Our exit route avoided the presumably fury-crowded centre and would have been perfect were it not for one small snag, discovered at the very edge of the city during our preliminary exploration.
There was a road bridge above a railway line. A train had derailed directly below it, its overturned wagons red with rust. And all around it and around the nearby train station building were hundreds of infected that spilled across the tracks like a river of still, dark water. Some were already dead, sprawled on the ground, trampled on by their peers, and I felt inappropriately reassured by the proof that they would die on their own eventually, even without direct intervention. Yet the very air around us vibrated with collective growls of the live furies.
Since the road beyond the bridge looked clear, meaning that we likely could get out of the city that way, we quite literally decided to cross that bridge when we came to it. Hoping to be able to outdrive the cannibals that would inevitably chase after us.
We held our breaths collectively as we passed over it, Dave skilfully manoeuvring between the cars, bodies, and debris on the road. The snarls were audible even over the car’s purring motor.
The road sloped down, levelling out with the rails, and the station building with marble-coloured pillars partially obscured our view of the infected.
But soon the pursuing cannibals came into our view. Dashing between the marble arches, climbing over the abandoned cars,swerving around lamp posts. Their dark multitudes filled every inch of the street’s space in their pursuit of us. Bulging eyes and teeth, white in their blood-stained faces. Hands like claws outstretched towards our vehicle.
Joshua swore.
“Drive faster, bruv,” Amit urged Dave, his voice shrill.
Dave looked into his rear-view mirror and nearly hit a van blocking the road before us, only narrowly avoiding it.
“Keep calm, everyone,” I said loudly, deliberately focusing on mimicking the British accent—however badly—to force myself to speak calmly and unhurriedly. “We expected this to happen, remember? Everything is going according to our plan. They will not catch up to us.”
“And if they do, then what?!”
“Amit, you’re not helping. Eyes on the road, Dave.”
“Yeah ...” Dave exhaled absent-mindedly, but gripped the wheel tighter with both hands.
The road widened as we reached an airport on our left and rectangular, industrial buildings on our right. There was a crashed airplane on the runway parallel to our road, its cockpit scrunched up and burned, faint wisps of smoke still rising towards the cloudless sky.
The infected were visibly getting tired, some even collapsing to the ground. Yet their more relentless peers rushed over them and were slowly gaining advantage on us as it was more congested there with wreckage. Dave was forced to nearly drive off the road to avoid it, our car tilting dangerously towards the grassy roadside ditch.
There were bodies scattered among the debris. Some had been infected, some had not. In some places, the people had been caught in fire trying to climb out of their crashed vehicles, and their heads were hairless, and their skin was charred and cracked. The smell of smoke and burnt meat stung in my nostrilsdespite the closed windows. When we could not but drive over them, we felt the crunch of their skeletons in our own bones, the contact with the bodies reverberating through the car.
“They’re getting tired, Dave. You’ll lose them soon.” I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder encouragingly. “You’re doing great. Just keep going like you have.”
Looking ahead, I saw a silver Mercedes backed into a black Volkswagen Beetle. A pool of liquid spread around in an uneven circle.
“Petrol,” I whispered more to myself than to the others.
Time to think was a luxury I didn’t have. Otherwise, I may have never dared do what I did. I unzipped the fleece jacket and took it off. Goosebumps erupted all over my arms and bare shoulders. I pulled an arrow from the quiver lodged between my knees, and I wrapped the jacket tightly around it.
“What are you doing?” Kevin asked.
“Give me a lighter, now!” was the only reply he got from me.
I rolled down my window and leaned out with the prepared torch in my outstretched hand. The smell of petrol and burning chemicals was powerful, and I choked and coughed, my throat burning. The arrow’s impact against the road as I dipped it in the petrol was more substantial than anticipated, jarring every bone in my arm. Had we driven any faster, it would have been knocked out of my hand, but as it was, I just barely managed to hold on to it.
“Lighter,” I yelled at the others maniacally, grabbing my bow and holding firmly onto it so as not to drop it to the ground.
It was a most uncomfortable position. Hair flying madly all around my face in the wind, I was kneeling on my seat, struggling against the seat belt, my feet pressed against Monika.
“Here, take it.” She handed me a lighter just as I managed to nock the arrow.
Struggling, I lit the fleece jacket on the seventh try. The wad caught aflame abruptly with a scary ‘whoosh’ and its heat licked against my face and hands.
Leaning further out yet, I held my breath, my heart thrumming in my ears and the edge of the window pressing painfully into my lower ribs.
I released the shot just as the roamers reached the pool of petrol.
The puddle burst into flames, and the infected burned and dropped to the ground en masse. Lacking any self-preservation instinct, they kept running to their demise through the wall of fire.
