Meadowside by Marcus Blakeston Page B

imagined its solid steel alloy head shattering through someone’s skull, spilling their brains. She shivered involuntarily at the thought, and hoped Tom would never need to use it. Or if he did, which seemed increasingly likely, she would have time to look away first.
    “Here, take this,” Tom said, holding the golf club out to her.
    Kylie shook her head and backed away, her palms raised. “I don’t want it.”
    “You might need it.”
    “I won’t. I wouldn’t be able to use it on someone anyway, no matter what they did.”
    Tom stared into her eyes and frowned. After a few seconds he lowered the golf club and turned away. “Okay girl, but stay close to me, yeah? If any of those fuckers get too close I’ll sort them out for you. Now let’s go.”
    “Why don’t we just stay here? We could hide in the changing rooms or something until it’s all over.”
    “Kylie, we’ve been through this already. We need to keep moving, so we don’t get ourselves trapped. Just stay close to me and you’ll be all right, I promise.”
    The fluorescent lights in the shop popped and hummed, then went out, plunging the shop into darkness. Kylie fumbled for Tom’s hand and clutched it. The lights in the rest of the shopping centre had also gone out, causing a chorus of hisses and blood-curdling shrieks from the crazies on the floor below. Kylie held her breath for what seemed like an eternity, trying to make out shapes in the pitch darkness, terrified at the prospect of fleeing in the dark from killers she couldn’t even see.
    Dim lights flickered on outside the shop. Kylie looked up and sighed in relief. She turned to Tom and sought out his face in the gloomy light, just a silhouette in the faint glow coming from the shopping centre concourse. They waited a minute to see if the shop’s own lights would come back on, and when they didn’t Tom led Kylie to the exit, cautiously holding the golf club out before him so they wouldn’t bump into anything in the dark.
    They walked down the concourse together, trying not to listen to the screams coming from the ground floor below, knowing there was nothing they could do to help anyone still trapped down there. Tom glanced fearfully at each shop entrance they passed, as if he expected someone to leap out at any moment. He said he wanted to check on the situation at the escalator, but Kylie just wanted to get as far away from there as possible. She knew it was only a matter of time before the crazies spilled over the top and continued their rampage across the upper floor. It was all hopeless, they should have stayed at The House of Fun. But it was too late to change her mind now. The play area would stay firmly locked until the police arrived. If they ever did.
    Writhing, snarling bodies almost completely covered the escalator steps. Kylie looked down from the balcony as they crawled over each other, no longer encumbered by the escalator’s movement. The escalator itself lay still, switched off with the main lights to conserve power for the emergency generator.
    Kylie was about to turn and run when Tom pointed out a group of four men clutching an assortment of garden tools nearby. He shouted out to them, then pointed frantically at the escalator. They rushed to the balcony to see for themselves, then ran to the escalator just as the first of the crazies spilled over the top.
    A snarling woman struggled to her feet as more crazies made their way up the escalator behind her. One of the men swung a shovel at her face and knocked her down onto her back. Another held her in place with a garden rake while he positioned the shovel over the woman’s neck and stamped down on its blade. The woman continued struggling as her blood spurted up the shovel. The man stamped again and severed her spinal cord. He twisted the shovel’s shaft and wrenched it free, then turned and swung it at another crazy who was approaching him from behind.
    The other two men stood by the escalator. One repeatedly swung