Snippet #2510797

Sean Donague


Day 3:
“Mr Donague, your secretary is on line one”
Sean awoke quickly, as he always did, and leaned over to pick up the phone.
“Donague” he rasped. He received no answer. “He-“
He dropped the phone, reality crashing back to him along with the consequences of his actions the night before. Of course there would be no answer, the phones were not working and he was clearly dreaming. Even if that were not the case, he shouldn’t have answered. Not in his state. He groaned and fell back onto the bed, head throbbing. His vision was blurred, his eyes were dry and his throat was parched. And his head…

“Jesus…” he whispered, rubbing his face with open palms.
The receiver bounced gently at the end of its cord, sending out soft thumps and chimes as it collided with the bedside table and the empty bottles stacked against it. Each sound could have been a gunshot as it echoed around Sean’s pounding skull.

He lay there a few moments, trying to stabilize the room with willpower, before rolling over and crawling to the end of the bed. Every movement was agony as he furtively righted himself and proceeded to stumble to the doorway. Here he rested, regained his balance and took a few deep breaths to still his churning stomach. Then the journey continued. On into the lounge, where he sat on an aged but well maintained leather sofa. It was only then that the stark realisation that he was stark naked hit him. Last he remembered he had been fully clothed. He glanced back into the bedroom and saw that he had drank far more than he had planned.
He coughed, and continued coughing for some time. He had also, it seemed, smoked far more than he had planned. From the corner of his eye he saw that his cigar box was now empty.

“Damn… I need a drink.”

The kitchen seemed a long walk from where he currently was and the trip from the bedroom had been difficult enough. Perhaps, if he looked around here…

“There you are” he said to a half empty bottle of scotch, his voice beginning to return. The lid was off and a great deal of the amber fluid had been spilled and stained his carpet. This would have bothered him a few days ago, he thought to himself. But now, such things were trivial. He drank.

---

An hour later, and in considerably less pain, Sean was dressed in loose boxer shorts and a luxurious bath robe with the bottle hanging precariously out of the pocket, dregs sloshing with every step. He crossed to the window and stood there a while. He wasn’t gazing out at the city, despite the smoke rising from numerous locations. He was instead staring at a dried red smear that stretched from the carpet at his feet up to the open glass at head height. He looked down but was too high up to make out the shape of the corpse he had thrown out the night before. He could remember her face. He could remember what she had been wearing. He could remember her name.

“Miss Waites,” he mumbled. “… Rebecca… It was you or me babe.”

He thought for a moment then took out the bottle and poured a measure of fine whiskey to the street below.
“And one for me.”
He took another long drink and almost emptied the bottle.
“Here, you finish it.”
He dropped the bottle out the window and turned away without watching it fall, walking with a slight sway back to the sofa where he sat again and stared up at the ceiling.


Day 4:
It was dark outside when Sean awoke next and his hangover was back, though it was not quite so debilitating as before. He checked his watch and it showed that it was almost two in the morning.

“Damn…”
He pushed himself to his feet, trying to ignore the ache in his head, and dragged his feet towards the kitchen where he opened the fridge. There was a sandwich, made for lunch days ago, and half a bottle of milk to satiate his hunger and make a minor dent in his thirst. He also finished the pomegranate juice and the remains of the water cooler, making himself feel bloated and ill. He closed the fridge and stared at the stainless steel that covered it, and his reflection within the metallic realm beyond the surface. He stared, and he knew. He could not stay here.

---

A thin, faint, purple line on the horizon marked the approach of the dawning of a new day and the dawning of a new chapter in Sean’s life. He stood in the living room in his running gear: Clean shaven, washed, ready. He took a deep breath and looked around his apartment, at the poker table still assembled and the smashed remains of an antique chair in the corner. He looked through the doorway to the bedroom where he had slept, often alone, for almost a year. He looked to the kitchen, which had been recently refurbished, and he felt nothing. He had never been able to settle in any one place for too long and as a result he felt no sorrow at leaving this apartment. But he was afraid of what might come next. He knew he may not spend more than a night in the same place for the foreseeable future and he was anxious, despite the small Glock concealed in his pocket. He was a child of the city and had no survival equipment or skills. He did not even own a backpack. But this building housed all sorts of folk, who had all sorts of hobbies; maybe he’d get lucky before he even made it to the front door…


Present:
Sean’s lungs burned within his chest and his breath came out in short, ragged bursts that seared his throat as he ran through the street. Every slapping step drew the attention of the wandering corpses around him and the chasing crowd continued to grow. He knew he was running out of time; he could not run forever, but at least for now he had the advantage of speed. The straps on his shoulders had grown heavier over the days and the skin beneath was rubbed raw. He wanted nothing more than to ditch the bag and take cover but he wouldn’t last a day without it so he continued to run with his windpipe burning and his legs aching, searching constantly for a place to hide.

He turned a corner and his eyes landed on a cable between two buildings. It was risky but would have to do. He pushed himself even harder despite the agony of simply breathing and crashed into the front door, silently hoping that it wasn’t locked. Luck, for once this week, was on his side and he fell through, landing in a heap on the carpet beyond. With breath still catching in his throat he kicked the door closed and pulled himself back to it, where he braced himself back first. Before he had even drawn in three breaths there was a shudder as something collided with the other side of the solid wood, shortly followed by another which led to a constant, rhythmless beating. He could feel the pressure mounting and knew he had less than ten seconds to make a move. One slow, deep breath. Seven seconds. Another deep breath. The pressure mounted. One final breath. The top hinge gave way.

“O.K.”

Sean pushed himself up and ran for the stairs, the door bursting open behind him.

“Give me… a fucking break!” he yelled between breaths, seeing the deceased occupant of the house round the corner at the top of the stairs. He swung his backpack round off his shoulders and hurled it up the last few steps, not hesitating as it continued travelling and took the dead man’s legs down with it. The corpse hit the floor with a groan and reached out but Sean jumped over the outstretched arms with a wince at his burning thighs and collected up his gear, leaving the moaning husk of a man where he lay. He turned left and crashed through another door into what was once a study, slamming the door behind him again. With the stairs between him and the horde he had more time on his side and so he dragged the desk in front of the entrance and let himself recover until the homeowner started thudding against the flimsy panels.

“Who is it?” he called, knowing that there was no one around to amuse but himself. Of the many lessons he had learned in life there were a few that stuck in his mind even now. One of those was that the best way to endure a hostile or uncomfortable situation was with humour. He’d never been a particularly funny man, nor had he much time for comedy, but he laughed from time to time and often had entertained himself with jokes in his head during particularly stressful meetings. Usually these jokes were at the expense of others in the room. This time, he didn’t know who the joke was about exactly but it had helped to keep him calm, which helped control his breathing, which helped him recover faster.

When the knocking at the door was joined by another eager participant it was time to leave. Sean strode over to the other side of the room and opened the window. Somebody had obviously set this cable up for just the purpose he required it for. Whether they had succeeded in using it was another matter altogether, as proven by the fellow demanding entry to what was most likely his study once upon time, but there wasn’t time to think about that now. He slipped the bag high up on his back and tightened the straps, twisted his neck, windmilled his arms to loosen up and leaned out into the alleyway between the two houses. The cable was attached to a hook that looked like it once anchored nothing more substantial than a satellite dish on his end and it slipped a little when he tugged at it.

“Not good…” he muttered, trying to keep quiet now. There was a screech of wood on wood as the desk slid across the floor behind him and all doubts were pushed away as he reached up and grabbed the cable. One last deep breath and he let his legs slip out into the open air, already moving hand over hand along the length of thick, synthetic rope towards the other side. His arms were fresh and relatively unworked but he still struggled to keep his breathing rate controlled and his heart was hammering in his ribcage. Halfway across there was a shake as the flimsily held attachment behind him started to give way.

“Not good” he muttered again, slightly louder this time.

Barely six feet from the adjoining house the cable freed itself from the wall behind him and he fell. But as ever he had planned ahead and braced himself, legs outstretched. He hit the wall feet first and bent at the knees but, unprepared for the true force of the impact, he buckled and crashed shoulder first against the brickwork. His grip loosened and he fell another foot before catching his grip again.

Climb he thought, unable to speak through teeth gritted against the pain in his shoulder.

He spied the dead shambling in the street but they hadn’t yet noticed him as he slowly, painfully, dragged himself up a few inches at a time. It seemed to take forever to reach the top but he made it, red-faced, sweating and panting once more, and he fell through the thankfully open window into a barricaded bedroom with no occupants. It seemed that whoever had last made that trip had been going the other way.

“Oh, thank Christ” he breathed, remaining on his side on the floor. The moans of the passed on occupying the last house drifted across the gap but he took no notice. For now he was safe, though it was incredible how his definition of safe had changed so dramatically over the course of 48 hours.

So he stayed where he was, heart beating with such force that the gash on his forehead, which had been so close to healing, began to let a trickle of blood slip down the side of his face, collecting days worth of dirt and grime as it went. It oozed its way between the coarse hairs that had sprung up along his cheeks and began to dry there with the matted reminder of the original injury.

---

Worn out, aching all over and thoroughly angered, Sean kicked aside the boards he had pried off and opened the door to the new house, crowbar in hand. He heard no groans, and no shuffling feet, not inside the house anyway, though he did not stop to check each room. Over the past quarter hour the horde had not even begun to disperse next door and he was far from home clear and needed to move fast. He took the stairs two at a time after checking the landing, determined not to let his body adjust to rest, and made for the back door. It was locked but the crowbar made short work of it and he set off without a look back. He headed out and sprinted across the street, ducked down an alleyway, hopped a fence, jogged across a garden and ducked into the next open building he saw.