Demise of the Living (37 page)

Casting around the office, she
tried to home in on the sound. Getting closer to the back windows,
the noise became louder. It was a man’s voice calling out. She got
to the window and opened it and the sound jumped in volume.

“Thomas?” Sharon called out
into the darkness.

“Sharon!” came the reply.

“Where are you?”

“Sitting against the loading
bay doors.”

“
Are you okay? We thought
you’d been killed. Is Mo with you?”

“
I’m okay, mainly,”
Thomas said. “I’ve pulled a ligament in my leg or something like
that, but apart from that I’m fine.”

Sharon could hear some light
coughing and the sound of a tent being unzipped.

“And Mo?” Sharon asked.

“No. He didn’t make it,” Thomas
answered. “The driver of the car—he got past me up the stairs—is he
there?”

“It was Stephen. We got him,”
Sharon said.

“It’s his fault Mo’s dead. He
crashed straight into him,” Thomas said, omitting his part in Mo’s
demise.

“
Don’t worry about that.
He’s dead. He was infected.”

“What’s going on?” Liz asked,
walking up and standing next to Sharon.

“
Thomas is okay. He’s in
the car park,” Sharon explained.

“Oh,” Liz said
apathetically.

“Is there anything down there
you can use to climb up?” Sharon asked.

“
I don’t know. It’s pitch
dark and I can’t move away from the door,” Thomas said.

“
Why not?” Sharon
asked.

“
It’s the fire exit. I’m
up against it. If I move away, they’ll come pouring through the
door,” Thomas explained. “Are there any door wedges up
there?”

“
I don’t know,” Sharon
said. “I’ll go look.”

Sharon turned and picking up a
lantern, she started looking for something to wedge the door
shut.

“Why not just leave him there?”
Liz asked.

Sharon was sweeping the lantern
from left to right, scouring the office for something to use as a
wedge.

“Why not just leave him down
there?” Liz asked again.

“We can’t do that,” Sharon
said, brushing off the comment. “Ah, this might work!”

She picked up a hole punch from
a desk and examined it.

She held it out to Liz and
asked, “Do you think this will do the job?”

Liz grabbed the punch and threw
it across the room. It landed with a crash somewhere in the
darkness.

“You’re not listening to me.”
Liz said.

“
I am. You want to leave
Thomas out there,” Sharon replied.

“He attacked you and he
sexually assaulted Karen,” Liz said. “And you want to bring him
back into the fold?”

The office door swung open and
Billy and Colin entered.

Colin immediately sensed the
pressure in the room.

“What’s going on?” he
asked.

“Thomas is outside in the
parking lot,” Liz said.

“He survived?”

“Stick your head out of the
window and speak to him if you like,” Liz added.

“Liz here says we should leave
him outside,” Sharon said.

“I’d be happy with that,” Billy
replied.

“We can’t just leave him down
there,” Sharon protested.

“Why not?”

“It’s not right,” Sharon said,
lost for anything else.

“Ma, what’s happening?” Melissa
asked, rubbing her eyes as she climbed out of her tent.

“
It’s nothing, dear. Just
go back to sleep,” Liz urged.

“No chance of that with the
noise you’re making,” came Karen’s voice from inside her tent.

Colin blurted out a stream of
questions: “Is he hurt? Is he infected? Is Mo there?”

“He said Stephen ran Mo over,
but he didn’t say if he was bitten,” Sharon answered.

“It might be safer just to
leave him out there in case he is bit,” Billy suggested.

“The poor guy’s sitting up
against the fire door to keep them out,” Sharon said.

“Why are you so keen all of a
sudden to save him?” Billy asked.

“
I don’t know,” Sharon
said, sitting down on a desk. “He’s a member of my staff...
the
last
member of my staff. I’m used to making big decisions.
Decisions that cost millions, decisions that change the company’s
fortunes that cost people their livelihoods. But not ones that cost
people’s lives.” She stood up and looked out over the car park.
“Sure, he’s a dick; self-centered, moronic—immoral, even. But when
did we become judge, jury, and executioner?”

“He tried to touch me up!”
Karen called out from behind the thin skin of her tent. “For all I
care he can rot out there.”

“She’s got a point,” Liz said.
“Are we safer with him out the way?”

“
There are more of
them
out
there than there are of
us
in here,” Sharon said. “I
don’t think we have the luxury of turning on ourselves.”

“Christ, a minute ago we
thought he was dead and none of you were upset by that thought,”
Billy pointed out.

“Okay, so you don’t want to
leave Thomas out there,” Colin said. “I see your point, but what if
he’s infected?”

“And what if he stops holding
the door shut?” Billy asked.

“Those things will get into the
car park,” Liz answered.

“And if we have to get out of
here, a parking lot full of those things will make it impossible to
get to the cars,” Billy added.

“What if he decides to do that
anyway?” Sharon asked. “What if he takes a car and makes a run for
it?”

“He’ll never clear the alleyway
on his own,” Colin pointed out.

“What if he tries? He’ll take
the gate down, knock the refuse bins out of the way. Doesn’t matter
if he succeeds or not, the end result is the same. We get a parking
lot full of those things and no way to escape.”

“You’ve got a point,” Colin
admitted. “We’re safer letting him back in.”

“Still, there’s no rush,” Billy
added.

***

Thomas sat with his back to the
door. He had felt out as far is he dared without letting up on the
pressure. He knew there was a triangle of wood around here
somewhere; he had often used it to wedge the door open when he’d
gone for a fly cigarette.

He patted himself down, looking
for his lighter and cigarettes.

“
Bugger,” he said,
remembering they were sitting in the plant room.

“
Here,” said a masculine
voice from above.

Thomas looked up, and from the
faint light of the lanterns in the office he saw an undulating
black shape tumbling towards him. The object hit him with no force
at all. It merely collapsed around him, draping him in fabric.

He pulled the material from his
head and felt its thick, soft folds. It was a sleeping bag.

“
Ha-ha, very funny!”
Thomas shouted.

“
No joke, Tommy-boy,”
Billy said. “You’re safe for now and it’s too dark to go fannying
about. It doesn’t feel like rain, so I’m sure you’ll be fine to
camp out under the stars for once.”

“
Okay, joke’s over! Come
on and help me!”

“
No joke,” Colin said.
“See you in the morning.”

Thomas roared, “You fucking
cunts! I’ll fucking kill you!”

He heard the office window lock
shut.

Friday

Chapter
18

Puffing like a steam train,
Thomas flopped onto the floor of the office.

“You made a meal out of that
one,” Billy chastised.

“
Let’s see how
you
fare
after a night on concrete, wedging a door shut,” Thomas
replied.

“
There was no way
you
could have managed that in the dark, anyway,”
Colin added.

“Yeah, well, you could have
tried,” Thomas said, getting to his feet.

“What’s this, anyway?” Colin
asked, picking up the heavy bag that Thomas had clambered up
with.

“Car stereo,” Thomas
answered.

“Not going to make much
stealing car radios in this economy,” Billy laughed.

“It’s for the radio. I didn’t
get any signal in the parking lot, so I dismantled the radio,
whipped out the battery, scored some wiring from the electrics.
Reckon I can fix up an antenna and we could listen for radio
broadcasts.”

“You got the tools to do the
job now the plant room’s off limits?” Billy asked.

“
All in the bag. Thieved
the tool kit from the people carrier,” Thomas said.

“Not a bad idea,” Colin
said.

“Yeah, well, I had all night to
think about it. I’m choking for a cigarette,” Thomas said, looking
over at Liz.

Liz looked blankly at
Thomas.

“Don’t think I don’t know your
game,” Thomas said.

“What?” Liz said.

“You took your cut of the
smokes, but I haven’t seen you take a single one. You’re playing it
smart; you’re saving them to barter with.”

“Why don’t you smoke your own?”
Liz replied.

“Cause they’re down in the
plant room.”

“What about the cigarettes
Magda and Alex took?” Sharon asked. “They’ve got to still be around
here.”

“They’re down in the plant
room, too,” Thomas admitted.

“So you stole the cleaner’s
cigarettes and now you want mine, too?” Liz asked.

“Look, Liz, I’m not in the mood
for it. Now you either spot me a smoke or you watch me get even
more cranky from nicotine withdrawal. What will it be?”

“Here,” Billy offered, holding
out an open packet.

Thomas pulled a solitary
cigarette and tucked it behind his ear.

“Thanks,” he said before
turning and heading for the supply crates. “I’m starving. What’s
for breakfast?”

“We’ve all had some crackers
with cheese,” Sharon answered.

“I saw some beans and sausages
the other day,” Thomas said, opening one of the crates and peering
in.

“We’re rationing supplies,”
Colin said.

“
I know, but it strikes
me we’re a man down, so there’s more to go around.”

“
We’re
two men down
, as you euphemistically put it,” Sharon
corrected.

Thomas stopped and looked
around.

“John?” he asked.

Sharon nodded.

“What happened? Was it
Stephen?” he asked.

“No,” Sharon said. “He went to
the bathroom sick and by the time we’d finished with Stephen…well,
he was dead.”

“How? What did he die of?”

“We don’t know,” Colin said.
“We thought he might have been infected, but he never got back
up.”

“
Food poisoning, then?”
Thomas asked. “Cause if it was, we’ve all eaten the same
food.”

“
Food poisoning doesn’t
act that fast,” Sharon
said. “It takes a day to two weeks for the
symptoms to arise.”

“
How do you know that?
You some kind of nurse or something?”

“I took a waitressing job while
I was at university. I did a food hygiene course as part of my
training.”

“Then what killed him?” Thomas
asked.

“
"Damned if we know,”
Billy said. “Could have been anything. He wasn’t the fittest of
people. Heart attack, aneurysm, stroke—take your pick.”

“Okay, so how do we stand since
last night?” Thomas asked.

“The stairwell doors on the
ground floor are holding fine, but we’ve put the barricades into
action just in case,” Colin said.

“The power’s out, so no lights
or electricity,” Sharon said.

“That’s a good thing,” Thomas
added.

“Why?” Sharon asked.

“
If the power were on,
the lift would still work,” Billy said. “Those fuckers would have
pressed against a button and the next thing we know would be when
the doors pinged open."

“
That’s not an issue,”
Thomas said.
“I could have locked the
elevator out.”

“If you’d been up here,” Liz
pointed out.

“If you’d have bothered to help
me back in,” Thomas said, limping off in the direction of the
crates.

“Where are you going?” Billy
asked.

“To get some beans and some
painkillers.”

Sharon placed a hand on Billy’s
arm.

“Leave it,” she said
softly.

Billy looked at Colin for some
support, but he could tell from his friend’s expression that he’d
already sided with Sharon and gone for the path of least
resistance.

***

Screams echoed around the
office, high-pitched and shrill. Billy came bounding across the
camp to see Karen and Melissa tussling with each other. The little
dog was yapping excitedly at Melissa’s ankles.

“Hold on there!” Billy
ordered.

Only the dog appeared to pay
Billy any attention. The two girls ignored him, forcing him to step
in between them to break up the fight.

“What’s going on?” Liz
demanded, joining the fracas.

Melissa cried, “Karen hit
me!”

“Did you hit her?!” Liz
barked.

“
No,” Karen protested.
“It was just a tap on the arm.”

Liz hurriedly rolled up
Melissa’s sleeve. On her soft skin was the faintest of red marks.
In a few moments it would be indistinguishable. But it was
obviously a punch mark.

“
Why did you hit her?”
Liz asked. Her years of being a parent had taught her that neither
side was ever completely innocent.

“Cause she’s a dif,” Karen
replied.

“A what?” Liz asked.

“Am not!” Melissa
protested.

“
A
dif
,” Karen huffed. “A
mentally deficient.”