Remains of the Dead (18 page)

“No point getting a rucksack. There’s not enough stuff here to merit sticking in a bag,” Cahz said, disappointed at the haul.

“The rucksack ain’t for the kit,” Cannon said. “It’s for the little one.”

“You’re not stuffing my daughter in a bag!” Ryan said defensively.

“Think about it,” Cannon said.

“What? No!” Ryan protested, looking at Cahz for support.

“She’ll be comfortable and warm and safe,” Cannon countered. “What’s more, you can keep both hands free.”

“It’s a good call,” Cahz said.

Cannon grinned. “Think of it like one of those expensive designer papooses.”

“Yeah that fuckin’ helps,” Ryan said stubbornly.

“I made up a few diapers from the first aid bandages and stuffed them in the side pouches,” Cannon said, smiling, obviously pleased at his foresight.

“Okay, now the hard part.” Cahz stepped up to the window overlooking the rear parking lot. “How do we get out of here?”

“You thinking the car park?” Cannon asked.

“Could we hotwire one of the cars down there?” Cahz thought out loud.

“I doubt it,” Ryan said. “We sucked the tanks dry to run our genny years ago. Anyway, they’ll have rusted solid sitting out there.”

“Yeah, guess you’re right,” Cahz agreed. “I think the car park is our best option though. The alleyway is packed with W.D.s, but they’re only five or six deep.”

“No point going out onto the main road,” Cannon added. “There must be thousands of them there by now.”

“Hey, we can still use the cars!” Cahz said excitedly.

“How do you mean?” Ryan asked.

“Listen: the chain fence between the lot and the building on the other side of the alley. We roll two cars through the fence either side of that doorway.” Cahz pointed at the back entrance of the building on the opposite side.

“Yeah, the cars will block the path of the of pus bags,” Ryan said, grasping the plan.

“We’ll still have to take out the ones trapped between the cars before we force the door open,” Cahz elaborated.

“I don’t think it’s going to work as well as you think,” Cannon put in.

“Why not?”

“Well, as soon as the cars break the fence they can walk round them into the parking lot, then come at us from there.”

“I know, but we don’t need much time. Just enough to clear a path and get through that door.”

“Ryan, what’s in there?” Cannon asked.

Ryan rubbed his forehead. “Um… I think the bottom floor’s a shop and the ones above are offices and apartments.”

“Will the door be open?” Cahz asked.

“I doubt it. We usually went in the front. Better light.”

“What about the fire?” Cannon asked, looking out at the stream of smoke.

“It’s the building next door that’s on fire, but it’s likely to spread.” Cahz lent on the windowsill. “It doesn’t look like there’s any smoke coming from the building opposite the car park and it might even work to our advantage.”

“How do you figure?”

“The W.Ds coming down the alleyway from the street have to get past the fire. Now it might not be hot enough to incinerate them, but the smoke and noise is going to disorientate them.” Cahz stood up straight and looked at his two comrades. “The ones further back on the left might not even spot us.”

“Fair point,” Ryan said. “But once we’re in the shop, where then?”

“Show me the map,” Cahz said.

Ryan pulled the map from his back pocket and unfolded it.

“There’s a railway marked on here running through town.” Cahz scanned the features trying to spot the black-hashed line.

Cannon placed a thick fingertip on the page. “There.”

“How far is that from here?” Cahz asked Ryan.

“Not far.” He moved his finger back from the line to the plaza. “What, five streets over? But why the railway? It’s not like we can catch the five fifteen out of here.”

“Think about rail lines running though urban areas.” Cahz didn’t see any recollection on Ryan’s face, so he went on, “They’ve always got high fences to stop kids from wandering onto the lines.”

“How’s that help us?” Ryan asked.

“The dumb pus fucks can’t get in either,” Cannon answered.

“They’ll still get in at the stations and the like, but we’ll only have to worry about the path ahead. And because it’s flat it’ll be much quicker to move along.”

“Okay.” Ryan didn’t sound convinced, but he didn’t offer anything better.

“The rail line leaves the city and follows the coast north. We can come off it somewhere about here.” Cahz pointed at a square on the map. “And find a good pickup point in that area.”

“One thing, boss,” Cannon pointed out, “that’s about fifty klicks over unfamiliar terrain in infested country. We’re going to have to move some.”

Cahz nodded.

“And I hate to piss on the parade,” Cannon added, “but if we’re still on the move after dark we’re screwed. Even with night vision it’s a tall order to go wandering around infected territory at night, and we don’t have night vision.”

Cahz sighed. “I hear what you’re saying, buddy. We’ll just have to find somewhere suitable to hold up.”

“Look, if we’re just marching off to find somewhere in the suburbs to hold out, why walk all that way?” Ryan asked. “We could just find another building like this to barricade and wait out.”

“I’ve thought of that. But what if the fire spreads? What if the smoke’s too thick for a pickup? No, we’re best to get as far from the city centre as possible. Even if the fire wasn’t an issue I’d still want to put some distance between us. There’s thousands of W.D.s out there. The more space we can put between them, the safer I’ll feel.” Cahz looked at Cannon. “I also figure that by getting closer to the coast, we’ll double our chances of a pickup.”

“How do you figure?”

Cahz explained, “If we stay in the city and the rescue turns up, Idris’ll look for a while then bug out. We miss that, we miss our ride home. If we can get out of the city we can signal him on the way in. If we miss him we can catch him on the way out.”

“I don’t know if I follow your logic on that,” Ryan said, “but I can see the point to getting out of Dodge. The streets here are swarming with the dead. It’ll be quieter in the country.”

“We ready to go then?” Cahz asked.

“We got five minutes?” Ryan said.

“What for?” Cahz asked.

“I want to take a dump in one of those chemical toilets before we go running through a city full of dead fucks trying to eat me.”

Cannon laughed. “He’s got a point, boss. I’d rather take a crap where I didn’t have to worry about getting bit on the ass.”

“Fine,” Cahz said with a smirk on his face. “Anyone got a newspaper?”

* * *

“Shit! You’ve got to look at this!” Ryan waddled into the office hoisting his jeans up.

“No one wants to look at your shit, Ryan,” Cahz chastised as he adjusted his body armour.

“No, outside.” Ryan fastened his belt and ran back out of the office.

Cahz and Cannon found Ryan in the side office that had being used as the latrine. Ryan had already opened the window and was waving frantically.

“What is it?” Cahz asked, unable to see past Ryan’s broad shoulders.

“Ali!” Ryan bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Ali!”

Cahz pushed past to see a bizarre sight. Across the street a zombie was dangling from a line halfway up a building. At the top of the line a man with a thick black beard was hoisting the creature up to an open window.

“What the fuck’s he doing?” Cannon asked.

“Ali!” Ryan waved furiously.

The man across the street continued pulling the zombie up. The creature had its arms outstretched, trying to grab at the man is it spun round on the line.

“What is he doing?” Cahz echoed Cannon’s query.

“Looks like he’s tying it off,” Ryan said. “He’s bashing that pus bags head in!”

With a few short thwacks the zombie slumped.

“Ali! Ali!” Ryan cried.

The man across the street stood at the window and waved back in wide over-exaggerated sweeps.

“Ali!” Ryan called joyously. “It’s Ali,” Ryan beamed as he told the two soldiers.

“We gathered that much,” Cannon quipped.

Below, the crowd of undead were feverishly moaning, exhilarated by the prospect of living flesh. The man across the street yelled something unintelligible back.

“I can’t hear him,” Ryan complained. “Shut the fuck up you pus bags!”

In frustration Ryan pointed to his ears and shrugged.

The sweat dripped off Ali’s thick eyebrows as he pulled on the electrical cable. The soul ripping frustration had evaporated to the elation of finally hooking his quarry. Now all Ali could feel was the burn in his muscles and the pain in his fingers as he hoisted the zombie up. The undead were usually lighter than when they’d been alive. Ali assumed some level of desiccation or wastage set in.

When everything kicked off all those years ago, Ali had delivered a vanload of stray dogs to a research centre. He didn’t like to think of the poor animals’ fate. Intellectually he knew they were dead already; with no family to adopt them they were only days away from being put down. But he could guess their end wasn’t going to be peaceful in the gloved hands of the lab technicians.

He’d stood there in the bustling lab shocked and stunned by the frantic going-ons. Soldiers and doctors in blood-smeared HAZMAT suits. State of emergency broadcasts being repeated through the public address system.

It was here he had encountered his first zombie, a naked and emaciated looking waif of a woman, her skin brown and wrinkled, her eyes a frosted white. She was wheeled past him strapped to a gurney. Her chest was sawn open and there was just an empty cavity where her organs should have been. The scrawny creature still snapped and thrashed against her bindings.

Ali had been frozen by her gaze; that bleached-out stare that somehow expressed a malignant jealousy. Ali listed and watched in a stupor. Occasionally he was pushed out of the way by an anxious orderly or commanded to stand clear by a soldier, but no one questioned why he was there or told him to leave. Mingling among the chaos and raised voices were the moans of the captive zombies. Back then Ali had found the cry more pitiful than terrifying, an imprisoned soul pleading for help, begging for release. Like the sirens’ call it drew in Ali’s compassion.

He had found himself at the doorway to a lab. A caged zombie pressed against the Perspex of its prison. It moaned constantly, its expression one of confusion held behind the unfathomable invisible barrier. Ali stood and watched, aching to help, unaware of the creature’s deadly compulsion. It was the high pitch yelp of a dog that broke the trance and compelled him to leave.

The zombie dangling from his fishhook held the same look of confusion as it spun round on the line. Unable to arrest its rotation, it lashed out every time its orbit brought it back to face Ali. It too gave out the same pitiful whine, but in the convening years Ali had learned to loathe that noise.

Now as Ali heaved he heard an unexpected sound.

“Ali!” a faint voice carried over the moans of the dead.

Ali ignored the audio hallucination, more concerned by the burning of his muscles. Gritting his teeth he continued to pull on the cord.

“Ali! Ali!” the distant call came again.

“Oh my God!” Ali gasped, convinced now the call was real.

The cord in his hands slipped slightly before he regained his poise. Focusing on his catch, Ali brought it up to the level he wanted and tied off the cable. Rotating slowly, the tethered zombie lashed out, trying to snag him. Ali timed his aim and as its arms spun out of reach he leaned in and bludgeoned the back of its skull. He knew when to stop hammering when its stiff arms fell limp. Happy the zombie was dispatched, he stood up and scanned the street.

“Ali!” came the call again and this time he spotted where it had come from.

Across the road on the first floor up, Ryan was waving frantically from an office window.

Ali gave a long over enthusiastic wave back and called his friend’s name. His joyous shouts rebounded over the heads of the zombies that filled the space between them. The thousand-strong crowd of zombies joined with Ali’s cries in making their own exclaim as best as their decayed bodies could allow. Ali could see two other men behind Ryan. He squinted and peered at them, trying to recognise who they were. Neither man looked like any of Ali’s compatriots from the warehouse. They were too well built, with short cropped hair and sandy coloured military style uniforms.

Soldiers?

“Soldiers,” Ali said with a firm voice. “They’re soldiers. That means a rescue,” he exuberantly told the body that was spinning on the wire. “Well, it’s too late to rescue you, my friend.”

Ryan shouted something over the zombie-filled chasm.

“What?!” Ali bellowed back. For emphasis he held a cupped hand to his ear.

An incomprehensible string of shouts came in reply.

Ali shook his head and shrugged. “I can’t hear you.”

Ryan started pointing out of the window. Ali followed the direction to the plumes of smoke belching from the neighbouring building. Ryan made a serious of baffling hand gestures, trying to communicate some message, but Ali couldn’t make sense of them.

Again Ali shrugged his shoulders.

With his index finger in the air Ryan made a circular motion like he was keeping an invisible hoola hoop aloft.

Helicopter?

“Helicopter?!” he shouted, mimicking Ryan’s action.

Then Ryan made a thumb like a hitchhiker over his shoulder.

Instinctively Ali pointed in the direction Ryan had indicated.

“The helicopter is over there?!” Ali squinted his eyes as he tried to make out anything to confirm his interpretation.

One of the soldiers tapped Ryan on the shoulder and there was a short exchange between them. Ryan thrust his arm in the air and then made a thumbs up sign.

Still perplexed by the meaning of their conversation, Ali copied the signal.

He was still standing there dazed by the brief encounter long after Ryan and his two companions disappeared.