Surviving the Fall: How England Died by Stephen Cross Page B

But there never would be any memories of her, Ed, and their child.
    The sadness became anger. Just in time.
    A heavy moan droned from the bottom of the corridor. Ellie peeks throughout the tiny gap in the door, holding her breath, scared that they would hear her, or maybe smell her.
    Two figures slowly made their way around the corner at the bottom of the corridor, shuffling almost silently through the heavy carpet.
    Mac increased the noise he was making, but there was no more sound from Angie.
    Both the figures where covered in blood, and the one at the back seemed to be trailing a number of pink tubes from it’s stomach. Ellie suddenly realised the tubes were the young man’s guts, hanging freely from an open wound in his stomach. Ellie pulled back from the gap and held her hand to her mouth, stopping herself from throwing up.
    She sat up against the wall, breathing fast, her heart like a piston in her chest. Sweat formed on her brow, and on her hands. She gripped the crowbar tighter.
    I can do this, she told herself. She placed her hands on her belly. I have to do this.
    The moaning become louder and Ellie willed herself up against the crack in the door, the two infected were by Mac and Angie’s door.
    “Ellie! Come on Ellie!” shouted Mac.
    Ellie went to pull the door open, but froze. She couldn’t do it, her arms wouldn’t move.
    She breathed deeply. She closed her eyes and thought of Ed, of the times they would never have together. And it was the virus that had done this, the virus that stood a few feet away.
    “I love you, I miss you,” she whispered.
    She pulled the door open slowly and stepped gently towards the two corpses battling to get into Mac’s room. She tried to ignore the trailing guts that hung and stank from the stomach of the nearest ex-man. He was going to get it first.
    She raised the crowbar and, just as Mac had showed her, swung it down with all her might. Too much might.
    The metal made sharp contact with the skull of the infected and she heard a crack as the bone shattered, but she lost her balance and followed the crowbar, falling against Gaz. Warm blood splattered across her face.
    She screamed as Gaz spun round to face her, but he was already dead for the second time. The crowbar slipped out of her hand as the body fell, and she fell with it.
    Her only thought was of her baby and she pushed her arms out to protect her belly from the fall. Her hands sank into Gaz’s stomach and became entwined in the warmth of his intestines and bowel. She slipped further forward, and her right hand squelched up further into the torso, becoming wrapped in bones and warm fleshy organs.
    She landed on her side, expecting Johnny to be on her, all gnashing jaws and teeth. She pulled her hands, wrapped in intestines and other unidentified fleshy lumps, out of Gaz’s torso.
    “Kill it!” Mac shouted from beyond the door.
    Mac had pushed both hands through the gap in the door and gripped the skull of Johnny’s corpse. Johnny was facing Ellie, his arms reaching for her, his jaws snapping viciously.
    “I can’t hold him much longer!”
    Ellie pushed herself up, ignoring the pain in her back and belly and grabbed the crowbar from the floor. She gripped it tight, trying not to let it go, the sloppy blood on her hands making it hard to hold on.
    She stood up straight and stared at the infected shell before her. She stared deep into its eyes and saw nothing.
    “Ok Mac, let it go!”
    Mac’s hands disappeared and the creature lurched forward, its arms locking around Ellie’s shoulders. It got no further.
    Ellie slammed the crowbar down, deep and hard into its skull. There was satisfying crack. She closed her eyes against the spraying blood, and when she opened them again, the corpse was on the floor, dead again.
    It let out one last long slow moaning breath, and then it was still. Everything was still.
    “Ellie? You ok Ellie?” Mac’s head appeared at the gap in the door. She nodded. She was covered in