Dead Man Running (20 page)

There was no response. His voice was muffled by layer upon layer of steel.

Gritting his teeth, Six grabbed the drive shaft of a vehicle above him. He hauled himself up into a crevice between it and the car beside it, which was facing upwards, and smashed the passenger-side window with his elbow.

He climbed through the frame. This car had no occupants, but smelled no better than the one he'd been in. Feet on the seat backs, he crawled up towards the hole where the windscreen had been. He stopped to check if there was anything useful in the glove compartment. Nothing but a garage door opener and dozens of spider eggs.

He wriggled through the windscreen and found himself in a coffin-sized gap between a truck tyre and a car boot. He squeezed past the tyre and found the rest of the truck – a big eighteen-wheel rig with a dented shipping container still bolted to the trailer. The truck was lying on its side, tilted slightly upwards. There was no room to squeeze past it on either side, so Six unlocked the container and opened the door a crack. Nothing but darkness inside.

Six forced the door open wide enough to climb in. The container shifted slightly with his weight, and suddenly there was a roaring sound as something enormous slid down the container wall towards him. Six jumped out of the way as a grand piano crashed into the half-open door, splintering the wooden lid and striking every string with a thunderous
boom
.

Six stayed still for a moment, his heart pounding in his ears. That piano would have been tied down, he thought. The safety straps must have rotted away. I'll have to be careful of things like that.

Hands outstretched for balance, he walked up through the shipping container, occasionally bumping into what felt like cardboard boxes. This must have been a moving truck. He thought of all the drivers who'd bought new cars after ChaoSonic crushed their old ones. The owner of this cargo would have had to replace all their possessions.

When he got to the other end of the container, he was able to unbolt the door and push it open. There was a space between the trailer and the truck's cabin. He slithered out into the opening and let the door fall closed behind him.

The light seemed brighter here, or perhaps he was imagining it. But there couldn't be much further to climb. He couldn't be buried too deep in the mountain. Could he?

The cars on either side of him both had dead bodies in them. Six could see their faces, lips shrivelled back to expose toothy grins. He remembered King saying that ChaoSonic hadn't bothered to remove the bodies near the top of the pile. He must be getting close to the surface.

He punched through the glass on one side and gingerly pushed the corpse out of his way. It slumped across the seats as if its bones had dissolved. After wriggling through the frame, Six checked the glove compartment: nothing but an almost-finished cryptic crossword. Perhaps this was how the driver had spent some of her final hours – trying to think of a six-letter word meaning
new is old at work
.

Six clambered through the window on the other side. Yes, it was definitely brighter here. He would be out soon.

Six could hear a distant rattling, like someone walking over tinfoil. Ten, he thought. And the pilot.

He was about to call out when another possibility occurred to him. It could be ChaoSonic soldiers. He knew they were in the area – they would have seen the helicopter crash. They'd want to know who was in it.

He couldn't stop moving for long. Soon he would run out of air. So he kept climbing upwards, as quietly as possible.

There was another body in the car to his left – a bald man. The windows were intact, at least the ones Six could see, leaving the body better preserved than the others. Six could still make out the colour in his eyes, eyes which seemed to be staring right at him.

The dead body slammed its fist against the window.

Six scrambled backwards, terror flooding his chest. This was worse than ChaoSonic. Lerke's troops had found him.

The Revived man thumped the glass again and this time it cracked. Pushing his fingers through the epicentre of the fractures, he pulled chunks of the window away like a wolverine digging for its prey.

Six crawled in the opposite direction, dragging himself through gaps that had seemed too narrow to consider only seconds ago. Rusty car parts scraped his hands and chest and face. He knew that one wrong turn could lead to his shoulders getting stuck, and he'd be unable to turn around – he might be trapped until he suffocated – but he didn't slow down. He was afraid that any second now he'd feel an undead hand close around his ankle.

There were more footsteps somewhere overhead. More walking corpses.

The Deck's only a block away, Six thought. I can make it. He dragged himself through the debris, ignoring his grazed skin and burning lungs, repeating those words in his head. I can make it. I can make it.

The light was getting brighter. He must be nearing the surface.

With a crash, his head broke through the last layer of twisted metal. Even the polluted air of the City smelled good after the stifling odours of the junk-heap. He pulled himself out, landing on the battered roof of a crushed hatchback, and lifted his legs out of the hole.

The dead man was right behind him. Six saw his bald head shining in the darkness, and then his eyes, still fixed upon Six's own.

Fizz!
Something bright and hot slammed into the Revived's face, and it caved in like a smashed watermelon.

Six whirled around to see Ten, holding a smoking flare gun. The ruins of the helicopter were half buried in the rubbish behind him.

‘Ten!' Six said. ‘You're okay!'

Ten didn't look okay. He was standing with all his weight on one leg, as though the bones in the other were broken. He had flecks of blood around his mouth, and more on the thumb and index finger of his right hand.

Six had seen that pattern before. Ten had tried to give CPR to someone with a punctured lung.

‘The pilot?'

Ten looked away.

Six's head grew heavy. I didn't even know her name, he thought. And she died because of me.

‘There's more of them,' Ten said. ‘We have to keep moving.'

Six nodded. He clambered to his feet and followed Ten as he limped down the mountain back towards the helicopter.

‘How many more flares do you have?' Six asked.

‘One.'

Damn it, Six thought. We're practically unarmed. And if this is the fastest Ten can walk, it might take us twenty minutes to get to the Deck.

A rumbling sound, behind them.

Six turned to see that dead people were stumbling over the top of the mountain and running down towards them, silhouetted against the light from the burning military vehicles. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Some were carrying guns stolen from the slaughtered ChaoSonic troops. Others clutched improvised weapons – crowbars, axes, chunks of pipe.

We don't have twenty minutes, Six realised.

STAMPEDE

‘Go!' Six yelled. ‘Head for the Deck!'

‘I'll be right behind you,' Ten said.

A lie, Six knew. The living dead were swarming down the hill towards them. They'd be here in seconds. Six might be able to outrun them, but Ten couldn't. His ruined leg was a death sentence.

‘I'll hold them off,' Six said.

Ten's eyes were agonised. ‘I won't let you die for me.'

‘I'm not dying for anybody. Move!'

Ten seemed to believe him. He limped away, down the side of the pile of automobiles. Six ran in a slightly different direction. He was headed for the helicopter.

The aircraft was a wreck – no landing gear, no tail rotor, cockpit smashed in. It fit right in among the crushed cars. No part of it would ever fly again.

But Six didn't need it to fly. He needed a weapon.

He didn't slow down as he approached the helicopter. He hit the cabin wall at a sprint and raced up the side onto the roof. One of the helicopter blades had been bent almost ninety degrees in the crash. The other was relatively undamaged – Six grabbed it and wrenched it out of its socket.

The blade was four metres long, but surprisingly light. He was able to heft it without feeling overbalanced. The edge wasn't sharp, but with enough force, Six figured it could cleave through an undead neck.

The horde was almost upon him. They didn't seem to be paying any attention to Ten, who was hobbling along the street below. Six knew he should feel relieved – but it was hard with a crowd of the living dead storming towards him.

He jumped down from the roof of the helicopter. Gripping the end of the blade, he held it over his head like a giant broadsword and charged.

He'd hoped that the corpses wouldn't use their weapons – it was possible Lerke had instructed them to capture him alive. But as soon as he was within reach, one of the Revived swung a nail-studded plank at his face. They must have been programmed to see everyone as hostile.

Six brought the helicopter blade down with no hesitation. The plank fell to the ground, along with the dead man's arm, which twitched like a dying fish.

Another body lurched forwards, swinging a hook on the end of a heavy chain. Six raised the blade just in time to block a vicious strike – the chain wrapped around the blade with a
clang
.

The Revived hauled on the chain and Six felt his only weapon start to slip from his grasp. He kicked the man's head off, and almost fell over backwards as the chain was released.

Six pulled the chain off the blade and wrapped it around his left hand. Now he had two ways of defending himself.

But it wasn't going to be enough. The undead were attacking him from every side. He whirled around, swinging the helicopter blade a full 360 degrees, and limbs tumbled to the ground like tree branches. But there were still more, hundreds more, splashing towards him through the growing puddle of artificial blood at his feet.

One had stolen a rocket launcher from the ChaoSonic soldiers and was holding it like a club. Six sidestepped just in time to avoid having his skull crushed, and cracked the chain like a whip. The hook slammed into the Revived's throat and tore out its jugular. It collapsed like a bag of bricks.

Living soldiers would be retreating by now, terrified of the superhuman boy with the blade and the chain. But the undead just kept coming.

I can't do this, Six realised. Lerke's army just butchered a highly trained team of ChaoSonic soldiers who were armed to the teeth. What chance have I got on my own?

He looked at the rocket launcher beside his feet.

Just one, he realised.

He dropped the chain, reached down and picked the launcher up. There was a catch on the side – he flicked it, and the rocket was ejected.

A Revived was staggering towards him, a lead pipe clenched in its hands. Six thrust the helicopter blade forwards and impaled its ribcage, then pulled it sideways, knocking all the nearest bodies over.

The rocket was a slim, angry-looking thing. Careful not to touch the warhead, Six tugged the casing off the fuel canister.

There was no time to plan – no way to make this even slightly safe. He held the rocket parallel to the ground, discarded the blade, picked up the hook and bashed it against the canister.

The rocket came to life in his hand as the fuel ignited. The faces melted off the undead behind it and Six was dragged away as though he was clinging to the leash of a runaway Doberman.

The walking dead tumbled over like bowling pins as he ploughed through them, his feet skittering along the ground. The rocket's propulsion was enough to carry his weight – when he lifted his knees, he was able to hang from the rocket like it was the handle of a flying fox.

He could see Ten up ahead, still limping towards the Deck. None of the corpses had caught up to him yet, but they would soon. Six tried to steady the rocket, which was thrashing like an eel above him. Precision steering was impossible, but by pulling the point of the rocket down slightly, and letting go with one hand, he thought he would be able to . . . 

‘Hey!' Ten yelled as Six swooped down and grabbed him by the collar. Soon they were both hurtling through the air, Six hanging on to Ten with one hand and the rocket with the other. Ten reached up and grabbed Six's forearm to steady himself.

‘You're insane!' Ten shouted.

Six ignored him. Steering had been hard enough before – now he had to do it one-handed. The Deck was rushing towards them. He tilted the rocket up, aiming for the roof.

‘We're going to hit the wall!'

‘No we're not,' he said, steering higher.

‘We are!'

‘We're not!'

And then the fuel went dry.

Six looked on in horror as the flame sputtered out. This rocket was only designed to carry its own weight over relatively short distances.

He and Ten were three storeys above the street and still ten metres away from the Deck. Leftover momentum would only carry them so far, and he didn't think it would be far enough. Eight metres at the most.

‘Falling,' Ten said. ‘We're falling!'

‘All you do is complain!' Six shouted.

His mind was whirling. No fuel, he thought. Nothing I can use for fuel. Nothing to grab onto to stop falling, nothing soft to land on when we do.

The undead were running towards the Deck. Even if he and Ten survived the fall, they would be dead seconds afterwards.

They were so close to the Deck, but they'd almost stopped moving horizontally. Two more metres, Six thought. All we need is two lousy metres.

But they were falling. They weren't going to make it.

Six's gaze shot up to the depleted rocket, surprisingly heavy in his hand. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, he realised. Is it too late?

With the last of his strength, he hurled the rocket away from the Deck, down towards the approaching horde. As it left his hand, Six felt a little kick of extra momentum in the opposite direction . . . 

. . . which was just enough to push them over the top of the Deck's roof.

As they landed, Six yelled, ‘Get down!' They both dropped into crouched stances, covering their heads as the warhead detonated down below. A deafening
crack
ripped through the air, and a blizzard of concrete shards and body parts rained down on the roof.

Six's heart rate gradually slowed to non-crisis levels. They'd made it. He staggered to his feet. Ten was still lying on his back, wheezing.

‘You okay?' Six said.

Ten nodded. ‘Just . . . give me a minute.'

Six sat down next to him. A minute didn't seem like too much to ask.

When Ten was ready, Six helped him up and they walked over to the Deck's rooftop entrance. Six held his thumb over the scanner and felt the needle pinch his skin. The door slid open and they went in.

Six remembered walking to Ace's morgue earlier, how being afraid of seeing her had made the journey seem to take forever. Now he was desperate to see her and the walk seemed to take even longer – but that could have been because Ten could only hobble at a snail's pace.

The dead body who'd shot down the helicopter from the Deck's roof was nowhere to be found. Neither was anybody else. Six had been afraid that the corridors would be strewn with dead agents, but it seemed that the Deck's personnel had followed protocol and locked themselves in their offices.

Eventually Six and Ten arrived at the morgue. Six was about to knock on the door, but Ten was already inserting a key into the lock and turning the handle. Six braced himself. She might not be here, he thought. Or worse. Anything could have happened while I was gone. So many of my friends are dead already.

The door swung open. Ace leaped up from her chair.

‘You're alive!' she cried out.

She ran towards Six, arms outstretched. Six took his hands out of his pockets, ready to respond to the hug – but it was Ten she grabbed, wrapping him up in her arms, kissing him.

A bunch of things went through Six's head at once. Ace's wedding ring. The fact that Ten had met his wife working on a case –
a friend of the vic
, he'd said – and that it was Ten who'd been assigned to investigate Six's disappearance. The way King hadn't heard about Ten's ‘orders'.

Six leaned against the wall. He'd been so stupid.

Ace let go of Ten. ‘Are you okay?'

‘I am now,' Ten said.

‘Your arm looks broken,' Ace said. ‘And you have holes in you.'

‘Except for that, obviously.'

‘Get in the MRI,' Ace said, ‘and I'll fix you up.'

He kissed her and staggered over to the plastic bench. He closed his eyes as he lay down and pushed the button. It looked to Six as though he was asleep by the time the bench slid into the machine and the magnet started to whir.

Ace turned to Six and he saw that her eyes were sparkling with tears. ‘Thank you,' she said, and then Six found himself in a crushing embrace.

‘For what?'

‘For bringing him back.'

Six was confused. ‘But you ordered him to look after me,' he said. ‘Shouldn't you be thanking him for bringing
me
back?'

‘I hope he made himself useful.'

Six thought of Ten helping him steal the ChaoSonic truck, driving the boat while Six searched for the bomb, shooting the dead man with the flare gun. He nodded reluctantly.

‘It looks like you've been through hell,' Ace said. ‘Both of you. I knew he'd do everything he could to help you – but I also know
you
. I knew you wouldn't let anything happen to him. So, thank you.'

She released him.

‘Your real name is Harriet?' Six said.

Ace blushed. ‘I was always going to tell you that, someday.' She looked down. ‘I'm so sorry. About what happened to you, four years ago, about what happened – what didn't happen – with us. About everything. You deserved so much better.'

Six believed that to be true. And it still hurt, knowing that he and Ace could never be together. But, he realised, he was also glad about how things had worked out. Ten was smart, kind and brave. He clearly loved Ace, she loved him; and they would never have fallen for each other if it hadn't been for Six's death. Four years ago, if Six had been asked to give his life so that Ace could be happy, he knew he would have said yes.

Telling her that would only make her feel guilty. ‘It's okay,' he said. ‘You should be with your husband.'

The tears were flooding down her face now, and Six could feel his own eyes brimming over. She hugged him again. Six felt her lips brush against his ear as she whispered, ‘I knew you'd like him.' And then she was walking over to the MRI and Six left, closing the door behind him. He wasn't needed here.

The corridors of the Deck were still empty. Six wondered how many other agents were locked in their offices, and how many had been in the building when the lockdown happened. With the living dead roaming the streets and awakening in ChaoSonic morgues, the Deck was probably the safest place in the City right now. Or it would have been, if it weren't for the one corpse wandering the halls somewhere inside. Six's eyes were searching every gloomy corner.