“That truck, quick!” Alan shouts, pointing at the same truck he got the supplies from.
Both men are up and running just as the first hostile makes it up the wall and onto the road on their side, the two men ignoring it in a desperate attempt to get to the truck. Alan makes it first and opens the door. He jumps into the cab in one swift motion, immediately moving across the cab and into the driver’s seat. Mike is in straight after him and slams the door behind him, just as a creature whacks into the closed door.
Some luck, at last, as the keys are still in the ignition. Alan immediately starts the engine, puts the truck into reverse and accelerates back.
“This is gonna get bumpy, mate,” Alan shouts.
“No shit, my friend; just get us out of here.”
Hostiles are now all over the road, so Alan reverses as quickly as possible, his head darting from side to side, looking into the two wing mirrors. He swerves in and out as they race backwards to avoid other vehicles. Thuds and bumps sound from the back of the truck as they drive backwards into and over these things behind them. They can only hope none of them are their comrades, still alive and now being crushed.
In front of them, one creature runs and jumps at the cab of the truck but before it lands, Mike opens up with a short burst from his automatic rifle. The sound is deafening in the confines of the cab, the bullets piercing through the windscreen leaving small holes but not shattering it. They hit their target and the creature goes down in front of them.
They reverse away from the carnage, away from all their doomed comrades, and the flyover is lost. Both men sit quietly, sickened by their own loss and not that of the flyover.
Chapter 10
The gate to Orion must be cleared before we can drive through it and there is only one option that comes to mind. It is dangerously risky but it’s a risk we are going to have to take.
Putting the car into drive, it starts to roll quietly around the corner and onto North Wharf Road, rolling forward, heading straight towards the siege in front. The car moves out of the bright sun and through into the smoke haze that is getting thicker by the minute, not drawing any attention to itself, the smoke helping to mask the car as it approaches the gate.
“Keep down, you two, it’s going to get bad again.”
As the car draws closer to the gate of the Orion Building, it gently picks up speed. No attention seems to be given to us approaching, yet! The Rabids, now nine or ten deep at the gate, are too busy trying to get at whatever is attracting them in the building compound, which I am hoping is Dan or someone else holding out, waiting for us to arrive.
We are now around seventy-five metres from the gate and it is now time to draw some attention. As I accelerate, the engine roars, and as soon as it does, the heads of the Rabids closest to us turn in our direction, their mouths opening wide, their teeth at the ready.
The car is now at forty-five miles an hour, ramming speed. We don’t want to be going so fast that I don’t have control of the car when we hit these things. I need to be able to react and if we are too fast, there won’t be time.
I sound the car horn in two short bursts to alert Dan—or whoever is waiting—
that we are here and to get the gate open. Please let someone be there. I mount the pavement so the car is running in line with the wall as close as I dare, and more importantly, in line with the gate.
As the car ploughs into the mass of bodies outside the gate, I am almost sure that the faces of the creatures that do see us coming only look more evil and threatening as the car hits them.
Some of the bodies fly up into the air, but I don’t see where they land. Some are dragged under the car but the four-wheel drive carries us up and over them with ease, crushing more between the car and the gate. The move mangles them and rips them to pieces between the railings. Through my window, even at this speed, I see a female Rabid have her head split in two as my window half pushes her head through the railing before the skull splits, leaving blood, brains and hair on my glass.
As we pass the gate, I wait for approximately ten metres and drift slightly away to the left, then I turn sharp left and apply a bit of handbrake, making the back of the car whip around. The rear quarter of the vehicle slams into more bodies, sending them flying away from the gate. As the car is turning through its 180 degrees, I find myself praying that when the gate comes back into view, I will see it opening.
There are still Rabids all around us as we turn, but to my relief, the first thing I see as we near completion of the turn is that the gate is starting to open. The path to the gate is still blocked but a lot clearer than I could have hoped for. Whilst the gate is opening, I decide to take another run to clear the path some more.
“Girls, we are nearly there so keep your heads down a little longer,” I find myself half shouting at them again. “We are okay,”
