Zombiekill (24 page)

Butcher charged into the annex and flung the door shut behind him. He didn’t want her slipping past him and getting away. This was going to be the end for her. There was still a crude mess of body parts in the room left over from when Tad had accidentally let the zombies in earlier. There was no sign of Rilla though. No green dress, no sight or sound that she was anywhere.

“Rilla? Time’s up. Come out, come out, and we’ll play a game. I think it’s time you joined your parents.”

The door clicked shut behind Butcher, and he saw the light above it turn red. Then the green lights above the panels turned red, and he heard the locking mechanism to the dogs’ kennel turn.

“What are you playing at, Rilla? You can’t hide from me.” Butcher tried to open the panels but they were fastened shut. Had she gone into the kennel? How had she got past the dogs? And if she had, then who was operating the controls?

A deafening whistle obliterated Butcher’s thoughts as it echoed sharply around the room. Butcher put his hands over his ears and returned to the center of the room. He looked up at the gantry where he had stood a day earlier and condemned five people to a grisly death. The dark figure removed the whistle from their mouth and stared at him.

“Rilla? How did you get up there so fast? Open this fucking door right now.”

Charlie stepped forward in order to let Butcher see her clearly. Slowly she removed the blue and green fishing cap from her head to expose her short blonde hair. “Remember me?”

Butcher frowned. “You look like someone I killed. That asshole’s son? But you look... different.”

“Close. I’m that asshole’s
daughter
. You saw what you wanted to see and made an assumption based on what I looked like. You made a mistake, Butcher. All you had to do was open the door and let us in. Instead you turned your back on me, on us. You could have changed the world, but instead you stuck to your stereotypes and out of date views. We weren’t a threat to you. You just assumed that everyone on the other side of the wall was a danger to you; that they couldn’t possibly help or contribute. You judged us all the same, and now it’s come back to bite you in the ass. Now you’re going to pay for your selfish, callous attitude.”

“But... but how did you get out? How did you get over the walls? There’s no way through them, I made sure. I made sure that they were big and strong, that nothing could get through.” Butcher looked at the door to the road that led to Peterborough. The red light was on indicating it was still locked. “You can’t have gone through that way. No way.”

The door behind Charlie opened, and then Rilla appeared. She smiled at Charlie and then looked down at Butcher.

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat, dickhead.”

“No trouble?” Charlie asked Rilla. She had told her how to get out of the annex through the kennel and the wire she had cut a hole through earlier. Butcher had walked right into their trap and now he was stuck like a pig.

Rilla shook her head. “Just Tad and Conan wandering around like a pair of hillbillies who sniffed too much glue. They’re heading our way, but we can take care of them. We killed them once; we can do it again.”

Charlie smiled weakly. The game was nearly over. She wanted to rest but she had to see it through to the end. “Cover your ears a second.”

Rilla did as Charlie instructed and then blew on the whistle long and hard. When she was through, the two of them looked down at Butcher.

“Jesus, what is with that? You are off the planet. You’re going to deafen us all with that shit.” Butcher rubbed his temples. The shrill blast from the whistle set his teeth on edge, and he kept picturing Verity with her face burnt away. He imagined Conan lumbering around in the darkness and Tad behind him. He couldn’t understand how it had all gone so wrong. He was angry with Rilla and himself for letting it get this far. He should’ve just killed them all when he had the chance. He waved the meat cleaver in the air. “I’m going to chop the both of you up into little pieces and feed you to my dogs.”

“I don’t think so,” said Rilla. She despised Butcher and everything he stood for. He belonged in the darkness. She was with Charlie now and everything he had done to her could be erased. She didn’t want to dwell on it or remember the horrible things he had done. She just wanted him dead.

Butcher pointed angrily up at the gantry. “You two cunts had better let me out of here right now, or I am going to kill you
both
very slowly, very painfully. You hear me?”

Neither Rilla nor Charlie responded.

“Do you fucking here me?” shouted Butcher, apoplectic with rage. His face had turned red, and the single light bulb above him only heightened how alone he felt. He suddenly realized how vulnerable he was and how he had left the others in the same position. He remembered what he had done to them and what fate awaited him. The dogs were on the other side of the panel, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to control them. They were used to seeing him through a wire cage, and he hadn’t exactly treated them well. He had trained them to kill, and if they came face to face with him, then he suspected that was exactly what they would do. “Let me out of here!”

“The problem is, Butcher, you just ain’t good for nothing. I don’t think we want to let you go,” said Charlie, her hands hovering above the control panel. “I’m going to feed you to the wolves.”

Butcher looked around the room and recalled how he had told her the same thing. He shook his head. “You’re not doing shit. You can’t do nothing to me. I’ll kill the dogs with my bare hands, and then I’m coming to get you.”

“Oh yeah?” Charlie raised her hand above the control panel. “You think?”

“Woah, hold on, hold on,” said Butcher. It couldn’t end like this, not here, not now. He had the cleaver, but the dogs were fast, and he was all alone. “Look, I made this place what it is. You need me. We can run this place together if that’s what you want.” Butcher decided he had to try acting contrite. It didn’t sit well with him, but if he had to beg for his life then he would. He just had to play the part right and could seek his revenge later. “The wall around this place keeps
them
out, you know. You don’t have to do this. All we have to do is keep
them
on the outside, and we stay on this side. There’s no need for all of this.” Butcher attempted a smile, hoping it would appeal to her compassionate side. “You’re safe now. You, too, Rilla. I was just angry before. I was out of my head, you know. It was Conan. He kept pushing me, and I guess I fell for it. Look, we can start over. Okay? Let’s just go back to the house together. What do you say?”

“I say that you’re delusional,” said Rilla.

“No wall can keep you safe forever.” Charlie took Rilla’s hand in hers. It was partly for support and partly because what they were about to do she wanted to do together. She kept talking to Butcher as she moved their hands over the control panel. “Build it as high as you fucking want, but eventually someone will find a way through. I’m proof of that. Walls can fall, you know. They divide us and provide you with a false illusion of safety that means you get complacent. You think you can hide behind these walls forever? You think you can keep
them
out forever? The corpses will get in one day. I got in, didn’t I? And I’m willing to bet there are more like me out there who need help, who need to find a better life; you’re not a part of that world, Butcher. People like you just want more and more to squirrel away what you’ve got just for yourself. Well, that world is over. You’re not the future, Butcher. You’re part of history now.”

Charlie and Rilla fingers depressed a button, and Butcher heard the door unlock. The lights above the panels to the kennels remained red, as did the light above the door to the house. He turned around and saw the green light above the exit.

“Fuck me. So you’re letting me go?” Butcher looked up at Charlie and Rilla. “After all this, you’re just letting me go?”

“Not exactly. I said I was going to feed you to the wolves and that’s exactly what we’re doing.” Charlie looked at Rilla proudly. “We’re giving you every opportunity that you gave us.”

Butcher watched as the exit door opened and a large, dead corpse stepped through. Butcher finally realized then what all the whistling had been about. It had been a siren for the dead. Another corpse came through the open doorway and another one behind that. Butcher saw a zombie wearing a turban, the man’s black beard covered in blood. Another zombie wore a sari that had been ripped apart to expose the hideous rotting flesh beneath. More and more came into the room, women and children, all different shapes and sizes and yet all the same; they were all dead. Butcher looked horrified as the zombies ambled toward him, pressing him back.

“What are you doing? What is this?” Butcher shouted.

Charlie smiled. She stepped back from the controls. “You think we’d let you go? You’re zombiekill.”

Butcher looked around the room, but there was no way out. Everything was locked down tight, and there was no way past the corpses. They kept filing into the room and were almost on him. Butcher ran for the door and began frantically pulling at it, trying to get his fingers around the frame and get the door open. A fingernail broke off but he kept going, desperate to get out. The door to Attwood’s house was locked shut, and no amount of violence would open it.

“You fuckers, open this fucking door. Open it now, you evil fucking witches!”

Charlie leant over the control panel and smiled as Butcher scrambled to get the door open. “Fight or die, Butcher. That’s your only choice now.”

As the first zombie reached him, Butcher swung his cleaver at it, and it lodged itself firmly in the man’s head. The zombie reeled backward and fell down dead but was replaced quickly by another. Butcher tried to throw punches at them, but he was too slow. The dead woman in the sari grabbed his right arm and sank her teeth into his wrist. Blood spurted out vociferously, and Butcher felt one of the dead children grab his crotch. Small teeth began to nip at his upper thigh, and fingers clawed at his legs. A black man with half of his face missing pushed his way forward and began to rip at Butcher’s clothes. Another man, his arms eaten away to just bloody stumps, nestled his head in the crook of Butcher’s neck and began to bite the soft skin. A slim white woman with bright red hair and two pits of maggots where her eyes used to be sank her teeth into his face and pulled off a hunk of meat from his forehead. She swallowed the supple skin quickly and then sank her teeth back into him. Her jaw clamped around his eye socket, and he could feel her teeth ripping out his eyeball. His arms were held in a vice by the others, and there was literally nothing he could do to fight them off.

Butcher screamed as the zombies overwhelmed him. He sank to his knees with teeth and fingers ripping open his skin, tasting his delicate flesh and drinking his warm blood. He wanted to push them back but their numbers were too great. The annex was full of them. They had succeeded in getting in at last, and the faint light was enough for him to see that he couldn’t fight them off. The pain was like nothing he had ever experienced, and he defecated as he realized he was dying. He was slowly being eaten alive, and as an arm was wrenched from its socket, he let out one last bloodcurdling scream.

Smiling, Charlie opened the door that led down to the grounds of Attwood’s property. Rilla joined her in the doorway, the sounds of the dead and dying beneath them. The single bulb gave them a little light and showed them that the corpses of Tad and Conan were still down there, drawn by the whistling.

“Let’s take care of those two,” said Charlie. She touched the pendant hanging around her neck, and the faint echoes of an old song trickled through her mind.

‘
I want to kiss your mouth, hold your hand, and all I feel is the distant wind as you turn your back on me
.’

Rilla nodded. “Then what?”

“I don’t know,” said Charlie honestly. “We could stay here and try to help others? There must be more people out there like us.”

“Or we could run. We could get as far away from this fucking place as possible,” suggested Rilla.

“I’m not going to turn away and forget.”

Rilla looked at Charlie, puzzled.

“It’s something my Mom said once just before she died. She never ran away from anything or anyone. There
are
others out there, Rilla; others who haven’t been given a second chance like you and me. Truth is I hadn’t thought much past getting back here, finding you, and dealing with Butcher. I guess we’ve got time to figure it out. I just know that I need to rest,” said Charlie.

Get Rilla
.

The darkness enveloping Charlie had served her well. It was done. It was finally over. She wiggled a loose tooth at the back of her jaw and pulled her father’s cap down on her aching head. “I need some more painkillers. Then I think I’m going to sleep for at least a week. There’s only one thing I know for sure, Rilla. As long as we’re together, we’ll be okay. From now on it’s you and me.”

“You and me,” said Rilla, grasping Charlie’s hand. “
Forever
.”

“As for the future?” Charlie leant her weary head on Rilla’s shoulder. “I guess we’ll see.”

THE END

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