Last Hope, Book One: Onslaught (21 page)

“What’s happening?” Carl sobbed. He’d fallen to his knees and wrapped his big hands around one of De’s. “What’s happening to her?”

Nestled in the doctor’s lap, De let out a long, limp cough that spluttered to a halt. Blood trickled from her open mouth, running onto the doctor’s pants. After using his clean hand to feel for a pulse, first trying her neck and then one of her wrists, Reginald looked up at Carl. There was a dejected expression upon his face. “I’m sorry,” was all he said before Carl pushed him aside and lay cheek to cheek with his girlfriend.

Conscious of such a display of heartbreak, the group edged away. Budd found that Juliette’s hand was now tucked within his own.

Tears filled her eyes.

“There was nothing anyone could do,” he said and she nodded. As she did, her face appeared to lighten, her tanned skin highlighted by a greater brightness. All around the large restaurant, the level of illumination increased. Juliette raised her head and looked to the glass ceiling.

Budd did the same.

The thickness of the clouds had reduced dramatically, and now only resembled the heavy fog of a winter’s morning. Other members of the group were looking skyward, reacting to the sudden change.

“It’s lifting,” Andy said, earning grunts of agreement from Sam and Chris, the latter of who was lighting a cigarette with a match.

It wasn’t exactly time to grab the suntan lotion and hit the beach; the cloud was still as thick as I’d seen it at almost any point in my life, but in comparison to what it’d been the previous day, things were definitely on the up…

Frank came dashing in from the kitchen, but when he saw the doctor had moved away from De and was standing with his head hung despondently between his shoulders, the young man slowed to a walk. He carried over the collection of items he’d brought from the offices and laid them on the table beside the forgotten trays of food.

Carl gasped in fright, breaking the silence. He sat up, distancing himself from De’s body. “She’s alive,” he said.

“No,” the doctor replied.

“She’s alive,” Carl repeated. “Her eyes moved.”

Er, hello?

People, let’s focus here for a minute, shall we?

Remember the zombies? Good…

At the back of the group, Budd swallowed hard. He watched as Andy, Frank and Sam shifted their weight apprehensively. The young Californian walked to the kitchen.

“She isn’t alive, Carl,” Reginald said. He placed a hand on the big man’s shoulder. “Please, you must move away from her.”

Carl looked up at the doctor. “What are you saying? She’s not one of those things. She’s not.”

Beneath his body, one of De’s legs twitched. The big man moaned with emotional pain. “No, no,” he cried, tears streaming from his eyes. “This can’t be.”

“Please, Carl, come with me,” Reginald said. Tears glistened behind his glasses. His wife was at his side, her own sad face appealing to Carl.

Sam appeared from the kitchen, carrying one of the big fire-axes. Carl saw it, saw Sam coming towards him and then shook his head. He thumped the floor at his side. “No,” he shouted.

Sam stopped.

“Not like this,” Carl continued. “All of you, get out.”

“Please, Carl, you know what we have to do.”

“Get out!” the big man spat, saliva spraying from his mouth and forming strands between his teeth. “I want all of you out.”

Andy accepted Carl’s words and gestured for the doctor and his wife, as well as everybody else, to gravitate towards the kitchen doors. When they reached Sam, midway from the table to the kitchen, Andy gestured for him to leave the axe.

The Californian laid it on the floor.

“Get the fuck out!”

Steadily, the group passed through the swing-doors. Not a word was uttered.

Budd was one of the last to leave. His final image was of Carl bent over, embracing De and sobbing. He was glad to be in the kitchen when the door finally swung shut.

Juliette sunk her head into Budd’s chest and wept. He held her as best he could, pulling her close. The tears soaked through to his skin. When she regained her composure, she pulled away and wiped her eyes.

Before Budd could say anything of comfort, Andy approached them, his face a mixture of sadness and anxiety. “T’doctor said he thinks it was probably t’bites. He thinks it’s an infection.”

Budd nodded, listening.

“If it is, then Carl will go t’same way. We’ll just have to wait an’ see.”

“Alrighty.”

The thought of not having the giant, axe-swinging machine in the future was not one I was overly happy with. The thought of perhaps having to fight him was even less appealing.

He’d make one huge zombie…

“Anyway, as soon we’ve got t’girl’s body in t’cloakroom an’ have re-established t’barricade, I think some of us should head up to t’roof.”

From the restaurant came a loud, wet thud.

Carl bellowed in despair.

Andy closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll go an’ give him a hand.”

When Andy, Frank, Sam and Budd did venture into the restaurant they found that Carl wanted no help with his task. He’d dragged De’s body over to the double doors and hidden it from view beneath one of the red blankets. The material was pulled up over her head so that her feet poked out from the bottom. Carl was already using the blade of his axe to lever the tabletops from the doorframe, and he barked at the others to leave him alone. The only aid he accepted was Andy’s nail-pliers.

Seeing that he was undesired, Budd walked to the other side of the restaurant, away from where Carl labored, and stood looking out of the room’s glass wall.

Sam came and stood alongside him. “There’s not a lot to see, dude.”

Budd grimaced: the young Californian was right.

Although the cloud had thinned, there was little to see other than the odd vague outline through the haze, a few peaks of buildings that may have only been figments of his imagination. He wasn’t familiar enough with the London skyline to be sure.

Another set of footsteps arrived at the window. Budd turned to see Frank. Slowly, a smile spread over the hotel-worker’s face. “That’s lifted enough.”

“Enough for what?” Budd asked.

“When they pulled down the Dome, they redeveloped the whole area; there’re three more skyscrapers, a bit shorter than this, close by. The New Millennium Hotel stands nearest to the riverbank; these windows give great views across the Thames to the west, north and east, but the kitchen and the office,” Frank explained, pointing back across the restaurant to its sole opaque wall, “obscure everything to the south. But from the roof, with the cloud so much lighter, we’ll be able to see what’s happening behind us.”

“Well, that should be interesting.”

Roll up, ladies and gentleman, for skyscraper watching. The world’s newest extreme sport…

The sound of timber splitting filled the restaurant. Budd glanced over to Carl and saw that he’d removed most of the barricade. Sam watched for a few moments as well, and then knocked Budd’s arm, regaining his attention. The Californian leant in close. “Like, do you think we can get infected from the bites?” he asked.

“What am I? A biologist?”

“We should deal with this now,” Frank said, tapping the fingers of his good hand against his leg. “Before it’s too late.”

The guy was probably right, but I didn’t wanna get involved.

We didn’t know for sure that it was the bite that had caused De to change, but already I could see that Frank was advocating a witch-hunt for anyone bitten. I wondered how many of the others were thinking the same. The zombies on the outside were scary, but the thought of being locked inside with the Infection Gestapo wasn’t much nicer…

“Well, fellas, he still looks pretty strong to me. A bit pale, sure, but I doubt any of us look our best.”

“Maybe you’re right, dude.”

Frank remained silent.

“Anyway, I’ll see you in a bit. If you do decide to take him on just let me know. I’ll try and find some straws to feed you both through,” Budd said as he walked away.

Sam whispered something to Frank, too quiet to be overheard.

Searching for Juliette, Budd went back to the kitchen and then the offices. He heard her talking; the sound of her unmistakable accent coming from the left, down the corridor that led to the staff room toilets. He found her sitting on one of the chairs that ringed the outside of the room.

Chris was sitting next to her and he grinned when he saw Budd approaching. He raised his hand to his mouth and drew deeply on a cigarette.

Juliette, too, had a cigarette in her hand.

“That’s bad for your health, sweetheart.”

She offered him a thin smile. “I do not think we need to worry about our health,
Monsieur
Ashby.”

“That’s what my ex-wife, Sarah, used to say,” Budd said as he occupied the seat beside her. “And now she’s dead.”

Juliette’s face flashed with guilt. “Your wife died of lung cancer?”

“She was my ex-wife by then. I’d given her a choice, her smokes or me,” Budd said, shaking his head. “She chose her smokes. Anyway, from what I heard, she’d just finished making out with some young, pony-tailed, muscle-bound stud-muffin when she lit up her usual post-nookie ciggie. The two of them fell asleep and she burnt down her apartment building. I always said smoking would be the death of her.”

“You’re full of shit,” Chris said.

Budd removed his Stetson, being careful not to disturb his bandage. He placed the hat on his lap and ran his hand through his hair, sweeping it back. “You know what, buddy? I really don’t give a rat’s ass what you think, so do me a favor and shut your cake-hole.”

“Screw you.”

Budd ignored the comment and put his hat back on his head. “Anyway, sweetie, I didn’t know you smoked.”

Juliette took a final drag on her cigarette and then stubbed it out into a porcelain saucer that was being used as an ashtray. “I started very young, but when I became a professional singer I stopped. My voice was too important for me to risk. Now it does not matter.”

Budd touched Juliette’s chin, softly raising her head so she was looking into his eyes and not at the floor. “Don’t give up hope.”

A small smile formed on her lips, but there were tears on her cheeks. “It is so hard,
Monsieur
Ashby.”

The door from the kitchen opened and Budd turned to see Sam and Frank coming down the corridor. The Californian had the nail-pliers. Before the pair arrived, Budd turned back to Juliette and winked. “Don’t worry,” he said, “this is just my nightmare, remember?”

“You two,” Frank said, pointing his one good hand towards Budd and Chris, “can you help us to shift this barricade? Andy thinks we should send a party to the roof.”

The two men nodded at the request, rising from their seats. Juliette stood as well, adjusting her tight leather bikers’ jacket. “I can help, too,” she said.

“Thanks,” Sam replied, tucking the pliers into his jeans as he squared up to the first of the filing cabinets. When Juliette bent over to lift, Budd caught the Californian examining her slim, petite figure.

Till then, I hadn’t really thought ’bout the whole man-to-woman ratio of our merry band of apocalyptic survivors. But it was definitely something with the potential to cause problems.

Especially for me.

Let’s face it; the doctor’s wife was now Juliette’s only other female companion, which was somewhat akin to leaving a Porsche and North Korea’s favorite national car unlocked in a showroom.

There was no doubt which one would be taken for an unauthorized test drive…

To break Sam’s line of vision, Budd stepped in between them, standing so close to Juliette that their knees knocked as they heaved the cabinet onto its wheels and rolled it away from the doors.

Swiftly, working under Frank’s supervision, the four of them moved the three cabinets out of the way and then Sam used the nail-pliers to take down the tabletops, stacking them in the corner of the room. The commotion attracted the doctor and his wife, as well as Father McGee, who sat in the corner of the staff room and sipped from his flask’s lid.

Andy arrived next, and immediately pitched in with the task.

The last to arrive was Carl. He entered the room alone and solicited sad looks from around the group. Not a word was said to him. He walked to the corner of the room, his axe clasped in his hands. The bandaged stump of his bitten finger was clear to see against the shaft.

All around the room, I could see people throwing suspicious looks at Carl, glancing at him when they thought he wouldn’t notice. They eyed what was left of his missing pinky, and his paler complexion, but no one dared to challenge him.