Dying to Live (9 page)

Xin strode forward with determination. She was not scared. Whether that was stupid or not, she couldn’t figure out. She was in work mode and her focus drowned out any other thoughts. All that mattered was what she could piece together from the information in front of her.

As she drew closer she looked into the blank, glazed eyes of the dead. The question was whether it was the living dead or the truly dead, dead. It didn’t move. And when Xin picked up a stone and threw it, hitting the dead arm, it didn’t react. Pulling out her handgun, she drew closer still. Aiming straight at it, she nudged it with her foot.

The tension was unbearable and the silence was disconcerting. Xin was waiting for the body to jump up and growl at her, or for someone to creep up and yell ‘BOO!’ But nothing happened.

“I think it’s safe,” Xin said cautiously, lowering her gun and hoping that she wasn’t speaking too soon.

“Dr Yuan, can you keep watch?” Pete asked, looking at Bao.

“Yes, I’ve got this,” he replied. “Oh...” He added as an afterthought. “And you can call me Bao.”

“Sure thing, Doc,” Pete said, heading over to Xin. He looked down at the corpse. This guy had obviously been in the sun for too long. There was already a repellent smell permeating the air around them. The sorry figure still had his thick, square-rimmed glasses on too. Battered as they were, they had managed to stay on his face.

“Poor dude,” Pete said, shaking his head. “What do you think?”

Xin pulled a pair of rubber gloves from her pocket. These were one of the other things that Bao had brought with him, along with an assortment of lab supplies. They hoped that avoiding direct contact with the patients would prevent them from contracting the infection. As far as they knew, it was very unlikely that it was an airborne contagion. She put them on and tentatively reached out. Pete unsheathed the machete, instinctively reacting to the flood of fear he felt for Xin’s safety. She placed her hands on the dead man’s cheeks and let out a sigh when he didn’t start gnashing his teeth at her. The body was stone cold and beginning to stiffen. Xin was thankful that she didn’t have a weak stomach. Hundreds of buzzing flies flitted up from the body, as she rolled his head first to one side and then the other. Her eyes grazed his name badge; Bobby Masters. She pushed that to the back of her mind, accepting this man’s humanity would only make things harder. She then proceeded to briefly examine his injuries. She felt the skin around every bruise and graze and palpated his stomach, checking his whole body before rolling him over and examining his back and spine.

She stood up and pulled off her gloves. Catching her sad expression, Pete put a hand on her shoulder.

“Are you alright?”

She nodded.

“What’s the verdict?” He asked.

“He wasn’t one of them,” She replied sorrowfully. “His back is broken but here’s no significant head trauma to have killed him if he was. Besides which, he has no bite wounds, they’re all from the collision.”

“Meaning that... Lucy hit and killed a healthy, normal person?” Pete questioned in dismay.

Again Xin only nodded.

“We can’t tell her that,” Pete stated firmly. “That poor girl feels bad enough as it is. It was an accident. She was probably too scared to even realise what was happening. People can lose their minds in a moment like that.”

“It’s not her fault,” Bao agreed.

“We don’t say anything,” Xin said. “It could have happened to any one of us.”

With Xin’s curiosity sated, the trio returned to the car and travelled the rest of the way in contemplative silence. The experience had given each of them a jolt of reality. These weren’t just ‘monsters’ or ‘zombies’, these were innocent people losing their lives and being twisted into something warped and sickening.

They bypassed the car park and pulled up as close to the building as they could. It was not very reassuring that the car park was a little over half full, which meant that the car owners were probably still somewhere on the base. They assessed the situation from the car and tried to stay positive. Pete tried to reassure Xin that there were so many buildings nearby, it was doubtful that all of the unfortunates who didn’t manage to escape would be in the one they were headed to.

None of them were eager to leave the car and all was quiet except for the rumble of the engine. However, it seemed that the noise was enough to attract unwanted attention. Four unsightly bodies appeared from between a mass of smaller buildings.

Bao, Pete and Xin simultaneously held their breath and froze. They watched as the cluster ambled closer. Xin noted that two of them were female and two were male. Judging from his outfit, one of the males had been part of the military deployment that had been sent out. The two females appeared to have come from the kitchens. It was hard to guess the second male’s role here, his clothes were so shredded and bloodied.

“What now?” Bao murmured as quietly as he could.

“We keep quiet and stay still. Let’s see if they leave?” Xin suggested, as the bodies got even closer.

“I’m going to slowly turn the engine off,” Pete said quietly, barely moving his lips. “It seems to be drawing them closer.”

He gently moved a hand from the steering wheel to the key in the ignition. With a deep breath in, he turned the key and the growling engine cut out.

In the sudden silence, they could hear the moans and groans coming from the zombies as their heads jerked towards the car.

“Oh shit,” he said flatly.

The dead ran. They lurched forward faster than anything dead ought to be able to, and in a matter of seconds they were clawing at the vehicle, which suddenly seemed too flimsy to protect them.

“Keep calm,” Pete said hurriedly, not sounding too calm himself. He pulled out his handgun and wound down his window just enough to fit the muzzle of his gun through. Looking into the mutated, angry woman’s face that was grizzling at him through the window, he aimed right between the eyes and pulled the trigger. The shot rang out like thunder and blood rained down onto his window. He had a moment to see the round, red hole he had made in her forehead and the widened eyes roll backwards, before the corpse slumped down. These things weren’t too clever though. Attracted by the commotion, the other female stumbled around to his side. A mixed look of confusion and fury dawned on her face as she looked at her fallen companion with her head cocked. Then it leapt at the cracked window, frantically trying to fit it’s hand through.

The mottled, gnarly fingers clawed at the gap with such ferocity that it’s fingernails became dislodged, peeling repulsively at odd angles. As Pete readied his gun to shoot that one, Xin wound down her window. The two remaining males were still grappling over the hood of the car, enticed by edible humans but too dead to figure out how to get at them. This gave Xin the time she needed to lean out of the window and fire two shotgun blasts at them.

The first shot hit the one nearest to her and blew the top of its head clean off. Big chucks of skull and brain matter exploded outwards and the body tumbled backwards. The second shot however, didn’t make it’s mark. The awkward angle that she had fired from meant that the bulk of the shot missed completely and the pellets that did hit only got it’s shoulder.

Another blast rang out as Pete’s handgun took down the last female. Her head jerked backwards and then fell forward. Her forehead smacked against the window. The bullet had penetrated diagonally through her eye socket and reverberated, damaging her nasal cavity and causing a wave of blood to flow from her nostrils. It flooded down the window as she slid lifelessly to the ground.

With no warning, Bao flung his door wide open and dove out. He lurched around the car until he was almost face to face with the last remaining cadaver, his shotgun raised in front of him. The things attention snatched from Xin, who it had been ambling towards as she reloaded. It’s eyes settled on Bao and it’s mouth stretched open menacingly.

“HUNGRY?” He yelled at it. “WELL SO AM I!” And with that, he pointed the barrel upwards under its chin and fired.

The amount of blood was spectacular; it fountained upwards and spurted out like a water feature, showering down on Bao and anything else in the vicinity.

Bao stood there, breathing heavily. Pete and Xin looked at each other.

“Wow,” Pete breathed. He struggled to contain his amusement as he said, “That guy really wants dinner.”

Xin couldn’t help it, she cracked up laughing. It was the most terrifying moment that any of them had ever experienced and Bao had shouted at the zombie about food. Pete laughed along with her. He always said that ‘if you don’t laugh you’ll cry’ and this was definitely an accurate situation for the phrase.

When Bao found himself again, he wandered around and leaned into Xin’s open window.

“Are you going to sit here laughing all day or are we going to get this over with?” He asked, sounding somewhat embarrassed.

“Sorry,” Xin apologised, trying to make her face straighten itself.

“Yeah. Sorry, Bao.” Pete aimed for sincerity but barely kept the laugh from his voice. Bao sighed and walked away. “We’d better join him, he’s obviously starving,” Pete said in a hushed tone, starting up fresh giggles.

The three of them found the right building. It was very clearly marked ‘CAFETERIA’. They even found a side door that led straight into the thankfully empty kitchen.

“You know,” Pete started as they pilfered through the fridges and cupboards. “It makes things worse that they’re
‘Dawn Of The Dead’
zombies rather than
‘Shaun Of The Dead’
. The Shaun ones would have been much easier to deal with.”

Xin snorted in amusement, but the reference went over Bao’s head.

“Excuse me?” He enquired.

“Not a fan of zombie films?” Pete wondered earnestly.

“I prefer to watch the old classics...” Bao shrugged.

“Well, I mean because they run. They don’t just... stagger around.”

“Hmmm,” Bao considered. “I guess your typical ‘Zombie’ is just dead though. The body goes through the decomposition process and the muscles no longer work as well. The foreign tissue that was introduced into ‘our zombies’ systems, appears to turn their death into another stage of life.”

Digesting this kept Pete quiet as he filled his bag with as many tins as he could fit. Tins would last the longest so they seemed to be a safe bet, especially if they ended up on the move again. However, Xin had the presence of mind to take as many perishables as possible. The limited shelf life of these product meant that they would be going to waste in the not so distant future. Anything else would save and could last a long time. They could come back for when they ran out, giving them a longer supply of food. Bao simply loaded his bags with whatever he laid his hands on.

The kitchen was so big that once their bags were too full to hold anything else, they had still barely dented the available supplies. Xin guessed that keeping your staff well fed, kept them happy enough to keep all the secrets they learned here.

“Are we ready to go?” Pete asked, looking at them from where he stood by the door.

“I think so,” Xin cast a final glance around the kitchen. “At least for now.”

“Alright, let’s go then.” Pete opened the door a small way and poked his head out. He hastily pulled it back in and shut the door again. “On second thoughts... weapons out.”

“Are there more out there?” Bao asked. Pete merely nodded in reply, so Bao asked, “How many?”

“Maybe twelve?” Pete said. “I didn’t really get time to count. The noise from fighting the first few must have attracted more of them.”

“Can we get to the car before they get to us?” Xin asked.

“No,” Pete said. “Our best bet is for two of us to hold them off while the other loads the bags. We should use blades instead this time. If we use guns we could draw even more of them down here, then who knows if we’d make it back.”

“Xin and I have only brought guns with us...” Bao began, frowning.

“Good job we’re in a kitchen,” Xin butted in, holding up a meat cleaver in one hand and a chef’s knife in the other. She nudged the open drawer in front of her with her hip to close it. “Looks like you’ll be loading the bags, Bao.”

Remembering how he had already kept himself safe as she rushed into danger once before, Bao protested. “I think not. Pass me the cleaver please, Xin.”

“I can do this,” Xin argued.

“I know you can, but it would make me very happy if you would let me do it instead,” Bao persisted.

“We don’t have time for this.” Pete rolled his eyes. “Xin, give him one of the knives.”

“Is this because I’m a woman?” Xin scowled, as Pete stepped away from the door and picked up a couple of the bags they had packed. Realising his intent, Xin shut up. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I’ll load the damn bags, just you guys focus on not letting us get killed.” Pete rolled his eyes again but a smirk tugged at his lips.

When they were ready, Bao swung the door wide open and charged out. He was followed closely by Xin. Pete waited until they had engaged the nearest targets and provided him a clear path, before darting towards the car with the first of the bags.

He skirted around Xin as she thrust the chef’s knife into the temple of another khaki clad soldier. Then he sidestepped Bao, as he swung his cleaver at the head of a zombie wearing a torn, yellow boiler suit and blue, rubber gloves. When he reached the car, he wasted no time. He threw open the trunk, dropped in the bags and set off sprinting back to the kitchen.