Dead Days (Book 2): Tess (2 page)

He stares at me with what looks like fear.  He thinks I mean it and I suppose in that moment I
do
mean it, and it fills me with a savage joy.    

“Fine.”  He says sulkily.  “Do what you want, I’m letting you go.”  He draws himself up haughtily.  “You can have a reference-”

“Oh fuck off Gerry, you weasel.”  I turn and walk away.

“Where are you going?!”

I don’t answer, but hurry back to the coffee shop.  I can’t just leave.  A small crowd has gathered around the entrance and-

People suddenly come running out.  I recognise the balding/spectacles guy as he lands face-first on the pavement, the young waiter, who seconds before was bleeding to death, is now on his back, sinking his teeth into his shoulder.

What the hell is going on here?! 

People are fleeing, screaming.  There is commotion from inside the shop too, and I have a feeling that the man who collapsed is feeling a lot livelier. 

      I turn to see Gerry fleeing up the street.  Good riddance, but now there’s a bigger problem.

      The first man bursts out of the shop.  His shirt is soaked red, as are his chin and mouth.  His jaw is working furiously, and there are strips of something dangling from his lips.

I don’t want to believe that it’s chunks of human flesh.

A man in a suit steps forward and punches the crazy guy across the face.  It’s a heavy hit, I can hear it from where I’m standing, but the man barely flinches.  He turns to the man who threw the punch and lunges at him, bearing him to the ground.

      The waiter has finished with the bespectacled man, who has stopped moving.  He turns in my direction and as he sees me, he begins lurching forwards, growling.  For a moment I can’t move, I can’t breathe. 

How did the day turn into this?

His eyes are a milky colour, glazed and staring, I can see some of his teeth have broken off where he has bitten down on something that was too hard.

Like bone.
 

Imagining those broken teeth ripping into me is what gets me moving.

Thank God I wore flats today.

People are running away now, screaming, I can hear sirens, seemingly dozens of them.  I see two police cars streak past, but neither stops, they are headed further into the city.

Is this what’s happening everywhere? 

I have to get out here. 

I run into a side street off Tottenham Court road and root frantically through my bag.  I switch my phone on, it’s seems to take forever to load and I have to restrain myself from smashing it against the wall. 

    Finally I access my contacts and try to call Mike. 

It won’t connect.

I look at the screen.  No signal bars.

I’m in the city fucking centre and I have no signal? 

I look about.  This street’s quieter.  I’m not far from Mike’s office, it’s on Regent Street.  Maybe I can get to there?

Why bother?  You don’t even know if he went in today.  Get out of town, head north, you can get hold of Mike later.

That sounded sensible, but how was I going to get out of town?  What if those crazy people have made it onto the underground?  I don’t like the idea of trapping myself down there, and I have a feeling that the rest of the public transport system is about to go to hell.  

Getting out on foot I’m not even going to consider.

Mike’s office has a key-card entrance, and its close.  The receptionist has seen me there before, so even if Mike isn’t there I should be able to get in. 

It’s the best option.

And you want to see him.

I put my phone away and set off, but as soon as I start walking I’m nearly knocked over by a skinny guy running down the street.  He must have come from the hospital.      He’s wearing scrubs and a name badge, both of which are spattered with blood.

      His elbow catches me in the cheek and we both stumble.  He turns to me and holds out his hands,

“Sorry- sorry-” he pulls himself up.

“Wait!”  I shout, “What the hell is going on?  What’s happening out there?”

He looks almost crazy, wide eyed, hair standing on end.  I can see he’s close to tears and my stomach drops. 

I start to feel the beginnings of real terror.

“It’s all fucked….Everyone whose bitten- Everyone’s turning into them-  The hospital-  I had to get out-  It’s fucking
full
of them-”  He stares over my shoulder.

“Oh fuck-” and then he’s off and running.

      I turn to see what he was looking at, and I cry out as I see a dozen people, lurching and moaning up the street.  Some are in hospital gowns, one is shirtless, but all of them are bloody and all of them are moaning with that awful rasping sound.

I take off at a run.

I hear the squeal of breaks and a thud, I don’t turn around.  I don’t want to see who’s been hit. 

I make a left and keep running. 

There are a few people doing what I’m doing, running away from Tottenham Court road, but there are plenty of others who look at us dumbfounded, craning to see where we’ve come from.  I see a young guy pull out his I-phone and start filming me.

Christ what a world.

I’m about ten minutes from Mike’s office, so I keep moving, trying not to hear the shouts and terrified screaming from the streets I’m leaving behind.  Through the commotion I hear a low ‘
pock pock’
sound that I don’t understand.

It’s almost a full minute before I realise that its gunfire.

The police, the
British
police, are shooting people.

How the fuck can this be happening?!

I see restaurants and offices with people inside that look almost normal, except now people are tentatively stepping outside, trying to see what’s going on.  My legs feel numb and I stop to lean against the side of a building. 

      My heart is beating so hard that I can feel it in my temples.  I try to control my breathing. 

I’m almost there.

I have to get inside.  Once I’m off the street I can talk to Mike, and work out what to do next.

I start to run again, and my brain finally starts to engage.

There’re a few streets and a lot of people between you and Tottenham Court road, you don’t have to run right now.

That’s true, I should save my energy for when I
really
need it.  I slow to a brisk walk.

As I approach Regent Street I start to become anxious, I can hear more sirens, close by.  Regent connects directly to Oxford Circus, which is always full of people.  If just one of them is infected with whatever this thing is, the place could be Pandemonium.

Shit, then I’m stuck. 

I can’t turn back and I have no idea what’s waiting up ahead.

Well fuck it you can’t stay here.

I take a deep breath and walk out onto Regent Street. 

It’s totally gridlocked.

People have gotten out of their cars and are looking bemusedly to one another, a few are arguing.  Something up ahead has blocked the road.

      The scene is unusual but not as bad as I expected, at least the street isn’t full of those…. things.  I can see Mike’s office and I make a beeline for it. 

I’m halfway across the road when I hear it.

The sound of glass shattering-

Someone starting to scream-

A terrible wet crunch as something heavy crashes into the windshield of the car four feet away from me.

I’m hit by broken glass and a spray of some dark heavy liquid.  I start to scream as I see blood, and assume I’ve been cut to ribbons by the flying glass.

After a few seconds I realise that there is no pain and that the blood is not my own.

I don’t know when I fell over but now I’m sitting on the tarmac, staring at the body of a woman who fell out of the sky.

      She is dressed for work, I can see the tattered remains of her skirt and blouse, the shredded tights, the one sensible black heeled shoe still dangling from her twisted left foot.

Did she know what was going to happen this morning when she chose that outfit?

Did she jump?

Was she pushed?

I look at the window she fell from.  Its six storeys up.  I follow her trajectory with my eyes until I’m looking at the smashed car.

I almost faint when her foot twitches.

The shoe drops to the ground as her leg extends, there is an awful, organic cracking sound as she pushes herself upright.

Then I see her face.

Or what’s left of it.

The entire right side of her head has been obliterated, the eye-socket smashed in, the eye itself now a burst glob of white jelly running down her cheek.  Her jaw is hanging off on one side, the remaining teeth broken and twisted.  Despite this, she tries to open it, a horrible groaning sound issuing from her throat.

How is she still alive?  How can’t she feel it?!

She reaches out an arm and pulls herself from the bonnet of the car.  She hits the tarmac with a dull smack.

Other people are looking on, horrified, but no one comes near, and there are other noises now, something that sounds like a car crash, more screaming.

The thing that used to be a woman is now pulling herself towards me.

Her remaining eye is cloudy but it is fixed on my face, that hissing moaning sound doesn’t stop as she drags herself forward.

I can’t move.

Oh God this thing is going to kill me in the middle of the street and I can’t do a thing to stop it.

It opens its mouth wide to lunge and I close my eyes.

CRACK.

The bite never comes.

I open my eyes.  The infected woman is now motionless, laying next to me.  I can see a red smear of blood and brains streaked across the road behind her head. 

      I see flecks of white in the gore and I realise with a wave of revulsion that I’m looking at pieces of her skull.

A hand is shaking me.

I turn dazedly and look into the face of a woman. 

She is short but stocky, her dark hair tied into a ponytail, her face hard and angular.  She is wearing a police uniform.  In her right hand she is carrying a pistol.

“-I said are you alright?!”  She is almost shouting over the noise.

I don’t answer.  I just cant- OW! 

She has slapped me, hard.  It hurts like a bitch but it does the job.

“I’m ok, I’m ok!”

“Did it get you?”

“Get me?-”

“Did it
bite
you?”

“No!”

She seems to relax. 

“Ok, you got a place you can go?”

“My boyfriends’ office is just there-”

The sound of screeching brakes and twisting metal cuts me off.  We both turn to see a double-decker bus plough through the traffic at the end of the street, smashing into one of the huge buildings near the Oxford Circus tube.  I hear shouts of pain and confusion, the end of the street now full of smoke.