The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 4) (38 page)

“Jesus,” Al sighed.

“The fever was burning right through her,” Tommy continued, suddenly feeling that he needed to explain things to his closest friend. His words came out in a quiet monotone as he sat staring out at the depot. His eyes were unfocussed and glistening with the hurt that was trying to push its way to the surface. “She was in pain and too far gone to know what was happening. I couldn’t let her go on like that, Al. I couldn’t stand to see her suffer in that way, and I couldn’t leave her behind. She would never have made it through the evac. So I...”

He paused and turned his head in shame.

“Yeah, I know, mate. You did what you had to.”

Al placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Tommy was strong and tough, but Al knew that losing someone close was enough to break any man. If Tommy was to burst into tears at that moment with the pain of grief, Al would think no less of him. He had felt the same thing on many occasions, and it was having friends like Tommy that had helped him through such hard times.

“If there’s anything you need, Tommy, you only have to ask.”

How

“Yeah, I know,” Tommy grunted, shrugging his shoulders and refocussing his attention upon the depot. “But we’ve got bigger fish to fry at the moment, so just forget about it for now, will you?”

Al nodded. At that moment he understood that Tommy needed to come to terms with his loss in his own way. In time he may need to turn to Al for his support, but for now he would deal with his pain alone.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll leave you to it.”

They both fell silent for a while, watching Charlie and Nobby as they closed in on the corpse that was oblivious to its impending doom. In a flurry of movement, the old man lunged at the figure while Nobby caught it before it hit the ground. There was not a single sound made in the attack, and within seconds Charlie and Nobby had disappeared around a corner to conduct their sweep of the depot’s exterior walls.

Tommy and Al waited, listening to the unnerving roar of the dead through the streets and staring out at the darkening buildings that flanked the bus terminal. Both of them understood that now was not the time for grieving or reflection. There was a job to do, and getting everyone safely to the coast was the priority. Once aboard the ship there would be the chance to deal with emotions and ponder the events of the past.

“You think Paul will be able to get their ship running?”

“I hope so,” Al replied. “I’m just not sure if it will make it to the Azores. It’s a fucking ferry, not a cruise liner. But if we get that far then Stan and his guys have done
their
bit. We’ll look like a right bunch of cunts if we can’t do
our
part.”

“That’s us, let’s move,” Bryn snorted from behind when he saw Charlie reappear a few minutes later. “Al, get the grease monkeys moving, and I’ll bring up the rest.”

Tommy stepped out ahead of them and into the open street. He could see Charlie and Nobby both crouched beside one of the old buses, watching the area and providing cover for them. Behind him the heavy, laboured breathing of the two mechanics sounded far too loud in his ears as they lugged their cumbersome tool boxes. He stopped and turned to them, giving them a nod of encouragement.

After a few long minutes and moving slowly just as Charlie had done while crossing the open ground, they passed through the collapsed fence and dropped down in front of the bay doors. The militia were moving in, their dark silhouettes looking very much the same as a herd of the dead as they converged upon the depot. Bryn brought them in, and wasting no time, began placing them out around the perimeter.

“Is there anything worth salvaging?” one of the mechanics whispered to Charlie as they waited for the cordon to get into place.

Charlie looked back at him and smiled. The man looked as though he was coiled too tightly and a sudden noise would cause him to jump out of his boots. The question was just his way of occupying his own mind, trying to be proactive and preventing himself from thinking too much about their precarious situation and where they were.

“Don’t ask me, mate. I just work here. If we knew the answer to that then we wouldn’t need you two with us, would we?”

When Bryn returned and gave the thumbs up and confirmed that the protection force was in place, Nobby got to work. He moved towards the main entrance while retrieving the bolt cutters from his pack. There was a much smaller door to the left of the garage entrance, but it was closed and sealed from the inside, with no handle or lock visible on the outside. Regardless, they would eventually need to open the bay doors if they found what they needed. There they paused and listened with their ears pressed against the icy metal of the huge corroded shutters.

“Anything?” Al asked as he watched Tommy and Nobby, their faces contorting as they listened for any noise coming from within.

Tommy shook his head and took a step back. Nobby concurred a moment later and raised the cutters, placing the blades over the thick chains and the rusted padlock that were holding the doors shut. He pressed the long handles together, forcing all of his strength and weight into the cutters as they bit into the lock. With a clunk, the u-shaped bar of the padlock was split in two.

“Just a touch,” Charlie whispered and nodded towards the seal of the door. “Big enough to climb through.”

After years of them being closed he knew that the hinges and rollers will have become heavily corroded, and opening them would make a lot of noise. He wanted to leave the ‘noisy’ phase of the operation until the very last minute, once they had vehicles ready and were about to turn their engines over for the first time. That is when things would need to move fast. The doors would have to be forced open as quickly as possible with the militia simultaneously collapsing inwards from around the perimeter and mounting the buses before the infected were able to swamp the area.

Gritting his teeth and cringing at the impending noise that they were about to make, Nobby dug his heels in against the ground, and pulled the handle. Al, Tommy, and Charlie stood watching the seal and ready to fire at anything that came rushing out towards them.

“Easy now,” Charlie whispered. “Easy.”

The bay doors slid across their tracks much easier than he had expected with only a slight whine as the wheels ran along the ungreased rails. Once the gap was a metre wide they met resistance, and the door refused to move any further without being forced. Charlie held out his hand and signalled for Nobby to stop. They would use more men and more strength later when they needed the bay fully opened. Until then the gap was sufficiently large enough for them to squeeze through. He eyed the black chasm that presented itself before them. He could not see anything that was beyond the threshold, but a strong and familiar smell of old oil and mildew drifted out towards them. There was no scent of the dead; their reek completely absent from the air. It was a good sign, and each of them instantly began to feel more confident about their task.

Nobby stepped through, quickly pushing to the right and dropping into a crouch as Charlie entered behind him. They waited for a while, allowing their eyes to adjust to the change in light. Above them and around the circumference of the building where the walls met the ceiling were narrow rectangular windows that allowed very little light to pass through due to the grime that covered the glass. The roof of the building was made from corrugated sheet metal, interspersed with sections of opaque glass or heavy duty plastic, acting as sky lights. Again, they too were caked in layers of accumulated dirt and allowed very little of the fading daylight into the building.

The two men refrained from turning on their lights, preferring to smell and listen, trusting their senses before relying upon false illumination to show them the way. The place was as still and silent as a tomb, and after a few minutes they felt confident that there was no threat and called in the others.

Al switched on his light and scanned the area around him. They were standing in the centre of the huge garage with rows of dust covered buses on either side of them that were still sitting in their bays and slowly eroding. He instantly saw that the ones closest to the entrance were beyond salvageable. He was no mechanic, but he could see that they were in a state that was not much better than the vehicles outside, falling apart in the parking lot. His heart began to sink at the sight of them as they advanced along the centre of the garage. More beaten and corrupted hulks appeared from the gloom as they moved further in, but one thing that he noticed was that each appeared less decrepit than the one sitting in the bay beside it.

Charlie stopped when he judged that they were more or less standing in the centre of the building. The others closed in around him.

“We’ll stay with the mechanics while they carry out their inspections,” he informed them and indicated himself and Nobby before pointing to Al. “You two push further in, and make sure there’s no surprises waiting for us back there.”

Towards the rear of the building were the offices and staff areas for the bus company employees. Al and Tommy pushed towards them, passing through the workshop where the depot’s mechanics had once stored their tools and spare parts. The room was spacious and mostly empty with only a few bulky containers and racks of shelving fitted to the far wall. Beyond that they entered into a narrow corridor that was flanked by dark, sinister doorways. The lights attached to their rifles pierced the blackness of the offices as they crept by, the dust that had been drifting around in the air for years twinkling in their beams. The atmosphere suddenly felt closer and colder compared to the wide and open expanse of the main garage, as though they had just entered into another world that was in the depths of a deep freeze.

Al shivered, his feet treading lightly over the grimy floors and scuffing against the occasional clump of plaster that had fallen from the walls. Nothing seemed out of place. The desks lay empty with their chairs neatly tucked away. The computers and monitors sat silent and coated with dust while the printed paperwork beside them and pinned to the noticeboards had become faded and yellow over time. Just as the depot had appeared from the outside, its interior confirmed to him that the place had merely been sealed shut and abandoned during the early days of the outbreak. 

They reached the end of the hallway and passed through a set of doors leading into what was clearly the cafeteria. The tables and chairs remained, along with the serving counters and the piles of discoloured and broken cups, plates, and cutlery. The only thing that gave any indication that the outbreak had given the depot even the lightest of touches were the broken and misshapen vending machines in the far corner of the dining hall. Someone had smashed them open, looting what was inside.

As they patrolled deeper and into the offices they began to see signs that someone may have actually been there at some point in time. There were empty food cans and wrappers, along with mouldy cardboard boxes that had been piled into a corner, their labels faded and unreadable. Someone had gone to the effort of ensuring that the litter was confined to one space, packing it all into the boxes, and preventing it from becoming scattered throughout the building. To the right of the garbage was another office. The plaque on the door indicated that it had once belonged to the station manager. While Tommy moved off to clear the adjacent rooms, Al pushed inside.

The desk was positioned so that it faced the door and occupied a large area in the centre of the tiny room. It seemed far too big for the small office and much too ornate. Beneath the dust, the deep gleam of the mahogany finish could be distinguished. The curving and intricately carved legs were thick and solid looking, appearing more like something expected to be found inside the private study of an aristocrat rather than a bus company branch manager. It was clearly a pretentious status symbol for someone who had once been in charge of the depot and held delusions of grandeur for their rightful place amongst the social elite. Obviously not content with the usual style of company issued flat-pack furniture that the rest of the managerial staff contented themselves with, this person had sought out an antique and hefted it into their office.

Al raised his light and leaped back as he saw the withered corpse that was seated behind the desk, almost fossilised into the chair. It was clearly dead and no threat to him, but that did not help with his self-aimed anger. It had taken him far too long to notice the body, and he was astounded and somewhat embarrassed that he had not seen it immediately. He took a step closer, feeling curious as to why someone would be sitting there in the first place, as though it had been work as usual for them. The man’s head was thrust back against the headrest of his seat, his jaw hanging open in a silent, perpetual scream. The station manager’s uniform continued to cling to his bones as his body decomposed beneath, identifying him as the very same pretentious person who clearly loved his desk, right up until the very end.

“Tommy, come over here. I’ve found something,” Al whispered loudly into the corridor. “Take a look at this fucker.”

Tommy arrived and stepped in through the door. He turned his body in a circle, shining his light over the walls around them and into the corners before giving his attention to the morbid, but strangely curious figure that Al had discovered.

“All clear out there,” he reported.

“Bit weird, don’t you think?” Al said, gesturing towards the corpse in the chair.

“Weird?” Tommy replied, screwing up his face. “How do you mean? It’s not the first stiff that we’ve come across.”