Free When There's No More room In Hell: A Zombie Novel by Luke Duffy

carry on, creeping closer to the station. They were just a hundred metres away from where they knew the station would be. They stealthily moved along the wall of a designer clothes shop, keeping to the shadows, toward the junction that would turn left into the street of the police station.
    Tony paused before turning the corner, taking a deep breath; he held his hand out behind him, signalling for Elaine to stay where she was.
    Quickly he forced his head around the corner and took in the scene that lay before them. Just as quickly, he retracted and backed up to where Elaine was still standing. He continued to back up and collided with her.
    “Tony, what is it? Are they here as well?” she hissed in a whispered voice.
    Tony had gone pale with fright , his eyes had grown wide and he stared back toward the corner. He stuttered his words as he spoke. “They...they're...every...everywhere.”
    Elaine crept forward to the junction. She saw the roof of the station, and that was about all she could see of the building. Police cars and riot ve hicles, some on their sides, lay abandoned in the car park in front. People crowded around the building, clambering and attacking the doors and windows.
    Most of the glass had been smashed out from the windows and the attackers were climbing in through the open gaps. She could see silhouettes moving in the upper floor windows, some obviously her fellow officers, running from one room to another and battling to regain control of the police station, or just for their lives.
    An officer stood on the roof of the building with, what Elaine assumed to b e, a shotgun aimed over the edge, and pumped round after round into the crowd at street level. Even with people being killed around them, the rioters didn't seem to be fazed in the slightest and never let up their assault.
    Elaine looked back to Tony, w ho still looked as though he were in shock. “What do we do? Should we try and help?”
    Tony was just mumbling to himself, his eyes wide with fear , and slowly shaking his head, backing away all the time from the corner of the street.
    She turned back just as two of the rioters rounded. She stepped back and gasped. They stopped for a second when they saw her, their bloodied mouths opening as if to speak, then suddenly snapping shut and grinding their teeth in anticipation as their hands reached out for her.
    Their clothes were torn and covered in dark blood. Their hands, mouths and faces were also smeared with it and their eyes, even though they were fixed on Elaine and Tony as they backed away, were devoid of anything.
    For a fleeting moment Elaine tho ught, they actually look like the eyes of dead people.
    She backed up and this time, it was she that bumped into Tony. He was standing solid in his tracks and looking behind them. Others were approaching from the opposite direction. Tony, snapping out of his moment of inactivity, gripped Elaine by the shoulder, dragging her with him as he headed for the other side of the street, hoping to bypass the approaching rioters and flee to safety.
    “C’mon, head for the other side of the street ,” he said, pushing her in that direction.
    As they began to cross, more people turned the corner toward them from the direction of the police station. They shambled and hobbled, reaching out with their bloodstained hands and grasping at the air between them as they drew closer. There were now six of them in front and eight behind. The street was blocked by the approaching aggressors and so was their escape.
    “Shit, what do we do?” Elaine was pushing back at Tony as he tried to guide her forward.
    Tony glanced over his shoulder again, then back to the front. They were getting closer. Some moving much faster than the others as they staggered toward them on unsteady legs. He weighed up the odds and considered his options; he looked down at the back of Elaine’s head and shoulders, then back to the corner of the street where he had planned to escape.
    “I'm