ZOM-B 11 Read Free Page B

a tall guy, his face covered in the scabs and sores common to his kind. He sweeps the beam left then right.
I’m almost directly behind him. For once I’m delighted that I don’t have lungs. It means I don’t have to hold my breath.
    ‘This is ridiculous,’ the shorter mutant snorts. ‘We’re never going to find her. It’s like –’
    ‘If you say “looking for a needle in a haystack” again, Glenn, I’ll throttle you,’ the mutant with the torch snaps.
    ‘Well, it is,’ the guy called Glenn complains.
    ‘Yeah,’ his partner sighs. ‘But Mr Dowling will know if we simply go through the motions. Kinslow told us to keep searching until we’re recalled. I’m not going to
ignore a direct order, not from that guy.’
    ‘Me neither,’ Glenn says. ‘But I think we’d be better off if the lot of us gathered round County Hall and blocked every approach. She’s bound to head there,
isn’t she? It would make more sense than wasting our time down here.’
    ‘Who made you the genius on the firm?’ the mutant with the torch laughs. He starts down the tunnel in the direction that I’ve come from. ‘Don’t worry, I’m
sure Mr Dowling or Kinslow has thought of that too. We’ll be packed off there if we don’t find her. But she can’t have made it out of the tunnels yet, so we might as well cast around for her while she’s on our turf, just in case.’
    The dejected Glenn follows after his friend and my fingers clench into triumphant fists.
    ‘I suppose,’ Glenn concedes. ‘But I was enjoying myself at the party. We could have sunk a few more beers before we –’
    The mutant’s foot catches on something and he goes down with a yelp. His partner laughs and turns to help him up. The beam of his torch swings round and I’m caught.
    The taller mutant gapes at me. His jaw actually drops.
    ‘Don’t just stand there,’ Glenn huffs. ‘Help me . . .’
    Then he notes the other guy’s expression and starts to turn.
    I hurl myself forward. I jump on the sprawled Glenn’s back and use him as a springboard, targeting the torch. I’m a physical wreck. In a fair fight they’d
take me without breaking into a sweat. But if I can remove the light from the equation, anything could happen in the dark.

    The mutant with the torch is lugging a crowbar in his other hand. He swings it at me as I jump, but he’s startled, clumsy, doesn’t take the fraction of a second that he needs to
judge his blow and bring the bar slamming down on my head. It only grazes my shoulder while I swipe the torch away.
    The torch goes flying, bounces a few times across the floor, but doesn’t shatter. The beam is pointing away from us, so we’re in gloom, but not total darkness.
    I jab the fingers of my right hand at the mutant’s head, planning to smash through his skull and destroy his brain. But in the heat of the moment I forget that some of
my finger bones were mutilated by the babies. I scratch the mutant, but nothing worse than that.
    He drives an elbow into my ribs. Or rather into the space where my ribs should be. Not connecting as he expected to, he’s caught off balance. I grab him by the neck and force him down,
using his awkward momentum against him.
    Falling on top of the mutant, I extend a finger that still boasts a bone, and try to poke it through one of his eyes. Before I can, Glenn lurches at me and knocks me off his colleague.
    ‘I’ve got her, Ossie!’ he roars, rolling on to his back and holding me pinned on top of him. ‘Finish her off!’
    Ossie scrambles for his crowbar. I do my best to tear free of Glenn, but he has a firm grip on me and is shielding himself skilfully.
    ‘Hold her still,’ Ossie snarls, taking careful aim with the crowbar.
    ‘You bloody try it if you think it’s that easy,’ Glenn shouts, ever the moaner.
    Ossie bashes my shoulders with the crowbar a few times. I yell with pain and lash out with a kick. He dances backwards, chuckling grimly.
    ‘Stop playing with her!’