Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel (33 page)

The
hellish fight had gone a long way to sobering up the stocky Polish man.

“Wow, yes?” he said
to Carl, slapping the man on the back with enough force as almost to knock him off his feet. He smiled warmly baring his little brown teeth, still breathing heavily from the exertions of his culling. “Was good fight. You fight well. My name Tomasz Dumasz, by the way.”

“Dumb ass? Really?”
Carl replied with his usual tactless manner. Thankfully, the other man did not understand the insult.

“Dumasz.”
Tomasz said again, over enunciating the word.

Carl laughed.

“Don’t aggravate him,” Muz warned before addressing the Polish man. “Your first name is Thomas?”

“Tomasz.”

“Tom.”

“Tom is good enough,” Tom said with a smile.

  “Thanks for your help back there,” Muz said to him.

  “Is okay.”

  “But please,” the copper added, “don’t go pissing on anymore of those crazy people. They don’t seem to like it.”

Tom laughed and slapped Muz across the back. Muz winced and smiled back.

Looking at the overweight black man striding purposefully ahead of them, Muz again remembered how Chuck had been so comfortable operating that handgun when he had killed Jenna and then when he had levelled it at the dog. He certainly had been adept at handling the weapon. The man still had to have the gun hidden on him somewhere, though was choosing to no longer use it.

“What is it you do, Chuck?” Muz asked, trying to sound casual.

“What do you mean?” Chuck responded without looking back, sounding instantly defensive.

“For a living?” Muz clarified.

“Why do you want to know?” Chuck asked, still not breaking his stride.

“I’m just asking. You know, conversation.”

“I’m in banking,” Chuck told him after a pause.

“Nice,” Carl said, clearly impressed by this. “Which bank?”

“UBS,” Chuck replied. He looked as though he was becoming tense now.

“The Swiss bank?” Carl went on
while wiping the blade of his knife on some dock leaves he had ripped out of the dirt. “Wow, you must make quite a lot of mullah. Are you front or back office?”

“What is this, the Span
ish Inquisition?” Chuck said angrily.

“Just curious,” Carl said, giving Muz a sideways glance.

“Yeah, well, give the questions a rest.”

“Would you please get rid of that thing?” Muz asked, pointing at the knife in Carl’s hands. “It’s clearly not helping Margaret’s state of mind. She keeps staring over at you with it.”

  “Sorry,” Carl said flatly. “Not a chance. Not until we’re completely out of danger.”

The train line
passed under a brick bridge, over which ran Deansbrook Road. The group looked warily upward as they passed beneath the road, half-expecting a number of infected crazies to launch themselves over the wall in order to get at them. Even Digby looked apprehensive, his ears up and alert. Had he heard something, the others had to wonder. Then their question was answered.

Directly a
bove, they heard the faint but unmistakable ominous groan of one of the infected. Like a well-trained military troop, as one they came to a stop, none daring to move as they hid in the relative gloom of bridge’s shadow. Only after a couple of minutes without hearing another sound from above, did Chuck wave them onward.

Several heads kept turning to look back at the brickwork archway, refusing to
accept that they had had the good fortune enough not to draw the attention of the infected person they must had been in such close proximity to. They did in fact leave the bridge safely behind without incident however.

No more than twenty to thirty metres later though, the tracks
crossed over Silk Stream. It was a stream by name, but along this section of its length, at least it was deep and wide enough to be considered a thin river.  The stream was hidden from the nearby streets by the thick woods that ran along both sides of the train line.

Despite the stream being thus obscured, a
number of the affected victims had managed to sniff out the water course and find their way to it. They now gathered, falling over each other at the bank’s edge, as they leaned in to drink.

Other than protei
ns, the raging effects of the amoeboid cells demanded copious amounts of water to facilitate the chemical cellular transformations they performed. Although this vital fluid was abundant within the muscle tissue they ate in frightening quantities, this alone was not enough. Wherever they happened across readily accessible water, they would drink just as greedily as they fed.

The band of survivors saw from above, that s
ome of the people below, pushed forward by those trying to get past to the river’s edge, had fallen into the water. Not possessing the coordination necessary to swim, they had sunk to the stream’s bed and could be seen amid the murky flow, motionless save for their hair waving in the current, and their eyes staring blankly upward. Some had been submerged for so long that their skin, saturated with water, was swollen and wrinkled. They looked like spectres hiding in the dark depths.

Muz and the others
were so very careful not to make a sound as they trod stealthily along some nine feet above the stream. Amy however, true to form, slipped and a couple of stone chips fell over the edge of the bridge, splashing into the water.

Tho
se drinking along the bank reacted immediately, looking up at those on the bridge and snarling ferociously. Even those who had sunk to the bottom of the river and had obviously been there for some time now jolted into action in response to the falling stones. Some of their hands reached high enough to clear the surface of the water, thrashing around as they strained upwards towards the passing prey.

Thankfully,
the lay of the land and the high wall that supported the little bridge meant none of the crazies below could get to the group.

“
You have got to be kidding,” Carl said, staring down in disbelief at the people submerged in the river, as they looked back, locking eyes with him. “Have those things grown gills now?”

“They don’t need to,” Chuck answered. “Dead men don’t need to breath
e.”

Muz shook his head in response to Chuck’s reply. The man was so certain that these afflicted people had to be zombies.
He, however, still clung to the hope that there had to be a more logical, a more rational cause for all of this.

“Just keep moving before they fin
d a way to get up here,” the copper told the others.

Again,
they managed to pass by without harm and it wasn’t a great deal farther before they saw a building standing in their way and concrete platforms rising up beside the tracks. It was Edgware tube station, the end of the line. From here on, they would have to take their chances on the streets.

Chapter 9

Jay

Walking along
one of Edgware tube station’s platforms, Chuck eyed the black and tan beast that looked more akin to a bear than a dog, as it strode along beside the paramedic girl.

“Did that thing bite anyone?” h
e asked Amy, looking over at her intently to try to read the slightest sign of a lie on her face.

“Just a shoe,” Amy answered. Feeling the need to protect the dog, she stepped between him and Chuck.

“You’d better be sure about that,” Chuck warned her gravely. “’cos if it did bite one of those crazy fucks, it could go the same way and turn on us at any moment.”

“He’s fine,” Amy said defiantly, jutting her jaw.

The fat African man continued to glower at Digby who simply plodded along, oblivious to the nature of their conversation.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Amy added.

Chuck grunted at her and strode to the front of the group.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs that led up to the bridge over the tracks, the group stopped and stood in silence. When they were sure there were no sounds to be heard from above, they
headed upwards. They hadn’t seen a single corpse on the platform below and the same was true for both the bridge and the station foyer beyond. Just as Burnt Oak station had been, the station had been locked up at the time of the outbreak and still remained secure. Unlike Burnt Oak however, the tall exterior glass doors here were protected by sliding metal concertina gates, held in place by huge padlocks. Breaking out was not going to be as easy as they had assumed.

It was a stroke of luck that the door
to the station staff’s office was unlocked. With the rest of the station locked up, it didn’t need to be. The group gathered tightly within the constricted confines of the small office and looked up at the windows. They were locked and the security glass with its criss-crossing metal wires meant they couldn’t smash their way out.

“Search the drawers,” Muz told the others. “There’s got to be a key for those locks somewhere.
”

They ransacked the contents of the desks and the cabinets and though they found numerous bunches of keys, none held that needed to open the windows.

“Why is nothing ever easy?” Muz asked despondently.

“What’s that?” Carl asked, pointing to the wall directly by one of the windows and right next to where Muz
was stood.

Muz turned to regard where the man was
referring to. A little nail had been hammered into the plaster and from it hung a stubby key. A laminated piece of paper blu-tacked to the wall beside it read in large bold print ‘windows key.’

“Don’t say a word,” Muz growled.

“Hey, we all missed it,” Amy consoled him, unable to stifle a little smirk.

Muz stood on a chair and opened one of the windows set high in the wall. He leaned his whole upper torso out, so as to get as good a view of the outside as possible, and hung there for some time before dragging himself back in to face the expectantly waiting group.

“It looked clear,” he announced. “But be as quiet as you can climbing through and keep your eyes and ears peeled when we’re out there.”

With that, he leaned back out the window and this time, once he had manage
d to support himself with his hands on the windowsill on the other side, his legs followed. The metal spike he had tucked into his equipment belt almost slipped out. He cringed at the thought of it clanging loudly on the pavement but managed to catch it as he dropped to the ground in a crouched position.

To his left
, the narrow side road between the station and the adjacent shopping centre led to the bus depot. All was still silent in that direction, not a single person to be seen either on the several buses or in the covered waiting area. To his right, beyond the turning circle of the drop-off point by the station’s main entrance, there lay the slight incline of Station Road. As he had come to expect by now, the road and pavements either side were jammed with vehicles but again not a sole was to be seen.

“Okay,” he whispered as loudly as he dare, tapping on the window with his
fingertips.

The second person to climb through was Chuck. He tried his damnedest not to groan and hiss with pain, forcing himself through the tight gap, the catch of the lock pressing deep into his bulging belly as he dragged himself over it. As soon as he slumped to the ground, Carl deftly followed with the ease a burglar
would have been proud of.

“Oh good God,” Muz gasped, as next there appeared through the opening the bewildered face of the dog.
It had to be Tom still inside, rather than either of the two women that was supporting the majority of the ten stone dog’s weight.

Muz
, Carl, and the resentful and fearful-looking Chuck, grabbed Digby’s front legs and eased them over the lip. With the furry lump wide eyed and grumbling, but miraculously showing no signs of aggression, they had to turn him over onto one side in order to fit his huge chest through the gap. Eventually, the dog spilled out on top of the men, knocking them to the ground. Excited by this unusual game, Digby stood over them threatening to lick, tail wagging furiously.

“Get it off,” Chuck growled.

They got back to their feet just in time to assist the slim lady, while Digby lumbered around, sniffing everything in his path. Though Margaret was elderly, she was still quite able and performed the task of climbing through the window with far greater ease than Chuck had managed. Even Amy, who was next to slide through, found it more difficult than the other woman had. Taking up the rear, came Tom. He too struggled with the gap, due to his huge shoulders and chest. The alcohol in his system didn’t help much either.

Following the train line, Muz had been quite happy for Chuck to take the lead. Back out on the streets now though, he again took point. He knew these roads, his patrol ground, far better than any of the others.

Station Road, normally a busy high street, seemed so devoid of life now. He had only ever seen it so empty before in the early hours. Looking rapidly all around him as he scurried forward, he saw that most of the shops had been looted. Their windows and the tall glass panes that secured the entrance to the shopping arcade had been smashed. Their stocks, items of all kinds, were strewn around the pavements.

Among the cars and vans cluttering the road
, there stood a convoy of three drab-green military troop transport vehicles. With caterpillar tracks rather than wheels, they had managed to make their way up the jammed high street by driving over a number of cars. They had not been able to make any further progress however, when they had come to the point where two buses blocked the road. They had thus been abandoned, just like the rest of the vehicles around them. They had been left in a hurry as well, Chuck noted, as belts of ammunition still hung from the machine guns mounted by the cupolas in their roofs.

A vividly red double decker bus rem
ained in the road mid-turn. It had been leaving the station but had failed to get very far at all, having immediately hit the side of another bus. The driver, Muz saw to his despair, was still slumped at the wheel, apparently completely dead. What had the world come to when a person’s deadness could be measured in varying degrees?

Gripping the rail spike in his hand as though it were a dagger, Muz scuttled
, bent double, out onto the road and along the side of the rank of taxis parked in their bays in the centre of the road, between the two lanes of other cars. He made his way to and paused in the central pedestrian island, protected as it was by iron railings, and waited for those at the rear to catch up. After performing a silent head count, he moved on.

As stealthy as he was trying to be, almost directly in front of the bus now, he slid on a pile of counterfeit DVDs that had spilled into the road from an open suitcase. In reaction to the sudden noise of the disks skidding off along the ground, the driver of the bus stirred, jostling in his seat slightly. Muz and the others froze, expecting him to clamber out of the vehicle and come running at them
, but he remained slumped at the wheel.

Instead,
a fox, who had been gnawing and tugging on the driver’s legs, jumped up onto the dash. She gave the surviving humans a quick and furtive sideways glance then jumped out the broken windscreen, scurried past Muz and was lost amid the cars. Well, Muz thought, having fed on that driver, the animal had to be infected and it probably wouldn’t be long before it began to turn.

Having clambered through the open doors of a Smart car,
the group reached the other side of the road. While the others were concerned only with keeping in cover and making as rapid progress as possible, Carl suddenly stopped in his tracks and stood erect. Seeing this, Amy gave a ‘psst’ to Muz, alerting him.

Looking back down their line, Muz saw the man standing upright and facing the opposite direction. Still keeping bent low, he made his way back to Carl.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, daring to stand up. “What have you seen?”

Carl gave a single word response. “Starbucks.”

“What?” Muz asked, looking over at the coffee shop and scanning for any infected people that might have caught Carl’s attention, but it was one of the few places that hadn’t been broken into and looted.

“I could murder a coffee,” Carl clarified.

“Are you completely insane?” Muz asked him, having to stop himself from shouting the words.

“It wouldn’t take long.”

“Are you serious? You would have to break in without making any noise,” Muz told him. He couldn’t believe what Carl was thinking. “You’d then have to figure out how to work the machines and wait for the water to boil. It would take ages, putting us all at risk, all for a sodding coffee.”

“It feels like months since I last had a frap’,” Carl said, staring sulkily at Muz.

The copper desperately had to calm himself down, telling himself that it had to be the stress. The man just needed some simple creature comfort from the normal routine of his life in order to forget, for a few minutes at least, the horror of what he was going through. Despite his understanding and empathy, he couldn’t resist spitting an insult at the man.

“You’re an idiot,” Muz said, crouched down again and headed off up
to the front of the line.

They made their way
westward along the row of shop fronts. Still staring at the coffee shop, Carl was almost left behind. When he at last noticed the others were a way off up the road, with a reluctant moan and a stomp of his foot, he hurried after them.

They reached a junction to their right, leading
onto the residential streets north of Station Road. Picking the shortest possible route to the Stonegrove estate, Muz first led them round the arc of Manor Park Crescent and then took the third junction to their right onto Green Lane.
The tower blocks could now be seen comfortingly close above the line of semi-detached houses.

Strangely, these roads too were deserted. Not a single person was to be seen and the group found themselves wondering silently, as they plodded along, where all the cannibal hordes had gone. They had made their way a considerable distance along this long straight road before
they came across the reason for the complete absence of violent madmen.

It was as they passed through some road width restriction barriers and approached the junction on their left with
Oakleigh Gardens that they heard the ominous sound. At first, they stood looking puzzled at one another, unable to work out what was making the odd clattering noise. Then the answer dawned across Muz’s face; it was the sound of hooves walking along the road.

“Horses,” Muz alerted the others, terror written across his face. “We need to hide.”

“So is horses. What is need to hide?” Tom asked, looking at Muz with confusion.

“Zombie horses,” Chuck said
fearfully, remembering the story Muz had told him.

Everyone wore the same expression as Muz now
, and they frantically looked around them for the best place to hide. Muz and Chuck ran into the front garden of one house, Amy, Margaret and Digby into another, and hid behind the privet hedges. Tom threw himself into a wheelie bin, while Carl dropped to the ground and slid under a car. All took cover without as much as a second to spare.

Muz risked a glance
around the hedge before Chuck yanked him back and he saw, from the junction, there appeared a herd of no less than twenty man-eating cows. From the crazed looks in their usually blank eyes and the dried dirty red stains around their mouths, they were cleared infected and hungry for meat.

One of their number lurched along unnaturally, one of its rear legs missing, having been chewed through at the knee. Though each and ev
ery one of them bore injuries of some degree, one was by far the worst. The black and white heifer had been eaten alive. Her stomach was completely missing from the ribs down to her pelvic bowl. The remains of entrails, now beginning to dry and wither, dangled beneath her from the gruesome cavity. Unlike the others, the skin of her nose and around her eyes was a dull grey, rather than the usual pink and black, as she decomposed at a more rapid rate, unable as she was to acquire sustenance.