Dying to Live (46 page)

16.

After a while, the trees that lined the road trailed away. The group were fast approaching the outskirts of a town. Pete barely noticed, his head was heavy with the weight of his grief and guilt. Without a map, he was hard pressed to find them an alternate route so he simply slowed down.

“I know it’s not a good time for us,” Pete broke the silence with a resigned and deadened voice. “But I don’t know where to go and there’s a town ahead.”

Nobody had an answer, each as lost as the other.

The minibus crawled lazily nearer to the town, no turn offs or junctions appeared offering them an alternate route.

Unexpectedly, the corner of Rebel’s mouth twitched upwards slightly and she nodded out of the broken window. Her eyes were blurry and puffy from crying but she had caught sight of the first flurry of white flakes to drift down from the sky.

“There may be very little to be happy about right now, but at least I can say I saw snow,” Rebel said quietly.

“I told you,” Lucy said, managing a weak smile.

Without warning, other vehicles appeared on the horizon behind them. Frank was the one to notice and point them out.

“Looks like we don’t have any choice but to go through the town,” he said. “We’re being followed so we can’t turn back now.”

Pete cursed and pressed his foot to the pedal, speeding the bus up and driving them past the first few buildings of the suburbs. The vehicles behind them were faster and rapidly gaining on them. Soldiers hung from the windows with guns trained on their bus. There were a few cracks, pops and bangs and the wheels swung out beneath them.

“They’ve taken out the tires!” Pete called back.

“Don’t stop,” Rebel begged. “Please, don’t stop.”

Pete struggled with the steering wheel, trying to keep control of the vehicle that was running on its rims. Moments later, he was forced to swerve to a halt.

“The road is blocked! There’s so many of them!” Pete yelled frantically.

“We don’t have our guns and the windows are blown out!” Frank panicked. “We can’t take on that many with these stupid hand guns!”

There was a squeal of tires and two vehicles pulled up at either side of them. Troops flooded out and opened fire on the crowd that approached them. The barrage of bullets tore through the zombies at the front of the crowd. Gloopy globules of bodily matter sprayed from them, their bodies shaken and thrown like ragdolls.

“Get out of the vehicle!” A voice demanded.

Pete looked around and saw a soldier disembarking his vehicle. “Are you crazy, it’s not safe!”

“Are you deaf?” He bellowed, raising a machine gun. “I said get out of the vehicle.”

Given no other choice, the band of unlikely friends made their way off the bus. Pete held up his hands as he slumped from the driver’s seat. Xin hopped from the back first and offered Rebel a hand to help her down. She took it and Andy followed, then Lucy and Frank.

“Now what?” Pete shouted over the gun fire.

“We’re taking her,” the soldier gestured at Rebel with his gun. “The rest of you can take your chances out here for all I care.”

Andy felt the anger flare again and pushed Rebel behind him. “There is no chance whatsoever that she is leaving with you!”

“I can go through you if need be” the soldier said menacingly.

Andy felt a tug on the back of his jeans. He pretended not to feel it as Rebel retrieved his gun.

“Try it,” she challenged, stepping out from behind Andy. Her gunshots were lost in the din surrounding them but she fired three of them. The soldier staggered for a moment as blood spurted from his neck and then he dropped to the road.

“Look out, behind us!” Frank yelled, diving to retrieve the soldier’s heavy gun.

The rest of the soldiers noticed shortly after. He was drawing their attention to another swarm had been attracted by the noise. They were running towards them from the other end of the road.

“Fuck this! We’re all going to die if we don’t fight together,” one of the soldiers called out from his vantage point behind a truck. He quickly leaned inside and then threw out a few more machine guns to them. “If you grab those and help us, I’ll personally make sure you’re safe! I don’t want to die like this!”

The battle was like none they had ever fought before. They were effectively surrounded by overwhelming masses of the things. The soldiers were firing out rounds in deafening quantities, whilst the group scrambled to arm themselves.

A soldier on the far right got too close to the grasping arms and disappeared under them in a torrent of blood. His screams were audible even above the discharge of at least thirty machine guns.

Quickly recovering himself, Andy told Rebel to stay close. There hadn’t been enough guns for her to claim her own so she was armed with just the handgun. He fired wildly at the oncoming faces, which blew apart right in front of them. The sheer number of crumpled bodies that went down around them began to form a kind of low wall. The zombies approaching from further behind tumbled and tripped over them, which slowed them down.

Pete, Frank and Lucy worked their machine guns too, each in a different direction. The ground was tacky with blood and mush. The snow was getting heavier and melted as it hit the dark puddles. It had already begun to settle on the bodies of fallen zombies, who possessed no body temperature to resist it.

Xin looked on hopelessly. The carnage was devastating. All she could do was watch in horror as the massacre continued.

17.

After what seemed like an eternity of gunfire and falling bodies, zombies and soldiers alike, Xin watched a strange scene unfold before them.

After all of the months that had passed, they had presumed that this was what the world would be like forever.

All at once, the situation was about to leave their hands and make their every effort totally in vain.

It took a while for the people fighting to realise that the zombies had stopped. No matter what hacked and gory mess they were in, their heads all tilted upwards with a look of concentration never before seen on their mottled, dribbling and usually gormless faces. Gradually, they all began to notice what it was that was drawing the attention of the not quite dead. The understanding sunk in immediately. Watching the faces turn upwards, Pete, Frank, Xin, Lucy, Andy and Rebel all looked at one another. Comprehension was written across each of their faces. This was the prophecy of their dreams fulfilling itself and this was the end.

It was amazing, incredible and beautiful. At the same time, however, it was terrifying. Once you looked, it was impossible to pull your gaze away. The streets that had seen nothing but horror, carnage, killing and brutality became still and silent. The gunfire and screams petered out and zombies, soldiers and survivors alike just stopped and stared. The undead became statue like and unmoving, gazes locked on the sky.

Witnessing this unpredicted calm had a profound effect upon the group. It was impossible not to feel the enormous gravity of what was happening. This was it. The apocalypse had come and it was in the air. They breathed it into their lungs, it seeped in through their pores and into their being. This was how it ended.

There was a sense of relief with it. Was it finally over? Could they really stop fighting this time?

Lucy’s hand sought out Frank’s and he gripped hers back tightly. Pete looked from one side to the other, taking in the faces of his comrades before settling on Xin’s. With no words, she moved into his arms and with tears in her eyes Xin said, “Pete, I love you”.

Andy leaned forwards and without thinking, he took Rebel’s face in his hands. “If this is it, then I have to tell you that I think you’re gorgeous.” And then he kissed her and she kissed him back.

In the sky above them, a story was unfolding in a way almost impossible to describe. The great expanse of sky was a clear blue that shouldn’t have been possible with the snow falling around them. There were no clouds, no birds and everything looked cleaner and fresher than it ever had. As the group turned their faces to the heavens, their stories unfolded before them too.

It was like seeing stars or, more accurately, detailed constellations, only in the middle of the day. Each person was observing, silently, a different tale. Pictures and shapes, places, memories and beauty all laid bare to them. In some way, the beings from beyond their own world were showing them why. Why their race could not be allowed to continue as it were and why the end had come. Every action that had gone before and all things that would come if left to continue, it all blurred with their own stories. Somehow, they merged and all became the same thing. It was as though God himself had stepped down to give them the answers to all of life and the universe, knowing that they would never get to do anything with the knowledge.

In the silence, every person had fallen into their own illusion, each needing to be shown in a different way in order to understand. Their race had gone beyond anything that should have ever been; they’d taken too much power and knowledge upon themselves. It was the planet that they had been privileged with that would be driven to its limits and, ultimately, destroyed by their blind supremacy. But the destruction of our planet would have far reaching effects beyond just the race that inhabited it. They had toyed with a plan beyond their comprehension, the plan of the beings that put us here many thousands of years ago. In some way, the beings from which they had taken so much, were communicating not with the intent of punishment and not in anger, but with love and mercy.

Xin watched the whitest and purest of lights in the vast expanse above her, as they showed her long forgotten memories of happiness and peace. She saw how corrupted those things could all become for the generations of the future. She felt an agonising pain and overwhelming sadness. She wanted to mourn and grieve for that future. Things that had been hidden from her and secrets that were never shared, the worst of intentions and the best, all washed through her mind. This was right. All of it should end, and she was glad that in the face of fear and sadness, there was the ultimate and purest love. The end had come, but it was peaceful and easy. After the bloodshed and terrors that she had witnessed, Xin was ready for whatever was next and she would greet it with the warmth she felt in her heart and the knowledge that things could only be better.

The others faced the same inevitable revelation in their own time. Tears fell and fear was evident on every person’s face, but the beauty and awe offered them comfort. This may be the end for them but one day the race would be allowed to start again, completely afresh, renewed and hopefully better intentioned.

Who could say how long had passed, or if time even existed anymore, but eventually the trance like state lifted. On the streets, soldiers fell to their knees or grasped onto each other. Prayers for forgiveness and atonement were said but miraculously not one person expected saviour. They just hoped that in the next life, they would be shown mercy rather than punishment for their naivety and corruption.

The dead did not reanimate from their trances. The first to fall was a few meters to Lucy’s right, a male wearing the tattered rags of a suit and missing an arm. He made no sound and offered no resistance; his body merely went limp and hit the ground. As everyone looked towards the source of the movement, a couple of others dropped in much the same way. There was no grandeur to the action and nobody could visibly see any outward sign of departure, but they felt it. The poor souls who had already been punished were being granted an act of compassion. Maybe the alien beings were taking back what we had taken from them in the first place, or maybe they were claiming back what they now recognised as their own, but it was a kindness for them to go with dignity instead of an axe or gunshot to the head.

All around them maimed and mutilated figures crumpled. It was a tragic sight. The human survivors laid down their arms. There would be no more fighting. Heads bowed as the bodies grew less and less like monsters and became more human, an unimaginable death count rising all across the world.

The sky began to change as more and more of the zombies were taken. With every falling body, the sky got lighter, travelling through varying shades of blue and gently turning white.

As the sky swelled into the brightest levels of whiteness, it seemed to reach downwards, as though the sky itself was coming down to touch them. Almost like fog, the light worked its way amongst them. The group, each of them hero’s in one way or another, gathered closer and clutched tightly together. Their heads met as they circled together and bowed into each other.

“I love you all,” Pete said sincerely, looking at each of them.

“Me too, you’re the best friends I could ever have asked for,” Lucy sniffed through her tears.

“Thank you guys,” Andy said, rubbing the hand that wasn’t around Rebel’s shoulder across his face to hide his own tears. “For everything.”

“Yes, thank you,” Rebel spoke up with a choked voice. “I didn’t get to spend as long with you all, but you welcomed me with open arms. I’m glad that I got to meet you all.”

“I’m glad we’re together,” Frank said, his voice hoarse and strained. “I wish we could have met under different circumstances.”

“Me too,” Xin said, tears running freely from her eyes.

“In different circumstances, our paths may never have crossed. If one thing makes me grateful that all of this happened, it is meeting each of you.” Pete managed a tight, sad smile.

They didn’t need to speak all of the words they wanted each other to know, in their final moments, as they held each other close, they already knew.

By the end, they were unable to see anything around them but each other. They took comfort from that company and that was how it ended.

Together.

Breathing out their last breaths, before the warmth and the light wrapped around them and took them away, out of a nightmare and forward into the unknown.