The Undead Day Twenty (39 page)

Here there is no panic. Their calmness is sublime. This is what they do. This is why they are here. For this. To do just this. Nothing else. Be as you are. Be as you were born to be and do not heed the worries of others or the small things of life that give concern for you are a warrior and this is your time.

Howie and Clarence lift rifles in the same second they realise neither of them are good enough to shoot without risk of missing and hitting their own. Dave
is
good enough. This is fact. His rifle lifts aims and commences with perfect single shots that buy Cookey and Blinky time to react. He saw the body plummeting from the window towards Charlie but he also saw Roy drawing back which told him which targets to choose.

Howie takes it all in. The noise is all around and in that blink of an eye and beat of a heart he knows there is no possible way to get everyone back to the vehicles. The numbers coming in are too many and moving too fast.

‘Dave, cover Clarence…Clarence, get Reggie to Nick and Roy…both of you,’ Howie shouts, snapping Nick and Roy’s heads over as he points at the shop behind them. ‘Get in…get up,’ he points up as he shouts the order. ‘Nick, protect Roy. Roy, overwatch. Reggie, go with them…’

Clarence runs to grab a terrified Reginald from the van and fills his arms with the bags of spare arrows taken from the sports shop. Nick smashes the window as Roy fires the bow at the infected coming close.

Howie hunkers down, dropping to a crouch to bend his body and shield the background noise from his radio. He presses the button to speak but the noise is too immense, drowning out his voice. ‘Dave…orders…’

‘Ready, Mr Howie,’ Dave says between plucking shots.

‘Tell everyone to leg it…’

‘ORDERS…TEAM WILL SCATTER…IN AN ORDERLY FASHION…’
Dave’s immense voice booms over the precinct. His words fast but clear as his mind works to track targets that he shoots down between the words.

‘Tell ‘em to stay calm…we’ll be okay.’

‘TEAM WILL REMAIN CALM…’

‘Just hide until we call them back…’

‘TEAM WILL GO TO GROUND AND WAIT ORDERS…’

‘That includes Charlie cos she’ll try and fight the lot on her own…’

‘CHARLOTTE…THAT INCLUDES YOU…SCATTER AND WAIT ORDERS…’

That’s it. That’s all there is time for. The surge is so great that Clarence just about gets Reginald through the now smashed window to Nick and Roy before the ever growing horde closes in. Dave walks backwards firing burst shots to get as many as he can as Howie slings his rifle and pulls his axe overhead as the first one charges at him. He steps away, expecting to see the infected woman go past but her reactions are fast and she turns to close in. With nothing else to do he goes forward to slam his forehead into her face. Bones crunch. Blood sprays. She drops from the impact and finds the axe coming down to cleave through her neck.

Clarence turns from the window expecting to draw his axe but the ferocity and speed of the attack is staggering. The sheer overwhelming aggression is incredible. A cluster of men and women slam bodily into him driving the big man back through the window Nick broke. The window ledge snags Clarence’s ankles making him topple backwards with mouths and nails coming in faster than he has time to react. He thrashes to fight, bunching his great fists that start whacking them aside like ragdolls. A glimpse through the bodies to Dave already with two knives drawn and spinning to fight and a flash of a view of Howie lashing out with his axe.

‘CLARENCE STAY DOWN STAY DOWN.’

Clarence stays down. He really stays down. He really stays down to avoid the bullets firing inches above him as Nick goes to the side to strafe the bodies attacking him.

‘CLEAR…’

Clarence surges to gain his feet and charge out into the fray but this time with his axe drawn and ready.

*

Blowers and Maddox glaring at each other with open hatred are caught as unawares as everyone else.

First the transmission from Heather. ‘
OUT…GET OUT…TRAP TRAP…GET OUT NOW…
’

Then the transmission from Mo. ‘
CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT.’

A blink of an eye. A beat of a heart and the windows blow out down the length of the precinct. The sight is spectacular. An entrancing visual phenomenon as the final rays of sunlight pushing through the rapidly darkening clouds catch the chunks and shards of glass that twinkle and shine as they fall down. Both of them blink. Both stunned at the noise and sight. Both rooted to the spot as hundreds of infected pour through the ground level and first floor windows. They see bodies drop to die and the simple snuffing of lives gone for nothing other than a show of power from a side only too willing to sacrifice its own hosts.

‘Fuck,’ Blowers mouths, snapping to the now and the sudden change of events that his soldiers eyes process. He goes forward intending to run back to the vehicles but already the precinct is thick with too many. He stops to scan round, desperately seeking alternatives. He knows he cannot fire into the infected for fear of hitting his own team.

Maddox has no such worries and strides past Blowers with his rifle lifting to brace in his shoulder. Blowers reacts fast, lunging while shouting at him not to fire. A single pluck of the trigger sends a round through a window with the noise lost in the bedlam of the attack.

‘What the fuck,’ Maddox shouts, jerking away.

‘Friendly fire you cunt,’ Blowers snaps, glaring back at the already packed precinct then behind to empty street at the rear. ‘Come on…’

‘You joking?’ Maddox asks in genuine shock as Blowers moves towards the precinct.

‘Now, Maddox…we’ll run through…’

‘Fuck that,’ Maddox booms, backing away while shaking his head. His eyes wide, his whole manner that of a man with a firm decision in mind.

‘We can’t leave them…’ Blowers shouts, snapping from the sight of the hordes pouring in to Maddox backing away. In just seconds the street is gone and with it the chance of reaching the vehicles. He snarls, grimaces and thinks to go anyway. His mates are there.

‘ORDERS…TEAM WILL SCATTER…IN AN ORDERLY FASHION…’

‘Bollocks,’ Blowers spits, seeing the sense of the orders.

‘TEAM WILL REMAIN CALM…’

Blowers knows that it will be Howie telling Dave what to say and that single fact eases the grip of fear in his guts. For Howie to be so calm means he knows the others are all okay.

‘TEAM WILL GO TO GROUND AND WAIT ORDERS…’

It makes sense. Everyone can starburst and work a way through later. They can regroup and come back to fight in formation.

‘CHARLOTTE…THAT INCLUDES YOU…SCATTER AND WAIT ORDERS…’

‘Come on,’ Blowers turns to tell Maddox to move and spots the lad already running away. That Dave told them to run is one thing but Maddox
already
running is still fucking annoying. He legs it after him. Running hard to sprint away from the precinct. ‘NO,’ he shouts after Maddox heading down the street they came from. There’s more shops down there and the buildings are high on both sides. To go that way is inviting to be trapped.

Maddox stops to see Blowers staring at him. The two men pause to stare at each other and the intent in Maddox’s face to use this time to disappear is clear as day. So clear in fact that Blowers’ face hardens as his rifle lifts an inch in preparation to aim and fire. Maddox glares back with an urge to tell Blowers to let him go. He even considers promising never to go near the fort again but he knows the soldier will shoot him down.

‘On you,’ Maddox says, running back towards Blowers who holds that poise for a second before moving on into the service road.

Twenty-Three

A cruel trick. The venerable gods in all their glory cast the die to rejoice with mirth at the hands played. It matters not for they are but mortals to be played with. They are but men and women who possess only the superficial qualities of sentient beings.

Yesterday they experienced goodness and what it feels like to be loved and respected and the warmth of a thing done right. They returned to the fort and ate good food in the company of good people. They slept soundly and woke without hunger gnawing in their bellies.

That was the good but as in all ways of life so the hand will be played that brings forth the suffering. And such suffering too for it gets worse.

Night comes. It comes early as the thick grey clouds blot the last remaining rays of the setting sun. Darkness pervades and creeps to steal over the once upmarket little town nestled in the countryside of southern England. It happens quickly too. Like a switch going off. One minute there was light. Now there is none.

They lose coherent thought. They lose all ability to form rational judgement to seek a resolution to the current situation but then one cannot blame them. Their worst fears pour down over them with thousands of spindly legs crawling upon their flesh while fangs sink and bite and silken sticky webs trace over their faces. If that wasn’t bad enough, so the light goes and they are plunged into darkness.

That darkness makes the sensations only worse. They fight though. They fight and scream to pull creatures with bodies that crunch in their hands and spill hot goo over their fingers. They throw them aside and feel more all over them. They batter their own legs, faces and pull their own hair out. They run and smash into high shelving units that spill goods onto the floor that trip and snag their feet. They tumble, trip and fall only to feel the horror of being on a ground covered in more spiders.

Mo cannot get to them. He is as pinned to his place as Howie, Dave and Clarence are. The press of the attack is too great. The numbers coming are too vast. He fires his pistols until both magazines click empty. He re-holsters and tugs his rifle round to keep firing and fill the darkened interior main corridor of the shopping centre with bright muzzle flashes. The bodies mount up. The blood flies and he scores kills but still they keep coming. He changes magazine as quick as a flash and goes back to firing while behind him Paula and Marcy fight something they now cannot see and cannot stop.

Paula trips to sprawl out. Banging her knees and hands as she goes down. That impact on the ground makes several drop off her and with a pulse of instinct she drops to lie flat and rolls while feeling the crunch of spider bodies under her frame.

‘ROLL MARCY…ROLL MARCY…’ she screams the words twice and intends to scream more but a spider drops into her open mouth. She gags and cries out as legs and claws scrabble over her tongue and push into her cheeks. Her brain sends the signal to bite down faster than her mind can tell it to stop. She bites and chews. She chews fast before realising what it is she is doing. Goo explodes in her mouth. The legs crunch between her teeth. Her stomach heaves, flips and surges up her windpipe to spew out over the floor. She scrabbles back screaming and puking with hot tears burning her eyes and more things dropping into her hair and down her back.

Marcy slaps and slaps. She kills, squashes and crushes with a fleeting sensation of fighting back. Panic takes over. The thought of them. The mental image of the segmented legs, the shape, the swollen abdomens and the fangs biting and nipping. She screams as Paula screams. She cannot see the way out now. It’s too dark. She runs backwards into a shelving unit and in that panic she grabs whatever her hands can find to throw. Sealed packets of toothbrushes fly across the shop. Boxes of toothpaste rain down and she gains kills as those boxes plummet to crush the smaller spiders but she may as well be pissing in the ocean for the good it does. Not that she computes that so she carries on throwing anything she can grasp. Her right foot steps down on a round can of deodorant that slides out in front of her. She goes to fall but throws herself back with a jarring impact into the shelving unit. A sudden jab of pain on her earlobe then the sensation of a thing crawling into her ear. She jabs her finger in and feels something pop and crunch. Another one scrabbles down her face. She snatches it to grip and squeeze. Another one on her other ear, more in her hair, more on her arms and she loses the last ounce of control to thrash on the spot with arms and legs flailing in an act of demented angst.

In that thrashing she kills more than since it began but still they drop. Still they come. Every house in the country has hundreds of spiders in it. Every acre of land has thousands. There are hundreds of millions of spiders and they have feasted to grow strong too from the flies that grew bloated on the corpses now littering the streets.

Mo remains the sentinel. He can hear them scream wild and terrified but he cannot move to help them. The attack coming against him is too strong. A flick of his eyes down the length of the corridor and the hordes outside the doors in the precinct tell him the others are also pinned down. He strafes a sustained burst of fire to buy a second of time in which he drops his bag and quickly opens the flap to grab the next magazine. He fires again with another burst and hears the click. His hands move fast to eject and re-load as something drops down his neck. He pays no heed but works on. Aiming and firing controlled burst shots. His ears ring from the percussive retorts in the enclosed space. His nostrils fill with the stenches made by gunfire and death. The heat closes in as fast as the infected and sweat pours down his face as something else lands on his head.

Still he shows no reaction. He saw a glimpse of spiders in the shop when he looked so figures a couple have crawled across the ceiling. Creepy crawlies do not bother Mo so he shakes his head to flick whatever it is away. Another drops. Then another. More rain down as they climb through the gaps in the ceiling tiles and crawl through the ruined doorway. He shakes and flinches, twitching at the sensation. Something runs down his left arm that holds the rifle. He flicks out sending it scooting off but keeps firing. It’s dark now but he can see the shadows coming at him and the flashes of bare skin caught in the weak illumination coming from the main doors and windows.

A twinge of pain on his neck. He slaps at it and feels the crunch as he kills the creature. Another one on his left ear. Others crawling down his right arm. More going down his shirt to writhe and bite with fangs that puncture his skin. He grunts with minute flinches and fires to the left, then ahead, then back to the left. The bodies of those he has killed already are starting to impede the new ones coming through. That’s good. It buys time. He braces and fires a whole magazine in one sustained burst as he strafes from left to right then back again. A quick drop to his bag and that movement makes the spiders burst to activity. He pulls a grenade, stands, pulls the pin and shouts. ‘GRENADE OUT…’

That’s all he has time for. To give one fair warning before he throws the bomb across the corridor into the shop where most of the infected are coming from. He drops flat, grimacing for the long seconds before the huge blast shatters more plate glass windows and sends debris flying into the corridor. The shockwave scorching through the corridor dislodges hundreds more spiders clinging to the ceiling who drop to engulf the lad as he rises. Creepy crawlies may not bother Mo but this is something else. This is a second sustained attack of things crawling up his face and biting into his flesh. He digs his torch from his pocket to bathe the area in the bright white light from the super-powered LED’s. What he sees are bodies. Lots of dead bodies shot down from his own hands and hundreds of black spiders crawling fast towards him and yet more dangling from strands of web that glint in the light of the torch. More on the ceiling that seems to writhe like something alive with a seething mass of legs and web.

Movement in the shop opposite. Something heavy crashing about and tripping to land hard. Marcy and Paula screaming behind him. His senses threatening to become overwhelmed and only the hours of drill from Dave keep his mind cold and his brain calculating.

‘GRENADE OUT…’

The second one goes into the shop. He goes flat and waits the few seconds that seem to stretch forever. The bang that comes is satisfyingly loud and accompanied by a wet splatter of what was once human form bursting apart.

On his feet. Fresh magazine into his rifle. Left pistol drawn and re-loaded. Right pistol drawn and re-loaded. He keeps the right pistol out and holds the torch with his left as he ducks to run into the shop behind him towards the screams of Paula and Marcy. His torch picks out the sheer mass of creatures plummeting from the ceiling. It looks like thousands of them. A solid broiling carpet of spiders that crawl over each other and drop down to fresh screams. Spiders on the floor too. Running frantic and pumped on the pheromones secreted.

His eyes scan to take in and assess while his own body is bitten and crawled over. A flash of a memory from a few years ago and seeing kids torturing insects in the local park. He watched mesmerised and somewhat sickened by the gleeful way the children killed and laughed but the method they used was effective. That’s how his mind works now. To seek the most effective manner to kill the enemy and negate the threat. He spins to look and spots the thing he needs. A run across the store with the torch light bouncing and Marcy thrashing wildly while trying to scoot backwards into a shelving unit. He sees Paula rolling over and over across the width of an aisle and even with the coldness of Dave within him he feels a surge of revulsion at the masses of spiders crawling over her.

He gets to the section and re-holsters his pistol then grabs the two biggest he can find. He clunks the tops against each other to dislodge the lids and sprints hard towards Paula. At the last second he drops to his knees and slides the last few feet while pressing the triggers on his new weapons.

Both hiss as they discharge their contents and the air fills with the scented aroma of hairspray. He keeps the nozzles pressed down and reaches Paula to spray down over her body and round the sides. The spiders scurry back from the onslaught and a new furious battle commences. Motion outside. Cans down. Pistols out and he surges up to his feet to fire one after the other at the fresh wave coming through.

‘Paula…use the cans…PAULA…’

She’s gone. Lost to the panic of the knowledge that her body is covered in the thick hairy legs of spiders. All she can do is protect her mouth and ears. That’s all she worries about, stopping them gaining entry to her body with twisted images in her mind that they’ll lay eggs and hatch baby spiders in her brain.

The wave of infected is killed. Mo drops, holsters and takes up his secondary weapons to re-commence the other side of the battle. The air becomes thick with spray. Choking even. He coughs and sputters as the spiders cough and sputter and run back away from the vile chemical warfare being waged against them.

‘Fuck yes,’ Mo mutters at the new idea in his head. He drops one can, digs in his pocket for his lighter and thumbs the wheel to create flame. A quick cast round. The situation is critical. Heavy armaments are needed.

He pushes the nozzle to jet the contents at the flame that ignite with a foot long arc of pure burning fire.

‘Yeah bitches,’ Mo shouts his warrior’s cry and drops to use his flamethrower, burning spiders to a crisp as he destroys their immediate environment. The bigger ones flame for a second and crawl on fire before curling up as the moisture is taken from their forms.

The effect is brilliant but not enough. The jet of flame can only be focussed in one place at one time. He grabs the other can, ignites the spray and revels in the glory of now having two flamethrowers.

He runs round Paula, burning the ground around her. She tries to roll and he shouts at her to remain still but she’s still gripped by panic. If she rolls she’ll get burnt. Mo drops on her, wedging his knees either side of her back to pin in her place while flexing round to send his jets of flame at the spiders. He aims up to kill the ones overhead. Hundreds drop instantly but they fall dead and crispy.

Movement outside again. Cans down and as he lifts his thumbs from the nozzles so the flames end and plunge the room back into a near pitch darkness. Torch in mouth. Pistols drawn and he rises to fire over the shelving and cuts down the infected charging in.

It’s the combination of the sensation of Mo’ voice, the light and heat of the flamethrowers and the booming retorts of the pistols that finally break through Marcy’s mind. Like someone surging from freezing cold water she gasps and opens her eyes to see Mo firing and the air filled with the stench of hairspray. Hairspray? Why hairspray? A whole series of connections are made within the fluidity of the human thought process and as she reaches the conclusion so Mo ceases fire, drops and ignites one of the cans then takes up the other to ignite from the first and thus re-create his dual flamethrowers to recommence his genocide of the fuckers trying to eat his Paula.

She’s in. Marcy is so in. She tries to surge up but trips and falls back down so instead goes for an ungainly half crabbing crawling motion as she uses the light from the flames to find the shelves filled with hairspray. She takes two and screams while shaking her head to rid the big one hanging off her nose and smashes the back of her hand into her face hard to kill the spider but also knocks herself staggering back. Blood streams from her nose as the Gods laugh at the new extra layer of misery she suffers.

‘ME,’ she says that one word to Mo and in that one word he sees she is armed and ready. She will hold the line and wield her flamethrowers with guts and courage. He ignites her cans and the darkness is pushed back another few inches. They go to work and four beats two any day of the week. Four jets of flame cause carnage to the enemy. They scorch the ground and the air and Marcy revels in the slaughter. She stamps and roars in defiance then starts coughing from breathing air now so thick with chemicals. Blood sprays from her mouth that had poured down from her bloody nose. She steps back while coughing and kicks Paula in the head.