CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

 

FINALLY THEY FOUND themselves against the lunch counter. Helen shoved her foundlings over a gap between display cases, which proved tricky since Captain Placard refused to relinquish his sign and Lan refused to let go of her phone; in fact, once on the other side, Helen swore the girl was updating Twitter.

Helen went last, briefly using the elevation of the counter to give her a better view of the main entrance and the horrific crush of humanity slammed up against it. Up here the screams seemed louder, and Helen heard other sounds within the cacophony. She might have taken them for gunshots if she hadn’t known better. It was the sound of snapping bones.

A few people were trying to create another escape route; two young men had grabbed chairs and were smashing them against the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was a good idea, or would have been if the university hadn’t invested in toughened safety glass.

Helen gauged the range, and for a few moments she dithered, worried about inadvertently hitting one of the students. Then she realised that it probably didn’t matter; taking a 9mm in the back of the head was probably preferable to being torn apart by zombies anyway.

She gripped the gun in both hands and sighted as high as she could above the crowd. She fired. The window held. She lowered her aim just a fraction and fired again.

Still nothing. “Come on, give me a fucking break...” She fired again.

The glass shattered and she smiled in triumph.

And then someone swept her legs out from under her and she went down.

She cried out as her back hit the countertop. For a second she just stared at the ceiling. It felt like she’d broken her spine; certainly she couldn’t feel her fingers or her toes, couldn’t even lift her head.

The view shifted as something grabbed hold of her shoulders, fingers digging hard into her flesh, and pulled her off the counter. She fell into a heap on the floor. Instinctively she rolled to one side, glad to note she wasn’t paralysed after all.

Her body throbbed in agony as she scrambled away.

The zombie was a balding middle-aged man in overalls; incongruously, there was a pen resting behind one ear. His face was coated in several days’ stubble, and his right eye hung by a thread from his eye socket, bouncing bloodily against this cheek as he moved.

Helen raised her gun to shoot him.

Or rather she raised an empty hand.

“Shitfuck!”

For a moment the zombie janitor just looked at her, then he very slowly raised his right hand as if mirroring hers. She half expected him to form his fingers into the shape of a gun.

Instead he bared his teeth like a wild baboon and leaped towards her.

The lunch counter was to her right, so she went left, hands grasping for something, anything...

She grabbed a chair and swung it just in time to interpose it between her and the feral thing that was about to land on top of her.

She screamed as the leading edge of the seat dug into her chest, at least seventeen stone of dead man collapsing against the back of the chair. His hands snatched at her, unable to reach, though he was close enough that she felt the breeze from each swipe. His teeth were bared, his head shaking. Spittle dropped from his mouth as he ranted.

It was hardly a Mexican standoff, but Helen had to do something. She wanted to release her hold on the chair, to grope around for her gun, but if she let go of the chair she knew he’d have her.

She heard a crack as a rib snapped—death and resurrection were surely on the way. Then her face was splattered with blood, and something hard and wet bounced against her cheek. She guessed it was an eyeball.

She looked up. There was little of his head remaining, just his lower jaw, the top of his spine protruding from his neck. He was still weighing her down, but at least now she could shift her hands to get the necessary leverage to throw him off.

She heard another crack, another gunshot. Another two quickly followed, then a dry click.

She was coughing as she got to her knees. It threatened to turn into a retch, but she managed to hold the nausea at bay; this wasn’t the time.

“Help us. Help us.”

It was Lan. Helen staggered to her feet, and had to lean against the lunch counter to stop herself from going down again. She’d expected to see Lan holding her gun, or maybe her friend with the placard. Instead it was clutched in the hands a rotund older black lady wearing an apron and blue latex gloves, a pair of glasses hung from a chain around her neck.

The trio had their backs to the counter, and were facing off against two zombies. The first was a stick thin girl whose skin looked so pale that she’d probably looked like a zombie even before she died. Her hair was long and lank and she was wearing a fucking Serpent & the Rainbow t-shirt. Her head was at a funny angle. The second was a South Asian boy who dressed like he’d thought he was James Dean. The white tee beneath his leather jacket was streaked with blood; the collar was sodden, courtesy of a jagged wound in his neck.

Helen let go of the counter and headed towards them. “Give me the gun,” she snapped, reaching out to take it from the dinner lady—who looked older the closer Helen got to her, she was sixty at least.

“It’s broken, or it’s empty,” she said, with a West Indian accent. Helen spotted a nametag—Barbara.

Helen wanted to thank Barbara for saving her life—and for not inadvertently blowing her head off in the process—but there’d be time later. She snatched the gun. Leaving the slide locked back, she dumped out the empty magazine. Captain Placard and Lan held off the walking dead; Lan was now using a tray to swat at the zombies, though Helen clocked her phone, sandwiched between the tray and her hand.

Helen dug into her pocket for the spare magazine.

Please be there.

The young man swung again with his placard, but this time the dead got lucky. The wooden shaft snapped, weakened by use, and the sign went sailing off behind the counter.

Reacting to the movement, the lank-haired zombie cried out and darted forwards, and Indian Jimmy Dean was a half-second behind her. Lan screamed and swung her tray, it bounced off the dead boy’s head like both were made of rubber, and the shock caused her to let go. She screamed again as her phone fell to the floor.

Helen rammed the spare magazine into the pistol and let the slide slam forwards, shouting, “Get down!”

Her three companions ducked. Helen stepped forwards and jabbed the pistol over Captain Placard’s shoulder. If zombie girl understood the danger she showed no sign; she was barely ten centimetres away when Helen fired. The 9mm hollow point shattered her nose and blew a hole clear through her head.

She dropped, and Captain Placard dropped a moment later, hands clasped to his ears.

Sorry.

Helen shifted her aim and fired a second time and Bollywood James Dean went down too.

She reached down and grabbed Captain Placard’s arm, dragging him to his feet. Looking back over her shoulder, Helen saw the mass of humanity had definitely shrunk, but there were still a lot of people there. Worse were the bodies strewn across the floor. Already several were awkwardly sitting up; more would follow. Helen had eleven rounds left. She doubted they could make it to the smashed window.

She turned towards the dinner lady. “Barbara, where are the other exits?”

The old lady pointed off in two directions. “They’re probably locked too, just like the door out back.” She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder towards the rear of the lunch counter.

She’d been right: Isaac and Luke had accomplices who’d locked the doors. That bastard Isaac had been planning this for a long time.

Think, Helen, think.

She heard movement, and looked round to see a body crawling along the floor towards them. The man’s legs were dragging uselessly along behind him, both withered and misshapen, but his upper body looked strong. The tendons in his neck strained as his head thrust forwards, his mouth snapping as he snarled. Helen had no idea how far he’d crawled, but she couldn’t see hide nor hair of a wheelchair.

And then she had ten bullets left.

“Is there a storeroom we can hide in?” said Captain Placard.

She glanced at him. “Good idea.” I hope. She looked hopefully towards Barbara.

The old woman nodded. “Follow me.” She lifted a section of counter, and Helen resisted the urge to slap a palm to her forehead.

Lan made to stoop for her phone but Helen grabbed her by one arm and shepherded her onwards. Placard brought up the rear, brandishing what remained of his sign.

“This way,” shouted Barbara once they were behind the counter. Helen let go of Lan but pushed her on ahead, then she turned to look back. Captain Placard was standing in the gap, looking at the chaos in the refectory.

“More of them coming,” he said.

Helen craned her neck to look past him. Four zombies were drawing close. There were more behind them.

“Come on. We need to get into the storeroom.” Already Helen could hear gunfire. The cavalry were here, all she could do was try and keep everyone safe until they sanitised the area.

Captain Placard turned. She saw his eyes widen as he focused on something behind her. “Look out!”

Helen turned just in time to see the figure come at her. The next thing she knew she was rammed up against the wall and Luke Tully was in her face. His eyes were wide, face streaked with blood, and he was jabbering like an idiot. The pistol was still in her right hand, but her arms were pinned to the wall, so the best she could do was try and angle the gun outwards, try and take out one of his ankles and hope he’d fall, giving her space to administer the coup de grâce.

Before she could fire, she realised that he was making sense, his words were tumbling together but the thought behind them was coherent. “Help-me-oh-god-please-help-me!”

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered. “You didn’t take your own fucking poison, did you?”

He just kept jabbering. Helen told him to get off her, but he either didn’t understand the instruction, or was too terrified to comply. And then she heard a scream that made her blood freeze. It had come from close by; she didn’t need to look to see who it was who’d cried out.

She snapped her head forward and head-butted Luke. It hurt like hell, but he let go. He squealed as his nose broke. As he staggered back Helen turned, tracking with her gun. A single zombie was bearing down on them, an overly-muscled oaf with a shaven head, wearing an EMU rugby shirt, who looked like he’d been a scary piece of work even before he’d died. Helen fired three times. Her first round took him in the chest but didn’t even slow him down, the second and third shattered his lower jaw, spraying blood in every direction.

Still he kept coming, even though his head was flopping up and down like a deranged Pez dispenser. Helen reached out with her free hand and grabbed Luke by the front of his apron.

“What?” he had time to utter before she swung him round, a clumsy but effective weapon/shield. He shrieked as his body slammed into the undead rugby player. The dead man fell back, and Luke would have gone with him if Helen hadn’t kept a tight hold on him.

She swung him back behind her. “Get into the fucking storeroom!” she screamed. She heard him break into a run.

Back the other way, more zombies were scrambling over the fallen rugby player, who was unbelievably still moving. He managed to grab the ankle of one of the oncoming hoard, pulling her down. Helen fired twice, hitting another one in the head, and chose that moment to run.

Barbara was in the doorway of the storeroom, hands gripping the door, waiting for the last possible second to slam it shut. As Helen ducked inside she pushed the older woman away and grabbed the door, slamming it into place, which was when a thought suddenly struck her.

Nobody puts a lock on the inside of a storeroom.

As soon as the door was closed she dropped to her backside and sat up against it. She looked around her. The room was small; there was no other exit, not even a window. Luke was crouched in the corner like a wounded dog. Barbara and Lan were close by, terrified. Helen saw it in their eyes; they’d realised Captain Placard wasn’t with her.

I didn’t even know his real name.

But she would, when this was over, she’d make it her mission to find out, and then she’d make sure that his friends and family knew that he was a fucking hero of the first order.

First things first.

“We need to barricade the door!” she yelled, even as something heavy slammed against the other side. The door opened a crack, but she fell back against it, shutting it once more.

And then Lan and Barbara were there, rolling small barrels of cooking oil or hefting large bags of rice and potatoes to wedge up against the door. It took a while, and Helen had to stay there, but eventually the barricade was solid enough that she could move.

They threw a few more bags up against the door to be sure, and then all three women slumped to the floor, finding their own space, apart from each other, to mourn, to calm their racing hearts.

“I can’t believe you hit me!” said Luke, his voice muffled like he had the worst blocked nose imaginable.

“You should shut your mouth,” said Barbara. “Better yet, you should thank her for saving your life.”

“Oh, he shouldn’t thank me,” said Helen. “Once he gets banged up, he’ll wish I’d let him get eaten out there.”

Barbara threw her a quizzical look, but she was too tired to dig any deeper. Slumped up against the wall, Helen watched as she started stripping her gloves off. Lan had her knees pulled up and was gently rocking, head buried against her knees. She was sobbing quietly.

Helen looked at Luke. He held his hand to his nose, blood seeping out from between his fingers. There was something in his eyes, though; still fearful, but angry now, as well.

Maybe if she hadn’t seen good people die today she wouldn’t have goaded him some more, but frankly she had only saved his life reflexively and was already regretting it. She might as well get her money’s worth. “Bastards like you don’t last long in the general populace. Oh, they’ll stick you with the nonces eventually, but not until after the honest villains have given you a kicking or two.”

He started to rise, anger outweighing fear.

“Don’t be even more of an idiot,” said Helen, hefting the Beretta. “More than enough bullets left for you.” Awkwardly she retrieved her phone as he sat down again. She called in their position, advising there were four survivors trapped in the storeroom. It would be embarrassing to survive a zombie outbreak only to be shot by the living.

She laid the phone in her lap and lowered the gun, but only slightly. She was about to stick the knife in again—to say that he’d be a laughing stock, one of the architects of the Rampage in the Refectory, only he hadn’t had the balls to go through with it.

But something about the lurid title Isaac had come up with prodded something loose in her mind. She looked back at Barbara, or more specifically at the latex gloves on the floor. An imaginary ice cube slithered down her back. Suddenly pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was Trinity’s murder rearranged themselves; first, two pieces fit together, then she saw where a third belonged, then a fourth.

Until a picture was revealed.

A picture she wished she could un-see.