16
Halfway into Shipman’s ascent, the rungs, brackets and the wall to which they were all attached disappeared, giving way to a misshapen trench with a summit fifty metres overhead. The channel kept company with huge chunks of concrete and several writhing zombies, their bodies crushed by slabs of debris; yet their yearning to be free, their need to feed driving them on despite their hopeless and inevitable sense of immobility.
Without his biochem mask Shipman could smell the heady mix of sweet putrid reek of decaying flesh and the bitter tang of acrid smoke on the air. He suspected that since he hadn’t yet succumbed to convulsions then the affects of Whittington’s Lazarus Initiative has dissipated; a small mercy in this place of corruption.
“The target zone should be north east,” Honeyman said crawling out of the hole in the ground. “I make that few hundred metres over the crest of the trench.”
“Then let’s get up there and report in,” Shipman said, his hand instinctively reaching for his mic. It was corrugated by the impact of his fall, but the fine clicking in his ear told him the apparatus was still functioning.
“Yes Sir!” Honeyman acknowledged.
Shipman scrambled up the side of the pit, one hand grabbing hold of chunks of rock or cement or concrete the other clutching his SA80, training its muzzle on the rapidly approaching summit.
Behind, Honeyman kept watch on his enemies; both the living and the undead. It would’ve been so easy to have left the Major to his fate in the tunnel cave in, but the cold truth was that Honeyman needed him, or rather his firepower, to get hold of the kid. It would have to be a last resort to take out the Major before he’d achieved retrieval. But no matter how he looked at it, Honeyman knew that with every step they made it nearer to Thom Everett, Shipman’s usefulness to the mission was slowly waning.
Soon he would shoot his commanding officer of five years in the back of the head. It would be an uncomfortable thing to do, but it would be made a little easier by comforting thoughts of the substantial payday that lay around the corner.
A gunshot brought Honeyman back into focus. Shipman had taken down a female zombie who had clambered over the summit and was scrambling towards them. Her head erupted in a crimson plume; driving her body flat against the inclined wall of the trench, where it slithered for a few feet on the unsettled earth.
Honeyman brought up his gun as two more zombies peered over the crest. He put a bullet through the eye of one and shattered the others jaw with a second round.
“Let’s get up there,” Shipman yelled, crouched and moving with determination. Honeyman followed and their progress was only hampered by the occasional zombie, who they dispatched with clinical efficiency.
Once out of the trough Shipman scanned the scene about them. The buildings were now skeletal, their brickwork blackened and broken; exposing girders and RSJ’s and the window frames warped and vacant.
And rising from this architectural carnage was Hilton Towers, tall and resplendent, yet still carrying the injuries of battle. Even from his position a hundred metres below Shipman noted that the top of the building bore a deep, dark gouge, a scar from the explosion at Whittington’s penthouse and from this smoke drifted, obscuring swathes of recently liberated stars.
“Honeyman,” Shipman said. “Cover me whilst I establish contact with COM.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Shipman moved several paces away from his cover man before speaking into his mic.
“Alpha team to COM Actual. Come in, Colonel. Over.”
The response was not so much fast as instant.
“COM Actual to Alpha Team,” Carpenter’s voice sounded loud and urgent. “Major, use secured line, over.”
“Yes, Colonel,” Shipman replied switching channels. “Shipman here, Colonel; you have news?”
“Plenty,” Carpenter said. “And it’s not good.”
***
“Take it easy, Amir,” O’Connell said firmly. “It’s just us.”
“May the Lord save me from myself!” Amir said clutching his heart through his fatigues. “I thought you were those things.”
“Some thanks that is,” Clarke snorted. “I thought we were a little less gross.”
“Some of us are,” Suzie sniped.
“How did we do?” Amir asked O’Connell.
“We delivered,” O’Connell said grimly. “But it came at cost.”
Amir suddenly realised that one of their number was missing. “Kunaka?”
O’Connell shook his head.
“May the lord keep him,” Amir whispered bowing his head.
“We can mourn later,” O’Connell said resolutely. “We’ve done the job. Now we have to get out of here.”
“Plenty of motors,” Clarke observed after a cursory glance about the car park.
“The roads are cluttered with shit and zombies. We may not get far,” Amir cautioned.
“There’s little alternative,” Suzie said. “We have to hot wire one of these vehicles and get gone.”
“We need a weapons check,” O’Connell suggested just as the group of zombies from the first floor spilled out through the fire door onto the metal platform.
Clarke lifted his SA80 and splattered their bodies with high explosive bullets.
“I can confirm that mine still works,” he grinned.
“Child,” Suzie said under her breath.
“Let’s get a vehicle,” O'Connell said.
The car park was splashed with the sodium glow from high intensity floods highlighting fifteen or so vehicles. Clarke made his way over to a blue Subaru Impreza WRX.
“Oh, let’s have this,” he said, almost skipping towards it. “Turbo charged 16 valve 265 break horsepower. Come to me baby!”
“Forget it, Clarkey,” O’Connell said. “It’s got an immobilizer. So unless you want to hop back inside and ask our undead buddies who’d like to give up their keys, I’d suggest that.”
Clarke followed O’Connell’s outstretched finger and moaned in disgust.
“A transit van?” he said, his face wrinkling at the abhorrence of such a suggestion. “Give me few minutes and I’m sure I could find a feckin’ moped I looked hard enough.”
“The van can be hotwired and it only has three windows,” O’Connell said. “Now get moving.”
The group trudged over to the transit and Suzie shot out the lock on the driver’s side. After clambering inside she opened the passenger door and finally the double doors at the back of the vehicle.
Amir and Clarke climbed in the back both having to navigate through a pile of electronic equipment loaded in the storage bay. Once deep inside, the two men began to create some space by throwing the contents out onto the tarmac. Once they were satisfied that they’d enough room, the doors were slammed closed with a good, solid thump.
Up front, O’Connell snapped open the steering column and removed the ignition barrel. Having sparked and twisted the two wires together, the engine fired and now lay idling.
He reversed the van out of its slot, parked between a mini Cooper and a beaten up Vauxhall Vectra, and drove to the gates some forty metres away.
Here he jumped out, removing a Browning automatic and pumped three bullets into the gate’s locking mechanism. Then he climbed back into the cab and drew forward, nudging the gate open, metal grinding against metal, until they were clear.
They had gone only a third of a mile before the first of the zombies were upon them. It was a crowd of football supporters; their sheer number providing an impregnable wall of bodies. Like moths to a flame, the horde turned to face the oncoming headlights, mouths wide and dark and dribbling.
“Gotta turn around,” O’Connell said pulling up and slamming the van into reverse, the gears grinding with an unpleasant screech.
The van thumped into a lamp post felling it like a metal tree. O’Connell fed the gear roughly into first and continued back the way they came.
“If we can just get out of the enclosed places, and get to the ring road, we'll stand a better chance,” he said, peering out into the streets.
“You think we’re gonna make it?” Clarke asked.
“Damn right you’ll make it,” O'Connell said. “I’m making sure of it.”
Suzie sat quietly beside O’Connell, her expression blank but her mind active. At that moment optimism was a shy creature naked in the darkness. Sure, they had completed the job, but getting out - the part that should’ve been a time for reflection and quiet celebration - appeared to be turning into a hopeless affair. She fingered the rifle resting in her lap and was overcome by the gnawing realization that despite their rifles and pistols the enemy had a far greater, far more potent weapon. And that weapon was purpose. It kept this inhuman race staunch and unyielding and undeterred. Suzie questioned if even O’Connell’s commitment could match them.
“You with me?” he said beside her.
“Always,” she said with a drawn smile.
The van accelerated and approached a T junction. O’Connell took a right hand turn and the imposing structure of Hilton Towers loomed over them.
“You didn’t indicate back there, driver,” Clarke said from the back of the van. “How did you get a license?”
“I never said I had a license,” O'Connell said. “You want to drive, Mr. Subaru?”
“You carry on my man,” Clarke said. “I’m getting used to this chauffer driven gig.”
“You better had,” Amir mused. “Because: we’ll have enough money in our accounts to have a small army of chauffeurs on our payroll.”
“Yes,” Clarke grinned. “You’re right! Now that’s a good thought.”
Suzie nodded. She was hungry for a few good thoughts at that moment. And she was prepared to accept them from whoever dished them out, even Clarke.
It was a day of wonders, after all.
“Another left at the end of Hilton Towers and we’ll be parallel to the Aston Express Way. Then we’ll head towards Lichfield and Tamworth,” O’Connell told them.
“What of the road blocks?” Amir asked.
“One step at a time,” O’Connell said.
The van was continuing on its route to the next junction until O’Connell saw something that made him suddenly pull over and leap out of the cab; leaving Suzie screaming for him to come back.
***
“Alpha Team is compromised,” Carpenter said in Shipman’s headset.
The Major thought about this, digesting and processing the information, his emotions switched off.
“You still there, Major?”
“I’m here, Sir,” Shipman confirmed. “Do we have a name?”
“Honeyman,” Carpenter said immediately.
“Keene and Connors are dead. Honeyman is still with me.” Shipman fell silent for a few seconds. Then, “Do we know why?”
“Money of course,” Carpenter said with disdain. “Phoenix Industries have obtained his services to secure Thom Everett and prepare him for retrieval.”
“There’s no guarantee the boy is still alive,” Shipman said. “Hilton Towers has taken a pounding.”
“He’s alive alright, Major. By all accounts the kid is tagged and monitored via a subcutaneous chip in his back. Designed and manufactured by Phoenix Industries, of course. They like to keep an eye on their investments.”
“Whittington was his baby sitter?”
“So it would appear,” Carpenter said.
“That’s a little like overkill for a failed experiment, isn’t it?” Shipman said doubtfully.
“Everett is far more than that, Major,” the Colonel said. “The boy experienced side effects during the study. Side effects that not even Whittington and his investors could’ve envisioned.”
“Like what?”
“During the trials the kid was pronounced clinically dead for ten minutes. In that time, like the others, he became one of The Risen. But something unexpected happened. After a series of convulsions he collapsed and when he came round, Everett was human again.”
“I am aware of this, Sir,” Shipman reminded the Colonel.
“Indeed, Major,” Carpenter conceded. “But what you may be unaware of are the ramifications of this event.”
“Ramifications? You mean Everett’s potential as a cure?”
“That and more, Major,” Carpenter said. “Everett, it appears, is able to connect with The Risen.”
“Connect?” Shipman said in disbelief. “You mean: communicate with them?”
“You are no more surprised than Phoenix Industries,” Carpenter said. “They have designated him The Necromancer.”
“That’s incredible,” Shipman breathed as he considered the implications of such a faculty.
“I agree. Professor Daniels suspects that it has something to do with what he calls NNR Necroneuro Residue; it allows the boy to find some psychic middle ground with The Risen, a place where they can comprehend reason in its most base form.”
“I’m beginning to see the implications of this,” Shipman whispered.
“Oh, yes,” Carpenter interjected. “Daniels was very excited about it all. He almost forgot that Harte was holding a Browning at his head. If Everett can communicate with The Risen then he can control them. He is commander of the ultimate weapon, Shipman,” Carpenter said in a hushed voice. “Can you see how easily one without scruple could be seduced by such a notion?”
“And Phoenix Industries could sell the boy to the highest bidder,” Shipman envisaged. “A blank cheque.”
“Quite.”
“Orders, Sir?” Shipman asked.
“Eliminate Honeyman, Major,” Carpenter instructed. “Then proceed as planned. Retrieve the boy. I have been informed that Honeyman has made contact and requested the retrieval helicopter. We shall intercept and send our own. With luck you we should see you within the hour.”
“And if luck is against us?”
“I have orders to neutralize the city at 01.00 hours, Major. Squadrons of Tornadoes have already been scrambled and will carpet bomb the entire city with incendiaries. Nothing, living or otherwise, will leave Birmingham when it is over.”
“Understood.”
“God’s speed, Major.”
“Consider it done, Sir,” Shipman said cocking his weapon.
“I learned a long time ago never to take things as a given, Major.”
It took him a moment but Shipman realised that the owner of these words wasn’t Colonel Carpenter.
They belonged to Private Honeyman.
***
“Want to tell me why?” Shipman asked dead pan.
“Why?” Honeyman mocked as he stepped out of the shadows. “There’s no easy answer, despite what you might think.”
Shipman looked down at the rifle in Honeyman’s hands. The marine lifted it, the street lights touching the grease on its black muzzle making it ambiguously beautiful.
“I agree. I don’t think treason is something that has an easy answer.”
“Don’t be so pious, Major,” Honeyman snarled. “We’ve all done things in the name of a cause. This isn’t any different. Now drop the weapon.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Shipman said matter of fact. “If I’m to die today it will be as a marine; with a rifle in my hand and defending my country. Not kneeling, waiting for a bullet to the back of my head. So take your best shot.”
Reflex born from years of training sent Shipman diving to his left, just as Honeyman discharged a volley of shots; the muzzle flashes reflecting off of his face plate.
Three bullets struck Shipman in the leg, one passing clean through the right thigh, the others shattering his fibula. He landed heavily on the pavement, his rifle almost spinning from his grasp; his injured leg cramped with fiery pain. He clenched his teeth and used his elbows to drag himself into a blasted doorway just as another burst of automatic fire peppered the walls and floor around him.
“Get your ass out here, Shipman!” Honeyman taunted. “Come and face me like a man.”
“You’re a disgrace to your country,” Shipman said through teeth clenched in pain. He brought his gun up, ready for his ally-turned-foe to show himself.
“Have it your way, Major,” Honeyman said. “I’ll go get the kid and fly out of here and you can stay and bleed to death or end up lunch for our undead friends.”
Good psychology, Shipman thought; but then, Honeyman had been trained by the best: SAS interrogators out of Hereford. He knew how to play it.
Shipman used the back of his sleeve to wipe sweat out his eyes. It was an instant that Honeyman exploited to the maximum. The marine watched his commanding officer raise his arm to his face then charged at the doorway; his weapon spitting out bullets and ejecting spent cartridges. He used this barrage to close down space and as his magazine finally emptied, Honeyman towered over Shipman and kicked the rifle out of the Major’s hands.
“Looks like your luck’s up, Sir,” Honeyman sneered, pulling out his side arm and pointing it at Shipman’s head.
“Time to die,” the big marine smirked.
The shot was loud on the blasted landscape.
***
Blood oozed from Honeyman’s mouth, a thick and constant stream that splashed over his fatigues and onto the wet, glistening pavement.
The big marine buckled at the knees, dead weight shattering his ankles and pitching him sideways where his feet twitched for several seconds.
From the doorway Shipman looked across the street as a lone figure approached. It was a soldier in regulation field dress, a SA80 smoking in his hands.
“That was a good shot, soldier,” Shipman said, grimacing with pain.
“You, okay, Sir?” O’Connell asked.
“I’ll live a while longer, but I need your help.”
“Sure, I can carry you to my vehicle,” O’Connell said.
“No, I mean I need help to complete my mission,” Shipman replied quickly.
“That won’t be possible, Sir,” O’Connell said. “I’m on a timeline.”
“We’re all on a timeline tonight, private,” Shipman said irritated by the newcomer’s manner. “And unless you follow my orders, none of us are making it out of here alive. COM has given the EVAC order; this city is going to be neutralized in one hour unless I complete my mission. You getting me, soldier?”
“Well seeing how we’re all being brutally honest tonight, I guess I’ve got a jaw dropper of my own for you,” O’Connell said softly.
***
With realization comes recall, the door that has been closed and secured with mental deadlocks now forced open, exposing memories; terrifying, tortuous memories of blood and pain and madness.
And these recollections surge in from the past, flooding the present; submerging the inert and trembling figure of Thom Everett in the churning waters of despair. He was dead now he has risen; human and full of life yet part of him had died and had been left behind, a beacon of light glowing in purgatory for the lost to follow; a breadcrumb trail of the most macabre kind.
And on the roof of Hilton Towers Thom Everett saw the evidence of this hypothesis as the three zombies climbed to their feet and stepped away from him.
“What do you want from me?” he screamed at them; his revulsion and anger fuelling his outburst as his gory, gormless entourage stared impassively back at him.
“What do you want from me?” This time it was whispered and accompanied by tears, as though he needed to wash away the repugnance in his mind and in the same instance purge his soul.
That was if he still had a soul to purge, of course.
***
“You told him?” Clarke hissed incredulously. “Are you crazy?”
“I’d say you’re the one who’s lost the plot talking to O’Connell like that,” Suzie said sternly.
They were all in the back of the transit van, each having removed their masks, and now looking over the Major who was lying on the metal floor, drifting in and out of consciousness.
“Look at him,” O’Connell said quietly. “He’s bleeding out. He’s not going to make it. What does it matter?”
“What if he does make it?” Clarke asked.
“Then he makes it, okay?” O’Connell snapped. “If we don’t get this guy on the retrieval chopper we get totalled with the rest of the city. He’s our meal ticket out of here. It’s pretty clear to me.”
“We could take our chances on the expressway,” Clarke protested.
“If you’re so sure you can make it past the zombies and get to the expressway before the city burns then go for it,” O'Connell said. “It’s your life, right?”
Clarke didn’t respond and O’Connell thought that maybe the kid had returned to using his brain instead of his instinct for self preservation.
“Get the guy onto his feet,” O’Connell instructed. Amir and Clarke did as they were asked though the younger man was muttering under his breath.
“Good job I know you’re not a squaddie, lad,” Shipman chuckled deliriously in Clarke’s ear. “You’d never pass for a soldier in that uniform.”
“Yeah?” Clarke said. “Well, since I’m not the one who’s shot right now, I’d say that ain’t a bad thing.”
“I guess you’re right,” Shipman said weakly.
“First time on this trip,” Clarke said to himself.
***
They abandoned the van at the entrance of Hilton Towers, getting as close to the foyer as they could.
O’Connell and Suzie went in first and put down two zombies who were too distracted feeding on the remains of a large woman in a voluminous blue dress; the swathes of fabric pooling out beneath her mauled and mutilated body.
“Stairs?” Suzie queried.
“The Major will have to go in the elevator,” O’Connell said after a quick assessment. “I’ll go with him.”
“If you go, we all go,” Suzie said adamantly.
“No,” O’Connell said.
“What’s this “no” bullshit?” Suzie’s eyes were a mix of anger and fear. O’Connell didn’t like to see her this way but was prepared for it. He stepped up to her and moved a limp strand of blonde hair away from her face.
“Think it through, Suzie. We need this guy with us when the chopper comes,” O’Connell said. “We can’t carry him up the stairs and I’m not prepared to ask anyone else to stay with him.”
“Then let Clarke and Amir take the stairs and I’ll come with you,” she offered. Her voice was close to pleading with him now.
“The lift is too confined,” he said. “If the car stops on the way up and one of those things manages to get in …”
“Then you need me there with you to save your sorry backside,” she said urgently.
“No,” he said again. “I need to know that you’re safe - that you have some kind of chance.”
“And what about what I need?” Suzie whispered miserably.
“And what do you need, baby?”
“You,” she said and kissed him deeply, hungrily and wanting it to last forever.
They broke off and held onto each other tightly for a moment. Then O’Connell stepped away and hit the “call elevator” button. From the shaft, a rumbling sound marked the car’s descent.
“Go get our man,” he said. And Suzie turned to go.
“I love you Susan Hanks,” he said and she spun around suddenly and ran to him. This time their embrace lasted until the elevator doors chimed open, two minutes later.
***
17
The elevator began its ascent; the walls and floor juddering under the draw of its pulley mechanism.
O’Connell had propped Shipman against the wall so that the Major faced the doors of the car. He was a strong guy, O’Connell impressed by the Major’s fight to stay conscious despite the pain and loss of blood.
“Got a present for you,” Shipman said fumbling to unclip a pouch from his webbing. He handed it to O’Connell.
“It’s not my birthday,” O’Connell said taking it and peering into the pack. “Grenades, eh? Might come in handy. Not in here though.” He winked at the Major who responded with a smile.
“So why they kick you out?” Shipman said hoarsely.
“A long story,” O’Connell said; his eyes and rifle fixed upon the golden car doors. “And you wouldn’t like the ending.”
“I happen to like unhappy endings.”
“Getting prepared for the real world, eh? You must’ve been a bundle to be around at school.”
“Real world?” Shipman laughed weakly. “You mean like this?”
O’Connell nodded slowly and let go a sigh. “Who was prepared for this kind of party?”
“It’s all become blurred, hasn’t it?” Shipman said.
“Fuzzy as Hell.”
The car shuddered to a halt, stopping their conversation.
“We there already?” Shipman asked.
O’Connell looked up at the panel adjacent to the doors.
“No,” he said cocking his weapon.
***
“For Christ’s sake, Clarke, will you keep up?” Suzie snapped.
“Strange,” Clarke said sourly from the landing below, “but I’m in no rush to get eaten.”
“You in a rush to get barbequed?” Suzie asked. “You heard what the plans are for this place. I felt sure that not ending up like a crispy chicken would motivate your pathetic ass.”
“She loves me really,” Clarke muttered sarcastically.
They had made their way to the seventh floor without incident, the red carpet steering them onwards, upwards; taking each turn with extreme caution, the tension leaving their muscles taut and aching.
“Where are all the tenants?” Amir questioned as the trio hit the eighth floor landing.
“Maybe it’s a block party?” Clarke mused.
“Maybe they went up to the roof?” Amir came back.
“Why would they do that?” Suzie asked.
“That could be where the survivors went,” he replied. “You know: to wait for rescue?”
“It’s a possibility,” Suzie said uncomfortably. “That may mean that O’Connell could be walking in on a banquet.”
She began to pick up pace and Amir matched her stride.
Clarke watched them disappear round the balustrade and after a few seconds he followed; motivated not so much by the urgency of the moment as avoiding the fear of being alone.
***
In sedate horror, Thom Everett observed as his new found family lurched and lolled through the doorway and out onto the roof. Each newcomer appeared to check him over with their blue-glazed eyes before lining up with the others.
It was an incredulous and improbable image; an image straight from the movies; but with one subtle difference: Thom Everett was the star of the show. Yes, Thom Everett was playing the leading role in I was a Teenage Zombie-Master.
No sooner had this ludicrous thought slipped into his head, the urge to laugh came with it. At first it was a chuckle, but it was soon building in size and power, the way a Tsunami swells from the most innocuous of waves, until it is no longer diminished, but a colossus, monstrous, roaring surge of water smashing everything in its path to oblivion.
He bent double, eyes streaming with tears, nose bubbling with thick, sooty snot; and his sides pumping like an old mutt who has eaten too much grass.
Thom paused briefly and looked up at the silent, grisly crowd that continued to contemplate him; passive yet far from passé.
“You guys kill me,” he squealed before he was taken away on another mirthless wave of laughter; laughter that was raucous and ambiguous and as close to madness as anyone could get without climbing into the pit and embracing it.
***
Although the elevator had stopped, the doors remained steadfast. With his rifle extended, and ready to deliver if they decided to suddenly open, O’Connell inched near up to the control panel.
He used the heel of his hand to hit the ebony button embossed with the words “Roof Terrace” in white, his action illuminating the letters, a beacon of hope on the darkness.
The car began moving again and O’Connell relaxed a little, moving back to Shipman.
The Major remained propped and ashen against the wall. His right leg was wet with blood and it had started to share it with the floor and, despite the mauve carpet’s best efforts to absorb it, the gory tide continued to pool, becoming a scarlet lake lapping on the surface of the expensive pile.
“I’m not going to make it,” Shipman said weakly.
“No, you’re not,” O'Connell said not wanting to insult the man’s intelligence. “Not in this car. We have to get on that chopper for you to stand any chance.”
“The boy is more important,” Shipman muttered. “He’s the only hope we have of controlling this thing.”
There was something in the way the Major said “controlling” that caught O’Connell’s attention.
“The RAF firestorm heading this way will be more effective wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe, but even if it does, we both know this isn’t over,” Shipman coughed weakly. “You know how these things work.”
“Is he marked?” O’Connell asked.
Shipman nodded. “Of course he is.”
“By who?”
“By the people who made him. By the military once they’re done sitting back and evaluating this whole mess. He’s the only constant in all of this. No-one can be sure of anything anymore.”
“The rules are re-written, I guess?” O’Connell said gently. He wasn’t surprised; this was an epiphany that he’d embraced some time ago. It had since kept him successful, it had kept him alive.
“Listen,” Shipman said, his voice wavering with the effort of it. “We’ve accepted that the rules have changed. I need you to promise me something; swear it: an oath from one marine to another.”
“Okay,” O’Connell agreed. “I swear it.”
“Look after the boy,” Shipman whispered as though they weren’t alone. “Where ever you guys go, take him with you?”
“You’re asking me to commit treason, you know that, right?”
“I know,” Shipman said. “But knowing that you’re going to die has a way of focusing the mind. Right and wrong is a little clearer. The boy is an innocent casualty in all this. He deserves the right to a life, away from the scientists and the politicians. Besides, I figured a man who masquerades as a soldier in a contaminated zone wouldn’t be beyond operating outside the box.”
“You figured right,” O’Connell said openly. “We’ll take care of the kid. You have my word.”
Shipman smiled, it was a slack thing that appeared to take every ounce of his resolve. “Good. Good.”
O’Connell was about to consider the deeper implications to the promise he’d just made to a dying soldier when the elevator jarred to a stop for a second time.
But on this occasion the doors dragged open allowing horror to enter their world.
***
“Jesus Christ,” Clarke gasped. “I thought it was gonna be zombies that killed me, not these fuckin’ stairs.”
They had climbed up to the eighteenth floor without coming into contact with another soul, living or undead. The whole building seemed as though it was unexpectedly redundant; its occupants embarking on a total and unmitigated exodus.
“You feeling that?” Amir said to Suzie, who nodded.
“And smelling it,” she replied. “The air’s getting hot, we got a fire nearby.”
“Probably on the floor above,” Amir said after a moment’s reflection.
“Get the masks back on and stay low,” Suzie told them. But Clarke stared at her gormlessly.
“What?” she said pulling her mask from its pack on her webbing.
“I sorta left my mask in the van,” Clarke said as his cheeks flushed.
“Then you’re “sorta” in deep shit then, aren’t you?” she said clearly irritated by his lack of thought.
“I guess I am.” Clarke looked at the floor and his demeanour changed to that of someone who was vulnerable and scared and annoyed with their own stupidity.
“Here,” Suzie said offering him her mask. “Take this.”
After a moment of surprise, Clarke snatched the mask from her and pulled it on. “Thanks.”
“Chivalry is truly dead in this world,” Amir said shaking his head in disbelief. “You want mine, Suzie?”
“No thanks,” she said. “It’s a trade off, if you’ve got a mask then you get to go first and clear the way.”
“Want it back?” Clarke said.
“Get moving,” Suzie said and Clarke ambled forwards, his rifle limp in his hands. Amir stood with him and the two men climbed the carpeted steps to the next floor and here the heat became a tangible entity. There were no flames, these were held at bay by a substantial fire door, but even this was buckling under the heat and thick tendrils of smoke seeped out into the stair well.
As the smog wavered, Amir saw a shape moving haphazardly, arms outstretched and totally unaffected by the suffocating atmosphere.
“Zombie!” he cried as the figure came at him; the shotgun instantly pumping a shell with the sound of a small explosion, chewing a huge semi circle into its side so that the remnants of its torso toppled sideways, dragging the legs with it
Suzie started up a coughing fit, the swatch of fabric she’d clamped over her nose and mouth now clogged with soot; her eyes streaming.
“Grab her!” Amir said to Clarke. The younger man did just that, taking hold of a fistful of fabric just under Suzie’s collar and yanking her with him.
The three of them continued on through the smoke, Suzie gasping in ragged breaths; all of them blind but motivated by the desire to live, to survive this awful night and spend the rest of their days thanking God or whoever was there to listen that they had made it.
There were moments when Suzie thought she was going to collapse, never to get up again, but Clarke held her firm; rising to the moment until she felt something on her scorched face, a cooling breeze wafting down from above.
“I see a door!” Amir called out; Clarke increasing his speed and pulling Suzie closer to him, supporting her with an arm around her slim waist.
She saw the door, she saw the stars. And as the smoke gave way to the outside world, Suzie Hanks saw a nightmare come to Earth.
***
As soon as the elevator doors dragged themselves open, the foyer outside was a writhing mass of bodies all wanting in.
O’Connell opened fire instantly; the SA80 spitting half its magazine into the faces struggling to get into the car, pulping them, shattering cheekbones and teeth and skulls; churning flesh until the entrance to the elevator was veiled in a fine curtain of crimson mist.
The barrage cleared the entrance for a few seconds allowing the glittering, blood flecked doors to begin an attempt to shut out the carnage beyond.
But from nowhere a big, green tinted arm snaked through the opening. A large, mean-looking zombie with a shaved head fought his way into the car, followed by a smaller man dressed in a black Buffy the Vampire Slayer tee shirt.
The doors bounced back to allow the zombies clearer access, O’Connell lifting his weapon only to find it tangled in the flailing arms of the bald man. The gun went off tearing a ragged hole in the zombie’s chest but it didn’t stop its momentum.
O’Connell landed heavily on his back, on Shipman’s injured leg and the Major’s scream was intense and loud. Then O’Connell found himself fighting off his assailant as the elevator doors finally dragged shut and the putrid stink of decay filled the car.
The bald zombie loomed into view, its face filling O’Connell’s vision until he could see nothing else, smell nothing else, and he drove his elbow into the side of its head, jarring it sideways. When the zombie opened its mouth in an attempt to rip out his throat, teeth fell onto O’Connell’s chest.
Using rigid, strained muscle, O’Connell forced the zombie backwards with his forearm across its throat, but couldn’t sustain the weight for long. He brought his knees up to assist, struggling to get both of them in-between their bodies, then extending his thighs until there was enough room for him to reach his sidearm. He fumbled blindly with the holster as bald zombie got snappy, eager to sink its remaining teeth into his exposed throat. It opened and closed its mouth as if it had forgotten the process of chewing and needed a run through. O’Connell jammed the barrel of his pistol into its maw and pulled the trigger.
The bald head above him blossomed as the bullet punched through it, and suddenly the zombie was literally nothing more than a dead weight; pinning O’Connell to the floor. He looked over to Shipman and groaned in dismay.
Buffy zombie was content with feeding on the major’s throat; the irony of this not lost on O’Connell, even in that dreadful moment. Shipman’s death mask was one of painful surprise, his eyes staring ahead, his jaw yanked down to his chest.
O’Connell placed the Browning’s muzzle against Buffy’s head. The zombie didn’t acknowledge the contact and O’Connell introduced its brains to the walls of the elevator car.
He’d disentangled himself from the carnage about him and grabbed his rifle just as the elevator came to a shuddering halt.
“Roof Terrace,” the automated voice said brightly, before pulling the doors open; inviting him to step out before something dreadful decided to step in.
***
Suzie was slowly suffocating. The smoke was filling her lungs and scorching her eyes and her body was telling her that if things didn’t change soon, she would be as dead as most of the mob outside on the roof.
“Come on, Suzie.” Clarke’s voice was urgent beside her. “Don’t you be giving up now we’re on first name terms.”
He dragged her to the exit, where smoke was being pulled apart by the breeze. Amir was already there, peering out at the crowd beyond.
“I got a skylight to the left,” he hissed at Clarke. “It’s high enough to give us cover. Let’s get her out of here.”
The trio broke out onto the roof, keeping low; Suzie sucking in the huge lungful of oxygen her body so desperately needed, her consciousness returning like some animal after a long slumbering winter. As they threw themselves behind the raised skylight, Amir scanned the crowd forty metres away.
“They look pre-occupied,” he said. “Something’s got their attention.”
“Could be the kid,” Suzie said after spitting out a black wad of goo onto the asphalt. “If he’s still alive.”
“You’re such a lady,” Clarke said.
“Don't I know it?” she said, surprising him by giving him the hint of a smile
“That’s a new look for you, isn’t it?” he said turning away, embarrassed.
“Thanks for getting me out of there,” she said earnestly.
“You’re welcome,” he said. But he didn’t look at her. She nodded an understanding at his burning cheeks, still visible through his mask. The boy had walked away tonight and a man had stayed to watch him go.
“Where’s O’Connell?” Suzie whispered as soon as the thought sparked in her head.
“He should be up here,” Amir said looking about him just as the faint sound of doors rumbling open came to them.
In the wall opposite to them a rectangle of light appeared, an ethereal gateway in the gloom, and through this a figure stumbled into view, rubbing at their eyes with a sleeved forearm.
“Great timing,” Suzie said quietly before scrambling over to him and guiding him back to their hiding place.
“What happened to the other guy?” Clarke asked.
O’Connell replied by shaking his head.
“Then how to we get on the chopper?” Suzie said.
“They want the boy,” O’Connell muttered. “When it comes, stay close to him.”
“And how do we get near him with those things in the way?” Clarke said.
“I hear something,” Amir interjected. They all listened intently and picked up the thick staccato sound of a helicopter wavering of the breeze. O’Connell craned to follow the noise until he saw the flicker of navigation lights to the southwest.
“Chopper’s in bound,” he noted.
“You still haven’t answered the question - how do we get to it?” But once again O’Connell’s response was thwarted, this time by a gasp of shock from Suzie.
“Oh my God, O’Connell,” she cried out. “You’ve been bitten!”
O’Connell saw that her eyes were staring at the side of his head and his hand went searching there. No sooner had his fingers begun probing, a searing bolt of pain shot through his left ear though it was immediately clear to him that most of the lobe was missing. What was left of the pinna felt bloated and tender as infection ravaged the tissue. It was only the affects of adrenaline that had staved off the agony thus far.
“They got your ear, man,” Clarke gaped.
“Let me see,” Suzie said raising her hand to check. O’Connell took hold of her arm at the wrist.
“No need to check it out, Suzie,” he said gently. “It’s bad but it is going to get worse.”
“Worse?” Suzie said her voice wavering with realization. “You mean -?”
“I’m infected, Suzie,” O’Connell said. “I’m going to die. Then I’ll be one of them.”
“This can’t be happening.” Suzie buried her face in her hands, wailing against her palms.
“It’s happened,” O’Connell said bluntly. “And it makes it easier to answer Clarke’s question.”
“What?” Suzie said coming out from behind her hands.
“The chopper’s coming,” O’Connell explained. “And I’m going to make sure you’re all getting a ride home.”
“No,” Suzie said. “You’re coming with us.”
“You’re all here because I brought you on board,” O’Connell said. “I’m not going to make it, Suzie. And I sure as hell ain’t going to end up like that.”
He stood and watched the chopper approach. “Give me your ammo,” he said. “I’ll draw them off and you get the kid.”
“No way,” Suzie snapped. “No fucking way!”
“Easy, Suzie,” Amir whispered nervously eyeing the crowd. “You’re going to draw attention to us.”
“It has to be this way, baby,” O’Connell said drawing her to him. She resisted for a moment but it was fleeting; token. “I promised Shipman that we’d look after the kid, keep him safe - protect him - from people who’d want to use him. I need you to keep my promise now that I can’t. Will you do that for me?”
“Please don’t do this,” she begged. “I can’t live without you.”
“You’re Suzie Hanks and you can do whatever you want after tonight,” O’Connell said firmly.
“I want to stay with you,” she said.
“I'm already dead,” he said with brutal honesty. “You have to live; you have to uphold my promise, baby. Without it I will die without honour. I couldn’t bare that. I need you to make that happen.” He cupped her chin in his hands, the pain in her face tore his heart open, but he held firm. “Please, baby. Let me go.”
She collapsed into him sobs rattling through her body. But in her action he saw not only despair, he also saw acceptance of the inevitable.
And inside he now prepared himself for war.
***
“Thom Everett! Show your hands!”
The bullhorn blasted across the rooftop, drowning out even the heavy sound of the Merlin helicopter’s rotor blades.
“I repeat,” yelled the co-pilot from the cockpit, “Thom Everett, make yourself known. Show your hands!”
Below, Thom looked up as the rooftop felt the effects of the chopper overhead; the updraft from the rotor blades whipping his hair, the floods on the fuselage dazzling his eyes.
Incredulously Thom raised his hands and waved them frantically. His luck had miraculously changed; he was being rescued. Just when he thought he was destined to spend the rest of his life trapped on a roof with an unerring, ghastly and silent audience.
“Okay, Thom!” the voice from the helicopter shouted. “Stand clear of the crowd! Find cover!”
Thom ducked down behind a communications array; a skeletal finger jutting into the sky and bristling with satellite dishes. Almost immediately the dull thud of a chain gun rattled through the night sky, tracer fire streaking down from the helicopter as bright blinding streaks, smashing into the zombie mass and inflicting appalling injuries; removing limbs and heads, splintering bodies; sending some spinning through the air and over the edge of the roof.
From his hiding place Thom Everett clamped his hands to his head. Not to shut out the fierce din from the machine gun or the incessant whooping from the helicopter but to hide from the screams; the terrible hideous screams now reverberating through his skull. And with the screams came the pain, the suffering, the loss. None of these soul slicing sensations belonged to him, yet they were as much part of him as those who were dying for a second time. Tears coursed down his face, grief now squeezing his heart until it ached.
“Stop it!” he screamed standing, disorientated by the psychic onslaught and staggering dangerously close to the bullets raining down from above. “Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting them!”
His mind went into meltdown; protecting him from the anguish threatening to drag him back to the edge of madness and throw him into the pit. And from this place he was aware of arms grabbing him, pulling him away from the curtain of fire before he was consumed by it. He made no attempt to fight it and he made no attempt to understand it. He allowed someone else to take him to a safer place, a place where perhaps there would be no pain or despair or suffering.
It would be some time before Thom Everett was aware of the people who had saved him. For now he was content for his mind to be a clean slate; unsullied and devoid of blood and death.
***
O’Connell was in another place; a place he hadn’t visited for a while. Most would say that he was in the zone, but O’Connell would say it was deeper than that, it was a darker place; the kind of mindset that allowed him to focus on the task of killing.
In Bosnia he’d lived in this world for too many years. When he was out of the army he’d returned to it twice. Once with Suzie’s father and the time when he’d pulped Wiggets in the Lake District.
In each hand he clutched an SA80, each with full magazines purloined from the others. On his back he’d strapped Amir’s shotgun. He breathed deeply, ready to go to work. Ready to embrace his responsibilities.
Behind him Suzie was propped up by Amir and Clarke; the trio each armed with a Browning. Suzie had temporarily converted her grief to anger, using this to fuel her desire to fulfill her promise to the man about to die for them.
For her.
“When I say, you move,” O’Connell said. “And, you keep moving, you hear me? Don’t look back.”
The Merlin was almost upon them.
“The chopper will lay down suppressing fire,” O’Connell continued. “Once it starts; that’ll be our cue. Be ready.”
So they waited for a mini-eternity and the moment the bull horn called for Thom Everett to raise his hands, O’Connell began to walk, his steps unwavering, the zombies mesmerized by the lights in the sky.
Then the moment for action was announced by the tumultuous howl of a chain gun shattering the night.
O’Connell opened fire, the twin SA80’s lost in the cacophony from the barrage in the heavens. He aimed head height, splattering at least ten undead before the bulk of the back row tuned into him. He peeled left and a glut followed him, creating a gap in the crowd large enough for Suzie, Amir and Clarke to see the carnage in the front row.
“Let’s go,” Amir urged and the two men dragged Suzie with them; Brownings poised.
“Don’t look for him, Suzie,” Amir said insistently. “Let him go.”
A zombie caught their attention before Suzie’s fragile resolve could be knocked off kilter. A small man with a gash across his forehead grabbed her shoulder spinning her about, but she’d broken free of her grief fuelled fugue and shot him through the eye at point blank range.
Then she was moving, Amir and Clarke were ahead, taking shots at any zombies who sudden took an interest.
The chain gun spat more high velocity rounds into the crowd, ripping bodies apart. Amir turned to face Suzie to make sure that she wasn’t lagging behind or, worse, succumbing to her grief and going after O’Connell. As he did this a zombie landed on his back, knocking him flat, the asphalt skinning his cheek.
He bucked and squirmed and writhed but whoever had jumped him was too heavy, too determined, to let it go. And then it was there: pain, searing pain; the kind that knocks the air from your lungs until there’s nothing left but the puncture-hiss that wants to go on forever. Amir felt wetness, warm and sticky and fatal pouring over his neck and shoulders and his world fogged for a second. Then conservation kicked in and he found strength that had gone to ground when he’d really needed it. He battled to his feet and the zombie fell away taking a wad of his neck with it; and now that Amir had staggered to his feet the blood really wanted out, spraying onto the asphalt, despite the hand he slapped to his neck to stem the flow.
Suzie fought to get to him, the Browning in her hand putting a hole in the forehead of the zombie who had attacked Amir and was up in search for seconds. The zombie collapsed but then Amir was exposed the Merlin and Suzie could only watch another volley from the chain gun strafe the roof before hitting her friend.
Amir’s torso was obliterated, leaving his legs standing for an instant before they collapsed in quasi-comical fashion.
She cried out his name even though he was no longer able to hear her then she was drawn to something else, someone else.
She spotted a figure stumbling out from behind a communications array, a figure with its hand clamped to their head, clearly in pain and yelling at the helicopter.
Thom Everett.
And as he staggered about the roof top, Suzie could see that he was too pre-occupied to notice that he was about to meet the same fate as Amir Singh.
She ran at him, full pelt. Part of her hoped that she didn’t make it, but another, the part that had made a promise to a man who she loved above anything else in this off-kilter world, came to the fore.
Suzie ploughed into the youth and they both went sprawling as the chain gun’s lethal cargo chewed up the undead all about them.
“Stay down,” she hissed in Everett’s ear. “If you want to live, stay the fuck down.”
But Thom Everett offered no comment. He lay next to her, shuddering, his eyes fixed and vacant; his thoughts very much his own.
“How come I don’t get a hug?” Clarke said as he hunkered down next to her.
“Because I hate you,” she said but there was no malice to it, just exhaustion.
“At least you’re consistent,” Clarke replied.
Something landed heavily next to them: a harness and wire. In the tempestuous howling vortex over head, the Merlin’s co-pilot shouted instructions for them to put it on.
Clarke went first, at Suzie’s insistence, and she could see the relief in his eyes as he was winched away.
The remaining zombies milled about the roof, walking into the sporadic chain gun rounds, falling foul of its searing touch in spectacular and bloody fashion.
Everett allowed Suzie to secure him in the yoke. He’d gone somewhere for a while; Suzie knew it because there had been a point in her life when she’d checked out of reality. As Everett was pulled into helicopter Suzie scanned the rooftop for the man who had brought her back from the abyss. But all she could see were zombies, still coming despite the chain gun’s fury.
The harness landed again and suddenly the gun overheard stopped its racket. Instead it made crunching, clanking noises filling Suzie with dread.
Jammed.
She struggled with the yoke as her undead audience shuffled towards her, their moans pitiful yet sinister.
And, without the chain gun culling their number, there was nothing to stop their unrelenting advance.
***
O’Connell looked at the woman struggling to get into the harness. He knew her, of that he was certain, but the details of who, how and why were gone to him; like trying to recall a dream.
The side of his head was an undulating, festering balloon, but the pain was distant. He was on base instinct now. Not even the figures about him paid him any attention. He had an affinity with them that, whilst not complete, was well under way.
But other images were in his mind: this woman, the face of a big black man with too much pride and honour, and a sandy haired boy with his mouth filled with water. Separate entities but united in his commitment to them.
And it was this nuance that drove him to reach for the pack that Shipman had given him. The pack that contained eight high explosive grenades. It was this shadowy sense of responsibility that allowed him to remove a metal orb and yank out the pin before dropping it back into the pack.
He shuffled into the crowd and stood shoulder to shoulder with his soon-to-be brethren and looked at the woman busy securing herself to the webbing. He gave a small slack smile.
“Miss you,” he whispered.
Then Kevin O’Connell died for good.
***
The blast powered through the crowd, tossing bodies in the air and out over the edge of the building; gifts for the city below.
Tired of the abuse it had sustained, Hilton Towers decided to give it up for the night, the roof collapsing with a great rent of metal. A maw opened up and the remaining undead fell into it; arms and legs, flailing in the confusion.
As the asphalt traded places with thin air, Suzie Hanks gasped; the harness only just secure as the roof collapsed beneath her. The winch mechanism engaged and she felt herself being hauled up; the noise of the Merlin replacing the explosion.
At the end of the ascent, Clarke pulled her in and helped her to remove the straps as the helicopter climbed away from the building and away from the horror.
But no matter what was left behind, the memories were destined to stay for a while.
***