The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(145)

Now, sitting at the cafe, eating her pastry, drinking her coffee, pondering both her loneliness and the short time she had left in which to be lonely…she had to find another way.

Maybe she could climb up Big Ben, which her father had always talked of visiting. She could climb it and instead of admiring the intricacy of the clockwork and the view, just…jump off, giving herself over to the breeze. She wouldn’t have minded that feeling of flight to be real for once, but somehow, it didn’t seem right to mingle her father’s goal with her own shortcomings. And besides… she knew nothing of Big Ben. She had no idea whether that tourist magnet even contained an accessible window or ledge from which she could jump.

Or perhaps she should fill her pockets with rocks, and swim out into the Thames until she could swim no more. A famous writer had done just that. She had even seen a movie about it. She liked the idea of floating off until consciousness faded, but the preparations—finding a river secluded enough so that no one would try to save her, finding a grouping of stones sufficient to her task—it seemed like too much work for her, regardless of how romantic it might sound. She needed a way that was almost effortless. If it could be instantaneous as well, so much the better.

As the traffic blared around her, she took another bite of her pastry and looked at the cars and trucks rushing by, and to the roadway, where she could see painted in large white letters a warning to walkers to look to their right. So many tourists visited London each year that there needed to be constant reminders that the world was not the same all over.

Reading the warning, she realized that she had finally found her answer. She could step blindly into traffic. No one would even have to know that she had done it deliberately. Americans were known for stepping off the curb while looking in the wrong direction. If anyone bothered to research her reasons for coming to London in the first place, they would simply assume that she had been distracted by grief. Unlike the case with the women back at the hostel, no one would have to feel personal responsibility, carrying the weight that it was something she could have been talked out of. There would be no guilt. They would just think it was the unfortunate, accidental passing of another sad American.

In fact, Paula could see one of those quaint double-decker busses approaching right then.

She pushed back from her table and walked away from the cafe. Her waitress stepped toward her from amid the outdoor cluster of tables, calling after her that she had forgotten to pay, which only caused her to walk more quickly. As the bright red bus neared, Paula looked the other way, feigning confusion just in case there was a witness, and began to put her right foot forward to step into the street.

Before she could set it down in the path of the bus, she heard a man scream. She hesitated, hanging there between life and death. When Paula turned, she saw that man pointing, not at her, but past her into the street. The bus went by, her opportunity gone. By then, additional people were pointing, and she followed their outstretched arms to what was revealed after the bus had moved on.

It was a dead man walking.

With his shredded clothes, bloodied body, and gray pallor, another might have thought him merely a man in make-up, costumed for a party or on his way to a movie set, but unfortunately, Paula knew what death looked like. As the creature grew nearer, she could see into its eyes. They were like those of her father; there was no there there.

Unlike her father, however, this corpse walked.

It shambled amidst the traffic in her direction, the cars honking for him to move and then swerving when he did not. A few drivers slowed to a crawl so they could look more closely at the impossibility. One man got out of his car and ran over to the thing, placing his hand on its shoulder. Paula could see from the driver’s face, no more than ten yards away, that this was only a gesture of concern; perhaps he’d thought the bloodied walker an escapee from a hospital. As a reward for the man’s good Samaritanship, the shambler slapped out with a bloodied fist and knocked him dead.

Pedestrians screamed and scattered around her, but Paula simply stood there. She wondered if she was frozen in shock, but no, she was only waiting, though she wasn’t sure for what. She watched as the walking corpse punched a second man to the pavement, then lunged to bring down a third, biting deeply into a woman’s neck with crooked teeth.

Then the thing saw her.

With everyone else fleeing, she was the only still target in a sea of flesh. Its lips parted, and she could hear a low, dull growl. She looked away from its bloody lips into its eyes, and thought she now saw an empty hunger there, one that was not unfamiliar to her. She began to ask what force had animated him, what had brought him back to the land of the living, but before she could utter her question, a shot rang out. A police officer had fired on the thing from behind the shelter of a car, hitting the creature in its back. It staggered slightly under the affront, but did not close its dull eyes.

“Wait,” she said, holding out one hand toward the officer and the other armed men who joined him. “You can’t do this. Not yet.”

She took a step forward, the step toward death that she’d been interrupted from taking mere moments before, and further shots rang out. The thing’s head exploded, splashing brain matter across her. It crumpled, its knees slamming into the pavement first. Then it sank forward, what remained of its head hitting the roadway at her feet, blood splattering her shoes. Only then did she sag, sitting down hard on the curb. A policeman dashed over, skirting the broken body at their feet.