Marshall squeezed Hoon’s hand with what little strength he had left. “Bye, sir.” The belt stretched as the door was forced further open. Gnashing mouths and clawing hands filled the gap. “You’d better g-get going.”
With a final nod, Hoon hurried over to join the others. Moira had opened the front door a crack, and was peering out. “Not too bad,” she whispered. “Clear run to one of the trucks.”
“What if it isn’t open?” Leanne asked.
“Then we’re all fucked,” Hoon said.
There was a
crack
as the belt snapped and the doors to the bar flew open. The hall was filled with gunfire and screams. Hoon grabbed Leanne by the arm and, with a final glance back at Marshall, they followed Moira out into the castle grounds.
“Oh God, they’re coming in!” Amy yelped.
The bugs were squeezing under the bottom of the door to the driver’s cabin, their legs wriggling as they squirmed through the gap.
“Stamp on them!” Jaden cried, bounding to the door and crushing the first few bugs beneath his heel. “Eat that, bitch!”
Col grabbed him by the arm and spun him away from the door. “Shit, shit, stop, look!”
Bugs were wriggling in through the air vents above the windows. A few dropped down, bounced on the seats, then fell to the floor. Other clambered onto the windows and the ceiling, but all of them were working to the same shared purpose. They closed in quickly on the group, scurrying and scrabbling across every surface.
“Oh shit, oh shit,” Col babbled. Amy grabbed the gun from his belt. She took aim at the window.
“Watch out!” she warned, then she fired. The window exploded outwards. Amy jumped onto the seat and kicked the rest of the glass from the frame. Jaden and Col scrambled up behind her.
“What about them?” Col asked, gesturing to the crowd of infected that now came lurching towards them.
“We just run,” Jaden said. “Just head down and fucking run, and if I fall behind, do not come back for me this time, understood?”
“Fine, whatever,” Col said. They slid out of the window and onto the grass beside the track.
“Seriously, man, I mean it,” Jaden wheezed. “Don’t you dare come back for me.”
Col nodded. “I got it.”
Jaden grabbed his arm. “You’d damn well better come back for me, you heartless fuck!” he said. “Look out!”
Raising his gun, Jaden fired. A woman a few meters behind Col went down in a mist of blood.
“I got two shots left,” Jaden said. “We have to go.”
Amy moved to run, then cried out in pain. She fell hard, clutching her leg as she hit the ground. “Fuck! My knee,” she hissed. “I twisted it.”
Col and Jaden caught an arm each and helped her up, Col taking the revolver back from her so she could grab onto his shirt. The horde was closing in, but slowly, each one jerking along in the same awkward way Dave Gatward had done back on the train.
“They’re slow, we can make it,” Jaden said. “Come on.”
They headed along the side of the train, breaking into a stumbling run. Amy yelped with every step, resorting to hopping after barely a few paces.
As they reached the front of the train, a boy lunged at them, his hands grabbing for their legs. He wore a
Paw Patrol
t-shirt, and couldn’t have been more than four-years-old. Instinctively, Jaden pointed the gun at the boy’s head, but his finger refused to tighten on the trigger. Instead, he gently pushed the boy over onto the grass beside the track, then hurried on.
“Fucked up,” he muttered. “This is so fucked up.”
“Where are we going?” Col asked. The track stretched out for miles ahead, with no obvious hiding places in sight. To the left and right were high fences – difficult to climb at the best of times. With Amy’s knee and hordes of infected putting the pressure on, more or less impossible.
“I don’t know,” Jaden admitted. “We just keep going.”
Amy misjudged a hop and landed on her damaged leg. She screamed and collapsed, taking Col and Jaden down with her. They quickly scrambled back to their feet, but Amy could only grit her teeth and clutch at her leg and pray for the pain to pass.
The infected were lumbering closer, jerking like bad stop-motion puppets. If they ran for it now, they could still escape, but Amy was in no state to go running anywhere.
“How many bullets you got left?” Jaden asked. Col tried to hold the revolver steady enough that he could count the rounds.
“One.”
“Three in total, then,” said Jaden. He glanced at the others. “Suicide pact, anyone?”
“Go,” Amy told them. “Leave me here. I can’t make it, but you guys can.”
Col shook his head. “Uh-uh. We’re not leaving you to be ripped apart by zombies.”
“Finally, he admits they’re zombies!” Jaden cheered.
Amy held a hand out to Col. “I’m not going to be ripped apart,” she said. “One bullet, right?”
“Yeah, but that’s not going to hold them off for long,” Col said. “One bullet won’t--”
“Dude,” said Jaden. He glared meaningfully at Col, who took a moment to understand.
“Oh. Shit. No, Amy. No, you can’t… We can get out of here. Come on.” He bent and tried to pull her up, but she screamed in pain and fell back onto the track. “Come on, Amy, I’m not leaving you here.”
“Fuck, fuck, they’re coming!” Jaden said, as a man with a bare chest that was caked in dried blood pulled ahead of the rest of the pack. Jaden took aim with his gun. He pulled the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the train, and the man kept coming.
They were closing in all around them now, leaving the track as the only way to run. The air was filled with nothing but growls and snarls and groans and… No, not just that. There was another sound, too.
Jaden looked round and up, just as a helicopter swept over the trees further along the track and banked overhead. The whumming wind of the rotors swirled up a tornado of dust and grass. Jaden, Col and Amy all raised their hands to shield their eyes, then ducked for cover as the loudest sound they’d ever heard erupted from the chopper.
The first row of infected went down in a hail of bullets. The helicopter stopped in the air above the survivors, raining flaming lead on the approaching horde. Skulls exploded. Chests burst open. Limbs snapped, some torn completely off by the seemingly endless volley of gunfire.
Eventually, when there was no-one left standing, the shooting stopped. The chopper turned away, and for a horrible moment, Col thought it was going to leave them behind. But then it spun in the air and lowered until it was hovering just above the tracks.
Three men dressed head to toe in black combat gear jumped down. They each had a metal canister on their backs, and held something that looked like a length of pipe which was attached to the canister by a hose.
“Hey! Hey, thank you, thank you!” Col said, but the men ignored him. They formed a line between the survivors and the bodies of the infected, then, as if on some signal, three jets of flame arced across the corpses, setting them alight.
“That is so fucking cool,” Jaden said, then he yelped when someone put an arm on his shoulder from behind. He whipped round to find a man with a grey-beard and a neatly-pressed white suit standing behind him. “Jesus! Don’t fucking do that! You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“My apologies,” said the man, smiling. He cast his eyes across them. “You look like you’ve had a rough night of it.”
“You could say that,” said Col. “Thanks. For saving us.”
“Don’t mention it,” said the man. “I’m just glad we were passing and able to lend a hand.”
Col glanced back at the men with the flamethrowers. They were advancing towards the train now, burning everything in their path.
“Who are you? The army?”
The man’s smile broadened. “
An
army. Yes. An army that plans taking the fight to those things, and taking our country back. We have the means. We have the will.”
He looked at them all in turn. “What do you say?” he asked. “Care to enlist?”
Jaden watched the fire consuming the bodies of the infected. He thought of his mom, pinned beneath that bug. He thought of the boy in the
Paw Patrol
t-shirt, and every other damn thing he’d seen since last night. He looked at the others. Neither of them offered any objections.
He snapped off what he hoped was something pretty close to a salute. “You bet your ass we do,” he said. He brought his hand down again. “Now, when do I get a flamethrower?”
May 25th, 1:57 PM
Leanne ran. Faster than she’d ever run before. Faster that she’d ever thought possible. Imogen screamed as she was shaken. Leanne wanted to stop, to comfort her, but there was no time. No time. No time for anything but running and trying to stay alive.
A young woman, wearing nothing but a white dressing gown that hung open at the front, ran out from behind the truck. Leanne skidded to a stop on the grass. Hoon lumbered past, swinging at the woman with the sword. He caught her above the eye, the blade cutting deep into her skull.
Moira’s shotgun fired behind Leanne somewhere. She didn’t look round, instead just raced alongside Hoon as they closed in on the nearest truck.
“Go, go, go!” he ordered, pointing towards the cabin. “Get in, quick.”
Moira’s gun fired again. Leanne caught a glimpse of a man’s head turning into a colorful mist, then she stumbled the final few paces to the truck. She clambered onto the step and pulled on the door handle. No!
“Locked!” she cried. “It’s locked!”
Hoon pulled her down then jumped onto the step. He swung back his fist, using the sword’s hand guard as a makeshift knuckle duster. The window shattered after three jabs. Hoon opened the door from inside, then leaped down and pushed Leanne in.
He turned back to Moira. Dozens of infected were running after her, easily closing the gap. “Shit, shit, fucking fuck,” he muttered. He ran towards his sister, screaming at her to “get in the truck,” as he passed her.
He blocked the path of her pursuers, holding his arm – and the sword – out to his side. “Come on, then,” he snarled, and the bug writhed and squirmed inside his head as the infected all stopped running.
They hung back, eyeing him warily, their faces alternating between anger and confusion. He took a lunging step towards them and they all, as one, jumped back.
“Aye, thought so,” he growled.
“I’m in, Bob!” Moira shouted.
“Any keys?” Hoon called back.
“No, I don’t… wait, yes!” Moira replied. “Maybe. Hang on!”
Hoon waved the sword threateningly at the closest few infected. Their eyes followed it, hypnotized.
The truck’s engine rattled into life. Hoon puffed out his cheeks. “Thank fuck,” he whispered, then he backed up to the truck, keeping the sword outstretched as he clambered onto the step and into the passenger seat.
“Go, go, fucking drive!” he said.
Moira crunched the truck into gear. She floored the gas and Leanne rested her forehead on Immy’s as the truck tore across the grass and bounced onto the castle’s gravel driveway.
The gates at the bottom of the drive stood wide open. The truck swept through, then its tires screeched as Moira applied the brakes.
“What?” asked Leanne, suddenly panicked. “Why are we stopping?”
They had stopped at the junction where the driveway met the main road. Moira looked left and right. “Wasn’t sure where we were going.” She turned to her brother. “Bob?” she said. “Where to?”
Hoon rubbed his tongue across the front of his teeth. He leaned his elbow on the door, where the now-broken window used to be.
“America,” he said.
Moira and Leanne both frowned in perfect unison. “America?” Moira said.
“As in… the country America?” said Leanne.
“No, as in the 70s rock band,” Hoon said, then he winced and shot her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, force of habit. Aye, the country.”
He looked past Leanne at his sister. “He’s alive, Moy,” he said. “Jaden’s alive.”
“How do you know?” Moira asked.
“I just do,” said Hoon.
“Who’s Jaden?” Leanne asked.
“Jaden’s my son,” Hoon told her. “My boy. I’m going to find him.”
Leanne nodded, then bit her lip and looked down at Immy. Moira watched her.
“Leanne’s parents are in Spain,” she said.
A tear tickled along Leanne’s nose. It dripped onto Immy’s face, making her raise her wispy eyebrows in surprise. “They’re dead,” Leanne whispered. “I spoke to one of the soldiers. Europe. Spain… it’s the same there. Worse, they reckoned.” She wiped her eyes and nodded. “So they’re dead. My mum and dad. They’re dead.”
Hoon put his arm around her. She raised her head and forced a smile. “So… America, then.”
“Aye,” said Hoon, squeezing her shoulder. “Aye. America.”
“America,” said Moira. She looked ahead through the windshield. “How the buggering fuck are were going to get there?”
Hoon slipped the sword down into the foot well, then followed Moira’s gaze. The bug spoke. He ignored it. He was getting good at that.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said.
Moira looked to Leanne, shrugged, then put the truck into gear again. “America it is, then,” she said, then she pulled out of the junction, turned left, and trundled off through the winding Highland roads.