The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 4) (14 page)

He turned to Tommy to warn him.

Before he could speak the light coming through the gap was suddenly distorted as a huge figure slammed into the door, instantly pushing its way through the opening. It moved fast, despite the years of decomposition that had ravaged its body and catching Al completely by surprise and off balance.

Al turned as the snapping teeth of the thing lunged towards his face. He threw up his right forearm and thrust it up against the gaping mouth, feeling the pressure against his arm as the dead man bit down against his thick leather vambrace that protected him from the wrist to the elbow. Raising his other hand, he wedged his palm beneath his attacker’s chin, his fingers breaking the paper-thin flesh around its windpipe, and reaching in as far as its spinal column. The jaw flexed, and the stench of its rotting insides oozed from its mouth and over Al’s armour as it snarled and gurgled above him. Al fell back with a gasp as the body lunged again and dropped on top of him, the pair of them landing on the cold, damp floor. Despite his advantage in strength and speed, Al was unable to push the corpse off him. It was too heavy, and his arm carrying his pistol remained trapped between its teeth.

Tommy jumped to his aid, throwing a kick that caught the creature on the side of its head. It was launched from Al and into the doorframe, its skull thumping loudly against the wood with a dull crack. It slid to the floor, and Tommy reached down to pull his friend free. Al scurried back and jumped to his feet, quickly checking that the corpse’s teeth had not managed to puncture the thick leather that protected his arm.

The stairwell above them echoed with the sounds of feet pounding down along the hard steps. The moans of the dead were growing louder. Out on the ground level, a large number of the horde had detected the two living men in the stairwell during the struggle and began to converge on the door. The corpse of the large man was still lying over the threshold, wedging the door open and giving the dead an unobstructed view of Al and Tommy. It was too late to head back. They were hemmed in and needed to think fast.

“Fuck it,” Al cried, holstering his pistol and unslinging his rifle from over his shoulder. “Put your head down and go for it.”

He ripped the door fully open, presenting himself to the mass of bodies outside. All of them turned towards him, their eyes widening and reflecting their lust as they fell upon the living flesh that was headed towards them. Al raised his rifle and began to fire, the sharp pop of the suppressor sounding like a hydraulic piston as he began picking off the nearest of the infected, hoping to give themselves enough space for a running start. As another corpse hit the floor, its head splayed open from the high-velocity bullet, the weapon ceased firing.

“Magazine,” he cried, ripping the empty from the housing and jumping through the doorway. He reached for more ammunition from his vest, changing out his magazines on the move. “Go, Tommy. Go, go, fucking go.”

Al ran forward, aiming for the bright light that spilled in through the large gaps between the support pillars around the outer walls of the building. Dipping his head and using his helmet to smash his way through the first of the infected that reached out for him, he became a human battering ram. The weakened and ill coordinated dead were thrown back by the impacts as he crashed against them, sending them reeling into one another, and creating a space for Al and Tommy to increase their momentum.

“Go for it, Tommy,” Al was screaming, as he charged forward. “Don’t fucking stop. Just keep going. Flatten the bastards.”

Tommy was right behind him, growling, punching, and ploughing his way through, and hoping that they could clear a path before too many of them converged. If they slowed at all, the crowd would instantly become too tightly packed for them to force a way through.

A figure jumped in front of him and clamped its arms around his neck, its long hair covering most of its face as its clawed hands pulled at the armour that covered his shoulders and attempted to drag him into her widening mouth. Through pure instinct, Tommy arched his head back and then launched it forward again, his neck acting as a catapult for the weight of his skull. His forehead smashed into the woman’s face, and he felt the bone of her nose and eye sockets collapse beneath the power of his head-butt. His head came away wet as black sludge burst from a large, jagged hole that suddenly appeared between her eyes. The dead woman’s fingers released their grip on him, and Tommy stomped over her body as she dropped to the floor.

Another grasped his arm, pulling him off balance, and causing him to spin to the side. Its teeth sank into the armour that covered his shoulder, and its jaw bone shattered audibly as it bit down hard. Tommy ripped himself away, correcting his stride, punching another hard in the face, and turning to follow on behind Al, who had now cut a great swathe of destruction through the mass of bodies as he headed for the exit ramp.

By now thousands of the dead had been attracted by the commotion. More and more of them were turning back, forgetting the sound of the swarm and the music outside, excited by the new events happening within the parking complex. They were rushing back in through the entrance, clawing at one another as they fought for position. They screamed and howled loud enough to drown out the rage and fear filled cries of the men as they continued to fight their way through the thickening mass.

Al was running, punching, and kicking at anything that stood in his path. Dozens of the mutilated figures fell or were thrown back under the weight of his assault. However, his progress was beginning to slow. There were too many of them ahead of him. In desperation, as hands clutched at him from all sides, he turned and searched for an alternative.

“Move left,” he yelled, grabbing the lunging cadaver of a man by the throat and flinging it back into the crowd. “We’re going over the wall.”

A few metres to the side of the wrecked barricade the area was less densely packed. Al saw it as their only hope and changed his angle of attack. Again, he began to smash his way through, sending the bodies of the infected flying through the air as his powerful shoulders and legs worked like pistons. A hand reached for him, its fingers becoming trapped between the overlapping armour plates and the straps of the pack that covered his back and shoulders. The corpse, squealing loudly as it sensed triumph, was dragged along with its feet scuffing along the ground as it was swept away by Al’s momentum. Al felt its weight, but it was not enough to slow him. He could not stop to work it loose, and instead hauled it along in his wake. He needed to keep going. 

Tommy followed. The dead were so close and so numerous, he could not afford the time to change out his empty magazine. Instead, he resorted to using his rifle like a club, battering at the heads of the frenzied and howling mass. He could hear Al ahead of him growling and snarling as he thumped and kicked to clear them a path. Suddenly, they emerged into an area of relative calm. To their right was the remains of the barricades, twisted and pushed to the side. Directly ahead of them was a space with only a few lumbering and confused looking bodies that turned and looked back at the advancing men.

Al reached out, grabbing the nearest and sending it hurtling into another like a bowling ball tearing along its lane and smashing into the pins. The two infected corpses collided and spun off in different directions as Al jumped for the wall, still dragging the body of a woman behind him, its hand remaining trapped in his equipment. He had no idea how things looked on the other side of the wall, but it could be no worse than how things already were. Without slowing, he placed his hands onto the ledge and vaulted his body over, swinging his huge legs out to the side of him with the grace of a gymnast.

He dropped through the air, the trapped corpse tumbling with him, and hit the ground three metres below. His feet made contact first, but he was too heavy and moving too fast to keep his balance. His body fell forward and his shoulder slammed into the tarmac, sending a flash of pain through his torso as a loud crack rang out behind him. For a split-second he feared the worst, thinking that he had broken his back. However, he quickly realised that it was the infected woman that he had been dragging with him that had created the noise. It had broken almost into two pieces, its decomposed flesh splitting along its abdomen and spilling out its dried and withered intestines. It lay there, flopping about like a fish out of water, its skeletal fingers grasping at the ground, and its near fleshless skull snarling back at Al.

Tommy landed beside him with a sickening thud, his knees collapsing, and his back taking most of the impact as he fell backward.

“Fuck.”

He let out a loud huff, cursing through gritted teeth as the shock of the impact rippled through his body. Rolling to the side and grimacing from the pain, he slammed in a fresh magazine and raised his rifle, firing at a number of figures that were moving towards them from the street. The side of the ramp was relatively free of the infected, but that would soon change if they stayed there for much longer. He reached over and helped Al to his feet, and began dragging their pain-racked bodies into the open. They hobbled away from the building, firing their weapons at the nearest of the dead that were steadily building in number around them as they turned and staggered towards the two fleeing men.

“There,” Al growled, pointing at the buildings to their left. They were only forty metres away, but the distance could easily have been forty kilometres. There were hundreds of lurching figures in their path. “Head for the yellow door.”

Al glanced up at the window of the flat above. The man was still standing there and was watching them as they attempted to flee from the car park complex. Again, they began to battle their way through the thickening throng, heading for the building where the man stood gawking back at them in shocked disbelief.

The hard fight was taking its toll on Al and Tommy. They were slowing; their punches and kicks becoming weaker, and their fire less accurate. They were no longer batting the infected away with one powerful strike, or taking them down with one shot. It was now taking a number of hits before their path was clear, and all the while, more of them were closing in and threatening to cut off their escape.

Their arms and legs screamed at them with the build-up of lactic acid, and their lungs burned. They were just twenty metres away now, a carpet of sprawled bodies covering the ground behind them as they continued to drive forward. The mass ahead of them was thinning, unable to keep up with the advance of the living humans. Al, sensing safety only a short distance away, gritted his teeth and drew on the last of his reserves. Bodies toppled and skulls cracked beneath his powerful blows as he continued towards the buildings, growling aggressively and refusing to slacken in his thrust.

The man above them began waving his arms frantically in an attempt to tell them something, but neither Al nor Tommy were paying much attention at that moment in time. They were still having to fight their way through a huge crowd, pushing and thrashing as they struggled for every metre of ground.

They fired their rifles, the low snap of their shots echoing through the streets as the frenzied cries of the dead swallowed them up.

Finally, they emerged from the fringes of the swarm, lunged for the building, and hurled themselves towards the door.

“No. Go somewhere else,”
a panicked voice hollered from above them.
“Not here. Fuck off. Not in here.”

Neither of them paid any attention to the angered voice. They wanted to get off the street and allow themselves at least a few seconds of breathing space. Getting a barrier between them and the thousands of infected dead was their primary focus, and following instructions or demands from a total stranger was not particularly concerning to them at that moment.

They would not last much longer in the open, that much was certain. It appeared that every one of the infected were now moving towards them, forgetting the distraction of the music that could no longer be heard. The swarm was too big, and they were both beginning to slow and weaken from exhaustion.

Drawing on the last of his strength and determination, Al charged for the doorway and threw out his boot, catching the door beneath the lock and sending it crashing open with a loud crunch followed by a shuddering bang as it thumped into the interior wall. They chased after it, falling into a short, narrow hallway containing two doors. The door on the right opened out into a wide room filled with dust covered chairs and tables. The door directly ahead of them at the end of the hallway remained shut.

Tommy turned and slammed the main entrance shut, quickly sliding a rusted bolt into place at the top as the first of the dead began to batter its hands against the barrier from the opposite side. He knew it would not hold for long, but it would allow them enough time to make a quick assessment, and hopefully, find another way out of the building.

“Where to?” he yelled, helping his friend to his feet.

Al climbed from the dust covered floor, steadying himself against the wall beside him. He was gasping for air and coughing up phlegm that trickled down over his stubble covered chin. He wiped the mucus from his face and changed out his magazines. The door behind them was already beginning to creak loudly as the weight of the crowd pushed against it. He looked around, searching for an exit.

The room to their right was cast in shadow. The rear windows had been heavily boarded, allowing very little light to penetrate into the short corridor. Tommy stepped forward, gingerly poking his head around the corner and instantly seeing that another barricade had been erected to cover the windows at the front of the building that was facing out on to the street. It was not the usual style of furniture hastily piled up against the windows. This structure had been carefully thought out and built to withstand a sustained assault. Thick iron support beams had been fitted into the walls, criss-crossing the room, and reinforced with wooden boards and metal sheeting. He turned and looked back towards the door. It made no sense to him. He could not understand why someone had gone to so much effort to secure the windows, but leave the main door in its flimsy state.