Jack Lewis - Fear the Dead - A Zombie Apocalypse Book

He looked down at me. “Kyle – heads up.”

Adrenaline shot through my body. Trying to keep track of both the scuffling of the oncoming infected and the scrambling movements of the hunters as they ran toward us fogged my brain, and I couldn’t comprehend what Justin was saying.

“Stop screwing around.” he hissed. “Catch!”

When the crate was halfway through the air my brain cells fired and I realised what he meant – he wanted me to catch the crate of cans that was hurtling down toward me. I took a step back, tensed my muscles and readied myself. As the crate hit my forearms I felt my thigh muscles buckle a little, but I steadied my feet and stood firm. I put the crate down on the floor next to me. My face felt red with the strain, and I realised I was badly out of shape.

“Flank them,” said Torben somewhere behind me. “Trap them in, and if they come at you, don’t kill them.”

The footsteps scattered out from all directions. Although opening the delivery doors had let in a little light, the warehouse was still too dark to make out anything but the most immediate space around me, so I couldn’t see where the hunters were coming from. The only person I was sure of was Torben, and that’s because he had his torch pointed in my direction. Above, on the top shelf, Justin looked down and waited for me to tell him what to do.

I needed to do something. This was no fair fight, and if all four of them managed to corner me then my odds would drop to zero.

I looked to my right. The shelves were all arranged in rows, and they were all so close that if one fell, it was possible the rest could topple. If I could get a domino effect going, maybe I’d get lucky at hit one of the hunters. Maybe this was a ridiculous plan, but in my head I could see the shelves toppling. At the very least, a bunch of giant metal shelves falling in front of them ought to slow them down.

“Hang on,” I said to Justin.

I walked to the row of shelves next to us pushed against it. Although the shelves of this one were empty it was still a twenty-foot high metal construction, and I wasn’t exactly in a peak physical state. It took a lot of straining, but soon I managed to get it moving. As I kept my weight on it and shoved, the shelf started to rock with its own momentum. Soon it tipped so far forward that for a second I thought my plan was going to work.

When it turned the other way and rocked back in my direction, I felt my chest flood with panic. I moved out of the way and watched it fall. It was going to hit Justin’s shelf, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“Jump,” I told him.

I was too late. The shelf leaned back like a tower block blasted with a demolition charge and it smashed into Justin’s shelf. Both metal structures made a creaking sound and fell to the floor, spraying metal and loose cans around the warehouse.

“Justin!” I said. I couldn’t see where he had landed.

The hunter’s footsteps were closer now, but I still couldn’t see them. To my left the moans of the dead were getting louder. I looked around, but I couldn’t see Justin’s body, nor could I hear him. This worried me; if he had fallen and hurt himself, I would have heard him shout about it. Injuries meant pain, and pain meant screaming. Screaming meant you were still alive.

Silence could mean anything.

I was about to take off to my left when I heard the stomp of a boot to the right of me. I turned my head and saw a hunter in front of me. He was a giant guy; six foot three, completely bald and he had a butcher’s knife in his hand.

“Got ‘im!” the man shouted.

There were a few acknowledging shouts, and footsteps started in our direction.

He looked at me and a smile spread across his lips. “The man who catches the pig usually gets first choice of cut,” he said.

I thought about reaching for my own knife, but judging from the size of this guy there was no chance of me beating him. I looked over at the collapsed shelves. If Justin was buried underneath them there was no way he’d be coming out of nowhere to help me, like he had back at the barricade. I hoped he wasn’t buried. Wherever he was, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do.

As I desperately tried to think up any solution that didn’t result in my complete surrender, an unseen ally came to my rescue. Behind the hunter, the head of an infected appeared, and he had his eyes set on the human flesh in front of him. I could have warned the man, I could have told him what was happening, but I said nothing. The sight of the infected made me instinctively flex my hands, but this time I kept them at my sides.

The infected sank its teeth into the hunter’s shoulders and tore at the skin and flesh that covered his shoulder blade. The man screamed, and blood splashed all over his clothes and onto the floor. He made a sound that was almost a gurgle as the infected dragged a stringy sinew of skin off his back. He turned and tried to fight it, his eyes wide with sheer panic.

This was my only chance. Torben and the others would be here in seconds, and the other infected were closing in. I looked across to my left and saw a sign for a manager’s office. Surely there would be a way out through there?

The only problem was that escaping now meant leaving Justin behind. I still didn’t like the kid, but there was a chance he was still living. And if he was, it meant that he’d feel it when the infected found him and started to tear shreds off him.

I couldn’t abandon him to that.

I sprinted over to the collapsed shelves. My heart juddered like a drill, and the adrenaline shot that had been dumped into my bloodstream was so intense it felt like I was on speed. Just before I reached the shelves I heard a voice above me. I looked up.

In the ceiling, his head poking out through an air vent, was Justin.

I opened my mouth to speak.

“I’ll explain later,” he said, cutting me off. “Meet me out front. And don’t forget the food.”

I found the crate of tins on the floor and heaved it onto my shoulder. My body was so jacked up that I felt like I could have carried six of them. I left the moans of the infected and the cries of the hunters behind and ran toward the manager’s office. As I grabbed the door handle and started to turn, I heard a familiar voice.

“Didn’t expect this to be over so soon,” he said.

I span round and saw Torben stood there, his gun pointed at my chest. Behind him was the body of the giant hunter who I had let get attacked by the infected. The monster that had bitten his shoulder was dead, its head completely crushed, but two other infected had taken its place and they dug through the hunter’s stomach with their hands and shovelled parts of him into their mouths.

Torben stood in as casual a posture as you could imagine, oblivious to sounds of the monsters eating his friend and the danger of the other infected that moved through the darkness.

“How about we pause the game,” I said, knowing I didn’t have many options open to me but to buy a little time.

Torben raised his rifle at my face. He was fifteen feet away, and something told me that there was no chance he’d miss.

“I think not. I promised I’d hunt you down, and I’ve done it. I hope the boy isn’t dead yet though; he looked like he had potential.”

He moved his finger to the trigger and was about to pull it, when the driver ran up to him. His shoulders were tight and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.

“Torbs – we gotta get out. Mick and Bailey are dead, and there’s about forty of the fuckers coming in.”

This was my chance to leave. The manager’s office was behind me, and through it there had to be an escape. As I was about to turn I heard a gunshot and felt the impact of something hit the front of me, knocking the wind out of me. I dropped the crate of cans to the floor. I couldn’t breathe, and for a second, I couldn’t even think. I’d been hit. This was it.