As the Light Dies (57 page)

“OH SHIT!”
said Steve.

“GET READDY!”
called Katie recovering her extinguisher.

Steve could
n’
t believe her composure as she held her extinguisher with both hands letting it hang beside her thigh, and then as the first infected guy came within range she leaned over slightly lowering the extinguisher and then launched in to a swing bringing it up and around in front of her burying the extinguishe
r’
s butt into its face cracking bone as it made contact. As its head was forced backwards its momentum carried its lower body forwards and up. Its legs swung up in the air before it fell to the ground with a big dent in its previously almost unmarked face. It landed beside the crawling torso face up. Steve saw the other one coming, it was locked on to him. He jumped in to position copying Katie and tried to pull the same move h
e’
d just watched her pull off. The infected guy was fast and unrelenting. Steve held his nerve not wanting to swing too early and risk colliding with the infected sprinter. He ground his teeth waiting for the right time and then swung. He was sure h
e’
d waite
d
to
o
long now. He squeezed his eyes closed and hoped for an impact
,
praye
d
for it. The infected runner came just within the arc of Stev
e’
s swing at just the right time and the extinguisher crashed against the side of its head and slammed its head against the wall.

Steve felt an almighty crack through the vibration that travelled up his arms and the guy fell to the ground in a heap. Steve opened his eyes and looked down with mixed emotions, he could
n’
t believe h
e’
d just tried his best to actually kill someone and it looked like h
e’
d succeeded!

Oh God! What have I done’
he thought
,
I’m a murderer
!

“Steve!”
Katie screeched.

He looked up to see Katie pointing down at his feet. He looked and saw that the crawling figure was still mobile and was reaching out for his ankle.

“WHAT!”
he said not believing what he was seeing, not only was it just a torso, but Katie had just hit it with a blow that should have put it out of its misery.

Skipping back he glanced at Katie as she started hammering madly at her sprinte
r’
s head that despite the head wound from her was still trying to get up. He was reaching for her, and each time he did Katie brought the extinguisher down on his head as hard as she could forcing him back down again only for him to try and get up again
.“
HOW THE FUCK IS THIS POSSIBLE
?”
he yelled as something touched his shin and he jumped back, looking down. The crawler was grabbing at him with gnarly fingers crawling after him. The bunk door Katie had slammed erupted in to a crazy frenzy of bangs and crashes!

“
Keep quiet
!”
Katie hissed battling with her infected attacker. He glanced passed her down the corridor as he skipped back again checking the other infected figures. They were slower and were just turning away from the door now losing interest with it, realising it was
n’
t gonna budge. The rancid torso looked up at Steve with bulging lidless black eyes and moaned grabbing his attention. It sounded like air oozing from a dead body. Steve swung his extinguisher up over his head like a pickaxe and brought it down on the back of the crawle
r’
s head!

Black goo spat out in all directions as the thin
g’
s face met the hard floor. Something moved catching Stev
e’
s eye making him look up but he was too slow and he was slapped across his chest by the sprinter he thought h
e’
d just killed. Steve kicked out catching the sprinter in the groin and managed to unbalance him, but that was all. He was quick and regained his balance fast and came at Steve again. Steve ducked just in time as the sprinte
r’
s head and shoulders crashed in to the wall above him where his own head had just been. It looked down at him as it leaned against the wall dribbling black goo on to his head and face from its open mouth.

Steve thrust his extinguisher straight up under its chin and rolled away as the infected guy struggled to regain his balance from the blow. Steve shot a glance over to Katie and saw that she was still having problems with her guy, she still smashed the extinguisher over its head over and over and yet it still pursued her.

How the hell
,
he thought
,
this just can’t be happening
!
  His attention was brought back to his attacker; the mottled discoloured man came at him with its jaw snapping wildly, opening and closing unevenly. Steve recoiled, shuffling backwards along the floor staring at the man, he could see a break in his scull through a slice across his forehead that wept black fluid. The rest of its face was a mess from the collisions with Stev
e’
s extinguisher. He felt sick knowing that h
e’
d done so much damage, even though the infected guy seemed oblivious to the wounds. The wounded man reached out towards Steve making that horrible sound like he was trying to breathe through mud. Steve kicked, forcing himself backwards and accidentally dropped his extinguisher. Before he could grab it, it rolled out of reach. He looked everywhere for something else to use in defence but there was
n’
t anything. Panic started welling up in him trying to take over as the crazed figure closed in.

The figure curled up what lips it had left and ran straight at him screaming its gurgle war cry.

Steve backed up blindly and banged his head off something! He banged his head hard enough to see stars!

He stopped for a fraction of a second as the mutilated guy closed in and he heard what h
e’
d banged his head on rolling away. He reached around grabbing blindly for it, for anything. He fell flat on his back as he reached out for his life! His hands clasped around something. He grabbed a hold of it and snatched it in close and clutched it to his chest knowing what it was before he saw it, h
e’
d knocked an extinguisher off the wall with his head. The rabid sprinter lunged through the air at him and he forced it up, like he was doing a bench press then flinched back with anticipation and cracked the back of his head against the floor as the infected guy fell on top of him.

Katie was tiring, her arms and shoulders burned with lactic acid as she repeatedly swung the heavy extinguisher trying her best to fend off her infected attacker. But her weakening blows were having less and less effect, every time she hauled the extinguisher up over her head to take another shot he recovered. He got a little closer. He was gaining ground, pushing her back as she took longer and longer to lift and then swing her extinguisher to fend him off. She weakened to the point that the extinguisher only fell under its own weight, she could
n’
t swing it anymore, she could
n’
t put any force behind it, and she used the time it took the extinguisher to drop from above her head to rest her exhausted arms and shoulders. She backed up like this until eventually she backed against the wall and the fear started to take hold. She was trapped without much, if any, strength left.

She saw that her colleague was in trouble and knew there was
n’
t anything she could do for him. Her mind told her she needed to go and help him but she just could
n’
t shake her attacker off. She knew how desperate the situation was! Part of her wished that the
y’
d listened to Ken, she wished the
y’
d pulled that lever and let the lifeboat fall from the overrun rig. She wished they had
n’
t heard anyone else in need of help, she wished there was
n’
t anyone in need of help. But wishing never worked.

She swung again and missed for the first time. Her attacker looked at her lustful for her flesh. She could see in its wounded mottled face that it knew she was weakening, knew it had her, knew it had worn her down.

She swung again and caught its shoulder, but without any force behind the blow, it had no effect. He stood up tall and stepped towards her grinning at her with its broken face. Katie heaved her extinguisher up to her side but that was it, she could
n’
t raise it any further. Her back pressed against the wall
.
I’m done
,
she thought
,
I’m done
!

The thought of what it was going to feel like having another person, another human being eat her flashed through her mind. Another human being breaking her skin with their teeth, then tearing through her flesh, pulling her inside out. She started to shake uncontrollably. She saw an image in her mind of the infected man thrusting its dirty hands in through the back of her cracked skull clasping feverously at her brain while she lay paralysed clinging to what life she had left in her before she drifted off in to the either, and then she screamed!

She screamed with all her being and raised her extinguisher up to chest height and threw herself at her attacker using her legs to push away from the wall. She rammed the extinguisher into her attacke
r’
s neck and forced him backwards. He stumbled back a few steps trying to fight her, trying to grab a hold of her and then he fell backwards tripping over some loose debris and Katie fell on top of him still forcing the extinguisher in to his neck screaming like a banshee.

Steve could feel the turbulence in the air against his cheek as his infected attacker frantically snapped his broken jaw trying to bite him less than an inch away from his face, only just held back by the extinguisher wedged between them. It was caught under the infected gu
y’
s chin holding him back just far enough to stop him making contact with Stev
e’
s face. Steve tried pushing the infected man back but it was no use, he was too lively, too aggressive. When Steve tried to hold on to the rabid guy, grabbing his collar and pushing him back, he was nearly bitten by the freak, and now he was getting tired, and his strength was failing fast.

Steve had no option but to concentrate solely on not getting bitten by keeping the extinguisher in place using it as a barrier between him and death, hoping that Katie managed to pull off a miracle and come over to help. But his hopes were dashed when he heard her guttural screaming.

That’s i
t
, he thought
,
it’s over
!
It’s all lost now. It’s all gone.

He squeezed his eyes shut praying that his kids did
n’
t suffer as he waited to feel human teeth bite down on the side of his face.

He imagined his right eye being bitten into, even bitten in half as the freak took a mouthful of his face and ripped it away. He heard Katie being torn limb from limb just like so many others had been on the rig. If only I had
n’
t brought her along he thought, and then he wondered how long Ken would wait before pulling the lever in the lifeboat and plunging in to the sea. He imagined him eventually dying of starvation out at sea
.
Good
,
he thought feeling guilty for doing so. Then he concentrated on his family, not how they might be now, but how they were the last time he saw them, how he had left them that bitterly cold morning. He had an early flight, so h
e’
d been up at the crack of dawn. The kids were still wrapped up all warm and cosy in their beds, h
e’
d leaned over and kissed them softly goodbye on their smooth warm cheeks. Hannah did
n’
t even stir. Sam said a groggy bye dad, love you, without opening his eyes, then rolled over and faced the wall cuddling in to his retro Ghostbuste
r’
s duvet. Louise had come downstairs before he left and the
y’
d hugged and kissed on the doorstep before he walked over and got in to his taxi waiting by the curb. He waved to her as his taxi pulled away bound for the airport and she hurried back inside, back in to the warm for her morning coffee and five minutes peace before she had to start getting ready for the day ahead and start waking the kids. He concentrated hard on how the kids felt warm like fresh toast and soft like a new teddy, he thought they even smelt of warm butter. They were safe!

A bony hand drew him from his family as bony finger tips slid through his hear and cupped his head, trying to lift it up off the floor
.
“FUCK OFF!”
he screamed trying to shake it off.

Black goo dropped on to his cheek then in to his ear, he pressed his lips together terrified some would enter his mouth with his dust mask long gone, torn off in the struggle.

“Yuck!”
he said screwing up his face and turning away. Bony fingers prodded at the back and the side of his head. There was nothing he could do, nowhere he could go! He had no choice but to let things take their course, he could
n’
t lie like this forever. Then he remembered the slower infected guys, and he thought the
y’
d be on him any second
.
Goo
d
, he though
t
, the more of them there are the quicker it’ll be
!