The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel Read online

  “Can you help Sarah?” he asked. “She passed out from the shock.”

  The female paramedic took something from her kit bag and waved it beneath Sarah’s nose. She winced and began to stir. “She’ll be fine. Just give her a few minutes to wake up.”

  “We have to go,” the male paramedic urged.

  “What do we do with her?” asked Keith, pointing to the dead woman.

  “I’ll inform the coroner,” said the female paramedic. “Just place a sheet over her and wait for someone to come.”

  Rick eased the dead woman’s head down onto the floorboards and stood up. He retrieved his pint from the table and downed half of it.

  The paramedics disappeared out the door, which left the people inside the pub to stand around anxiously. Nobody knew what to do. Rick wondered if he should go home or stay where he was.

  Screaming from outside.

  Rick stared at his brother. “What now?”

  “I don’t know. Just close the door.”

  Rick nodded, went over to do so, but couldn’t help glancing outside at the car park. The ambulance was parked right outside, its lights chasing away the shadows of approaching night. The paramedics were nowhere to be seen.

  The screaming had stopped.

  He took a tentative step outside the pub and looked around. The front of the ambulance faced him at an angle, its large rear doors hanging open. He couldn’t see inside from where he stood, but the paramedics must be in the back.

  Who had screamed?

  “Hello? Is everything all right out here?”

  The sound of movement from the ambulance drew him forward another few steps. It took a handful more until he had moved around sufficiently to face the rear of the vehicle.

  Something horrible glared back at him.

  It was a man, but also a monster. His eyes were cloudy and white, lips cracked and bleeding. He looked dead.

  “Are you okay?” asked Rick, not knowing what else to say.

  “I am your end,” the dead man hissed. “I will use your hollowed skull as a latrine.”

  Rick noticed the bald paramedic lying on a gurney in the back of the ambulance. His neck had been twisted around and broken. This monster had murdered him and would do the same to Rick. He turned to run, but the dead man leapt out and grabbed him, cold hands seizing his throat. Rick fought back the only way he could—with his legs. He lifted his right foot and stamped down on where he hoped a kneecap would be, and the dead man howled and collapsed sideways. The icy fingers slipped from around Rick’s neck and allowed him chance to stagger away.

  The dead man bellowed. He reached out his hands to try and grab Rick again, but every time he tried, he crumpled to the ground as his broken leg folded.

  “Is it safe?” came a voice.

  Rick glanced upwards to see that the female paramedic was lying prone on the roof of the ambulance. A bad scratch parted her left eyebrow, but she seemed otherwise okay. “What are you doing up there?” he said. “Come down and help-”

  The dead man tackled Rick around the waist, dragging him to the ground. Before he could react, his enemy had straddled him and was back to squeezing his throat. “Submit to slavery, worm, and you may get to live out your days as a foot licker.”

  Rick struggled, tried to bring his legs up to kick the monster off of him, but he couldn’t get any leverage. Every second, the pressure in his head increased and made it impossible to focus on anything else other than trying to get a breath.

  “Your men will be sodomites, your women whores.”

  “Well, doesn’t that just sum up the 21st Century?” Keith appeared over the dead man’s shoulder, holding what looked like an old iron fire poker. He brought the metal rod down two-handed, like a barbarian wielding a broadsword, and shattered his target’s skull, caving it in at the top so that it resembled a grizzly heart shape.

  Rick swatted the hands away from his throat and gasped uncontrollably, even as his brother and the paramedic dragged him to his feet.

  “There are more coming,” cried the paramedic.

  Clutching his throat and still struggling for air, Rick glanced across the car park and saw that more of the dead men were indeed coming. They lumbered down the road like zombies, but were cursing and shouting threats. One of them brandished a tree branch like a spear.

  “Get inside,” Keith urged. “Now!”

  The three of them hurried back inside the pub, closing and locking the thick wooden door behind them. The helpful businessman understood that danger was on its way because he quickly dragged a table over to act as a barricade.

  Rick staggered over and finished what was left of his pint, then slumped over the table while Keith took charge. He told them what was coming and that they all needed to find weapons. It was good that he was being proactive, because nobody else was. Rick least of all. He could do nothing but close his eyes and wish it wasn’t all happening.

  “R-Rick?”

  Rick opened his eyes and glanced to the side. Sarah had woken up on the floor and was propping herself up on her elbows. She looked bewildered. “What’s happening?”

  He knelt beside her. “We’re in a spot of bother.”

  “The monsters are here, aren’t they?”

  Rick nodded.

  “Are we going to die?”

  He looked at her face and couldn’t bear to tell her the truth; so he lied. “We’ll be fine. My brother already took care of one of them.”

  Sarah smiled at him, but she looked more likely to cry than laugh.

  ***

  “Why aren’t they trying to get inside?” asked the female paramedic, whose name turned out to be Maddy. She peeked out of one window through a gap in the curtains.

  “Because they don’t want to end up like their friend,” said Keith, patting the iron poker that he had not put down since bashing the dead man’s brains in. His bravado might have been masking the fact he still couldn’t get through to Marcy.

  “It’s because they’re smart,” Rick muttered as he worked on his fresh pint. “They’re figuring out the best way to get at us.”

  Maddy folded her arms. “Then we have to be ready.”

  The businessman, Steven, clutched an iron poker, identical to the one Keith had. He waved it in the air as he spoke. “Whatever is out there picked on the wrong people.”

  “This isn’t time for bravado,” said Rick, staring into his pint. “The thing that attacked me wasn’t human. It was like a zombie, only it spoke. It hated me, hated all of us.”

  Sarah plonked herself down on a chair next to him. “We need to get help.”

  Keith pointed his poker at Maddy. “She was supposed to be our help.”

  Maddy sighed. “On our way here, emergency calls came in from all over. Only reason Tom and I made it here was because you people were the first to call. I wouldn’t hold up much hope of getting any more help. I’ve got a feeling that emergency services are inundated right now. Poor Tom…”

  “Then we stay here,” said Keith. “We batten down the hatches and arm ourselves. The Army will get a handle on this eventually. That thing that attacked Rick was easy enough to kill. Wherever these things came from, they underestimated us.”

  “I need another drink, Diane” said Rick, suppressing a dire need to belch. The barmaid fetched him one.

  “I don’t think getting drunk is the answer,” said Keith.

  Rick held up his fresh pint. “You go ahead and be the hero. I’m going to get pissed.”

  Steven waved his poker again. “We need to stick together and stay focused. You’d be dead if your brother hadn’t helped you.”

  “I would be too,” said Maddy. “Thank you.”

  Keith lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. “Just doing what anyone else would have. I’m sure my brother would do the same.”

  Rick sighed. “So what do we do?”

  “We get ready,” said Keith. “Those things try to get inside, we do everything we can to stop them.”

 
Maddy nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Everyone agreed, and within minutes, they all had weapons. Rick, Steven, and Keith clutched iron pokers from the pub’s three fireplaces, while Diane and Maddy wielded knives from the kitchen. Everyone else went with whatever they could find, ranging from jagged beer bottles to a baseball bat found hidden beneath the bar. It was just in time, too. The attack began not ten minutes later.

  ***

  The fight came not to the front door, but to one of the windows. The thick double-glazing did not shatter, but crumpled inwards a piece at a time. Everyone formed up, weapons at the ready.

  A window smashed at the opposite end of the pub.

  “Damn it,” Keith shouted. “Split into two groups, one at each window. Move, move, move.”

  Rick headed towards the other window, taking Sarah and Steven with him. To his dismay, they both looked at him like he was the one in charge.

  The window shook in its frame, the curtains flapping as the air moved. “You both ready?” Rick asked.

  Sarah nodded. Steven pulled off his blazer and threw it on the floor, rolled up his shirt sleeves, then gave a thumbs up.

  “If they’re anything like the one that attacked me, these things like going for the neck. As soon as they lunge, let them have it.”

  Large shards of glass fell loose and shattered on the ground. Rick tightened his grip on his poker, knuckles creaking. Sarah held her beer bottle near her waist, ready to stab.

  Then the siege halted.

  Both windows stopped cracking as the enemy outside stopped attacking. Rick looked at his brother at the other side of the pub, who replied with a confused frown.

  There was noise. Rumbling.

  Rick cocked his head. “Is that…? Is that the ambulance?”

  “It sounds like somebody is driving it,” said Steven.

  Sarah shifted on the spot. “Those things can drive?”

  “It looks that way,” said Steven. “Why, though? If they want to get at us in here, why drive away?”

  Rick had a thought. “Unless…”

  Sarah looked at him. “Unless what?”

  Rick heard the noise of the accelerating engine just in time to shout a warning. “They’re going to ram us.”

  An earthquake shook the building and the barricade in front of the pub’s door disintegrated as the nose of a speeding ambulance crashed through it. The heavy wooden door flew off its hinges and crashed against the bar.

  “They’re dividing us,” Rick shouted. “They’ve split us in two.”

  The ambulance’s rear doors sprung open and dead men spilled out. From the driver’s seat, a corpse with long black hair slid out. It looked at the poker in Rick’s hand and laughed. “I’ll gut you with that thing before you ever get chance to swing it.”

  Rick defied his enemy and swung at a dead woman with mottled grey breasts. His head was fuzzy with alcohol, but he was glad to have the edge taken off now. Sober, he might have retched at the sight of her caved in skull.

  Steven joined the fight and took out two dead men in quick succession. Sarah was less aggressive, and backed away until a dead woman was right on top of her. Desperation made her strike out, but she managed to slice her attacker’s throat open.

  From the other side of the pub, obscured by the crashed ambulance, the other guests fought for their lives. Rick worried about his brother and gritted his teeth as he connected a blow with a brunette’s rotting skull. He fought his way to the ambulance, but dead men continued to spill out into the pub and blocked his way.

  The fight had just got started.

  Steven held his own. With Sarah huddled behind him and striking out at anything that got too near, they made a good team. Rick took out another attacker, gained several more feet towards the ambulance, but the black haired dead man stood in his path.

  “A valiant effort, worm.” He struck Rick in the chest with the force of a kicking horse and sent him flying into the air.

  Rick hit the ground in a crumpled mess, and it was only dumb luck that allowed him to keep a hold of his poker. He thrust it out in front of him as protection while he fought to get his breath.

  “You are pathetic, worm.”

  Rick waved the poker, but was powerless on his back. “W-what are you?”

  “A man.”

  Rick shuffled backwards. “You’re not a man, you’re a monster.”

  “Men are monsters.”

  Rick cowered, tried to get up, but ended up shuffling along on his backside some more. The dead man cackled with delight.

  “Please,” Rick begged.

  “Your begging will not save you. You are—”

  The dead man stumbled forwards in surprise, falling right onto the pointed tip of the poker that Rick still held out in front of him. His bloated stomach slid right down the length of the iron rod and left a slick trail on it. The poker went straight through him, poking out of his back. Rick shoved with all his might and sent the wounded monster to the floor.

  Sarah appeared and helped Rick to his feet. Steven stood nearby with his tie flapped over his shoulder, and all around him lay the corpses of dead men. He was panting heavily, keyed-up and ready for more.

  “We have to get out of here,” said Sarah.

  “Not until we help my brother.”

  Rick could see Keith swinging his poker desperately, as two creatures had him pinned against a strobing fruit machine. They grabbed him by the arms and wrestled with him.

  Rick slid over the ambulance’s bonnet and raced to help. He no longer had his fire poker—it was embedded inside the black haired dead man’s torso—so he did the only thing he could think of and converted his speed into an attack. He aimed his foot at the nearest enemy and put so much force into the kick that the dead man flew into its partner, and the two of them smashed down on top of a table. Keith was quick to capitalise and rammed his poker down into them like a pike, impaling the dead men together like meat on a shish kebab. “Never piss off an accountant,” he shouted at them.

  Rick grabbed his brother’s arm. “We need to leave. This place isn’t safe anymore.”

  Keith looked at the broken windows and the obliterated doorway and nodded. “We need to get back to your house.”

  “What? No, we need to get help.”

  “You heard what Maddy said. There is no help. Your house is big and old, with big gates and alarms.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Diane, coming up behind them and covered in dark red blood that didn’t belong to her. The baseball bat in her hands was snapped and caked in gore.

  “Me too,” said Maddy between pants.

  Rick looked around and saw that they had won a pyrrhic victory. A dozen of their attackers lay dead or injured, but many of the pub’s drinkers were dead also. Steven and Sarah were still on the opposite side of the ambulance, but they seemed to be okay. They were staring over the bonnet; expressions weary, yet exuberant.

  “We made it,” said Steven, sounding like he could barely believe it. “I’ve never been in a fight in my life before today.”

  “Well, you kicked ass,” said Rick. “You were like a Viking.”

  Sarah patted Steven on the back. “I wouldn’t have had a chance without you. You were amaz—”

  Her eyes went wide. Steven turned to glance at Sarah and his eyes went wide too. He stepped away, startled.

  Rick reached out across the bonnet, not understanding what was happening. “Sarah?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but blood passed between her lips. Gnarled black fingernails appeared around her throat, and then her face disappeared, replaced by the back of her head. The sound of her neck snapping echoed off the ceiling like a gunshot.

  Her dead body slumped to the floor.

  The black haired dead man appeared where she had been standing, iron poker still sticking out of his torso. The grey flesh around the wound was scorched. “You think you can fight back, maggots? You will all die.” He grabbed the poker in his belly and dragged it out w
ith a slithery plop! then threw it down on the ground next to Sarah’s head.

  Steven took a swing, but was too slow. The dead man ducked the blow and struck Steven hard enough to launch him up and over the bonnet of the ambulance. Rick and the others ran to his aid, dragging him back to his feet and hustling him towards the exit.

  The black haired corpse laughed at their retreat.

  Outside, it was fully dark and completely silent. Steven was groggy and struggled to walk straight, so Keith and Rick grabbed an arm each and marched him across the car park as fast as they could. As they did so, Rick kept picturing Sarah’s face. There one minute; snapped around and facing the wrong way the next.

  Dead men walked the Earth, killing the living.

  The apocalypse had arrived.

  As Rick dared to glance backwards one last time, he saw the black haired corpse strolling after them casually, apparently, in no hurry.

  ~MINA MAGAR~

  Mayfair, England

  It was like walking through a movie set for the grizzliest film ever made. The dead littered the roads like rubbish, their blood the ancient city’s latest graffiti. Tens of thousands dead. Mina made the assumption simply by extrapolating from what she saw on every street. Now and then, amongst the dead men, women, and children, she or David would spot a body that wasn’t human. One laid in front of her now—a charred creature with clumps of flesh between its crooked teeth. Somebody had fought back and run it through with a skiing pole. The price tag still hung from the rubber grip.

  “Every inch of its skin is burned away,” Mina muttered, more to herself than David. “It’s like these things walked right out of a fire.”

  David was busy making notes and using his phone to take pictures, but he heard what she said and replied. “Well, they say Hell is hot, if that’s still what you’re implying.”

  “I think these monsters used to be men and women once. What do you think that means?”

  “Maybe they’ve been burning in Hell for all eternity.”

  Mina thought about it and found it grim to even consider. Was there really a Hell? Did people truly go there to burn for eternity? She’d never been a believer until now.