Terminus by Adam Baker

Author:Adam Baker [Baker, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781444755862
Google: awH9yURVf5kC
Amazon: B009EA91IO
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2013-06-20T07:00:00+00:00

38

Lupe emerged from the plant room. She dabbed blood from her cheek.

‘Is it done?’ asked Wade.

‘No.’

‘I heard a shot.’

‘He ran. He hid in the pipes. Fuck him. If he wants to endure a living hell, if he wants to be transformed into a sickening mess, then let him. He’s not our problem.’

She cleaned her face with antiseptic swabs then pasted a dressing over the wound.

‘Are you hurt?’ asked Wade, listening to the rustle and rip of sterile wrappers.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Any word from Cloke or Tombes?’

‘Nothing we can do but wait.’

A muffled crash.

‘What the hell was that?’

Sicknote stood at the foot of the street exit steps, transfixed, gazing upwards at the entrance gate.

‘What’s going on, Sick?’

He smiled. He giggled.

Lupe ran to the foot of the stairwell and pushed him aside.

The entrance gate was open. Metal-shriek as infected creatures pushed the Coke machine to one side and stumbled down the steps towards her.

‘Holy fuck,’ muttered Lupe.

‘They’re in?’ said Wade, panic in his voice. ‘Did they get in?’

Lupe shouldered the shotgun and fired. A guy in a pus-streaked Starbucks shirt caught a blast to the chest. For a brief moment Lupe could see clean through his torso: a smouldering, cauterised hole bored through ribs, lungs, shirt fabric and skin.

The guy reeled like he took a gut-punch, but kept coming.

She ran up the steps to meet him. She racked the slide, adjusted her grip, adjusted her aim.

Muzzle-roar. Point-blank skull burst. The headless body toppled backwards and sprawled across the steps. The tight stairwell filled with gun smoke and blood mist.

A blue-haired skater kid, iPod beads fused to his ears.

Lupe racked the slide, took aim and fired. Second head burst, body hurled in a near back flip. Blood and skull fragments dripped from the stairwell ceiling.

Two guys in grey janitor shirts jostled through the entrance gate and stumbled down the steps towards her.

She racked the slide, took aim and pulled the trigger. Click. Empty.

Donahue stood next to her, paralysed with horror.

‘Shells,’ shouted Lupe. She cuffed Donahue round the head. ‘Give me the spare shells.’

Donahue dug cartridges from her pocket.

‘Make them count.’

Lupe snatched the shells from her hand and fed them into the breech.

‘Grab an axe, a hammer, anything.’

Donahue ran to the equipment pile, pulled a strap and released a clutch of heavy tools.

‘Give me something,’ shouted Wade. ‘Give me something I can swing.’

Donahue ignored him. She grabbed an axe and ran back to the stairs.

Lupe shouldered the gun. She squinted down the barrel sight, waited for a clear and certain shot.

‘Come on, fuckers. Come get some.’

Cloke and Tombes lowered the stretcher from the subway carriage and set it on the track. They inspected the oxygen and nitrogen cylinders lashed to the backboard. They checked straps, gas levels and helmet hose.

Ekks lay impassive, face serene behind his visor.

‘Let’s get him in the hole.’

Tombes squirmed beneath the subway car. He dragged Ekks behind him.

He tied kernmantle rope to the head of the backboard. He looped the rope over a greased axle and slid Ekks into the shaft. It was a tight angle.

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