Demise of the Living (24 page)

“
Don’t even try it,”
Sharon said. “Believe me, you don’t want to make an enemy of
me.”

“You’re blowing this out of
proportion,” Mo protested.

Sharon ignored him and walked
past.

“
Let’s get you some fresh
batteries, sweetie,” she said, placing a gentle hold round the girl
and ushering her from the canteen.

“What just happened?” Mo asked,
confounded.

“Aren’t you supposed to be
watching out for the guys returning?” John said, obviously siding
with his boss.

“Yeah, yeah. I am,” Mo
said.

He turned and exited the
canteen.

As he entered the hallway he
could see Sharon and Melissa heading up the stairs to the first
floor office. Mo didn’t want to be anywhere near Sharon after her
blow-up, so he decided he’d take the elevator to the fourth floor
purely so he could avoid her.

As he entered the lobby there
was an increase in the banging and moaning. The black mass of dead
bodies pressed against the windows writhed and pulsated like a sea
monster wrapped around the building. The creatures outside seemed
so malevolent to Mo that they even sucked the light out the
room.

He pressed the button to call
the elevator. There was a soft ping and the door immediately sprung
open.

Mo didn’t enter the lift
straight away. He walked over to the office entrance and examined
the glass.

As he drew closer, the ruckus
from the other side grew more frenzied.

One of the panes had a half a
dozen pit marks in it with frosted glass craters. There were a few
stress cracks zigzagging away from the impact points. The damage
had been done by one of Billy’s wayward shotgun blasts.

Mo ran his hand over the
glazing. It felt smooth. The damage only affected the outside layer
of glass.

“Need to keep an eye on you,”
Mo said.

The throng held at bay on the
other side of the glass were growling and moaning feverously,
jostling with each other to get closer to their prey.

Mo stood up and a shudder
squirmed down his spine. The windows were packed with dead faces
staring at him, futilely grasping at him, their jaws already
working up and down as if they had already started to devour
him.

If the crack got worse the
whole window could cave in, letting the zombies flood into the
building. If that happened, the survivors could block off the
stairwells and remain safe on the first floor, but they would lose
their access to the ground floor. The loading bay and the plant
room would be inaccessible.

Mo decided that if Thomas and
the rest weren’t back by nightfall, they would need to switch off
the generator and block the stairwells as a precaution.

He walked back over to
the lift. He stepped inside and hit the button for the third floor.
He placed a hand in his pocket and felt the small round stone in
there.

***

No sooner had she exited the
elevator than the doors clunked shut and the carriage started its
downward journey. Liz stood at the fourth floor door, strangely
paralysed by the noise of the descending elevator. She stood with
her outstretched hand on the door, frozen at the precise moment
before she should have started to push. Someone had called the
lift. Liz didn’t know why this disturbed her. She had no reason to
fear discovery. All she was doing was visiting her son. Her dead
son.

The watch that was so
fastidiously maintained all day Monday and through the night to
Tuesday morning had melted away. No one came up to the fourth floor
now unless it was to climb the short steps up onto the roof. Maybe
Mo came up here and checked in on her boy when he did his rounds.
Liz didn’t know for sure.

Behind her she heard the hard
twang of the lift pulley come to a sharp stop.

She took her hand off the
door and took in a deep breath. She stood up, straightened and
smoothed a crease from her dress with a flat handed swipe. Again
she placed her hand on the door and was about to push it open when
from behind her the elevator started up again.

Liz took her hand from the door
and covered her face with her palms. She could feel herself panting
behind the mask of her cupped hands.

What was the point? In that
office, tied down like a wild animal, was her son—her dead son. He
didn’t acknowledge her presence, didn’t smile when he saw her. He
was in that meeting room struggling perpetually against his bonds,
but it wasn’t him. There was no pulse, no heartbeat—nothing of the
young boy she once loved.

What was the point of torturing
herself? Why go in there and be reminded of the creature her
beautiful young boy had become?

The noise of the elevator grew
louder as it drew nearer.

Liz pulled her now wet hands
away from her face. She turned and quickly made her way through the
door to the roof, wiping the tears from her eyes as she ran.

She didn’t want to see her
beautiful boy feral and corrupted by whatever poison had consumed
him. Likewise, she didn’t want anyone to see her so distraught, so
vulnerable, so grief stricken.

***

“Why are you leaving it there?”
Thomas asked, looking at the mountain of food by the doorway.

“Cause I don’t want those
things outside to see us and start bawling,” Billy said.

Thomas took a quick look out
the door.

“Don't do that!” Billy said,
pulling him back.

“There’s none out there,”
Thomas said.

“
It only takes one to
spot you and it calls in a horde of the fuckers,” Billy said. “Did
you get the keys?”

Thomas held up a single
ignition key and wiggled it.

“
Good,” Billy said. “Now
it only needs one of us to gut the kitchen of supplies, but there
might be other useful stuff in here.”

“Like what?” Thomas asked.
“Chalk?”

Billy shook his head.
“When were you at school? It’s all smart boards and shit
now.”

“So what are we looking for?”
Thomas asked.

“
I don’t know for sure. I
mean there’s probably food in the Home Ec department. First aid
kits. Just
stuff
.”

Thomas looked at him
blankly.

“Okay, you get the food from
the kitchen ready for loading. I’ll take a look around,” Billy
said.

“No chance,” Thomas retorted.
“You’re just looking for an opportunity to skive off.”

“Fuck you.”

“
No, you can stay here
and help load the stuff up, then we’ll
both
go looking,” Thomas
said.

Billy rubbed his eyes to dispel
the fatigue he suddenly felt.

“
Fine. We’ll do it your
way,” he said.

***

Colin opened the door to
Jenny’s classroom. He’d hoped to see her sitting there at her desk,
with a tower of term papers on one side and mug of coffee on the
other.

But the classroom was
empty.

“
Staff room,” Colin said
to himself. He closed the door.

He realised he wasn’t
calling out her name anymore; something was holding him back. His
heart soared when he had seen her car in the parking lot. A fantasy
had leapt to mind: he and Jenny thrown together by this awful
catastrophe. He would be the only familiar presence in this
terrifying new world and Jenny would latch herself to him. The
normal controls of the world were gone and the two of them would
likewise throw off all control and intertwine—passionate lovers at
last.

Colin walked into the
abandoned staff room. Unlike the rest of the school there was
something here that caught his attention: the faint smell of
coffee. He walked up to the coffee machine. It was one of the
expensive ones that made real coffee rather than the instant
vending machines back at the office block.

He placed his hand on the side
of it and was disappointed to find it cold.

He pulled his hand away,
dejected that his hunch hadn’t paid off. As he did a dark brown
drip fell onto the catch tray underneath.

Quickly he pulled out the
cartridge and examined the grinds. They were damp. Someone had made
coffee. Maybe not in the past few hours, but far more recently than
last Friday when the school closed for the holidays.

Invigorated by this finding, he
searched more closely for clues. In the sink he found a rinsed-out
mug. He pulled it out and held it up to the light. Around the rim
was a lip print. A faint wrinkled pattern left by lip-gloss or some
such product.

“She was here, she had to be,”
Colin said to himself.

He put the mug down and raced
out of the staff room. As he raced from the room he ran straight
into a girl.

Karen screamed and was knocked
off her feet.

“
Run!” Shan screamed,
sprinting off down the corridor.

“Ow!” Colin grunted, landing
badly.

“Karen!” Shan shouted from some
way down the corridor.

“Karen?” Colin said.

“Mr. Lee?!” Karen blurted in
surprise.

“Shan?” Colin said, looking up
the corridor. He got to his feet. “Shanquel?”

Karen was still lying on the
ground, looking terrified.

Colin held his hand out. Karen
just lay there, her eyes wide in terror.

“I’m not going to hurt you,
Karen,” Colin promised. “How long have you pair been here?”

Karen glanced back down
the corridor, but Shan was long gone.

“Are you two okay? It’s...
well, it’s a mess out there. What about your parents?”

“They’re dead,” Karen said.

She slapped Colin’s hand out of
the way and stood up by herself.

“
I’m sorry to hear that,
Karen,” Colin said. “Look, I’m here with a group of people. There’s
a few of us holding up in an office block not far from here. You’ll
be safe with us there.”

“We were safe enough here until
you came,” Karen said.

“We’re not going to hurt
you.”

“What about those randoms
outside?” Karen asked.

“We’ll keep you safe from them.
I promise.”

“
Bullshit. Why’d you lead
them here then?”

“
What? We didn’t lead
them here,” Colin said.

“
Oh, yeah? Come and see.”
Karen nodded to the stairwell.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you,” Karen said and
trotted off towards the stairs.

Colin jogged along behind
her. The girl was spry, pelting up the stairs with astonishing
speed. She was well ahead of him and through the library doors and
out of his sight. For a moment he wondered if this was a trick to
try to give him the slip, but when he ran into the library Karen
was standing by the south corner window.

He walked up behind her and
looked out.

His jaw dropped. “Bloody
hell!”

The road that had led them to
the school was packed. In broken steps, an army of zombies was
marching on the school. Some of the vanguard had already started to
congregate around the fence and shuffle up to the gate.

“Why did you bring them here?”
Karen asked.

“We didn’t,” Colin said. “I
mean we didn’t mean to. They must have been following the car.”

As he watched, a zombie bumped
into the gate and to his horror the gate eased open enough for the
creature to amble through.

Colin cursed, “Christ!
That dick didn’t lock the gate!”

Colin ran for the exit, then
stopped and turned back. He grabbed Karen’s hand and, despite her
screams of protest, he dragged her along with him.

“Billy! Thomas!” Colin
screamed, running into the refectory.

Neither of the two men could be
seen, but stacked against the outside wall, neatly piled, was the
contents of the kitchen store.

Still dragging the
schoolgirl by her wrist, Colin walked out of the side door onto the
parking lot. He looked out towards the gates. Already half a dozen
zombies had pushed their way in. Keeping his eyes on the gate, he
walked up to the mini bus and tried the door. Thomas hadn’t gotten
around to opening it.

“Get back inside and wait by
the door,” Colin said.

“Why?” Karen asked.

“
I’m going to shut the
gate. When Billy and Thomas get back we’ll get the mini bus out of
here.” He let go of the girl’s arm and bent down to look her in the
eyes. “I promise I’ll get you out of this.”

“Wish you hadn’t bothered
coming here,” Karen said.

Colin stood up and spotted
Jenny’s car.

“
Have you see Miss
Alvarez?” he asked.

Karen appeared frightened
again.

“Have you seen her?” Colin
asked more forcefully.

“She’s dead.”

“What?” Colin said flatly.

“She’s dead.”

Colin shook his head and placed
a balled right hand to his mouth.

In her mind, Karen was
weighing her options. She could tell him the truth that Shan had
killed her, or she could lie.

“She was one of those things,”
Karen heard herself say.

Colin howled, “Oh, Christ,
no!”

He stumbled backwards, reeling
from the news.

Down the parking lot a
zombie moaned, loud and long, a doleful call like that of a
mournful dog. It was foremost, though, a cry for the others of his
kind to rally to.

Colin turned and looked
towards the moans through anguished tears. The six or so lumbering
zombies slowly trudged towards them and behind the school gates a
throng of their decayed brethren jostled to squeeze through. He
snorted in a scorching breath hot with grief and gazed down at
Karen. The poor girl was clearly terrified.