Read Holiday of the Dead Online
Authors: David Dunwoody,Wayne Simmons,Remy Porter,Thomas Emson,Rod Glenn,Shaun Jeffrey,John Russo,Tony Burgess,A P Fuchs,Bowie V Ibarra
The woman gasped and nodded.
“What’s going on? Were you with anyone?” Bill pressed.
“The train pulled in,” the woman panted, “the doors opened and …”
She bent down again and dry retched.
Bill rubbed her back. “Take your time love.”
“I was going to work. I know stupid of me,” she said seeing Bills frown. “The doors opened and the passengers, God the passengers they were all …”
The woman paused, the fear still fresh in her eyes, “They were all covered in blood. Someone must have been infected at the last stop and they couldn’t get out.”
The woman looked back down the road. Dozens of people were streaming passed them running for who knew where.
“You couldn’t tell who was alive and who was dead,” she shook her head. “They started pushing onto the platform. It was packed. You couldn’t tell who was who. There were people … whole families getting ripped apart, women and children and grown men screaming as they got attacked or crushed or trampled. It was awful, utterly awful.”
Bill stopped rubbing the woman’s back and started walking towards the station.
“You can’t go back there,” the woman called, “it’s carnage.”
Bill ignored her and continued to walk.
“You’ll be killed!” the woman shouted in dismay.
When Bill ignored her she added, “It’s your fucking funeral.”
The crowd was thicker now. A car belched smoke where it had come to grief at the car park entrance. The car behind had tried, unsuccessfully to shunt it out of the way. It was now wedged firmly between the toll barrier and the crashed car. With the doors jammed shut the occupant scrambled to get out of the window.
More and more people streamed passed him trying to escape the small station and flee to the surrounding streets. Now Bill saw the first injured. Blood streaked faces the red standing out against the ashen grey looks of terror.
One of the injured people spotted the struggling driver and limped over to assist. Or that’s what Bill had assumed until the screams made him look again.
“Mummy?” a frightened voice called out from nearby.
Bill looked round to catch a glimpse of a girl between the fleeing figures.
The street was awash with lunatics, some running and screaming, some hobbling and groaning.
“Mummy?” the child was in tears desperate and lost.
Bill pushed through the mob.
“I’ve got you dear,” Bill called out as he whisked the child up and out of the turmoil.
The girl couldn’t be any more than five or six. She wore a pink dress with bare legs, white socks trimmed with pink and her matching shoes were held in place with Velcro straps. It was a miracle such a tiny child hadn’t been crushed in the stampede.
“It’s all right you’re with Bill,” he said holding her tiny frame in his arms.
He swept some of the child’s long dark hair through his fingers careful not to dislodge the ladybird hairgrips.
“That’s a pretty dress,” Bill smiled. “You on your summer holidays?”
“Mummy!” the girl cried triumphantly.
A young woman, her eyes wide with relief, was swept into Bill by the crowd.
“You’re safe,” the woman cried. “You had us so worried.”
Bill looked at the woman with narrowed eyes. She was a scrawny looking thing. Thin and weak looking. It was a surprise that the crowd hadn’t trampled her to death Bill thought.
He slipped his hand down to his belt.
“David!” the woman shouted into the crowd. “She’s over here David!”
A man turned round and barrelled his way towards them.
The well-muscled man had no trouble wading through the throng and up to Bill.
“You had us so worried petal,” the burly father announced in a sweet voice that belied his appearance.
“Thank you,” he said as he plucked the child from Bill’s arms.
In an instant they were gone.
A man lunged at Bill his arms out stretched. Bill sidestepped and the drunken attack missed him. His face covered in blood, the man turned and groaned.
The blood gurgled in his throat and droplets sprayed out as he lunged again.
“Get off me, you!” Bill ordered the disdain dripping from his voice.
Bill pivoted away from the assailant at the same time as pushing his shoulder and arm. Knocked off balance, the man stumbled and fell to the ground.
A loud shriek issued from right next to him and Bill looked round to see a fat teenage girl getting bitten on the neck. Blood sprayed out as the assailant chomped on her abundant flesh.
The girl screamed and held her hand out to Bill.
Bill stood for a moment looking at the squat girl, her thick fingers sheathed in cheap rings. One hand was out-stretched begging for help, the other was engaged in a futile attempt to slap her attacker away.
Bill ignored her and walked on. He didn’t walk deeper into the chaos, instead, he skirted the edges, working around, dodging his way through. All the time, his neck craned, trying to get a better view, trying to spot what he was here for.
Then he saw them. The woman was stumbling through. She was battling to get away from the station and, on her hip, clutched close to her, was a child.
Bill eagerly kept his gaze on them as he pushed on. He slipped his hand down to his belt and pulled out his knife.
Someone made a dive for him and he jabbed the blade deep into their eye. There was no squeal of pain only a wet slurp as he withdrew the blade and they slumped to the ground. Another person ran into him and Bill lashed out. This time they did scream. Bill pulled the knife out and let the injured man fall. He was still crying out in pain as Bill pressed on.
Up on his toes Bill swept people from his path desperate to spot the woman and child.
The worst of the crush was behind him now but he had lost track of them.
Bill clenched his fist in frustration gripping the knife handle until his knuckles turned white. He had to find them.
Ahead there was a bridge over the railway track that took traffic away from the station. He fought his way up to the vantage point and looked around.
The slick bullet-shaped engine sat adjacent to the platform. The driver’s door was open but there was no sign of any staff. Bill looked over the railings at the station below. It was awash with blood and half out of carriage doors or crumpled in unnatural heaps lay the dead and dying. Old and young, male and female; people of every race and standing. Slaughtered. And around those fallen unfortunates, devouring the warm flesh, were dozens of cannibals.
Bill gasped as he watched gore soaked people chewing down on the dead and injured. He’d seen people being bitten plenty of times before. When drunken brawls got messy, or as the last resort of an overpowered victim. But on the platform they were being devoured, skin from muscle, muscle from bone.
There were still occasional screams and sobs from the unfortunates; some were even still trying to crawl away.
It was a scene of horrendous carnage.
“The world’s gone to shit,” Bill hissed.
A moan sounded from beside him. Bill turned round to see a man drenched in blood shuffling towards him. His arms were outstretched and his hand was missing a good few fingers.
“Fuck off,” Bill cursed, infuriated by the intrusion.
This foul creature was nothing more than a distraction. He ducked under the man’s grasp and brought him up over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. He then tipped the man over the railing of the bridge.
He didn’t scream or call out as he fell. Silently he tumbled down and bounced off a carriage roof before slumping to the track below. His legs and arms were twisted at unnatural angles. But in spite of the horrific fall he didn’t lie still. The man on the tracks stretched his neck out in a motion reminiscent of a snake tasting the air. He looked up as if to get his bearings then heaving himself forward on his shattered bones he started to drag himself away as best he could.
“Freak,” Bill spat out.
He looked around trying to spot the woman and the child again.
“There,” Bill smiled as he spotted the little girl.
A few dozen yards away on a path just off the main road she was alone and looking distracted. She walked a few paces forward then stopped and looked back at a house.
She turned round again and took a few faltering steps. Her cherub face was swathed with a deep frown and even from here Bill could tell she was crying. Her little hands clutched on tightly to the brown and white fluffy rabbit she carried.
“What’s the matter honey?” Bill called after her in his sweetest tone.
“Damn,” Bill berated himself.
The noise of the chaos had drowned out his shout. He looked around worried that he’d drawn attention to himself with his impatience.
The girl was oblivious to him wrapped up in her own world. She pulled the sleeve of her dress across her face soaking up the tears. Then she turned round and letting the stuffed rabbit drop to the ground she ran to the open doorway of the house.
“Wait,” Bill called after her.
Slipping his knife back in its sheath he jogged across the bridge down to the house the girl had entered.
The moment he walked through the door he could hear her. The girl was sobbing.
“Mummy,” she wept. “Mummy wake up,”
Bill entered the hallway to see the little girl rocking the woman’s arm. She lay sprawled on the floor her eyes open, motionless. A pool of blood had drained from the wound on her wrist. It was a messy lesion, all ragged and chewed up.
“It’s all right Bill’s here to take good care of you,” Bill offered.
“She told …” the girl gulped in air. “She told me to go away.”
Tears were streaming down the child’s face.
“I didn’t mean to do anything wrong,” she looked at her dead mother. “I’m sorry mummy, I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK; just you come with Uncle Bill,”
“Daddy’s not coming,” the girl looked up at Bill. “We waited but he didn’t come. Then the people screamed and hurt my ears. Mummy told me to give her a big hug and squeeze her tight.”
The little girl let go of her mother’s arm.
“Even when the lady bit her and biting’s naughty ‘go in time out’,” the little girl wagged her finger as if she were telling someone off.
“That’s OK; come here to Uncle Bill,” Bill offered his hand out.
“I’ve not to go with strangers,” the little girl said.
Losing his patience, Bill snapped, “Come here!”
He grabbed the little girl. She screamed and kicked out.
Bill could feel the small muscles struggling against his hold but for all her energy she couldn’t break his grip.
Bill wrapped his arms around the girl holding her close to his chest.
A hand got free and lashed out at his face but Bill quickly parried the attack and had her in his grasp again.
“Oh you’re feisty,” Bill sneered as he walked to the door.
The child was wriggling furiously and Bill had to change his grip to keep hold of her.
“I’m going to enjoy you,” Bill grinned feeling the child’s small body grind against him.
“I won’t make the same mistake I made last time,” Bill promised. “I won’t be quite as rough with you my dear.”
“Mummy!” the girl cried out.
“Sorry darling Mummy’s not around to help you …” Bill froze.
He sensed something moving behind him.
The girl in his arms stopped squirming.
“Mummy?”
Bill turned round.
Mummy was on her feet her skin drawn, her mouth gaping wide.
She cast an expressionless gaze around the hall before setting her lifeless eyes on Bill.
With a reptilian hiss the mother lunged at them. Bill dropped the girl. The child squealed as she hit the ground.
He grabbed his knife and flipped it open.
The child’s mother grabbed at him.
With a primal grunt Bill lashed out. The knife slashed across the woman’s face splitting her cheek and nose wide open. The pallid skin peeled open but no blood poured out.
Unfazed by the slash, the mother grabbed Bill by the shoulders and pulled herself in.
Her mouth stretched open as she prepared for the bite.
Too close to swing the knife Bill rammed the blade up into the bottom of her jaw. The knife ripped through the muscle and tendons and erupted from her tongue.
The dead mother clamped her mouth shut ripping into the flesh in Bill’s neck.