William walked slightly ahead, hardly noticing the figure shambling toward him from the bottom of the stairs. John was much slower, wishing he’d been able to spend more time with Eleanor before being sent away to search for the promised land of ‘Little England.’ His thoughts were thus filled with regret over his wife that his mind barely registered the beggar from before.
“Haven’t you enough, already? I don’t have...” and as he spoke, the beggar woman’s withered jowls quivered, a pervasive stench of sweet decay wafted from her moth-eaten garments and her toothless maw fell open past a sagging chin, bloodied, raw.
“W-William, a little help please!” John cried, stumbling back from the outstretched hands of the undead. Becoming definitely alarmed when Parry’s broad back retreated. “William, she doesn’t just want coppers anymore! For God’s sake, I’ve always been your friend! For our friendshi-i-ip!” His watery blue eyes filled with the sight of the zombie and he released a high-pitched scream that sounded vaguely feminine. “Save me!”
The sound of a melon being split in half echoed up and down the deserted street. Collapsing against the stairwell of Admiralty House, John peeked from behind his hands covering his face. William towered over the zombie, lifting his walking stick from the bashed-in cranium. The beggar fell atop Franklin’s shiny riding boots without another moan.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you! I don’t know what I would do-” John’s gratitude was cut short by William’s slap on the arm, helping him up. “Save it for when we’re out of plague-infested lands, old boy.” Together, they both stared off down the no longer silent street where people could be seen drifting from mews, stables and shadowy doorways.
Slowly, the two men walked down the remaining steps. John almost slipped in a puddle of brackish blood at the bottom. He could’ve sworn on his Grandfather’s grave that hadn’t been there earlier.
“Is that the citizenry of London?” His eyesight was admittedly poor despite his youth.
“Is...or rather...was.” William remarked softly, his sharp eyes noting the sluggish, almost twisted movements of the gathering crowd. “Perhaps, we should...” he moved toward the carriage, reaching for the door handle as something moved inside. A moldering face thrust itself at the cab’s small window, blackened, half-eaten face falling slack to groan in thwarted hunger. William jerked back, circling away from their only mode of transportation. The horses still tethered, drooled viscous saliva from bloodied lips. He took it all in, grimacing. London, fair, urbane London was dying.
She was already in her death throes looking for new victims.
“We need to get to the hotel.” Parry announced decisively, pulling on the other’s frozen arm.
“So, many...look, William! There’s so many of them and they’re-” Franklin’s eyes widened, “-heading right for us!”
Rather than respond, for he didn’t need to look to confirm his suspicions. Nor indeed, speak further. The damage had already been done. Franklin’s shout had attracted all the newly-risen dead in Whitehall. Parry pulled on his friend’s arm and hauled him off down the next block, hoping to put some distance between the recently-turned cadavers who were...from the sounds of it, far more agile than their moldering cousins. Who knew Scoresby’s ‘zombie’s could run?