NINE
Deep breaths, Andy told himself. In and out. That's it. . . that's it. . .
Little by little he forced himself to calm down. He loosened his death-grip on the steering wheel and eased his foot off the accelerator. Twice since leaving the hospital car park, he had almost lost control of the car. How ironic it would be to evade the marauding undead only to plough head first into a lamp post or bus shelter.
Beside him, slumped in the passenger seat, Dawn was now deeply unconscious. For a moment Andy envied her. How nice it would be to sleep through this nightmare, wake up when it was over.
That's if she ever does wake up, a little voice whispered in his head. There was no denying that she now looked desperately ill – her flesh lard-white and clammy-looking; her lips almost purple; her eyes sunk deep in bruised sockets.
Andy's priority remained the same: to get her some medical attention – but from where? What if the zombies had isolated all the hospitals? Bearing that in mind, his best bet was probably to head back to the station, get the doc there to take a look at her. It wasn't ideal – the medical equipment there was limited – but at least it was a plan, something to work towards.
Feeling more purposeful, he looked around, trying to work out the quickest route – just as a figure hobbled out from behind a white van parked at the side of the road, and stepped directly into his path.
On the surface, the figure appeared to be an attractive young female, wearing a tight, sparkly top and a short skirt. However, she was in such a state that Andy's first assumption was that she was yet another of the walking dead. Her blonde hair was in ratty disarray and she was limping so badly she was all but dragging her left leg behind her. Andy clenched his jaw, deciding in a split second that he would swerve around her if he could, but that he would not be averse to smashing her out of the way if she left him with no alternative.
Then, in the headlights, he saw her eyes widen, the stark – and very human – look of terror on her face, and suddenly he was stamping on the brakes and twisting the wheel in a desperate attempt to avoid running her down.
Although it happened almost too quickly to think about, he couldn't help experiencing a weird sense of déjà vu as the car slewed to the left, tyres screeching. The girl flashed by on his right – a pale, almost wraith-like form. The main obstacle directly in front of Andy now, across a pavement edged by a high kerb, was a street-length wall punctuated by a variety of garden gates. He wrenched the wheel to the right, though not quickly enough to prevent the passenger-side wheels scraping against the kerb with enough of an impact to cause his teeth to clash painfully together. For a weird moment the car seemed to lean to the right, and then it came to a halt in the middle of the road. The engine stalled, and suddenly the world was eerily silent. Deciding that this was most definitely the most stressful night of his career, if not his life, Andy slumped in his seat and released a long, shuddering breath.
It was like a deadly game of hide-and-seek, Gwen thought – she and Rhys sneaking through the streets of Cardiff, peering around corners, scuttling from one piece of cover to the next. They were trying to get from their previous location south of Butetown up to central police headquarters north of the Millennium Stadium. It was no more than a brisk half-hour's walk on a normal day, but present circumstances had transformed the journey into a major expedition across a treacherous war zone. Zombies were everywhere – disorganised and slow-moving, but potentially lethal due to their sheer numbers. Now and again, Gwen and Rhys happened upon grim reminders of just how dangerous the creatures could be. So far they had found four partially eaten bodies and one eviscerated dog.
Seeing the first body lying in the street, its guts strewn about like litter, Rhys had thrown up – and then had immediately apologised for being a wuss.
'There's nothing wrong with puking, Rhys. It just shows you're human,' Gwen assured him.
'That's not what you say when I've got my head in the bog the morning after I've had a skinful,' he joked weakly.
They had managed to make it across the River Taff and along Penarth Road, heading towards St Mary Street without serious mishap. However, when Gwen rounded a corner not far from Callaghan Square, she immediately jumped back into the shadows.
Rhys was behind her, gripping his golf club. 'What is it?' he hissed.
'Zombies. Lots of them.'
'Let's have a look.'
'A quick one then. But be careful.'
He raised an eyebrow. 'I'm hardly going to jump out and wave to them, am I?'
Gwen smiled an apology. She was aware she was often overprotective of Rhys, even treated him like a child on occasion, but that was only because he hadn't had the same number of life-threatening experiences as she had, and was therefore more likely to make mistakes. She flattened herself against the wall as he edged past her and peered around the corner. He ducked back again after a few seconds.
'How we gonna get past that lot?' he said.
Before Gwen could respond, there was the tinkling crash of glass, followed instantly by a scream – though of fear rather than agony.
Instantly she was up on her toes. 'There must be people in that café. We've got to help them.'
'How?' asked Rhys.
Gwen peeked around the corner again. Perhaps the sheer number of zombies milling around the café entrance should have alerted her to the fact that there were people inside, but she hadn't been able to see beyond the crush of shuffling bodies. Even the lights of the largely glass-fronted café were off, which she realised either meant they had been damaged whilst the undead had been seeking a way into the building, or they had been deliberately extinguished by the café's occupants in the hope of fooling the creatures into thinking the place was empty. 'Maybe we can get in round the back.'
Rhys looked doubtful. 'If we can get in, what's to stop the people in there getting out?'
She looked at him, unable to answer, but knowing that she couldn't just walk away from this, that she had to help in whichever way she could. In the end she simply shrugged. 'I don't know, Rhys. But let's have a look, shall we? I mean, anything we can do. . .'
He nodded resignedly, and she realised that he felt the same way. 'Come on then.'
On an impulse she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and kissed him hard on the lips.
'What's that then?' he asked. 'Last kiss before going into battle?'
She shuddered. 'Don't say "last". Don't even think it.' She took another quick look around the corner, assessing the lie of the land.
'I'll go first,' she said. 'I'll turn sharp left and head for that red Citro?n. Soon as I get there, you follow me. I'll cover you in case you get spotted, but keep alert, Rhys. Don't let them catch you by surprise.'
He nodded, and she kissed him briefly again. 'I love you,' she said.
'Love you too,' he said. 'Good luck.'
Gwen took another glance at the zombies, all of which still seemed to be focused on the café, then slipped around the corner like a shadow and ran in a half-crouch to the Citro?n she had pointed out to Rhys. As soon as she had dropped out of sight behind the vehicle, Rhys followed her. Behind him there was another crash of glass, another scream. Then he heard a man shout, 'Get back!' Next second he was dropping down on to his haunches beside Gwen.
'They're getting in,' she said. 'We'll have to hurry.' She pointed to her left. 'Bus shelter next, OK? Same procedure as before.'
Again, Rhys gave a brief nod, and Gwen was off, silent and fleet-footed. In this way, moving swiftly but carefully from one bit of cover to the next, they circled around the thirty or so zombies clustered around the front of the café, and round to the alley at the back of the row of shops.
The alley was narrow, little more than a badly lit aisle, barely wide enough for a single car. It was flanked on both sides by the back entrances to parallel rows of retail units. Here were the emergency exits, the tradesmen's entrances, the discarded boxes and the industrial steel bins stinking of rubbish. It was an area of dark shadows and potential hiding places.
'We'll be like sitting ducks in here,' Rhys hissed, sneaking into the alley behind Gwen.
'The sooner we get this done the better, then,' Gwen replied.
Their shadows shrank and lengthened as they moved from one caged orange light to the next. Rhys gripped his golf club in both hands, head turning from left to right, heart constantly lurching as his overactive imagination showed him zombies everywhere – watching from windows, standing in alcoves, emerging from dark places where the light couldn't reach. In front of him, Gwen was swinging her gun from side to side, pointing it into every potential hiding place. They could still hear the commotion from the street – the wordless moans of the undead, the dull thumps and bangs as they tried to gain access to the café, the occasional shouts of the people inside. The sounds were faint at first, but became gradually louder as Gwen and Rhys crept further along the alley. This at least helped them to identify which building they were aiming for. From the back they all looked the same.
When they were a couple of metres from the arch in the high brick wall which led into the café's backyard, Gwen halted and raised a hand.
'What is it?' hissed Rhys.
'I thought I saw something move.'
'What sort of something?'
'I don't know. A shadow.' She smiled nervously. 'Course, I may have imagined it.'
Pumpkin-orange light bathed the wall, but this only made the darkness beyond the arch all the more impenetrable. Indeed, the blackness was so dense that it seemed almost solid. Gwen and Rhys stood motionless on the far side of the alley for a good thirty seconds, both of them holding their breath, their eyes trained on the narrow black entrance. They half-expected something to emerge from it, but nothing did. At last Gwen gestured with her gun and whispered, 'I'm going in.'
She crossed the alley, flattened her back against the wall and edged towards the arch, leading with her gun. Rhys watched, licking his dry lips to moisten them. Gwen was almost at the gap when a white hand snaked over the wall above her and grabbed a fistful of her thick black hair.
She yelled in pain, involuntarily rising onto her toes as the hand tightened into a fist and yanked upwards. Rhys ran across the alley, raised the club and brought it smashing down on the bony wrist. To his surprise there was a howl of pain from the other side of the wall and the hand loosened its grip, allowing Gwen to tear herself free. Without thinking, Rhys ran through the gap in the wall, and into the darkness of the café's backyard, drawing back the golf club for another blow.
The instant he moved out of the light, he knew he'd made a mistake. He blinked wildly, his head jerking as he looked around, but he might as well have been wearing a blindfold. He didn't need to hear Gwen hissing his name in fear and exasperation to know how stupid he'd been. He decided to focus on the patch of blackness where he guessed the owner of the hand must be, and eventually his vision cleared enough for him to be able to make out the long white face of a man cowering in the corner of the yard.
The man was keening like an animal, cradling his injured wrist. In the darkness he resembled a giant spindly insect, all bony knees and elbows. Rhys could smell rotting food from the bins, and now that he was in the yard he realised that someone was banging frantically on what sounded like a metal door over to his left. He sensed movement behind him, and whirled round, heart racing. But it was only Gwen, running across to the place where the thumping was coming from.
'Rhys,' she shouted, 'help me move these bins.'
Rhys peered across the yard at her shadowy figure, and saw what she was doing. She was struggling to move one of two stainless-steel bins, both of which were taller than she was, from in front of a metal fire door. He ran across to help, but as soon as he put his weight behind the bin and started to push, the spindly man struggled to his feet. 'No!' he cried. 'You mustn't!'
Gwen glanced over at the man. 'There's people trapped in there,' she said. 'Can't you hear them? We've got to get them out.'
Upright now, the man stumbled towards them, stretching out his uninjured hand. With his long black coat and thin white face, he looked like a phantom, Rhys thought; like Jacob Marley or something.
'If you let them out, they'll get us,' the spindly man wailed. 'Those dead things. They'll find out we're here.'
Teeth clenched, still struggling with the bin, Gwen muttered, 'If we don't get these people out, those dead things will get them.'
The man was shaking his head in frustration. Long stringy hair flapped around his face like rat's tails. 'But don't you see?' he whined in frustration. 'That's what's meant to happen. If the dead things get them, they won't get us. That's my plan.'
Rhys scowled, suddenly realising what the man was saying. 'You mean you put these bins here? To stop these people getting out?'
The man tilted his head to one side. Rhys wasn't sure in the gloom, but he thought the man was baring his teeth in a wheedling smile.
'Survival of the fittest,' he whined. 'Law of the jungle. Dog eat dog.'
Gwen's voice was low and dangerous. Rhys glanced at her and realised she was pointing her gun at the man. 'You sit down and shut up,' she muttered, 'or I swear to God I'll shoot you here and now.'
For a moment the man remained where he was, hand still outstretched, as though stunned into immobility. Then his arm dropped limply to his side and he crawled away into the corner, curling himself into a ball like a wounded animal.
Panting and sweating, Gwen and Rhys renewed their struggle with the bins. To Rhys it seemed to take an eternity to shift each one even a few centimetres. Throughout that time the pounding on the blocked door became increasingly frantic. A girl, clearly close to hysteria, screamed, 'Oh my God, Martin, get it open! Get it open!'
They heard a man snap back at her, his own fear making him angry. 'I'm bloody trying, aren't I? It's locked or jammed or something.'
Still heaving at the bins, Gwen glanced at Rhys, anguish in her eyes, and paused just long enough to shout, 'You in there, listen to me. There's something blocking the door, but we'll have you out in a minute. Try and stay calm.'
'We haven't got a minute,' the man yelled back, as if it was Gwen's fault.
'Oh God, hurry up, hurry up!' the girl screamed.
Gwen and Rhys attacked the bins with fresh impetus, Gwen's own yells of frustration and rage mingling with the terrified pleas of the girl. Agonisingly slowly, they managed to shift one of the bins far enough away from the door and turned their attention to the second. They had moved it no more than a couple of centimetres, their hands slithering and squeaking on the cold, wet metal, when the girl suddenly screeched, 'Oh God, they're here!'
'Let us out! Let us out!' bellowed the man. His voice was raw and ragged, an animal-like scream of absolute, primal terror. There was a new and frenzied flurry of blows and kicks to the door as sheer panic overwhelmed the couple trapped inside the building. The door banged open, forcing Gwen to jump back. But it opened only a couple of centimetres before hitting the side of the second bin with a resounding clang.
Gwen looked down and saw fingers curling around the door frame as if in the desperate hope of dragging the rest of the body through the impossibly narrow gap. She hurled herself at the bin again, sobbing and swearing with frustration, straining every sinew, willing the damn thing to move. But, even with Rhys's help, the bin seemed to be stuck, its castors embedded in the muddy, cracked concrete of the yard.
And then in a broken, tearful voice, a voice too full of terror to raise itself to little more than a wheezing croak, they heard the girl say, 'Oh God, no. . . please, no. . .'
Next moment the real screaming began. High and terrible. Screams of unimaginable, unendurable agony. Rhys reeled away, eyes squeezed shut, hands clamped to his ears, his only instinct being to blot out the unbearable sounds from the other side of the door.
Gwen roared, 'No!' and flew at the bin as if it was an opponent, punching and pounding, tears streaming down her face, teeth bared and eyes wild. When she felt a hand on her arm, she lashed out, missing Rhys's nose by a whisker. His face was bleach-white and slack with shock, his eyes haunted.
'Come on, love,' he said softly. 'Come on, it's over.'
She gaped at him in disbelief and despair, and then she fell into his arms, sobbing and shaking. She had seen death before, of course, many times, but this was so visceral and immediate, so full of terror and agony, that it made her think of Tosh and Owen all over again, made her think of Tosh's life ebbing away right in front of her, and of how utterly useless she had felt, unable to do a thing to prevent it happening.
The screaming finally stopped, and all Gwen and Rhys could hear from inside the building now were the sounds of feeding and the idiot moans of the zombies.
The door banged open and shut, open and shut against the bin. Rotting, worm-like fingers wriggled and writhed in the gap. Seeing them, Gwen bared her teeth in a snarl, broke away from Rhys's embrace and hurled herself at the door. It slammed into place like a guillotine, severing a dozen or so zombie fingers, which pattered to the ground like Saturday night chips dropped by a drunk.
It was a hollow victory. The creatures in there felt no pain, no fear. She whirled away – and her eyes fell on the spindly old man squatting in the corner of the yard, trying to melt into the shadows. Sudden rage overwhelmed her, and she stalked across the yard, drawing her gun, deaf to Rhys's attempts to placate her.
She walked right up to the man and pointed the gun at his face. He whimpered, raising his arms as a flimsy shield.
'You murdered those people,' she muttered, her voice low and wavering, full of revulsion. 'They died in agony because of you. I ought to blow your brains out.'
'Please,' the man whispered, 'please.'
'Gwen,' said Rhys calmly, 'put the gun away. You don't really want to do this. You'd never live with yourself if you pulled that trigger.'
'Oh, I do want to do it,' Gwen said. 'Believe me, I do.' Five seconds passed. Then she put the gun away. 'But I'm not going to,' she said. 'Because you're not worth the anguish that Rhys will go through, trying to come to terms with a wife who can shoot someone in cold blood.'
She shuddered, as though shaking off something cold and clammy, and then she said, 'Let's go, Rhys.'
He nodded, slipping an arm around her shoulder as they walked towards the gap in the wall.
Behind them the old man wailed, 'What about me?'
Gwen looked about to retort, but Rhys held up a hand. He walked back to the old man.
'If I were you, mate,' he said acidly, 'I'd find somewhere to hide, and I'd pray that lot in there don't sniff you out. I won't say good luck because I don't wish you any.'
Without another word he turned and walked away.