Among the Fallen: Resurrection (33 page)

Wearily, she pushed down the bar and peered into the hall beyond, looking for signs of anything even remotely threatening. The hall was shrouded in darkness and looked like a newly renovated office area, hundreds of desks and workstations littered with paper, files and in complete disorganization. Book shelves full of folders stood proud and dominated the working area with well-defined shadows, the gloomy room only lit with computer screens and fixed monitors that hung from the ceiling, all showing the same muted static. Shadows of plants, chairs and cables warped over the ground and the air was loaded of dust, the windows sealed from the morbid gaze of the city behind heavy steel shutters.

On the ground in front of her appeared to be a body lying on its front and completely motionless.

She took out her torch from her rucksack and cast a long beam of light around the area, watching as the light crept over the surfaces with a haunting glow. She cautiously approached the body, turning it over; swiftly covering her mouth as it peeled from the blood-soaked carpet.

As the corpse rolled onto its back, it remained still and dead; it’s frightful face gazing past her.

Calmly, she lowered the torch, watching as the light revealed the dead man’s body, its chest and stomach completely empty.

“Shit!” she cursed with alarm, standing up and casting the torch around the offices in blind panic.

Alex turned as the light jumped from one area to the next, but strangely, there was nothing to be seen. As the beam moved slowly over the desks and furniture, Alex gazed into the torch light as it panned around, clinging to the surfaces tightly.

Suddenly, the body at her feet coughed, spitting congealed blood down its face, and its bones cracking as it struggled and snapped at the air. Alex stepped back and shone the torch light down onto its rotting face, its black crawling eyes glowing with reflective light.

Suddenly, there was a crash from the back of the office. She quickly aimed her torch to the area to see a cadaver crawling over a fallen filing cabinet; the air around it filled with dust as it heaved itself towards her. Instantly, movement came from all around her, the torch light unveiling the dead as they stumbled desperately from the darkness. Alex gasped in profound horror as the cadavers shuffled and faltered in the shadows, dragging their smashed and broken limbs across the ground, falling over the desks and hauling themselves over the room. As the torch light lit up the advancing bodies, her beam jumped erratically in panic as it went from one horrifying sight to the next, before suddenly revealing a door directly in front of her. Rapidly, she ran across the office space; the light from her torch fluttering haphazardly across the floor and walls as the growing army closed in around her. As Alex leapt over desks and obstacles, she ran as fast as she could, the door within her swaying sight as it drew closer. Suddenly, she heard the stairwell door slam open; she looked behind her and there stood the Asphyxiated, pulling at his plastic wrapped face, his axe pulling up the carpet behind him.

“Shit!” she grumbled worriedly, before turning away and continuing her gauntlet for the mystery door. The Asphyxiated grumbled angrily and trudged after her, hacking at the cadavers and throwing them off frenziedly as they lunged at him, tearing strips of flesh from his back and arms.

“Wait for me!” the Asphyxiated cried as he heaved his twisted body through the office, slamming the decaying creatures to the ground as the wrapping puffed around his tortured face.

Alex looked back and watched in horror as he chased frantically behind, the dead hanging from his body, dragging them behind him with awesome strength and determination.

“Please wait; we are friends!” the haunting voice sobbed as she turned and glared back at him with a saddened guilty look of bewilderment. Alex swiftly ran between a few cadavers as they lunged at her, her tiny frame easily slipping past their aimless swipes. Suddenly, she clasped the door handle and looked over her shoulder for a split second, the Asphyxiated just feet from her as it cried and sobbed, the cadavers ripping off its limbs and tearing into its flesh. Alex watched with horror as his head was snapped from his shoulders, squealing desperately as the dead quickly piled on top of him.

Suddenly, she pulled open the door, running into the stairwell frantically and slamming the door behind her. She listened for a few moments as the dead huffed and grumbled on the other side, the door handle rattling fiercely – then silence.

Alex backed away from the door slowly, her hands shaking in fear and boundless apprehension. Her mind was completely desolate of thought, but her body was ravaged by emotion - immense relief, paralyzing fear, anguish and even deep sadness – all cascading and profoundly traumatic emotions that had her crippled with numbness, her ears taking in the muffled noise as they gathered at the door. As the circle of torchlight trembled at her feet, she stood hypnotized as her whole body quivered with fright. Slowly, she backed against the wall, her eyes instantly welling up in a poignant torrent of personal despair. The torch slipped from her hand as she slid down the wall, sobbing in heart break and obsessive fear, the white light spinning around the walls for a moment or two as she sat hidden in the shadows.

Alex lowered her head suddenly, watching the torch as it slowed and became still. She leant down and picked the torch up, looking into its light with a sad and tormented expression; the door beside her now silent – but she knew they were there, she could almost feel them around her.

She cast the light up the stairs in front of her, the sign on the wall reading ‘ROOF – HELIPAD’. Calmly, she pulled herself together and stood up, ascending the stairs cautiously and opened the door onto the roof. A cold wind blew into the stairwell, carrying with it the foul smell of decay and smoke. The car alarms hollered in the distance and thunder clapped all around her, crows circled the red sky and the rabid dogs howled and fought amongst one another. As the haunting and familiar landscape fell upon her eyes once more, she walked over the silent rooftop looking into the crowded streets below. She stood at the edge with her arms folded, dumbfounded and besieged; escalating with bitter torment as the sky rained with paper and ash. As the ash soaked up her grief-stricken tears, she glared into the city silently; tired and beleaguered – her mind wandering off to far and safe lands of daydreams and past moments of long-gone happiness.

The street below was just a sea of heads, all looking down at their feet, perfectly motionless and haunted - some swayed as the winds barged through them, whilst others sniffed the air as her scent teased them from above. As the neon city lights and flames cast her in an eerie glow of color, she watched as the crumbling capital wept before her; its foundations heaving with pain and scarred with the ghosts that inexorably plagued it. As the wind blew through her hair and her sore eyes watered with dust, she gazed solemnly over the heaving highways. She turned away from the edge and begun to weigh up her options, or should she say, the complete lack of options. High above was a billboard, dimly lit and showed an advertisement for Beaumont Pharmaceutical’s latest anti-wrinkle cream, complete with a dumb blonde smiling falsely with a row of gleaming teeth. Alex merely gazed upon her pretty face with resentment, probably misplaced seeing as that girl was most likely dead now anyway. However, the more Alex stared into her perfect face, the more she missed her life and what she once was.

She looked down at the floor almost lost as she played with the asphalt coated roof with her feet, her mind wandering in and out of unobtainable muses and inconceivable nightmares. Suddenly, she mumbled under her breath and looked away, gazing over the twisted landscape as it sat gradually deteriorating. Calmly, she approached the roof edge and sat down, her feet hanging over the side as she peered into the ravaged horizon. As the reflection of the dead city glimmered in her black eyes, she fumbled nervously with her hands as ash and dust slowly fell around her.

“All I see… are the dead around me… the people in pain… my people - how can you sit back and let this happen?” she said softly into the sky. “I know you’re listening to me; I know you can hear me…

if they exist…, then you MUST exist!” she murmured as she looked down at the sea of cadavers below.

Her lip shook and her eyes welled up as she fought long and hard to find the power within herself to finish what she had to say. “These people devoted their lives to you, spread your messages freely and lived by your commandments… for what? So you can watch your enemies do all this to them?”

she sulked. “You make it so hard for us to believe in you!”

“They have taken my life… my Sarah…” she said as the pain snatched at her voice ruthlessly. “She was six years old, she was innocent… what did she ever do to anyone? Why did you let them take my Princess away?” Alex sobbed as she wiped her eyes with the cuff of her jacket - frowning up at the sky defiantly for a few moments.

“Where are you?!… I can’t do this on my own…” she said regretfully to herself with deep heart-rending emotion. “Where are you?”

Suddenly, Alex jumped to her feet angrily and screamed into the dark horizon as loud as she could

“WHERE ARE YOU?!”

A cold wind blew past the roof and she watched blankly as ash drifted from the heavens like snow.

Neon logos faltered and hummed, huge towering signs that poured their eerie light into the crowded streets. Barricades and cars burned as the scaffolding that stifled the city rasped and swayed, its joints bleeding rust as it plagued the streets.

“I don’t want to be alone anymore…” she muttered as she fought back her painful tears. Alex stood quietly for a few moments, watching as the thunder and lightning scorched the skyline.

“To Hell with you!” she scowled as she walked away from the edge of the roof. Suddenly, she stopped and paused. “Sorry, I forgot…” she growled, looking back into the sky. “It’s only us mugs that get that privilege!”

As her mind emptied she turned away from the deaf skies and scanned her surroundings closely, the precinct was dwarfed by buildings and at the far end of the roof was what appeared to be an apartment block. She gazed up at the cold and grey intimidating building as it loomed over her, its face covered with scaffolding and a complex looking fire escape that was well within her reach. She rubbed her head in confusion for a few moments; she could hear voices within her mind, but it was nothing like she had heard before. Bizarre whisperings and mutterings of words that were too quiet for her to understand - it felt as if the apartment building was talking to her, calling out to her perhaps.

She walked over the roof and reached out clasping the cold fire escape rails and suddenly; the whispering stopped. Alex immediately leapt up and climbed upon the metal walkways with a clatter of noise, pulling her aching body up with remarkable strength that amazed even her. Calmly, she peered into a window and wiped the soot from it, seeing a well-kept room within, tidy - but profoundly colourless. She pulled her sleeve over her hand and smashed the window, chipping out the remaining glass from the frame before confidently climbing inside.

Among the Fallen: Resurrection

Copyright © 2012 Scott Beadle & Ross Shortall. All rights reserved.

First Digital edition published 2012 in the United Kingdom. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN TBC

No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system without written permission of the publisher.

Published by Toxic Shock Publishing

For distribution rights, queries or questions please email: [email protected] Cover Designed by Scott Beadle

For information regarding further releases, please visit

www.amongthefallen.co.uk

Created in Great Britain

Acknowledgement

(
Scott’s Acknowledgements
) My great Nan and Aunt, Me Mother and Steve, Mushroom and Dills, Ross Shortall, April Manns for her constant messages while I slept, Ross’s great mum and her lasagna and his legendary grumpy sister :- ) definitely NOT those that said it weren’t possible. That’s it, nobody else likes me!

(
Ross’s Acknowledgements
) The Brilliant Scott Beadle, April Manns, my great Mum and Dad, my grumpy sister, Josh, Ciara and Tilly and definitely not Dave.

Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and Author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for Damages resulting from the use of this information contained herein.

Among the Fallen

Copyright © Toxic Shock Publishing. 2012

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Blackwater

Chapter Two: Alexandra Beaumont

Chapter Three: No Tomorrow

Chapter Four: Broken Souls

Chapter Five: Unseen

Chapter Six: Resurrection

Chapter Seven: Darkness Falls

Chapter Eight: Undying

Chapter Nine: Another World

Chapter Ten: Blackwater Approach

Chapter Eleven: Numb Streets

Chapter Thirteen: The First Judgement

Chapter Fourteen: A New Strength

Chapter Fifteen: A Survivor

Chapter Sixteen: Dead Alive

Chapter Seventeen: Riot

Chapter Eighteen: Lawless

Chapter Nineteen: Hide and Seek