Mark Morris - Dead Island

As if to confirm this, there was a sudden ratcheting scream, which caused a flock of multi-coloured birds to take flight, and a woman appeared from behind one of the fishermen’s huts on their left. She was a young, dark-haired, olive-skinned woman, naked but for a pair of peach-coloured bikini briefs. One of her smallish breasts was hanging in bloody tatters, and further bites had been taken from her right arm and her abdomen.

Not that her injuries seemed to worry her, or slow her down in the slightest. She came at them like a rabid fan that had broken through a barrier at a pop concert. Except that in her eyes there was not adulation but a murderous, ravenous rage, and her scream was not an expression of excited hysteria but a primal, anguished howl.

Sam raised the flare pistol he was holding and pulled the trigger. There was a loud phut sound and the flare hurtled from the nozzle in a flash of fire and smoke like an avenging angel. It hit the woman full in her screaming mouth and seemed — to Sam at least — to briefly illuminate the inside of her head like a Halloween pumpkin. The woman’s head snapped back as if she had run full-tilt into a hidden wire positioned at neck-height, her feet skidding from under her. As she went down on to her back, hands clawing at the air, Sam rushed forward, and before the woman could recover, he raised his cleaver and brought it down with all his strength.

His intention was to sever her head with one blow, but he misjudged slightly and the blade hit her just below the nose, bisecting her face. Blood spurted up with such force that it splashed the underside of his chin and trickled down his neck. He swore as the machete jammed in the front of her skull, almost overbalancing him. As the woman’s clutching hand grabbed and tightened around his ankle, Xian Mei glided forward and with ruthless efficiency lopped off the woman’s arm at the wrist.

‘Godammit!’ Sam grunted, yanking and twisting the machete free of the woman’s mangled face. Stepping back, he raised it and brought it down again and this time his aim was true. The blade sliced through her neck all the way to her spine. A further blow severed the spine itself and life went out of the woman abruptly and permanently, her body slumping, becoming still.

‘And so it begins,’ said Purna, her eyes darting everywhere, alert for further attacks.

Sam wiped the blade of his machete on the furry bark of a nearby palm tree and reloaded the flare pistol. ‘Least they let us know they’re comin’,’ he said. ‘One thing they ain’t is sneaky.’

They continued on, Sam muttering about how he’d only just cleaned last night’s blood off his skin, and now here he was, all covered in it again. ‘And I ain’t even had my breakfast yet,’ he said.

‘What? You hoping to find somewhere we can stop off for a latte and a croissant?’ teased Purna.

‘Hell no. In light of the situation I’d settle for grits and a soda.’

Purna snorted a laugh.

They knew they were nearing the main street when the ground rose abruptly, curving away from the sea. Suddenly the path became a set of stone steps, caged on both sides by a waist-high chain-link fence.

‘We need to be extra vigilant from now on,’ Purna said. ‘Try not to get hemmed in anywhere.’

‘Like here you mean?’ said Sam, eyeing the surrounding foliage nervously.

‘We don’t have much choice here,’ said Purna. ‘Let’s just move quickly and stay alert.’

They hurried up the steps, weapons at the ready. Near the top they heard the sound of voices. Sam raised a hand and they paused a moment, listening.

It sounded like two men talking, though what Sam, Purna and Xian Mei found puzzling was that they were making no attempt to keep their voices low. However, although the voices were loud, they had a muffled quality to them, indicating they were indoors rather than out in the open.

‘What the hell is—’ Sam began, then they all heard a sound that answered the question he was about to ask: canned laughter.

‘It’s a TV show,’ Xian Mei said.

Sam frowned. ‘But who’d be watching TV at a time like this?’

‘Maybe someone who has no idea what’s happening,’ Purna suggested.

‘Then I guess we ought to tell them,’ said Sam, ‘before they find out the hard way.’

The blaring of the TV grew louder as they ascended the last dozen steps. Though the infected had probably had hours to check out the noise, it still made all three of them nervous to be so close to something that could potentially attract attention. The top of the steps opened out into a back yard, behind what Sam guessed was one of the buildings lining the long main street. From what he had seen of them, the bars, restaurants and retail outlets were not only crammed together in a jumble of shapes and sizes and styles, but they were also in various states of repair, as if the street had grown up organically, rather than being planned as a tourist-serving fait accompli from the outset.

This particular building was a shabby clapboard affair sandwiched between two taller and more austere edifices constructed of steel, glass and polished wood. Ominously there was an overturned dustbin in the yard, spewing rubbish, and the screen door at the back was half open. A narrow alley to the left of the building provided access to and from the main street.

‘This doesn’t look good,’ said Xian Mei.

Sam glanced at her. ‘Think we should check it out?’

‘It would probably be foolish,’ said Purna.

‘But?’ said Sam.

She sighed. ‘But if someone is in there, oblivious to what’s happening …’

Sam nodded. ‘They might as well be banging a dinner gong.’

He took the lead, crossing the yard quickly. At the screen door he paused and knocked.

‘Hey,’ he called softly. ‘Anyone in here?’

There was no reply.

‘I’m going in,’ he said. ‘And before you say it, yeah, I’ll be careful.’

‘I’m coming too,’ said Purna.

Sam frowned. ‘Someone should stay out here in case of visitors.’

Xian Mei pulled an ‘oh well’ face and shrugged, as if she had drawn the short straw.

‘Yell if you need us,’ Purna said, placing a hand briefly on Xian Mei’s arm, then she slipped into the building behind Sam.

If this was a store of some kind, then it didn’t seem like it from the back. Clearly the rear of the building was given over to living quarters, indicating that this was a home as much as a place of work. The first room they entered was a kitchen, modest and shabby, but also clean and neat. There was nothing out of place here, nothing to indicate that anything untoward had been happening.

The blaring TV was located somewhere deeper in the house. Sam and Purna crossed the room swiftly to the inner door, Sam placing his ear against it to see if he could make out any other sounds. Unable to do so, he glanced at Purna and she nodded. He opened the door, gritting his teeth against the creak it made, and stepped through quickly, looking every which way to assess the terrain. The TV was now so loud that Sam was able to tell which show was playing — it was a rerun of Friends . He even recognized the episode; it was the one where Ross and Rachel get married in Vegas after drinking themselves insensible.

The noise of the TV was coming from a room beyond an open door to their right. In the centre of the opposite wall was another door, closed and with a key in the lock. Sam guessed that this one must lead into the retail/public area at the front of the building. The left-hand wall was dominated by a narrow wooden staircase stretching upwards into shadows. Sam moved forward, but stopped after a couple of seconds when Purna put a hand on his arm.

‘What is it?’ he hissed.