‘Gin.’
Sam’s cards flared out on the table. Thomas didn’t even bother checking. They were no longer keeping score.
Thomas had spent over an hour rolling blunts. Eleven in total. Their fourth ‘fifth’ blunt since losing count was passed from one hand to another. Sam was sparking up the next before he’d finished exhaling the last cloud of smoke.
Thomas knew Sam was going to cough before the wracking spasms began. Despite everything Sam was laughing. A giddy, unsettling laugh that made Thomas feel cold despite the oppressive, damp heat that was settling within the basement.
‘We could just take a break?’
As if on cue the window between the bar and the smoking room fractured. The weight of the first dead person pressed against it hadn’t posed an immediate threat. But once counter guy – and the young woman who was unfortunate enough to be near him when he turned – rose up from behind the counter to join the first, the glass quickly began to protest as their weight pressed against it. The fractured glass remained within the frame, but the sound of the dead was all the more pervasive once the first of the two glass layers was compromised.
‘Something tells me this might be the last chance we get to do this for a while?’
Thomas raised the last of his own blunt to his lips. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he inhaled.
‘I can’t believe I missed that flight because of you. You had to go and roll that last joint.’
Thomas couldn’t stop the incredulous smirk forming as he replied. Smoke once again spilling from his mouth and catching in his throat as the laughter left him. He could feel the tears on his face now flowing freely, yet silently as his chest still shook with melancholic mirth.
‘Sorry… but are you actually complaining about not being on a plane that we literally watched fall out of the sky?’
‘Yeah. Think about it. We’d be dead. Sure. But at least it would have been quick. Can’t say I’m much looking forward to getting to know that lot better.’ Sam’s eyes flicked to the glass. The way the light from the bar caught the sanguine smatterings on the as yet unbroken surface made the wall of glass look like a macabre aquarium. The creatures behind the surface gliding back and forth, their hunger all too obvious.
Thomas’s head turns toward the glass, stopped just in time by a firm hand around his jaw.
‘Don’t look at them. I shouldn’t have said that. But, don’t look. They are quieter when we ignore them. I think anyway, it’s hard to tell, but I think there are more than just the three of them now. But, talking about getting to know people better. You and Adam… do you think he was on the flight?’
‘No. He left for London yesterday. He got a call from Dr Harrower and then went straight to the airport. He didn’t even come say goodbye.’ Sam could see the hurt look in Thomas’s eyes. Sam had known Adam just as long as Thomas had. He found the way people simpered over the young journalist irritating, but worst of all was the way Adam seemed eternally oblivious to the impact he had on the people around him.
‘Don’t suppose there is any way you could call him now?’
‘No. Even before he left. Britain is down to internal calls only. I don’t think the people back home know how bad this is going to get.’
The second window behind the already fractured glass began to shriek a forlorn sounding protest. Adding to the squeak of wet flesh as it slid against the glass. The sound made Thomas retch. He ran for the bathroom making it as far as the doorway before partially digested chunks of boiled egg and cheese painted the tiles of the already filthy bathroom. The stench of stale piss mingled with the rancid smell of vomit and the rest of Thomas’s lunch abandoned his stomach leaving him standing on shaky legs as he stared into the eyes of the man cowering in the doorless stall.
‘Please don’t eat me. Please.’
Sam was by Thomas’s side in an instant, pulling him protectively behind him as he surveyed the scene before him. The bathroom was carnage, and the tall, broad shouldered man shook violently as he looked helplessly at Thomas.
‘Relax friend. We’re not them.’ Sam spoke with a soft and gentle voice, yet the man before them flinched, turning away from them. He was likely taller than both of them, and twice as wide. He had the kind of physique which only came with regular effort, yet as he cowered before them they noticed the dark stain on the front of his jeans and he was all but a child awakened to a reality no different from the nightmare he had clearly been lost within.
Sam walked through the pool of vomit. His trainers squelched, a sound that would have been enough to make Thomas retch again had there been anything left in his stomach to expel. Crouching before the terrified man Sam tried breathing again. Deep breaths in and out, despite the smell which threatened to make him gag. The man took a while to start copying Sam. They breathed together like this as Thomas clung to the doorframe feeling light-headed.
‘What are they?’ The man’s voice seemed distant, he resided somewhere between the present and whatever violent past had ushered him into this hollow hellscape.
‘We’re not entirely sure. The media say they’re sick, but… I’m guessing you’ve seen them?’ Sam’s voice is steadier than Thomas can comprehend.
The man’s eyes flicker from Thomas to Sam, settling somewhere in the distance between them.
‘We came in here to pick up. Anna and I… we were celebrating. It took me two days to work up the nerve to ask her, and she said yes before I could even finish asking the question. He grabbed her so quickly. One minute she was standing next to me, the next he pulled her through that little window… I tried to get him off of her, but… the blood was everywhere. The blood was everywhere and his hands were inside her body, just tearing and pulling. I thought the screaming would never end. And then it did. The silence was louder than the screaming, and the blood, and the blood…’
He tapered off. Muttering more to himself than to either of them, lost once again behind glazed eyes and trauma which he would likely never process. Sam stood. Stepping back from the man leaving him within the stall. He and Thomas returned to their booth. Any hints of manic mirth were gone. A sombre silence broken only by the dead crept throughout the basement.
Sam tore a quarter of his half-eaten sandwich and handed it to Thomas, who shook his head. Sam did not relent, pushing the stale bread into Thomas’s hands.
‘Eat it. You wasted all of yours, and I doubt you’ll have a chance to eat again anytime soon.’ Thomas took a small bite, grimacing at the taste of the warm processed ham, but chewed it until he had no choice but to swallow then set the rest of the sandwich down. He picked up one of the three remaining blunts and Sam took another.
They smoked because neither could think of anything else to do or say. The faint sounds of muttering still came from the bathroom.
‘We have to get out of here.’ Sam looked at Thomas, a grim silence his only reply. ‘We have to try… don’t we?’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean, why?’
‘Thom. I don’t think we’re supposed to survive this. Say we get out. We somehow get past them, then up the stairs… what then? Where are we supposed to go? We can’t get home.’
‘I just… I thought you’d have a plan. You always have a plan.’
‘I do have a plan. I’m going to get high as shit. So fucking high Thom that even when the glass breaks and they are tearing me apart. I just won’t care.’
Thomas’s fist slams down onto the table so hard it knocks the grinder to the floor.
‘No. That can’t be it Sam. I won’t let you give up. We haven’t even tried to get out of here. Why didn’t we go when there was just one of them?’
Sam doesn’t answer. He keeps smoking even as he tears chunks off of the last space cake placing them into his smoke filled mouth and slides the rest across the table to Thomas.
‘Eat. It’ll make you feel better.’
Thomas’s head is already swimming. This blunt hits harder than any other. He picks half-heartedly at the chocolate sponge, tasting only chlorophyll and bile as he chews.
The tension in the air hangs heavily above them, threatening to smother them under its weight. A slow keening wail grows from a faint whisper to an anguished howl. Neither Sam nor Thomas can watch as the glass finally frees itself from the frame. The stench of death is overwhelming as it floods the basement. Counter guy tumbles over the frame, his legs caught upon the shards of glass which still cling to the frame like shark’s teeth tearing at his flesh. He doesn’t seem to feel it. He pulls himself further into the room with his hands scraping his bloody fingertips against the stone floor leaving streaks of blackened blood upon the ground.
Thomas and Sam huddle closer together as the other bodies follow counter guy’s example careening over the frame and landing in a hazardous tangle of limbs within the room.
‘Anna!’
Both Thomas and Sam look to the bathroom doorway in startled unison. The man is standing staring at his fiance who is slowly rising to her feet. From her breast bone to her abdomen there is a hollow cavity where once her organs resided. Her body moves grotesquely towards the man she had hoped to wed. Sam jumps to his feet trying to get to him, but he lunges towards her. His scream as she sinks her teeth into his collar bone sounds like a sigh of relief. The dead swarm him, pulling his limbs towards their gaping maws as they prepare to feast.
‘Sam. Leave him. We have to go. Please come with me.’
Sam turns to Thomas who is already halfway to the door. His eyes follow the unbroken pathway to the stairs. He picks up the last blunt before following after Thomas. As they ascend the stairs the screaming stops. He was right. The silence is louder than the screaming.
Phoenix Pantheon 