Last Man Standing (Book 1): Hunger (11 page)

I don't register the shot. I know it's deafeningly loud in the enclosed space, but my ears just don't pick up the sound. All I see is a quick muzzle flash that lights up the dim cab for a moment, then I feel myself pushed backwards as Laurence kicks out at Kate's belly.

The two of us tumble out of the Stryker. I land first, cushioning Kate, and roll her off me onto the asphalt. The first thing I see is blood. Hers? Mine? I can't tell. It all happened too quickly.

"Kate? Kate, get up!" I lift myself to my feet and try to pull her from the ground, but she's limp in my hands. I tug again and her jacket falls open, exposing the white shirt beneath. A red patch spreads across her chest like a terrible Rorschach test. Her eyes are wide open, staring blankly at the sky. I stare at her lifeless body as a pool of blood gathers in the hollow of her throat and overflows, running in twin lines down both sides of her neck.

She's gone.

I barely notice the engine of the Stryker roaring back to life, and before I can react the vehicle suddenly reverses at speed straight towards me. I barely have time to blink before the protruding running board hits me in the stomach, forcing me to double over in pain, bringing my head down just in time to connect with a dull thump against a Jerry can mounted to the back.

The lights go out. I don't feel anything as my body is thrown back onto the road. I don't feel my back as it scrapes along the ground, and I don't feel my head thump against the asphalt. I feel nothing. I hear nothing. I see nothing. I don't see the tires run over Kate's lifeless body.

I don't even hear the screams as they draw ever closer.

For a moment my world is nothing but a high pitched tone and a distant point of light.

Slowly, bit by bit, my glazed, unfocused eyes open on the gray sky above, the dark clouds pinpricked with flashes of coloured light. My ears are ringing and I can hear each breath as a muffled roar in my head.

Suddenly the pain returns. Shocking. Sharp. I manage to turn my head before the vomit burns my throat, and I cough a spray of thin, milky puke across the black asphalt from the depths of my empty stomach.

The urge to sleep is almost overpowering. I'd like nothing more than to curl up on this asphalt bed and just take a moment to gather myself. Just a couple of minutes, I think, and then I'll be ready to move again. It's only the throbbing pain in the back of my head that keeps me from slipping away, an insistent jab of hot needles that forces my mind to wake. With a monumental effort I manage to raise myself onto my elbows, then force my body up into a seated position. I slump forward and puke again, this time between my legs. I cough again as it dribbles down my chin, spraying my pants and boots in clear vomit.

I reach gingerly to the back of my head, wincing at the sharp pain as I run my fingers through my hair. They come away bloody, but it's not quite as bad as I feared. I can't feel an open gash. Nothing that feels like it might need stitches. It just feels as if someone has taken a belt sander and gone to town on the back of my skull. The back of my head feels like a piece of tenderized meat, and my vision blurs as I stare at my bloodied fingers.

Apart from the throbbing pain in my head I feel... numb. Like I'm trapped in a dream. Everything about this just feels like it can't be real. I can't have woken up this morning to find the city overrun by insane, murderous creatures. I can't have beaten a man to death, and watched as another turned into one of those things. Most of all, I can't have just watched my girlfriend—

Oh.

Kate.

I look over at the lifeless body ten feet ahead of me. There's no question she's gone. The vehicle crushed her. I don't even want to look closer. I don't want that to be my memory of her. Not as a crushed, broken rag doll splayed on the ground in the middle of the street. I turn away and blink tears from my eyes.

This can't be real. It's ridiculous. Any minute now I'll wake up in my bed with Kate beside me, just another lazy Saturday with nothing to do but chill out in front of the TV and call in a pizza. It has to be a dream.
Just relax, Tom. Maybe it's OK to lay back down and just take a break for a little while. None of this is real. Why not just rest?

Moments later reality hits me like a hammer. A sound I've been hearing subconsciously since I hit the ground finally forces its way through to my waking mind, and it shocks me awake in an instant, like a torrent of ice cold water to the face.

Screaming.

Thousands of voices, all of them screaming.

Arnold's excitement grows with each step. He can sense the mood in the group around him. They all sense it. They're all moving more quickly, and they know they're getting closer with each step.

The first of the group finally crests a small rise, and Arnold know their search is over the moment he sees the first one break into a run. He's lightning fast. Much faster than Arnold, struggling on his frustrating crumbled bony stump. He's moving slowly now, the spur of bone digging deep into the soft soil with each step, giving him a pronounced limp as he moves eagerly forward.

The moment he hears the first scream his limp is forgotten. Arnold finds fresh reserves of energy and breaks into a clumsy run as the first of them bursts out of the trees and into the crowd. The people scatter, terrified, but they can't move quickly enough in the crowd to escape.

Arnold doesn't pick a target. He simply throws himself into the tumult, reaching out with his good arm for anyone within grasping distance. They keep frustrating him, darting just out of reach as they scatter like a bait ball of swift, nimble sardines evading hunting tuna fish. He can't seem to move quickly enough with his ruined leg and his shattered shoulder throwing him off balance. He fears he'll never eat.

And then it happens. A woman runs blindly towards him, so focused on escaping the quicker creatures that she barrels right into him and takes them both to the ground. Arnold doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth. He sinks his teeth into her shoulder as they fall as one, and by the time they hit the grass he feels her blood gush down his throat and spray across his face. She screams frantically right in his ear, but the sound only excites him. It only makes him bite deeper.

Her delicious, exciting screams only last a few moments before they die away into bubbling, whimpering gasps. Arnold raises himself clumsily onto his hands and knees, twisting his head like a crocodile to tear a strip of warm, wet flesh from her neck. The woman convulses beneath him, and with a final breath she coughs hot blood in his face as he chews.

Beneath him he feels her body grow still. Her eyes, so full of terror, panic and pain just a brief moment ago, soften and lose focus, drifting from his face to stare glassily at the sky. He senses she's gone. Her meat is still attractive, but it's not perfect any more. Not quite as fresh and enticing as that of the people still fleeing. Why limit himself to just one body when there are so many to choose from?

He lifts himself slowly to his feet, still chewing his tasty treat as it begins to slide down his throat, and sets out towards the loudest screams. As he stumbles away on his broken peg leg he doesn't notice the woman begin to convulse once again. He neither knows nor cares what will happen to her, but a few minutes from now she'll be back on her feet and hunting alongside him. She won't remember his face. She won't realize he has a thick strip of her neck coiled inside his belly. She won't know anything, apart from the rage and endless hunger.

She certainly won't care about her luggage, an open suitcase spilling over with a dozen pairs of expensive shoes, nor the broken bodies of her husband and son laying beside it.

The noise is deafening. Terrifying. It's like standing in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium, only the cheers have been replaced with bloodcurdling screams.

But it isn't the volume that scares me. The screams pass over me like a wave, and a thousand are no more terrifying than a hundred. Quite the opposite. What scares me - what chills me to the bone - is that as the screams approach I can hear the cacophony grow steadily quieter. I can almost pick them out, one by one, as a voice falls silent, then another, and another. Maybe the people have simply lost the breath to scream. Maybe they've lost their throats. Neither thought is particularly comforting.

I hear the closest screams now, just on the other side of the park wall. Just beyond the trees, growing nearer by the second. I stand frozen, peering into the foliage, searching for movement, and it takes my concussed mind a moment to realize that the low park wall offers me no protection at all. I'm not a bystander here. I'm not impassively observing the situation like I'm watching the news on TV. These screams will reach me at any moment. They'll surround me and pass me, and the things that caused them will follow soon after.

I snap out of it and finally wake up. The fog lifts from my mind in an instant, and I hear my own voice above the screams. "You have to get out of here, Tom," I hiss to myself. "Go.
Now.
" I feel awful leaving Kate's body lying their like discarded trash but I know there's no other choice. My legs listen to my commands for the first time since the Stryker hit me and I launch myself into a clumsy, shambling run towards the intersection with 5th Street. My legs still feel like jelly and they send me careening straight into the side of a parked car on the other side of the street, but they at least propel me away from the screams and towards... it doesn't matter.
Away
is the only word that matters right now.

As I stumble onto 5th Street and start heading west I hear for the first time the groans and pants of the infected, loud enough to carry over the few screams that remain. The ungodly howls force my legs to move faster, launching me down the street at a speed I didn't know I was capable of attaining after almost three decades of junk food and sloth.

Behind me I can hear panting breaths, each one louder and closer than the last. Something is catching up fast, and I don't dare turn around to see if it's human or something else. I can't help but think of runners warning of the temptation to look back in the moments before crossing the finish line. Just a quick, momentary glance to see if there's anyone on their tail can be enough to make them fall behind; enough to cause them to break stride or stumble. For them the error could mean losing their lead by a nose, but for me it could mean death. I don't dare look back. I
can't
.

And yet... it keeps gaining, whatever it is. I won't allow myself the luxury of a panicked cry. I can't spare the breath. I scan the road ahead, searching desperately for some kind of escape route. I know my legs can't keep up this pace for much longer, and I can feel the bile rise in my throat again as my concussed, addled brain yells at me to stop and rest. It insists, firing warnings to my every muscle, forcing my vision down to a narrow tunnel and filling my ears with an insistent, sickening buzz.

My heart soars as I see the door of a townhouse swing open just a few car lengths ahead. For a moment I wonder if it's an hallucination. The bright red door seems to glow at the top of its stoop, beckoning me in to safety. It can't possibly be real, can it? Surely it's just a cruel joke played on me by my broken mind, tempting me to slow enough for the creatures to catch me. Enough for them to tackle me to the ground, climb up my body and sink their teeth into me as as I waste my final breath on a futile scream.

I've just about convinced myself it's a mirage. I've convinced myself it would be safer to keep running and hope I can outdistance the things chasing me, when a man steps out from the door and waves frantically, beckoning me towards him. I can see his lips move as he yells, but I've no idea what he's saying. Can't hear a word above the ringing in my ears. All I know is that he's undeniably
real
. I don't think my mind is sophisticated enough to hallucinate this fat, bearded guy, his stained white painter's overalls half hiding a T-shirt with a picture of Kevin Bacon's face constructed from strips of bacon.

I reach the stoop at a dead run and launch myself up the steps two at a time. That final explosive effort leaves me running on fumes and feeling as if the air is as thick as water. My legs finally give out as I hit the top of the stoop. They buckle beneath me, but the man saves me before I can stumble, reaching out to grab a fistful of jacket in his meaty hands. He lifts me bodily through the door, throwing me into the hallway beyond like a sack of potatoes before spinning on his heels and kicking it closed behind him.

As soon as the door slams closed, before I can even take my first ragged breath, the wood shakes in its frame as someone - some
thing
- slams against it. I can only assume it's one of the infected. It must have been the thing I could hear breathing, chasing just a few steps behind, and I'm amazed and relieved in equal measure that I managed to reach the door just a moment ahead of it. It must have been almost within grasping distance. Almost close enough to grab me by the clothes and pull me back. I shiver at the thought.

Then I hear the voice. Frantic. Pleading. Gasping. Begging to be let in. Whoever's on the other side of the door is
alive
. He hammers his fists against the heavy wood as he pleads. The man who rescued me rushes back towards the door and grabs the handle, and he's about to twist it when he freezes. The banging stops, suddenly replaced with an ear bleeding scream.

"Oh Lord, I thought he was chasing you," the guy cries, dropping to his knees and lifting the letterbox. "I thought he was one of
them
." He peers through the slit in the door, then immediately falls back in horror. I can only imagine what it is he sees, but I have a fairly good idea when he turns his haunted eyes towards me and raises a shaking finger to his lips.
Quiet.
There's nobody left to save on the other side. Not any more.

I take in my new surroundings as the man moves back to the letterbox and crosses himself. I'm in a long hallway, roughly decorated in the sort of Bohemian, artistic style that cost either fifty bucks or tens of thousands of dollars. I lean back against the curved leg of a wooden table covered in peeling paint and gasp with pain as my head nudges the corner of the tabletop. I forgot all about my head, but now the pain comes rushing back with a vengeance as the adrenaline begins to wear off. I reach to the back of my skull and find a lump that feels about the size of half a baseball bulging under my hair. Shit.

"Do you have a first aid kit?" I whisper, looking around the hallway as if I'll find a video game style medkit lying around.

"Me? Naw," he whispers, with a relaxed Southern drawl that would have seemed oddly out of place in Brooklyn even before its residents started eating each other. He turns away from the door and slides down to rest with his back against it. "This ain't my place, though. I was just here to paint the bedroom. You might wanna check the bathroom or something." He leans in towards me with a hopeful look. "Hey, don't suppose you got any cigarettes?"

I nod and fumble through my pockets for my pack, and when I pull out the box of Marlboros the guy's face lights up. "Thank the good Lord." He catches the pack and the Zippo as I toss them over, and his hands shake as he gratefully slips one out. "I know this sounds shitty, but I pretty much only let you in to see if you had a smoke. Haven't had one all day, and I don't know about you but I really don't wanna go through the Rapture and the shakes on the same day." He takes a long drag, and looks up at the ceiling as he exhales. "Ah, that's the stuff. You can call me Bishop, by the way."

"Tom. Freeman. Look, Bishop, we need to get out of here right now."

Bishop gives me a look like I just suggested we climb to the roof and fly away. "No, no, no, no,
fuck
no. Are you crazy? There's no way I'm going out there. I got everything I need right here. Enough food in the kitchen to last 'til Christmas, and I've filled both bathtubs with water. This place'd be perfect if we had more cigarettes. We should just ride it out here until the cavalry rides in and sorts this shit out, y'understand?"

I shake my head. "There's no riding it out. The whole city's going to be flattened by the Air Force in less than an hour. Unless this place has a bomb shelter we need to get the fuck out of here right now. Please tell me you have a vehicle."

"OK, so we can hide downstairs, right? This place has a big old basement. Hell there's even a pool table down there."

"That's no good, Bishop." I look at his simple, vacant expression. I hate to make a snap judgment, but I'm not sure he'd be able to get his head around the idea that a basement would be no match for a fuel-air bomb exploding a couple of streets away. I barely understand the weapon myself, but I think talk of blast fronts and the fact that such a bomb could suck the oxygen right out of the building would just confuse him. Better to tell a simple white lie. "They're going to nuke the city. Now, do you have a car?"

"Jesus, it's that bad? Yeah, I got my truck right outside, but you don't wanna go out there. The street's full of those things. We wouldn't get two feet before they tore us up. Here, come take a look."

I pull myself to my feet and shuffle painfully across to the door. Every limb aches now, and I know I won't be able to push myself much further without medical attention and a fistful of painkillers. I crouch down and push open the flap of the letterbox, and my heart sinks when I see what's on the other side. Four infected fight over the remains of a body between the front door and the truck parked by the sidewalk, a beat up old red pickup with the words
F. Bishop Decorators
stenciled on the door.

"OK, we need to get them away from your truck. Do you have a gun?"

"Uh uh," his jowls swing back and forth as he shakes his head. "Couldn't get a carry permit from the city. I've got a bunch of paint brushes and a sandwich I brought from home. I didn't come tooled up for the end of the world, y'know? You can bet they're dealing with it better in the south, that's for sure."

"Fuck." I wonder for a moment if I should go searching the house for some kind of weapon, but I'm painfully aware that we're running out of time before the bombs drop. We need to be on the road in the next few minutes if we want to clear the blast radius. "We need some kind of distraction. Something to draw them away."

Bishop scratches his beard, deep in thought. "Umm... I don't know, maybe one of us could run down the street and distract them while the other fetches the truck?"

Again I shake my head. "I'm pretty sure I'd pass out if I tried to run right now, and... look, I hate to be rude, but I'm pretty sure you're too heavy to outrun those things."

Bishop looks down at his hefty gut and nods glumly. "Oh wow. I never thought I'd get fat shamed during the apocalypse."

"Shit, sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Nah, I'm just fucking with ya, man." He flashes a grin and takes a puff of his cigarette. "I think all that PC shit died when people started eating each other, right? You're right, though. A guy like me ain't worth shit in a foot race." He flinches as the burning tip of his cigarette drops into his lap. "Ow! Fuck!" he yelps, brushing the burning ash away.

A thought suddenly occurs to me as I watch the embers glow on his pants. "Wait a minute. You said you were a painter, right? You have all your gear inside?"

Bishop nods. "Yeah, it's all upstairs."

"You have chemicals? Paint thinner, stuff like that?"

"Yeah, some. Why?"

"Show me," I say, pulling myself painfully to my feet. "I think I have an idea."