Doomware (33 page)

He ploughed on, stumbling, firing, his grip on the boy as sure as a vice. He kept telling himself what Tarot had said to him before the lift doors had opened:
just keep going forward
. He knew he had to keep going, no matter what. The sights and sounds made him feel the way he imagined a soldier of the Great War had felt as he’d advanced across no man’s land. The nerve-shredding rattle of gunfire. The bodies exploding and falling all around. It was like some twisted, modern-day version of the horror in
All Quiet on the Western Front
. He didn’t doubt that Tarot, the consummate soldier, was dealing with it better than he was. At the back of his head he wondered where the offliners were. Were they seeing via the zombies, or were they somewhere nearby, watching the action with their own eyes?

Simultaneously, a couple of zombies, one male and one female, grabbed onto the boy’s arm with their frantic, claw-like hands. For a crazy instant David imagined they were the boy’s zombified parents, back from the dead to reclaim their precious son. He dispatched the father, while Tarot took care of the mother.

After blasting the next couple of zombies and stepping over their bodies, the Rover was so close he could almost smell it; he had to check his fire or risk shooting out its tyres or windows. He expected the offliners to change tactics at any second, but the zombies continued to act in the same way, showing no sign their orders had been changed.

When he reached the Land Rover he could have kissed the thing. Tarot protected them with covering fire as he opened the rear door.

“Get in!” he hollered, all but throwing the boy bodily onto the back seat.

Then he jumped into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. The Rover was parked facing away from the exit, meaning he would have to reverse out. He released the parking brake and slammed the gear into reverse. Surely the offliners would have to change tactics now?

A glance in the rear view mirror made him spin in his seat. A gasp issued from his lips and his eyes went wide. Zombies – scores of them – were streaming out of Shanti Court like overgrown insects out of a disrupted nest. Some were leaping from the first-floor, and even second-floor, balconies, heedless of who or what they landed on. Across them Tarot was sweeping a steady arc of fire, piling the writhing mass of bodies three deep in places where the requisite headshots had been made. Near the exit an explosion went off amongst them; it was a moment before he realised that Tarot had lobbed a grenade.

“Get in the front,” he said to the boy, his voice rasping from a dry throat, “and put the seat belt on.”

The boy slipped the bag from his back and clambered into the front passenger seat as David started reversing out, yelling for Tarot to get in even though it was obvious he wouldn’t be heard. The thought of leaving Tarot behind spawned a horrible sinking sensation in his stomach. Could he actually do it? He didn’t think he could. Again he heard Tarot’s words:
you might have to
. Thankfully, he wasn’t confronted with it for long: Tarot opened the rear door and got in feet-first, only ceasing fire at the last possible moment. As soon as the door was closed David hit the central locking control. He kept reversing and within moments they were surrounded by the zombies’ ghoulish faces. The sounds of feet against metal and fists against glass were horrendous. Giving the illusion of frustration, one of them headbutted the boy’s window, smearing it dark with blood. The boy cowered in his seat, his hands covering his face. They were being buffeted on all sides, and for a second David thought their tyres had left the ground on one side.

“We’re fucked if they roll us!” Tarot cried.

David knew the truth of it. There was no time to turn around; he floored it in reverse. The engine whined like he’d never heard it whine before as the Rover cleaved a path through the mob, thumping into upright bodies and bumping over those laid prone on the ground. The crowd was so thick he couldn’t see where he was going, forcing him to estimate where the exit was. If he wasn’t careful he’d crash into something far more unyielding than zombies’ bodies.

“Right! Right!” Tarot yelled.

David turned the steering wheel and slowed down a little. For what felt like a long time he had only a vague idea of where they were. Then he glanced forward and realised they’d just passed from the car park to the road; he was on the right track. He hit the accelerator again and was relieved when the crowd thinned and he could see the road. To their front Shanti Court was still disgorging a swarm of zombies from its upper floors. They ran after them like a rabid horde of fans mobbing a star’s limousine.

David reversed so fast he overshot the next exit by quite a distance. He braked hard to a halt, the tyres squealing in protest, and pushed and pulled at the gearstick, the gears grinding noisily as he struggled to find first – such a simple task had suddenly become impossibly difficult.

“Look!” Tarot called out.

David looked up. One group of zombies was pushing a parked car towards the exit, while another had picked up some sort of concrete pillar, intending to position it as part of the roadblock, or to use it as a battering ram against the Rover. A pillar that big and heavy would have no trouble breaking the Rover’s windows and caving in its doors.

“Keep going back,” Tarot told him. “We can get out further down.”

David knew it was the best option: they could reverse along the seafront and take another exit further down where there were fewer zombies. Then they’d be on the main road and free to blast their way out of town. He slammed the gear back into reverse and tore off again. As he traversed the narrowish strip of seafront he struck glancing blows to zombies who looked as if they weren’t part of the invading mob. He ignored them, fixing his attention on the next turning, which steadily grew nearer. Within seconds they were almost there; he couldn’t stop himself from sampling the sweet taste of escape in anticipation.

Then something happened.

Something changed beneath them. The steering wheel yanked free of David’s grip and the rear of the Rover suddenly swung to the left, veering them towards the edge of the seafront. He called out in terror. Beyond the abrupt, barrier-less edge was a drop that varied in height as you travelled along the seafront from a few feet to tens of feet. The tide was out, and the beach here was a combination of pebble ridge and jagged rock. David pumped the brake, but the pedal felt spongy and wrong underfoot. The Rover bumped and juddered to a heart-stopping halt. They were at the very edge of the seafront –
beyond
the edge – hanging off it, the vehicle tilted horribly to the rear.

“
Jesus Christ!
” David exclaimed.

“What happened?” yelled Tarot.

“I don’t know.”

David tried to see how high they were above the beach, but the angle made it difficult to judge accurately. It looked to be a long way down. He shifted the gear into first and hit the accelerator. With a screech of tyres, accompanied by the sound of metal grinding against concrete, the car edged forward a little, only to bounce back again. Their rear wheels had gone over the edge and were spinning in mid-air. They were stuck.

A deep rumble forced David’s head to whip around and his overworked heart beat even faster. He understood what it what before his eyes provided confirmation: it was the sound of a stampede. Zombies were charging along the strip of seafront towards them like members of a freakish, rain-drenched parade. He revved the engine until it sounded fit to blow. The Rover moved forwards and backwards, and from side to side, bucking like an animal trapped by its hind legs.

“Keep trying,” Tarot urged him, his voice firm but calm.

Several times it seemed as if they were on the verge of breaking free, only for their hopes to be dashed. David cursed bitterly, raging at the machine he was wrestling with, but raging at himself even more. They were so close! So close to outwitting the offliners and their puppet horde. This was typical of his unique brand of uselessness and bad luck. It would never have happened had Tarot been driving. It was his damn fault, and he hated himself.

“I’m getting out,” Tarot said, reaching for his door handle.

“No!” David hollered. “Stay there!”

He couldn’t explain it, but somehow David knew the zombies’ orders had been changed, knew that this time they wouldn’t stand a chance with only machine guns to defend them. As the column of zombies neared them the rain turned into a torrent that drummed against the roof and made the windscreen wipers accelerate automatically; the rhythm of both merged with the beat of approaching footsteps. The column stretched all the way back to Shanti Court, an unbroken carpet of the wretched undead. It struck them with the force of a singular mass, like a tidal wave, the thunder of it making the Rover’s roaring engine sound feeble. A pair of zombies leapt – or were pushed – onto the bonnet. The silvery pinpoints of their eyes fixated on the boy and they started moving like a pair of wolves stalking their prey.

“Come on, come on!” David yelled, pummelling the steering wheel in frustration.

The next thing he knew there was a proliferation of palms pressed against his window, blotting out the daylight. The driver’s side lifted up, causing the zombies on the bonnet to lose their footing on the slippery wet metal and slide off. Once again the world became a terrifying juxtaposition of images, sounds and sensations, each one of them demanding attention. The vista beyond the windscreen tilted at an oblique angle like a recording from a poorly wielded camera. Hands thudded against the windows and doors, followed by the roof and the underside of the chassis. He realised with sickening dread what was happening: the zombies had been given the order to overturn them, an order they were carrying out blindly, regardless of the precarious position the Land Rover was in. The force of gravity was pushing him out of his seat and he groped for his seat belt and struggled to secure it, uncertain whether he’d succeeded or not. He looked at the boy, who was turned in his seat, looking up at him with an expression of immeasurable terror etched on his face. Without thinking, he reached for him, but they might as well have been light-years apart. The boy was like an apparition, present but part of another world, visible but quite unreachable.

David’s stomach lurched and a huge
clang
reverberated throughout the vehicle, followed by the wrenching of metal. Simultaneously, the view beyond the windscreen quickly levelled out, only to vanish just as abruptly, replaced by rain lashing against glass, the raindrops falling straight down from an angry-looking sky. He gripped the steering wheel for all he was worth as his insides succumbed to a nauseating sensation of weightlessness and a scream unlike any he’d ever heard before issued from his own mouth. They were falling.

They’d gone over the edge.

Instinctively, David clenched his teeth and closed his eyes so tightly they hurt. His other senses compensated, becoming hyper-alert. They were airborne for only a brief moment, but he lost all concept of time, and the moment seemed to stretch on and on, equating in his mind to a horrifyingly lethal drop. This impression was reinforced by an uncanny silence that wasn’t actually silent at all, only seeming so in anticipation of a great cacophony to come. He tensed up to a degree that was excruciating, both willing on and dreading an event, an impact, that was sure to spell their deaths.

The moment of silence finally ended with a dull
crunch
and the sound of breaking glass. David was pushed down forcefully into his seat, the side of his head knocking against its headrest. He felt no pain. He kept his eyes firmly closed, too afraid to open them. Then he felt himself being pitched quickly through space, completely at the mercy of mechanical forces far greater than his own, like being on a fairground ride. The pressure of his seat belt cut across his body, informing him it was secured and bestowing on him a dim sense of comfort he had no chance to savour. Terrible, horrendously loud sounds crashed all around him, rotating. Something struck him on the left cheekbone, but again there was no pain. For a second he opened his eyes a little, squinting. The daylight that filtered through brought nothing into focus, but was enough for him to make out its spinning motion. He realised what was happening: they were rolling – sideways, over and over, down the sloping face of the pebble ridge.

The next thing David was aware of he was sitting limply in his seat, his head lolling on his chest. He felt slightly nauseous. He might have passed out, he didn’t know. Gradually, facts started to make themselves known to him. They were upright. The rain had slowed to a drizzle again. The windscreen was criss-crossed with tiny cracks but was still in one piece. The engine was idling, the sound of it barely audible in the wake of such an ear-splitting din.

He was still alive
.

For some reason, he became engrossed in examining the ring Shawn had given him. He took it off and replaced it again, turning the outer silver band as he did so, scrutinising the thing as if he’d never seen it before. He had no idea why he did any of this, and later he would search for meaning in his actions, to no avail.

A hand touched his shoulder, doing much to bring him to his senses. When he looked behind him his gaze met Tarot’s, and the look in each of their eyes told the other they were okay. Tarot had obviously fastened his seat belt in time. He turned his attention to the boy. There were no immediately obvious injuries on him, but he was slumped there lifeless, eyes closed, his head flopped in David’s direction.

“Shawn?” David said. He grabbed the boy’s hand and squeezed it. “
Shawn?
”

The boy didn’t respond. David felt a contraction in his chest. Oh God! His eyes welled with tears and his throat went thick with emotion. He’d failed. He’d failed to protect the most precious child on earth. Why should I get to live and not him? he thought. Why me?

Tarot reached over and felt the boy’s neck. “He’s okay,” he said calmly. “His pulse is good. He must’ve put himself to sleep.”