Demise of the Living by Iain McKinnon Page A

stretched over and
pulled the door closed. As Stephen ran up to the car she slapped
down the door locks.
    “Daft bitch,” Stephen
growled.
    He pulled his keys out of his
pocket and dangled them in front of the window.
    He hit the central locking
button on the car key and the door locks sprung open.
    Liz lunged out and
managed to lock the rear passenger door again before Stephen could
yank the door open.
    Thwarted, Stephen grabbed the
handle for the front passenger door and beat Liz to the goal.
    He leaned inside the car. Liz
was still half out of her seat, frozen in her failed attempt to
secure the door.
    Stephen pulled his fist
back.
    He grumbled, “You
annoying cow,” as he punched her in the face.
    Liz fell back into her seat,
Melissa’s screaming and a swarm of buzzing in her ears. She screwed
up her eyes against the bright light and realized she was being
dragged from the car.
    The ground was hard and
unyielding as she felt herself being dumped down. Dazed and in
pain, by the time she had managed to sit up, the car was gone, the
sound of its engine quickly obscured by the crying and plaintive
sobs from her daughter.
    An alarm sounded,
high-pitched and angry.
    Liz turned round to see a fire
exit wide open.
    “Liz?” Colin panted.
    With Melissa’s help, Liz got to
her feet..
    Colin called above the racket,
“What happened?”
    Liz ran her hand under her
nose. It was tender and throbbing, but there was no blood on her
fingers.
    “ Stephen ,” Liz slurred. She looked
back down the alleyway in the direction he had sped off. “He hit
me.”
    “ Are you okay?” Colin
asked, getting closer. He looked down at the delirious Gary. “Is he
okay? Did you not get to a hospital?”
    Liz shook her head and started
to cry.
    Colin looked around,
unsure what to do. The little girl Melissa had buried her head in
her mother’s abdomen. She had started crying, too. The young boy
was lying on the ground, still holding his injured hand, looking
very sickly, and Gary was mumbling incoherently.
    As Colin was trying to
determine what he should do, a rasping moan rose above the sound of
the fire exit alarm. From across the deserted car park he could see
a limping figure making its way towards them along the chain link
fence. He stepped up to Liz's side and put his hands on her
shoulders.
    “Let’s get you inside,” Colin
said, gently guiding her towards the office block.
    With his eyes on the figure
ambling towards them, Colin jogged across the parking lotto the
gate.
    The flimsy metal gate squeaked
slightly as he pushed it back into place. As the two halves of the
gate met, the chain mesh jangled, but didn’t line up.
    Colin looked more closely at
the lock. It was a simple slide-over bolt, but the problem was the
bolt was all the way across, stopping the gates from sitting flush.
The bolt was being held in the locked position by the padlock that
normally kept the gate secure, a padlock that had been snapped
shut.
    “Oh, Christ,” Colin cursed.
    He looked around for some
way of barring the gate. As he did he caught sight of the advancing
figure again. Now that he was closer, Colin could see he wore an
unzipped grey jacket that was missing a sleeve from the shoulder
down. His dark jeans were muddy and ripped through at the knees.
The cartoon figures on the front of his T-shirt were obscured by
the trail of rich red blood that until recently had flowed from the
gash in the man’s throat. With his stiff limbs he was fighting to
move each and every step forward. He swung his legs out as if he
were trying to free his feet from wet cement. The force of the
motion would throw him off balance slightly and he would totter for
a moment before throwing his trailing leg forward. Arduous though
the movement was, he persevered.
    Colin broke his gaze with
the man and resumed his visual search for something that would bar
the gate. He saw Liz walking wobbly toward the doorway, her
daughter helping her, but the boy and Gary were lying on