Wild Strawberry: Book 3 Ascent (10 page)

             
“Oh shit,” gasped Danniella, “I really didn’t like the sound of that.”

             
“Oh my God!  Look!”  Tina pointed to the edge of the Heath.

             
They were now in the middle of a large open space, surrounded by what had once been some of the most expensive houses in London.  Now out of these houses, side streets and back alleys the dead came pouring out onto the grass.  Tina had never seen them in such numbers.

             
“We’re never going to be able to plough our way through that lot!”  Yelled Tina.

             
At that moment the car lurched ahead and downward, and with a splash and the sound of smashing glass they came to a sudden stop.

             
The driver’s side air bag inflated in Danniella’s face.  There was no passenger air bag, so Tina felt the seatbelt lock and cut into her shoulder as she was jarred to a halt.

             
They had driven straight into a small ornamental lake in the middle of the Heath.  It had been hidden from view by the overgrown grass.  Danniella tried to push back the air bag and turn the key, but the engine was dead.

             
Tina inhaled sharply, “So this is it.  Dan, it’s been good to know you!”

             
Danniella flung her door open. “Come on, we’re not beaten yet!  We’re almost at the river, we can run for it!”

             
Tina sighed.  Hope came as a disappointment to her. “Shit!”

             
The only direction that they were
not
coming from was the long wall of Greenwich Park.  Beyond the park lay Greenwich Village, and just a little further was the River Thames.

             
They were half a mile from safety.  Near enough to sprint the whole way, but far enough to totally exhaust them in the process: there was no margin for error.

             
“Come on Tina, we’ve got work to do!” Shouted Danniella as she started to run towards the Park.

             
Tina grudgingly followed.

             
They could not begin to guess the numbers of zombies that were running towards them with chilling speed and single-minded determination: hundreds, probably thousands.  The sound of them in such numbers seemed almost human again: like a crowd screaming at a goal in a football stadium.

             
The distance also made it hard to identify them as undead; they were too far away for Danniella and Tina to distinguish any of their distorted features: too far away at the moment.

             
Tina remembered the Heath from years before; she used to come here to fly her kite as a child, along with dozens of others.  On a windy Summer day the sky above the Heath would be filled with dancing, looping multicoloured kites.  However, now the smell of rot pervaded the whole area as the wind bore the stench of death everywhere.

             
As they ran a figure dead ahead of them sat up: a dark lump of charred flesh, but conscious emerged from the grass ahead of them.

             
The creature had obviously been on fire its hair and much of its clothes had burnt away and it was blackened beyond recognition.

             
With a mixture of relief and horror they saw that the monster’s eye sockets were empty, blackened holes: it could not see them.

             
This burnt mess reached for them blindly, groping the air, sensing them nearby, frenzied with hunger, yet unable to locate its meal.

             
They ran past the pitiful ruin that had once been a living person, and hurried on towards the Park entrance.

             
As they drew nearer, their muscles screaming in protest, they saw that the entrance they were heading for, a tall and solid metal gate, was closed.

             
Tina remembered the Park from childhood trips, and shouted breathlessly at Danniella, “To the right!  Run to the right!  There’s another entrance!  Iron Gate!”

             
Their change in direction not only meant longer on the Heath which was rapidly filling with zombies, but also meant running towards the solid line of creatures that was charging towards them from the West.  They just had to reach the gate before the approaching mass.

             
“Faster!”  Danniella screamed.

             
The creatures were closer now, closing in from every direction except the North where the tall, stone wall of Greenwich Park loomed ahead.

             
Danniella knew that if the Park was as full as the Heath they would have no hope.  They only had half a chance, and no chance at all if they couldn’t get in through the next gate.

             
They could see the faces of the zombies now, make out the injuries, bites and torn flesh that had led them to becoming undead.

             
Tina didn’t dare look back, she could hear them close behind her, and imagined she could feel their cold fingers reaching out for her hair.

             
They almost ran past the next entrance, a small archway, with a small wrought-iron gate, mercifully slightly open.

             
They could hardly hear the creak of the rusty hinge over the noise of the approaching horde.

             
Danniella slammed the gate closed behind them and slammed the bolt across.  The mechanism was fairly robust, but it would not hold the unstoppable tide of the dead for long.

             
Tina pointed down the hill: “Thames!”  She was so breathless she could barely speak, “River!  There!”

             
They set off down the hill, but stopped almost immediately when they saw three creatures at the bottom suddenly turn and start to charge towards them.

             
Tina and Danniella started to climb back up the hill, each step bringing agony to their exhausted muscles.  They were heading back towards the arms of the dead reaching through the gate that, for the moment, blocked their way.

             
“This way! “ Tina yelled through gritted teeth, running back along the other side of the wall, parallel to where they had run already.

             
An animalistic scream from directly behind them told the women that a zombie had been lurking nearby and had now joined the chase.

             
There was a small hedge with a gate at waist height.  Despite their aching limbs they both vaulted the gate with wings loaned by fear.

             
Danniella risked a glance over her shoulder as they ran through an overgrown rose garden.  With satisfaction she saw that the fence had tripped up the creature.  It sprawled on the ground.  It was not salvation, but it would buy them a few more seconds.

             
They ran on, and after another small fence came to a forest.  This would shelter them from the zombie’s view when they inevitably came flooding after them through the gate in a matter of seconds, but it also meant they couldn’t see any hazards that might be lurking close at hand.

             
Tina was aware that they were no longer running towards their goal: they were just
running away
from the zombies.

             
The burn in her legs made it clear she would not be able to keep up this pace for long.  They needed to make every step count or find a safe place to rest.

             
On they ran, until Tina remembered there was a deer enclosure up ahead.

             
Looking back she could no longer see the three zombies that had chased them up the hill, nor the newcomer which had tripped over the gate.

             
Their elation, however, was short lived: as suddenly they heard the crash of the park gate collapsing under the weight of hundreds of zombies.

             
The noise as they poured in was deafening.  Tina wondered
briefly what acoustic anomaly would make the sound so constant and unremitting, the noise of the dead smashing through the gate behind them blending with the creatures’ shrieks and growls into one hellish chorus.

             
As they emerged from the trees they found the wind had suddenly whipped up.  Autumn leaves, which had been left to rot swirled in the air around them.  As they finally broke cover Danniella’s steps faltered, even though there were creatures close behind.  Scattered around were at least fifty of the undead.  They had thousands behind them, and dozens in front.

*   *   *

Will and Siobhan found an eco-warehouse-store within a few miles.  It was the first expedition that was entirely without incident.  The shop was empty and the only sign that anything was amiss was that the door had been left wide open, swinging on rusting hinges.  They found solar panels, which they couldn’t carry while they were on motorbikes, but left them wrapped up by the roadside so they could collect them when they returned with the car.

             
Once they were ready to move on they paused to discuss their plan.

             
“Are you serious about going shopping?” Will asked Siobhan.

             
“Oh yes, it’s one thing to survive, but if we want to live we need entertainment.  Books and music and films are essential.”

             
“And you know where to go?”

             
“Well I’m tempted to suggest the huge mall they have over the river.”

             
“Sounds good, why not?”

             
“I can’t be sure, but I suspect it will either be tightly secured by survivors who’ve raided the food hall, or infested with zombies feeding off them.”

             
Will nodded thoughtfully.

             
“If there are survivors and we manage to break their defences to get inside, at best they’ll be pissed off, and at worst dead.”

             
“Maybe it’ll be safe, and we can join them for a bit.”

             
“Maybe,” said Siobhan, “but I really don’t want to get into such a confined space with the potential for hordes of the dead.”

             
“OK, so if not the mall, where do you recommend?”

             
“There is a book warehouse: big shop; ideal.”

             
“Couldn’t we just pick up a few novels from a garage?”

             
Siobhan looked despairing.  “I want something more than the latest Jilly Cooper and Stephen King.  There’s enough horror in the world already.”

             
Will smiled. “I know better than to argue with a lady about shopping.”

             
Siobhan rolled her eyes, then fixed Will with a serious look. “Listen Will, we’re not shopping for essentials here, we could go back right now.  We’ve put Danniella and Tina on the road to their lab; we’ve solar panels and wiring and daylight lamps in the car.  We could go back now and everyone would be happy.

             
“We’re risking our lives for entertainment.  We don’t
need
a boxed set of
The Wire
on DVD, but it’s on my shopping list.

             
“If you think this is stupid, we can go back right now.  It’s the sensible thing to do; in the world today unnecessary risks may be the very definition of madness.”

             
Will buried his head in his hands, rubbing his temples with his finger tips.  “I dunno, it feels wrong to risk what we’ve managed to save already.”

             
Siobhan nodded, trying not to look too disappointed.

             
“But, then again, “ Will continued, “I’m not sure I’m quite ready to go back yet...”

*   *   *

At length, the decision had been made that the newcomers would stay on the service station roof.  They could come down if Neil’s leg healed and there was no sign of infection.

             
The bad news was that there clearly was an infection.  The wound wept pale green pus, and the surrounding skin was red and swollen.

             
“I feel terrible, and it hurts like hell,” Neil told Misha, as they sat by their tent on the roof of the building, “but I’ve been thinking: if it was
the
infection it would feel worse, like slowly going mad or something.”

             
“I have no idea; all I do know is that you were scratched by the dirty nails of a decaying corpse; if you didn’t get some kind of infection in the wound it’d be nothing short of miraculous.  We just have to wait and see.”