the wall
, then it just got up and ran straight back at Freddy. He managed to kick it away and it came back again.”
“Are you sure it was a rat?” said Parker. “They don’t usually attack humans and if they’re c
ornered like that, they would probably run the other way, not keep attacking.”
“Well
, this rat obviously likes to be different,” said Tom. “Freddy stomped on it until it finally stopped moving. I tried shooing it away but I had nothing to help with. We were stupid. We should have gone prepared and taken a weapon, a knife or something.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Tom,” said Parker.
He thought about Cindy lying in the meat locker downstairs.
“Well
, the bastard’s bitten Freddy badly. His leg has got some nasty bites on it. He’s in the bathroom now trying to wash the wounds. We found a first aid kit and there was some kind of cream in it.”
“I
think I’ll go make sure he’s okay,” said Jackson, leaving the room.
“And that’s it really
,” said Tom. “All in all, it was a waste of time. Freddy got a nasty bite and we came up with nothing. We couldn’t find any other door out of here. No rear exit and no door to the outside that wasn’t locked or blocked by a thousand zombies.”
“Zombies?” whispered Philip to Kate. “I’
d like some of what this lot have been smoking.” Kate shushed her husband, fed up of him never taking anything seriously.
“I don’t agree, buddy,” said Brad. “That car park you found underground. I didn’t even know about that. Who did, right? It must be for the top dogs. I don’t know where it leads
, but if the cars got in, there’s a way out. That could be our way out of here.”
“That’s true; we should go now while we can!” A woman stood up. Tom had not spoken to her before. She was new.
“Even
I
couldn’t get a space there, but I know of it. Of course, I’m so stupid! There’s a tunnel that runs right under the river and it comes out near the Onevision conference centre.” The small group of faces looked blankly back at Christina.
“Well
, anyway, I can show you, it’s really close. The tunnel will be deserted. We
could
get out that way.” Christina felt a weight lift from her shoulders. She would be back home again soon and back to her normal life. She had enough of this building, of this life, and what it had made her become.
“
Whoa there, hold on everyone,” said Parker. “It’s a plan, but right now that’s all it is. Freddy and Tom went down there and came back with a rat bite. If we all go down there gung ho, who knows what we could find or what we could come back with. It could be far worse than a rat bite if we’re not careful.
“We need to find torches, get prepared, and think this through. What if we get through the pitch black tunnel somehow to the other side? Then what? And what if we find a thousand more of those
zombie things waiting for us? What if we walk right into the infection?”
“He’s right,” said
Benzo. “Look, there’s a pile of food in the kitchen. I say we eat, drink, and think. In that order. There’s no hurry as far as I can tell. We’re not going anywhere and neither are those things outside.”
There were murmurs of agreement from the group
, but they were excited. There was something they could latch onto now; it was only an idea, but it was something. There
might
be a way out.
People started leaving the office to get food
, drifting into the kitchen. Tom saw Jill turn away from her office door and shut it behind her. She was withdrawing more and more into herself and cutting herself off from the others. He told himself he would try to talk to her again later.
Tom didn’t feel as hungry as the others, h
e just wanted to see how Freddy was doing. He went to the bathroom to find Jackson. As he entered the stalls, Tom was shocked. Freddy looked up at him and Tom felt like he was looking at a dead man. Freddy was not just pale, but practically white. The bright lighting only heightened Freddy’s deathly looking face.
“Help me,
” said Jackson as Freddy collapsed. They caught him and lowered him carefully to the bathroom floor.
“What the hell is going on?” said Tom. “A rat bite can’t do this, surely?”
“That’s what I thought. Look at his leg,” said Jackson. Tom peeled back Freddy’s jeans and rolled them up exposing his shins. He couldn’t even see where the rat had bitten him anymore. Freddy’s skin was mottled with green and blue bruises and blisters ran all the way up his leg. Freddy’s neck was clammy and there was a faint white furry growth stretching around his neck and chin, almost like mould. Tom felt Freddy’s forehead; it was ice cold.
“W
e’ve got to get him out of here,” said Jackson. “He’s infected.”
CHAPTER NINE
Tom dangled his legs over the roof edge not looking down, but across the city. From up here he was level, or above, most of the other buildings in the vicinity. The Akuma Insurance building was now just a smouldering wreck. He counted six other flat roofs that he could see, all empty. He thought he might see others up here, perhaps people waving for help or painted signs declaring they were trapped or needed help. All he saw were grey squares of concrete, rusting unused fire escapes, and ventilation shafts.
The windows of the office blocks were more interesting. The closest building to him
that was still intact, was a grey monolithic structure dedicated to easy loans with stupendous repayment options. Its huge structure reached high up above Tom, looming over him and casting half the roof into shadow. Its fifty nine floors dwarfed the meagre twenty five of the Fiscal Industries’ building. Most of the people inside were no different to him, not really. They were just trying to make a living; to get by. Well, thought Tom, they’re all dead now.
Every window in the building was blown out. Fire had engu
lfed it from the ground floor to the top, or at least as far as Tom could see. It still burned fiercely on some floors, others were gutted, and he could see smouldering traces of the building’s past life: telephones and chairs reduced to ashes, black computer terminals that had melted into the floor, crisp flakes of paper swirling around in the acrid smoke, out into the air outside where it cascaded gently down to the ground. Tom looked at the floor directly opposite him as something moved inside. It was probably something falling off a desk, blown by the wind. He focused on the room and saw it again. There was a figure moving and walking around.
“Hey!
Hey, over here!” Tom stood up and waved. The figure stopped moving. It came toward the window and Tom’s heart sank. It was another one of them; the dead. It walked toward him slowly and Tom saw the figure was horribly burnt. With no comprehension of space, it continued coming toward Tom until it simply walked out of the window and plummeted down to the ground.
Tom watched as the figure cartwheeled around and around. Unlike the people yesterday from the
Akuma tower, Tom did not see it hit the ground. Instead, it was merely swallowed up by the horde of dead below. Crammed into the plaza in their thousands, the swarming zombies were so thick that Tom wondered if the figure would even hit the ground at all. He walked over to the other side of the roof.
The sun still shone strongly, although it was behind him now and as he sat down
, he felt its warmth on his back. The city was quiet; there were no sirens, no cars or traffic of any kind. There were no planes in the sky. There were no boats on the river. It was as if the city had simply ceased to exist; as if life had been extinguished practically overnight. He thought of Freddy, whose life had also been extinguished.
They knew he had been infected and had to quarantine him. There was simply no way of getting him to a hospital. Even if there was still a hospital out there operating
, they had no way of calling for help. Taking him anywhere was out of the question.
He and Jackson carried Freddy down to the fifteenth floor and barricaded him in an office. They had no way of locking any of the doors from the outside
, so they left him on the floor surrounded by bottles of water and a little food, and simply blocked up the doorway. They dragged desks and filing cabinets in front of the door until they were sure there was no way out. That had been over four hours ago. Explaining it to the others had been difficult.
Some, like Brad, had agreed straight away that they’d done the right thing. If he was infected
, then it was too dangerous to let him back into the office where he could contaminate the others; what if he was to die and reanimate? It was too risky.
Jenny, Dina
, and Caterina said they were being inhumane; it was only a rat bite and he needed taking care of, not disposing of. Freddy was one of them. They’d argued that he should be allowed back to where they would take care of him; they would watch him carefully for any sign of infection. After all, nobody really knew what this was, did they? How could they say for sure he was infected?
When Tom had asked her, Jill refused to take sides. She said that the group must decide; the office was no longer a dictatorship.
Then she retreated back into her cave. Tom wanted to shake her, to slap her, to do anything that would wake her up. He let her step back though; there was more to worry about than her.
Ultimately
, they had all voted, narrowly, to keeping Freddy locked up downstairs on the proviso that on the hour, every hour, someone would go and check on him. When they had taken Freddy down, he had been slipping in and out of consciousness. He knew they were taking him someplace, but hadn’t seemed concerned where or why. Tom had tried to make him drink some water but he had vomited it back up immediately.
Two hours ago
, Parker came back up to the office and solemnly announced that Freddy was dead. Yes, he’d checked. Yes, he’d double checked. ‘How can you be sure?’ they’d asked.
“Because he’s not fucking breathing!”
Parker had stormed off and they’d not seen him since. After that, the office was silent again and opinions were neither sought nor offered.
Jackson and Tom had gone down to make sure that Parker had moved all the furniture back in front of the door. He had
; Freddy was trapped in there. Peering in through the window, he certainly looked dead. The boils and blisters on his leg had spread up to his face and down his arms. He looked terrible. There were red tracks all over his neck and chin where he had coughed up blood and saliva. The fifteenth floor was now off limits to everyone.
Since then
, Tom had come up here. He found it relatively easy getting out onto the roof. At the top of the stairwell, the door had been unlocked and he propped it open with a large brick. Discarded cigarette butts surrounded the doorway and Tom easily figured out why it had been so easy to get up here. Why would you go down twenty four floors for a smoke when you could go up just one or two?
He had no idea what the group w
as doing now and didn’t much care. He tried to find a way out and Freddy was dead. Cindy was dead. They were facing a second night in the office and he wasn’t looking forward to it. The toilets were blocked and the place was starting to smell. All of them were; they had no way of washing themselves properly. It was decided that the only working toilet, the disabled one, should be left for Caterina and emergencies only.
Rubbish from food wrappin
gs was piling up in the kitchen, and with people being so used to having it taken away for them, they thought no more of leaving their dirty plates around for someone else to clean up.
Tempers and emotions were becoming strained. People were desperate to get home to loved ones. Thoughts had changed though. Instead of wondering if their partners missed them, they were now wondering if their partners were alive at all. Jenny had begun crying when she’d heard Freddy was dead. She hadn’t stopped. He suspected there would be a lot of crying tonight.
He missed his parents mostly. His friends were his friends but they could take care of themselves and he had no girlfriend. It was beginning to look like it could be a while before he went on a date again. The last girl he’d met, he had taken to his local Chinese restaurant. Now, when he tried to picture it, all he could envisage was the restaurant smashed up and overrun by the dead.
At college
, he had been a nobody; here he felt like he was a somebody. Only two days in and he felt like he had grown. Yet, he hadn’t done a minutes work, hadn’t switched a computer on or answered a ringing telephone. He had achieved reasonable grades and made a few friends at college, but ultimately what was the point? His tutor had asked him as much. ‘What are you doing here, Tom? What do you want to achieve in life?’
A cold bre
eze sent a chill through Tom and he knew he was going to have to face going back downstairs. Maybe he had been too vocal; he was asked his opinion on what to do, where to go, and he gave it. Perhaps he should keep quiet from now on. He hadn’t known Freddy well, but he missed him. People didn’t die at work; that was only something you heard about on the news or from a friend of a friend of a friend. Even then, it was so abstract and absurd you didn’t really care.
His parents let him have a pet budgie when he was young. He could remember pestering them for it for months until they finally relented. On his tenth birthday
, he had been given ‘Charlie’ and they’d told him how to take care of it, clean the cage, change its water, and so on.
One day he had been playing with a friend and they’d taken Charlie out to let him fly around the room. Tom opened the window as it was hot
, and Charlie had flown out within seconds. Tom remembered running around the garden calling for him, looking in every tree, but he never saw Charlie again. Perhaps he was happier out there, free from his cage, uninhibited, able to spread his wings? Tom knew it was more realistic that Charlie had been eaten by the neighbours’ cat.
His father had scolded him, told him he was a fool. His mother simply hugged him. How he wished his mother was here now; a hug could go a long way. If humans had wings
, he would fly home right now, straight to his parent’s house. His mum would have a meal prepared for him in minutes, a huge smile on her face. She would smell of baking, as she always did, and most likely be wearing an apron. Rarely did he visit home and not find his mother in the kitchen, whistling along to the radio, arms buried in a bowl of pastry or cake mix.
An image of his mother fleeted across his mind; of her slack face covered in maggots, her
arms gnawed off to the elbow, her eyes eaten, her hair ripped from her scalp. She was in the kitchen, the radio still playing, and his father was out in the garden in pieces. Were they both cold and dead now? Tom’s legs swung freely over the side of the building and he marvelled at how easy it would be to fly; fly like Charlie through the sky, to be free, to be utterly free like he had never felt before.
A smell of death and rotting flesh wafted to him from below and he jerked back, his mouth tasting the awful smell. Tom spat and watched the globule of saliva fall. Gradually
, it disappeared from sight and Tom’s vision focused on where it was heading. The plaza: hundreds of square feet of prime real estate full of dead people. They were somebody’s parents, too: sisters, brothers, friends, and children. Tom wondered if they thought anymore about the past, the future...were they even aware of the present? He knew the world was overpopulated, but this? If this is nature’s way of thinning us out, then it’s a cruel way, he thought. How many dead people were there beneath his feet; a thousand, two thousand, five?
They were
human beings, people who used to come here to make money, to socialise, to work; to
do something
. Tom had to do something too, but he wasn’t sure what anymore. There were no definitive answers anymore. Hell, there were no definitive questions anymore. ‘To be or not to be,’ he thought.
He
said goodnight to the city, gave the zombies below one last cursory glance, and went back into the stairwell, leaving the door ajar. He walked down the nine flights of stairs back to the office with a heavy heart.
* * * *
Parker went over to Tom as soon as he returned. “Hey, man,” Parker said.
Tom just smiled back weakly. The office was quiet and sombre. People were sat around staring into space; lethargic
, and apathetic.
“What’s going on?” Tom asked as he walked with Parker to the rec’ room. There he found Brad, Jessica, Jackson
, and Benzo sat around a bottle of wine. The new woman, Christina, was there too with Philip and Kate. They were sat further back from the group, as if purposefully keeping themselves mentally and physically distant. They all said their ‘hi’s’ and ‘hello’s’ as Tom walked in. Jessica poured some red wine into a white plastic cup taken from the water cooler. Tom sank into the sofa and drank.
“Hey
, buddy, we’ve been doing some talking and want your input,” said Brad.
Tom shrugged his shoulders. “Where’d you get the wine from?”
“Courtesy of yours truly,” said Philip raising his glass, smiling smugly.
“We have a bar on our floor. There’s plenty to go round so we thought we should share. There’s white too
, if you prefer,” said Kate. She leant forward, keen to hear more of the conversation. Philip was happy to drink the evening away, as usual, and ignoring everyone. Kate tried not to let him irritate her.
“
S’fine,” said Tom.
“So we were thinking...” began Brad again. “This car park, this tunne
l – it could be our ticket out of here, buddy.”
“
Okay?” Tom looked at Jessica who topped his cup up. She offered him a supportive smile and her brown eyes sparkled. God knows how, but she had found some makeup, washed herself and tied her hair back in a ponytail. So beautiful, Tom thought; in all this horror, she’s still so beautiful.
“Staying here was a good plan, honestly
, it was sound. I’m sure we coulda waited this thing out. But with what’s happened to Freddy, we’ve realised, well, maybe we’re not so safe after all.”