“Shit,” Tommy whispered, dejectedly.
They could hear the sounds of hundreds of pairs of shuffling feet, scraping over the tarmac floor while the moans filled the level to the point that the noise caused the metal of the van’s frames to vibrate, and filling the interior with a foreboding hum. The sound was growing rapidly in volume as more and more of the infected spilled in through the door.
The two men hunkered down behind the front seats, still searching for a way to seal the door while the dead advanced through the parking level. Al, seeing no other option, pushed his bare and unprotected hand through the gap of the passenger seat and the door and reached out. He grabbed the frame with the tip of his fingers and pulled the door closed, holding onto it in order to keep it from falling open again. His soft, fleshy fingers remained outside, protruding through the hole in the locking mechanism.
He turned and stared at Tommy. Both their eyes were bulging with terror and locked on one another, unblinking as the sound of the infected drew nearer.
By now there must have been thousands of them surging through the parking bays, making their way along the lines of ruined cars. Loud clunks and thuds sounded an irregular drumbeat as bodies crashed into the other vehicles. Windows cracked, and bony, clawed hands scraped against the flaking paintwork as they searched for the living. Thousands of voices groaned and cried out, magnified by the acoustics of the recesses in the ceiling.
Inside the van, Al and Tommy cringed, not daring to make a sound or even breathe. They could clearly hear and feel the dead, and now they could smell them. Their stench was growing stronger, as was the hiss of the insects that swarmed around them. Before long, the windscreen of the van was coated in a blanket of flies acting as the vanguard for the arrival of the infected horde.
Tommy arched his neck and saw the dark and shifting shadows of the dead flitting across the murky windows at the front of the van. There was very little light filtering through and into the parking level now due to the amount of bodies that filled the building. He quickly withdrew and ducked his head back down behind the seats.
“They’re wall-to-wall out there.”
Al nodded and gritted his teeth, blinking against the streams of sweat that were trickling into his eyes. He hissed and tightened his grip on the door, hoping that his pink, fleshy fingertips would go unnoticed from the outside. There was nothing that either of them could do now except wait and pray.
Something slammed into the exterior of the van, causing it to rock violently. Al shifted his position, riding the motion of the vehicle as another body collided with them while doing all that he could to prevent his grip on the door from loosening. It was their only barrier between the land of the living and the realm of the dead, and he was determined to cling on to it until his last breath.
There were more thuds, and before long the van was swaying like a flimsy boat on a choppy sea as dozens of reanimated corpses bumped into the van’s sides. Withered hands and skeletal faces battered at the weakened framework, the scrape of bone on metal causing the men inside to wince and squirm. The hunger laden moans filled the interior, haunting and deafening, as the whites of the eyes of Al and Tommy shined wildly in the blackness.
“They know we’re here,” Tommy hissed, his voice filled with panic.
“No, they don’t.”
“They fucking do. They know we’re in here, Al.”
“Take it easy. They’re just doing their thing. They don’t know we’re here, and they’re just bouncing from one vehicle to the next. Stay calm.”
Al hoped that he was right. He had witnessed the dead do the same thing on numerous occasions when hunting the living. They would leave no stone unturned, but as long as the hunted remained out of sight and in a secure place, there was always the chance that the herd may lose interest and move on. It was now a test of will and nerves. They needed to remain calm, quiet, and still, riding out the storm and hoping that they would not be detected.
Something brushed against Al’s fingers as they remained protruding from the door. He instantly moved to retract them, but quickly fought the urge. If he pulled his hand away there would be nothing holding the door shut, and they would soon be discovered. He grimaced as he felt it again sliding over the warm flesh of his fingertips. It was cold and mushy, the same texture as weeks old chicken skin that had been left out in the open. He raised his head and looked up at the passenger window. Beyond the filthy glass he saw the silhouette of a man. Suddenly, its face was thrust up against the door, its skull like features becoming much clearer beyond the opaque window as it peered into the front compartment. Al ducked his head and turned away, spitting to the side with disgust and pulling a face as he realised that his fingers were inside the man’s abdomen.
The corpse continued to push itself up against the door, its body becoming flush with the frame while its face pressed against the glass. From between its teeth its fetid tongue slithered out and slid across the window, leaving a disease filled smear in its wake.
“Just sit tight,” Al whispered, hoping to reassure his friend. “We’ll wait it out. They don’t know we’re here, and they can’t get in.”
Tommy stared back at him and nodded.
For over an hour they remained sitting in the darkness while thousands of infected bodies clawed and groaned at the vehicle as they drifted through the parking bays. It was hard to tell whether the noise from the excited crowd had somewhat dissipated or if it was just that Al and Tommy had become used to it. Either way, the haunting voices of the dead were no longer causing their ears to throb and their spines to tingle. The initial frenzy seemed to have simmered.
The pair of them crouched motionless, staring at one another and gripping their weapons in their sweating palms as all manner of rancid filth coated Al’s fingers. He desperately wanted to change his grip so that his fingers were less exposed, but he did not dare to risk any movement. There was a sea of bodies surrounding them, but so far his blood-filled fingertips had gone unnoticed.
“We could be stuck here for days,” Tommy whispered.
Al looked up at him, the thought of having his own flesh exposed to the marauding corpses outside for all that time making him feel nauseous. By now the adrenaline was beginning to settle in their bodies. They had become almost accustomed to their situation, realising that the dead did not actually know that they were inside the vehicle. They were exhausted now; hungry, thirsty, and cold. Their nerves were shot, and their limbs ached. Remaining trapped in the van for any length of time would be a true test of their resolve.
“I reckon we should try to at least get an idea of what’s going on out there.”
Tommy raised himself into a crouch. At the rear of the van there were tiny gaps in the framework around the door seal. Small beams of light filtered through from time to time as the bodies outside moved about and allowed the daylight to enter. He slowly began to hobble his way towards them, carefully placing his feet to avoid noise.
“Watch it,” Al said quietly.
Tommy, almost at the rear doors, suddenly stopped and cocked his head, allowing his mouth to hang open in order to cancel out the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. He remained rooted to the spot for a few long seconds, his eyes closed, and his hearing focussed.
“What’s up?” Al hissed.
“Shhh. I can hear something.”
“What?”
“Sounds like…”
“What is it?”
“Sounds like…music,” Tommy replied, turning his head and glaring at Al in complete astonishment.
Al screwed his face, wondering whether his friend was losing his mind. After only an hour or two, he found it hard to believe that a veteran of Tommy’s years would be close to crumbling. Al turned his head, giving him the benefit of the doubt before he dismissed it as Tommy’s imagination. He could hear nothing except the sound of his own breathing and the grunts and snorts of the dead outside.
However, Tommy’s face told him a different story. They had known one another for a long time and Al knew that the man in front of him was not one to lose his cool and dissolve into a wreck in the face of adversity. He tried to focus his senses again, ignoring the cold and decomposed flesh that continued to squelch against his fingers. Since being shot in the head, his hearing had never been as good as it had once been. There were many frequencies that he could no longer detect, and as a result, he had to rely on the abilities of others. He was about to declare that Tommy was just too highly strung at the moment but then stopped. He squinted, holding his breath and tilting his good ear towards the door. His eyes suddenly grew wide as he detected a distant, barely audible sound. He concentrated all of his efforts on hearing the noise, and soon it began to sound clearer until he reached the point that he no longer needed to focus on it. In that moment he had retrained his ears to hone in on the faint music, cancelling out all other ambient sounds around them.
“Jesus, you’re right. I can hear it.”
“Thank fuck. I was beginning to worry that I was hallucinating.”
Al’s brow furrowed.
“Is that… is that Beyoncé?”
Tommy turned to Al, flashing him a grin that shined brightly in the gloom. He nodded, but then quickly stopped, worried that the motion of his head would cause the vehicle to rock.
“Yeah, I think it
is
.”
“I haven’t heard this one in years.”
Tommy looked at him quizzically. It was hard to tell, but he pictured Al sitting in the darkness, his hand covered in cold, dead entrails while smiling and mouthing the words to
‘All the single ladies’
.
“Well, we’re not having a dance off if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Who the fuck is playing the Beyoncé in the middle of a dead city? What the hell’s going on out there?”
“Do you think it could be Tina?”
“God knows, but someone is putting their arse in a sling out there. Have a look, and see if it’s having any effect on the pus-sacks.”
Tommy continued to inch his way towards the rear doors. He lowered himself down slowly until he was lying in a prone position, his rifle carefully placed on the floor beside him. Using his tiptoes and elbows, he silently worked his way closer to the corner where he could see tiny dots of light. He pushed his face up close to the frame, closing one eye as he spied through the small gap.
At first it was hard to make anything out. All that he could see were dark and blurry shapes. After a few seconds, the figure closest to the vehicle shifted its position, moving away and to the side, and giving Tommy a distorted view of what was happening beyond the walls of the van. He could not make out much in the way of detail, but one thing that he was certain of was that the dead had also heard the music.
Many of them were standing still, their heads slumped to the side and staring up at the ceiling, but Tommy could hear that there were others beginning to shuffle away, headed for the door and where they thought the sound was coming from. Of course, some of the dead remained where they were for a while, unable to hear a thing or even see, but the movements of those around them prompted them to follow.
The noise of the crowd steadily decreased as more and more took note of the new sound. Eventually, a ghostly silence settled over the crowd accompanied by a stillness that was as unnerving as the rampaging antics of the dead from just a few minutes before. The music continued, and the thousands of corpses remained entranced by it.
Tommy turned and peered back into the gloom. Al was still gripping onto the door for dear life, staring back at him and waiting for information. Tommy did not know what to say. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and placed his finger against his lips. He turned his attention back to the world outside.
The forest of frozen and grotesque statues remained where they were, with the occasional bob of a head and distant groan being the only indication that they were still not completely dead. From somewhere within the crowd the sound of a foot scraping across the floor echoed through the silence. It was followed by more scrapes and thuds as legs began to move again. There was a long moan from somewhere further away, haunting as it shattered the stillness, and the mass began to suddenly move. At first the bodies closest to the spyhole just shuffled, unsure of which direction to turn, but before long the crowd around them began to thin out. They were headed away from the van, one of the reanimated corpses having identified the source of the music and now leading the way.
The van swayed as a number of bumps sounded against the sides. The dead were on the move again, but this time they were going away. Tommy’s eye remained glued to the small rusted hole as he watched in astonishment. He could not believe that one minute, the dead had them cornered, trapped in the van with time on their side, and then the next, the infected had granted them a stay of execution.
“They’re going away,” he excitedly whispered back to Al. “I can’t believe it. They’re actually fucking off, mate.”
“Maybe they’re all Beyoncé fans?”
For a few more minutes Tommy remained in position, unable to take his eyes away from what was happening outside. He was terrified of moving his attention away and the dead coming back while he was not looking. There was still a large number of them out there, but they were no longer tightly packed together and impossible to fight through.