Unfed (9 page)

I bang the drawer shut.

“Everyone good to go?” Russ says.

“You bet.” I stand up and make for the door.

“Pete? Alice?” Russ calls.

A garbled noise fills the air, as if in reply.

Alice screams, “They’re here!”

“No,” I say. “That was inside this room.”

“An intercom?” Pete looks up hopefully. But I don’t think he’s right.

We hear the noise again — a longer, muffled babble this time.

There’s no escaping where it’s coming from.

“It’s in one of the dead lockers.” Pete points to the far wall. As one, we all take a step backward.

“Is it … talking to us?” Alice whispers.

“Don’t freak …” I start to say. I know how this goes. One runs, and all run. We can’t afford to let that happen.

“They’re locked,” Russ says. “We’re OK.” He puts a hand on Alice’s arm. “Anything in there can’t get out.”

The noise comes again, and we all jump.

“Which locker?” Russ makes to move.

“No!” Alice squeaks. The noise squeaks back.

I walk carefully toward the lockers. “There,” I whisper, pointing to the central locker a third of the way along the wall. “That one, I think. Or maybe the one below.”

“Don’t get too close!” Alice begs.

But something’s not right. They don’t usually make that kind of noise. Groaning, moaning, even a roar — totally standard. There’s a retching thing that seems to be quite popular. And then there’s this odd watery rattle that I’ve heard a couple of the more festering ones do. But not this. This is definitely new in the zombie vocal repertoire.

The babble comes again.

“It’s a walkie.”

“You what?” Alice sneers at me.

I look at them all. “Come closer, you’ll hear. It’s a walkie-talkie.” The warbling sounds off again, briefly. “There.” I tap the locker lightly with a finger. “In that one. Can’t you hear them?”

Russ steps up. The others need more convincing.

“More than one voice,” I say to them. “I think it’s tapped into the soldiers’ conversations!”

Russ puts his face next to the locker I’m pointing to. The voices happen again, and he almost flinches but stays put. The boy has guts, I’ll give him that.

“She’s right,” he announces to the others, a broad smile on his face. “We might have just lucked out.” He sticks out a hand to grab the handle on the door.

“Wait!” Alice squeals. “What if it’s a zombie with a radio?”

“Could be.” Russ looks at me.

“Heck. Do it anyway,” I reply.

He nods. We stand ready with our medical implements. Russ takes a breath, pulls the handle.

There’s a
clunk
.

The door swings open in his hand.

A shelf. Empty.

The walkie-talkie goes off again.

“Confirm new position, Alpha Team. Over.”

The words echo in the locker, and we shrink back at the loudness. But there’s no body, no zom inside. Russ moves around and pulls the shelf right out. It slides easily, as if on ball bearings. The walkie-talkie is about halfway along, with a single smear of red by it, as if it was placed there by a bloodied hand.

“Hey!” Pete pulls something floppy from a small cardboard box and throws it at me. I catch. “Rubber gloves!”

“Nice.” I put a pair on and give the box to Russ. I reach in for the walkie, and pick it up gingerly. Then the voice comes again, and I nearly drop it.

“Black Fox, we’re currently on four, east wing, headed north. Over.”

It
is
the soldiers.

“They’re on four.” Pete’s face blanches. “That’s us. We’re on four.”

We are all crowded around the walkie now.

“You said this was the last place they’d check.” Alice looks stricken.

“Alpha Team, this is Delta Leader. We have hostiles on eight. Civilians and crazies. Backup requested ASAP. Over.”

“Oh my god.” Alice’s eyebrows shoot up. “They’re totally doing army speak. This is, like, so
war
.”

“Better believe it.” Pete savors the grimness.

“Affirmative, Delta. This is Alpha confirming imminent backup. Finishing our sweep. We’ll come and save your sorry arses. Over.”

“Trying to miss all the fun, Alpha? Over.”

“Save some for me. We have the north corridor and the morgue to check for the juniors, then that’s an all clear for four. We’ll be up in a jiffy, over.”

“The morgue!” Alice gasps.

“Juniors. No prizes for guessing that’s us.” I toss the walkie to Pete and rush toward the coatroom. I turn round desperately. Russ is there. “Is there anything we can use to barricade?”

“We should go. Now!” Alice has joined us, with Pete behind her.

“There’s no time.” I grab a metal chair and try to wedge it against the door. Pathetic. “They’re right out there, in the corridor.” I see a walking stick hanging on a hook, and try to use it to shore up the chair. Useless. “God, Pete. It’s around about now that I really wish you carried a welding kit on you.”

“I absolutely could weld that door.” He has my attention. “If I
did
have my kit, I mean.”

“Wait.” Russ grabs the chair and starts pulling it away. “If they try to get in and can’t, they’ll know we’re here.”

“Oh, you’re right,” I say. “Let’s just leave the door wide open like we found it, huh? That way they’ll totally think we’re not actually here.”

“Snarky.” He gives me a smile, which I don’t deserve. “No, what I mean is, we should hide.”

“Where?” Alice is all for that idea.

“Come on.” Russ scatters the barricade, and before I can object, he runs back into the main room, and we follow him.

“Oh dear.” Pete looks like he knows where this is going, but it takes me another beat to catch up.

“Where?” Alice is ever more frantic, and she hasn’t realized. “Show me now!”

Russ strides up to the first dead locker, bends down, and pulls the door open. He smiles encouragingly at Alice.

“Ladies first.”

“You. Are. Shitting. Me.”

Alice’s eyes practically ping out onto the tiled floor.

“There is no way on this freaking earth I am getting in there,” she says.

“Alpha Team, have you finished your sweep?”
The walkie in Pete’s hand comes to life again.
“We have heavy resistance on eight, live and dead hostiles. Requesting backup a second time.”

“Negative, Delta,”
the second voice barks back.
“Just the morgue, then we’ll be with you.”

“Sod it.” Pete opens up the locker next door and leaps back as if he expects something to jump out at him. “Do you think it’s clean enough?”

“Just don’t go licking it and you’ll be fine,” Russ says.

Pete gingerly climbs in. “It’s really cold in here!” His voice echoes. “And there’s no lock on the inside. How do we get out?”

“I’ll let you out,” Russ says. Pete makes a slight whimpering sound. I don’t blame him. “Now mind your feet, I’m shutting your door.” Russ slams him in.

“I am not going in there,” Alice says.

“Hurry!” I shout at her. “Pick one!”

“No way.”

“Yes way!”

She pouts at me. “They’re not going to shoot me, are they? I’m too pretty to die, and people do what I say.”

“Alice!” I grab her shoulders. “If you don’t, you
will
die. Get it?
Très, très
for certain.
Au revoir
, Alice with a bullet in her head,
comprendez-vous
?”

She nods, and a tear runs down her cheek.

“You’ll be fine.” I randomly pull her toward me and kiss her on the forehead. She gives me such a look of surprise that I take advantage of how weirded out we both are by the moment and push her down into a locker that Russ has opened.

“Promise me you’ll let me out?” She looks up at me with big, pitiful, damp eyes.

“I swear it.” I make it sound just ambiguous enough to put the fears on her. I can’t help it. I’ve got to get my kicks somehow. “See you on the other side.” I blow her another kiss and slam the door.

“Now you.” Russ is beckoning me into another door.

“Wait!” I say. “What about you? How will you shut the door on your own locker?”

“I won’t.” He makes a face. “I’m going to have to hold it open a crack and hope they don’t notice.”

I nod hurriedly and climb into my locker, wriggling so that my bare legs go down the far end and my face is by the door.
Ow
. My skin stings where it touches the ice-cold slab: Alice’s skirt offers little protection, other than to my modesty.

“Just hold on tight, because if you get locked in it’s curtains for the rest of us.”

He nods back, and just as he’s about to shut me in, there’s the noise of a door being flung open. They’re here.

“Get in!” I reach up to grab him, and he dives into the locker with me, his head to my feet, our bodies squashed together, him half on top of me, so I can hardly breathe. As he draws his feet in, the door swings toward me, and I just catch it in time before it shuts, the lock just resting on the latch, edging to go in, weighted to close. I hold it back with my outstretched fingertips, closing it as far as I dare without letting it go all the way.
Please, please let them not notice one door is not exactly shut
.

I listen for the approaching steps. Nothing yet; maybe they’ve changed their minds?

It’s dark in here, and my bare legs are threatening to stick fast to the freezing metal of the slab I’m lying on, but it’s funny how the adrenaline will make you not care about stuff like that. Top to tail beside me, Russ shifts slightly, trying to squash me less. It’s kind of awkward how we have to lie like this, his body warm against mine. It makes being in here a whole lot less scary, gotta admit it. I only hope I don’t drop an air biscuit. That would probably be worse than the soldiers finding us.

Then I hear some clattering. The soldiers are there, presumably moving gurneys, looking under body bags and in cupboards. Suddenly it strikes me how totally stupid we were to think we could hide from them in here. They’re soldiers, after all — not nervous kids. They’re going to check the lockers, because they’re ruthless and they’re thorough and they have big guns to shoot. My fingers tremble as I keep them stretched to the max, stopping the door from shutting, closing it to the tiniest crack that I dare.

“This place gives me the creeps.” A thin, nasally voice rings out. One of the soldiers; I guess he’s only human after all. Although not with so much humanity that he minds the idea of shooting kids in cold blood.

“Soft arse. Clear the room.” A second voice, deeper. The one from the walkie, I think.

More sounds of banging and crashing. I guess you don’t need to care about the element of surprise if you have firepower.

“They’re not going to be here, are they? This is where the crazies were.”

“Just get on with it.”

“Poor little bastards,” the original voice sneers. “Just a question of who finds ’em first, us or the crazies. Not like they got anywhere to run.”

“Got to clear this room or the boss will be down our necks …”

“He’s no boss of mine, he doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. The company’s so screwed they’re putting bloody grunts in charge of us these days. This room’s full of crap anyway. Nothing much worth taking.” There’s a sound of the soldier rifling through something. “Where you hiding, pills ’n’ thrills? Daddy wants some Oxy.”

“It’s a morgue, not a pharmacy, moron. Anyway, those tranqs we picked up on five not good enough for you?”

“Gotta save for me pension, don’t I? This gig’s going tits up, you’ll see.”

I slow my breathing.
The company?
It’s got to be Xanthro. My fingers ache horribly, outstretched, the tips numb. And that’s vomit I can taste in my mouth. Never mind passing gas, if this door is suddenly opened, I can’t be responsible for losing all stomach and bowel control and going for complete evacuation. I hope Russ is ready for it.

“Hey! What are you doing here?”

A new voice. Rough, rasping. I strain to hear, wishing I could see.

“Clearing this floor,
sir
. Like we was ordered.”

“You were ordered, and ordered to do it quickly. And remember, if you catch them, your orders are not to kill. Capture them alive.”

Did I hear right?
Hope leaps into my heart. The rasping voice continues.

“Screw that part up and I’ll make sure you end up in the pen with the crazies at feeding time, you savvy? I’ll watch the corridor. Get moving.”

There is the sound of boots on tile.

“Wanker,” the whining guy says. “If them kids look like they’re changing I’ll put a bullet in their heads, no question. He can complain to the powers that be all he wants.” He makes a frustrated noise and peels off a string of swears. “Give a civvy a firearm and he thinks he’s God.”

That hope that was leaping into my heart? It kinda missed.

“Or better still,” the other voice says, “we find ’em and sell ’em to the highest bidder. Whichever side wants them more. There’s your pension, mate.”

“Alpha Team, this is Delta. We are surrounded and nearly out of fire! Requesting immediate backup.”

It’s one of the soldiers’ walkies. Shit. I really hope that Pete remembered to turn the volume down on his walkie. Otherwise they’re gonna be hearing that in stereo, and it’ll be curtains … But I think he did. And I may have to kiss him, too, if we survive this.

“Oh, Jesus. Wot are Delta like?” the first guy says. “Can’t even execute a simple clearance? Not like them crazies are carrying warheads. Let’s go.”

Yes, go on, go. I hear the boots on the tile, then they stop.

“Oi! We never checked them.”

“What?”

“The freezer things.”

Oh god oh god oh god … I feel a hand squeeze my ankle, and I nearly shriek in fright. It’s Russ. He can clearly hear the soldiers, too.

“Come off it? Bunch of kids going to crawl in there? You’re off yer rocker, son!”

Boots back, regardless. There’s a
clunk
, then a
slam
, somewhere up to my right. Then another
clunk
, another
slam
. And then another. The guy is working his way along the lockers, one by one. I’m consumed by the desire to cover my face with my hands, like a child who thinks she’s hidden if she can’t see. But I can’t, of course, because my hands are what are keeping this door from shutting. Not that it will matter in a few second’s time.
Clunk, slam
.
Clunk, slam
. Thirty lockers. And as luck would have it, the soldier started at the opposite end from us.

“Speed it up, dickhead!”

“Stop calling me that. And give us a hand.”

No, don’t
. But then again, maybe it’s better to get this inevitability over with sooner rather than later. Rip the Band-Aid off quickly. Will being shot hurt? They’re professionals, they won’t mess about. They’ll go for the head, the quick kill. I’ll probably never know what hit me.

Clunk, slam
.

That’s much closer. He’s starting low, too. He’ll find us in seconds. Any last thoughts? I feel a kind of dizzy haze move across me, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath.

I hope they do me first; it would be too much to watch the others go before me. The anticipation is far worse than the actual bullet. The knowing you are going to die. Then again, maybe I hope they find Alice before the rest of us. She is very pretty. Maybe she can talk them round. If she saves us now, I’ll never, ever say a bad word to her again, I swear.

Clunk, slam
.

Clunk, slam
.

That was right next door. It’s us next. I brace myself.

Clunk, slam
. No, he’s working his way top to bottom!
Gah!
Why am I celebrating? It’s only a few more seconds, either way. My stomach cramps. I don’t think I’m going to cry … this is way beyond crying.

Clunk, slam
. The locker above. We’re definitely next. As he grabs the handle, I retract my fingers and push myself back into the locker as far as I can, and Russ, instinctively knowing what I’m doing, draws his legs up as far as he can. Anything for a last few seconds of being out of reach, a last few seconds of life.

The door opens.

“Alpha! Black Fox! Code Indigo! Code Indigo!”

I can see black-trousered legs, black boots. A memory sparks: the bus crash. Maybe this is the last thing I’ll ever see. But the soldier hasn’t bent down to look in here yet. Hasn’t seen us.

“Alpha! Man down! It’s Johnson — bitten. Oh god, we’ve got a gusher …”

“Shit, Johnson’s down?” The boots turn round.

“Let’s go!”

The boots are running, running — away from our locker, out of here.

And I can’t help myself: As they disappear I pull myself forward to watch the man who would have killed me run out of the room. I have to check, I have to know. If he were to stop and turn around, he’d see me — but he doesn’t. I see his back disappearing out of the doorway. He’s all in black, the only dot of color being a small yellow insignia at the back of the collar of his jacket.

Xanthro
. This is all Xanthro. Like we needed confirmation.

“Have they … ?” Russ whispers.

I don’t answer immediately. I hardly dare. This might just be all an elaborate act to get us to come out, mightn’t it? But the doorway stays
clear. Could they have forgotten something they might have to come back for? The thought chills me. No, just get out of the damn locker.

“I think so,” I whisper back. But still I don’t move, and Russ doesn’t push it, either.

In the end, the cold decides for me. I realize my teeth are chattering. It might be from being half scared to death, but I think I’m gonna blame the refrigeration.

“Getting out.” I can barely form the words, my teeth are going so much. I reach my arms out onto the floor and haul myself out on the tile awkwardly, like a baby learning to crawl. It’s only when I’m on the floor and the tile actually feels warm against my bare legs that I realize how totally frigid the locker was. And it’s my whole body that’s shaking, not just my teeth.

Russ arrives on the floor beside me; he’s not in much better shape.

“Quick …” he chatters. “Have … to get … others out.”

No kidding. I get myself up onto my feet with some difficulty, and grasp the handle of Pete’s locker. I pull it open, with enormous effort.

The locker is empty.

At first I think my eyes are deceiving me, but I blink and, no, the locker is still bare. I squat down and look down into it. Was there some escape door we missed at the other end of the locker? Maybe all this time Pete and Alice are in some secret room, toasty and sitting round drinking hot tea and having a laugh?

“This,” Russ is saying, pointing to the locker next door. “This one.” He pulls on the handle, and there’s Pete staring up at me. In my cold confusion, I’d simply got muddled.

I stagger over to the next one and haul open Alice’s door. As I do she starts to squeal, and I think she thinks we’re the soldiers who have
found her, but as I bend down to reassure her she sits up and hugs me, sobbing.