brighter.
Cannon scanned the beam around the corridor. The once white tiled floor was awash with rat droppings and garbage. Most things had degraded to a brown pulp but there was still the odd recognisable item, much of which was out of place in the back of a store.
The beam cast over a child’s bike. Cahz stepped over to look at the plastic trike, its bright yellow and reds still visible under a coating of crud. He rested a friendly hand on Cannon’s shoulder and Cannon juddered.
“Whoa. You okay?” Cahz asked.
“Fine,” Cannon snapped, flicking the light from the bike. “We’ve got to move. Where the fuck is Ryan?”
“Up here I think.” Cahz pointed to the T-junction at the end of the corridor.
The sound of shuffling and moans from behind hastened Cahz’s steps. As he drew level with the junction it was easy to tell which way Ryan had turned by the baby’s crying. Ryan was standing rubbing the side of his head a couple of paces down the passageway.
“Which way?” Cahz asked.
“I don’t know,” Ryan confessed over the sobs coming from his backpack.
“Take a guess.”
A grizzly moan and a burst of machinegun fire from behind forced Ryan’s decision.
“This way.” He pointed down the junction.
“Cannon, on point.” Cahz said.
Cannon pushed past, his weapon still smoking. “Sure thang, boss,” he said.
Cannon slung his machine gun and pulled out his pistol. With his arms crossed at the wrist, he marched into the darkness, his torch darting back and forth trying to push back the black.
“He doesn’t sound like a soldier when he talks to you,” Ryan whispered to Cahz.
“He never has,” Cahz whispered back. “Maybe it’s because he’d been out of it before his reactivation. It’s never bothered me. He’s always sound.”
“Yeah, but what’s this ‘boss’ thing?”
“Irony, I guess.” Cahz shrugged. “All my crew use it. I think Private Bates started it. Like I say, I don’t mind it. A lot of standards have slipped, especially among conscripts. But they’re a good crew. A bit irreverent at times, but military protocol is not what it was.”
“I thought you said you both served overseas?” Ryan said.
“We did separate tours, but he’s never said where.”
“And you’ve not been curious?”
“A lot of bad shit happened,” Cahz replied in an even more hushed tone. “A lot of guys had a hard time getting back to the real world. Cannon was one of them. He’d been discharged long before the Rising. When they put him back in a uniform he wouldn’t tell them anything about his previous service. Things were shot to fuck by that point so they couldn’t check. They stuck him with private and left him with me.”
“So you don’t know what his story is then?”
“Never asked,” Cahz answered. “We all got stories.”
Ryan’s nod was lost to the gloom.
The torch light from up ahead died then burst back on.
“Cannon? Everything okay?”
“Look,” Cannon said.
He shone the light at the bottom of the door in front of them. When he switched the torch off, a faint glow of light could be seen.
“Okay,” Cahz said, placing a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “If that’s a way out it’s a way in, too. Ryan, you open the door. Cannon will be left, me right.” He double checked his carbine and side arm. “We break out fast. Dispatch Whisky Deltas only if you have to.” He waited for agreement to manifest in his companion’s eyes. “We get out and into the street as fast as we can. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Okay.” Cahz counted a silent three, two, one, and shouted, “Go!”
Chapter Sixteen
Neighbourhood
Behind his closed eyes Ali could hear a rasping-something moving close to him. Slowly he raised his eyelids. A shadow crept across the floor. Ali stiffened up and held his breath. Drawn to the movement, he looked up from the chair.
The shadow rushed forward. Ali leapt from the chair, his heart bursting from his chest. A twinge of pain sliced though his wounded leg and his balance snatched from him. He stumbled back until he thumped to a stop propped against the wall. Frantically he looked around the room, but was unable to see the zombie.
Then he registered the source of the movement. There was a sheet of weathered plastic wrapped around the balcony. It was the type of thick translucent sheeting used to temporarily waterproof building works. The ragged ends lashed out at the window, creating both the rasping sound and the dancing shadow.
“Getting jumpy,” Ali said to himself as he caught his breath. And in spite of the false alarm he peeked down the hallway to check the front door was still closed. Satisfied that he was still safe, he threw his arms back at the shoulders and puffed his chest out in a stretch. He gave an expansive yawn that lifted him up onto his tiptoes before letting out a sharp sigh.
Ali walked over to the window, limping slightly from the aggravated wound.
Judging by the light it was still early afternoon. He checked his watch, convinced he’d slept longer than he had. The big hand hadn’t even moved half way round. Slender white clouds were racing high in the sky and on the horizon out towards the ocean; darker, more menacing ones rolled in towards the mainland. He walked out onto the balcony and in an act of hope he looked around.
Across the road the blaze had engulfed the far building and the zombies crushed against its walls had burnt to a crisp. The mass of undead funnelling in to get at Ali were shoving some of the weaker zombies into the burning flames.
Any fleeting thought that there was a benefit in the reduction in numbers was erased when Ali saw the space directly below the apartment. From his vantage point he couldn’t see the tarmac, so tightly packed were the zombies.
He lent on the railing and peered across to the building he’d seen Ryan in. It wasn’t yet alight, but Ali guessed it wouldn’t be long before the fire took. His eyes caught the window he’d spotted his friend at. It was still open but there was no movement and he spotted nothing in any of the numerous windows.
Ali unsnagged the sheet of polythene and balled it up before dropping it onto the crowd below.
“I hope you’re all right, my friend,” he whispered to the wind before walking back to the dining area.
Pulling a fresh bottle of water from the plastic wrapped case, he unscrewed the cap off and took a refreshing gulp. Then a sharp crack caught the air and Ali’s grip on the bottle broke. The flinch sent the plastic container skating across the kitchen counter. Another shot rang out, distant and muffled.
Ignoring the precious water glugging its way to freedom, Ali rushed to the window. He slammed the handle down and burst onto the balcony.
The cold moist air caught his hair, obscuring his view for a moment. Sweeping it to one side, Ali clasped his big hands round the balcony and leaned out. He scanned the street below, desperate to spot Ryan and the soldiers. More and more gunfire could be heard and it was obvious to Ali that these were no well-aimed shots. The bursts were frantic and erratic, the noise of combat, not the steady aimed shots he’d heard this morning.
He scanned the windows in the office block across the street, but there was no sign of anyone.
Within a few minutes the sound of gunfire was gone.
Ali wrung the balcony railing tight in his grasp. He shook his head and sucked air through his teeth. All the time he listened to the wind and the moans, trying to pick out the slightest noise-a scream, a gunshot, anything to tell
