Tales From The Red Zone #1

1.

On a day like no other in history, Tommy Buchanan kicked down the door of the boarded up tenement building and slunk inside.  He resisted the urge to cough as damp, stale dust floated around his head like miniature attack planes, and held a hand to his mouth as the raw, acrid stench of the building clawed at his gag reflexes.  It smelled like someone had died in there, and given the current situation, they probably had.  There was a short, stout, red fire extinguisher on the wall behind the door and after closing it again, he pushed it up against the handle.  It would by no means stop anything from coming in, but it would make a hell of a clang if it was knocked over, giving him plenty of warning.

He wasted no time in checking the two flats on the ground floor level, fleet of foot and careful not to make too much noise.  The stalkers – that’s what the last radio transmissions from the local radio station were calling them before they went off the air in a burst of white noise - seemed to have a keener sense of hearing than was imaginable and could differentiate between the scurry of animal paws and the frightened patter of patent leather shoes or the latest Nikes.  Even though Tommy was wearing cheap, off the rack moccasins, he still feared being discovered.

Once he established that the ground floor was empty and thereby relatively safe, he stared over the banister into the basement level.  There was one door down there that he could see from this position, heavily boarded, criss-crossing timber strips warning anyone who came too close that whoever was inside was intent on keeping everyone and everything else out.  Tommy doubted there was anyone left alive in that inner chamber; most of the city had long since been abandoned and most of those left were, well, less than human.  But he had to be absolutely sure if he was going to hole up here until the wound in his side stopped hurting like hell, bled out, and started crusting over.

He descended the first flight of stairs to the small landing and stopped, listening, breath shallow and quiet.  There were noises coming from inside the flat, but his hearing wasn’t as good as the stalkers and he had no way of knowing if it was someone shuffling about from room to room or the frantic tread of a starving dog, pacing the floor in its madness.

He moved downwards, staying close to the wall.  The last thing he needed was a board to creak, revealing his presence.  He kept one hand on the heavy belt around his waist where an assortment of man-made weapons was stored.  No guns; the public weren’t allowed any.  Even those left inside the Red Zone were denied any automatic weapons.  Only the pigs – that’s what the radio had been calling the armed forces - had guns, plentiful and mercilessly efficient, amen.  But the poor saps who had to hide out from the stalkers by night and day, living every moment at the precarious edge of death, had to make do with whatever they could get their hands on.  In Tommy’s case he had acquired a rubber-handled claw hammer, a police baton found in the messy remains of what had once been an officious human being, a nail gun from his old life and old job, and on his back, a strap-on canister of sulphuric acid attached to a small trigger gun that resembled a plant sprayer.  It was this last item he stroked nervously with twitching fingers, ready to pluck it from the tool belt and spray it in the eyes of any stalker he came upon.  It wouldn’t kill them, but it would melt their eyeballs and render them blind.  Then he only had to contend with their uncanny hearing ability and their sense of smell.

He took a deep and silent breath, counted to ten, and descended to the basement floor.  It was dark down here; what little light there was shone through the back door, which led out into the communal garden and was now boarded up from the inside.  Light fell between the boards in smoky bands.

He frowned at the door to the flat.  That was boarded up from the outside.  It was a strange form of defence and something he hadn’t paid any mind to at first.  Whoever or whatever was in there now must have gotten in from the street entrance, and that put him instantly on a higher alert and he drew the hammer with one hand, weighing it for comfort, and the acid-sprayer with the other.  He couldn’t fathom why someone would board up a residence from the outside.

The stench down here, away from any draughts and naturally buoyant air, was tremendous, almost impossible to bear.  It was like a slow cooked meal of bean-farts and rotten eggs, with rancid, blue meat tossed in for flavour.  He could almost taste the vile brew on his tongue.

He craned his head and leaned an ear softly against the door, listening, steadying his breathing.  The sounds he had heard earlier had stopped and he now hoped they had been a figment of his imagination, that there was nothing lurking behind the door, listening in turn to him as he tried to stay quiet.

He decided on a test and slipped the hammer back into his belt, stepping back quietly.  He reached his free hand up to the door, spray gun held out lest something burst through the wood and grab him, and scratched the doors surface with a ragged, chewed fingernail.  Instantly a flurry of scurries echoed from the inner chamber and he relaxed.  It was rats.  The infestation had emerged from the sewers and other dark places, catching the scent of death on the air and crashing the party like uninvited guests to feast at the banquet.  They had made nests in abandoned buildings within the Red Zone, and blatantly ran loose through the streets, huge packs of them like gangs of mini looters, snatching what they could, warning anyone who got too near with a wicked glint from their garnet eyes and a flash of razor sharp teeth.  He had even seen a snarling pack of them fight over the torn and bloodied remains of a toddler who had inadvertently gotten separated from his parents and stumbled into a group of stalkers.  The rats feasted on what was left of him.  After a while, his blonde fringe was all that was left to show that he had once been human.

Once satisfied that there was no one inside the flat, he ascended the stairs and continued his appraisal of the other four flats on the upper two floors.  Every door was open, every abode showing evidence of the hurry and quick-witted nature of the tenants' escape.  They were amongst the lucky ones.  They had believed in the word of the media when the news broke.  They had heeded the warnings and got out of the building, and hopefully, out of the city.

Unfortunately many had not, refusing to believe that the new oil deposits found in the North Sea and brought into the harbour could unleash such horrible destruction.  He didn’t blame them; he had had a hard time believing it himself.  Even when the first bombs dropped, the military growing impatient with the last, slow trickle of survivors struggling to get to the periphery of the Red Zone, driving a pack of wild, humanoid creatures from their hiding place and into his sight, he refused to believe what they were.  Only when they turned to him, sniffing him out, somehow recognising his difference, snarling, screaming, racing with unholy speed towards him as he stood dumbfounded in the middle of a deserted street did he believe, and then it had almost been too late.  They had almost got him.  Luckily, he had been working on the roof of his house at the time - a nearby bomb had damaged it the night before - and the nail gun he was using to fasten down the tarpaulin came in handy.  It had come in handy many times since.

There were many who had stayed behind, refusing to leave, vowing to fight for their right to protect and defend what was rightfully theirs, as man had done for millennia.  But they had no idea of what they were up against, and when the threat became morbidly and graphically apparent, there was a mad rush for the exits, to escape to the borders of the city and into the protective arm of government and militia.

He stood on the top landing, pausing for breath, but also because the wound in his side was teasing him by giving him a stitch underneath the topsoil of pain.  What an ironic sense of humour his body had!  What a great big fucking laugh it was having at its own expense.

On the top floor, he craned his head up and looked at the flat rectangle that was indented from the rest of the ceiling.  He had already noted from inside the two flats on this level that neither had extended up into the attic, and that seemed as good a place as any to plan his next move, his next, almost futile attempt at reaching the borders of the city.  The street was also on a rise, with the two main thoroughfares of the city sloping down and away from his position, so it would also give him a great vantage point from which to plan his route.  And it was well away from that evening’s bombing adventures, when hundreds of burning undead would run mindlessly through the streets, terrified at their hot and searing pain, too stupid to realise they were already dead and only needed to lie down and accept the fact.

He fished a stepladder from the kitchen of one of the flats and placed it squarely under the hatch, wincing with the dual screeches of pain in his side and the aluminium legs sliding on the parquet floor.  The hatch rose easily when he pushed on it, but it was a hard job hauling his body from the chair and up almost three feet into the dark chamber of the attic.  But he accomplished it, with much grunting and a gnawing sensation in his belly that he became convinced were his intestines ripping loose from their flimsy casing.  He wanted to scream.

Once secure, he reached down, scraping his fingers along the top of the stepladder, inching further out into the open to get a proper purchase on the smooth, cold metal.  He eventually got a hold of it, swung it upwards and heaved it through the hatch, ensuring his hiding place remained a secret.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one up in this space, and the first he knew about it was when a thumping pain rocked from one side of his head to the other and black polka dots swam in front of his eyes.

He passed out and was dragged limply into the darkness.