Undead (9780545473460) (12 page)

“Maybe it was one of those monsters?”

Alice is talking to me again. I look at her blankly before I realize what she's saying. “You mean you think one of those things cut the power?”

Pete shakes his head. “That's improbable, from what we've seen of them so far. They have basic motor skills, and they seem to be attracted to things that were familiar to them in their former life. But it's quite a leap to suggest that they have the wherewithal to cut the power to the building.”

“Yeah. What he said.” My head pounds, and I sit carefully on a box. I'm not feeling too hot. But it's best not to mention it under the circs, especially given my previous fainting fit. Don't want anyone jumping to any conclusions. I rub my face with my hands. I must look like a wreck. Yeah, I know I do — I've seen myself on TV. “Anyway, we don't know for sure that there are any more of them out there.”

Pete sucks in air through his teeth. “Ah, but we do, don't we? What about that couple? You didn't run into them when you rescued the driver, did you? Where did they go? Where are they now?”

I sigh. “We need to see the rest of the recording.”

Pete nods. “Besides them, we can't be sure that everyone in the café followed the bus down to the garage and got vaporized by Smitty.” He looks at the TV screens. “And for that matter, where has Gareth got to? I'd say it's highly probable there are more of them out there.”

The wind rattles the window. I glance at the screens showing the parking lot. The snow is still whirling, thick and fast.

Alice shivers. “Hopefully they'll freeze to death.” She turns to look at us. “Or Undeath. Whatever.” She smiles. It's not entirely genuine, but it's a start. I want to return it, but I'm distracted by a movement on one of the TV screens behind her. The entrance of the café. A huge shape moves past the door. I nearly fall backward off my box again.

“What?” Alice says.

The shape has gone. I lean in close to the screen that shows the entrance to the Cheery Chomper. There's nothing there. Besides, Smitty is in the café now, on the other side of the glass — he'd have noticed something outside, wouldn't he?

“What is it?” Alice says.

“I thought I saw something.”

Pete stares at me. “I didn't see anything. Which screen?”

I shake my head. “I'm spooked. Imagining stuff.” It could have been anything. A plastic bag or a branch. The banner! Yes, that must be it — Carrot Man's banner that was flapping away over the entrance. It must have come loose and blown across the door.

“No bogeymen in sight.” Smitty saunters in, coolness restored. “Barricades in place, perimeter maintained. Let's play the rest of the recording before the power cuts off again.”

I look at him without, you know, really looking. “You think it's gonna?”

“Could, if this storm keeps up.”

I stand. “Then we should prepare. Find some flashlights, or something.” I look at my watch; it's three o'clock already, less than an hour before sunset. Time flies when you're having fun. I pick my backpack off the floor. “We should charge our phones, so when we do find some-where with reception, we can make calls. Maybe we should pack some emergency supplies in case we have to leave here. We've got to start thinking ahead.”

“We're leaving here?” Alice says. “And going out into that?” She points to the snowstorm on the TV. “Um, I think not.”

“It may not be safe to stay,” Pete says. “This is Ground Zero. And who knows what they'll hit us with next?”

“There isn't a
they
!” Smitty yells at him. “It's all in your head, Snowballs!”

“Whatever we think” — I try to calm things down — “we need to be prepared. Get some food together, our warmest clothes, a map. Just in case.”

Smitty grits his teeth. “Fine. But we watch the rest of this recording first.”

I don't know how much I actually
want
to watch the replay, but we're halfway through and if nothing else, I hate to walk out on a movie before it's done. I toss my backpack under the desk and sit myself back down next to Smitty, being ultra careful that no part of my body touches his. Pete resumes his position by the
PLAY
button. Alice rolls her eyes and makes a big deal out of pulling herself off the couch.

“All right,” she says. “We'll watch. But let's at least get some daylight in here while we still have it, so if the power goes off again I'm not squashed by Nelly the Elephant fainting in the dark.” She flicks me a look. I return it. She stands with her back to the window, reaches out a hand for the blind, and pulls it. The blind springs up. Daylight floods the room.

I see the dark shape behind her and my face stretches into a scream.

“What now?” Alice stares at me, pissed off.

Carrot Man is standing at the window.

I jump to my feet. There's screaming. I don't just hear it, I feel it; it slices through my ears and into my brain. Shrill beyond all measure. At first I think it's me screaming — my mouth is open and my throat is clenched, so it might be — then I realize it's Pete. He's seen what I see. Smitty, too. In fact, the only person who hasn't seen it is Alice.

She stands there facing us, pouting and still holding the cord. Then there's the flicker of confusion, and finally the terror of realization that we're not screaming at
her
.

It's behind you.

She doesn't turn to look, just propels herself forward instinctively. As she leaps, she drops the string of the blind, which clatters down over the window again. She slams into me — and Smitty, who is standing behind me — and we fall to the ground like human dominoes.

Pete is still screaming. Before I know how, I'm on my feet again and all four of us stand squashed together against the back wall — as far from the window and Carrot Man as possible. We all stare at the closed blind.

“What. Is. It,” Alice rasps beside me.

Nobody answers her. We're all staring at the blind, which is swinging gently. At any moment glass could shatter and IT will be in the room with us.

“What —” she tries again, louder now.

“Carrot Man,” Smitty whispers sharply from my other side. “Don't make a sound.”

“Yeah, 'cause we were so quiet before.” I can't help myself. Smitty gives a low snort, and I feel the thin wall gently shudder.

The blind stops swinging. I stare at the strips of white plastic with the tiniest creases of bright light between them, and wish for X-ray eyes.

“Think he's gone?” Pete wheezes.

“Want to go and check?” Smitty turns his head, raising his eyebrows invitingly. When Pete says nothing, Smitty winks at me. I feel his body begin to peel away from the wall.

“Don't!” I shoot out an arm to stop him, my fist balled tight so I can't accidentally grab a body part. “Don't you dare.”

“Someone has to check.” He stays in place on the wall regardless. I can feel him smiling at me provocatively, but refuse to meet his eyes.

“Wait a minute,” Alice says beside me. “We don't know Carrot Man's bad, do we?”

“I think the fact that he was handing out the killer fruit juice is pretty conclusive,” Pete gabbles.

“Vegetable juice, not fruit,” I say, like this makes a diff. “Maybe he didn't know what was in it? Maybe he's freezing to death out there and needs our help?”

“If he didn't know what was in it, he probably drank it,” Smitty says logically.

“Either way, he's hardly one of the good guys.” Pete out-logics Smitty's logic.

“People!” Alice hisses. “I can't believe we're standing here even talking about this! We need to get out of here.”

Pete steps away from the wall. “I think he's gone.”

“Why?” Smitty takes a step, too.

Pete squints. “The light behind the blinds. Something changed.”

I frown. “I didn't see it.”

He nods his head. “See the light along the windowsill? A shadow moved along it.” He takes another step toward the window.

“No.” I ease myself off the wall, but stay rooted to the spot. “I was watching, too. I didn't see it.”

“Don't touch that blind!” Alice begs, and as she does, the lights flicker again, then extinguish, plunging us into darkness once more.

Before we can react, glass smashes and the blind bulges into the room, light escaping around the sides. Out of the corner of my eye I see Smitty — lit momentarily by daylight — lunging for Alice's knife on the table as a huge killer root vegetable crashes onto the floor in front of the window.

“Come on!” I cry, seeing the shadow of my backpack under the desk, diving for it, and scrabbling to my feet again. In the dim half-light I can see that Alice and Pete are already through the office door into the café, and the knife-wielding Smitty is in a ninja squat a few feet from the writhing mound on the floor.

“Smitty!” I shout, not wanting to leave him. Then suddenly he's ahead of me, on the chair that we wedged in the doorway, his hand shooting out to grab mine, dragging me out of the room. We run blindly through the café toward the entrance. Alice is screaming and Pete is trying to pull down the barricade at the door. We pile into it, Smitty and me, frantically grabbing at the furniture and boxes we so carefully slotted together to make an impenetrable barrier. We never thought we might have to fight through it ourselves.

“Hurry!” Alice is screaming still, which is not exactly helping, apart from being a gauge of how much longer we have before Carrot Man gets here. Her shrieks suddenly multiply a gazillion times, and I know The Furry One has made an appearance at the office doorway.

“Just this last one!” Smitty yells, and Pete and I help him yank a large crate of water bottles away from the exit. As we do, the crate spills and bottles roll out onto the floor. I see Alice take a step backward, and can only watch as a bottle rolls under her foot with immaculate timing. Her legs fly up into the air, she falls back onto her head with a
thwack
, and she stays there. As I feel the blast of icy air that means Smitty has got the door open at last, I run to Alice and pull her by the arms to the exit.

The Carrot Man is here, and we have to go.

Smitty scoops Alice up and throws her over his shoulder with sudden and shocking Herculean strength, and we're out of the door. I glance back. Carrot Man's arms swing up in front of him. The eyeholes in his costume are cast into shadow. His green carrot leaf gloves are gone, and his hands are dripping with blood. He groans and takes a heavy step forward.

He's one of them.

Pete has managed to get the bus door open, and we scramble on board. Our sanctuary once more.

“Start it up!” yells Smitty, bounding up the steps with Alice's head bobbing over his shoulder.

“What do you think I'm doing?” Pete yells back. He's in the driver's seat, fumbling with the keys, and I thank all the angels that he remembered to pocket them when we made our exit. Who knows what we've left behind in the Cheery Chomper
—
water, food? No time to think about that now.

The engine starts with a sputter. Smitty hauls Alice unceremoniously down the aisle and dumps her in a seat, shouting at me, “Guard the door!”

Grrreat. Human shield time again.
I race past Pete, who is wrestling the unresponsive steering wheel, and make my legs skibble down the steps. I fling myself against the frickin' door, arms and legs spread like I'm dancing a tango with it. Bang on cue, there's Carrot Man, the whole force of seven feet of orange plushy vegetable slamming itself against the doors with such a ferocity I want to weep. The sheer weight of him throws me off balance. The door shudders.

“Hurry!” I cry.
Please hurry, Pete, please hurry, Smitty, please hurry, the armed forces who are — please God — going to sweep down with weapons of mass destruction and save us . . .

Carrot Man slams again. I press my shoulders and my arms and my butt and my legs across the door, bracing for the next impact, hoping the glass and metal and my spine and nerve will hold out.

“Why aren't we moving?!” I scream up at Pete. He looks like a kid sitting on a coin-operated car ride outside a supermarket, wildly spinning the steering wheel, jumping up and down in the seat, and going precisely nowhere.

“The snow's too deep, there's no traction!”

I feel the wheels turning underneath us as Pete stamps on the gas. “Smitty!” I yell as Carrot Man thumps into my back again. “I need help!”

“Here.” Smitty appears at the top of the steps with a snowboard. He tosses it down to me and I catch it, swing around, and slot it across the doors. “And another.” Smitty throws down a second board, and I fix it in place beneath the first one. It works. Carrot Man senses the door is not going to open, and he moves to the windshield and starts bashing on that instead.
Stupid orange meanie.
I wedge myself against a step and brace the bottom board with my feet.

Pete frantically thrusts the gear stick in a different direction and the wheels roar beneath me. But still we don't move.

“Cack.” Smitty is still standing at the top of the steps but is staring out of one of the side windows. “Carrot Man's got company.”

“What?!”

Smitty's face contorts into a horrible grin. “Heeeeere's Gareth!”

“No!” I run up the steps and look in the same direction. There, coming around the corner of the Cheery Chomper, is Gareth. Black pants, white shirt, tie, and name tag, and a grotesque gobbling face. And you know what? He's still holding the laptop . . . but it takes me a moment to realize he only has one proper arm. There's a stump coming out of the other shirt sleeve, a stump with a long, white piece of bone, as if something nibbled off the flesh like corn off the cob. I feel the sting of a sob clenching my throat.

“He never made it,” I mutter.

“No,” Smitty says quietly. “But he made some friends.”

I look through the snow. Shuffling figures — four or five, possibly more — are coming this way.

“Pete!” Screaming, I turn to him. “Get us out of here!”

Something finally catches and the bus pulls forward slowly, gently nudging Carrot Man to one side.

“Hang on!” Pete shouts. “I won't be able to brake!”

There's a sharp smell of burning rubber, and I cling to my seat as Pete guides the bus through the snow. There's no real way to know if we're on the road or not, but as long as we keep going, there's no reason to care.

“Head for the exit!” shouts Smitty, pointing to the road that leads away from the Cheery Chomper and back into the wilds of the Scottish countryside. “It's our only chance!” His words hang in the air, strangely overdramatic, although if there was ever a time to shout something like that, it would be now. He moves to the back of the bus, looking out tosee how quickly we're being chased. I follow.

I press my face against the window and stare out at Carrot Man leading the charge across the parking lot. Well, more of a shamble than a charge. The bus is moving slowly on the snow, but they won't catch us so long as we keep on truckin'.

Shit.
Nothing in the tank.

I shake the thought away. The bus started, didn't it? Even if we only get a couple of miles, it will still be enough to outrun them. Glancing at the back of Pete's head, I can see he's as stressed as hell, shoulders up around his ears. But he's not hyperventilating, and he's wrangling the wheel like he knows what he's doing. He keeps this up, we're golden.

I stare out at Gareth and his new companions. “Who are the others?”

Smitty has found the binoculars. “Remember the couple in the Mini? And three blokes. At least, I think that one's a bloke . . . oh, no. There's a boob hanging out.”

“Where did they come from? And where's Gareth been all this time? Do you think they got him when he went to the Cheery Chomper?” I rant. “Why didn't we see them before now?”

“Won't ever know,” Smitty says. “Might have got some answers if we'd seen the end of that recording, but now —”

The bus screeches to a halt; I bang my face against the window. Pain and the indignation of a bashed-up nose sweep through me. Tears prick my eyes as my nose burns. I feel to see if it's still there, and my hand comes away covered in blood.

“What gives?!”

Shouting, Smitty runs up the aisle to Pete. I gather myself.
Don't cry, you're still in one piece.
At the front of the bus, they're yelling at each other. I hear a clatter, and the unmistakable hiss of the doors opening. I spring up from my seat and head for the front, nose trauma forgotten. Hot blood drips down my face and splashes on my coat. Pete stands alone by the steps. By the look on his face I know what's happened.

“Smitty's gone out?”

He nods.

“Why did you stop?”

“That.” He points.

Through the windshield I see a big white lump across the road. At first I can't tell what it is, then I realize the lump has branches and roots. A tree has fallen across the road, blocking our way out. Smitty is furiously running around it like an ant, digging away at the edges with his board, leaning into the trunk with his shoulder, trying to push it, lever it, roll it. There's no way he'll succeed; ten people couldn't move a tree that size. You'd have to have chains and a tractor and a good thirty minutes to clear the road before the monsters came. None of which we have.

I shoot a glance back at our pursuers. We have a couple of minutes, tops.

I jump down the steps, Pete behind me. “It's no use!” I shout at Smitty. “Can we go around it?”

Pete picks his way through the snow to the root end of the trunk. The base of the tree on its side is almost the same height as he is. I know the answer before he gives it. The road is raised, with a ditch on either side, and the tree line is only a few feet from the road.