Phil's head raises from the floor slowly. His cheek aches from the impact and he's twisted his ankle in the fall but he has no other injuries. He counts himself lucky. He hears Dan moan quietly and watches as he shifts and snaps his head up. Dan's movements are fast and shaky and he's scared. He's on the brink of a panic attack but he's trying to hide it for Phil's sake.
"What the fuck was that?" Dan says and Phil shakes his head. Tries to ignore how much Dan's voice cracked.
There's smoke leaking into the window now and they can smell the burning of petrol.
Phil is surprised when Dan stands up first and tugs him up by his hand. Their fingers interlock but they don't let go, even when they lean over to retrieve their makeshift weapons. Phil squeezes Dan's fingers and when Dan returns it he feels a whole lot safer. He almost forgets that he was lying in the remains of his neighbour.
Almost.
At the window for the first time they can see what they knew they would yet it's still so disturbing, so unreal and horrifying that they can hardly process it.
Below them is a burning street. One car is ablaze, the source of the explosion, they note, and littering the street is human remains. There's blood. So, so much blood and there's the sick smell of burning carcases and it's sick.
The street is empty otherwise.
They don't know how to feel.
There's the initial surge of relief; the street is clear of infected, they can escape easily. There's a moment of pride, where for one second the pair are invincible, two men looking over an empty wasteland, victorious, still alive against it all. Then there's terror.
The terror is the worst.
It's a completely helpless feeling of pure fear and it's crushing. The street is empty. The same street that is always crowded is completely empty and in tatters. It's rush hour, it should be thriving and pulsing with crowds of pedestrians but all there is is blood and fire.
Blood and fire.
They turn away from the window.
"Didn't Mrs McGregor get a new car?" Phil says with a glance at their still intertwined fingers. Dan moves his head quickly upwards, his chin jutting upwards in the air. Phil takes it as a sign to elaborate. "She normally parks it out back, right?"
"Yeah." Dan says and there's lightbulbs going off in his head as he realises what Phil is trying to get at. "So we take her keys from her apartment and... Go?"
Phil nods and tries to subdue the nauseous feeling that is currently residing in his stomach. Mrs McGregor is dead. His conscience is playing up, guilt at the thought of stealing a car pressuring his mind. He tries to remind himself that nobody will care, there is nobody to care but he still feels terrible. Where's the logic there? His conscience is screaming, practically begging but, fuck, he still feels like a murderer. Taking the woman's car feels like he's really cementing his place into hell.
He tries to shake the feeling but he can't.
He ignores it instead. It's easier that way.
Mrs McGregor's flat is on the sixteenth floor. They're on the seventeenth now. Theoretically, it should be easy for them to get down one flight of stairs. But when they hear the crash from the doors at the end of the corridor, hope is disappearing quickly.
There's another explosion and they hear the scraping of footsteps at the bottom of the steps.
It makes sense. In every film they have ever watched the infected have been drawn to noise. It would explain why there are currently corpses laid burning on the street.
Armed with their new revelation, the pair drag their hands away from the other and began their descent.
The stairs are quiet.
Too quiet.
The crushing silence is broken only by their shaky breathing and soft footfalls on cold concrete. Their weapons are held ready, knuckles turning white against the wooden handles. They're scared, their body language proves it, but neither will admit it to one another. Stay strong. They're all shitty little survival tactics, mixed with the pure stupidity of the human, because of course their fucking pride has to come into it. Like, fuck, I'm not scared, look at all of this testosterone. Pathetic.
They arrive at floor sixteen, pushing the doors open with a barely audible creak that somehow seems louder than gunshot in current conditions. Dan's breathing is disjointed and quick, while Phil's is slow and deep. Both are trying to hold off their panic attacks.
The door shuts behind them.
Floor sixteen is a wreckage. Mrs McGregor's door is torn clean off it's hinges, a trail of blood shaped oddly like a body that is all too familiar.
The grief hasn't hit them yet.
Mrs McGregor is dead.
Seeing her apartment in this state makes the fact finally hit home. They killed Mrs McGregor.
The apartment's walls are smeared with splatters of blood. Dan retches at the sight, his stomach flipping. The air is rancid, and stiflingly hot. The kitchen window is shattered, thick smoke billowing through in graceful and deadly twirls through the broken shards.
Phil coughs, sucks in a final breath of clean air and steps into the cloud of smoke.
Dan wants to grab him to call out, but Phil has already disappeared too far and he can't see him. He hears a cough and some bangs and the smoke is getting thicker, it's going to swallow him too and he's scared. He's scared.
He shouts just that.
The words roll off his tongue quickly, yet they're so hard to say. All of the walls he's ever built up, all of his courage and "manliness" that he's ever had crumble. He whispers it the next time, a tear beginning to well up in his eye as he realises how pathetic he sounds. He is stood, powerless, alone and completely useless in a dead woman's flat with a toxic cloud of smoke about to choke him to death.
Actually, no. He's not pathetic, even though every nerve is screaming at him to run, save himself, but he is locked into place with pure terror. Which is, really, quite pathetic. But he's about to die, adrenaline and fear in his bloodstream in equal amounts. It's enough to justify it.
He's seen grown men sob after a pint too many, watched people cry on the tv as they watch their friend die, but nothing ever quite gears you up for crying yourself.
Just as the tear rolls down his cheek he is tackled to the ground.
Dan's scream is a high pitched wail of terror. His eyes clench shut, his whole body struggling against the weight pinning him down. He feels strong hands grab his face and he struggles more.
Phil.
Phil is still in the smoke, or maybe this thing savaging him is Phil. His scream is wavering, voice cracking. He is so scared. He can't breathe, he's so scared.
There's a sting of pain on his cheekbone and his scream roars back into life.
His skin had been broken, he is doomed.
As his final words, his last gift to the world, he chooses to save his friend.
And so he screams the only thing that he can think of: "Phil."
"Dan."
The answer comes quicker than he expects it to. It's also a lot closer. His still thrashing limbs slow, his screaming ends, and warily his eyes crack open.
Mere inches from his own face is Phil's, an amused smirk tugging at his lips. Phil's hands are holding onto his cheeks softly, soft hands brushing his cheekbones.
"You fucker!" Dan shouts, flipping his body and tossing Phil to the floor. "I thought I was going to die and you're fucking laughing about it!" He lets out a high pitched noise that's half a scream and half a groan.
Phil sits up softly, bringing his face to Dan's.
"I'm sorry." He whispers with a tender touch of lips.
Dan doesn't forgive him instantly. It's after a heated session of violent kisses that he finally feels his anger subside. It doesn't register with either of them that there's strange noises coming from the stairs, or that there's banging footsteps on the corridor outside the flat. All they hear is each other's jolty breathing and the sound of their lips moving against the other's.
Until there's the high pitched wail that could only be described as the sound of an undead war cry, the sound ringing in the empty hall for a few moments, but lingering in their minds for what they suspect to be forever.
It's Phil who reacts first, shouting, "move!" and bolting out of the door, Dan following quickly behind. Dan watches as Phil plants a sickening blow to the things head, the body dropping to the ground. Phil has never looked so terrifyingly beautiful. They bolt down the stairs, footsteps, screams behind them, louder, louder. They're running over something sticky, a heavy rusty smell lingering in the air. They both know it's blood, but the trouble is admitting it.
They're in the lobby, the door is just ahead of them and all around them undead are spilling. The gap is getting smaller and smaller, the infected getting closer and closer and too close. Their hands are nearly reaching them, tugging on their jackets. Sweat is dripping down their neck, breath coming in furious pants and they're so, so close.
Dan slams the door open.
They're into the sun, streaking towards the car and Phil is clicking the unlock button on the keys and the car beeps and they're still being tailed so closely. They slam into the doors and they're pulling them open and they're about to be reached. They slam the doors shut and the key is in the ignition and their breathing is heavy as the car roars into life. Dan screams, "drive, drive, drive!" and Phil steps on it. There's the bangs of the car hitting bodies but neither care.
They don't care, they don't care, they don't care. And maybe if they keep thinking it then maybe they'll believe it.
They've been driving for about half an hour when they finally catch their breath.
"You okay?" Phil asks. He glances over to the passenger seat and sees Dan's pale face. "No?"
Dan shrugs, pulling the hat from his head and wrinkling his nose at how sweaty it is and the patch of blood on the left ear. "Not really." He replies after a pause. "We're in a fucking quarantined country overrun by zombies, I don't think I'd be normal if I was."
Phil nods, humming and turning onto the M1.
The streets are empty and uninteresting and disconcerting. The pair are shifty and uncomfortable in the small space, eyes scanning for infected. Phil's trying to plan a route in his head, but he's been to Leeds maybe once or twice and it isn't a hard to reach city, but there's something telling him that they want to steer well clear of it.
The motorway is littered with abandoned cars and lorries but there's no one here. There's no infected, no humans. Just miles and miles of road and the quiet hum of their car engine. It's weird, Phil thinks, that the motorway is so quiet, considering how many people must have once been in these cars. People don't just disappear. They're still close to London, maybe the infected have set routes there but there's an uneasy feeling in his stomach that tells him that there's something up.
They've been driving for about an hour when Phil decides to voice his concerns. "Dan?" He says softly, and Dan turns to look at him. He's blurry eyed and has obviously been sleeping. He nods. "I think we should completely avoid Leeds. Go to the coast maybe? I mean, at least then we'd have the advantage because we could find a boat or something?"
"Yeah." Dan agrees, voice still husky from sleep. "Leeds is probably not a good place right now, if it's anything like London. Isn't Leeds like the third most populated place in England anyway? I think I read that somewhere, or whatever." Phil doesn't say anything. "So, we head to anywhere on the coast and we skip Leeds completely?"
"Yeah," Phil replies, "but we're gonna have to stop for petrol at some point or we'll have to steal another car, or I dunno, just something."
Out of the corner of his eye, Dan sees the body hurtling towards the car, notices how distinctly human it is, then sees the hoard behind it.
They're fucked.
Does anyone mind if I reply to reviews here? Yes? Oh well here I go anyway.
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