CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

THE ZOMBIE SLAMMED into the table with enough force to actually break something. Certainly it would have hurt like hell, if she was still alive. Helen had to fight her natural urge to stop provoking her. She kept kicking, kept rattling.

The dead woman’s face was contorted as if reflected in a funhouse mirror, twisted in ways no human face was ever supposed to move. Her jaw snapped open and closed. Helen saw broken teeth, saw the corpse’s tongue flapping.

And then the rope snapped taut.

The zombie fought against its restraint, trying to get to Helen, some primal instinct driving her on, the amygdala portion of her brain irreparably damaged, pumping out aggression like a sliced artery haemorrhaging blood. She was trying to scrabble over the top of the table now, fingernails scratching against the wood like an animal’s claws.

“baby-the-bacon-type-clock-eat-and-tree-Sally-fuck-eat-god-old-glass-and-the-the-hope-shit-ken-shitty-eggs-egg-vase—”

The words tumbled together fasted and faster. A stream of consciousness for something that no longer had a consciousness.

Eventually the words faded as what air had remained in her lungs was expended, until all she could do was grunt, even as she continued to try and clamber over the table, oblivious to the fact that she wasn’t getting any closer. Still biting at empty air and her own tongue, still clawing at the table as if it were Helen’s face.

Helen was so scared it took her several seconds to realise that the table was now in reach.

“Idiot,” she muttered. The dead woman intensified her struggles. For a moment Helen wondered just how long the rope would hold; it might even shear through the zombie’s ankle, amputating her foot. Even a one-legged zombie would be more than a match while she was chained up.

It took effort to take her eyes off the cadaver, but Helen needed to see what she was doing as she carefully lined up her ankle with the table leg and struck the chaperone against it.

Each blow seemed to drive the device into her leg like the world’s dullest nail. After half a dozen blows, there was no sign of the casing breaking. Helen’s leg ached. Sooner or later one of the Dowd boys would come to collect her, if they didn’t come to investigate the sounds of the zombie’s struggle first.

As she started hitting the table leg again, Helen wondered what it was that had set the zombie off earlier. I’d almost been out the door, just a few more seconds, almost out the shitting door...

The dead woman was wailing like a banshee; the screech bored into Helen’s ears and dug into her brain. Her teeth vibrated and her gums started pulsing again.

And then she forgot the pain when she realised that the screaming was coming from her chaperone. Amazing that something so tiny could make so much bloody noise. Amazing that a noise so unbearable could be so very welcome.

Not that she was out of the woods yet.

Pre-zombie outbreak, the quickest response time for an ambulance was around eight minutes. As with most things health-related nowadays, this figure had been substantially trimmed; but still, she knew it might take upwards of five minutes for paramedics to arrive. The fact that she was a police officer wouldn’t make any difference, but maybe she’d be lucky, maybe there’d be a crew parked up just round the corner.

The door was flung open and Ryan Dowd dashed in, waving her gun.

She wanted to shout at him that the game was up, that it’d be in his best interests to come quietly, but she doubted he was in a mood to listen. His face was flushed and he was screaming; at the zombie, and maybe at Helen too.

“You fucking cunt! Shut the fuck up, you fucking bitch! Bastard fucking cunts!”

Ryan pistol-whipped the zombie across the face. “Stupid fucking cunt!”

Her head snapped violently to the left, and even though the woman was already dead, Helen winced at the sound. The dead woman groaned and grabbed Ryan’s arm, digging her ragged nails into his flesh. Ryan cried out in surprise as much as pain, and then a look of true horror came onto his face as the zombie pulled him towards her and bit down on his cheek.

This time he squealed like a stuck pig, his wail increasing in pitch as the dead woman jerked her head back triumphantly, taking a chunk of his face as a trophy. Blood smeared her lips as she chewed; spots of blood splattered her pallid flesh.

Ryan tried to pull away, but the zombie still had hold of his arm. She pulled him in closer, her lips meeting his, as if she were going in for a kiss.

Helen didn’t know how his scream could get any shriller, but somehow it did as the dead woman tore off his bottom lip.

Ryan finally remembered the gun in his hand, but with the zombie’s hand still digging into his arm, he was unable to bring the weapon to bear. This didn’t stop him firing. Three shots in quick succession. Helen winced as something red-hot kissed her neck; she hoped it was an ejected cartridge case rather than a bullet.

Ryan’s wild firing had one unexpected outcome: the dead woman released him.

Ryan fell backwards and Helen winced as his head struck the floor. Despite the carpet, the blow seemed to render him unconscious. Now that he was silent, the chaperone’s alarm filled the room. Helen wondered how much longer she had before rescue arrived.

She heard something crunch and looked on, appalled, as the zombie bit down on Ryan’s ankle. The zombie was on her knees, his leg held like she was at a picnic chomping down on corn on the cob.

Helen saw more blood splatter the zombie’s face. A lot of blood; the zombie must have chewed through Ryan’s anterior tibial artery.

There was now a new threat on the horizon.

The zombie woman was still tied to the wall—not to mention distracted—and if Dean Dowd hadn’t yet made an appearance to save his brother, the likelihood of him turning up now seemed remote. But Ryan was now down, and at risk of dying. Helen only had eyes for the rise and fall of his chest, the spray of blood that burst from his lips. The interval between each breath was becoming longer.

“Stay with me!” she shouted. She screamed at the zombie, kicked her legs to try and gain her attention. Then she started yelling for Ryan’s brother. “Dean. Dean! We need help, Ryan needs help!”

Her throat quickly grew hoarse. He was probably halfway to the bloody motorway by now.

She kept her eyes on Ryan’s chest. Willing him to keep breathing just a while longer, just until the paramedics could get here—she didn’t give a shit if they could save him, she was just concerned with them saving her before Ryan turned.

How long had it been? The ambulance should be here by now. She began tugging on her cuffs, pulling against the water pipe, hoping either the handcuffs or the pipe would give way.

Ryan trembled. His chest fell and did not rise. A few seconds later and another chaperone started singing.

The dead woman stopped chewing; dead flesh held no interest for her. She dropped Ryan Dowd’s leg, then dragged a hand across her face, smearing blood like lipstick, before turning to Helen.

The rope would hopefully hold, but Ryan’s body wasn’t tied down. When he rose, there’d be nothing to stop him getting to her. She tried to console herself by remembering what Rita had said, about how some resurrections had been clocked at nine minutes, maybe longer, but all she could think about was the figure they went on and on about in training.

Forty seconds.

That was the average time of resurrection. Within Ryan a process had begun, one they still didn’t fully understand: some phenomenon that would ensure the body could walk, could run, could kill, despite the damage that had been done to it.

The zombie was chomping at the bit to get at Helen, struggling once more against her tether, but Helen kept her focus on Ryan. His skin was already growing paler as his circulation ceased.

Where the fuck were the paramedics?

And then Ryan Dowd’s chest expanded as his body drew in a long gurgling breath, a death rattle in reverse. There was no exhalation, his body understood that he didn’t need to breathe out. His head turned towards her. Glassy, unblinking eyes regarded her with something approaching hunger and Helen shivered. It was something you never adjusted to, eyes that were devoid of life, yet filled with a curious lust.

Ryan sat up.

“Daisy-Tommy-yellow-the”

The words had come from the woman. Helen wondered if they had ever meant anything to her in life.

Ryan Dowd began to stand. It was an awkward process, like a baby deer getting to its feet for the first time, but it was happening quicker than Helen would have liked.

“Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch...” It took her a few seconds to realise the mantra was coming from her lips rather than either corpse’s. She felt tears run down her face, snorted back a snuffle and tasted snot in the back of her throat.

Ryan was on his feet. Helen was trying to keep still, but the dead woman was still straining and gnashing towards her, and Ryan was obviously taking his cue from his fellow zombie. In death, abused and abuser were united.

Ryan turned towards her, his torn lips flapping as his head wobbled. “bitter-and-neighbours-the-and-and-uncle”

Helen’s toes curled inside her shoes. But then she heard something, above Ryan’s dead babbling, above the alarm of his chaperone. Was it voices, or was her brain inventing them, giving her a scrap of hope to ease her terror just before her horrible death?

Frankly Helen didn’t give a shit if they were real or not, she started screaming her head off. “Code red, in here, code fucking red!”

Ryan’s resurrection had been practically lethargic as things went, but once she started screaming, his body was thrown into fast forward. Ryan jumped up onto the table and Helen knew she was dead, but then his newfound coordination failed him, his feet skidded against the slick surface as he tried to launch himself the rest of the way towards her. He fell flat, he neck taking the brunt of the impact as it connected with the edge of the table. If he hadn’t already been dead, that might have been enough to kill him; as it was, it barely slowed him down.

He clambered up and prepared to try again, and that was when the door was kicked in. Helen—eyes fixed on the two zombies—saw the impacts as gunfire filled the room.

The top of the woman’s head was sheared off; she dropped almost immediately. Ryan took two rounds in the forehead, several more to the chest. For a moment he just crouched there atop the table, staring wistfully into the distance, a curious expression evident beneath the bloodless bullet holes in his skull. Then someone fired again. The bullets didn’t leave much of his head behind as he flopped back onto the table.

Figures swarmed into the room. They were shouting to one another but Helen barely registered it; her gaze was fixed on the near-headless body of Ryan Dowd.

Someone crouched down in front of her. She shrank back instinctively until she saw a smile, heard a familiar voice. “She’s alive.”

Tony Jacobs, a paramedic she ran into periodically. They’d traded banter for months that had grown increasingly flirtatious. “You okay, inspector?” He was smiling like the cat who’d got the cream, and right now he looked more handsome than ever. Right now she wanted to make a pithy comment, something like “what kept you?” or “I had them right where I wanted them.”

Instead she threw up in his lap.