“Okay, we’ll run hard and fast and try to make it through the streets to that glass bottomed boat,” I said. “Just don’t get snared up and don’t get caught anywhere that leads to a dead end.”
Tony nodded but he seemed distant, as though he wasn’t taking in anything I was saying. I didn’t know if he was suffering from shock or he’d mentally given up on things.
“You hear me, Tony?” I said, with a little more urgency.
Tony stared at the kitchen knife in his hands, turned it over then glanced up at me with a strangle expression on his face. For one brief moment, I thought he was going to hurl the blade at me.
“Yeah, I understand you,” he muttered. “You don’t need to keep harping on. I’m okay.”
I somehow doubted his last statement but I had to go along with him. In my experience of apocalypse survivors, if your mind wasn’t fully focused you didn’t last long out in the thick of things.
I glanced around the kitchen diner looking for an escape route. I was starting to doubt if Smith had even come this way. Why the hell hadn’t he waited for us?
Nestled next to an alcove around to the left of the kitchen, I spotted a door, which was half wooden, half glass paneled at the top. I looked through the glass and saw the exit led to a small wall enclosed yard. Edging closer to the doorway, I studied the area beyond. The concrete covered yard couldn’t have been more than a few square feet in size and a small lean-to shed stood against the outer wall to the right.
“We’re going out this way,” I said to Tony, nodding at the door.
Tony shook his head. “That doesn’t lead anywhere.”
“We hop up onto that shed and over the wall.”
Tony scowled. “You’re fucking crazy, Wilde Man. We don’t even know what’s over the other side of that wall.”
I sighed. “We have a quick sneaky look-see first, Tony. I’m not expecting us to jump on top of a whole bunch of zombies on the other side.”
Tony snorted. “Well, all right. If you think that’s the best way out of here.”
I nodded to the bank of windows facing the bay. “We can always go right out the front way and straight into the arms of that crowd of zombies if you want.”
A half smile lingered briefly across Tony’s face. “Okay, Wilde Man. We’ll go out the back way. I’ve had to get out of a few music clubs over the wall in my time after a shit gig so this won’t be any different.”
I smiled and managed a silent laugh. It was good to see Tony regaining some of his sense of humor at least.
“Just try and remember to keep quiet out there,” I reminded him.
Tony shrugged and nodded. I thought for a moment and decided I could use some kind of a silent weapon myself. I tucked the handgun in the back of my waistband and searched through the kitchen drawers. A long bladed fruit knife sat in the cutlery tray in the top drawer. I picked up the fruit knife and studied the shiny thin blade. It looked a useful weapon as I held it up by the black plastic handle.
I nudged the kitchen drawer shut with my hip and glanced over at Tony standing by the door. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” I said.
Tony nodded and his focus seemed to have returned. His eyes looked clearer and his whole body language seemed more upbeat. He’d need all the positivity he could muster when we hit the streets outside.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
I opened the door and leaned out into the backyard. I couldn’t hear or see any sounds of movement in the small enclosed space. I glanced back at Tony and nodded towards the lean-to shed in the corner. Tony followed close behind me and silently closed the door once we were both in the yard. The high brick walls stopped any breeze blowing across the yard and the hot air felt cloyingly thick and heavy. The unmistakable rotting stench of the undead reached my senses along with the decaying matter all over the town.
I padded across the scorched concrete ground and hauled myself up the side of the lean-to shed. I crawled across the flat, square asphalt roof and was surprised how hot the rough material felt against the palms of my hands and burning through my cargo pants at the knees. The roof panels under the asphalt surface creaked slightly under my weight and I worried how rotten the structure was beneath me.
I reached the side of the adjacent brick wall and peered over the top into the alleyway beyond. Three zombies lurked on the ground, bumbling around in circles seemingly not knowing in which direction to go. I glanced back down at Tony and held up three fingers, indicating the three ghouls in the alley. Tony’s face dropped and all enthusiasm for escape seemed to evaporate. His negativity was starting to piss me off. What did he expect, a chauffeur driven Limo right to the jetty? The rough, tough London boy image he liked to exude seemed almost farcical.
I huffed and turned back to the alley. The three zombies hadn’t seen me and I didn’t want to use my handgun to take them out. The sound of gunfire would reverberate around the alley and magnify itself tenfold. No, these schmucks had to be eliminated the hard way.
The strength of the lean-to shed was worrying me and I didn’t want to risk Tony joining me up on the roof. It wasn’t far to fall if the damn thing collapsed but it was our only means of escaping out from the grounds. I decided I’d have to go over first, take out the three zombies as quickly as possible then hope Tony followed me over the wall.
I attempted to relay the plan to Tony by the use of hand signals but I could tell by the confused expression on his face halfway through my waving and flapping that he didn’t know what the hell I meant. Screw it, I was going to have to just roll with it and hope he didn’t freeze.
I slid the fruit knife from the side pocket of my cargo pants and clenched the blade between my teeth. Now I knew why pirates held their weapons in such a way, ready to attack while climbing around without the need to draw a blade from a sheath. I briefly pondered on the thought of the zombie apocalypse kicking off in past times. How would they have coped say two hundred years ago? In all probability, it would have been eradicated pretty quickly. Nobody traveled as far and as quickly in such great numbers in those days and they kind of believed freaky shit could just happen, like the dead getting up and eating people. It was probably our generation’s unwillingness to accept what had happened that contributed to our downfall.
I knew my tired mind was wandering and I couldn’t allow that to happen. I had to concentrate on the job in hand. Maybe the sun was getting to me, combined with a lack of sleep. I glanced back at Tony then scrabbled up the side of the wall.
A lone cloud briefly blocked the sun for a couple of seconds as I mounted the wall and sat astride the brick structure. The alley was momentarily completely blackened in shadow, preventing me from seeing the whereabouts of any of the ghouls below. The lack of sunlight disorientated me and I couldn’t see anything on either side. I felt giddy and thought I was going to topple over the summit of the wall.
A low pitched snarling, growling sound rapidly brought my senses back and the cloud overhead drifted away from the sun. The three zombies in the alley had spotted or sensed me and now my element of surprise and possibility of a swift attack had gone. The ghouls all looked up at me with sneering expressions, exposing decaying gums and rotting teeth. They reached upward with bony fingers, almost willing me down to join them in the alley. The excited noises they were making would soon attract more undead so I either had to silence them quickly or abort the whole plan.
I didn’t have too long to think about the dilemma. If we sat tight in the house, they’d soon figure out we were inside and break their way through the glass panels out front. I was going to have to go for it.
I hoisted my leg over the wall so I was perched on the edge facing the alley. The drop was roughly twelve feet so my landing was going to have to be spot on. I couldn’t afford to turn my damaged ankle over in an awkward jump.
I took the knife out from between my jaws and glanced over at Tony.
“Follow me down,” I muttered.
I didn’t wait to see if or how Tony had responded. I gripped the fruit knife by the handle in my right hand and slid my backside down from the top of the wall. I raised the knife as I descended in mid-air, slipping from the wall. There was no turning back now.
The nearest ghoul was a male, and the flesh around his face hung loose around the side of his cheeks. What remained of the hair was short and sparse and long elongated grooves scarred the top of the head. He was short but thickset and his ragged, filthy clothes hung around him as though they were about to fall away from his body.
I brought the knife downward as I hit the ground, bending my knees at the point of contact to absorb the impact. I made sure I aimed the fruit knife blade at the male zombie’s head as I hit the alleyway. The blade pierced the guy’s skull at the very top of his head and my dropping momentum meant the knife went deep into the brain. The guy keeled over backwards and slumped unmoving against the wall on the opposite side of the alley. I made sure I gripped the knife handle so the falling body wouldn’t pull the weapon from my grasp.
I landed on the ground without any twinges of pain from my damaged ankle. I was okay, still on my feet and good to go.
The remaining two zombies came at me together, one was behind me and the other to the front, cutting off both directions of the alleyway. A female ghoul with long, knotted dark hair stood in front of me and made a swipe for my face. I ducked the gnarled hand and took a forward pace in a crouching stance toward the female. As I raised myself upright, I brought the fruit knife upwards below the zombie woman’s chin. The blade pierced soft decaying flesh and speared the inside of the woman’s skull. I quickly withdrew the knife and let the deceased body fall to the ground.
I spun around to face the third and final ghoul in the alleyway. The shuffling corpse had once been an industrial worker of some kind, perhaps plying his trade on the boats in the harbor. He wore light green coveralls that were heavily blood stained and shredded along the arms, legs and midriff. His gait seemed awkward and an almost surprised expression was imprinted on his face. I wondered if that was the final sensation he felt when he shuffled off his mortal coil and returned as one of the undead. No matter, he had to be eliminated.
I feigned to move right, waited for the zombie to react and then dodged to the left. I stomped forward and brought the fruit knife around in a sideswipe motion. The blade connected and pierced the guy’s left temple, producing a spray of black liquid from the wound. I pulled the knife out of the ghoul’s head and let him sink to the ground. He still wore the surprised expression that would be locked on his face until the flesh finally decayed.
I bent down and wiped the pulp and gunk off the knife blade onto the guy’s filthy coveralls then looked up at the top of the wall to the left.
“Tony, come on. It’s all clear, man,” I called in a low voice.
I heard the lean-to shed roof creak and Tony’s head appeared above the wall. He looked down at the bodies in the alley and nodded slightly.
“Come on, Tony,” I hissed, waving him down. “We ‘aint got time to fuck around here.”
Tony scrambled up the wall and sat astride the top like I had done earlier. I silently prayed he wouldn’t screw up his landing and break his leg or injure himself in some such way he wouldn’t be mobile.
“Tony, come on, man,” I repeated in a more demanding manner.
Tony pulled a pained expression and lowered himself down before dropping to the ground. He keeled over on his haunches after he’d landed and I feared the worst.
“You okay, Tony?” I asked.
He stayed where he was on the ground but kind of nodded.
“When will all this end, Wilde Man?” he wailed. “When will this nightmare just fucking stop.”
“Oh, no, not all this again,” I sighed. His voice grew louder with every word and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit. I’d liked Tony when we’d first met down in the cellar but now I was beginning to loathe the sight of him. How did I end up getting lumbered with such an emotionally unstable cretin?
“All we ever do is run from one shitty place to another,” Tony continued. Tears welled in his eyes and his voice escalated into a high pitched wail. “When will somebody do something to stop all this? What happened to the military? What happened to the politicians? They were supposed to keep us safe.”
I heard an echo from the bay end of the alley. The sound was a combination of growling and grunting noises. From around a slight bend came a rush of undead, completely filling the width of the alley. They were no doubt attracted by Tony’s high pitched whining. The undead spotted us and our image seemed to add an extra spurt of energy to their charge. We were now cut off from the jetty and would have to retreat back down the alley and head further into the town.
“Well done, Tony,” I muttered, although I knew he hadn’t heard me. “Well done you complete and utter jerk.”