8
Purgatory
Marcus gave a guttural howl, his bellowing giving voice to all the hatred, fear and anger that was coursing through me. The knife pushed hard and fast into Vince's ribs, digging the flesh and forcing the tall man backwards. He screamed and fell sideways, scrabbling at the sheets as blood started to pump out of the vicious wound in his side.
Marcus pulled himself up to his full height, bearing his teeth wide, snapping them at the two men on the floor who had pulled away from Eliza and were struggling to get to their feet whilst diving for the weaponry spread upon the reception counter. The shock that flashed across their faces was a gleeful fuel to his fury. They started yelling to whatever other torturers were resident in the station, trying to bring all their force to bear upon this new threat.
Vince was reaching for his knife, but Marcus thrust his boot down hard, letting out a quick laugh as the man's fingers crunched under his sole. His red eyes were lit by fire, a furnace casting the room in a blood red light, windows to a hell that these devils deserved, rich with pain that they had so sadistically doled out to others. I watched with a mixture of horror and grim satisfaction as Marcus kicked out at Vince's face, the impact almost flattening the tall man's nose, causing a fresh groan of agony.
Jason and Freddy were now armed though, the bearded man with a sharpened garden fork and the youth with a butcher's cleaver and serrated combat knife. They were trying to circle around from either side, but the reception wasn't quite large enough for this to be effective. Their feet were catching on the sheets, as if the cloth was gaining some sort of minor revenge for the acts that had been perpetrated in its presence. Marcus stepped over Vince to stand in the middle of the men, taunting them to attack. He was still only wielding the small knife, but in his hand it may as well have been a sword. Raw power seemed to flow in his veins. The thick black spikes were reaching out from his face, grasping the air around him, reaching for violence.
It was obvious from their eyes that the two were trying to co-ordinate their attack for the same moment, but they were clearly more used to dealing with helpless prey. As Jason lunged – spittle flying from his bearded mouth as he thrust the garden fork forwards – Freddy stalled, still waving the weapons in front of him but not advancing. This hesitation made Jason pull up a little short, allowing Marcus to twist and grab at the shaft of the fork as it scraped his torso, before bringing his knife around and slashing at Jason's forearm. Jason fell back, stumbling on the cloth and letting go of the fork, clutching at his wrist as blood started to drip from the open wound. Marcus held onto the fork and turned, throwing it like a javelin towards Freddy. It was a sloppy throw, although Marcus' strong point wasn’t finesse but simply pure, unstoppable force. The fork turned in mid air, hitting Freddy across the arms and chest, making him drop the knife as he tried to stop it. Marcus charged forwards while he was off balance, throwing himself bodily at the youth and slamming his back into the reception desk. The blade of the cleaver, still held in Freddy's hand, bit into Marcus' shoulder. The pain of the wound didn't stop him though, as he wrestled his opponent to the floor, before driving his elbow down hard onto Freddy's face, twice, three times, brutally breaking his nose. Every time Marcus connected, the youth's head struck the floor with a crunch. Freddy's hands quickly went limp, dropping the cleaver.
The station was alive with sounds now, yells and calls from various corridors, and although there were still one or two screams audible it was clear that Marcus was now the torturer’s priority.
As Marcus turned from where he was crouched over the crumpled form of Freddy, he saw Eliza grappling with the legs of Jason, as the bearded man tried to kick her off with Vince's knife in his hand. I couldn't do any more than Marcus could so I watched helplessly as Jason landed a blow on Eliza's shoulder, causing her grip to weaken as she yelled in pain. She still held on though, fingers dug into his belt, resilient to the last. Jason started to twist so he was lying on his back, allowing him the chance to cut at her with the kitchen knife. He managed one slice, forcing Eliza to release him, before Marcus was upon him, thrusting the re-acquired garden fork forcefully down into Jason's chest. The shock of the blow stopped Jason dead, his arms twisting as he instinctively grabbed at the weapon, but he had nowhere near enough leverage to pull it out as Marcus used his boot to force it through his chest, cracking his breast bone and rupturing his heart. His breath bubbled in his throat as his eyes rolled back in his head. He convulsed as he died, the stench of his released bowels spreading throughout the room of slaughter.
Marcus let go of the fork as he heard footsteps running down the corridors. Putting a finger to his lips, he told me to be quiet before leaping over the still writhing Vince and ducking to the side of the reception desk, his hand closing around the handle of a vicious and rusty sickle that was resting on the counter. As the footsteps came around the corner I saw the barrel of Arthur's shotgun, held in the hands of a flabby man whose brow was beaded with sweat and whose corpulent, naked, pale body glistened with bright, fresh arterial blood, undoubtedly some poor soul the man had been... dealing with. He waddled past the desk, his spongy legs rubbing with each step, before pausing in momentary shock at the sight of the fork standing in Jason's chest like some sort of violent totem. This moment of hesitation was all the advantage Marcus needed, as he sprung forwards from his hiding place, bringing the sickle down in a deadly arc and all but severing the fat man's right wrist. It hung from the remaining muscle and skin, squirting gouts of blood as his shriek echoed shrilly around the station. He fell backwards, releasing the shotgun as he fell, his throat croaking with sounds I'd never previously heard from a human being. Marcus picked up the shotgun and cracked it open to check it was fully loaded, before setting off down the corridor. I glanced back as I followed him, seeing Eliza still cradling her arm as it bled, but I had no time to help her yet. I had to follow this until its conclusion.
Marcus was raw, violent energy incarnate, moving from corridor to room to corridor, eliminating the plague. Two more, cowering in the fruit of their deeds, died under a hail of lead shot. When the shells were gone, a wild, blood soaked woman leapt from the shadows swinging a replica sword, which broke pathetically against a door frame as she swung it in the confined area. Marcus shattered the assailant’s face with the butt of the shotgun before shoving the remains of the broken sword through its owner's throat.
At last, the only one left was the nondescript man, who now seemed to represent everything that evil was capable of, but had somehow retained his human form. The deeds that he had committed, alluded to by the grisly remains that spilled out of his "workshop", were demonic beyond reason, yet this man had not grown horns and he did not bare cloven hooves. He was simply a man. His deeds were the deeds of a men, deeds that men had done before and may yet do again. This was the most terrifying thing of all.
Marcus swatted the man's attacks aside and knocked him into unconsciousness with one terrible blow, before dragging him to the fire escape door, opening it and throwing him outside, where the dead were still gathered, ready to consume him.
From the blood that was on the man's lips, it was no more than he had done to others...
The station was clear. The deeds were done. Marcus bowed deeply, stepped out of the fire escape and into the dead, closing the door behind him and leaving me to pick up the pieces.
I ran full pelt back towards Eliza, stepping past bodies, blood and sights I would never have imagined in my worst nightmares. I tried to put them all out of my mind and focus on the task at hand. There were three to save; three that must live.
Eliza had hidden behind the desk, in case Marcus had failed in his gruesome crusade. She gave a start when I turned the corner, scrabbling away from me with wide eyes, her hand clutched tightly over the cut on her arm, which was still slowly bleeding.
"Eliza, please, let me look at that wound," I said quickly, crouching down as near to her as I could without appearing aggressive.
"Is he gone?" she asked quietly, looking deep into my eyes with her her lips trembling, probably from adrenalin. I assumed she was talking about Marcus and nodded, before looking around at the shelves under the reception desk. I dug my way through magazines, paperwork, pens and boxes before finding a small first aid kit. I looked to the heavens instinctively, as if to give thanks, before composing myself. Had I believed in God in my days before the island? If I were to give thanks for such small mercies in this sea of violence, should I equally curse him for allowing this house of slaughter to exist? Or had Marcus been meant to cleanse it, an avenging angel with blood stained hands...
I opened the kit and pulled out a few sterile pads, antiseptic wipes and a roll of elastic bandage. Eliza still cradled her afflicted limb, but eventually pain must have overcome any fear and she released it, showing me the extent of the damage. I was careful, methodical and quick. I cleaned the wound, dressed it securely and packed the dressings I didn't use back into the kit to use later if necessary. Eliza was breathing a little more calmly now, though her eyes still followed my every move.
"I'll see to your eye... and cheek... later," I said carefully, not wanting to let her know just yet how aggressively swollen the wounds were. "First I have to get to the cells. There are others..."
She nodded, letting me help her to her feet. I grabbed the sports bag and we picked our way out of the reception and back down the corridors, through the crimson maze that this police station had become. When I spotted them, I broke into a jog, although I pulled up a little as I got closer. My stomach seemed filled with lead, as suddenly each step was a thunderclap, a harbinger of despair.
Arthur lay with his arm outstretched, cradling Dorothy's head. His body heaved with deep breaths that had probably started out as racking sobs, but had expended all their power as the truth of the unchanging nature of the situation had gripped him. He looked up as I approached, his face a true mask of despair, a living legacy to the lost moments, the thousands of days and tens of thousands of hours and millions of minutes and countless seconds that they had spent together and never would again. Dorothy was dead.
I stood there for... I have no idea how long. Time had long ago lost any meaning past the day and night cycle and in these shadowy corridors that simple measurement no longer held any relevance either. Eliza stood with me, her hand resting on my arm, the violence of the past forgotten in the face of this scene of tragedy. Yes, she had been old... older than Arthur by a good few years, from the look of her. Maybe in different circumstances she may not have lived much longer anyway, but it was clear from the expression of absolute, irreconcilable loss shown in Arthur's face that he would have given anything to have those lost moments with her.
I moved forwards, gently reaching over Arthur and feeling Dorothy's brow. It was already cold, indicating she had been dead for at least two hours, probably succumbing to the fever not long after I had left for the pharmacy. The fact that she had not returned from the dead indicated that I had been right, it had simply been an infection. I could have saved her, but after all of my efforts it had all been for nothing. There was nothing I could say now. I didn't want any words to fill this stillness, which was punctuated only with Arthur's ragged breathing.
We needed to leave. This place was secure, but it was a coffin, a microcosm of Hell within purgatory. I glanced at Eliza and indicated with my eyes for her to follow me. Dorothy was gone, but I had seen other shapes in the cells as I had first been led out, so maybe there were others.
The first cell I checked was empty, stained with patches of blood. Eliza sucked her breath in as we moved closer to it, a shiver running through her body.
"That's where they kept me. I can't believe it was only... it must have only been a day or two, but every hour, someone came, and..."
She shook her head, pursing her lips. She stood staring at the room, her eyes narrowed. I didn't want to know what she was remembering.
"I always fought back," she said firmly.
"I have no doubt about that," I said, gently pulling her away from the cell. I didn't want her to dwell on the past, not when it was so raw.
The other cell still contained two shadows, huddled in opposite corners against the far wall. The door was locked, but the keys were nearby, bunched on a keyring and resting on a chair for easy access should any of the maniacs have wanted entertainment. I unlocked the door pensively, not being able to really see any details of the two within. Eliza was equally careful, walking behind me and holding her injured arm to her chest. The room reeked, a disgusting mixture of different smells – sweat, waste and rot combining to fill me with nausea.
It soon became clear that the person on the left of the room was dead. It had been a woman with long black hair, aquiline cheekbones and slender limbs, twisted in a heap on the floor. It was hard to discern her age as she had been beaten beyond the physical limits of her body and left to rot. In some ways it was stranger to see a corpse that had no signs of movement, no hunger for my flesh. Her eyes were closed, that was the key difference. There was no gazing around, blindly searching for something. There was a sense of peace.
The other body was also relatively still, but as I moved closer I could see colour in the skin. It was a young girl, around eight or nine from the size of her, huddled with her arms around her knees. Her hair was the same shade of black, but shorter, stuck together in ragged tufts as if it had been crudely cut. Her fingers were bloody, one or two of them looking severely bruised if not broken, clutched feebly around her bony shins. She was only wearing shorts and with her shoulders hunched I could see ugly welts from lashings that she had endured at the hands of her captors. There was no way of knowing how many other injuries of different kinds she had suffered during her time here. Her breathing was almost silent and I could tell from the slight tremor in her torso that she was staying quiet out of fear, pain, or both. I knelt down next to her, trying not to scare her, though from the way she tried to squeeze herself further into the corner it was clear my actions had the opposite effect.
"Don't worry," I said gently, trying to sound as non-threatening as I could. I wanted to tell her the worst was over, but there was no way I could promise such a thing, not in this world. I settled for some generic platitudes, hoping their familiarity would breed some sort of comfort. "You're safe now."
The girl didn't move, but I didn't blame her. A morbid suspicion was crawling into my mind, with Cato creeping out of my collar and voicing it, low and reedy into my ear.
"Look at her hair, then look at the rot sack in the opposite corner. Very similar, no? Can you imagine sitting here as your mother lies dead across from you for... how long? Come on, you're the doctor, how long?"
"Three days at least," I said quietly, my soul cold.
"Three days, yes," continued Cato. "All of that time you were helpless, too small, too young to help her, to save the one person you have left. Clearly we can now be sure that this infection is definitely not airborne, otherwise she would have risen. No, it must surely be spread by bite, or scratch... interesting. A worthy sacrifice, to give us this information..."
I snapped, reaching up quickly and grabbing the little man, holding him up in front of my face. My mouth trembled and my eyes quivered with unconcealed disgust at this maggot, this worm who looked at the world with such a sickeningly detached view. His features sickened me - his beady eyes, his withered countenance, his hands that grasped and clung like a demented child. He seemed to be bleeding from the shoulder, but I had no sympathy for any wound he may have suffered. I pushed him between my two palms, feeling his little bones twist and snap, crushing him with every ounce of strength I had. Soon I couldn't even feel him squirm any more. I opened my hands to find nothing, but still I felt the need to wipe them on my trousers, to rid myself of his unnerving nature.
Eliza crouched down next to me. I hoped she hadn't seen my frenzied movements. If she had, she didn't give any indication, focussing solely on the girl in front of us. She reached out tentatively and placed her hand on one of her thin shoulders, simply holding it there for a few moments. It seemed like an age had gone by when finally her patience was repaid and the girl raised her head slightly, looking at us over her forearms with eyes that had seen far too much. I reached out a hand, following Eliza's patient lead. After a couple of minutes, she carefully unfolded her filthy arms. This simple action seemed to be some sort of tipping point, as she suddenly leapt, throwing her arms around my neck and releasing a howl that was laced with days of torture, horror and sorrow.
This moment of salvation and relief was a lone light in the darkness, for when we searched for other survivors there was little to be found except the dead, the dying, and in one or two cases those who begged for death, for a release from the amount of pain they were suffering. Amputations, experimentation, torture, it was as if everything that humanity had accomplished in the past, bringing civilisation to the heights it had been at before the plague, had also twisted and skewed the value of life, reducing it to a commodity, another thing to consume and be consumed. It was not animalistic, it was worse than that, it was human.
We had no way to save them, no surgery tools, and no way to halt their slow death, so I had to administer the rest of the methadone, helping them on their way as gently as I could. The house of murder, after weeks of screaming, fell into silence.
"Where are we going to go?" asked Eliza, sitting against the wall by the fire exit. I was just finishing cleaning the wounds on her cheek and eye, being as gentle as I could. I carefully taped a couple of sterile pads over the worst affected areas and gave myself a nod of satisfaction at my work. There was precious little to celebrate, so I had to make the most of any victory, no matter how small.
"Lets just drive," I said, closing up the bag of medicine, ready for the onward journey. "Anywhere is better than here."
The girl was sat silently, still sobbing slightly but otherwise healthy, as good as she could be under the circumstances. The wounds on her back were painful but didn't seem to be infected and would heal with only minimal scarring as far as I could tell. It was Arthur I worried about the most, as he seemed to have given up, simply staring at the opposite wall whilst flexing the fingers on his broken arm. I could see him wince from time to time at the pain of his actions, but perhaps he simply wanted to feel something else, even pain, anything apart from the sense of loss.
I could feel the map pressing against my leg in the hip pocket of my trousers, but I tried to ignore it as best I could. There was no way I was following the path that Perdita had laid out for me in her childish scrawl. That way lay doom, I was sure of it. We needed to simply get into the car and get out of town, find somewhere safe, somewhere supplied, so we could wait this out. How long could a body last before the elements decomposed it entirely? Even with winter coming – which would slow the process – surely in less than a year the last of the dead would be gone, assuming there were no more fresh infections. With so few people around the infection rate must have dropped dramatically. It was a glimmer of hope.
Eliza and I had carefully carried both bodies – Dorothy's and the girl’s mother's – to the exit, before finding some clean sheets amongst the horrific bedclothes. We wrapped them tightly, being as respectful as we could with Dorothy in case Arthur looked over at us, but he never did. He was lost. The girl was admirably strong of spirit, even helping us to wrap her mother, though she still hadn't said a word.
Eliza had a look in her eye, as if she desperately wanted to discuss something but present company prevented her. I made a note to ask her when we were alone. I had had enough of trying to avoid issues, they only bred new issues, multiplying in the shadows before emerging worse than ever. We needed to clear the air.
She stood up, flexing her arms a little in readiness for the impending escape. She looked at my shoulder, her eyes showing a little concern.
"Don't you want to do something about that cut? It might get infected..."
I looked over, seeing the patch of blood that had spread into the necrosis covered jumper from just below the shoulder joint. It started hurting immediately, as if reacting to my eyes. I winced and nodded, as Eliza helped me painfully remove my clothes.
It was a deep knife wound, very fresh, needing a lot of stitches. (You know.)
I had no idea when I had suffered it, but I suppose that didn't matter. (It matters. You know why.)
There was no thread in the small first aid kid and I had no desire to scour the station again, but I had seen some super glue under the reception desk, so I decided to go and get it to seal the wound. (You...)
I felt an itching inside my head, as if a spider were crawling around inside my temples. I rubbed my face quickly in some manic urge to pull myself back into concentration, back into the moment. I couldn't think about it. (About what?)
I couldn't.
I left Eliza, walking back into the reception. The grisly scene had lost none of its monstrosity in the time we had been away and I had no wish to dwell there, quickly grabbing the super glue and making to leave, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.
Vince was still there, still writhing, just barely alive. His sharp features were pale from blood loss, but his eyes were watching me, displaying nothing but stone cold hatred. I fixed my eyes on his gaze, unwilling to turn away, unwilling to let him win even this. It was all so... unnecessary.
“Why?” I asked, walking forwards until I was stood over him, looking down on a man that had once been so tall. His hands were contorted, all the blood draining from his limbs, restricting him, pulling him into himself, down into his own slow death. “Why did you choose all this? It's all gone out there, dead. At the very least, this was a chance for something new, but you chose this. You chose it. This...”
I gave up. He could say nothing in reply, his lips drawing inwards painfully with each fitful breath. The knife wound gaped in his side, made by the knife from Eliza’s shop - the catalyst for our escape. So small. So terrible.
I turned to go and my boot tapped gently against something, an object that had fallen out of the bag as I had scrambled for the methadone, so full of terror in the face of this man that now was so small, so pitiful. I bent down and picked the lollipop, before placing it into the man's twisted fingers.
“I hope it was worth it.”
Eliza helped me clean the wound, following my instructions carefully, before sealing it with the glue. It was a temporary measure, painful and messy but necessary. When my arm was ready, we prepared ourselves to move. I had only put the check shirt back on, deciding to leave the stinking sweater to rot with the rest of the bodies in the police station. The girl, who when I had been gone had revealed her name to be Juliet, was helping Arthur to his feet. He was clearly in no hurry to leave but he had no aggression towards the girl and was content enough to follow her lead.
I was quite loaded down, carrying the sports bag full of pharmaceuticals and now the shotgun, with the few remaining shells taken from Arthur’s pockets during our incarceration, which I had found in one of the torture chambers. I was also trying to carry Dorothy's feet... there was no way we were leaving her behind, not here, not after what had happened. (What had happened?) We also needed to take a second trip to the car with Juliet's mother's body into account, which would surely be a stretch even with a small number of dead outside. We needed to do some reconnaissance before we went any further.
Eliza took a deep breath and pushed the fire door handle down, the scent of death wafting in as she carefully opened it, just a notch. She put her eye to the gap and scanned the slice of alleyway that was visible to her, before closing it again. Her face had drained of all colour.
“There's so many of them, eating. They're eating... I don't know... I don't know who...”
I knew, I remembered the sight as Marcus had hurled the cannibalistic man outside, helpless into the hands of the waiting corpses. There had been so many stumbling throughout the alleyway. I had hoped they would have dispersed by now but it seemed they had stayed for the feast. Even after simply cracking the door open a little, one or two must have seen Eliza and were already slamming their fists against the fire exit. It was a strong, thick fire door but it wouldn't last forever against the weight and force of the amount of dead in the alleyway. We needed a new escape route.
The station was all on the one sprawling floor, so we had no choice of escaping out of a second floor window. The front entrance was still barricaded, an obstacle we could conceivably remove but it didn't come out very far from the gathering in the alleyway and I wasn't confident we could be in the car and away in time.
There had been a driveway on the right hand side of the station, near to where I had parked the Morris Minor. We found the entrance that led out to it near to the cells. It had also been barricaded, hidden behind a stack of chairs, which is why we hadn't spotted it before. There was a locker room and storage area just off the corridor next to it, the windows of which were also boarded up but still had one or two gaps wide enough to look out of. Squinting through I could just make out that the back door led out into a small private car park serving the station. There was only one police car left, both of its front doors lying open, its white, blue and fluorescent yellow stained red with blood from some moment of carnage. There were one or two of the dead still roaming this area, one even wearing a black police uniform, with his police earpiece hanging from a wire and dragging behind him like a limp and lifeless tail. They were moving around at the far end of the car park so would hopefully be no problem to circumnavigate. Confident that we would soon be away and in the clear, I turned away from the window and happened to glance at a noticeboard on one of the walls next to a row of lockers. It was a station hierarchy. As I moved closer, I recognised two of the faces and breathed in sharply with alarm.
The superintendent had been a woman named Hannah Read, probably mid to late thirties judging by the photograph. The expression on her face was one of calm austerity, very different to when I had last seen her, battered to death, swelling with the gases of necrosis as we had sewn up the sheet over her face. There was simply no mistaking the dark long hair and high cheekbones. It was strange to see this picture of her, so full of life, almost regal, when now she was decomposing by the second, breaking down to her component parts. Which part contained such poise, such authority? Did it evaporate? Was this woman's soul located somewhere there, within the bones and tendons?
The other picture left me with such a raw feeling of disgust that I wanted to spit it out, to charge back to the reception area, grab the garden fork and destroy this man's body as he had been a party to Hannah's destruction. Sergeant Vincent Thomas. Even in the past – when he was bound by rules and regulations that he must have simply followed but never cared for – his face carried the air of one who felt the world owed him a favour. Had he revelled in the use of force he could legally bring down upon those breaking the law? Had he used his knowledge of laws and detection to commit foul deeds even before this apocalyptic situation had developed? Or had it simply been chance that had brought this violent, inhumane side out of him? There was no way of knowing. Maybe he had resented Hannah's authority or maybe he had desired her from afar, succumbing to his urges when the world had changed forever and he had no longer bound by anything except a self imposed moral code which he found all too easy to disregard. Maybe he had simply given up hope of a better future for mankind, becoming as hellish as the creatures that surrounded the station.
Such thoughts were pointless and futile questions that would never be answered. I pulled the photograph of Hannah from the wall, before carefully placing it in a side pocket of the sports bag. Eliza joined me, having pulled the two bodies to the back door with the help of Juliet.
“Will you give us a hand with these chairs?” she asked, looking towards the barricade.
“Yes, of course,” I said, zipping up the pocket and standing up. I looked around at the lockers and noticed that about half of them had been levered open with a crowbar at some point, probably by Jason.
“Actually, if you could start and I'll join you in a couple of minutes, I want to change into some of this gear,” I said. “I’m sick of the smell of these clothes. When I’m dressed I can go and get the car and back it up to the door, so we can load it here. It'll be quicker than making two trips carrying the bodies and I might be able to do it without any of them getting a whiff of me.”
She nodded and went back into the corridor, asking Juliet to help instead. I watched them for a few seconds, seeing Juliet's brow crease with determination and effort as she lifted the chairs aside and carried them out of the way. Eliza was involving her as much as she could, which could only be a good thing. The young girl had been dwelling on events long enough in that cell. I wondered when she had last eaten as she looked painfully thin, her small ribs visible under her muscles as she moved. The sooner we got to the supplies in the car, the better. We hadn't found any food in the offices, although we hadn't had the stomach to search everywhere.
I changed into a black uniform made up of trousers, a short sleeved shirt and a clean pair of socks. I felt surprisingly better simply for the feeling of the ironed cloth on my body. I pulled the photograph of Isaac out of my old trouser pocket and slipped it into the new one, before starting to pull out the map. Caught by a sudden impulse I decided instead to push it back down, deeper into the clothes I was leaving behind. It was time to make my own way.
I looked in another locker and found a small shirt, maybe a women's size, which I handed to Juliet. She took it tentatively, before slipping it on and buttoning it up in that focussed methodical manner that children possess. It was too big for her, hanging low off her shoulders, yet she seemed more comfortable now she was wearing it, moving the chairs with a little more fervour.
There was a large bag in the bottom of one of the lockers, black with white writing. I pulled it out and unzipped it. The contents brought a tiny smile to the corner of my mouth. Perhaps our luck was changing.
Inside there was a full set of what looked like armour – a bulky vest, shoulder guards, knee guards, a helmet with a neck guard and visor – along with a transparent round shield, truncheon and even a small extendible baton, though how much use that was against the dead remained to be seen. The truncheon would be relatively helpful in a tight spot but it was the shield that was a godsend, allowing me charge at any obstructing corpses without fear of being bitten by their hungry jaws, as long as I pushed them away hard enough. As I started to put on all the various pieces of armour, carefully trying to work out how to assemble it over the blue jumpsuit that I had also found in the kitbag, my mind started to drift back to a time I had previously never remembered... a time of huddling small under the covers of a bed, safe and warm as if in a cocoon, whilst a voice filtered through, recounting tales of heroes on horseback, swords and monsters, the good against the unjust, chivalry and honour... ideals that seemed all the more childish in my current circumstances. Was Marcus any better than those he had killed with such wicked glee? There was no purity left in this world, as if a blanket of ash had fallen, turning all colours to variations of grey, which changed and shifted in the shadows until you lost track of which grey was even the lightest. The only thing to do was to continue.
“I'm ready,” I said eventually, testing the range of movement my arms had in the armour, which was surprisingly light and made of a flexible but tough material. Eliza inspected me closely, tugging and adjusting bits here and there. I felt as if this were the first day of school...
I blinked a few times as another memory grasped my mind, forcing itself to be recounted. My blue satchel, grey and red lunch box, the wet gravel path, the wall thick with moss and ivy. The salute to the camera, proud in the face of the unknown. Clearly something was drawing my memories out. They weren't gone... they were all there, treasures in a catacomb ready to be discovered.
(Bring them all to the surface, like bodies pulled from a lake.)
Focus. I had to focus. Eliza's voice cut through the memory, pulling it away like curtains before the show, the grand finale. The escape had begun.
“Very good. We may just make it out of here alive. Come on, I'll let you out.”
Eliza turned the lock, before pausing with her hand on the door handle. She looked at me with a mix of concern and warning, making sure that I was in no doubt just how much importance was resting on my efforts. I pulled the visor down and held the shield in my left hand, the shoulder of which was throbbing painfully, though the pain was easy to push through with the amount of adrenalin that had started to course through me.
“I'll be waiting here for your knock. Be careful,” she said softly, before pushing the door open.
The light outside was starting to dim as the world crept towards night, giving a halo of shadows to the corpses that were staggering aimlessly around the far end of the car park. It also gave them an extra dimension, potentially an advantage as it was now clear most of them used sense other than sight to find their prey. I had to be alert. Even though I was wearing clean clothes, I was aware of the odour of my own sweat as it beaded and slid down my face. Was this what drew them? Stop musing and start moving, I told myself in the same chiding tones that Marcus used so frequently. I ignored the dead at the end of the car park and pushed my legs into action in a tentative half jogging motion, trying to make every step as quiet as possible whilst still moving with some sort of speed.
I turned the corner of the station onto the small driveway. There was only one corpse obstructing me but it was in the centre of the road, between the red brick wall of the police station and a low wall overlooking a passageway that ran around the back of the shop next door. It was facing me and as I drew closer it raised its arms, slowly and surely, in that strange salute of desire, that warning sign that they all were honourable enough to give before lunging towards the living. Its cloudy eyes were swivelling wildly, its thin face becoming even less human in the lessening light. It was as good a time as any to test the shield, so I pulled it into my chest, hoping for my body to take the initial impact away from my shoulder.
I struck the corpse hard while it was in mid step, easily throwing it off balance as it tumbled away from me. It struck the low wall as it span, tearing the flesh of its stomach under its ragged shirt and spilling black liquid alive with maggots. I followed up quickly, bringing my heel down hard on the corpse's head. The impact was enough to crack the skull and splash what remained of a brain out onto the tarmac, however the force I put into my kick threw me a little off balance, as my other foot slipped on the gelatinous remains of the stomach. I fell loudly, the shield clattering against the wall. My shoulder screamed at me but I gritted my teeth, pushed myself back to my feet and moved onwards. No matter how much I tried I was never as smooth and never as assured as Marcus when putting the dead down. Somehow embarrassment burned in my cheeks as I jogged towards the high street, as if he were watching my efforts, laughing at my hesitation and my second guessing. Perhaps he was, as the shadows were lengthening, creating many dark corners for the demon-man to hide in. I could almost see his red eyes burning from every doorway, every window, watching me clumsily continue in my fruitless effort to be a hero.
The street was alive with dark shapes, as if the dead were being drawn out into the blackness of night by something. Perhaps those who still possessed sight saw the faintest movement of the other dead across the street and made for it, only realising as they drew closer that it was simply another member of their own new, decomposing race. At a basic level, there were still so many similarities to us. Weren't we all simply a set of systems breaking down over time before something vital eventually gave out, bringing it all to a halt?
I was sure I had parked the car near to the station but when I spotted it to my left the distance seemed huge, filled with the milling bodies of the dead. It was at least twenty yards away, with five or six shops standing between me and our salvation. My heart sank, panic rising as I ducked back behind the low wall, cherishing this small moment when I was unseen and unheard, hiding in the wings before my performance, preparing to go out, centre stage.
(Do you want his help?)
No. This was my duty. I couldn't hesitate. I needed to think, to use the one advantage I had – my mind – and the ability to predict outcomes, the ability to analyse.
The shop to my left was a toy shop judging from the stock that had spilled out into the street. It seemed people had even needed toys as they scrambled to escape, perhaps to keep their children quiet. A crying child would obviously draw unneeded attention. I didn't want to think about the possibility that some had chosen the other option, leaving their child behind to ensure their own survival...
I pushed myself over the wall and picked my way quietly past the window and into the doorway. The nearest dead were only a few metres away but they hadn't spotted me, not yet. Inside the shop the darkness gathered, casting twisted shadows on the scattered remains of board games, jigsaws, dolls, figures and books. I had to be quick, as I couldn't be sure that the building was clear. The shop stretched back beyond the spread of light from the windows, rows and rows of items that may never see their purpose fulfilled. Would there ever be a child again? It would be hard to justify bringing a new life into a world that had become such a shadow of its former self, a tangle of terror, disgust and the worst that humanity had to offer.
I skirted around the mangled front display of the shop and found what I was looking for, the pre-school section. Rifling though the half open boxes and broken plastic I finally found something useful. It was a toy red bus, about a foot long and covered with various buttons in the shape of numbers and letters, made of the strong sturdy plastic necessary for a toy that would be played with by heavy handed toddlers. Thankfully the toy shop had sold batteries too and even though the display had been emptied by the panicking looters, I found an unopened packet amongst the mess of cardboard and broken toys on the floor. When I had put them into the battery compartment, the bus lit up with multicoloured lights that illuminated the face of the corpse that was now only ten feet away, having crawled through the toys to get to me, its legs a mass of bones and half eaten tendons. I hadn't heard it over the noise of my own scrabbling in the shop's contents. Now it was upon me, its teeth and festering tongue making nauseating retching noises as it slid towards me, leaving a trail of brown fluid in its wake.
I turned to run but after a momentary rush of panic, I stopped, holding the bus in one had as the lights of the toy winked on and off, ready to carry out the task I had in mind. The creature, though rotting and hideous... was small. Its arms were able to pull along the remains of its shattered body but only just. It was now closer but was struggling to get over a mass of fallen dolls, scattering the small plastic bodies with each laboured sweep of its battered and broken fingers. It was a child, smaller even than the one I had seen at the farm, perhaps no more than four. It was trapped here, crawling forever in a dark and silent toy shop, so weak, so young.
My chest shuddered as I gasped, a sob moving through my whole body, a raw sound of absolute sorrow. It was not just for the child, it was for everyone, a pitiful salute to the dead, no more useful than all the words I could use to express it. It meant nothing to those who had gone but still I gave it, my body unable to resist the force as my soul screamed.
Grunting with effort, I lifted the nearby till over my head before driving it down hard, giving the child the only gift I could, rest, amidst a shower of coins, plastic and metal.
The sound of the crashing till had piqued the interest of a few of the closer dead but I was ready to put my plan into effect and needed no more time. I pressed a few of the buttons on the side of the bus, mashing them with my palm as tears ran down my face, before hurling it low and hard across the road with all my strength. It clattered across the pavement on the far side, coming to rest at the feet of three corpses and lighting up their greenish skin with blues and reds as it loudly called out the names of various letters of the alphabet, farmyard animals, and numbers. The effect was almost instantaneous. The closest corpse to it bent down awkwardly and closed its dead fingers around the middle of the plastic toy, pressing more buttons as it lifted it in front of its face to bring its dead eyes to bare on this curiosity. Even in the encroaching darkness I could see all the nearby shapes hurrying as fast as their dead bodies would allow towards this new and interesting spectacle. In a few moments the street had started to clear, as the dead had clustered so deeply around the toy that I couldn't even see the lights any more.
I stayed low and watchful as I headed up the street towards the car, ever mindful that the hordes of corpses always had stragglers, although in this case it seemed as if I was lucky, reaching the car with no issues. I unlocked it carefully and slid into the driver's seat, tossing my shield into the floor of the passenger seat. I released the handbrake and opened the door a little, jumping out for a second to push the car into a rolling start before getting back in. It started to pick up pace, rolling down the street towards the police station. I turned the wheel quickly, letting it roll into the driveway, where the momentum carried it a little further, just far enough so that it rolled into the car park. I managed to turn it towards the back entrance but there wasn't enough momentum to take it past the doorway, as I slowly came to a halt about fifteen feet away.
I opened the car door and slid out quietly, keeping an eye on the shapes at the far corner of the car park. So far they hadn't approached, as the low crackling sound of tires on tarmac hadn't been loud enough to attract them. I slid along the back wall slowly, hugging the brickwork before getting to the door and rapping it cautiously with my knuckles.
There was no answer. I waited a few moments before trying again. Still no answer. The only sound was the continuing howls of the dead, rolling from wall to wall, covering the town in a blanket of cries that mirrored the silent scream of foreboding that began to fill my mind. Something had gone very wrong.