Personally I respect Sister Helen’s beliefs, and I can truly say that my wife Maya and I will be eternally grateful for her kindness, but I happen to think there’s a way out of this — or that even if there isn’t, then that don’t mean we should quit trying to find one. So here’s my proposal: if you guys head back into town to pick up some medication for Mr Owen and enough provisions to keep us going for the next few days, and weapons to defend ourselves with, if needs be, then we’ll show you a way to get better weapons for yourselves — guns, maybe even explosives.’
‘How?’ Purna asked.
Ed indicated the tall handsome man, who had so far said barely a word. ‘Dani here and his brother, Pedro, run a business that sets up security systems for companies and individuals on Banoi — electric fences, CCTV, internal coded locking systems, you name it. And it just so happens that one of their clients is the police, and that a few years ago Dani and Pedro installed a weapons vault in the resort station on the main street.’
Dani nodded. His voice was soft and deep, his English good but strongly accented. ‘I have security codes in here.’ He tapped his head. ‘Inside vault is plenty of weapon for all. If Sister Helen says is OK, I come with you.’
They all looked at Sister Helen, who said smilingly, ‘Oh, we all have free will. I cannot possibly speak for Him.’
Dani looked at Purna and nodded slowly. ‘Then I come with you,’ he said.
Chapter 9. LOW-LIFE
‘HOLY CRAP.’
Sam’s tone was almost reverential. The sight that greeted them as they turned the corner on to the main resort street was both terrifying and awe-inspiring.
The infected were everywhere. In a hideously grotesque parody of consumerism, they were shuffling up and down the long main street as if window shopping. Some of them were even wandering aimlessly in and out of the stores and bars and restaurants, presumably looking for food.
If anyone
As for the infected themselves, they were made up almost entirely of holidaymakers and resort staff. Many were dressed in nightwear or brightly coloured holiday clothes; some were wearing the uniforms of hotel staff or retail assistants. They were of all ages and colours and creeds, and they almost all bore the evidence of bites or other, more serious wounds. Sam could see one old man constantly stumbling on his own intestines, slick pink loops of which were hanging out of a rent in his stomach and trailing around his feet like a tangle of dead snakes. Other zombies were missing limbs or feet or hands; some, unable to walk, were dragging themselves along, their fingernails torn and bleeding. Yet others were missing parts of their face — one man had had his entire lower jaw torn away and his fat, blackening tongue was plastered to his throat like a feeding leech. The majority of them were smeared with the remains of recent meals, hands and faces caked in drying blood and clots of raw meat.
So far, despite the noise of the van’s engine, Purna, Sam and the others had been ignored — further evidence that Sam’s theory was correct and that the infected only responded to what they could eat, blanking out everything else.
‘You reckon they can smell us in here?’ Sam said as the van idled at the intersection.
Purna shrugged. ‘Maybe they don’t need to smell us. Maybe if they just catch sight of us, that little “food” sign will ping in their heads.’
‘So where
‘About half-mile that way,’ Dani replied, pointing left along the main drag. ‘Big white building. We park at bottom of steps and run up. There is … er …’ He mimed pressing buttons.
‘Keypad?’ suggested Xian Mei.
‘Yes. Keypad outside door. Four-number code.’
‘You’d better tell us what it is,’ said Purna. ‘Just in case of unexpected developments.’
Dani nodded. ‘Is four-two-seven-four.’
‘Four-two-seven-four,’ repeated Purna. ‘Everyone got that?’
Sam, Jin and Xian Mei all nodded.
‘OK. Let’s do this.’
They had already discussed the plan — get the guns first, then drive round the back of the main supermarket to the delivery warehouse, where it would hopefully be quieter. Jin had explained there was a pharmacy outlet within the supermarket itself, which had a prescriptions counter, so with luck they would be able to get Mr Owen’s Nadolol there. If not, they would have to make a separate trip to the bigger pharmacy, which was further up towards their resort hotel. Purna remarked sourly that at this rate they’d do so much backtracking that eventually they’d end up in their hotel rooms.
She eased off the brake and edged forward slowly, the silver-grey van nudging into the main street. It struck Sam that the van was kind of like a shark, cruising slowly through the shallows of a sea packed with holidaymakers — except in this case the tourists, and not the shark, were the predators. The infected milled about in front of them, ignoring the van and each other. They even ignored the van when it bumped gently against them, nudging them out of the way.
They had crawled maybe a hundred metres without incident when they encountered a girl in a white Christian Dior T-shirt and denim shorts standing directly in front of them. The girl would have been pretty if it wasn’t for her glazed and milky eyes, and the red gruel of blood and offal clotted in her shoulder-length blonde hair. She was just standing there, her head tilted vaguely upwards, as if distracted by something in the sky whilst out for a morning’s shopping. As the van glided towards her, engine rumbling softly, she lowered her head with a slow, almost creaky movement and stared through the windscreen straight at them.
At least, she seemed to. Sam held his breath as her dead eyes regarded him unflinchingly. Beside him, Jin and Xian Mei, crushed into the middle seat together, were rigid, barely daring to move. Speaking quietly through compressed lips, Jin asked nervously, ‘You think she sees us?’
‘I don’t know,’ murmured Purna, moving her hands as slowly as possible as she eased the van to a halt.
The vehicle came to rest with its front grille only an inch or so from the girl’s sun-bronzed thighs. The girl continued to stare at them for several more seconds, mouth half-open, face slack. Then she took a stumbling step forward, bumped into the front of the van and veered off in a different direction. Sam breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Man, that was—’ he began.
He jumped in shock as something slammed into the passenger window, inches from his face. He turned to see the girl’s suddenly enraged, screeching face, her dead eyes glaring into his own. She was scrabbling at the glass with hooked fingers, leaving smeary marks.
‘Shit,’ said Purna as other zombies began to turn towards them, alerted by the commotion.
Swiftly, but without panic, she put the van into gear and depressed the accelerator. It slid forward as a dozen or more of the infected converged on them from all sides. The blonde-haired girl’s hands squealed down the outside of the window, leaving greasy imprints, and then she was gone. The van’s forward momentum left most of the initial group of suddenly alerted zombies in its wake, but already others were turning in their direction as if a psychic signal was sizzling through their reanimated brains like a mental Mexican Wave.
‘Hold on!’ Purna shouted as the van picked up speed. The infected were running at them from all directions now, in such numbers that in a matter of seconds it was going to prove impossible to avoid hitting them.
Jin screamed as the first collision jolted them in their seats. A corpulent, dark-haired woman in her early thirties was knocked backwards with such force that she all but flattened a small boy in Batman pyjamas who was running up behind her. The van rocked from side to side as the infected began to throw themselves at it like human
