Dead Days (Book 2): Tess Read Free

beginnings of real terror.
     
    “It’s all fucked….Everyone whose bitten- Everyone’s turning into them-  The hospital-  I had to get out-  It’s fucking full of them-”  He stares over my shoulder.
    “Oh fuck-” and then he’s off and running.
          I turn to see what he was looking at, and I cry out as I see a dozen people, lurching and moaning up the street.  Some are in hospital gowns, one is shirtless, but all of them are bloody and all of them are moaning with that awful rasping sound.
     
    I take off at a run.
     
    I hear the squeal of breaks and a thud, I don’t turn around.  I don’t want to see who’s been hit. 
     
    I make a left and keep running. 
     
    There are a few people doing what I’m doing, running away from Tottenham Court road, but there are plenty of others who look at us dumbfounded, craning to see where we’ve come from.  I see a young guy pull out his I-phone and start filming me.
     
    Christ what a world.
     
    I’m about ten minutes from Mike’s office, so I keep moving, trying not to hear the shouts and terrified screaming from the streets I’m leaving behind.  Through the commotion I hear a low ‘ pock pock’ sound that I don’t understand.
     
    It’s almost a full minute before I realise that its gunfire.
     
    The police, the British police, are shooting people.
     
    How the fuck can this be happening?!
     
    I see restaurants and offices with people inside that look almost normal, except now people are tentatively stepping outside, trying to see what’s going on.  My legs feel numb and I stop to lean against the side of a building. 
          My heart is beating so hard that I can feel it in my temples.  I try to control my breathing. 
     
    I’m almost there.
     
    I have to get inside.  Once I’m off the street I can talk to Mike, and work out what to do next.
     
    I start to run again, and my brain finally starts to engage.
     
    There’re a few streets and a lot of people between you and Tottenham Court road, you don’t have to run right now.
     
    That’s true, I should save my energy for when I really need it.  I slow to a brisk walk.
     
    As I approach Regent Street I start to become anxious, I can hear more sirens, close by.  Regent connects directly to Oxford Circus, which is always full of people.  If just one of them is infected with whatever this thing is, the place could be Pandemonium.
     
    Shit, then I’m stuck. 
     
    I can’t turn back and I have no idea what’s waiting up ahead.
     
    Well fuck it you can’t stay here.
     
    I take a deep breath and walk out onto Regent Street. 
     
    It’s totally gridlocked.
     
    People have gotten out of their cars and are looking bemusedly to one another, a few are arguing.  Something up ahead has blocked the road.
          The scene is unusual but not as bad as I expected, at least the street isn’t full of those…. things.  I can see Mike’s office and I make a beeline for it. 
     
    I’m halfway across the road when I hear it.
     
    The sound of glass shattering-
     
    Someone starting to scream-
     
    A terrible wet crunch as something heavy crashes into the windshield of the car four feet away from me.
     
    I’m hit by broken glass and a spray of some dark heavy liquid.  I start to scream as I see blood, and assume I’ve been cut to ribbons by the flying glass.
     
    After a few seconds I realise that there is no pain and that the blood is not my own.
     
    I don’t know when I fell over but now I’m sitting on the tarmac, staring at the body of a woman who fell out of the sky.
          She is dressed for work, I can see the tattered remains of her skirt and blouse, the shredded tights, the one sensible black heeled shoe still dangling from her twisted left foot.
     
    Did she know what was going to happen this morning when she chose that outfit?
    Did she jump?
    Was she pushed?
    I look at the window she fell from.  Its six storeys up.  I follow her trajectory with my eyes