Devouring The Dead (Book 1) (21 page)

They ran back the way they had come and finally came to the ‘Nelson’ room.
Benzo threw the door open to see Reggie holding something above his head, Tom with a bloody nose, and Brad with a cut face and a black eye. Everyone looked at Benzo, shocked by the way he had burst into the room.

“They’re in,” he said.

* * * *

“
We can do it, I’m telling you,” said Angel. “I’m not waiting anymore. We can do it.”

“She’s right, Don.” Rosa walked over to him and took his hand, forcing him to stand up. “We’ve spent the last three days stuck in here and this may be our only chance to get out. You know we can do it. They’re the only sign of life we’ve seen in days.” There was a pleading in her voice that he could not ignore.  

Don’s bus was still in the pub car park where he had abandoned it. For the last three days, they had been trapped in the upstairs room of The Fox together. He had picked up Rosa on her way into the city and she still wore the blue uniform she had put on days ago. He had learnt a lot about Rosa. When you were stuck in a small room with someone for days on end, it was impossible not to. She had recently started working in the city plaza, front desk work for one of the big banks.

Angel, an older
woman, was on her way to the same bank to take out all her money. She spent the last three days carping on about ‘the system,’ and how the banking institutions were bringing about the downfall of western civilisation. All he knew, was how to drive a bus, and drink, not always exclusive to each other.

“I don’t know,” he said running his hands through his thinning grey hair. “You saw what happened to that fat bloke when he ran from the centre. He got what, twenty feet, thirty? He’s in pieces now. Can I just remind you two ladies of that?”

“Well, there’s certainly not much of him left, that’s true,” said Angel staring out the window down into the blood-stained yard.

“But he was on foot,” said Rosa. “We’ve got your bus. Come on, Don, think about it. With the distraction, the yard’s nearly empty.”

Since the outbreak, the zombies had followed the bus into the yard and surrounded it. Don, Rosa, and Angel had managed to escape it and locked themselves into the deserted pub upstairs. Some of Don’s passengers hadn’t been so lucky. Poor Mr Barker had gone back for his bag and vanished under a pile of animated rotting bodies. They had listened to his anguished howls before one of the zombies snapped his neck and he went silent. From a bus of nine people, only three had made it off with Don.

“Look,” said Angel,
“they’re all going into the Onevision conference centre. There’s barely a handful left down there. We can totally run past those few. I have
one vision
, Don, and it involves us getting out of here.”

Bloody
, Angel was right, he knew it. She was an oddball for sure, but she was usually on the money. If he hadn’t found out she was forty five, he would’ve sworn she was thirty. She had her hair in dreadlocks and wore brightly coloured clothes as if she was Rosa’s age.

“
All right, fine.” Don put his jacket on and took the keys out, dangling them in front of Angel. “Just remember, I’m the driver, it’s my bus, and that means
I’m
in charge once we get out there.”

“No problem,” said Angel.

“Yay, thanks, Don!” Rosa planted a wet kiss on his cheek. He tried not to, but couldn’t help a small smile escaping his wrinkled face.

“Listen, we’ve talked about this
, so we all know what to do. Don’t start messing around out there. If you start pissing about, I’m not waiting for you.”

“Yes
, Don, we’ve got it, don’t worry,” said Rosa gleefully. “Oh, I can’t wait to get home and have a wash and put on some clean clothes.”

“I’m looking forward to eating some fresh vegetables again. I’m sick of frigging dry roasted peanuts,” said Angel
, picking up her handbag. She looked out of the window again. Down by the bus below them, she counted the zombies. There were seven in total and four of those were small children. They were fast, but they were easier to knock over. She looked over the fence at the conference centre opposite. Hundreds of zombies were swarming over it now, and through the open window the fat man had left behind. Some of the dead milled around in the yard, unable to get into the building. Some of them had begun to climb the fire escape to find another way in.

“Hey
, Rosa, come here a sec’, will you?”

“What is it?” said Rosa approaching the window.

“That man wasn’t alone.” Angel pointed to the fire escape and Rosa’s eyes traced their way up it, past the zombies, to the top. Two men were stood out on the top step, waving frantically.

Rosa waved back. “Um, Don, we might need a change of plan.”

* * * *

“Quick, upstairs now!” shouted Jackson. Brad and Reggie ran after
Benzo and Jackson, while the rest of the group scrambled to their feet.

“Wait, we can’t leave,” said Jessica. “What about Parker?”

Tom looked at his friend. He wasn’t dead yet, but he certainly looked it.

“I don’t think there’s much we can do for him
, Jess.”

“We can’t just leave him though. He was your friend for God’s sake.”

“I know, I know, but think about it, what can I do? I’m sorry, Jess but we have to go.” Tom took her hand and she shrugged him away. She bent down to Parker.

“Hey
, Parker, can you hear me? We have to go now. Get up, Parker, get up, please?” She pulled on his lifeless hands to no avail.

“Will you help me please
, Christina?” said Tom. She nodded and together they pulled Jessica away from the unconscious Parker.

“No, leave me alone, I
can’t leave someone else, not again!” Jessica was crying as Tom and Christina dragged her away, leaving Parker slumped against the wall, taking in small, shallow breaths.

“Parker, please!”
cried Jessica.

Christina stood in front of
her and cupped her face. “Come on, Jessica, there’s nothing you can do for him now. Follow me. Come on, darling.”

Tom let her go and
a sobbing Jessica fell into Christina’s arms. Tom put an arm around Caterina but she pushed him away.

“Leave me alone,” she said, and marched out of the room to follow Jackson. Tom trudged after her
, whilst Christina did her best to get Jessica up the stairs. Tom shut the door behind them and took one last look at Parker. He looked like he was just sleeping, but all the colour had drained out of his face.

“Goodbye
, Parker.” Tom shut the door.

Jackson stood by an
open door at the top of the stairs. He ushered everyone into the room where they had first entered the conference centre. He held the door open until the last of them, Tom, came through. Jackson frowned when he saw Tom’s split lip.

“They’re in the building. We need to get out of here bef
ore they find us,” said Jackson closing the door finally.

“How the fuck did they get in?” said Brad.

“Ranjit,” said Benzo. “We saw him leaving. He broke a window and ran off.”

“I’ll kill that fucking idiot,” said Brad.

“I think you’re too late for that, Brad, he’s long gone,” replied Benzo.

“Why didn’t you try to stop him?”

“Really, Brad? Do you think we just opened the window for him? Sometimes it would be better for you not to open your god damn mouth,” said Jackson. “Here’s a novel idea; why don’t you try thinking before you speak? I don’t know what the hell is going on between you and Tom, but I can see something’s happened. If you’re going to start picking fights, Brad, I suggest you find out who is on your side first, because you are soon going to find yourself vastly outnumbered.”

Brad sat down on the floor
and looked up at Jackson. He spoke with a cocky tone. “Don’t you want to know what happened to Parker?”

“No. I can see from the tears that poor girl over there is crying
, that it ain’t good. I can see that he is not in this room and I can put two and two together, so take my advice and shut up. Just shut up, Brad. Stop pushing it.” Jackson rolled his sleeves up.

Brad chewed over Jackson’s words and stayed silent. Aside from Jessica’s tears
, there was only one noise now; the noise of the dead. They could all hear banging noises downstairs as doors were cast open and rooms ransacked.

“Take a quick look out the window please
, Tom, what do you see?” said Jackson.

Tom went to the fire escape door and peered out through the broken glass.

“Zombies. Hundreds of them. They’re in the yard and they’re getting into the building right beneath us. I’m guessing that’s where Ranjit left. There are some on the steps, too. We can’t get out this way.”

“
What are we going to do? I don’t want to die in here. I don’t want my child to die in here before she’s even had a chance,” said Caterina.

“Ask her,” said Brad pointing at Christina.
“She brought us into this death trap.”

“Tom, move aside for a second
, mate.” Reggie went to the door and opened it, stepping out onto the top step.

“What are you doing? They’ll see you!” said
Caterina.

“
Doesn’t much matter now, Cat, they already know we’re in here,” said Benzo.

Reggie looked around the yard for a way out. The yard was full and the rusty fire escape was vibrating
, as the zombies slowly climbed up. He scanned around as the afternoon sun shone down upon him.

“Anyone fancy a drink?” Reggie pulled Tom outside with him. “Look over there. You see the pub next door? Over the fence there’s a bus. That yard is practically empty.”

“Might as well be a million miles away though,” said Tom despondently.

“Look up. From the bus follow the pub walls and there’s a window at the top. What do you see?” Reggie pointed across the yard with one hand, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun with the other.

“Fuck me,” said Tom. He began waving, as did Reggie, hoping that the two figures in the pub window opposite would see them.

C
HAPTER FIFTEEN

“You can’t be serious, Rosa, I thought you had more brains than that.” Don had taken off his jacket again. “No, I think we should stay here.”

“And I thought you had more compassion than that, Don. We can’t leave them. We just can’t.” Rosa picked his jacket up and held it out to him.

“With or without them, I’m leaving,” said Angel. “You two coming or not?” She put her hand on Rosa’s shoulder. “Leave him. If he wants to rot in here for eternity, let him. Let’s go.”

Rosa dropped Don’s jacket on the floor and walked over to the door.

“All right, all right. Jesus, now I remember why I never got married.” Don picked up his jacket. “So what do you propose? Even if we get into the bus safely, how do you suggest we pick them up? I can hardly do a U-turn and ask the zombies to wait while we go and pick them up. I mean, be realistic, it’s impossible. I’m sorry for them, but they’re as good as dead already.”

“We get them to come to us,” said Rosa. Don looked at her as if she was mad.

“How? There are several hundred infected dead between them and us.” He watched as she walked back over to the window.

“I hope they understand this,” she said, and opened the window.

* * * *

 
“Look she’s waving back, she’s seen us,” said Reggie.

Brad got up and wandered to the door to look.

“Big deal,” he said peering over Tom’s shoulder. “Look, they’re gone now. Why would they risk their necks to save us? We have to look after ourselves now; no one is coming to save us.”

“I hate to say so
, but he’s right,” said Benzo. “We’re on our own. We should either hunker down and hide, or find something to fight with. I’m not waiting for help that isn’t coming.”

“Well
, whatever we do has to be fast. I can hear them in the corridor outside,” said Jackson, dragging the horseshoe desk in front of the door. He hoped it might just hold the zombies off and buy them valuable time.

Tom turned to face the room. “Follow me. There’s a way out.”

He went to a door at the end of the room. It was an adjoining door that led to another conference room.

“Where are you going? What way out?” said Reggie.

“The figures at the window? One came back. She showed me a way. It’s tricky, but it’s possible. Quite frankly, what choice do we have?”

The door beside Jackson started shaking violently.
The horseshoe desk began quaking on rickety legs.

“Fuck it, come on then,” said
Benzo, and he ran after Tom. Not knowing where they were headed, they followed Tom quickly. He led them through a series of small interconnecting meeting rooms, each the same as the last, until he reached the last one. This room had balcony doors and Tom pushed them open. The roaring noise of the hungry zombies underneath them suddenly rang out loud and clear.

“I hope you know what you’re doing
, Tom Goode,” said Jackson. He stepped out onto the balcony beside Tom and felt fear that he hadn’t experienced since the day he’d been standing at the altar, waiting for Mary to show, forty years ago. Below the balcony, there was a delivery truck. It was surrounded by the dead. It had been left askew, abandoned in a hurry, so the front cab was directly beneath them and the rear was jammed up against the fence. The driver’s door was open and a bloody stump sat in the driver’s seat, the truck driver having long since been feasted upon by the infected.

“Nice day for a drive
, Tom, but we’re not going anywhere in that,” said Jackson.

“Listen up,” said Tom addressing the group once m
ore, “there is a truck right beneath us. It’s a bit of a jump, but we can make it. The roof of the cab leads to the fence and it’s well out of reach of those zombies. On the other side of the fence, is the pub.”

“
Come on, Tom, I’d love a Ploughmans,” said Benzo scratching his head, “but we’ve hardly got time. What’s the deal?”

“On the other side of that fence
, is a bus. The people in that pub have the keys. If I’ve understood them right, then they mean to leave in that bus.
Right now
. We need to get on it.”

“Are you sure? What if you’re wrong?” Jessica asked. Her eyes were red
, but she had stopped crying. “We’d be out there with them and with nothing to stop them from ripping us apart.”

“That’s true, buddy,” said Brad. “How sure are you?”

Tom looked around the small room. They were all looking at him as if he had the answer to everything. All he knew, was if they stayed here, they were dead.

“This sure,” he said turning back onto the balcony to face the sun
. He put his legs over the balcony’s edge and jumped.

* * * *

“They’re going for it,” said Rosa happily.

“You’re mad,” said Angel. “How do you feel about having a bus full of passengers again
, Don?”

“Just remember to swipe on and off,” he said pulling his jacket on. With the jacket
on, came the grumpy demeanour and Rosa wondered if it was part of the training.

Don opened the door and crept downstairs. Rosa and Angel followed him until they reached the bar.
The pub door had been taken off its hinges and all the windows had been smashed by looters. There was hardly been any booze left, but Don managed to find a stash before they locked themselves away upstairs.

They quietly walked through the empty pub toward the door. They didn’t want anything
or anyone to know they were there until the last minute. It was impossible though to avoid walking on the broken glass which crunched underfoot; it was all over the place.  

They managed to get to the doorway before they were noticed. A small child spotted them and began shuffling its way to the pub. It was covered head to toe in boils
, and the searing sun had popped many of them. Rosa saw milky, curdled pus oozing from its cracked dry skin.

“Now!”
Don ran from the pub to the bus and opened the door while Rosa and Angel ran the other way. They had to give Don time to get in the bus and get it started, so they darted to the back end of the bus.

“It’s working,” said Rosa as she dodged the outstretched hands of the child. “The
zombies’ attention is on us, not Don.”

“Awesome,” said Angel. She ducked as a zombie tried to grab her and she double
d back with Rosa to the pub. Hearing the engine roar into life, they ran once more toward the bus.

   “Quickly, quickly!” shouted Don. Rosa and Angel ran onto the bus and he closed the doors. They almost fell as he
drove the bus forward and it lurched violently. A zombie threw itself against the doors, but could not get in.

“Damn that was close,” said Angel
sitting down. “Can we please
not
do that again?”

Rosa
sat down in a seat near the front so she could see out through the large front window. Don turned the bus in the pub car park and positioned it so if anyone came over the fence from the conference centre, they would land right beside the doors. Rosa was impressed at how speedily he did it, and how he manoeuvred the bus so well in such a tight space. He left about a foot between the bus and the fence and hoped the zombies would not work out what they were doing. On the other side of the bus, more zombies had appeared and were hammering at it, slamming themselves into the side, trying to get at Don, Angel, and Rosa.

“Your friends had better hurry up,” said Don revving the engine. “Two minutes and we’re gone. Any longer than that and the
re’ll be so many of these critters in the yard, we’ll never get out ourselves.”

“Just you
be ready to open the doors,” said Rosa. “They’ll be here.” She crossed her fingers. It wasn’t just her life in the balance now - others were depending on her, not least Don and Angel. She wondered who was going to come over the wall.

* * * *

    Tom landed on the truck’s cab roof and could almost taste death. The smell of decay and rot, faeces and blood, and of rotting flesh, invaded his nostrils, his mouth, and his eyes. He landed on his feet and crouched down. The yard simmered with the dead.

“Come on, next one,” he said hearing the engine of the bus roar into life.

He looked up and Brad’s face appeared. Tom climbed onto the truck’s roof out of the way and watched as Brad jumped down. He landed easily and Tom held out his hand to help him over. Brad took it, and together they stood on the truck roof.

“Sure hope you’re right about this
, buddy,” Brad said.

“Me
, too.”

Tom watched as Jessica followed and they slowly made their way back across the truck to make room for the rest.
One by one they dropped off the balcony onto the truck: Christina, Caterina, Benzo, Jackson, and, finally, Reggie. Tom stood at the end of the truck and could see the roof of the bus only feet away on the other side of the fence. The driver was revving the engine and Tom knew they didn’t have much time.

“I’m going down first then I want
Caterina to come. I’ll help you, okay? After that, Jessica and Christina. Fair enough?”

Brad wanted to get off the roof but thought better of speaking out this time. Jackson was right about one thing; he had to pick his fights. He had let things get out of control back there and that was not how he
usually handled things. Think it through, he thought to himself; just think it through next time. Jackson, Tom, Christina – they would be dead soon enough. When the time came, he would leave them. Jessica could be useful before he killed her. He doubted that Parker had actually stuck it to her yet. He looked at Jessica crouching down on the truck roof. She had a tight ass; if only he could get her alone, he could have a lot of fun with that.

There were no dissenting voices and Tom jumped. As he flew over the fence
, dead hands and arms reached up to grab him, but he was out of reach. He fell down into the pub car park and landed painfully. There was little room to drop between the bus and the fence, and he scraped his elbows and hands when he landed.

“I’m coming
, Tom,” he heard Caterina shout and then he saw her heading toward him. He tried to cushion her fall, but it was difficult in the cramped space they had. As she landed, the bus doors opened behind him.

“Get in!” Tom shoved her onto the bus and hands reached for him. He looked up, surprised to see a young woman looking at him.
Caterina stumbled past her.

“Hi, I’m Rosa.
Are there many more?”

“Six more of us,” said Tom. “I’m going to help them down.
Tom, by the way.”

Suddenly
, Christina dropped beside him and he helped her onto the bus. Rosa stayed in the doorway helping Christina in.

“Come on
, guys, hurry it up,” said Tom looking down the line of the fence. At the rear of the bus, a zombie had appeared. It was a large man and he was struggling to squeeze between the fence and the bus.

Benzo
swiftly appeared with Brad after him. Up on the truck roof, there was only Jackson and Reggie left.

“Go on
, mate,” said Reggie, “you go next.”

“Thanks
, Reggie,” said Jackson poised to jump. He was waiting for a clear spot to land in. Brad, Benzo, and Tom were blocking the space.

“Make way
, guys, I’m coming,” shouted Jackson. He too had seen the dead man at the rear of the bus. The zombie had managed to get three feet at least and was inching his way toward the door slowly.

Suddenly
, Reggie let out a yelp and Jackson was aware of a flapping noise behind him.

“What the hell?” Jackson saw Reggie trying to fight off a pigeon that was flapping and fluttering around his head. He pulled off a shoe and waved it around, trying to strike the bird.
Reggie managed to grab the bird and threw the pigeon away. It landed on the truck roof and Jackson noticed its feathers were dark and sticky; they were covered in congealed blood.

“Fucking pigeons, I hate them,” said Reggie. The pigeon flew up into the air and attacked Reggie again.
Jackson tried to help and struck the pigeon’s head with his shoe. It landed at his feet and Reggie stamped on it.

Jackson looked on
as the pigeon tried to get to its feet. Reggie had stamped on its head, crushing its bones, and one wing was hanging off. It attempted to get to its feet and hopped over to Reggie who kicked it again, sending it flying into the crowd of zombies, its feathers scattering in the air.

“Come on
, Jackson, let’s get the hell out of here,” said Reggie, wiping the blood from his face. Jackson was horrified. The pigeon had nicked Reggie’s face in a few places.

“Don’t worry
, mate, it’s just a scratch,” said Reggie seeing the look on Jackson’s face.

“
Er, yeah. Look, Reggie, pigeon’s don’t attack people, not normal ones anyhow.”

“
Oh, come on, you don’t think it was infected do you? It was just scared. It was trying to get away from them.”