All the Dead Are Here (12 page)

He reached the bottom and scanned the tunnel ahead. There were no Z’s but he could see a skinny, black suited figure at the furthest point before the tunnel curved out of sight, he could hear the zombies descending the stairs behind him and the sounds of slaughter in the stadium beyond. He stopped, raised his weapon, and burst fired at the figure. He thought he saw a shot connect, a small plume of blood explode from him but the figure darted left into a tunnel away from the centre of the stadium.

Paul raced down the tunnel and skidded then bolted left where the Minister had gone. The double doors ahead swung gently and he ran down and pushed through, fully aware of the mass of zombies behind him. Ahead there was another short corridor that led to another door marked ‘Kitchen – Authorised personnel only’. To his left was a steel hostess trolley full of plates and dishes, after all this time the rotten food was odourless and reduced to black stains against the white crockery. He yanked it over and wedged it against the door handle, hoping it would hold and that there were no other exits for The Minister to escape through.

He moved down the corridor and slowly pushed open the door. Inside was a large industrial kitchen, dusty stainless steel appliances, with pots hanging above and the remains of unwashed plates in the sink. Paul moved in and instantly heard a shuffle to the left. In another doorway stood the skinny black frame of the minister, only it wasn’t. This was a Z in black suit and dog collar; its hair was black but had been crudely spray painted white. Paul paused and realised too late it was a trap;
realised too late it was a simple human deception; realised too late that he hadn’t heeded Bramer’s words and the heavy steel frying pan was brought down with a clang on his skull.

He keeled forward spinning round as he fell, his mask slipped from his face and landed on a nearby work surface. In an effort to catch his fall he dropped the P90, which skittered under an oven and the sword clattered to the floor. Paul landed on his back, his vision swam, and he tried to scramble backwards as he faded in and out of blackness. He banged his head on the steel unit behind him and scrabbled to lean against it. His vision cleared slightly but all he could see were myriad figures in front of him, spinning round and around. In a moment of clarity he realised he was sitting on his pistol, which had come loose, but just as he realised this one of the figures in front of him bent down and reached what looked like an immense grey finger towards him. As it entered his body he realised it was his own sword used against him.

Paul screamed and adrenalin surged though his body, he reached under and grabbed the loose pistol he was sitting on, raised it and fired eight shots at the figures in front of him. His training ensured, even in this weakened state, that he always left a bullet for himself. A wave of darkness enveloped him and the pistol clattered to the floor as he lost consciousness.

He awoke unsure of what had happened, the sword sticking out of his gut reminded him, and he guessed by the flow of blood, and the pool around him, that he hadn’t been out for long.

“You’re nae deid then son,” rattled the prone figure in front of him.

Paul looked up. Sat against the stainless steel unit opposite him was the Minister. Four bullet holes punctured his muddy black coat, and blood was running out of the wounds and pooling on the floor around him. Near the door he could see the fake Minister lying dead on the ground, a gaping exit wound in the back of his head, the blood coating the pattern of the floor. Paul tried to move but he was weak, the wound in his belly stung as he shifted. He realised that the trap he had fallen for had been set by the Minister in such a way that the Z’s had led him down the stairs to this place. Hell, he may have even known Paul was there when he dropped the first two Z’s at the entrance.

“No, I thought I would lie here and wait for the ambulance,” said Paul with a thin smile.

The Minister broke into a chuckle, which turned into a hacking cough; a small trickle of blood ran out of the corner of his mouth. “The ambulance, heh. Very good soldier boy. Very good,” said the Minister finally.
“
Well at least we’ll nae die alone eh?”

Paul looked down at the sword again and considered removing it, but he didn’t have the strength. He realised he could still hear screaming in the background, but it seemed to be less frequent, more sporadic.

“What’s yer name son?” asked the old man.

“
Paul,” said Paul. “What’s yours?”

“
Ted… Edward. They call me Ted,” said the Minister, raising a hand feebly.

“
Nice to meet you, Ted,” nodded Paul.

They studied each other for a moment. Then the Minister spoke.

“It’s nice tae have someone to speak to. My flock here are obedient, but are not known for their conversational abilities, ken whit I mean?”

Paul smiled. “So how do you control them then?” he enquired. They were dying. No point in beating around the bush, he thought.

“
Ahh well, that’s a tale…” said the Minister

“
I’m not going anywhere,” said Paul, blackly.

The Minister shrugged.

“The Fall happened frae me the same as everyone else I s’pose. I had a nice wee Parish, some good folk, in a nice wee town. Then the plague came and we barricaded oorselves away frae everyone,. same as most people. But we didnae hae the luck o’ some others I’ve met. We were isolated and far from a city. It made food hard tae come by and we didnae hae a doctor. Each year more people died of disease and starvation, the bairns were born deid, or their mothers died. The fathers did theyselves in. I prayed but it was a Godless place; people stopped worshipping and I stopped praying. Winters took the weak ones, and the Zombies took the strong.” The Minister paused and looked down at his wounds. “So the last of us got on a bus and headed south. First place we came to we found one o’ they big outta town supermarkets and just drove the bus straight in. We piled oot and ravaged the place frae anything we could eat, gorging ourselves like heathens on beans, tinned salmon, that sorta thing, but we were stupid, and all the old staff were in the back. They poured out and ripped us apart. I just curled up and waited fae the bites, ye ken?”

Paul nodded.

“I waited and waited until the silence returned and everyone was deid. But I didnae feel nae bites. I just lay there with my eyes closed, thanking my lucky stars at least I would die wi’ a full belly. Hunger’s funny like that. I dinnae think I even prayed. Then, after a long while I opened ma eyes and guess what?”

“
What?” Paul said, impassively.

“
They were all stood roond me, just staring. I closed ma eyes again and I’m nae ashamed tae say I wept son, wept like a bairn. Now again I opened ma eyes and they were still stood there, just peering at me with them soulless eyes.” He paused as if deep in thought.

“
Eventually, I just got up the courage tae run, and run I did son, run I did. Everywhere I went they just followed me until I couldnae run no more and I just walked, I’d become like them, Paul, all deid inside, just wandering through the countryside wi’ my wee troupe o’ disciples. That’s when I had an epiphany son. You ken whit an epiphany is Paul?”

“
Like a revelation,” said Paul.

“
A revelation, exactly!” exclaimed the Minister. “In fact I had two. The first was to realise that all the close scrapes I’d had wi’ zombies across the years weren’t scrapes at all. Every time I thought they had gone frae me they had really gone frae someone else. I always thought it was luck, or the provenance o’ The Lord, but it wasnae, they weren’t interested in me. The second revelation was that every time I moved, every time I took a step, they moved at exactly the same moment I did.”

Paul looked confused.

“They were reading my mind, Paul. They were doin’ whit subconsciously I wanted them tae dae. It was like they couldnae dae enough tae please me. Well, I’m no’ ashamed tae say son; I went a wee bit mad after that. I got them daein’ things I shouldnae, things tae each other, things tae me.”

The Minister visibly shuddered. “Anyway, as I walked the land, I pondered the reason for this frae a long time, and I decided that this apocalypse, these creatures weren’t man made at all. It was the Rapture, Paul. The End of Days and I had been chosen as God’s servant to stop the suffering o’ mankind and lead them oot o’ purgatory an intae the Kingdom o’ Heaven. Praise the Lord! I was tae use this power to lead the creatures to cleanse the Earth ready for the coming of the saviour!” exclaimed the Minister.

“
You could have used the power to draw the Z’s out so we could kill them, Ted. You would have been a hero,” interjected Paul into the Minister’s increasingly fervent rant.

The Minister stared at him and blinked. He smiled. “You know, that never even occurred to me. You’re a clever lad Paul, but no. It wouldnae hae been right, it wasnae whit God wanted.”

The Minister broke into a hacking cough, blood flowed freely from his mouth and he carried on coughing for several minutes, spraying blood over the kitchen floor. In the meantime Paul was feeling weak and fuzzy round the edges. The pool of blood was larger, mingling with that of the Minister, all around him now. His legs tingled even though he felt less pain, and the background roar in the stadium seemed to have stopped.

The Minister recovered a little and spoke once again. “So I took my little troupe and roamed the countryside, converting righteous souls where I could until I came here. But Paul, I want you tae know this. I didnae want to take them by force, I wanted them tae believe. That’s why I brought them here, so I could tell them. So I could convince them. So they could feel the power of the Lord and believe. Do you see? Do you understand?” the Minister asked, almost meekly.

“
You’re insane, that’s all I see, mate,” said Paul defiantly.

“
And you’re a prick,” said the Minister, smiling. Paul smiled then, two dying men having a gallows joke.
“
Anyway,” said the Minister, “do you think we’ll survive? As a species I mean. I havnae heard the news recently so I dinnae ken.”

“
The Americans are doing well I hear, pretty much cleared the whole country was the last I read,” said Paul.

“
Really?” The Minister sounded surprised. “I always thought it was a Godless place, I always thought they would be first tae go… Ah well. I’m tired now Paul. I’m gonna hae mysel a wee sleep.”

They sat in silence for a while until the Minister’s head sagged down onto his chest. Paul noticed the blood was slowing from his wounds. The Minister was dying. Paul himself felt exhausted, there was no pain, and he just felt dog-tired. He looked across at the grey haired old man and saw his chest fall for the last time. The Minister was dead. Mission accomplished, thought Paul. At least there was that. He was just another victim in the end, and Paul’s Z count? He thought maybe he had done enough.

Paul waited. He’d expected to hear the dead thumping against his makeshift barricade but there was only silence in the kitchen and silence in the stadium beyond. He might just have a little nap himself. His eyelids were heavy, so he thought he would close them, just for a minute.

“Hur hur hur
.”

Paul snapped to full consciousness. Across from him, the Minster was shaking gently as he laughed. Paul saw the flow of blood from his wounds had turned into a trickle of black ichor. His skin was
white with black veins traced underneath. His hair now deathly white, no traces of yellow remained and his dirty, gaunt hands were now skeletal in appearance.

“Hur hur hur
.” laughed the Minister and when he spoke his voice was lower, hollower.

“So it seems, soldier boy, that God won’t even set me free from this place,” croaked the Minister as he slowly raised his head.
“
It seems that God still has a role for me even now.”

Paul reeled in shock at what he saw. The disease didn’t work like this, he thought. It took hours to turn people. This wasn’t right; this wasn’t the way it worked. The Minister stared at him and Paul knew he was dead. The Minister’s eyes were obsidian black and Paul saw his prone refection in them, the sword sticking out of his gut. The Minister shifted slowly onto all fours as he spoke.

“I’m gonna dae the Laird’s work my boy, I’m gonna take this world to Rapture, I’m gonna save this world by ripping it to shreds wi’ my bare hands, and you’ve just told me where tae start. I’ll take this island, then the good ole’ US of A.” The Minster was crawling towards Paul. Black ichor exploded from his mouth and dribbled down his chin as he spat the words, his knees and hands leaving trails through the pools of blood as he shuffled closer.

“
And do ye ken what?” The Minister was in his face now. Paul could smell the death on his breath, and the stale stink of his dirty clothes.
“
I’m gonna need men Paul. Good men like you tae be ma generals, ma disciples, and you are gonna be my first, ma right hand man, because I like you, boy.”