Solstice: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse (13 page)

Next, Josh snatched the small dresser from the floor and threw it on top of the bed. “That should hold them for a minute or two.”

“Not much longer,” Tana said.

The sudden silence seemed strange, and Stu’s ears reverberated from the gunfire. “Shit. I feel like I’ve busted my eardrums.” He plugged a finger into one ear and shook it around as though that might relieve the ringing.

“You’ll get over it,” Brett said.

They all stood in the darkness, and Stu imagined unwelcome company hovering just behind him, not breathing, not blinking.

Footfalls thudded just outside the door, and a croaky voice called out, “Come out, pretty people. We only want a little taste.” Someone scratched on the door. “You can’t shoot us all. Why try? You can’t kill what’s already dead.”

Tana switched on her flashlight.

“So, now what?” Josh asked, his face ghostly in the wash of pale light.

“Now we get the hell out of here.” Tana moved to the window. “Get these drapes out of the way and unlatch this.”

Stu shoved his gun into the pocket of his coat, and then ripped down the curtains, rods and all. “Maybe you should put out that light. Better not to let those on the ground see us so easily.” He unlocked the window and pushed it open. It didn’t come up easily and groaned grumpily when he forced it wider.

“We’ll break our necks,” Tana responded, but she flicked the light off.

“Which is worse? A broken neck or being eaten by some crazy half-dead bastard?” Brett muttered.

Josh laughed. “It’s six in one hand, half-dozen in the other, really.”

Stu leaned out the window for a quick look. The cold was like a bucket of water in the face. While he had become accustomed to the constant indoor chill, the outdoor temperature was a shock. He climbed out onto the fire escape, then reached back and took Tana’s hand to help her. Brett came through next, followed by Josh. The wicked voice outside the door continued his ranting, joined by another, higher voice rasping an old Beatles tune.

“Let’s get this party rolling,” Stu said. “They’ll be through any moment.” His anxiety was nearly too much. He didn’t like heights, and the idea of all four of them on the rickety fire escape wasn’t very comforting.

They took turns clambering down the ladder, Josh leading the way to the pavement and standing watch as the others descended. The metal ladder rattled and creaked, the sound amplified tenfold in the quite of the dead city.

Sticking to the heavy shadows of the buildings, they were able to move undetected back toward the hypermarket. They held up in an alley only a few blocks from the rear lot of the Tesco.

Stu had taken the pack with the extra guns and ammo, the strap digging into his shoulder. He switched arms and studied their surroundings a moment while he caught his breath. Flaming buildings several blocks over brought a faint orange hue to the otherwise black sky, but did little to brighten the night. He wished for some moonlight, not only to bring some light to their trek back to the market, but also a sense of warmth. A night without moonlight just felt colder. Even worse, it had started sleeting, which was much harsher than the soft snow of earlier. Tana snuggled against his side, shivering, and he took her gloved hand.

“Well, it looks like we may make it,” she whispered. He detected both disquiet and relief in her voice. She was ready to get back to her son. He envied that she could.

“Looks like it,” Stu agreed. He glanced sideways and could just make out the soft lines of her profile. The idea of kissing her popped into his head, and he shooed it away. Silly notion, anyway, out among hordes of crazy, sick people, and even worse, in front of two mouthy students. Instead, they stood quietly for another moment, breaths billowing from their lips like smoke, sleet peppering their faces.

“Do you hear that?” Brett asked suddenly.

“What?” Tana said.

“Shh. Wait.”

Stu strained and heard a faint noise he couldn’t identify at first, but as the sound grew, so did a new dose of panic in the pitof his belly.

Screaming and howling, accompanied by the pounding of running feet on the pavement, became louder by the second, but Stu couldn’t determine from which direction it came.

“Shit!” Josh complained. “We’ve waited here long enough.”

“Get ready,” Tana whispered, removing her gun from her coat. Stu reached into the pack, located the correct ammo, and reloaded his gun while he had a moment.

At the mouth of the alley, flames illuminated the far brick wall of the adjacent building. Writhing shadows of the flailing, sprinting shapes of dozens of infected grew on the wall, spreading like spilled ink.

“Bloody hell,” Tana whispered, sounding as if the wind had been kicked from her.

“We have to get out of here. Run!” Stu cried.

They sprinted down the alley, back the way they’d come. The newly fallen sleet made the footing treacherous, and for one horrifying instant, Stu was weightless and out of control. He caught his footing just before he went down, then risked a glance back over his shoulder. Hordes of Ragers were closing in on them.

“Do we turn and fight?” Josh asked.

“We’d never take so many,” Stu answered, struggling to keep up with Tana.

Unexpectedly, Brett went down just in front of Stu. Stu heard the gruesome, dull thud as the back of the kid’s head smacked the pavement. Brett’s rifle clattered to the ground beside him.

Stu skidded to a halt and kneeled bent over the boy. “Come on, Brett. They’re coming. Quickly, get up.”

Brett stared into space, unresponsive.

Up ahead, Tana and Josh stopped. Josh started back for them and then hesitated, fear holding more control over him than his loyalty to his best friend.

“Hurry, Stu,” Tana yelled.

Stu’s stomach turned over. Hating to have the gun out of his hand, he slipped it into his coat pocket and wrapped his arms around Brett. He lifted Brett into a sitting position, and blood flowed from the kid’s nose and ears at an alarming rate.

Josh began unloading on the approaching horde, taking out the first ones just before they reached Stu and Brett. Stu snatched up the rifle, gripped the kid around the waist and hoisted him to his feet. He hooked his fingers into the belt loops of Brett’s jeans for a better hold.

“Come on, Brett, dammit,” Stu pleaded through clenched teeth. Dragging Brett, who outweighed him by at least forty pounds, he felt the bullets from Josh’s gun whiz past, alarmingly close, and prayed the boy was as good a shot as he claimed. Brett’s feet dragged, and his head lolled back and then forward, throwing Stu off balance. Stu stumbled, and they both went crashing to the ground.

The mass of hungry Ragers were less than a dozen feet away. Seeing Stu and Brett down, they appeared to pick up their pace.

Stu slapped Brett’s face, but the kid barely opened his eyes. Infuriated, Stu hit him again, harder. Star athlete, Stu thought. Brett had taken hits twice as hard on the football field. All Brett had done was trip and fall. He had to be okay. Stu slapped him again.

Tana ran back and tugged on Stu’s coat, trying to pull him back to his feet. “You have to leave him.”

What he was about to do made him want to throw up, but instead, he screamed. Letting go of Brett’s belt, he shoved him off his arm. Why couldn’t the kid just get up and run like he was meant to? Stu stumbled away, his heart telling him to go back, his logic urging him to run.

Stu and Tana darted away just before the ravenous throng fell on them. Stu didn’t look back. He didn’t need to—the image he created in his mind was enough to drive him to insanity, if he wasn’t there already.

He thought he heard Brett call out, barely audible and buried beneath the wet tearing and smacking sounds as the Ragers tore into his student’s body. He and Tana caught up with Josh, the cold air tearing at his lungs and abusing his windpipe. He was dimly aware of the tears that stiffened the corners of his eyes, turning to ice on the crests of his cheeks.

Once far enough away, they made a sharp turn and slipped through the broken display window of a tobacconist's shop. Huddled behind the counter, they waited. Tana gripped Stu’s knee, her nails rather painfully digging into his skin through his pants. After a moment, a smaller stampede of Ragers passed. None of them dared speak until things were perfectly silent again.

Finally, Josh kicked his feet out, splintering the base of the counter. He sobbed loudly. “Why did you leave him?”

“I didn’t see you going back to help,” Tana snapped.

“Don’t,” Stu said quietly, placing his hand on hers. He’d done a shitty thing. He’d vowed to take care of those kids as if they were his own until they returned to the States. Already, two were gone. He wouldn’t have left his daughter Maddy.

Josh glared at Tana, and in the dim lighting. “And you. You made him leave him.”

“Staying alive is all we can do, you little bastard. And only the strongest will make it.”

“The strongest? Then why are you two still here while Brett’s dead?” Josh snorted. “Screw it. None of us is going to make it, anyway. We’re just prolonging the inevitable.”

“Then why bitch about Brett? Maybe he’s better off,” Tana said.

“That’s enough. This isn’t helping anything.” Stu got up and helped Tana to her feet.

Josh rose slowly and stood in front of Stu for a long tense moment. Stu knew the boy was going to slug him, and that was all right. He deserved it. Instead, Josh grabbed Stu in a bear hug. Burying his face against Stu’s shoulder, the boy wept softly. Unsure of what to do or what to say, Stu held him until he was finished crying.

***

Stu stopped and put up a hand to stop Tana and Josh. “Wait.”

At the end of the car park, a whirling strobe on a police vehicle painted everything a thin and watery blue. With the funky, waning, then growing light from the fires, things seemed surreally normal, if normalcy happened to include emergency and tragedy.

A lone uniformed figure strolled along the front of the police car, the slumped form casting long, ominous shadows when it passed through the spray of headlights. The man’s head was down, and his cap sat askew on his head.

“You reckon he’s infected?” Josh asked.

“Can’t tell.”

Car exhaust rose like smoke in the gloom, the stink foreign and familiar at the same time.

“Well, he’s blocking our way back,” Tana whispered. She took out her pistol and started toward the cop.

“Tana.” Stu grabbed at her arm. She shook him off. “Shit,” Stu muttered, following her.

“Officer, are you all right?” she asked, moving cautiously around to the front of the hunched officer. Stu and Josh trailed her, guns ready.

The officer didn’t respond. Tana glanced back at Stu, shrugged, and then switched on her flashlight. She shined the light in the officer’s face.

The officer sluggishly turned his face upward. He smiled, revealing a mouthful of broken and splintered teeth. His eyes glowed silver in the light.

“Bloody hell,” Tana cried, and Stu grabbed her wrist and pulled her backward.

The officer laughed, the sound coming from the very pit of his gut. “Don’t be afraid, sweet cheeks. I just ate.”

Josh moved around to the back of the man and placed the muzzle of the rifle against the base of the Rager’s skull. Without a word, he pulled the trigger and blew off the man’s head, spraying Tana and Stu with rancid blood and brain matter in the process. The officer’s uniform cap flew straight up and landed at Stu’s feet.

“What the hell?” Stu whispered. He wondered if he would ever have the nerve to venture outside the market again.

He took a deep breath and grabbed Tana’s hand. Together, they followed Josh toward the loading dock of the supermarket.

Chapter 18

Gothenburg, Sweden

The drive toward the coast was treacherous, but Melanie knew the Rover was a reliable old girl, and Tomas a patient driver. They slipped and slid, but nothing more serious than frayed nerves. The big Liseberg rollercoaster loomed like a coiled snake in the gloom. Melanie couldn’t remember ever seeing it without the lights. The world she had known was truly gone. The gravity of the notion made her want to cry, but instead she focused on occupying Christopher, which also helped take her mind off her aching hand.

Christopher noticed the darkened park and pointed, kicking his feet happily. “Daddy, can we ride?”

In the rearview mirror, Melanie saw Tomas’s eyes crinkle with the first real smile she’d seen touch his face in days. “Not this time, buddy.”

The fires of Gothenburg stained the sky like an oozing wound. Tomas cruised through to the center of town. Buildings and cars burned and smoldered, the smoke swirling up into the darkness. Holiday decorations sat uncharacteristically dark, garlands either waving in the wind or lying in the snow like dead snakes. Tomas said he was looking for the health center. He thought the military or a medical crew might be there, waiting for survivors, but things didn’t look promising. When they reached the correct street, they discovered the health center was nothing but a torched building. Tomas drove by without a word, but Melanie watched the disappointment on his face reflected in the rearview mirror. She wanted to say something, but what was there to say? Instead, she played with Christopher while Leila sulked in the passenger seat.

A stalled SUV blocked both lanes in front of the smoking ruins of a McDonald’s, and Tomas and Melanie got out and tried to move the car out of the way. The driver’s-side door of the vehicle stood ajar, snow piling in the tattered leather seat. In the rear seat, a toddler’s booster was splattered with blood. The engine was silent, but the radio hissed dead noise.

Shivering, Melanie stood by with the gun. She unwillingly created all sorts of scenarios concerning the bloody car seat and the missing child, none of them good. Her lungs tightened, and for a moment, panic tried to rise, but she forced it back down.

“These people were here only a short while ago,” Tomas said. “The battery’s not dead, yet.”

Melanie had heard nothing but static from the radio since Solstice. Tomas had mentioned something about the solar storms affecting the satellites, which explained the lack of cell phone bars and Internet access. Tomas trained the flashlight toward the row of dead buildings. Melanie had never imagined how dispiriting the lack of crowds could possibly be. The shops and restaurants sat with windows black.