Blood at the Premiere: A Day One Undead Adventure (20 page)

With veins bulging from his neck Brian lifts the heavy girl up as Henrietta drives her shoulder forward then powers up on her legs lifting Rose from the ground.

‘GO.’ Henrietta sets off pounding the hot, rough concrete with bare feet and a heavy weight pressing into her shoulder. With Brian at her back they run for the exit road and the promise of deeper shadows, but more floodlights ping on, illuminating their route for everyone to see.

The running before was hard. Carrying Rose earlier was hard, but now it’s far worse. Energy levels drain. Fatigue kicks in. Strength wanes. She holds Rose in place with her arm looped up and presses down while her other arm acts as a counterweight, stretching out wide. They get onto the road as the undead behind fight against one another to get over the fence and stagger after their prey.

She can’t do it. Rose is too heavy. She pushes on, gritting her teeth with tears of effort and guilt and despair pouring down her face. Grinding the steps that radiate pain in every muscle. One foot after the other and she cries out from the utter desperation. Bennie runs ahead still clutching the bottle of whiskey and Dolan with one hand clutching his side.

Blood pounds through her ears and every step threatens to be the last as she staggers and works to stay upright with Rose held tight. She can’t give up. Rose was screaming and she pulled her up by the hair. The poor girl was crying out in agony and faltering in step from blood loss but she got dragged, pushed, hit and shouted at to keep going. A young girl so innocent. It was Henrietta’s fault they went to her apartment, too. Henrietta’s fault they got inside the building. Henrietta’s fault they didn’t lock the door and had to run out. All of it. All of it is Henrietta’s fault and now the girl is dying on her shoulder with no hope of finding a hospital or calling an ambulance. She screams out from the unfairness of it. Hating herself with a staggering depth.

‘HENRI,’ Brian screams. He knows this was her fault, knows Rose is suffering because of her. ‘HENRI…DROP HER…’

Henrietta blinks at his words, snapping the torment from her mind as she runs on with agonising fatigue lapping at her muscles.

‘She’s dead, Henrietta,’ Brian sobs his own misery at seeing the lifeless girl bouncing on Henrietta’s shoulder. His hand presses into her neck, searching for a pulse. He lifts her hand, the injured one, and stares down at the wound that’s no longer bleeding from a heart no longer beating. Eyes lifeless. Breath gone. The life of the girl has left. ‘She’s…’ he sobs the word out still, running to keep up, ‘she’s dead, Henrietta…’

‘SHE’S NOT,’ Henrietta screams, denying his words.

‘She’s dead…’

‘SHE ISN’T DEAD.’ Henrietta refuses to yield. They can save her. They can find a hospital or a car and drive her away from here. They can do something. This is London in modern times with help on every corner. Young girls don’t die from blood loss from a cut hand. It doesn’t happen.

‘Henri…’ Brian weeps at the dead girl and the things chasing them and being in an unknown place with pain coursing through his body. ‘She’s dead…you…you got to…drop…drop her…’

‘NO.’ Henrietta pushes that despair into anger that explodes, giving a fresh burst of energy that pulses through her body.

The infected are gaining. Brian can hear them. They’re not going fast enough. They need Henrietta to keep them moving. With his heart breaking into a thousand pieces he does what needs to be done. He reaches out a hand while running and grabs Rose’s hair. Sobbing for forgiveness. Tears streaming down his face. He falters, unable to fulfil the action, but they’ll die if he doesn’t. They need Henrietta. Henrietta has to keep them going. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mouths the words at Rose and yanks her hard from Henrietta’s shoulder to fall and spin and hit the ground with a crunch of bone.

Henrietta lurches from the sudden removal of the weight and screams out as she tries to stop and turn but Brian barrels into her, forcing her to keep going. ‘She’s dead…’ Brian shouts the words, hoarse and angry and sad and heartbroken.

‘GET THE FUCK OFF.’ Henrietta tries to fight past him but the man pushes her on getting whacked in the face and chest.

‘She’s dead…go…please just fucking go…’

‘Henri…’ Bennie begs from ahead. ‘Come on…’

‘We’ve got to leave her.’ Brian slams his body into Henrietta’s, physically driving her away while his own limbs fill with searing, agonising pain.

Sobbing, weeping, crying out and screaming into the air, Henrietta gets pushed down the road. She turns frequently, every few steps, and sees the girl lying prone and still and dead on the ground. The things roar after them with the first few veering towards the fallen Rose but turning away as though she holds no worth to them.

That despair fuels her gut, which pumps power into her legs that drive on with a need to be away. To run and run and never look back. She sprints past Dolan who cries out at being overtaken and finds enough energy to go faster. She gains on Bennie snatching the bottle from his hand, which she flings to the side and snarls in his ear. ‘Run.’

Down the exit road and onto a tree-lined wide avenue bordered by big detached houses set back behind high walls.

She spots the taxi, the indicators flashing from the hazards left on and the driver’s door left open. The goal is formed. The objective is set and she sprints ahead leaving the others behind, driven by a furious rage surging through her veins and a mind filled with images of Rose screaming out in pain as Henrietta grabbed her hair. The taxi gets closer but Rose gets closer still. The girls scream. The pain in her voice that Henrietta didn’t pick up on.

The driver’s door is wide open and the engine ticks over quietly. She vaults the bonnet, landing deftly on the wing and sliding down to spin and dive for the driver side. Inside the vehicle, she slams the door closed and looks down to see an automatic gearbox. Foot on the brake and gulping for air, she slams the stick into D and floors the accelerator. It’s a slow diesel engine designed for stamina not for speed, but the vehicle pulls away. A black London cab slewing over the middle of the road towards the other three lurching and staggering worse than the things behind them that are now so close.

She pushes the cab on, building speed until the last minute when she slams the brake and yanks the wheel round. Brian reaches the back door first, wrenching it open to dive in. Dolan next, once again shouldering Bennie away in desperation to save his own life.

‘GO, GO,’ Brian roars from the back, recovering enough to stretch a hand out and pull Bennie in. Henrietta hits the pedal again, feeling the cab pull forward as she turns hard to go back the way she came and away from the things. The cab goes slow, the power building too gradually, and the beasts impact on the solid metal frame with huge bangs and thuds. Dolan screams and drops to the floor, covering his head while Brian pulls Bennie down onto the back seat shouting for Henrietta to go.

She keeps her foot pressed down, fishtailing the vehicle across the road as she struggles to gain control. She slams into a row of parked cars, setting off alarms that warble and flash lights. They bounce into the middle of the road, building up speed and pulling away. The fastest of the infected keeps pace, slamming his face into the cab as though to bite through the metal to the flesh inside. The diesel engine works to drive the wheels that spin faster and build speed down the road.

Habit of hand kicks in. Conscious thought fades with only the ever-present instinct for survival guiding her actions. At the end of the road she steers left, not realising she turns the wheel and adjusts the pressure on the accelerator to complete the manoeuvre into a new hell.

London is burning, scorching from cars ablaze and buildings shooting flames that lick the sky with a roaring intensity that dwarfs the death and suffering of the mere humans beneath, and that death is everywhere. Every turn of her head brings a new horror to be seen. A man on fire running from a doorway while the frenzied monsters chase him down and heedless of those flames they bring him to the ground, scorching faces and burning flesh as they tear into his cooking skin.

A truck on its side embedded through the corner display windows of Next. Bodies lying trapped and screaming underneath as the infected drop to feast.

London dying with people being hacked apart by the teeth of their loved ones and clawed hands that rake at soft bellies to slice them open and scoop the innards glistening fat and wet into their mouths. A woman clutching a baby runs from a side street screaming for help, but no help can be given and the two that chase lunge in to take her legs. Down she goes with the baby flying off to land and roll to the feet of a woman that drops and bites without mercy or hesitation. The mother watches as her child is torn apart by teeth that rip into her flesh.

Another turn of the wheel and another road of hell. A man running into the front of the taxi and bouncing off with wild utterances coming from his throat as the woman slams into him and sinks her teeth into his neck. A priest resplendent in black suit and white dog collar pushing a nun back into three infected chasing them and running on while the woman of god gives herself to save him. He gets five steps before another lunges from a doorway and slams him to the ground. A flurry of arms and legs and the priest gains his feet and slams a foot down on the face of the devil, but that devil feels no pain and bites into his ankle. A yelled curse as ungodly as any heard and the priest wrenches his leg away to try to run, not realising the poisoned blood is now pumping through his body. Henrietta runs him over. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t balk and doesn’t hesitate but drives the heavy front end into his legs that crunch as he goes under the wheels, snapping and severing his mortal body.

As the taxi glides by she turns nonchalant, casual, untouched to see the nun dying a death of pain with a hand reaching out towards the heavens.

Silence in the back. Brian stares aghast at the sights. Bennie blinks, drunken and lost, while Dolan cowers on the floor.

Another turn of the wheel in the ongoing search for a way out of the city, but she gives no thought to direction and doesn’t glance at road signs or markings. Just drive. Drive away. She is immune in here. They are not part of this but mere observers sent to watch and see and feel nothing.

A main road, filled with the light of shops, being looted and smashed by hooded men and women running with arms full of televisions, phones, clothes, shoes. This is a riot. London is rioting again. The populace are rising up against the tyranny of a government that gives them free education, free healthcare, free housing and free money. They are oppressed and disenfranchised. They are the underdogs that deserve the best, and with authority crumbling and the feds busy protecting the wealthy they will take their gains and covet the gleaming new merchandise without glance at the corpses that lie dead amongst them.

White youths, black youths, Asian youths, Arabic, Chinese, European and of every race, culture, religion and creed. Young men and women that jeer and whistle with faces hidden as the massed movement increases their sense of propriety while diminishing the individual responsibility of actions. Lighters lit. Matches flicked. Fires started. A police car surrounded with two officers inside screaming into their radio for help while the hooded thugs rock the vehicle on the suspension. The siren activates but only seems to feed the need for blood from the pack animals that have no idea they should be fleeing and hiding. A step taken and a brick sails through the driver’s window, hitting the female officer in the eye. She screams out and tries to drive, to flee, to get away, but another brick is thrown and blood has been spilt to be tasted and more is needed. The door is wrenched open. The female officer is dragged screaming and kicking to be beaten along the road until she drops to curl up into a ball.

Her colleague would help. He would run to her aid, but the knife stabbing him in the neck over and over prevents him from doing so. The tip of the knife nicks an artery, which pumps from the release of pressure to spray the blood out and through the broken window of the passenger door. The hooded attacker leans back to avoid the jet of crimson that splatters over the windscreen of the taxi driven by Henrietta who flinches from the sudden, thick droplets obscuring her view.

The youth turns to watch the distance of the spray and like a confused dog he tilts his head at the sight of the female driver. Someone he knows. Someone he recognises. He starts jogging to get level with the cab, snaking through the dense crowds. All thoughts of the policeman he just killed have gone and like a true psychopath he shows no emotion on his face.

She keeps eyes front. Staring ahead in the typical response of anyone faced with a threat that is yet to explode in their direction. Henrietta saw the knife plunging into the officer’s neck and is only too aware of the hooded figure now keeping pace at the side of the vehicle. Options run through her mind. She could floor the accelerator but the crowds are so thick she wouldn’t get through. She could sound the horn to try and get them to move, but that would draw more attention, and reversing is no good, either. The crowds are just as thick behind as they are in front. So she does nothing. She drives gently, easily, carefully and avoids looking left.

He knows what she is doing. This happens to him a lot. The way people avoid looking at him when he glares at their faces. The way they look left, right, over, round and through him and do everything except look
at
him. He doesn’t like it when people do that. It makes him feel like he doesn’t exist, but he does exist. He is here. Right next to the taxi. He drops back a step and stares at the two men on the rear seat and another one huddled on the floor. He recognises one of the men on the back seat but like with the woman driving he can’t place where from.

He taps the window with the knuckle of his index finger. The one he recognises looks out and smiles while swaying with the motion of the drunk. The other man copies the woman and refuses to look. He taps again. The drunk smiles. The other man still refuses to look. He taps harder and keeps tapping.

‘Henrietta…get us out of here,’ the man who ignores him shouts out, and that’s all it takes. A name given to a face and the connection is made. He looks through the window and through the Perspex safety shield to the profile of the woman driving. Henrietta Swallow. His eyes flick back to the drunk and his neural pathways sizzle as the second recognition is made. Bennie from Bennie and The Boys. An instant loss of interest and he stops running to turn back to the police car with a voice in his head telling him that killing famous people will get him in trouble.

‘Oh my fucking god,’ Brian whispers the words out with an almost explosive exhalation of air. ‘What the fuck? Go faster…’

‘There’s too many,’ Henrietta says, feeling the immediacy of one potential catastrophe abate.

‘I lost my bottle,’ Bennie announces, looking round the taxi. ‘Henrietta, can we stop at a shop?’

‘HENRIETTA SWALLOW!’

‘Fuck.’ Henrietta grimaces at hearing her name booming out.

‘Where?’

‘There…in the taxi…that’s Henrietta Swallow.’

‘Is it fuck!’

‘It is…HENRIETTA? HENRIETTA?’

‘Keep going,’ Brian mutters.

‘Trying,’ she says, staring ahead as the next potential catastrophe looms.

‘OI…HENRIETTA!’

A hand slams into the window next to Brian. He slews away, barging Bennie along the seat as Dolan whimpers out from the sudden noise.

‘Alright, mate…’ A face presses against the glass. ‘Is that Henrietta Swallow, issit?’ the young man asks.

‘Nah.’ Brian shakes his head. ‘Er…just, er…’

‘Ere, is that Bennie? Fuck me…BENNIE! HEY, BENNIE…’

‘HENRIETTA?’ A girl slams into the driver’s door bending over to stare inside. ‘It is! It’s Henrietta Swallow.’

‘Lemme see.’ Another hooded head pushes next to the driver’s window. More join in, pushing and crowding as word spreads of the celebrities inside the taxi.

‘BENNIE’S IN THE BACK,’ the man shouts, pointing past Brian to Bennie still searching for his bottle of whiskey.

‘OH MY GOD. I LOVE YOU, HENRIETTA,’ a girl with large hooped earrings shouts inches from Henrietta’s ear. She taps on the window with a desperate desire to be seen. ‘HENRIETTA…HENRIETTA…’

‘WHERE’S THE BOYS?’ a voice shouts from the passenger side. ‘OI, BENNIE…’

‘Fuck,’ Brian mutters, blinking rapidly.

‘You’s hench, Henrietta.’

‘Why you drivin’ Bennie?’

‘How much can you squat, Henrietta?’

‘Henrietta…can I get a selfie with you?’

‘HENRIETTA…HENRIETTA…WHY YOU IGNORING US?’ the girl with the hooped earrings asks, banging hard on the glass.

‘She’s being all stuck-up.’

‘It’s getting ugly,’ Brian says in alarm at the feral faces blocking the windows. ‘Do something…’

‘Like what?’ Henrietta says, trying to speak without moving her lips.

‘I don’t know! You’re the famous person…’ Brian wails.

‘WHY YOU BEING A STUCK-UP BITCH?’

Taps on the windows. Hands slapping and hitting the metal frame. Thuds and shouts growing by the second of youths carrying televisions, laptops, tablets, phones, clothes and goods still with their security tags attached.

‘Bennie…sing us a song, yeah?’

‘He’s pissed up, innit.’

‘Who’s the guy on the floor?’

‘Oi, Henrietta, where you going?’

‘Gis a lift.’

‘Stuck-up fucking bitch.’

The slaps get harder, the hits louder. The voices jeer, heckle and call out, rising in volume and pitch with the excitement brought on by the wild abandon of law and order.

‘Henrietta,’ Brian mutters desperately.

Think. Come on, think. Switch on. It’s just a crowd. The mortals that cling to the barrier.

‘OI, BITCH.’ A screaming voice snaps her head round to the snarling face of the young woman with the hooped earrings. ‘Why you ignoring us?’ A demand shouted and one that will either be answered with words or with deeds done that cannot be undone.

Henrietta grins ruefully, shakes her head and rolls her eyes with a perfect expression of humoured frustration. The snarling girl pulls back an inch, showing confusion that still teeters on the edge of violence. An electric motor hums and the window powers down as yet another quandary presents itself. To crack the window a few inches shows fear and distrust and might be the single action that pushes the situation over, but to go all the way down opens a portal through which they can reach.

Trust your instincts and hope for the best.

The window winds down fully as Henrietta leans round to face Brian in the back. ‘How is he? He still bad?’ she asks with a nod at Dolan on the floor and a message conveyed from her eyes.

Brian falters for the briefest of seconds before rallying, ‘Yeah…yeah he’s, er…sick?’

‘Hey,’ Henrietta says, turning to the girl leaning in the window, ‘where’s the hospital?’

‘Hospital?’ the girl asks in a rasping tone.

‘Our producer is sick.’ She motions her head backwards. ‘We’re filming down the road…a special documentary showing why young people feel so angry at being let down by the government…’

‘Yous look like shit,’ the girl sneers, screwing her face up at the state of Henrietta.

‘Accident,’ Henrietta says with another roll of her eyes that bat the heavy lashes against her cheeks. ‘Some rigging collapsed, hit the producer…’

‘You said he was sick.’ Another girl leans in closer to the window.

‘Yeah, sick…something hit him in the stomach,’ Henrietta says and with a rush of instinct she lets go with a beaming smile. ‘I like your earrings.’

‘Really?’ The snarling girl switches to a mere mortal clinging to the barrier. ‘I just nicked ’em from…’

‘Don’t tell her that!’ another one shouts.

‘I’m on your side,’ Henrietta calls out, leaning lower to see up and out the window as though trying to address everyone.

‘Is that Bennie?’

‘BENNIE!’

Another roll of the eyes and air blown out through puffed cheeks. ‘Drunk,’ she mouths at the girls with a wink. ‘Hey, you going to be here in about fifteen minutes?’

‘Dunno, why?’

‘If the pigs ain’t come, maybe.’

‘I’ll come back and interview you, yeah?’ Henrietta asks nodding enthusiastically. ‘Brian? Can we come back and interview these girls? They’re very pretty. They’ll look great on camera.’

‘Er, sure,’ Brian shouts and scoots forward on the seat to push Dolan down as he tries to rise. ‘Stay down, mate. He’s not looking good, Henrietta.’

‘BENNIE!’ The tapping on the window continues and shouts still ring out round the taxi.

‘Turn the taxi over,’ someone shouts, rushing in to ram against the front wing.

‘Get off, you fuckin’ twat,’ the girl closest to Henrietta shouts angrily, switching back to the snarling demon. ‘S’Henrietta Swallow, innit, you get me? She’s comin’ back to interviewed us.’

‘Interview,’ Henrietta mutters.

‘Eh?’ The girl drops down again to lean into the window.

‘Nothing,’ Henrietta says. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Tricia. That’s Chelsea, Alanna…’

‘Alright, Henrietta?’ Another girls pushes in past Tricia who fights to regain her position of closest to the window.

‘FUCK OFF,’ Tricia shouts, going back to the snarling beast. ‘She’s talking to me, innit.’

Henrietta watches the other girls back down from Tricia and fixes the girl with an earnest look. ‘Listen…do me a favour, yeah? Our film crew are back down the road. We’ll meet you there, but…’ She pauses with a worrying bite of her bottom lip and a concerned glance at the front of the taxi, ‘but we can’t get through…’