The Undead Day Twenty (45 page)

Thirty

The will was there. The will is still there but willing a thing to happen is not the same as making a thing happen.

Two cannot hold so many back. It cannot be done. Blowers realises this as he makes the connection they are going for the door. He drops back with Meredith, slashing left and right to chop them down as they come at him and round him. Mangled corpses litter the ground and the gods play on to roll the die and score a double six as they laugh with mirth and let the storm begin.

The rain comes. Instant and sudden with a torrential downpour that simply commences as if it was always here and always happening. As the rain starts so the front ranks charge together. Blowers is taken down hard, slamming into the road as the axe spills from his hands. Meredith rags the one in her jaws and spins round to run and hit the few on Blowers. Her force makes them scatter as her teeth go to work. Blowers fights to get free, thrashing wild and demented to get his legs out so he can roll away and surge up. He goes for the knife on his belt but the next one is there. He lashes out with an instinct honed from years in the ring. A hammering right hook that sends the infected staggering away. The next one comes as he repositions and uppercuts with a power that smashes the jaw in several places.

That instinct kicks in and he drops with his feet positioned and his fists coming up to guard and work. The rain pours. His hair grows slick and wets his top tight against his frame but with his fists alone he holds them back.

A barrage of punches into the face of a man lunging to bite. Fists pulverise the nose, eye sockets and hold the beast back until he whips in with a vicious left hook that lifts the male and drops it dead.

Blowers is stronger than he was. Faster. He hits harder. He hits with enough power to kill and the skill shows now.

Jabs slam out. Jabs that fracture and knock heads back. He weaves and ducks, spinning to come in fast with another barrage that smashes them back. A hand lashes. He block, ducks and powers up with another uppercut. He goes back, feet dancing, upper body weaving to dodge and weave.

Three come. Three at once. Bang bang bang. Hits given to hold them back as he hooks and jabs then slams in the heavy right cross. Skulls fracture. Bones break. Bodies fall. He gets faster still. Speeding up to do a thing he has practised for what seems his entire life.

His hands become a blur. The jabs summon power that explodes out from his hips and core. An opening, a chance to take. The hook is nasty and vicious and drops the infected. The uppercut is brutal power. The heavy right is hard. All of them have their place and when used together they are devastating.

To Blowers, he is in the place fighting and cannot see himself. He cannot see the dance he weaves like Dave and Mo. He cannot see the ducks and jumps back to feint and fool as he slams his knuckles into faces and heads. He cannot see he kills with ease with a speed that is a blur. Left, right, left, right, hook. Left, left, right, hook. Right jab, left jab, huge power explosion of an uppercut.

He goes back towards the door but for a few glorious moments he holds a horde with nothing but his fists. They come harder, smelling the blood in the house, hearing the screams, sensing the fear. He fights harder. Hands rake his skin. His t-shirt rips. His skin is cut and bleeds. He hammers out, dancing to weave and duck and hit again. Several come in. Teeth find his arm. He screams out guttural and hard. Meredith grabs an ankle and pulls to remove the teeth on Blowers. Nails slash down his face, a heavy flailing arm slams into his face. His nose breaks. Blood pours but his nose has been broken before and he doesn’t feel the pain now. He is bitten, raked, cut and battered as he is beaten back towards the door but the two hold the line. They fight in the rain as the lightning forks down with ragged scars that scorch the ground.

He boxes for his life and that of an unborn child. He boxes to keep them back. He reaches the short path to the house and feels the organic touch of the others. He feels Mo’s coldness that is becoming more like Dave. He feels Nick slamming them back through the shop. He feels Paula and Marcy furious and in pain from so many bites. He feels Clarence’s enormous strength and the worry the big man has for Blowers. He feels Roy and Reginald. He feels Blinky fighting and Charlie and Cookey racing towards him. He feels the closeness of Meredith and the will inserted that tells him
to hold on brother, hold on.
Above it all he feels the power of Howie radiating out that pulses through them and he knows, without knowing how, that in the time since Howie brought the hive mind hundreds of infected have died. In that turmoil of the fight, and along with every other nuance of connection he feels two more. He feels Heather’s fear of the storm and the wall of rage that is Paco. A tsunami that comes in the form of a man that is half what they are and half something else.

He breaches the path and fights back to the door. He goes down but batters free. He falls into the house and calls himself a cunt for not locking the door when he came out. He goes into the hallway still fighting. Still boxing. The doorway reduces the numbers that can attack him at once. They still get through but he holds them from within while Meredith does what she can from outside.

Maddox looks up at the noise and Blowers fighting to hold the door with his bare hands. Maddox feels inside the woman who screams as she feels every single shred of pain. The baby is facing down. His fingertips feel the cord wrapped round the baby’s legs. He pushes harder in, feeling the cord’s tightness and works to the frantic conclusion that both of those things are preventing the baby coming out. He has to get the cord off and he has to turn the baby. It’s so wet, so slippery, he cannot gain purchase or leverage and knows he is causing her untold pain. The knife is there. He glances at it, knowing it may come to doing what Roy said and cutting down her stomach.

Inch by inch Blowers loses ground. Inch by inch they come surging through. The front windows of the lounge on Blowers left go through with bodies falling hard to the floor. They come pouring in as Blowers braces to hold the front door and the ones coming from the lounge. It gets harder. It gets nastier. The compression increases. He pulls his knife from his belt and stabs out into soft flesh. Blood spills, innards hang, he cuts throats and stabs through eyes into brains.

Maddox pushes harder. His face a mask of focus and concentration. He feels the cord going round the legs and tries to work it free but his fingers slide off. He tries to hook and drag it but he can only do millimetres before again his fingers slip off. He tries to turn the baby but suffers the same problem and he doesn’t notice when Julie grows quiet and still.

It comes to this. As Charlie did in the doorway to protect the three girls, so Blowers uses his body to shield them from breaching the kitchen. That he suffers is without question. That teeth find his flesh and nails slice his skin is apparent and obvious. He bleeds but he clots. He feels pain but he fights. He summons the darkest recesses of his soul for the last tiny bits of energy that is drip fed by the love of the others as they fight to get free to come and help him. The compression grows. Meredith rags them wild and fast but even she cannot stop them going in. She grips and kills. She launches again and again to tear throats out as she hears and feels Blowers roaring inside from the rigid thumb driving into his eye. He stabs and stabs. He thrashes but the thumb drives deeper, pushing his eye back so hard it feels like it will touch his brain. He screams out as it bursts and a searing burning agony goes through his head. He twists and bites into the wrist of the hand blinding him. His teeth open skin. Blood spurts. He thrashes again as the thumb goes but the vision in his left eye won’t come.

As one the others scream out at the pain and fear rushing through Blowers. Charlie yells for Jess to go faster. The horse belts it down the roads, taking corners hard and fast. Every muscle in Cookey’s body tensed. His face a mask.

Pack must come now.

A pulse from Meredith calling for the pack. C
ome now. Hold on Brother, hold on. I’ll come to you.

Hurts. Can’t see.

HOLD ON BROTHER.

Too many.

I’m coming mate.

Too many, Cookey. Can’t see. I can’t see.

I’m coming, Blowers. I swear it.

The vision in his left eye gone. His right misted, blurred and the agony is searing. He stabs, braces and takes the pain for the voices of the pack willing him to hold on.

Maddox curses, his grip lost again. He tries and feels his way over the legs to the feet then back up as he tries to pull the cord down. He glances to the hallway and sees Blowers flailing blind and bleeding heavily. He sees how close they are and knows he has but seconds. Julie is silent. She isn’t screaming. He looks again to see blood still seeping from her that tells him her heart still beats but slow and weak. It has to be now. From the stomach down. It has to be now.

In the precinct Howie, Dave and Clarence slay with frantic fear driven energy under a torrential rain that cools their skin and drips valuable fluids into their parched throats. Mo, Marcy and Paula scream as they fight out from the shopping centre and Nick batters a savage path from the shop front. The hive mind is upon them. The intrinsic connection to each that flows and tells them Blowers is going down. He can’t see. Pain everywhere. Too many against him.

Meredith snarls and takes them down. Her body twisting, lunging and fighting to get through into the house but they press in harder, closing the gaps and preventing her getting through. They charge hard to push and strain with the goal of taking one of Howie’s now so close.

Blowers braces and holds. His body battered and hurt. Blood pouring from his nose. The vision in his left eye gone. The knife held in his right hand puckers a throat as he flails out with his left fist.

Howie roars out as Roy fires his last arrow, drops his bow, draws his sword and drops from the window to land on the bodies beneath him. The pressure is immense. The sense of victory in their foe who can taste the death of one of theirs. He slashes out wild and frenzied. His face contorted to beat them back and break free so he can to Blowers. They all do it. They all fight to get free. The infected compress. Sacrificing so to feed the weapons of the living army to keep them pinned and held as it drives harder into the hallway and tastes the blood of Simon Blowers.

Blowers weakens. Blood streaming from wounds all over his body. He stabs with his right hand and pushes his open left hand into the face of an infected woman. The pain from his eye is agonising and burns. His head throbs, his legs start to shake and tremble. He holds them with everything he has. He grits to brace and not yield, to hold the line.

Maddox digs the point of the knife into her stomach. What must done will be done. He cuts her. The sharp blade peels the flesh apart so easily it sickens him. He is killing her. She will now never recover or have life. With the torch in his teeth, he operates on the blood soaked floor to cut through a human being to save the child within her.

Blowers feels more pain than he has ever felt in his life. His left hand on the face of the infected woman who thrashes faster than he can react. His fingers go into her mouth. He pulls back but she bites hard and deep with a crunch through the bone on his little finger. He screams and slams his forehead into hers. Skulls meet. Stars flash. She goes back, tearing his finger from his hand as she goes. He roars out, incensed. The final rage explodes as he batters the soft bodies in front of him. The stump where his finger was sprays blood but he rams that broken hand into their faces. He stabs, kicks, bites and headbutts as he goes back towards the kitchen. Voices in his head. Voices in his mind. Cookey screaming. Meredith exerting her will. Charlie riding Jess. He feels them all. He feels each and gives thanks for knowing them. He gives grace for the honour of serving with them. In the final seconds of his life he wishes them well and to carry the fight on.

Julie is dead. The blood has stopped coming from her. Her heart has stopped beating. The baby will die. The infected are coming. Blowers is losing. The others aren’t fast enough. Maddox cuts down and pushes a hand in to feel the baby’s feet. He cuts again and works to find the cord.

Blowers starts to fall. He has done what he can and no more can be asked. Power flows into him. A will exerted from the others driving their love into his heart. He grunts and fights to rise up to use his body to block them. His head swims, his legs buckle then stiffen as he snarls and digs in to hold.

Maddox cuts to see the legs and reaches in to pull the cord down and free from the tiny limbs.

Jess takes the corner and powers on with a burst of speed towards the huge crowd pushing into the doorway of the house. They ride into a scene of hell. Of bodies strewn and more raging and snarling as one dog attacks them like a beast from a nightmare. The flames from the houses blown to light a path bathe a fiery glow. Smoke plumes thick and black. The rain pours. Cookey grips his axe as Charlie fixes the door in her eyes. A signal sent. A message received and it is to that point that Jess aims. Jess who flies on feet that bring thunder and doesn’t flinch as she slams into them with a power unbeknown to mere humans. Only she can do this. Only Jess can move them away in such a way. Only Jess can hold this point and she does. By the goodness of God she smashes them back and turns on a sixpence to rear as Cookey slides back to land with his axe swinging.

A screech of tyres. Headlights sweep the street. The Toyota revs loud and solid as it drives hard with the wall of rage that is Paco. Heather was aiming for the door to do the same as Jess but sees the horse already there. She stamps on the brake and heaves the wheel round. The vehicle slews out with the passenger door already opening as the wall of rage comes out to join the fray.