'You guys want to prove you can handle yourselves?' Nick asked Jenny, Jane and Emma. 'Why don't you come too?'
Jane said, 'Damn right we're coming. We should have the chance to prove we don't need to be babysat all the time. It's getting way too sexist round here.'
Matt stared at Jane with obvious disapproval. 'Fine then,' he said, and thrust out one of the heavy steel sledgehammers to her. He knew she would struggle to even lift it.
'No, not that one!' Jane shouted. 'A smaller one. Don't be like this.' It was rare to see Jane get angry or even disagree with Matt, and in front of the whole group. They remained quiet and watchful.
'Oh, women's lib is it?' Matt said nastily. 'Go and get one then.'
Jane glared at him and marched off to the doorway where most of the weapons and armour had been dumped and came back with an armful of mallets. She handed one to Jenny, Emma, then Sarah.
Nick couldn't resist saying, 'I thought you said that they're just sick people and that killing them was disgusting.'
'No, going out and killing them just because is wrong, but we need to know how to defend ourselves when we really need to,' said Sarah.
'Like when you need to go shopping,' said Jack with a grin.
'Guys, I can't go,' said Tom. 'I'm in bits after last night and I don't want to open up my leg wound again. Besides, someone needs to look after Andy.'
All the friends knew and liked Tom because of his gentle and kind nature; he wasn't the fighting type. Although he was well built and strong, he was mostly blind and clumsy. There was something missing, though. He was too nice; there was simply no violence in him.
'Okay, that's fine,' said Nick. 'We need someone to be our getaway driver. Most likely the town will get all stirred up, so we'll need a quick exit. Come on, Matt, you've got to come too. "Safety in numbers" and all that.'
'Wait, when was this all decided? When did we all agree to this?' Matt moaned, but the tide had turned against him.
After a while, everyone was geared up and the remaining possessions were swiftly and quietly stashed in the van. The route had been agreed on. They would go up King Street, through The Shambles and on to The Piazza, through Queensgate Market, then out to the Castlegate slip road, where they could make their escape. Nick was pleased at getting his own way again. First, it had been the funeral party and now this shopping trip. He could tell this made Matt angry, which made Nick happier still.
The friends experimentally swung their weapons through the air, saying they would bash a pedestrian down like this or would fuck someone up like that and finish them with one of these. They put final touches to their warpaint on their faces and armour to make sure they looked perfect and finished their drinks.
'I can't believe we're actually going to do this,' Matt said as they congregated outside the bar. They all fumbled with carrier bags, handbags and rucksacks, weighed whatever weaponry they had to hand out on the patio area, toked the last dregs from dog-ends and breathed the smoke out to the arid, barren wind.
At least it had stopped raining.
Tom guided Andy under his broad, solid shoulder, and they scraped along in a geriatric shuffle, until Tom eased him up to the passenger seat.
Matt shook his head. 'You know what, I'm pretty tempted to stay with them two. This is bloody stupid,' he said. 'No, that does it. Come on, Jane, we're going home.' The rest of the group protested and they held Jane back from Matt as he tried to pull her away by the arm.
'Whoa, now! She's coming with us. We're doing this! It's happening,' wheedled Nick. 'You wouldn't really abandon us all to go on our own, would you? We need all the help we can get.' Matt was exasperated but it seemed he had little choice.
Nick came round with a pipe, which he'd packed full of the Bhuna.
'Peace pipe?' Jane asked him.
'War pipe,' said Nick. Once he'd lit it and exhaled a dragon's breath plume, Matt wasn't angry any more.
The friends all watched as Tom slowly rolled the van down the street and on to the ring road. He turned some curves quite beautifully as he went, transitioning smoothly from the right lane to the left and back again, even though the road went straight. He demonstrated admirable care at the turn-off, slowed down to a stop as he stalled on the corner and only once nudged a parked lorry that jumped out of nowhere.
'Look at him go,' said Nick, proudly. 'Taught the fucker myself.'
'Andy is way overdoing it,' said Jenny. 'He's a mess.'
'Everyone got a goody bag?' Emma asked.
'Come on then!' interrupted Nick, and he jogged ahead. He looked back and waved them on.
'Wait, is everyone even ready?' said Matt. 'We've got to be organised if we're going to do this. Let's be smart about this.'
'Time's up, let's do this. Let's go trick-or-treating!' said Jack.
'You ready, girls?' shouted Sarah, and the girls whooped as they ran to catch up.
They set off at a jog and turned up the street to the city centre. Their boots pounded out while a football chant of 'Here we go, here we go, here we go!' was raised around the group and they hoofed debris out of their way as they went.
They passed the cars where Jack and Joe had bashed the fat man earlier, then went up to where they'd taped and decked the woman.
The group faltered and gave a collective scream and utterance of disgust at the seething mass of rats that gnawed at the woman's remains. Collectively the hundreds of teeth made a terrible crunching, grinding noise that disintegrated the body before their eyes. Jack and Joe saw the crimson, gristly skeleton move, buoyed up under the tide of furry bodies, and were appalled at what they had done. Nick laughed wildly at how mad and revolting it all was.
The friends regrouped, tugging each other along to resume their course, but they weren't singing any more.
From out of doorways and around the street corners, the Dead came to investigate the noise that broke the peace of their town. Nick rushed the nearest one and swung out with his dumbbell. The mummified banshee screeched and raked her nails down Nick's suit, but it protected him. With a second bash, Nick knocked the nest-haired spectre to the ground as the others caught up.
More of the Dead shambled together towards the friends and a lone scarecrow got close– a lady with grey hair, a raincoat and a fur hat who cursed and spat toothlessly at Sarah who was closest. Sarah held her mallet stiffly, seeming unsure of herself. She took a swipe but missed and the lady retaliated with slaps of her own and grabbed under the front of Sarah's helmet. Sarah grasped her weapon in both hands and swung it with more vigour at the woman, as she received a loud thump across the helmet.
'Hit her, hit her!' the other girls cheered, as they hung back, out of the reach of Sarah's weapon as it swung about, flapping the linen shopping bag on her arm.
'Follow through!' Joe shouted as he ducked out of the reach of Sarah's weapon.
Unused to fighting, Sarah flailed back and forth, but she managed to land a succession of blows as she received some in return and the ghoul fell to the roadside.
The rest of the girls cheered and surged along together and set about attacking the other Dead who came to meet them with the same enthusiasm.
Together the group managed to down around half a dozen of the motley assortment of rabid, plagued townsfolk and scattered more that fled, wailing and hissing from their gleeful belligerence.
'Keep up!' roared Matt. He guided some stragglers along, like Emily and Katie, as the group pushed ahead.
'Over here!' Nick yelled, and he waved the others on to join him further up the pedestrian precinct.
'It's this way!' Joe shouted, hesitating at the entrance to The Shambles, under the ladder-bridge he made with Jack.
'Stick to the route!' Matt called out, but the others followed Nick.
The friends knocked down several pedestrians on the way before they reached a jeweller's shop. Nick gave his dumbbell a hefty swing at the shop window but it bounced off. He hit it again and spread a spider's web of cracks across the glass. Nick swore furiously inside his helmet. The growing hubbub from the Dead all around and each clash of the splintering glass drew more attention to them.
'Come on!' Matt and Joe called out. They had to run over so they wouldn't be left behind and with one almighty swing, Matt knocked down a deathly pallid teenager in a tracksuit on the way.
'I'm scared,' someone screamed.
Nick and Jack hit the window at the same time and the entire pane frosted over with cracks and came out in one piece. The reinforced glass bent as it slid out onto the floor.
'Dig in!' Nick yelled joyfully.
'Trick or treat!' shouted Jack as he grabbed handfuls of watches and chains with indiscriminate glee.
'Trick or treat!' the others yelled, taking up the call and stuffing handfuls of jewellery and accessories into their assortment of goody bags.
Nick stood away and let them all dive in. This was amazing. His adrenaline was sky high, this was such a thrill. He felt powerful. Nick brandished his weapon and scared back any of the Dead who came up by swinging out at them, and they congregated out of reach. They howled and wailed, faces contorted with fury. Nick held them back as he shouted and growled his threats. He booted one back and rammed another with the butt of his weapon, and one of them he clouted down to the ground as it broke away to rush at him. Now it was the Dead who hung back scared. The tide had turned and he had taken control, it was their turn to be afraid of him. The others would surely see how great it was when they got out and did things his way. He was the one who'd won them all this loot. He was the one that made things happen.
He sensed a figure to the side of him and whirled around, ready to strike. It was Matt, with his visor up.
'What do you think you're playing at?' Matt yelled over the noise. Nick stared back, eyes wild with mania and his hatred of Matt flared. Maybe he should hit Matt anyway and say it was an accident. Would he get away with it?
'Let's go!' shouted Matt to the others, and he began pulling people away from the store. They were fixated on piling fistful after fistful of stuff into their bags and weren't looking around them. The allure of one last grab, then another, then another at the shiny, pretty things was too strong.
'I know you were bloody stupid in the first place but now you're high this is ridiculous,' Matt raved, but to deaf ears. One by one he managed to wrench them away from the window and physically shove them back the way they were supposed to go.
Nick held the Dead back as long as possible then ran to catch up with them. The mob broke and lumbered after him as soon as he turned away.
The friends ran down the central alley of The Shambles, back en route to The Piazza, their footfalls drumming and echoing off the shop units and glass ceiling around them. They yelled, whooped and laughed breathlessly with exhilaration and swung at the shop windows just to see the glass break.
They came to a bookshop with the doors left open and a large display of sweets just inside.
'Goddamn, Pic-n-Mix!' Joe shouted with joy, and he ran in and fumbled briefly with the cardboard serving cups. He gave up and wrenched an entire tray of chocolate mice from the display. But he didn't see an elderly lady with an ashen, sagging face, clothing matted with grimy damp come up behind him from inside the shop. He jumped as she latched on to his arm and pressed her toothless mouth to the armoured leather. He spun and walloped her over the head with the tray of sweets, knocking her back in a shower of sugary little rodents.
'Goddamn Pic-n-Mix!' Joe shouted in frustration. Jack was crippled with laughter. Joe pulled out a tray of foam bananas instead and came back out. Running out of hands, Joe was trying to carry a sledgehammer tucked under his arm, a carrier bag full of jewellery and a tray of sweets all at once. He also tried to help his friend along, who was doubled over in helpless laughter.
'Come on or she'll get you,' Joe said. He tried to eat a banana but it mashed into his visor. 'Oh, I forgot I was wearing that,' he said, not helping Jack's situation much.
The group of friends jogged onwards until they reached a gift shop full of little trinkets and other odds and ends, the sort of place where you'd find a passable gift for Mother's Day or when you ran out of ideas for Christmas. Emily ran inside and found a stand of pretty vases and porcelain ornaments then surprised everyone by smashing as many as she could in a few seconds.
'What?' she said, returning to the others. 'I never get to do anything fun and break things. It's my turn!'
They reached the end of the alleyway and were at The Piazza which linked directly on to it. Jack and Joe came to a breathless halt with Matt and watched the group scatter to the various shops that enclosed the central green and the town library.
Some of the girls split off and dashed to a pharmacy, Sarah went off with Nick, and the rest went to a clothes shop. On their way they ran into a teenage Dead girl who wore a garish puffer jacket with faux fur around the hood and leopard-print leggings. They clung to their bags and clubbed her with gleeful abandon.
'You scrubber!' 'Have it, you bitch!' the girls shouted as they beat her down to the pavement. 'Tart!'
'Wait!' Matt roared. 'We can't split up!' He looked back at the alley and saw a crowd of the grim, infuriated townsfolk stumbling after them. He turned to Jack and Joe. 'You two stay with me and see them off,' he ordered.
Jack flipped up his visor and wiped a tear of laughter away. 'I've got an idea,' he said. 'I'll lead them off, away and around past the library. Decoy. You can stay with the others.'
They left Jack to it while they went to catch up with the rest. Jack waved his arms to get the Dead's attention, then jogged off, just ahead and out of reach.
Nick watched them go. He stood behind Sarah with his arm around her waist as they hid inside a shop doorway. It was an adult store with all kinds of kinky toys and accessories, outfits, erotic literature and more. They flipped up their visors, breathing hard and smiling at each other.
'What did you have in mind?' Nick said, and he ran his hand down her hip and squeezed her bum.
Sarah bit her lip and walked to the window display. She had a playful, girlish spring in her step. She held a nurse's costume against her body and asked him what he thought.
'Maybe this one,' she said, trading it for a housemaid's outfit, and laughed. Grinning, she held up a third.
'What's that supposed to be?' said Nick.
'It's Alien!' she said.
'That's actually pretty hot,' Nick said, and he flicked a handcuff and leash set hanging from a rack.
'Wow, look how much they were charging for these,' said Sarah, and she picked up a pair of platform-soled, Nazi-style jackboots.
'Wow. Yeah, get those!' said Nick, but Sarah put them back and got some thigh-length stiletto boots in shiny black leather and a fishnet body stocking to match.
'Oh my God yes,' said Nick.
Sarah coyly said, 'Hmm, I don't know,' and made to put them back. Nick made a grab to stay her hand.
'No, let's get those,' he said, and Sarah gave a little laugh.
She leaned in to Nick and held her face close to his. Nick heard the creak of biker leather as her chest squashed against his. 'Now, I didn't say they were for you now, did I?' she said huskily, then turned and wandered further into the shop. She poked something else on a shelf that made Nick a little jealous, then picked up some more things that she didn't let Nick see. 'Watch the door!' she scolded. Nick obliged and puffed out some air which was frankly too much to keep in.
'Right, let's go,' Sarah said to him after a while. She led him out by the hand and Nick did as he was told.
Jack tripped and fell down the last few stairs behind the library. He scrabbled at the damp, mossy flagstones to pick up his mallet and goody bag and spun around in a panic to see where the Dead had got to behind him.
He was below ground level outside the children's section of the library. In a flash of inspiration he saw the stairway and thought to lead the Dead there, as he pranced and goaded ahead of the mob. He skipped just out of reach and delighted in the thought of how he was playing Pied Piper to the crowd that followed him… until he tripped.
The baying, snarling crowd reached the top of the stairs. Those in front froze when they saw the drop but were shunted into from those behind. They flopped and rolled down the steps, arms and legs splayed in the air, and were followed by the next, who were barrelled into by the ones at the back. They instinctively reached out to grab on to something and so pulled any left standing down with them.
The momentum of the group ended up taking the whole lot down the stairs, where they flopped and thrashed and clawed at each other. They pulled at each other as they tried to get up and brought each other down again. Some tried to crawl across the top of the others and pinned them down.
Jack brayed with laughter at them. 'Did you see—' he turned to the others then remembered that he was by himself. '…Oh wait. Never mind.' He scrambled to his feet. That was brilliant. He was a genius. He went off to find Matt and Joe, eager to tell them what had happened.
Back on the green, Matt swung out at Jack with his sledgehammer. Jack froze as the hammer's head went straight past him. It connected with the head of a bearded man in a white robe and skullcap right behind him. He hadn't even noticed.
'This is a mess. It's all gone to shit,' Matt growled savagely. 'Go and get the girls out from the pharmacy. Where's Nick and Sarah, have you seen them?'
Sarah skipped out of a clothing store, holding her mallet in one hand and swinging a vivid pink store-brand carrier bags and her bag full of jewellery in the other. Nick followed behind. On the way out he threw up a thick handful of cash he'd taken from the till. The notes flickered and spun in the air like snowflakes, and they laughed in the blizzard of pretty, worthless paper.
Both laughed and looked at each other with their visors up. They weren't paying attention as a man in a tatty green anorak ran up to Sarah, his a face coloured livid purple to the point of being black. He grasped her arm, and sank his teeth into it. Sarah screamed. Nick kicked him back and felled him with a bash to the head. He examined Sarah's bite and swore. The suit had protected her, but still, it was pretty gross.
They both laughed, Sarah in relief, with her hand clutched to her chest as Nick scooped her up in his arms and carried them on.
A couple of shop units away, Emma and Jenny were being chased around the aisles of a clothes store by the attendant. They dodged back and forth around racks of clothes, ducking one way then the other, running down an aisle and feinting left then right to send the snarling cadaver the wrong way.
They laughed as they did so. Jenny stepped towards the store attendant to draw her in before dodging back, and then Emma did the same from the other side. Jenny pulled a bra from a shelf. It was a beautiful, lusty red, made from a silky fabric that was sheer as a flower petal, and it had an equally remarkable price tag.
'Nope! Nope! This won't do at all!' Jenny said, and she flung it at the shop attendant's face. Evidently, it had once been a very pretty face on the young woman who wore the store uniform. She had platinum hair and was almost elven in the beauty of her looks, though now the colour of her skin was lilac and a frosty white.
'No! Rubbish. Shitty, shit clothes. You, mademoiselle, are a purveyor of deplorable, shitty clothes,' Emma declared. She threw a kimono, a low-cut ball gown and a lacy G-string into the air. The store attendant howled and lashed out at her, nails raking across Emma's suit. Emma called her a fucking bitch and clocked her with her hammer.
For every few items the girls discarded and threw into the air they also stuffed a handful into their goody bags, hoping to find something nice at random later. Regrettably, there wasn't enough time to check the sizes, let alone try a cheeky number on.
Really though, these kind of clothes weren't for Jenny or Emma, they knew that. They didn't have the figure for them, or at least weren't confident enough to ever wear this sort of thing. They dressed down most times in something like jeans and a hoodie. The clothes they flung through the air weren't for people like them. They were for girls like the attendant, girls who got all the attention, who they took turns to lean towards, swing out with their hammers, then pull away as she retaliated.
Emma produced a zippo with a Staffordshire bull terrier on the front and whipped it up her leg to light it like in the movies. It did, on the third attempt, and she was startled at the brilliant flash of orange as a backless evening dress with a hand's breadth of skirt went up in flames.
The attendant made an unexpected dive at Jenny and knocked her to the ground. The attendant sat on her and pounded her fists on to Jenny's helmet and chest, then reached for her face through the open visor. Jenny screamed and thrashed her head from side to side to escape the clawing fingers.
Emma stared in horror as the bright flames from the dress flared up with alarming speed less than a metre from her friend and her attacker. She dived in to tackle the attendant and take her to the floor. They rolled around in a struggle for a few seconds until she and Jenny broke free.
They got up and rained down a fury of blows from their fists and then their hammers. Their violence turned to vicious laughter as the pretty girl's head and her silvery hair darkened and became matted under an obscuring mask of sticky red.
Matt and Jack turned to see Jenny and Emma leave the store as smoke rose from the doorway.
'FIRE!' Emma crowed. 'The shitty clothes are on fire!'
'What the hell do you think you're doing?' Matt shouted at the girls. 'You can't burn the shops down! Go and get the others! Now!' he shouted. 'This has gone to shit! We need to get everyone together and get out of here!' He yelled at Nick and Sarah.
'Relax. We've got this,' said Nick, as he walked with Sarah. 'We can split and get the things we want. We're bossing it.'
Matt grabbed Nick's arm and brought him face to furious face. 'We need to get the group together right now! This has gone too far,' he shouted. Nick shoved him back hard in the chest and the two stared at each other square in the eyes.
'Whoa, easy!' Sarah tugged Nick's arm back, alarmed at how close they'd come to turning on each other.
Jack came running from the pharmacy.
'I can't get them to come,' he said. 'I tried to persuade them but they ignored me then told me to piss off.'
Matt strode off into the pharmacy and then came back out again seconds later. 'COME ON!' he bellowed. He held Jane by the arm and wrenched her along after him. Jane's face was streaked with tears. Gone was her joyful vigour of a few minutes ago, as it was for Emily and Jenny, who were close behind and angrily shouting at Matt to release her.
'We're going to get to the van now and go home,' Matt tried to say but was cut off by a growing cheer of 'Queensgate! Queensgate!'
Queensgate Market had a small entrance on The Piazza's courtyard with a corridor that was long, low and flanked on either side by little shop units. The friends bounded and skipped along into this place, untouched since the big day. Above them, dozens of pigeons and songbirds claimed this place now the tyranny of mankind was over and nested among the domed skylights and wooden beams of the ceiling as they sought refuge from the crows. As one, the birds swooped and whirled as fluid as a wave ahead of the friends in a rush of wing-beats and countless shrill calls from the excrement-spattered and feather-coated roosts.
The smell from the burning store outside the market was drowned by the rotten stink of the old market units. There was a butcher's, and worse, a fishmonger's stall. Some units weren't shuttered down and rats turned and scrabbled their way back to the kingdom they'd made in the walls of the ruins.
The friends burst in to the main hall of the market centre.
'Just here!' said Nick. There was a stall that sold all kinds of smoking paraphernalia: bongs, pipes, grinders, papers, tins, as well as accessories and t-shirts. 'Our lot's used up. Grab as much as you can! I don't know how much more I can carry,' Nick said. They piled indiscriminate handfuls into their bags.
Emma stopped to turn and look further into the hall. 'What the hell…' she said, and grabbed Jenny's arm.
The others looked up and did a double take at what they saw at the far end of the market. A congregation of the ragged townsfolk were standing around a pile of objects built up like a pyramid or totem from a patchwork jumble of items that looked like salvage from shops and homes. It appeared as though the mass were gathered in communion around it as they knelt or sat cross-legged before the structure. Some stood with their arms outstretched as they swayed from side to side, and a low murmur of their voices echoed in a low drone from the concrete walls to the peaks of the roof.
Hands that were scooping and snatching at trinkets fumbled and paused mid-grab as the group followed each other's open-mouthed gawp at the sight, and through the gaps between the market stalls, the tattered, grey people turned to face the intruders.
The friends knew they had to leave. They knew they shouldn't be there, as the mounting fear and urge to leave grew with each pair of wild, filmy eyes that turned on them, and without a word they fled the way they'd come.
Back outside, the group took a left turn around the outside of the market to take them past the town hall. Emily was the furthest ahead as she turned the corner, her attention on her loot as she plunged a hand in to rummage around the goods she'd collected. She ran headlong into a crowd of the Dead that were standing in wait across the width of the road. Dozens of their loathsome, morbid faces were contorted in fury, and the dull rage of their eyes locked on the gang of trespassers into their town as they lunged for them. Emily was knocked to the ground before she had time to react, and in a moment the Dead were all over her.
'Help me!' Jack shouted, as he dropped his bags and charged at them. He swung wildly at the frenzied mob as they all reached for Emily as she kicked and squirmed, helpless on the floor. Dozens of hands grabbed at her as she struggled to get away, and they swung out at Jack who was held back by the mass of the crowd and couldn't get anywhere near her.
'Come on, don't stand there! Help get her back!' Matt shouted, and he charged at the mass of bodies. The Dead snarled and raised their voices to a chorus of bellowing wails as they pushed and fought over Emily. The hard, vice-like hands clamped down on her, wrenching at her arms and legs, and at her helmet, and their yellowing and blackened teeth chewed down on her biker suit.
Jack fought as hard as he could in a fierce attempt to reach Emily. He launched himself at the Dead and struck out at the mob but made little impact as they struck back at him and pulled at his suit. Soon all he could do was kick and try to wrestle himself free from where the Dead had caught hold of him and tried to pull him down too. The sheer number of thrashing limbs and heaving bodies formed a wall against him, dead, cold and unfeeling. They yielded little to his best efforts, tough, stiff and hardened as their bodies were, and each blow he received was painful, and solid like wood. He could barely hear Emily's muffled screams over the noise of the mob, the melee and the sound of his own laboured breath in his helmet.
'Don't stand there, put your bags down and help us!' Matt shouted as the rest of the group stood back, screaming and holding each other. They joined in and took aim at some of the clamouring, grunting cadavers on the outside but held back from the main fray.
Although the friends fought hard and some of the Dead fell, they couldn't break up the mass of the crowd. Countless painful blows numbed their limbs and sapped their strength. They were exhausted and couldn't fight on. It looked like they couldn't even escape and save themselves, let alone rescue Emily, who after all this time was still underneath the mob. They couldn't see her or even hear her screams any more because of the violence being meted out by the maddened crowd upon her. More of the Dead were drawn to the noise from across The Piazza, and they came to join the fray.
Through the pain and exhaustion, every movement was sheer agony for Jack, like wading through wet cement. A pair of hands had locked tightly on his ankle and he couldn't break free as they crushed down on him, grabbing and twisting. It was all he could do to lift his mallet up into the air, time after agonising time, and let it fall with no strength behind it, ineffectual against the attackers, some of which were still and inert, their eyes rolled up and bloodied as they floated as though drowned in the solid mass. Thump after thump landed on him, dizzying and sickening.
'Get out! We have to run. It's hopeless!' yelled Nick. 'We can't do anything.'
Matt broke away from the fight and ran off to the side. He gasped and gagged, face purple as he spat and dry-retched as he struggled for breath. One of the Dead clasped Joe in a bear hug from behind and he couldn't break free as more of them advanced on him. Joe headbutted the ghoul in front of him and spun around with the one on his back to knock back another who clubbed away at his side. Jack kicked free of the grip around his ankle but dropped his weapon from fingers too numb to hold it any more. Nick yelled out as his arm got pulled the wrong way at the elbow.
Then the whole mob collapsed forward. They fell and tripped over each other as they dragged each other down. Matt had gone round behind them and charged headlong with his arms outstretched. Planting his hefty tree trunk- like legs hard against the ground and heaving forward, with a final, bellowing effort, he used his full weight to bulldoze into the Dead and they tipped over to flop and writhe on the ground. Matt pulled Emily out by her legs from between the kicking feet. She tried to scream, and was gasping for air, still squirming and blindly lashing out as Matt hauled her away. The friends then made their escape, staggering and stumbling down the street after a last grab for their loot.
Andy and Tom were waiting at the ring road with the van's engine idling, not far off from where they'd agreed. They hopped out to open the doors and help the others inside. In the van, no one spoke, no one celebrated and the only sounds to be heard were their own painful gasps, heaves and the bronchial wheeze of Emily's crying. They tore their helmets off to free their clammy, matted heads as they fought for air. Neither Andy nor Tom said anything. They knew better than to ask questions as it was very clear how the venture had gone. Nick pushed Tom out of his way to take the driver's seat and he stepped on the accelerator to take them back home.