The Screaming (Book 2): Refuge Read online

  The two feeble disease-ridden infected that remained in the room lapped up the last fragments of Max and sucked furiously at the blood drenched sheets. Suddenly the relative silence was broken. A harmonised explosion of bellowing child-like screams reverberated along the still, corpse filled boulevards below. The two meagre Screamers snapped to attention at the call of the herd and belted through the door. The heavy thud of egressing feet faded as the two threw themselves into the stairwell, tore down the steps and onto the street below.

  All three listened intently for the sound of movement from the corridor but the building stood still and quiet. Agonising pain fired down the back of Zac’s leg as he stretched out his cramp afflicted limb and cautiously edged out from under the table. He slowly sidled towards the door, rolling on the balls of his feet to limit the sound of the cheap army footwear squeaking on the stained tile floor. Slowly he peered around the doorframe and down the long corridor. Lights flickered and blinked as diesel generators ran dry. He paused and listened for a moment before retreating back into the room.

  “Come on!” He whispered as he beckoned Janet from under the table.

  “Time to go!” Janet uttered to Fee.

  Fee didn’t react. She huddled in a ball, gripping her shins with both hands and stared off into nothingness. Zac creeped over to the window and peeked over the windowsill onto the street below. Hundreds of Screamers lined the streets as though on parade, glaring towards the rising sun as it breached treetops on the horizon. To the far side of the camp another group were in full sprint towards something beyond Zac’s view that had clearly peaked their culinary interests. Janet emerged from under the table and joined Zac at the window.

  “She isn’t in a good place right now!” Janet said as she simultaneously took in the street below.

  Zac nodded and turned to look at Fee trembling under the table.

  “We need to get out of here!” Zac defiantly announced.

  Janet nodded and pulled a black marker pen from her pocket and proceeded to reapply the fading writing on the back of her hand.

  “Faith and hope!” She muttered catching Zac staring at her as she scrawled on her hand once again.

  “Tell that to Max.” Zac replied before immediately regretting it.

  “Sorry.” He quickly mumbled.

  With the citation hastily reapplied, Janet returned the pen to her jacket pocket while simultaneously kneeling down to Fee.

  “Hey! Time we made tracks sweetheart.” She uttered to the trembling shell in front of her.

  “What do we do?” Janet enquired as she stood again and turned her attention back to Zac.

  “We need a car or something.” Zac replied.

  “Okay, but first you need to get Fee back. She’s somewhere else and we need to help her.” Janet said.

  “How? I… I don’t know what to do.”

  “She found the words to bring you back from the edge!” Janet said.

  Zac immediately found his thoughts firing back to their journey across London and how Fee had found her way through the deep darkness that had clouded his very being and closed him off from the world. She was able to reach him and drag him back. Now it was up to him to do the same for her. Janet smiled as she saw the revelation fill his wearied face. Slowly and achingly he took to his knees in front of Fee. Her face was buried deep into her raised lap, her matted dirty brown hair swathed over her shoulders and her blood coated hands clung tightly to her scrunched up legs. Zac moved under the table placed both his hands on her shoulders and lightly rested his forehead on the top of her head.

  “Come back to me!” He lightly whispered.

  Slowly Fee raised her head and their eyes fixed on one another. Her clear glazed eyes blinked and squinted at the breaching daylight.

  “There’s my girl.” Zac mumbled as a lump formed in his throat.

  “We need to go while they’re dormant.” Janet said.

  Zac held out his hand to Fee’s and she took hold of it without hesitation.

  “Keep your eyes on the ground and follow me.” He said as they crept out from under the table.

  Janet led the group into the malodorous dark corridor. They slowly skulked along the wall, their backs pushing tight against the fusty blood sprayed walls towards the next doorway along, which faced onto the rear of the building. Janet unobtrusively peered around the door and into the room. A slaughterhouse of cannibalistic carnage decorated the small chamber. The lay out had been much like Max’s room, but what presented itself inside looked nothing short of an implosion of anything that once lived. Body fragments no bigger than a thumb littered the space like butchers confetti. Clumps of hair matted with clawed scalp clung to walls like morbid artwork and hose like intestine snaked around the uprights of what remained of the bed. As he cornered the door, Zac immediately turned to Fee.

  “Close your eyes!” He whispered.

  “There’s a fire door!” Janet announced with magnified excitement.

  She stepped to the green door and slowly pushed the bar that ran the width of the wooden egresses mid drift. The door eased open with a light audible click and fresh morning air blasted into the room. Cautiously Janet edged around the door and eyed the scattering of vehicles that remained in the car park below. Off to the right, two trucks burned intensely. Black smoke billowing from their canvas backs as intense flames rapidly consumed the olive green coverings. To the left a buckled lamppost hugged the bonnet of an American Humvee and beyond this a lone British Army ambulance stood seemingly undamaged.

  “Well?” Zac said.

  “There’s hope! The ambulance, in the corner with the red cross on the side.” Janet replied.

  “Okay!” Zac confidently snapped.

  He turned to Fee, raised his hand to her cheek and she slowly opened her eyes.

  “We’re going to have to run in a minute. Down this stairwell and across to the ambulance.” He explained.

  No audible reply passed her mouth, though her lips moved and she nodded in agreement.

  “Ready when you are!” Zac announced as he turned back to Janet.

  Janet scanned every inch of the ground below, bushes, lifeless corpses and discarded equipment for any signs of movement or concealed screamers. Behind her, Zac started bouncing on his blistered toes and tried in vain to stretch off his knotted cramped leg before the sprint across the open ground. Janet took one last look left, then right, like a small children braving a lone road crossing for the first time.

  “Let’s move!” Janet sharply ordered.

  They quickly filed out the door and hit the clattering metal fire escape like an out of tune xylophone. Their hearts thundered as adrenaline fired through them from head to foot. Janet hit the ground and immediately made a dash for the closest burnt out vehicle, flinging herself against its toasty body and turning to ensure Zac and Fee rapidly followed suit before surveying the next leg of the dash across to the ambulance. Suddenly a small pack of infected awkwardly tore their way across the open ground of the car park. The skeletal remains of the vehicles carcass offered little cover as the blooded former soldiers, passed within inches of the cowering trio, before joining up with a larger marauding herd that trampled their way towards the chapel.

  “Okay, It’s clear!” Janet expelled as she jumped to her feet once more and sprinted towards the ambulance.

  All three hit the ambulance at full sprint and immediately set about trying the doors.

  “Shit, Shit, It’s bloody locked!” Zac fearfully yelped.

  “Quick, underneath!” Janet suggested, as without hesitation they simultaneously hit the floor and scrambled beneath the ambulance.

  “Fucking great! Now what?” Zac snapped.

  “We need the keys.” Janet replied.

  “Really? Zac sarcastically retorted.

  “Calm down.” Fee uttered, placing her hand on Zac’s shoulder.

  “Over there.” She continued, as she pointed towards a small brick building circled by a wire fence on the far side of
the car park.

  A large metal sign on the fence read, MOTOR POOL AND MAINTENANCE UNIT. Beyond the fence a graveyard of old military vehicles cluttered the small compound. At the centre, the small brick office building. It’s lights still on from the night before and the door swung slowly back and forth in the breeze.

  “All vehicle keys are kept in there.” Fee explained.

  “Yeah, if they’re not bouncing around the base on the belt of a Screamer.” Janet uttered with, uncharacteristic negativity.

  “I’ll go!” Zac murmured with a faint sense of chivalry which he instantly regretted, when no argument or counter offer was made.

  “Get ready!” Janet whispered as she shuffled awkwardly to the front of the vehicle and scanned the car park.

  Cautiously he shuffled back and slipped out the far side of the vehicle. He crawled around the front and wedged himself as closely to the bumper as he could. Warm beads of sweat gathered on his brow as nervous spasms pulsed through his body with every heartbeat, which pounded so intensely that he could feel the rhythm echo through the synapses in his head.

  “Go now!” Janet spat as she tapped Zac on the leg.

  What seemed like a sprint across the car park at full pace was, in reality, little more than a pathetic hobble for the weary, battered man. His perceived slalom round gutted vehicular obstacles barely mirrored a clumsy drunken stumble from car to car. But as he limped through the gate and into the maintenance compound, a relieved sense of victory dulled the nerves and he headed straight towards the office door.

  Prudence replaced haste as he slowed and edged up to the swinging door. He crept into a small square entrance hall. To his left, a row of coat hooks with several sets of oil coated coveralls and camouflage jackets lined a wooden rack. To the right, a row of old plastic chairs topped with a large photograph of aircraft flying in formation adorned the magnolia brick wall. To his front a small reception desk much like you’d find in a library or school reception fronted a further door into another room.

  Zac soon found himself standing at the inner door, leaning with his ear against the flaking blue paint that coated the old wooden portal. His fraught panting was all that reverberated back from the echoey vacuum formed by his pressing appendage. Slowly he reached out to the old dulled brass doorknob, turned it until it clicked and the door eased open. It opened up into a room about twice the size of the entrance hall. Desks blanketed with paperwork sat under a line of single glazed rusty framed windows that looked out onto the car park. To the right, rows of sturdy wooden shelves containing various files and vehicle manuals dominated the wall.

  He stepped into the room. On the back of the entrance hall wall to his left hung a large rack containing numerous hooks, each clearly labelled on laminated card with a vehicle licence plate number. Only a few hooks had a set of keys hanging from them. Zac frantically scanned the board for the ambulance keys, but the designated hook was empty. He moved into the office area swiping paper from desks and hurriedly rifling through cupboards and drawers. Dejected, he dropped into an office swivel chair and raised his hands to his face, growling in despairing frustration.

  He wiped his eyes and blinked. A momentary feeling of confusion stamped itself in Zak’s forethought. Something was different, something was wrong. He looked at his dirty pail hands and looked up. The doorway back into the entrance hall was blackened with the outline of a figure. Zac squinted and blinked into focus. Filling the doorway like a like a barricade of muscle was the rugged tower of an infected soldier.

  Solid thick shoulders heaved up and down as the monstrous beast panted. Its olive green fatigues, once the focus of uniformity and pride now ripped, dishevelled and coated with the thick blood of previous kills. Splintered, fragmented teeth gritted through gashed, crusty lips. Blood seeped from the corners of its mouth and stained its chin like the winner of a pie eating contest. It’s crimson coated eyes locked on Zac and the beast took a large inhale of breath.

  Before he knew what he was doing and prior to any idea of how to deal with the situation had come close to forming in his head, Zac was on his feet and hurtling towards the infected creature. The one thing he instinctively knew, was that if he allowed it to scream, he would almost certainly be dead. He was no sportsman, he’d never been in to football or rugby. The closest he had previously come to a contact sport was streaking through the girls locker room at school. Still here he was hurtling at the mountainous infection ridden soldier in what vaguely resembled a tackle to the mid drift. He struck the monster centre mass, expelling the building scream from its frothy mouth in little more than a splutter.

  The screamer yielded to its right side, rotating and flipping Zac to the floor. He was immediately back on his feet and stepping backwards into the office. His brain was no longer processing the messages of pain from his aching limbs and shredded feet. Every impulse in his mind was focused on one thing. Stopping that creature from taking a chunk out of him. His frail attack had angered Goliath who was now hell bent of selfishly devouring this meal solo. It's instinct to scream appeared momentarily absent as it advanced into the office. Stationary, lamps and any other office accoutrement were desperately hurtled in the direction of the advancing one man army.

  Zac desperately flashed his eyes around the room for anything he could use to fend of the imminent attack. Fear swelled inside him until all sense of defiance betrayed him. His mind and body were surrendering and he buckled into a ball in the corner of the room as tears of despair rolled down his face. He closed his eyes and gripped tightly to anything around him, bracing himself for the teeth to sink into his soft flesh.

  The realisation of what he had taken hold of took far too long and Goliath was quickly above him. Zac opened one eye to see his right hand wrapped tightly around the barrel of a rifle. As Goliath dropped his jaw and stooped towards his meal, a sudden shout from the door stopped stopped him in his tracks.

  “Hey Wanker!”

  Goliath snapped his head round towards the doorway. Zac arched to the left of the meaty thigh at head height, to see Fee standing with fists clenched and gritted teeth, trying to make herself look formidable.

  “What are you doing? Get out of here!” Zac yelled regaining Goliath’s attention with another snap of his head.

  “Not without you. I need you!” Fee pleaded as she started rapping her hand against the open door.

  “Come on Big Man, this way.” She calmly ordered Goliath.

  The frothing beast turned and faced the slight girl. Zac saw his chance and took firm hold of the rifle. The screamer edged towards the door as Fee continued to tease it closer. Zac stood and raised the rifle to his shoulder just like he’d seen in the movies and employed his best Call of Duty aim.

  “That’s enough knocking Fee!” Zac pleaded regaining Goliath’s attention once more.

  “Shoot it” Fee uttered.

  The end of the rifle heaved up and down with every uncontrollable nervous breath. He aimed the rifle towards Goliath’s extensive chest and squinted through the rear sight, lining it up with the foresight before quickly snapping at the trigger and closing his eyes. Nothing! No loud bang and Goliath remained. The blood lathered freak drew in a huge breath and released a bellowing, ear popping scream, that imploded within the tight office confines.

  “Shit!” Fee uttered as she started to panic.

  Zac Snapped repeatedly at the rifles trigger, but with no more reward than a springy click. Desperately he took hold of the barrel of the weapon, turned it around and swung the butt wildly at the shrieking creature. The first swing completely missed and Zac nearly lost his grip of the barrel. The infected hulk continued with its child-like chorus, until Zac rapidly swung the rifle again catching the harmonic monster square across the face. The beast staggered back and its jaw dropped redundantly, limp from the blow, immediately silencing him. Zac could almost see the surprise in the mono-emotional screamers eyes and immediately repeated the attack. The creature reacted, launching at Zac in a desperate attack. Zac s
tumbled backwards, cracking the base of his back on the corner of a desk and falling to the floor, the rifle scuttling across the room.

  With renewed despair, Zac raised both his legs and kicked ferociously at the attacker. Goliath slumped over Zac and dug both hands into his shoulders, imbedding what remained of his mangled fingernails into the muscular flesh of Zac’s shoulders and pulling his body closer to the frothing plasma filled mouth that swung impotently from its face. Zac tried to hold off from expelling the painful cry as the pain in his shoulders intensified beyond tolerable levels as the monster squeezed tighter. Suddenly Goliath’s head shot forward, His face bounding against Zac’s vulnerable chest. Zac screamed in anticipation of the first incision.

  Nothing. No bite. Zac slowly opened his tightly closed eyes and looked up. Fee was stood over them both, a bright red fire extinguisher, dripped with blood as she held it poised above her shoulder. Goliath stirred, dazed and stunned by the sharp blow to the back of the head. Zac quickly wriggled out from under the infected mass. He stood next to Fee as she lowered the extinguisher.

  “It’s coming round!” Fee said, as Goliath started to zone back in.

  Zac took the extinguisher from Fee. Their eyes met as they brushed hands and Zac raised a smile, which was instantly reciprocated by Fee. Goliath groaned and started to lift himself up. Zac raised the extinguisher and thrust it downward as hard as he could, cracking it right across the beasts cranium. The creature buckled to the floor once more. Again and again Zac released his full strength behind the extinguisher, pummelling Goliath’s skull, which cracked and split like a ripe coconut. The mashed contents spilling out onto the cold concrete floor. Zac looked down at the remains of the person at their feet. Frozen and empty. Fee bent down and started tugging at a set of keys that hung from the corpses belt.

  “What are you doing?” Zac enquired.