Zom-B City (10 page)

‘Yes,’ Sister Clare says with justified satisfaction. Then she frees her hands and holds them over her head. ‘We can break the circle now. Let us move among them. Show no fear. The Shnax will protect us as long as we continue to trust.’

Not all of the others look so sure about that, but they separate as ordered and edge forward.

The zombies don’t budge.

‘Part, sons and daughters of the darkness!’ Sister Clare shrieks, swinging her right arm around like a scythe.

Not a single zombie gives ground.

One of the women loses her nerve and tries to push through, muttering sharply, ‘Get out of my way!’

A zombie pulls her to the ground. He sinks his teeth into her exposed arm and tears loose a chunk of flesh. The woman screams.

‘No!’ Sister Clare shouts. ‘Don’t be afraid! Show no fear! We must be strong!’

But it’s as if the scream acts as a starting pistol for the rest of the living dead. They surge forward, fingers extended, teeth bared, and throw themselves upon the stunned, defenceless children of the Shnax.

NINETEEN

The tortured death cries of the humans ring out loud. More zombies come running from within the Tube station attached to the railway concourse, not wanting to miss out on the feast.

I throw myself into the middle of the carnage and punch zombies aside, creating a narrow gap. ‘This way!’ I bellow.

I’m closest to Sister Clare, and she hasn’t been attacked yet, so she’s first past. She reels away from me and pushes through the divide, her face a mask of shock and fear. She starts to pause, but I shove her hard, careful not to pierce her flesh with my finger bones, aware that I’m as much of a threat as any revived.

‘Run!’ I roar at her, then try to pull some of the others free of the chaos.

Sean, the man who spoke up earlier when I was challenging Sister Clare, is the only one to get close to me. His eyes are bulging. His teeth are bared like the fangs of the monsters around us, but with terror, not hunger.

Then the finger bones of one of the zombies tear into Sean’s chest, ripping through his robes, slicing into the flesh beneath. He stops and looks down at the wound. His fingers rise to touch it. All of the tension slips out of him. He smiles wearily at me, resigned to his fate. As I stare at him with horror, he spreads his arms and starts singing again. He carries on singing even when the zombies drag him down and chew through the bone of his skull, although towards the end it becomes more of a gurgling noise and the words are lost, along with the tune.

I don’t stay to watch him die. As soon as I realise that the others are beyond help, I race after Sister Clare, determined to do all I can to save at least one of the nine, even though she probably deserves salvation the least of any of them.

Sister Clare was headed towards the stairs, but the zombies pouring through from the Tube station have blocked that route. As she hesitates, I call to her, ‘I can see another exit at the far end. Follow me.’

We set off across the concourse. The way ahead is clear and I think we stand a chance. But then the zombies who couldn’t get their hands on the other humans set their sights on Sister Clare and me — in the chaos, they won’t be able to tell me apart from one of the living, so they’ll tear into me too if they catch us.

A couple of seconds later it’s clear we can’t make it. Zombies stream into the path ahead of us, blocking the way. I draw to a halt and Sister Clare runs into my back. She tries to break past but I stop her.

‘We’re trapped.’

‘No!’ she screams. ‘You’ve got to save me! Don’t let me die!’

‘I thought you were happy to die,’ I grunt, but bitterness won’t do either of us any good. I look around desperately as the zombies close in. There’s a row of shops to our right. The doors of most are wide open and the shops are totally indefensible. But a security grille has been pulled down over the front of one shop. It doesn’t hang all the way to the ground, which means it isn’t locked.

‘There!’ I yell, darting towards the shop. Sister Clare scurries along behind me. The zombies aren’t much further back.

No time to mess about. I throw myself to the floor and push up the grille. As Sister Clare ducks and skids forward, I roll, slam down the grille and leap to my feet.

‘I need something to hold this in place!’ I shout, but Sister Clare is moaning, lying in a huddle on the floor, hands clamped over her ears. With a curse, I look around and spot a broom with a wooden handle. Grabbing it, I stick it through one of the slots in the grille, then jam it against the wall. It wouldn’t hold back any thinking person for more than a few seconds, but the living dead aren’t as sharp as they once were. Ignorant of the broom, they tug on the grille, trying to force it up, unable to figure out why it isn’t moving.

I back away from the grille and sink to the floor beside Sister Clare. I stare at the zombies glumly. The broom won’t hold for long. They’ll push through in a minute or two and that will be the end of the human. Probably the end of me as well. The zombies are in a feeding frenzy. I’m guessing they won’t pause to assess me, just dig straight into my skull and tear my brain out.

Sister Clare seems to realise she’s still alive and lowers her hands, looking up with startled, fearful eyes. When she sees the zombies struggling with the grille, she smiles hopefully. ‘You’ve stopped them.’

‘Only for a while. If you want to pray to your aliens, you’d better be quick.’

‘There must be a lock for the grille somewhere,’ she pants, looking around frantically.

I snort. ‘Even if we could find it and lock ourselves in, what’s the point? They won’t leave as long as they can hear your heartbeat and smell your brain. Better to die quickly and get it over with, rather than sit here and starve.’

‘But there might be a way out the back.’

‘We’re underground,’ I remind her. ‘My finger bones are tough, but they can’t burrow through walls.’

Sister Clare makes a low moaning noise, then grabs my arm and glares at me with some of her old determination. ‘Then you have to convert me.’

‘What?’ I frown.

‘Make me like you.’ She points at the hole in my chest and the bones jutting out of my fingers. ‘You’re different. You can think and speak. If I end up like you, I can continue with my work.’

‘
Continue?
’ I splutter.

‘We were weak,’ she says. ‘They attacked because they sensed our fear. If I was like you, I need not fear them. I could bring others here and they’d feed on my strength and certainty. We would triumph.’

‘Are you even crazier than I thought?’ I shout. ‘You’ve already led eight people to their death. How many more do you want to sacrifice?’

‘As many as the Shnax demand,’ she snaps. ‘They wish to save us, but they can only do that if we’re strong. Please, help me, don’t let me be eaten, give me the power to continue with my mission.’

‘Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I don’t know how –’

‘Please!’ she screams, not wanting to hear the truth, clasping her hands over her ears again.

I stare at the deranged woman, lost for words. Then a cruel part of me whispers,
Why not? She’s doomed anyway. She lured her followers to their death and made fools of them. It’s only fitting that you should do the same to her.

‘All right,’ I tell her, pulling her hands away from her ears. ‘We’ll do it if you’re sure. Are you?’

‘Yes,’ she gasps.

‘Then on your own head be it,’ I snarl, and pull her in close, as if to kiss her. But instead I bite into her lower lip, drawing blood and infecting her with my undead germs.

‘Vile girl!’ Sister Clare snaps, pushing me away and wiping blood from her lip. ‘How dare you press your mouth to mine! I should . . .’

She raises a hand to slap me. Then she realises what I’ve done and backs away, whimpering softly, staring at the blood on her fingers.

‘You bit me,’ she whispers.

‘Yeah,’ I say, feeling rotten now that the moment has passed.

‘Will I retain my senses?’ she cries. ‘Will I become like you, not like
them
?’ She points at the zombies pulling at the grille.

‘Of course,’ I lie, not knowing if it’s true or not, wanting to give her some comfort in her final moments.

‘Wonderful,’ she sighs, leaning against the wall, waiting for the change, probably privately plotting her undead takeover of the world.

Sister Clare shudders. She bends over, gasps, collapses, then screams as her body starts to shut down. I turn away, not wanting to see her teeth lengthen, the bones break through her fingertips, the light fade from her eyes.

The handle of the broom snaps. The grille clatters upwards. Zombies spill into the shop and swarm around us.

But they don’t attack, because they can see the human turning. That makes them pause and they sniff me rather than strike. When they realise I’m one of them, they leave us be and return to the concourse, disappointed and hungry.

After about a minute, I look around guiltily. Sister Clare is staring at me numbly, no hint of life in her expression, green moss already sprouting from the bite mark on her lip.

‘Sorry,’ I murmur. ‘But you did ask for it.’

Making a sighing sound, I blow a regretful kiss to the shadowy remains of Sister Clare, then push through the undead crowd outside the shop, patiently easing my way clear of the crush, past the bodies of the humans who were killed, up the stairs and back into the light of a world which seems even more lost and disturbing than it did an hour or two before.

TWENTY

I make my way west, then hole up in an abandoned coffee shop on Fleet Street when night falls. Every time I think about Sister Clare and her pack of nutjobs – and I think about them lots over the course of the night – I wince sadly. What a waste of life.

I feel guilty too, for biting Sister Clare, knowing it was almost certain that she wouldn’t end up like me, that she’d become just another mindless revived.

‘The zombies would have killed me if I hadn’t done it,’ I whisper.

‘
So?
’ I snort.

‘I needed to get out,’ I argue, ‘to hand myself over to the soldiers, so that they can use my blood to maybe find a way to defeat the zombies.’

‘
Yeah
,’ I retort cynically. ‘
If they don’t shoot me first
.’

‘I’ve got to think positively.’

‘
In this world?
’ I sneer. ‘
Get real!
’

The night passes slowly. I hear the dead milling around outside, searching for prey, but no screams or gunfire. If any of the living are heading towards the centre to be rescued, they’re lying low like me. That’s not surprising. Only the cunning will have lasted this long. Smart operators like that are hardly going to give themselves away cheaply this close to escape.

As the sun rises and the zombies return to the shadows, I move out and push on, hitting the Strand. Finding a radio in a shop, I tune into the news channel and wait. It’s not long before an excited presenter says that the rescue is scheduled for midday in Trafalgar Square. He tells anyone who is listening to make sure they’re present at twelve on the dot, but not to show themselves in the square before that, in case they attract unwanted attention.

I head down the Strand, taking my time. I swing right and check out Covent Garden, once a throng of tourists, shoppers and street performers. I’m half-hoping to find some zombie jugglers, maybe throwing limbs around instead of skittles or juggling balls, but the place is as dead as any other part of London.

I pick up new clothes for myself in one of the fashionable designer shops, so that I look fresh and clean. I think about tearing a hole in my jumper and T-shirt, to expose the empty cavity, but decide to leave it as it is for the moment, so that I can get close to the soldiers before they realise I’m a zombie.

I file down my teeth and the bones sticking out of my fingers and toes. The bones are harder to disguise than the hole in my chest. I pull on a pair of shoes which are three sizes too big for me, and gloves that are more suited to a giant. The shoes are uncomfortable, and the gloves won’t hide the shape of the bones up close, but they should get me near and give me a chance to make my case.

I also pick up a pair of watches which would have cost almost as much as our flat in the old days. They’re accurate to the smallest fraction of a second, resistant to shock, waterproof, and they automatically adjust for summer or winter time. I attach one to either wrist, so that I can be absolutely sure of the time. I don’t want to miss my shot at rescue because of a dodgy watch!

I get to Trafalgar Square five minutes before midday. I’m not the first to arrive. Seven people are already present, three men, a woman with a baby, a girl of eight or nine and a boy a bit younger than me. They’re huddled together in the middle of the square, between the two fountains, ignoring the warning not to arrive earlier than twelve. I was expecting warriors, tough men in leathers, carrying guns. But this lot look like any group of tourists that you would have seen here a year ago.

‘Are you one of us?’ the woman with the baby shouts when she spots me striding towards them.