The Screaming (Book 2): Refuge Page 10
“It’s the keys.” She replied to a confused looking Zac.
“For the ambulance!” She continued.
The whole purpose for being in that room had been completely wiped from Zac’s mind until confusingly returned in that moment.
“Time to go!” Fee smiled.
They worked their way outside and looked across at Janet, who was standing next to the ambulance frantically waving them over. She frustratingly cupped her hands to her mouth.
“RUN!” She screamed as she pointed down the road.
Zac and Fee turned and looked. A massing swarm of infected screamers were sprinting down the road towards them, seemingly notified of their presence by the unfolding events in the office. Zac and Fee sprinted towards the ambulance. Fee threw the keys to Janet, across the bonnet of the vehicle. Janet immediately set about unlocking the drivers door and jumped into the seat before rapidly leaning over the passenger seat to unlock the other door.
“Hurry.” Pleaded Fee.
The horde was baring down on the group. They had exploded into the far end of the car park and were stampeding through the field of abandoned vehicles. Many found their paths blocked and tried climbing over cars, only to be trampled from behind by those following on in the desperate need to be at the front when the main course was served. The passenger door clicked and Janet pushed it open. Fee and Zac wasted no time in jumping in the vehicle. Zac took hold of the door as the first screamer hit the vehicle. He slammed the door shut, shattering the fingers of the infected female that clung to the door frame and pinning her to the vehicles side.
“Go!” Zac yelled.
Janet needed no prompting, the vehicle was already roaring into life. She slammed the pedal to the floor and the ambulance shot forward. Screamers threw themselves at the moving buffet, others were thrown by the shear force of the mass exploding forward behind them. Others managed to get in front of the vehicle, launching themselves onto the bonnet before being bounced off as the ambulance chicaned around advancing infected and other vehicles. Soon things started to turn dark as the ambulance became swamped under a sea of desperate cannibalistic raiders. Janet persevered, barging through a solidifying wall of bodies. The windscreen cracked and buckled as infected frantically struck out, eager for the quick feast within.
One by one bodies dropped from the vehicles skin, bonnet and roof, rolling away across gritty tarmac in a heap of pulverised meat. The vehicle swept down the road, and past the burning remnants of the camp. Barrack blocks stood empty, windows smashed and marked with the bloody remains of their occupants. Hollowed bodies littered roads, verges and doorways. They slowed as they passed Janet’s chapel, flattened into nothing more than a pile of corrugated iron, wood and the fragments of its parishioners that laid strewn around the rubble. The compound fences where so many people had been herded in like cattle were flattened and the cherry picker guard posts upended. Beyond that, the huge hangar continued to burn. Thick black smoke billowed from the heaped pyre and dispelled high into the air.
They rounded the corner towards the main gate, a tail of straggling screamers relentlessly trying to keep up with the vehicle. The large intimidating metal gates were no more, fragmented bars of metal and strings of fencing carpeted the road. Machine gun posts were abandoned and their guards innards decorated sandbag walls. Fee started to weep uncontrollably. Zac moved to put his arm around her.
“Don’t.” She said, as she raised herself and scurried into the back of the ambulance.
“Leave her. Give her time.” Janet smiled.
The old military ambulance slowly squeezed through two abandoned army trucks that had hastily been placed at the front of the gate road and now stood battered, abandoned and littered with empty bullet casings.
Fields of discarded vehicles dominated the main road north. The procession of tiring screamers dwindled away far behind as the ambulance pushed its way through car wrecks and discarded luggage. Slowly the forest of cars parted to reveal open road. The sun was setting and a uneasy calm descended. Fee had curled up on a gurney in the rear of the ambulance and was in a deep sleep that from an observers point of view appeared plagued by nightmares.
“She’ll be fine, let her sleep.” Janet said, noticing Zac’s concern.
“Yeah, you’re right!” Zac replied, as he settled back into his seat.
Zac unexpectedly sniggered.
“What’s so funny?” Janet quizzed.
“Oh, its nothing. I was just remembering something about my mum and dad.” He replied.
“What is it?”
“Well my dad used to make us watch old war films. I loved them but my mum, not so much. His favourite was Ice Cold in Alex.”
“I haven’t heard of it.” Janet finally replied after racking her brains.
“It’s an old black and white film about a British Army ambulance lost in the desert during World War Two. Their ultimate goal is to make it through the desert to Alexandria and have a cold beer. This just kind of reminds me of it, that’s all.”
“Oh I see. Do they make it? To Alexandria!” Janet asked.
“Yes, and they get their cold beer.”
“Good!” Janet said, strangely reassured.
“Its from the bible.” Zac then said.
“Pardon.” Replied a confused Janet.
“My mum may have hated watching the war films but towards the end she used to quote scripture to me from the bible. LUKE 9:39, Its from the Bible right?”
Janet looked down at the waring, smudgy scrawl on the back of her hand as she grasped the steering wheel.
“Yes!” She replied.
“Does it mean something to you?” Zac asked.
Janet shied away from the enquiry and stared straight ahead. Zac leaned towards her and placed his hand on her shoulder and Janet turned and smiled momentarily before looking back out at the road. She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and began to speak.
“A spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams, it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him.”
Zac gazed at her, the words burrowing into his mind.
“You think this was all meant to be? That it was foreseen or something?” Zac asks.
Janet paused and sighed.
“I don’t know, but I believe its happened before.”
Zac looked at her, trying to hide his confusion with one of his reassuring smiles that work so well on Fee. Before turning away and looking out of the window into the darkness.
“So where are we going?” Janet asked.
“Home.” He replied.
The Screaming will continue in book three, Siege!
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Editing & Proofreading
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Text copyright (c) 2018, Matthew Warwick
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