Part 4 (2/2)

”Ready?” she asked, her hand going to the recessed handle.

”Theres no point,” Chester said.

”Im not leaving it in there,” she said as she twisted the handle and pulled. The door stayed closed.

”Thats what I meant,” Chester said. ”Theres no point having a cell with doors that can be opened simply by staging a blackout.”

She moved to the next cell. By lamplight, she could see another body. This one was a corpse and it was long dead. There were stains on the gla.s.s, these dried and flaking. The body lay with one hand outstretched, fingernails torn and broken, palm open, almost as if asking for help.

”Left in there to die,” Chester said, darkly.

”Enough,” Nilda said, walking briskly to the end of the corridor. Another door. Another corridor. An interrogation room to the right, a storeroom to the left. She walked inside, still able to hear that zombie clawing at that reinforced window.

”Quickly,” she said. ”Locker C1.3 wasnt it?”

It was obvious which one that was. There was a bright yellow sticker in the middle, a thick yellow band painted at the top and bottom, and it was the only locker that hadnt been emptied. Inside they found two Geiger counters, a pair of yellow all-in-one protective suits, two rebreathers and a long box. She opened it. Twelve dosimeters lay nestled inside.

She pulled off her pack and stuffed those inside, and then the Geiger counters. For good measure and for no reason other than they were there, she grabbed the rebreathers and yellow suits. They went into Chesters pack.

”I want to see blue skies again,” she said.

”Agreed.”

The trapped creatures pounding intensified when they made their way past the cells. As they headed down the corridor beyond, Nilda thought she could still hear it, then realised that this was a new sound. It was as if something metallic was being slowly dragged along the ground. It was hard to identify and even harder to pinpoint from where it came. She turned around, trying to peer into the shadows beyond the few dozen yards illuminated by the lamp.

”Ignore it,” Chester said, grabbing her arm. But she couldnt, and the noise didnt stop.

It was almost a relief, twenty yards further on, when a set of doors on their right flew open and a zombie stumbled out. It managed two lurching steps before the doors swung closed, hitting it in the face and pitching it back into the room. It was like a scene from one of those bad sitcoms broadcast late at night for an audience too tired, drunk, or indifferent to change the channel. And with that image, the flash of fear vanished.

The doors pushed open again, and the creature staggered out into the corridor. And it did so with a metallic sc.r.a.pe. Attached to its right ankle was a handcuff. The other end of the 'cuffs was attached to a twisted section of metal tubing belonging to Nilda didnt know what. Calmly, she stepped forward and swiped the sword at the zombies out-flung hand, severing three of its fingers as it clawed towards her. As she brought her sword arm back, she ducked, and then struck again, slicing the blade through the tendons at the back of its knees. She cut through stained fabric and desiccated flesh, and as it tried to snap its mouth down on her outstretched wrist, it toppled sideways. Its head hit the double doors, knocking them inward. Before they could swing closed again, shed stabbed the sword down, spearing the point through the zombies temple. It stopped moving. Pitiful, she thought, truly pitiful.

”Lets get out of here,” Chester said.

”Yeah. Ive had-” She stopped. There it was again. That metallic sc.r.a.ping sound. And it seemed to be coming from every direction at once.

”Now!” he barked, but she didnt need any encouragement.

They jogged to the junction where the corridor met the one that led outside. At the far end she could make out the double doors, silhouetted by a faint halo of daylight. She managed one step towards the light when that sound grew, suddenly amplified tenfold. She looked left and right and back and forth and saw nothing. Then she realised why. She looked up.

”Its above us!” she screamed, grabbing Chesters arm, pulling him back, just as the false ceiling above them collapsed.

Zombies fell to the floor. Blue coats. White coats. A man. Two women. A child. Those facts vaguely registered as she kept backing away. Four more fell, and then another section of ceiling and a score tumbled out. Some hit the ground with the soft crack of rotting bone, others with a crunch of plaster and Styrofoam as they found their feet and moved towards the light. As one, Nilda and Chester turned and ran.

Behind them, she could hear more falling thumps, more crunching of plaster, and then a harsher metallic jangling as the light fittings and ventilation that the false ceiling had been built to hide were torn loose. Just run, she told herself, because they couldnt. All she had to do was keep moving, but before she could seek any comfort in that thought, the ceiling ahead of them collapsed. Plaster and dust erupted in a thick cloud, turning visibility to nothing. Coughing, spluttering, retching, she could make out the squirming forms of the undead thras.h.i.+ng on the ground, all struggling to stand.

Chester bellowed and sprang, his mace cleaving up and down, up and down. He wasnt aiming at heads; there was too much dust to aim at anything. He just hacked and hewed with furious abandon, metal smas.h.i.+ng into the floor as often as it crushed necrotic flesh. Nilda ran, swinging the lamp back and forth in one hand, the sword stabbing and slicing in the other. She screamed a bellow of incandescent fury and fear as fingers clawed at her legs and tugged at her feet. Cold pain ran up from her calf, and she danced sideways, half-tripping as a hand caught at her ankle. Then there was a hand at her shoulder, yanking her forward. It was Chester, grunting with the effort as he pulled her free of that heaving heap of death.

As her eyes cleared and her brain focused, she saw the corridor ahead was clear. She tried to run, but that turned into a limp. Chester threw an arm under hers, roughly dragging her onward, and then right at the next junction. There, ahead, was the bright outline of daylight on the other side of a door. In front of it, heading towards them, were four of the undead. She hurled the lamp at them, taking quick shallow breaths, trying to recover, preparing herself to fight.

”Never stops, does it?” Chester muttered. There was an eruption of light and sound. Once. Twice. He fired. Again and again. Four shots, then five, then six, emptying the revolver. Three fell. The fourth staggered with the impact as the bullet hit its collarbone. Nilda hobbled forward, slicing the sword at the creatures legs, knocking it down to one knee, bringing her hand back, stabbing it through an eye before it had a chance to stand.

They pushed the door open. The light was blinding. The air was cool, and for a brief moment all seemed well, but then her eyes adjusted. She saw the mechanical graveyard in front, and to her right she saw the other door, the one theyd used to enter the terminal, and out of which came a slow procession of the undead.

”Can you run?” Chester asked as he grabbed her arm.

”Lets find out.”

With Chester half dragging her, she limped away from the terminal building. Those green birds seemed to be everywhere now, all flying up and away from them and the slow and inexorable death that followed.

”The boat.” She waved an arm towards the southeast, but they were running to the north.

”Well be fine. Just a bit further.”

And he was right. They ran around a broken section of wing and found themselves on the relatively clear stretch of runway. The terminal was now to their right. The zombies were following them but were getting caught in the wreckage. Chester, his hand a vice on Nildas arm, didnt slow. Ahead she could see two figures. One waved.

Another hundred yards, and they were close enough to hear Jay call, ”What happened?” when behind her there was a sharp popping sound, followed by a rattling clatter. Nilda found herself looking back towards the warehouse in which the emergency vehicles had been stored. The retractable gate had broken. The undead that had been trapped inside spilled out onto the tarmac. She froze.

”Children,” she said. They had to be. Though there were a few taller figures, most were too small to ever have been adults.

”No time for it.” Chester grabbed her arm and tugged her back towards Jay, Tuck, and the waiting lifeboat.

As Chester piloted the boat back out into the Thames, Nilda couldnt take her eyes from the undead staggering along the runway. Three reached the end almost at the same time and kept on moving, tumbling down into the water ”How many do you think there are?” Jay asked.

”Two hundred. Three. More,” Nilda said, taking out the much depleted first-aid kit to clean the cuts on her legs.

”Its a shame,” Jay said.

”Yes,” Nilda said. ”All those children. All those lives, wasted. Flown all this way in the hope they would find safety, forced to take refuge in that building when the terminal was overrun, only to find that sanctuary was really a mausoleum.”

”No,” Jay said. ”I meant its a shame because there was probably some useful stuff in the airport.”

She wondered when her son had become so callous. But he hadnt, not really. He didnt see the undead as children, but simply as an annoying obstacle to be avoided or overcome.

”I think,” she said, ”that with that number of people staying at the airport, they would have used up all the obvious supplies.”

”Yeah, but were starting to need the un.o.bvious ones,” Jay said. ”Things like brake cables. We didnt know they were useful until we started making the walkways. Then theres bleach and string. And paper. Didnt they have bookshops at airports? And we didnt look for the fuel.”

”Fuel?”

”Yeah, plane fuel. Tuck says you can use it in a car or boat.”

”Can you?”

”In a diesel engine, sure. And if those people stayed at the airport, I wonder...” Chester began. ”Hmm.”

”What?”

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