Demise of the Living (28 page)

Whiplash
, he reminded
himself.

Bleary-eyed, he tiptoed
over to the water cooler and was halfway there before noticing the
office was empty. No one else was on the floor. The sun was up, but
it was impossible to tell what time of day it was due to the
soot-laden clouds. The sunlight was defused through the smog,
giving no clue to its position in the sky.

Colin poured himself a cup of
water and drank it greedily. Out of habit he started to scrunch the
cup, but then stopped.

“Don’t have an infinite supply
of these, now do we?” he said to the white plastic cup.

He gently set it down on top of
the water cooler for later.

Wind was groaning down the
avenue outside. Colin could hear it even through the closed
windows. He hobbled over to take a look for signs of how hard the
wind was blowing—flags flapping, trees swaying—anything to give him
a clue to the ferocity. The wind could herald a break in the
weather. The last few days had been hot and sticky. A rainstorm
might cool things down a little and wash some of the stench from
the air.

He stood propped up against the
windowsill and looked out. What he saw outside shocked him. The
sound wasn’t the wind—the sound was the collective moans of the
hundreds of zombies in the street.

Colin pressed his hands against
the cold glass and stared at the scene, transfixed. Randomly
wandering down the street were dozens of shambling corpses, but
most worrying of all was the moat of undead at the front of the
building. The knot of ghouls was especially populated around the
access to the office. There had to be at least a hundred creatures
packed around the lobby’s entrance. The creatures seemed intent on
jostling around the front of the building. Most were pale and wan,
but a few bunched together almost directly beneath him had what
looked like blood-caked faces. The rusty brown tint made them look
almost alive, like they had haphazardly applied fake tan. But their
harsh, jerky movements gave their true nature away.

One of the creatures looked up
at random. It locked eyes with Colin for a second until a rag of
yellow and red cloth being waved about by a nearby zombie caught
it’s attention. Colin didn’t think the creature had spotted him
behind its clouded retina, but he realised he’d held his breath all
the same.

The white, milky eyes showed no
intelligence, no mote of humanity.

“Strzyga,” Colin said,
mesmerised by the creatures.

He stood back from the
window. Shaking himself free off his morbid curiosity, he decided
to find the others.

Fighting against the
lethargy of his muscles, Colin made his way down to the canteen. He
could smell the coffee and hear the boisterous chatter well before
he opened the door.

“Morning,” Billy saluted.

“
What’s all this?” Colin
asked, inspecting the chaos.

Many of the tables had been
pushed to the walls to form a counter. In the space created by
their move, there was the haul from the school, food on one side,
camping kit on the other.

“
You want a coffee?”
Billy asked. “We found the good stuff. It’s instant, but it’s
better than the stuff in the vending machines.”

“Since no one turned up for
this morning’s nine a.m. meeting, I decided it would be best to
inventory everything,” Sharon said.

“I’d love a coffee. And some
painkillers if you’ve found any yet,” Colin replied, ignoring
Sharon.

“No can help on the
painkillers,” Billy said. “How do you want your coffee though?”

“Milk and sugar,” Colin
replied.

“
It’s powdered; make any
odds to you?” Billy asked.

Colin tried to nod his
head, but his neck wasn’t up for moving. “That’s fine.”

Karen, Liz, and Melissa
were sitting on the floor going through the supplies. The little
brown and white dog lay on its side, receiving an occasional ear
scratching from Melissa beside her. Standing over them were Sharon
and John, who from what Colin could surmise were sorting and
cataloguing the finds. On the tables were large, multi-coloured
packing crates with interlocking lids.

Scanning the loose camping
equipment, Colin looked for the first aid pack.

“
Anyone seen a first aid
bag?” he asked.

“
Yeah,” John answered.
“It’s in that crate there. Why?”

Colin walked to the crate and
peeled open the lid. Inside was an assortment of camping supplies
liberated from the school. He pulled out the pack, flipped the
flaps that formed the lid back in place and sat the pack down on
top. Unzipping it, he started to rummage around inside.

“What are you doing?” John
demanded.

Colin ignored him and continued
his search.

John stepped closer and asked
again, “What are you doing?”

Colin let out a huff of
disappointment and just managed to stop himself from swearing in
front of the little girl.

“Hey, what are you doing?” John
asked angrily.

“Looking for painkillers, if
you must know,” Colin said.

“You just can’t take stuff; I’m
cataloguing it,” John replied.

“
Are you for real? This
is
my
first aid kit, and as it is, there aren’t any aspirin in it
anyway."

“Isn’t there aspirin in the
first aid down here?” Billy asked.

“No, you're not allowed to have
painkillers in a first aid kit,” Sharon answered.

“What?” Billy said.

“It’s to do with allergies and
doses,” Sharon explained. “You might cause more harm than good and
you know how litigious things are these days.”

“Yeah, but I packed this myself
and put a packet of aspirin in here,” Colin said. “Do you know how
much of a headache it is looking after a dozen stroppy teens?”

“I think I have some in my
drawer upstairs,” Sharon offered.

“Bloody Woods has been in here
and whipped them out, I bet you,” Colin cursed.

Karen blurted, “Wanker
Woods?”

“What now?” Liz asked.

“Oh, the head teacher,” Colin
said. “He was worried about the insurance for the trip. He went
through my risk assessment like I was planning to blast the kids to
the moon in a space capsule with a pride of hungry lions. I bet
he’s removed them from the pack. I knew I should have kept them on
me.”

“Here you go,” Billy said,
handing Colin a coffee.

“Thanks,” Colin said, accepting
the hot beverage.

“
Well, you shouldn’t just
be taking things,” John said. “We only have a limited
supply.”

Colin slugged back a gulp of
coffee and held up two fingers to John.

“Did you see that?” John said
indignantly.

“No one gives a shit, John,”
Billy said.

“So what’s going on here?”
Colin asked.

John’s face was still in a
scowl as he explained, “Isn’t it obvious we’re—”

“I wasn’t asking you,” Colin
said.

“We’re sorting out the supplies
from the school,” Billy replied. “The stuff was all messed up after
both you and the supplies were just chucked in.”

“Look, have you seen out the
front?” Colin asked.

“Yeah,” Billy replied. “I think
we led them here yesterday. Pied Piper-style, buddy.”

“What are we going to do about
it?” Colin asked.

“
Not much we
can
do
about it,” John sneered.

“Well, I know we can’t go
outside and clear them out, but remember there’s a cracked glass
panel in the foyer,” Colin pointed out. “The pressure on it is just
going to keep building.”

“Now that we have the guns,
can’t we just thin them out?” Sharon asked.

“We’ve scavenged maybe a couple
hundred rounds,” Billy said. “Even if every shot puts one down,
it’s not going to make a dent in their numbers.”

“Rounds?” Colin said,
confused.

The canteen door opened and Mo
strolled in.

“Where have you been?” John
asked in an accusing tone.

“
Me?” Mo asked,
surprised. “Well, um, I’ve just been up on the third
floor.”

“Doing what?” John asked.

“
Doing his
rounds
,
John—what do you think?” Colin said.

“
Yeah, my rounds. That’s
what,” Mo said.

“Like I was saying, and I’m
sure Mo will agree with me here,” Colin began, turning to bring Mo
into the conversation on his side, “that cracked sheet of glass is
just going to get more and more pressure put on it until it
shatters.”

“Yeah, sure,” Mo said with a
nod.

“What do we do then?” Colin
asked.

“We can lock the doors to the
stairwells,” Mo offered.

“Will that be enough?”

“What you doing dogging it in
here, Billy?” Thomas said, entering with an armful of rifles.

“
Where did
they
come
from?” Colin asked.

“Oh, sorry, Thomas. Colin here
has been talking about barricading ourselves in,” Billy
explained.

“And that’s an excuse to let me
do all the work?” Thomas asked.

“The guns,” Colin said. “Where
did you get the guns?”

“
Oh, that’s right—you
were in cloud cuckoo land in the back of the car,” Billy recalled.
“We stumbled on a crashed army truck. Grabbed all the stuff we
could.”

“I wanted to grab the
fifty-cal, but Billy wouldn’t let me,” Thomas said.

“
A
what
now?” Colin
asked.

“The heavy machine gun up top,”
Billy explained.

“I could have had that off in
minutes using the tools from the garage,” Thomas said.

“
You didn’t sound so
confident at the time,” Billy replied. “Besides, what the fuck
would we do with it?”

“
We could have wasted a
good few
of the fuckers outside,” Thomas answered.

“
You wouldn’t have made a
dent in them before you ran out of ammo,” Billy said. “And anyway,
no one here has got the faintest idea how to fire one of those
things.”

“I’ve fired a gun before,”
Thomas protested.

Billy shook his head.
“Yeah, sure. We’re not talking about Laser Quest here—these are
pieces of military hardware.”

“I do,” said a soft voice.

Everyone turned to look at Liz
as she sorted out tins on the floor.

“I’ve fired assault rifles
before,” she said, this time more confidently.

“You know how to use a machine
gun?” Colin asked.

“I’ve fired those before—a
while ago, I grant you,” Liz said.

“When was that?” Melissa asked,
learning yet another new thing about her mother.

“I was in the Cadets at
school,” Liz explained.

“So are you some kind of mad
special forces gun nut then?” Billy asked.

Liz shook her head. “No, I
haven’t done anything like that since I left school.”

“Reckon you still know your way
around these things?” Billy asked.

“I’m sure it’ll come back to
me,” Liz said.

“
Good. Then we’ll get you
to show us how to use them,” Colin said.

Liz nodded. “Okay.”

“Where do you want them? They
weigh a ton,” Thomas complained.

“Down there for now,” Sharon
directed. “And maybe after lunch Liz could show us all how to use
them.”

Thomas dumped the rifles down
with an ugly clatter.

“How’s about you watch what
you’re doing with them?” Billy protested.

“Steady on—they’re not going to
break,” Thomas replied.

“
I wasn’t worried
about
that
. They might go off.”

“They’re not going to go off;
the safeties are on!”

“I don’t know that, now do
I?!”

“And you didn’t think I have
the brains to think about that.” Thomas tapped a finger against his
head.

Billy folded his arms over.
“No, I didn’t; you’ve done nothing to prove otherwise.”

"What happened to you?" Colin
asked, pointing at Thomas’ face.

Thomas was too focused on his
argument with Billy to hear Colin.

“What happened to your face?”
Colin asked forcefully.

There was a long scratch down
the side of his cheek, the brown scrape still fresh on the puffy
red skin. Thomas’ hand automatically went up to touch it.

“Did one of those things
scratch you yesterday?” Colin asked.

“Oh, that. I slipped up on the
roof last night. Must have done it on some gravel or something,”
Thomas said.

Colin looked at Billy for
confirmation.

“Yeah?” Billy shook his head,
leaning in to examine it more closely.

“You were with me all day
yesterday, Billy. I haven’t been infected,” Thomas said.

“
Nah, he’s good,” Billy
said. “I don’t remember seeing that yesterday. It must have
happened last night sometime.”

“
Thank you,” Thomas said
sarcastically. “Now are you coming to help? There’s still a good
few trips worth of kit out there.”

“Sure, but as I was saying, I
think Colin’s made a good point about securing the place,” Billy
said, getting the conversation back on track.

“We should maybe think about
fortifying the stairwells,” Colin suggested.

“Maybe leave a couple of guns
by the barricades just in case they do break in,” Billy
offered.

“Why don’t we just get a gun
each?” Sharon asked.

“Only five guns,” Thomas
answered.

“Well, the girls won’t get one,
and Billy already has his shotgun,” Sharon said.

“
We’re still short. Or do
you propose we bid for them like those sandwiches?” Thomas
mocked.