Resistance (Book 2): Resistant Page 7

  “Ready?” Dana said.

  Hugo nodded. He looked like he had something on his mind. They gripping the heavy filing cabinet between them and bent their knees.

  “Dana, wait,” Hugo said. “Before we do this, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Go on then,” Dana said.

  She expected something innocuous and unnecessary, as was his way, but she could tell by the look in his eye that it was anything but.

  “Well?” Dana said. “What is it?”

  Hugo looked deep into her eyes. His eyes were suddenly shimmering and he looked on the verge of tears. He looked at Dana’s face—really looked at it—in a way no one but Dana’s lovers had over the years, peering first at her eyes, then her nose, her cheeks, her chin, her hair line…

  Then he shook his head.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “That’s it?” Dana said. “Can we get this show on the road now, if you please?”

  But the joviality had gone from his face. Whatever it had been that he had wanted to tell her, it had clearly been something serious. Perhaps thoughts about his mother again?

  “If you think I’m going to be sleeping and staying in this place with the undead on the floor, you’ve got another thing coming,” Dana said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The undead were still beating on the other side of the door. The thuds were weaker than they had been, but they were about to get a lot louder and stronger. Dana only hoped their idea would work.

  “Okay,” she said softly. “Now.”

  They gently edged the filing cabinet forward a little, just a little, but already the fingers of the undead were reaching through the gap, scratching and griping in an attempt to reach anyone, anything.

  The fingers were grey and cracked, and they reached almost all the way to the top of the door. The filing cabinet rocked in place, but the undead were only really looking to reach through the gap. They weren’t smart enough to try and push the door open enough to get through.

  “A little more,” Dana said.

  “Any more and they’ll get in!” Hugo said.

  “Any less and the grenade won’t fit!” Dana said.

  Dana climbed onto the filing cabinet. Along with Hugo’s weight it was enough to keep it in place, though with the door opening and shutting and slamming into the filing cabinet, it made a loud rattling noise like tossing a handful of hammers onto a corrugated iron sheet.

  Dana peered through the top of the gap. God, she hoped these creatures were as dumb as they had proven to be so far.

  “Now or never,” Dana said out loud.

  Dana reached into her pocket and came out with a grenade. She pulled the pin and tossed it through the hole…

  Except the door slammed shut, before opening again. She crouched and swung her arm down, catching the grenade. It arched and struck the door. Dana clenched her eyes shut, fearful it would blow in her hand. It didn’t.

  But she still had it in her hand…

  A live grenade. In my hand!

  She gripped the door, pulled it back, open as wide as she could make it, and then threw the grenade through. It disappeared amongst the writhing bodies.

  A few bent down to grab it, probably to eat it. Dana could care less what they did with it, just so long as they didn’t think to toss it back through the hole and into their room.

  But the grenade didn’t travel as far from the door as Dana would have liked.

  “Get back!” Dana shouted, and leapt from the filing cabinet.

  She and Hugo ran back, toward the adjacent room. They left the door open and waited on either side of it. They’d placed a thick pole across the doorway, so even if the door began to close it wouldn’t—hopefully—all the way. They could still get out. They had placed Debbie in there earlier. She was still unconscious, lying in the same place they had set her down.

  They were panting, out of breath. It was the excitement more than the exertion. They cradled their rifles in their hands. They were prepared to unleash hell.

  They were waiting for the explosion, but it hadn’t come. Now the undead were smashing the door against the filing cabinet. Loud booms of metal on metal. The filing cabinet teetered and began to fall over. It struck the floor and made it vibrate.

  Now the undead were flooding into the room, crossing the small space toward them. A few knelt down to begin feeding on the second rate meat on the floor.

  “What’s happened?” Hugo said. “I thought there was meant to be an explo-”

  BOOM!

  It was stronger even than Dana had expected. It knocked her and Hugo to the floor, landing to either side of the unconscious Debbie. If that explosion couldn’t wake her up, nothing could.

  The reason for the incredibly loud explosion was simply this: when Dana had tossed the grenade, it had buried itself into the pocket of one of the undead. And he had decided to cart it along with him into the room.

  Dana’s ears rang. There was a mist in the air, tinted red with undead blood. The gasps and low roars of the undead began to filter through it. There were more of them, as Dana expected there might be, and she would need to toss a second grenade. She reached into her pocket and took it out. This time there would be no mistakes, she told herself.

  She was not in the right condition to toss the grenade, she knew. Her eyesight was blurry and she saw two of everything. Tinnitus rang in her head. Out of the shadows she saw the undead forming up.

  She pulled the pin on the grenade before she knew what she was doing, and brought her arm back and tossed the grenade underarm toward the open door. She was less likely to miss that way, and it wasn’t as if she needed to aim for distance.

  The grenade left her hand and sailed across the room, over the undead bodies, and hit the entrance. As the dust began to clear from the first explosion, Dana could see the first grenade had been more devastating that she had first thought, and had blown the doorway apart, doubling it in size. No matter how bad her throw was, she was never going to miss that gaping hole.

  In addition, the first grenade had eradicated any sign of the undead on the floor, so there was no obstruction to be had. The grenade skittered across the tiles and out into the hall, disappearing, submerged into the thick mist, which embraced it into oblivion.

  Dana was afraid. What if the grenade was too successful? What if it brought the building down on top of them? What if it destroyed the staircase? A very real possibility. How would they then get out?

  There was little fear that the undead on the college campus would be attracted to them, as the fire maelstrom would have torn through them, tearing them asunder. But what about the undead residing in the rest of the city? Thankfully, it would take time to reach them. By then, with any luck, they would be well on their way toward the Children’s Hospital.

  Please chances.

  Dana’s head was clearing, now that she had time to contemplate what her actions might have brought down upon herself. But it was too late now. She had cast the first explosive stone and there was no recalling it. It was done.

  BOOM!

  This explosion, every bit as powerful as the first, had less effect on Dana and Hugo. Dust rained from the ceiling, but there was no other danger.

  “Come on,” Dana said. “Let’s clear the way and get out of here!”

  Hugo staggered to his feet. He had blood running from his ears. Dana was sure she had the same. But she couldn’t care about that now. She needed to crack on.

  They ran for the door, sailing through a sea of dust that swirled about their bodies. The beams of their flashlights were reflected in the dust and made it brighter, difficult to see. Dana flicked her torch off, Hugo quick to follow suit.

  Dana raised her rifle to chin height and led them into the dust. She saw movement out the corner of her eye. She shifted position to stare at it, and found they were just harmless body parts that didn’t know they were dead yet, jittering in place, still looking for something to grab hold of. She doubted they wanted to
give her a massage.

  Dana approached the enlarged doorway. A corner of it dropped, smashing across the floor in a mound of rubble. Dana pulled up her former smoke mask, now using it to protect herself from the thick dust cloud.

  She moved into the corridor outside. The stairway was damaged, scorched, a large chunk missing, as if bitten out by the jaws of a large monster. She supposed that was true—the monster was modern man and his technology.

  But there were no remaining undead. Not in one piece, at least. There was nothing quite like being vindicated, when you have an idea that is then proven.

  “It worked!” Dana said.

  Hugo smiled, but it was tinged once again by sadness. There was something he wanted to tell her but couldn’t bring himself to say. Maybe he just wanted to thank her for all her help in keeping him alive. She was pleased to accept it. As far as she was concerned, she deserved it.

  “Let’s get Debbie and get out of here,” Dana said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THEY SLUNG their rifles on over their shoulders and moved back into the main room. They stepped into the chamber they had first discovered Debbie, picked her up, and moved out into the main room.

  Dana grew eyes in the back of head as she eased out of the room and into the stairwell. It was a good thing Debbie was light. It made negotiating the stairs easy.

  They emerged into the early morning light. It was otherwise a beautiful day if it wasn’t for the scene of destruction that greeted them.

  When they had descended into the bowels of the university they had left behind a national institution that was famous nationwide as a place of higher learning, a place where they could develop, learn, and become productive members of society.

  Now, it was a hole, blasted clean and clear from the face of the planet. There was nothing of the hope and promise that had once dotted its features. It was a memory, sandblasted from time. The hole was all that was left, a memorial to what had once been.

  Raaaw!

  Dana dropped Debbie’s legs and spun round, rifle raised. Hugo grunted at the sudden increase in weight.

  The undead they had just heard was distant, of no immediate danger to them. It was hooked on a blackened wire link fence and couldn’t get free.

  “It’s okay,” Hugo said. “He’s of no danger to us.”

  “Not to us, perhaps,” Dana said, lowering her eyes to Debbie’s unconscious figure.

  Dana bent down and picked Debbie’s legs up again. She led her in the direction of the ensnared undead. It was burnt and frazzled to a crisp, its skin hard and black. How it had managed to survive the fire, Dana had no idea.

  “What are we doing?” Hugo said.

  “A little experiment,” Dana said. “We know we’re Resistant, but we don’t know about Debbie.”

  “Of course she is,” Hugo said. “You don’t think she’d be able to survive what she’s been through without being uninfected, do you?”

  “In the dark?” Dana said. “Covered in dirt and grime as she is? She might be able to survive it if the undead couldn’t smell nor sense her. I’m not about to risk her life. I need her. I need to know what she knows. It sure would help if we knew if she was Resistant or not. It could put us in hot water if she turns out not to be Resistant.”

  “Fine,” Hugo said. “But how do you want to do this? It’s not like we can just ask the undead, is it?”

  “If he wants to eat her more than us, then we’ll know,” Dana said.

  “You can’t be serious,” Hugo said.

  “I couldn’t be more serious,” Dana said.

  Hugo shook his head, but he helped carry Debbie toward the ensnared undead. The creature’s eyes snapped immediately onto Debbie, first one eye, then the other. It roared and raged, reaching out with its clawed hands. It didn’t even seem to notice Dana and Hugo were there.

  “There’s your answer,” Hugo said.

  “Yes,” Dana said. “It appears so.”

  Her hand flashed up, and the knife she had in her fingers slammed into the creature’s skull. It went limp, hanging suspended from the fence.

  Debbie was not Resistant. They would have to be careful in crossing the city. Suddenly things had just got a lot harder.

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE FIRE, for all the devastation and trouble it had caused, had done an excellent job of not only destroying a large section of the city, but also in sweeping up the undead. They had only come across one other undead during their journey across the university grounds.

  It had energetically and enthusiastically approached them, eyes focused only on Debbie, who they held between them. It was then that Dana realized that dangling a piece of meat before the undead had its advantages: they could rest assured, knowing the undead would always go for her and not them, and could kill it without risk to themselves.

  They deposited Debbie on a short stretch of grass that lay beside a leisure center car park.

  “Another hundred meters this way and there will be a bridge over a small creek,” Hugo said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  “You seem to know this area well,” Dana said, looking at Hugo’s midriff skeptically. “You came here often before?”

  “Yes,” Hugo said. “My father’s idea. Not mine. I used to sneak away and explore the area. I just had to make sure to get back before he came to pick me up.”

  They were in the first part of the city that had avoided the worst of the fire. The natural park was a buffer against the ferociousness of the fire.

  “The creek we’re about to cross runs roughly north,” Hugo said. “Hopefully things will be okay from here on out.”

  “I don’t ever want to see fire again,” Dana said.

  They crossed a narrow bridge, barely wide enough for pedestrians and cyclists to pass one another side by side. They came out into a wide open area rich with shrubs and plant life.

  Dana had always been into running. It wasn’t for fun or recreation or even as a form of exercise for her. It had been merely a case of necessity. She needed to run fast in order to escape the authorities.

  She had never succumbed to the need to wear the right running gear. No lycra pants for her, no sweat bands. She only wore what she would wear when she was on the run.

  She couldn’t say she felt stronger with the infection upon her. Knowing you were sick was prone to make you feel insecure and inferior to whatever state you’d previously been in.

  But there was something about it that did ease her mind: the fact she never seemed to feel tired, never felt pain. It allowed her to ignore certain emotions and feelings and focus on what she really needed to concentrate on.

  “Do you feel it sometimes?” Dana said. “Inside?”

  “Yes,” Hugo said. “I don’t feel the same. I feel… different. It’s hard to explain.”

  “I know what you mean,” Dana said.

  And the fact she could say that and mean it made Hugo smile.

  “Yes,” he said. “I suppose you can.”

  They were distracted by a gargling noise. It was Debbie. She was convulsing and jittering on the spot, shaking and juddering.

  “What’s happening to her?” Dana said. “Is she turning?”

  “How can she be?” Hugo said. “She hasn’t been bitten. I think she’s having a fit. Maybe she’s epileptic, or just still struggling and coming to terms with what happened to her.”

  “What can we do?” Dana said.

  “Without knowing what’s causing it, there’s nothing we can do,” Hugo said. “We could easily do more harm than good.”

  “We’ve got to get her treatment,” Dana said. “To the hospital. And soon.”

  It was a frightening couple of minutes as they waited for the fit to subside, her lips wetted by a white foaming froth. Dana was literally watching the chances of finding her sister slip through her fingers. At any moment Debbie could slip into a seizure or a final convulsion, and Max would be gone forever.

  Hugo crouched next to Debbie and tenderly wiped
the froth off her chin.

  “She’s stopped,” Hugo said.

  “We have to get moving,” Dana said. “Now.”

  They left the gardens and came out on NE 41st Street. It was very suburban, with large, attractive houses along the northern side, set well back from the sidewalk and screened for privacy by large evergreen bushes. As they headed east, the semi-calm that had found them in the gardens pervaded.

  “It’s quiet,” Hugo said. “Really quiet. I always thought the apocalypse would be noisy, with no respite. But maybe it’s the silence that’s really dangerous. Humanity has a way of creating noise, sounds, with our chuffing, clanking modern technology. It’s nature that’s silent. Now that the world’s reset button has been pressed, that’s what we’ll be hearing a lot more of.”

  A zombie stumbled along a long driveway, scuffing its feet, unused to the sharp decline it was walking down. It hadn’t spotted them, and seemed quite happy to muddle its way through the world.

  Dana and Hugo ducked behind a short brickwork wall.

  “You take Debbie,” Dana said. “I’ll go deal with him. Looks like there’s only one.”

  She stood up. The moment she did, the undead exploded in a burst of meaty chunks, raining down over the driveway and road, forming a single large splatter.

  Dana’s eyes widened and she dropped back down again.

  “What in God’s name was that?” Hugo said.

  “High calibre assault rifle or gatling gun, unless I missed my guess,” Dana said.

  “Jesus,” Hugo said. “Well, they certainly didn’t miss, did they?”

  A squad of soldiers in full tactical gear hustled onto the street in their hurried crouched walk, turning their whole bodies as they combed the area.

  “Damn it,” Dana said.

  “Who is it?” Hugo said.

  “The military,” Dana said.

  “How many?” Hugo said.

  “Eight, ten,” Dana said. “I’m not sure. Too many. And I think I can hear an artillery truck too.”