‘No! Shit no!’ said Kate. She thrust out a hand against the ticket machine to steady herself.
‘What the fuck is happening?’ said someone behind Kate. ‘What the fuck is happening to everyone?’
‘This can’t actually be real!’ said another.
Kate gasped – she couldn’t breathe. The woman she had witnessed being murdered slumped to the ground, her attackers going down with her to continue feeding from her twitching body. As she went still, they lost interest in her and lurched off in pursuit of their next victim.
‘Shit. Shit, what the fuck…?’ Kate pulled her bag off her shoulder, ready to root inside. ‘I’m going to call…’
She didn’t finish; the bloodied, torn woman that Kate was sure had been killed by her attackers she… well, she moved. Kate watched as the woman whose throat had just been torn out – whose flesh had been ripped from her bones – twitched. She stirred, raised her head off the tarmac and glanced about herself. The woman staggered to her feet.
How the fuck was this woman able to get up
? thought Kate.
She had to have been dead, but
…
Kate watched, mid root, her mobile forgotten, as the angry crowd, including the woman she’d just seen being torn apart, swarmed ever closer to the bus.
‘Oh my fucking God!’ yelled the woman in the white linen jacket.
‘Ssssh,’ said Kate. ‘Not so loud. I don’t think they’ve spotted us yet.’
‘But she-she should be dead,’ said Linen.
‘No shit, Sherlock,’ said Ponytail.
‘By the looks of them,’ began Balding Guy, ‘they all should be dead.’
‘What the fuck has happened to them?’ said Ponytail.
No one could answer. Kate had no words. Even if she did, she imagined they would get stuck in her throat. The crowd that staggered and crawled between the vehicles and along the path towards the bus looked like they had just emerged from a train wreck. Bloody, torn bodies, some with arms missing or faces ripped off, flesh stripped from their bones, eyes gauged out. Kate’s eyes flicked from one broken body to the next, trying to make sense out of what she was seeing, and trying to keep her breakfast in her stomach. Kate watched as a man, naked from the waist down and with his left leg eaten down to the bone, crawled on his hands and remaining knee – his useless leg trailing behind him.
Outside, commuters continued to abandon their cars to escape the madness and violence that was spreading like sneeze droplets in a lift. Anyone caught and killed would, moments later, rise to their feet and turn on anyone they could get hold of.
Kate spotted a woman trapped inside her car. She had her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms over her head, rolling herself up like a ball, while the crazed crowd slammed their fists against the windows. Soon, the writhing bodies blocked Kate’s view. She heard the sound of smashing glass followed by the woman’s screams as she was pulled out of the car’s side window. Kate saw the woman land on the tarmac, only for her struggling body to be eclipsed again as she was set upon by the frenzied mob. A young man in a suit jacket and jeans jumped from the roof of one car to the next, but he landed badly and slipped down between them. Immediately his way became blocked as the ravaged mob closed in either side.
Everywhere she looked, Kate witnessed carnage and the fight for survival.
‘We have to get off this bus,’ she said.
‘I’m not going out there.’ Kate glanced over her shoulder at a young guy in a sharp, well fitting suit.
‘We have to,’ she said to him.
‘No. No we don’t,’ said the bus driver. ‘We should sit tight and wait for help. The emergency services–’
‘No one’s coming!’ snapped Kate. ‘Do you really think anyone can help against that lot? We have to get off the bus. If we stay quiet, we might be able to sneak–’
At the sound of feet pounding down the staircase, everyone turned to see a fair-haired teenage girl, her face white with terror, clutching a pile of folders, tear from the stairs and push her way to the front of the bus. She glanced outside, hugging her folders to her chest like a small child hugs a teddy for comfort and, at the sight of a young man being torn apart by the ravaged mob, she unleashed a piercing scream.
Kate slapped her hand across the girl’s mouth, but too late; the bloody creatures that until a few moments ago had been normal, everyday people and were now violent, man-eating maniacs turned and fixed their gaze on the bus’s passengers.
‘You were saying,’ Balding Guy said to Kate, her hand still across the teenager’s mouth.
Kate watched the creatures that lumbered towards the bus. They were dead, that much was certain – their torn out throats, chests with gaping holes in them, the protruding ribs and the twisted limbs testified that much – but how could they be? How could they
be
? Blood dribbled down their chins; it dripped from their fingers, while their eyes… their eyes had hunger in them.
‘Get away from my bus, you bastards! Go on, get out of here!’
‘Fuck. Shit. I don’t think they’re gonna listen to ya, mate,’ said Ponytail.
Dead hands slammed against the front windscreen, leaving trails of blood. Determined, hungry faces, twisted with a savageness Kate had only ever seen in the nature programmes that Andrew called ‘Boring’ but she loved – on the faces of snakes or alligators before they struck their prey.
‘We have to get out of here,’ said Kate. ‘Now.’
‘She’s right,’ said Balding Guy.
‘They can’t get in,’ said the driver. ‘If we just sit tight and–’
The Dead surrounded the front of the bus. A few of the savages reached the doors and slammed their hands against the glass; their fingers probed the gap between the doors, searching for a way in.
‘We need to go now!’ said Kate.
‘They won’t get in.’
‘Do you want to test that?’ Kate snapped at the driver.
More and more of the Dead gathered outside the doors, pressing their bodies against them. Kate watched as a small gap began to open up as dead, bloody fingers began easing themselves inside.
‘Arm yourselves with whatever you can,’ began Kate as she pulled the strap of her bag over her head so that it was securely across her body. ‘We’re going out!’
Kate and the other passengers glanced about themselves but, unfortunately, other than the old lady’s umbrella – the sturdy old fashioned type with a steel point on the end – and Balding Guy’s briefcase, no one could find anything on the number 16 bus to use as an effective weapon against a mob of cannibals.
Balding Guy raised his briefcase in both hands. He swung it upwards towards the ceiling, using the corner to smash the glass encasing a hammer, meant for breaking the emergency window beneath. He reached up, his hand engulfing the small red instrument. He held up his prize. It looked inadequate and unfit for purpose but, even so, the unarmed passengers gazed at it longingly. It was better than fuck all.
Kate watched as Balding Guy passed the hammer to the girl with bleached blonde hair, her earphones around her neck.
‘Let’s just get the fuck out,’ said Kate.
‘How?’ said a teenage boy. ‘Those things are everywhere out there.’
‘There are not many at the back of us yet,’ said Linen Jacket.
Kate glanced out of the side windows. A few of the Dead staggered alongside the bus towards the rear, but nothing like the numbers crowded around the front of the bus. That way was their only option.
‘Was there anyone else upstairs with you?’ she asked the young girl with the folders.
‘No.’
‘Okay, let’s move.’
‘The emergency exit at the back of the bus… GO!’ said Balding Guy and he stood back, ushering Kate and the others past him.
Only, at that moment, the bus driver swung open the partition between him and the passengers, knocking Kate and the old lady back towards the doors that were being prised open by the Dead. Bloody fingers clawed towards the two women from the widening gap.
‘Hey!’ yelled Balding Guy as the driver shoved past him and the other passengers as he made his way to the rear of the bus.
The driver opened the emergency door in the back left hand corner, and dived outside without even a second thought for his passengers.
‘I guess buses don’t follow the same laws as ships then,’ said Kate, propelling herself and the old lady away from the doors and towards the aisle.
They stopped when they heard the bus driver scream, followed by a thud and the sound of something dragging along the tarmac. Kate darted towards a side window to see the driver on his stomach being pulled by the ankle by one of the Dead. He kicked out his free leg and dug his fingernails into the road to stop himself, but another Dead stepped in and grasped a handful of the driver’s hair. The two Dead wrestled with him for a moment before one of them lifted him off the ground by the throat and thrust him back-first against the bus where both creatures set upon him. Kate jumped back from the window.
‘Shit,’ said Ponytail. ‘We can’t go out there!’
‘What do we do now?’ cried the young girl with the folders. ‘We’re trapped.’
Adrenaline flooded through Kate’s body. She may have had very little call for violence in her life, but she wasn’t afraid to step up when she had to, even if the odds were definitely not in her favour. She recalled the time she floored the school bully, Rachel. The older girl – ten to Kate’s seven years – had blocked the entrance to the only vacant toilet cubicle with her arm, stopping Kate’s little sister from getting in. Meg jiggled around so frantically that Kate knew she would wet herself at any moment.
Even though Rachel towered over her, Kate strode up to her, kicked her in the shin and shoved her with all her might. The bully toppled onto her bum in front of the little crowd that had formed in the school toilets.
‘Don’t mess with my little sister!’ Kate had yelled down at her, trying to control her shaky voice, and had been surprised when Rachel burst into tears.
Word had spread of the incident and nobody messed with Kate or her sister for the rest of that school year.
‘We keep going,’ said Kate. ‘We’ve got no bloody choice,’ she added when the young girl stared at her with widening eyes. ‘We’ve got to keep moving, even if we have to fight our way through!’
Kate and Balding Guy shoved the other passengers ahead of them, just as the doors at the front snapped open and the Dead attempted to negotiate the step up into the bus.
‘Move it!’ screamed Kate, stuck behind the old lady.
She watched as Balding Guy took the old lady’s arm to speed her up and the group headed towards the emergency exit.
‘Go! Go!’ she yelled at the passengers who had paused at the edge. She glanced back down the aisle. The Dead hadn’t made it onto the bus yet, as the step appeared to be too high for their clumsy legs to manage. As Kate watched, one of the Dead belly-flopped onto the bus but before it could stagger to its feet, another Dead grasped it by the scruff of the neck and its hair and used it to haul itself inside. The others behind it followed suit and the Dead crawled and stepped over each other as they gained entry to the bus.
At the emergency exit, a Dead reached its ravaged arms into the bus. A teenage boy kicked at it with his sneakered foot. The creature’s head cracked to the side with the force, blood flying from its nose and it flew backwards to slam, back first, into the side of the car behind it.
‘Fucking go!’ snapped Kate.
‘I’m not going first,’ said Linen who stood near the exit. ‘You saw what happened to the driver!’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ muttered the old lady. ‘You young people!’ She tutted and elbowed the younger, stronger passengers out of the way, before using the tip of her umbrella to move Linen aside.
‘Wait!’ said Kate. ‘Let…’ But the old lady climbed down from the bus and out onto the street. ‘Shit,’ added Kate. ‘Someone go after her. She won’t last five seconds out there.’
No one moved so Kate, followed by Balding Guy, shoved through to the front. She grasped the shoulder of the teenage boy.
‘Keep the ones on the bus back while everyone gets off,’ she said to him.
‘How?’
‘I don’t know – kick them!’ and she jumped out onto the street beyond.
Outside, Kate prepared herself for the worse, but she couldn’t help a little smile of admiration when she saw the old lady down to the left, whacking one of the Dead in the face with her heavy duty umbrella. Each blow kept back what used to be a young girl of maybe fourteen or fifteen, but the dead girl was persistent and after each hit, it steadied itself and came at the old woman again.
Balding Guy darted past Kate and swung his briefcase upwards, hitting the dead girl in the jaw. Kate heard the crack of breaking bone before the impact forced the dead girl off her feet. She flew backwards, slamming into the side of a blue van. She slid to the ground, leaving a trail of dark blood on the van’s paintwork, twitched a couple of times, then lay still, her broken jaw hanging at an awkward angle. Blood oozed from her nose and ears.
Balding Guy looked startled by what he had done. Kate, too, found what she had just witnessed hard to process; she had just seen a girl killed but that girl wasn’t a girl anymore – what she was, Kate had no idea – and she would have torn the old lady to bits before coming for her and Balding Guy if she hadn’t have been stopped.
Kate glanced down at the bus driver’s body. He lay slumped against the front wheel, where he had been dragged, while one of the Dead still fed on the flesh of his torn throat. The old lady raised the umbrella and slammed it down onto the back of the Dead’s head. A chunk of the bus driver’s flesh flew from its mouth. The creature turned and snarled at the old woman and sprang towards her. Kate dived at the Dead, slamming into its chest and floored it in a rugby-style tackle. The Dead snarled and snapped its jaws at Kate while she used all her strength to pin it down. She heard the shuffle of feet on tarmac and glanced to the right to see the old lady’s sensible sandals and tan stockinged ankles come into view, hobbling towards her. Kate watched as the old lady brought the tip of the umbrella down into the Dead’s face. And again.
‘How am I doing, dear?’ said the old lady as she smashed the Dead’s nose to a pulp.
‘You’re doing just fine,’ said Kate, trying not to retch. ‘Bloody fine.’
With a strike through its left eye with the tip of the umbrella, the Dead went still. Kate released her grip on its shoulders and scrambled to her feet just as the bus driver stirred into life. Kate tried to imagine that it was Andrew laying down there. With a rush of rage, she raised a foot and brought it down into the bus driver’s face before he had chance to clamber to his feet. She grunted as she used the Cuban heel of her ankle boot to grind his head to mush.
With the bus creating a barricade on her left hand side, Kate scanned the 180 degree exposed area to her right. The Dead weaved their way between and around the tightly packed and randomly parked vehicles. The number of Dead on the street outweighed the living heavily, making the small group of survivors quite the catch.
Kate spotted a Vauxhall Antara SUV with its passenger door open. She grasped the old lady’s bony arm and guided her towards the vehicle, bundling her inside. She ducked down behind the door as five or six Dead staggered past on their way to the rear of the bus.
‘Stay here while I help the others,’ whispered Kate. ‘Oh and can I borrow that?’ she asked, pointing at the umbrella.
‘Of course, dear,’ said the old lady and she handed it over. ‘I think you’ll be needing it more than me.’
Kate grabbed the umbrella.
‘One thing…’ began the old lady, halting Kate. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I really have no idea but right now I have to go and help the others. Lie down and stay out of sight,’ she said and she shut the car door and headed back to the rear of the bus.
As she approached, Kate now spotted what had hit the back of them – a 20 ton dump truck. The driver’s head and shoulders had gone through the windscreen. Blood oozed from his head and dripped onto the truck’s white paintwork like a vein gone awol. A bloodied hand emerged from the shadows beneath the truck, then another as a Dead dragged itself underneath, the truck’s massive wheels having created a large crawl space. It was followed by another and another. Kate closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself. She blew out her breath, opened her eyes and muttered, ‘Let’s do this,’ and she turned her attention back to the bus.
Balding Guy slammed his briefcase into the heads of the Dead that had gathered around him as he stood below the emergency exit, attempting to keep the area clear while the other passengers climbed down onto the street. The girl with the folders – Screamer – had already made it out and she threw her folders one by one at the approaching Dead; the folders did nothing but bounce off their heads, barely slowing them down. Linen jumped down next and she used her large red handbag to swing at the Dead that lumbered towards her. The handbag proved effective, knocking them back, even flooring a few of them and taking the eye out of one. Kate wondered what Linen had in there – bricks?
‘Let’s go!’ Kate yelled at those already off the bus while she fought back the Dead.
Just imagine that each one of them is him
, she thought as she swung the umbrella at the creatures.
That one’s him
– WHACK! –
That one’s her
– WHACK! –
That one’s him
– WHACK! –
That one’s her
– WHACK! –
That one’s him…
‘That way!’ she said, guiding the escaped passengers towards the SUV where the old lady sheltered. ‘Get inside!’
Kate glanced back towards the bus. She saw the bleached blonde girl with the earphones emerge and jump down onto the tarmac. She stood on the street, her eyes wide and staring like a new kid in the school playground before she made any friends. She gripped the hammer in her trembling fingers. One of the Dead lunged at her. She tried to dodge it like she was trying to dodge a wasp in the park on a hot summer’s day; she screamed and ducked and dived and forgot all about the little hammer in her hand. The creature caught her by the arm. She struggled against it and tried to tug her arm free. She remembered the hammer and used it to strike the Dead in the side of the head but another one grabbed that hand and she became stuck between the two of them. Kate saw Balding Guy not far from the girl but he was busy wrestling with a man with half his face missing that had grasped the other side of his briefcase. They performed a sort of dance as BG did his best to hold the creature back while avoiding its snapping jaws.
Kate was about to head back to help the girl, but that’s when Ponytail launched herself out of the bus and belly-flopped into the dead people that surrounded her.
‘Bog off, you bloody fucking shits!’ yelled Ponytail as she used her amble body weight to flatten as many as she could. Only, there were so many and they groped at her with their stiff fingers, grabbing hold of her hair and her leggings and sweatshirt.
‘Come on!’ Kate yelled at the two women. She swung the umbrella at a couple of the Dead as they lurched dangerously close to her, Screamer and Linen as they paused beside the SUV. ‘COME ON!’
‘Coming love,’ said Ponytail, wrestling her way free of the grabbing hands. She clasped hold of the girl’s shoulders and shoved her ahead of her. More dead hands grabbed Ponytail from behind. One sank its teeth into her shoulder, causing Ponytail to stop and scream out with pain.
‘No!’ cried Kate, watching helplessly as more of the Dead pulled Ponytail back towards the bus, biting into her juicy flesh. ‘NOOOO!’