13

“Sorry I lost it, man,” Kunaka said to O’Connell, his eyes ahead and his voice low.

They were moving cautiously through the corridor leading to the stairs, stepping over scattered office debris. A dreadful storm had passed through there not too long ago and it had left its mark. Windows were smashed, chairs and tables scattered and overturned. But there were no bodies or blood to be seen.

“Forget it,” O’Connell said and he meant it.

But Kunaka wasn’t ready to let it go. “You have a habit of trying to bail me out.”

“Yeah, but sometimes it doesn’t always go according to plan, does it?” O’Connell recalled. “Maybe we should talk about it over a cold one some day.”

“Let’s do it now,” Kunaka whispered. And O’Connell could see that Kunaka wanted some normalcy injected into his day, something to keep the werewolves from the door. Something to keep him in the here and now and not back in that place he’d stumbled across in the Mastiff, a place where Voodoo sorcerers talked of atonement.

“I agreed to let you do it,” Kunaka continued firmly. “I don’t blame you for what happened with Wiggets.”

Blame.

That was a word, wasn’t it? How many times had that noun pervaded the life and love of Kevin O’Connell? Too many times, too many instances where the beast blame had influenced his actions; moulding his decisions into its own image.

It had started with Chris, hadn’t it? Of course it had. Chris: his little brother. Last seen when, exactly? Oh, yes that last image of his small, frightened face, staring up from the brown churning waters of a Blue Circle Incorporated quarry pit. A place they should never have been, a place where two other kids had died in the space of four years. And Chris had gone to play hide and seek with them at the bottom of the murky water as his big brother knelt screaming his name over and over by the side of the shit coloured lake, clinging to the ‘Danger! No Swimming!’ sign.

Yes it had started there, even though everyone said that he wasn’t to blame, that maybe, if his parents had invested less time in snooker rooms and bingo halls and not left two boys to fend for themselves on a regular basis, things may have been different. It was about being responsible - accountable - in the end. Oh, they said these things but O’Connell saw that the level of conviction never quite made it to their eyes, not his parents, not the social workers, not the police.

And, just as the need for consistency and security had driven him into the army, so the burning need to protect those he cared for came along for the ride. But not content to be sitting quietly in the back seat, it jumped up front, taking over driving duties until the tank ran out. But it was a long, long road and the fuel gauge never entered the red zone.

So, years later, when he’d said to Kunaka that he would lie to support him in nailing the murdering scumbag of an officer, blame had pulled a few strings and made him dance. He couldn’t sit by and helplessly watch his brother sinking into that murky pit any more. He had to protect. He had to be responsible.

The report went in: an attempted rape and murder of a seventeen year old Serbian girl by a British Officer. With two marines as witnesses to the shooting. Cut and dried.

Or so it seemed.

Within three days the case was dropped. O’Connell and Kunaka were visited by a Colonel who questioned their credibility as witnesses, given that there were reports of a history of bad blood between them and the officer in question. And then there was the “evidence” found in the home of Jasna Maric implicating her as a Croatian sleeper. With this unspecified “evidence” clearing Wigget’s of any wrong doing the marine’s behaviour and more importantly their motive was subsequently called into question. And the upshot was a “Conduct Unbecoming” charge which was upheld in the subsequent - and rapid - court martial.

So, after ten years of loyal service, O’Connell and Kunaka had “DD” stamped on their file and no chance of work in the traditional post-military areas: police, emergency services, the security sector.

Instead they became anti-security consultants, their skills readily sought by those who knew quality work and the rest sort of followed on from there.

“I hate to interrupt this sort of bonding thing you guys are having here,” Clarke said from behind them, “but I think you should know I can hear something.”

The group stopped and listened intently for a few seconds. O’Connell was about to say something when a faint, dull dragging noise came from over their heads.

“Something being hauled across the floor?” Kunaka suggested. “Barricade, maybe?”

“Let’s see,” O’Connell replied, his eyes still scanning the ceiling.

The stairs were carpeted so their approach was easily masked. Once they had reached the door opening out onto the first floor O’Connell told Clarke to stay back. The youth didn’t need telling twice, skulking in the shadows and clutching his rifle to him as though it were a small child.

“Try not to shoot us, brain box,” Kunaka warned as he disappeared through the door.

The first things O’Connell picked up in his torch beam were the dark splashes on the walls. And the ceiling.

Blood.

“O’Connell,” Kunaka hissed. “Two O’clock - check it out.”

Up ahead, to the right, an office door was ajar and sticking out from it was an arm. It was bare and slim, rendered stark in the light from their torches, the rings on the fingers: a mesmerizing twinkle.

Kunaka spotted something else. “Hey, the fingers are moving. They’re still alive!”

And suddenly he was rushing down the corridor, his instincts taking over.

“Stu!” O’Connell barked. “Wait a minute!”

Kunaka got to the door and nudged it open, his gun ready but his mind focused on the shivering limb and its owner.

But, to his horror, Stu was to discover that at this moment in time the arm didn’t have an owner, it had been severed just below the elbow; the soft tissue ragged and dark with congealed blood. Yet it continued to move blindly, the fingers digging into the carpet, pulling its cylinder of flesh behind it.

Someone loomed forwards out of the shadows. A woman, eyes vacant, face smeared with gore, one arm missing just below the elbow. She lunged at Kunaka before he had time to recoil.

“Shit!”

“Kunaka, get clear!” O’Connell yelled. “I can’t get a shot.”

“Jesus, she’s fuckin’ strong,” Kunaka gasped trying to push the zombie away from him. He grabbed her by the hair, trying to yank those teeth away from him. But to his disgust she merely hauled her head forwards, with the purring sound hair ripping from the scalp, and suddenly her mouth was about his throat and closing over his larynx. Searing pain as he felt muscle tear, he felt her teeth grating against his oesophagus and the warm wetness cascading down the front of his tunic.

He tried to cry out but with his throat gone, only a weak gurgling hiss came. The female zombie was still embedded in his throat as Kunaka collapsed and O’Connell opened her head with two rounds from his weapon.

By the time he’d pulled her carcass off and held onto his friend, O’Connell knew that he was too late.

***

Phut! Phut! Phut! Phut!

Under the city streets, four grenade launchers fired in quick succession.

It was a dull sound, a small thing compared to the detonations that ensued. The walls cracked, imploding as their structures weakened in the blasts, huge chunks of concrete folding, and tumbling inwards under the weight of the earth behind it.

It stopped most of the rodent horde charging towards Alpha Team, thousands of tiny screams trapped behind a wall of dirt and rock. But some still got through, their speed carrying them onwards ahead of the cave in. And there were still enough to overwhelm their prey; a few hundred at least. There were many but they all had one single minded goal.

To feed.

“The tunnel won’t take another blast like that,” Shipman shouted, his ears still ringing from the explosions. “We have to move, get to higher ground.”

Alpha Team began their retreat, torch lights swinging frantically, footfalls big in the small space, and the vile vermin in hot pursuit.

Connors risked a brief look behind him and baulked in fear. Several of the rats were mere metres from his boots. He kicked out, catching one dead centre, punting it back down the tunnel, but his action was too ballistic and he lost his balance. He landed heavily, rolling several times in the muddy water lying on the tunnel floor. His weapon discharged sending a round through his foot and removing his toes.

He screamed in pain and fear and the knowledge that his time on this Good Earth was to end in a brief, savage period of Hell.

Then they were on him, biting and tearing at his fatigues, his cries suddenly loud as his biochem mask was ripped from his face.

Honeyman turned briefly and saw the writhing mass in the tunnel, a bloodied arm rising weakly clawing ineffectually at the air; all but the middle finger missing as though Connors were offering one last gesture of defiance.

“Fuck it,” Honeyman whispered and launched another grenade from the M208 strapped to the underside of his carbine. The high explosive pellet detonated upon impact, chewing into the flesh of both man and rodent, scattering it throughout the tunnel with a bright, loud roar.

Honeyman turned to continue his escape and he found himself looking into the face of Shipman. The Major looked briefly over Honeyman’s shoulder and then back at him; their eyes locking for a moment.

Then Shipman nodded; admonishment in a simple bob of the head. You did the right thing. I would have done the same.

They both began to run. Unlike Connors, the grenade had given them only token, temporary respite from the zombie rodents, who were now heading down the tunnel; now discernable - no longer a mass but still determined and deadly.

As Honeyman followed his Major, he thought briefly of that moment they shared; that instant of communicative twilight where right and wrong hung in the balance, and breathed a sigh of relief at the outcome.

It could’ve gone the other way and that would have meant killing the rest of Alpha Team ahead of schedule. And Honeyman was under instruction that such action was strictly a last resort.

He ran on.

***

“I gather you two were real pals?” Clarke said in the uneasy silence.

O’Connell didn’t respond immediately. He gazed down at Stu Kunaka’s bloodied body and fought back wave after wave of violent emotion. Anger? Sure, there was plenty of that. And grief too had turned up to the party. But there was also blame, that old devil forever haunting his steps. He’d lost someone he cared for, another person had been snatched away from him, right in front of his eyes.

“Yes,” he said; his voice weak and watery. “I guess you could say that.”

“Then you really ain’t gonna like what I’m gonna say next,” Clarke muttered.

“Just say it,” O’Connell said glancing up at him.

“You’ve got to put a bullet in his head, man,” Clarke said quietly. “Otherwise he’s gonna be up and walking around like the rest of them.”

There was a long silence as O’Connell considered this. “That’s going to be difficult,” he admitted.

“I get that,” Clarke said. “But this isn’t Dawn of the Dead, O’Connell. And these aren’t the products of Tom Savini and a box of make up.”

“You think I don’t know that?” O’Connell rounded on him.

“I'm just saying,” Clarke said looking away and leaving O’Connell to come to his own conclusions. His thoughts were mud: thick and wieldy. A small noise came from the stairway and he span round, his torch turning the corridor to milky white.

“Hey, guys, it’s Suzie! Don't shoot!”

O’Connell sighed and lowered his weapon. “Shit, Suzie,” he said. “Am I glad you’re here?”

“I heard shots,” she said. “What’s -?” She stopped; her eyes alighting on Kunaka’s slumped and bloody body.

“Oh, no,” she breathed. She went to O’Connell, putting a hand on his chest. “Are you okay, baby?”

“No,” he said turning away. “But we have to do this another time.”

“Okay,” she said cautiously.

“Some things can’t wait,” Clarke said quietly.

“What’s he mean?” Suzie asked O’Connell.

“What I mean is: Kunaka has been bitten and he’s gonna come back,” Clarke snapped, indignant at being ignored. “And when he does he isn’t gonna be wanting a group hug.”

“So what do we do?”

She took Clarke unawares by addressing him directly.

He told her how these things went and she nodded grimly.

“O’Connell?” she said. “You or me, that’s what it comes down to, right?”

He said nothing for a long while. Just when Suzie thought he was unable to make the decision he turned to face her.

“I’ll do it,” he replied. “He’s my responsibility.”

“You’re not to blame for this, O’Connell. Just like you weren’t to blame for -” The look on his face made her abort the sentence.

For Chris, she’d been about say. But his eyes told her to quit it. Quit it right now.

She bobbed her head in understanding. “I’ll go with Clarke and we’ll get this thing done,” she said simply. “You catch up when you’ve finished up here.”

Suzie withdrew, heading off down the corridor. She’d taken several steps before turning to Clarke who remained gawping at her.

“You coming, or what?” she said briskly.

“Yeah,” he said in resignation and followed her, thinking that in the grand scheme of things his day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

How wrong he was.

***

Another person perhaps not having a particularly good day was none other than Thom Everett, who having wiped tears and snot on the smoke blackened sleeve of his Charvet shirt, had begun his descent to the lobby of Hilton Towers only to find a few more obstacles in his way.

On the plus side, he’d spotted the group of zombies before they had been aware of him. He didn’t know what had made him peer over the balustrade but peer he did and managed to spot the bloodied hand on the stair rail several floors below. And that bloodied hand was sliding up the banister, leaving a smear of gore in its wake, as its owner slowly climbed the stairs. And behind the hand came another and another and another; all moving at a snail’s pace, all leaving that hideous splattered smear on the hand rail.

There wasn’t any going down tonight. Not with Wei Li and sure as hell not with the stairway. He checked the hand rail on the floor above him and it appeared clear.

“Up it is then,” he muttered and began the slow ascent to the roof, desperately trying to avoid the gnawing reality that once he was up there, he had nowhere else to go.

***