A World Reborn: The First Outbreak (23 page)

“Hurry up!” She yelled in their direction,
which forced a few of the hostages to look at her, and then see the threat
beyond. Screams of panic tore through the air. People started scrambling to get
away, as, even in the gloom, it could be seen that some of them were drenched
in blood; presumably from the former Reborn guards outside as well as from
random victims earlier. Their chorus of moaning was rising; an excited sound
from the infected as they savoured the thought of consuming more flesh in the
hope it would end their hunger. They began to hurry down the aisles, breaking
into what could be best described as a hurried shamble. Some stumbled, others
fell, only to be trampled by the ones behind. They were filing into the room
now in an uncountable number, and Melissa felt a very real shiver of fear run
down her spine. There were no more of the Reborn to distract them. There were
no other unfortunate victims left for them to consume. The ravenous dead were
coming for them and them alone.

Behind her, some of the hostages who
already had their hands free were scurrying towards the exits off the stage,
while others were frozen in fear. Melissa hurried over to the Reborn body on
the stage, yanked the knife free from his ballistic vest and scrambled towards
the group of bound hostages, slicing through their bonds as quickly as she
could.

“Once you’re free, get backstage and go
down the stairs, we’ll assemble there and make a run for the security elevator
as a group! Don’t go alone, we’re safer together!” Melissa instructed, blindly
hoping that frightened people would listen to her; a woman without any
authority but a gun. One man who was free moved behind her and picked up the gun
the Reborn had dropped. He fired it but the recoil made his subsequent shots
spray wildly into the approaching horde. None of the shots were fatal to the
approaching infected, and served only to incense them further. The closest
began to move as fast as their stiff limbs would carry them. It would be only
moments until they reached the stage.

“Hey!” Melissa yelled at the man over her
shoulder. “Headshots are the only thing that will stop them! If you can’t
manage it then just go!” She barked. The man looked at her, fear written all
over his face. He dropped the gun, seemingly unconvinced about his own shooting
skill, and fled backstage.

“Figures.” Melissa said to herself,
focusing on cutting through the last few bonds as the first of the infected
slammed into the edge of the stage, their baying so loud it almost concealed
the fire alarm. They clamoured, some seemingly confused as to how they could
possibly overcome the barrier and others trying to find a handhold to pull
themselves up. Melissa sliced through the last plastic tie and quickly sheathed
the knife in her vest. She brought the rifle back into her hands and brought it
up to aim. She killed a few who were having more success in climbing than
others were, but that only seemed to invigorate the others to learn how to
climb in their infected state. The aisle was now packed with the infected, and
for each one Melissa killed another two were climbing up over the bodies of the
fallen, gaining more purchase that way to climb onto the stage. Melissa continued
firing, hoping to kill enough to buy some time for her to get the former
hostages moving, and when she emptied the clip, she ejected it and threw it at
the horde; pulling another one out and slamming it into the weapon.

Melissa turned and ran, going through the
curtain and hurrying down the stairs. She saw the amalgamated group of people
milling about, afraid and unsure where to go.

“Come on, through this door, and then we’ll
follow the corridor down all the way to the elevator leading to the security room.
Stay calm, keep moving, and don’t go off track.” Melissa instructed her voice
steady and collected, all the while listening to the ravenous sounds coming
from the stage. When no one moved, Melissa looked for Roberto.

“Roberto! Get people moving; you know the
way I’m sure.”

Roberto nodded at her. “Come on, this way!”
He instructed, pushing to the fore and opening the doors into the utility
corridor.

Melissa stayed at the rear, ready to cover
the group in case the infected followed them. It took a couple of minutes for
the column of people to file out of the room, and in that time, the infected
had managed to get onto the stage stairs and were, as she both expected and
feared, tracking their scent. Melissa heard one coming down the stairs, and
stepped into his path. Raising her weapon, she shot him in the head, sending
him tumbling down to the floor. Behind him, now soaked in his blood, a female
infected howled and tried to get moving faster, but she lost her footing,
stumbled and fell down the stairs. Melissa moved back and took a headshot
before she could rise then she looked back up the stairs to see two, three,
then four more of the infected moving awkwardly down the stairs. She fired on
them, killing them individually and letting their bodies pile on top of the
other infected below. She began to retreat, stepping away, but when she reached
the door to the corridor, she saw that some of the infected had gone down the
other stairs on the opposite side of the stage, and were surging towards her,
growling and moaning at the sight of Melissa. She passed through the door,
slamming it shut behind her and hoping it would buy them some time, but knew it
was extremely unlikely. Roy had told her earlier that they couldn’t use door
handles, but with enough of them they could pressure the door and break it off
its hinges, and there were certainly enough of them coming from the theatre.
Melissa risked a look down at the collar and saw that the light had gone out.
She didn’t understand, it hadn’t been damaged and it had worked perfectly
earlier, but it was plainly not working now. She grabbed it and yanked it off
her neck, throwing the useless hunk of metal at the floor and grabbing the radio
from her waist.

“Roy! Roy!” She called urgently into it,
looking over her shoulder and seeing the corridor filled with survivors filing
slowly away from the advancing horde.

“Melissa? What’s happening?”

“I’ve got the hostages, we’re making our
way towards the elevator, but there’s a shit load of the infected right behind
us!” She relayed.

“Okay, I’ll send the elevator up to you so
you can get people moving straight away. How many hostages are there?”

“I don’t know, maybe thirty or forty?”
Melissa replied, hearing the first infected pounding on the door to the
corridor.

“We can only take twenty people at most in
the elevator car at a time.” Roy said solemnly.

“Great.” Melissa said dryly. The pounding
on the door was increasing, and Melissa could only imagine the weight of the
infected being exerted upon it. “We’ll be there, just make sure the elevator is
waiting for us.” Melissa told Roy, slotting the radio back on her belt and
holding the gun.

The group didn’t move as quickly as Melissa
would have liked, but they were moving. Echoing and reverberating down the bare
stone corridor was the intensifying sound of the banging and clamouring against
the door. Melissa kept pace with the survivors at the rear, desperately wishing
they would move faster as she was more than a little afraid that the doors
would give soon. She could practically hear the hinges buckling under pressure,
and then, suddenly, she heard a loud snapping sound as the doors did collapse,
revealing an uncountable, unstoppable mass of the infected who poured through
the opening. The ones in front collapsed under the weight of the crush from
behind them and were trampled as the second wave piled in. Melissa opened fire,
keeping her weapon raised and level, aiming down the sight and squeezing off headshot
after headshot. A few missed their mark, clipping the neck or shoulder, but the
majority of the shots killed an infected each time. They crumpled, finally
released from the infected torment they were in, and were squashed underneath
the weight of those behind as they too fell. But it didn’t seem to matter. For
each one dead, more were eager to take their place. The screaming, frightened
survivors grouped behind Melissa began to move more quickly, and Melissa was
grateful they had found a faster gear, as the infected had seemed to be advancing
faster than they were fleeing from them.

She continued firing, her teeth grinding
together as she focused on making the shots, hoping against hope she could buy
them enough time to get further down the corridor. She ejected the now depleted
magazine and fumbled to grab another, slamming it into the weapon and pulling
the catch to load a fresh round into the chamber. However, the infected were
getting closer, moving much faster than Melissa had seen them move before. She
looked sideways, hoping to find something to slow them down with, and her wish
was answered in the shape of a janitorial cart. It wouldn’t hold them up for
long, but it would buy a few more, precious seconds. Melissa grabbed it with
her left hand and dragged it sidelong into the corridor, making a minor
barricade.

She resumed firing on the approaching
crowd, flicking the rate of fire switch from semi-automatic to full auto, and
spraying into the approaching infected. It was a lot less accurate, but it seemed
to be slowing them down more, the stray rounds which hit their bodies pushing
them back slightly. The main concern for Melissa was that she was going to burn
through her ammunition much faster. As she emptied her second clip and began
reloading the rifle the infected hit the janitorial cart. As hoped, when the
tide of infected hit the cart it slowed them down somewhat; first having sent
it crashing over to spread its cargo of cleaning products across the floor.
Many stumbled, quite a few fell and were crushed by those coming in from
behind, which created a small bottleneck. Melissa capitalised on the advantage
this gave the group of survivors by continuing her volleys of gunfire on the
infected, killing as many as she could and being grateful to be able to slow
others down. The bodies of the dead infected, some slumped on the cart others
piled just on the other side, created an unstable footing for those clambering
over the obstruction from behind, and this alone made some fall down, breaking
into a frantic, eager crawling with their hands until the feet of those behind
stamped down on their feet and legs.

The cart had bought them a fraction more
distance and a little more time but she couldn’t tell exactly how much. Behind
her, she noticed someone bellowing something and she listened in for the first
time; although it was difficult over the excited moaning of the infected.

“We’re dead! We’re trapped in this damn
corridor!” A desperate man was informing everyone. Melissa couldn’t see who it
was, as he was about five or six people ahead of her.

“Keep moving!” Melissa instructed, yelling
over her shoulder.

“There’s a door! I’m getting out of here!
Screw you all!” He declared brusquely, and then Melissa heard gunshots. He must
have taken a pistol from one of the dead Reborn and was now using it to shoot
open the door lock. She strained to look around and see what door he was
talking about, and realized with some horror it was the staff door that led out
onto the main floor across from the Money Pit.

“No, don’t go out there! Keep moving!”
Melissa shouted, her words being lost amidst the gunfire and the panicking
screaming of the survivors near him. But Melissa’s warning was either too late
or went unheard; the door lock, weakened sufficiently after his shots, offered
no resistance as he burst the door open, only for pain filled screaming to echo
through the corridor seconds later. Having turned away to fire upon the
bottleneck of the infected to try to keep them further back, Melissa unexpectedly
bumped into the man immediately behind her when she took a step back. She discovered
when she glanced over her shoulder that the survivors near the door had come to
a complete halt. Melissa turned and shoved him forward.

“If you stop, you die! Run past it, now!”
She barked, and they slowly began to run again. Melissa fired a few more shots
at the infected behind her, who were now starting to gain ground again, and
then turned to face the fresh threat coming through the door.

The man who had opened it and a few other
survivors near him had been dragged through the doorway and bitten. He’d turned
almost immediately and was in the process of re-entering the corridor, but the
others weren’t as lucky. He lunged at Melissa as she passed him and she was
forced to dive low, while turning to fire at him. He was killed as the burst of
gunfire blew away the side of his skull. Melissa scrambled to her feet and
tried to get to the people being eaten, but more of the infected surged out and
she was forced to withdraw, leaving them to their terrible fate. Melissa slowly
retreated, concentrating on keeping a safe distance from the fresh surge of the
infected, all the while firing her weapon. At one point Melissa stopped and
opened up on them, killing as many as she could before, once again, she ran out
of ammunition. She turned and sprinted to catch up to the survivors who had
fled ahead of her.  She heard a scream and saw the group stumbling around or
running over something. Melissa realized once they were clear that a woman had
fallen down. Melissa slung the assault rifle to her side and stooped down,
grabbing the fallen woman under the elbow and dragging her to her feet. The
woman had been trampled and her head was bleeding, she also seemed unsteady on
her feet, but Melissa couldn’t help her too much longer. Once she was moving
again, Melissa was forced to release her, turn, reload the rifle and begin
firing wildly into the approaching mass of infected. One was less than a few
paces from her, with clawing hands outstretched to try to drag Melissa down.
The woman, stumbling and hobbling, wasn’t going to make it, and Melissa
couldn’t help her alone.