Wild Strawberry: Book 3 Ascent (4 page)

             
It was a black car.  It was a large 4X4 with tinted windows, flames coming from a burning roof rack, skidding as it turned around sharply in the car park.  It was trailing a crowd of at least fifty hungry zombies.

             
Looking down Rob saw a trail of black smoke, a smoke signal to every zombie within a ten mile radius.

             
Their days of wine and roses were over: the whole area would be standing room only with monsters in a day or two.

             
They had better organise a final raid to claim as much as possible from the ground floor before it became too busy.

             
Just as Rob thought it could get no worse, the car smashed through the window, doubling the number of creatures infesting their home.

Unexpected Guests

Adam looked at the bite in his hand.  He could see the bones of his metatarsal visible through the torn mess.

             
“I know the bloody score!” He whispered to himself.

             
Neil and Misha were cowering in the back seat.  The windows were darkened, so they did not think the creatures could see inside; but the zombies knew someone was in there, as their hands and teeth scratched at the surface.

             
“Get down you two,” Adam sighed with resignation.

             
“I’m going to cause a distraction:  Lead them away from the car; then you two run.”

             
Neil and Misha both looked at Adam’s blood-drenched hand.  They knew he was as good as dead.

             
“Adam,” Neil placed a hand on his shoulder, “you’re a legend.”

             
“Thank you,” Misha added quietly, tears in her eyes.  She wanted to stop him, but there was no point. 
Let him die a hero’s death
, she thought to herself.  But they would all be dead in matter of minutes.  She clutched her Qur’an so she would die with the Prophet’s words in her arms.

*   *   *

Adam kicked open the car door and pushed past the first two zombies who had been knocked backwards by the force of the door slamming into them.

             
He sped out into the middle of the food court, pushing silver chairs and tables behind him to obstruct his undead pursuers.

             
He heard a woman’s voice calling him: momentarily confused he looked around.  He saw an attractive middle-aged woman suspended from the roof.

             
She saw his blood-soaked hand. 

             
“He’s infected!” the woman shouted to an unseen friend.

             
The look of horror on the stranger’s face made Adam hesitate for a moment.

             
He only paused for a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for the zombies to catch up with him.

             
Dead hands were entwined in his long hair and he was pulled backwards.

             
Teeth found his head, scraping along his skull as a chunk was bitten from his forehead.

             
He fell backwards, and another creature started biting at his stomach.  His flesh tore, and hands found his innards.

             
Adam screamed in pain.  Gritting his teeth he looked at the zombie that was disembowelling him.  “Fuck you,” he spat in the creature’s face, “fuck you and the horse you rode in on!”

             
He felt teeth at his throat.

             
Attempting to curse again he discovered that his voice was no longer working.

             
He tried to look up to see if his friends had escaped.  All he could see were ever more snarling undead faces approaching him.

             
He willed himself to let go of life and die, but the pain kept coming.  His breathing became difficult, but it wouldn’t stop.

             
He felt himself pulled apart, like a ball of string unraveling, racked with excruciating pain, as teeth bit deeply and hands tore at him.

             
Fingers found his eye sockets, and mouths found his eyes.  Blinded, he remembered hearing that when people lost one sense the others would become more acute.  This thought was just slipping through Adam’s brain when mercifully he lost consciousness.

*   *   *

Neil and Misha opened their car doors as the zombies caught up with Adam.  They were about to run out of the building through the hole they had made in the glass front wall, when Rob called to them.

             
“Up here!”

             
“Wait!”  A female voice called from the other side of the building, “They may be infected.”

             
“No, no, no!” Misha and Neil shouted together.

             
Rob’s fear of infection wrestled with his desire to help these desperate strangers.  He lowered a home-made rope ladder, and Misha was first up.  As Neil followed, zombies, mouths still red and wet with Adams blood, caught sight of him.

             
As the creatures ran towards him, Rob and Misha hauled the rope ladder, pulling Neil upwards as he climbed.

             
He felt hands on his legs, scratching his flesh; a flash of pain, and then he was lifted through the ceiling to safety.

*   *   *

Once they were settled in the rafters, panting for breath, Helena growled, “You can’t stay if you’re infected!”

             
“Wait, Helena,” Rob held his hands up apologetically, “let these poor people get their breath back before we start this conversation.”

             
Neil was clutching his bloody shins.

             
“Here, let me have a look,” soothed Misha softly.

             
Turning to Helena and Rob, she added, “Have you any water for me to wash his wounds?”

             
“Water…?”  Helena furrowed her brow… “Wash his wound quickly and be on your way.”  She stomped angrily across the rafters to go and fetch some water.

             
“I’m sorry,” Rob apologised, “forgive Helena, she’s been through a lot.”

             
“We all have” retorted Misha curtly.

             
“I know, I know,” mumbled Rob, sounding miserable as he looked at Neil’s bleeding legs.

             
Carefully Misha peeled back Neil’s trouser leg.  He had several long, deep scratches along his shins.  She undid his training shoe and carefully rolled back his sock.  Lifting his leg, she looked all around it.

             
“I don’t know, Neil!”

             
“You don’t know?”

             
“There are no bites,” she furrowed her brow, “at least I don’t think so.  And I don’t know if the infection can be carried by scratches.”

             
Rob looked at the wounds and shook his head, “I don’t know about this.”

             
Helena returned with a plastic bottle full of water and a large green first aid box.

             
Misha rummaged through the box, tutting and shaking her head, before turning back to continue her inspection of the wound.  “Even if he doesn’t have the infection, being scratched by rotting nails is bound to give an infection”

             
Rob ran off and came back with a bottle of Irish Whiskey. “I was saving this, but under the circumstances…”

             
He opened the bottle top and took a swig before handing it to Misha.

             
She looked at the bottle suspiciously, and sniffed the dark liquid. 

             
Rob pointed to the first aid box, “The antiseptic cream in there is long out of date and dried up.  Maybe this will do.”

             
Misha nodded.

             
“I’ve seen it in the movies,” added Rob, “but I’m not sure if it’ll really work.”

             
“I’m honestly not sure how effective it will be, but the alcohol is bound to kill off some of the germs…”  She took some cotton wool from the first aid kit, and soaking it in whiskey, began to bathe Neil’s wounds.

             
As he watched the whiskey-soaked swab approach his legs he told himself to be brave; he told himself that this would hurt, but he was a man, and could handle it; he told himself pain was nothing more than his body’s signal to his brain, and he could chose to ignore it.

             
He wondered who was screaming as he watched the drops of amber liquid roll over his twitching leg.  Then he realised it was himself.

             
The pain was intense and uncompromising.

             
Misha nodded towards the first aid kit, “Sorry, Neil, there’s nothing in there to help you, it’s all we’ve got.”

             
Closing his eyes tight, Neil tried to shut out the searing, stinging pain.  He prayed for it to end in a litany of swear words.

             
“Shit!  Fuck!  Piss!  Wank!  Bugger!  Tits!  Shit!  Fuck!  Piss!  Wank!  Bugger!  Tits!”

             
After what to Neil seemed like hours of torture, and to Misha not nearing long enough to do a proper job, Neil staggered to his feet. “No more, that’s enough.”

             
Now the wounds had been cleaned, the long scratches were clearly visible.

             
Misha considered. “Only this one and this one would be serious enough for stitches.”

             
“You can’t stitch me up!” Neil protested.

             
“You could be right Neil,” said Misha grimly, “I went to a first aid course years ago.  At this point we should ‘seek professional medical assistance’ – but that could be difficult.”

             
“No shit?”

             
“Please, Neil, don’t swear, I’m doing my best.”

             
“Fuck, Misha, how can you worry about swearing at a time like this?  If I don’t bleed to death…”

             
“You’re not going to bleed to death Neil!”  Snapped Misha.

             
“OK, if I don’t bleed to death, then I could catch some infection from some fucking zombie’s dirty fucking fingernails.  And if I don’t die of that it could be the shitting-fucking-bastard-zombie-virus that turns me into one of those fuckbags.”

             
Neil’s anger gave way to sobbing.

             
Rob put an arm around him.

             
Neil started singing in a weak, child-like voice, “It’s the end of the world as we know it…”

             
The other survivors looked from each other to the sobbing man with the bleeding legs.

             
“It’s the end of the world as we know it...”

             
Rob scratched his chin, wanting to say something, but having no idea what.

             
“…And I feel fine.”  Neil stopped singing and lapsed into silence.

             
Helena looked at Rob and mouthed the word, “
He has to go.
”

             
Rob looked at her appealingly and shrugged his shoulders indicating resignation or helplessness.

             
“He has to go,
now!
”  Helena mouthed.

             
Rob mouthed back, “
Go where?
”

             
Helena mimed, slapping her forehead, “
I don’t give a fuck.
”

Rob walked away over the rafters and beckoned Helena to follow.

*   *   *

Jim couldn’t sleep.  He climbed out of his bunk as quietly as possible, taking care not to wake Summer.  He flicked open his mobile phone, there would be no signal in the Bunker even if there had been a signal outside, but he charged his phone every time the electricity was running.  He dreamed that one day the phone would ring again, and it would be Kate, his wife.  He would realise that she hadn’t really been infected and killed on their journey to the Bunker.  She had somehow survived and found a hiding place, and now she was on her way to join her family in their underground oasis.