Necropolis Rising by Dave Jeffery Page B

head.”
    O’Connell’s rage simmered below the surface. He hadn’t lost it yet, hadn’t let the beast consume him as it had once, the last time he’d allowed it to take control, the time he killed someone with his bare hands. No he hadn’t lost it yet, but he was close.
    He felt a hand close over his upper arm, the gentle squeeze upon his taut muscle, a comforting hand. Suzie’s hand.
    “ Easy, babe,” she whispered. “Easy.”
    With these three words Suzie Hanks tamed the beast, sending it back to the dark place, where it would skulk in shadow until roused once again.
    O’Connell released Clarke and the youth slumped back in his seat, panting with fear and exertion.
    Suzie rubbed O’Connell’s arm, her eyes on his, the message clear. Keep it together, O’Connell; the job’s relying on you. I’m relying on you. He nodded, giving her a watery smile.
    Atonement.
    O’Connell turned back to Clarke, the younger man’s sulky demeanor belying his age.
    “ Look, Clarke,” O’Connell said, his voice now soft and persuasive. “This job is reliant on us all doing what we’re here to do. What we’re being paid a fortune to achieve. You’re an integral part of this and I need you to hold it together, okay?”
    Clarke’s face remained surly, but O’Connell saw something surface in the youth’s eyes: the sense of pride that O’Connell had stripped away had returned. Clarke blinked a few times and then nodded an accord. After a few more seconds he asked,
    “ Now do I get a rifle?”
    Just as O’Connell began to chuckle, the Mastiff stopped with a sudden jolt and pitched everyone sideways.
    O’Connell’s head hit the overhead racks hard enough for him to see stars; Amir landed heavily on the floor jarring his right shoulder.
    Suzie managed to grab hold of some webbing for support, unlike Clarke who missed it completely and fell on top of Amir in a tangle of arms and legs.
    Just as the curses began to rise from his displaced, disgruntled passengers, Stu Kunaka’s distressed voice flooded the truck.
    “ Boss! Boss! Get loaded; we got some strange shit happenin’ outside.”
    Still groggy from the blow to his head, O’Connell went to his observation portal.
    What he saw there cleared his battered brain in an instant.
     
    ***
    At first O’Connell thought he was suffering from a vile hallucination, a result of post head injury trauma. But his colleagues confirmed what he already knew: what he saw through the window was as real as sin.
    There were people milling around the streets, too many to count. But there was something wrong in the way the crowd behaved; the way it shambled through the stark streets as one aimless mass, mouths yawning, heads tilted as though neck muscles had just given in for the night.
    But it was the eyes that gave him shivers that no living person had ever given him. Because in an instant he knew that these people weren’t living at all.
    “ You seein’ this, O’Connell?” Stu said shakily.
    “ Yes,” O’Connell replied as the crowd turned its many heads towards the Mastiff. “And I guess we’ve just been seen too.”
    “ What the fuck’s the matter with them?” Clarke said. Suzie noted that his hands were trembling against the wall of the truck.
    “ Who knows?” Amir said, sounding amazed. “But this is why the place is locked down. They look like a bunch of zombies.”
    “ They are zombies,” Stu confirmed over a burst of static.
    “ Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Clarke muttered. “Don’t go all supernatural on us now, Stu. There’s no such thing as zombies. Believe me, I love zombies; but that ain’t going to make ’em real.”
    “ Take a good look at ’em and tell me there are people out there that shouldn’t be breathin’ let alone walkin’ around,” Kunaka retorted.
    Clarke examined the crowd again, easier to make out now it was shuffling towards their vehicle.
    It was when he saw a man wearing only pajama trousers with an autopsy “Y” stitched into