Remains of the Dead by Iain McKinnon

to see a solid sheet of dead faces staring back. Pressed behind the glass, the patient zombies had seen his movement and taken a fresh interest in him.
    Slowly Ali backed up from the window until he felt the railings behind him.
    The grating where he’d lain was awash with fresh blood. He looked down at his injured leg. His jeans were soaked, a dark patch encircling his calf.
    Gingerly he peeled the material away from his leg to look at the wound. The flesh was still raw and inflamed but the gash itself looked dark with clotted blood.
    Ali nodded to himself, satisfied that although he’d probably lost a lot of blood, it couldn’t be that serious if it had stopped by itself. And he’d woken up.
    How long have I been out?
    He tilted his stiff neck down to check his watch. An hour had passed since he escaped from the flat and passed out.
    In the street there still stood thousands of moaning zombies, their cries mixing together, forming a continuous low grumble. Occasionally one would utter an excited moan, higher and louder, and the call would ripple through the mass of undead.
    But there was no sign of human life. Earlier when he had struggled through the crowds of the infected there had been gunshots. Although the chopper had gone there must have been people left behind. And armed people at that.
    Ali scanned the city, hoping to see something that would indicate a rescue party. He tried to stand up to get a better view, but his legs were numb. It may just have been the awkward position he’d been in or it could be something more serious. If it was something more severe than a dead leg, he knew it wouldn’t be long before the seagull mustered up the courage to come back pecking at him.
    Ali grabbed hold of the railings and eased himself up. The mesh floor of the balcony was coated with blood and through the gaps he could see a knot of eager zombies ogling him, their faces covered in the spilt blood.
    He gripped hold of the railing and looked over at the throng. There was an element of jostling in the crowd as the zombies pushed and clawed to get under the drip. They stood there, their crimson-daubed faces upturned to the balcony, their mouths wide open, lips drawn back, teeth bared.
    Suddenly a revelation hit him. Ali recoiled from the railing, bathed in cold terror. Their dead lips weren’t drawn back ready to attack. The blood-splattered zombies were smiling. They were happy. A surge of vomit churned in his stomach. Unlike the surrounding cadavers they weren’t moaning—they were revelling in the taste of human blood. His blood. The dead creatures were experiencing pleasure from the taste of his blood.
    “Fuck,” Ali heard himself whisper.
    But in spite of his revulsion it made perfect sense. He knew the zombies were driven to feast on human flesh. He had often seen them moaning and crying out at their prey but he had never stuck around to watch them feed. He’d always been too busy trying to destroy them or run away to watch their reaction to eating.
    “Calm down,” Ali instructed himself and he drew in a deep breath. “Focus on staying alive.”
    He scanned the nearby buildings. There was nothing; no indication of life. Ali consoled himself that he didn’t have a commanding view from this floor. Rescuers could be just behind a building out of sight only metres away.
    Then Ali had another dark thought: What if the gunshots weren’t rescuers? What if the people in the chopper had abandoned his friends? Maybe the occupants of the helicopter had refused to take them but had instead given them guns and told them to fend for themselves?
    Ali shook his head, having pondered the idea. Why would the people in the chopper abandon them and give them weapons? That wouldn’t make sense. Why waste the guns and why risk the chopper being shot at by the angry people they had just left? It made no sense.
    Ali knew he had to push to one side the useless fretting about his companions and get on with the task of his own