by Riva, Aline
Poppy gave a sob. In that moment she recalled the bullet wound and the worry Sage had been through over wondering if that bullet had passed through a zombie before it had hit her. But the wound had healed and left a tiny scar and she had not become a zombie... Maybe she could get through this, too. Poppy kept telling herself that as Sage led her to the corridor. Lina stood to the side, her weapon ready.
“I will go last,” she said, “I will try and cover you all.”
Sage looked into her sister's eyes.
“You go first - go now, run!” she said quickly.
Poppy screwed her eyes tight shut, ducking low as she ran fast through the corridor. She thought she felt fingers scrape at her coat, but suddenly she had left the moans and the smell of the dead behind, and she opened her eyes as her shoes hit soft carpet. She was in the entrance hall, and it was clear...
“I made it!” she called back.
Sage was close behind. She elbowed a hand away from her coat as she made the final dash through after stopping twice to avoid grabbing hands. As she stepped into the entrance area, she breathed a relieved sigh.
“We can do this!” she called back as she stood beside Poppy and they looked on, waiting for the next brave soul to make the run. Mickey buttoned up his long dark coat and took a deep breath, looking to the outstretched hands as he stepped towards the corridor.
“I'm right behind you,” he heard Joy say.
He took a cautious step into the corridor, ran past two sections of bars, then twisted around, ducking a hand that shot out low as snarling faces crushed against the bars. His weak leg stumbled and he fell to his knees, crawling the last of the distance, reaching the other side quickly. Joy was able to duck and run for the last stretch too, and as she joined him, she looked to the locked door where the keys were waiting to be turned.
“I'll get the door open,” she said.
As Joy unlocked the door, Mickey stepped out first, looking about. He could hear the undead everywhere, and could see a few grasping and leaning against mesh fencing, but they could not get inside. Beyond the driveway was an open gate. Beyond that, a gate locked by a key. Someone would have to get out at the final gate to open it, but the road ahead looked deserted. Sage and Poppy had joined him.
“We're in the lorry,” Joy said, and Mickey gave her a nod, following her over to the vehicle. Sage had unlocked the car and as Poppy got inside, she smiled at her sister.
“I feel safe again,” she said.
As Sage got into the driving seat she briefly smiled back, not wanting to voice aloud the undeniable truth that no where was safe, not any more...
River was breaking into a sweat as she followed Chris into the corridor. He didn't need to see to know where they were. He could feel their cold arms and their outstretched hands, hear their grunts and snarls as he carefully took a step, then another, then turned, and turned again to take a wide step sideways. River followed his lead, and as they stepped out the other end, she briefly hugged him.
“We did it!” she said, and then she took him by the hand, leading him over to the van. The dead were all around them on the other side of the fencing, but to be clear of the corridor felt like the sweetest relief.
Now only Lina was left, and she had watched the way the others had negotiated the corridor. She took a step inside, her gun ready, felt bony fingers scrape her coat and took in a sharp breath, glancing back to see the same bony hand making a grab as others snarled and dozens of dead eyes set their sights on her as teeth gnashed. She looked ahead taking in a slow breath. Hands shot out left and right, fingers with exposed bone sharp as claws were lashing at thin air as creatures made their dead sounds and the whole of the corridor stank of decay. She took a step forward, turned, and took a wide step, avoiding a longer arm and another lower down the bars. A zombie hissed and snarled as it bared teeth. She turned again, stepping over a hand that swiped for her ankle. The way ahead was almost clear. She ducked and ran.
A hand shot out close to the ground, she fell hard, crying out as the grip on her ankle became tight as a vice. Lina sat up sharply, lashing out at another hand that made a grab for her hair, then the hand had her, she was dragged up against the bars as it pulled her hand through and teeth scraped the back of it. The creature bit deep. Lina kicked out as a zombie clamped about her ankle, using the heel of her boot on the other foot to slam into the dead fingers as bones dislocated and the hand let go. She aimed the gun behind her, firing off a shot, and the teeth released her as she dropped to her knees and crawled bleeding from the corridor, then staggered to her feet. She holstered her gun and made her way outside, as the others looked on in alarm. She held up her bleeding hand, visible in the headlights as the vehicles sat there with engines running.
“I got bit. I'm okay - for now,” she said, looking to River's van, “For now,” she repeated, and River nodded, waiting for her to climb in beside Chris, as she looked away, tears stinging her eyes. They would all get out of here alive. But Lina wouldn't last long, not after a bite from the infected...
Chapter 3
“Deep wounds, so-called fatal strikes, such as an artery, for example – lead to almost instant transformation. Lesser bites that go full skin depth to the hand or arm or leg, result in a slower transformation.”
River had spoken quietly as they drove along the road, keeping off the main highway packed with crashed and deserted vehicles, taking a leafy, quiet back road as they drove on, putting miles between their convoy and the old asylum.
“I am aware of that,” Lina said quietly as she clutched at her now bandaged hand. Blood was seeping through it and she reached into River's medical bag and grabbed a large gauze pad, wrapping that around too, trying to stem the flow of blood.
“It no longer hurts. It is numb. When sunrise comes, you must leave me.”
River glanced at her.
“Are you sure?”
Lina slowly nodded.
“There is no other way. I will not put any of you good people at risk.”
Chris had been sitting there in silence as he considered the fact that one of their own was about to be lost to the virus. This had not happened before – his own best friend had been torn apart by zombies, killed instantly. He had thought about it later on and guessed it was probably the best way to go after infection from the first bite. No one wanted to turn into one of those things...
They drove until sunrise.
Then the small convoy stopped at the foot of a hillside and as Joy turned off the engine, she glanced to Mickey. He was pale and his eyes were filled with sorrow.
“She can't come with us, Mickey. She's infected.”
“I know that!” he snapped, and wrenched open the door and climbed down from the cab.
The car had come to a halt nearby. Sage and Poppy got out, and Poppy looked on as Sage walked over to Lina and hugged her. She stepped back, saying nothing. River and Chris had got out of the van, and Chris placed a hand on her shoulder, speaking softly. Then River also spoke to her, and briefly grasped her uninjured hand. Joy spoke quietly to Lina, who nodded and then reached out, briefly touching Joy's arm. Joy turned away with tears in her eyes as Mickey stood there looking on, saying nothing. Poppy ran up to Lina and looked up at her in confusion.
“Why do you have to go? It's not a bad bite, you're not turning into a zombie, maybe you'll get better!”
Lina leaned in and forced a smile as she looked into Poppy's eyes. She had seen so much horror in her young life, but was innocent enough not to understand fully what was happening here.
“Yes, maybe I will,” she agreed, “Who knows? Perhaps, by a miracle, I will recover. But I have to leave now, Poppy.”
“Why?” she demanded, “I don't want you to go!”
Lina placed her uninjured hand on her shoulder and smiled again.
“But I must,” she said, “I have to go and kill a zombie.”
Mickey was close enough to hear her say that, and he turned his face away, struggling to hold back tears. L
ina told Poppy to go back to the car, and Poppy said Okay and went back to the vehicle to rejoin her sister. River and Chris were back in the van. Joy was in the cab of the lorry, looking on with tears in her eyes.
Mickey stepped forward and gestured to Lina, and they walked away from the vehicles to a spot around the curve in the road, where a tall tree stood with new leaves looking bright in the rising sun.
“This is the right place,” Lina said, pausing to turn sun ward, take in the sight and then close her eyes as she took a deep breath of spring time air. She opened her eyes again as Mickey stood before her, and her expression became one of deep fondness as she reached out with her uninjured hand, touching his cheek as a tear slid down his face.
“No, don't cry, not now, be strong for the others, Mickey.”
“You were always on my side, always loyal to me,” he said as his voice trembled, “I would give anything to save you if I could!”
More tears filled his eyes as he gave a quiet sob.
“You are stronger than you know, Mickey,” she reminded him, “You survived your awful family and your insane sister – who I think perhaps was worse than all the zombies out there put together!”
She laughed and Mickey managed a smile.
“You're right about that,” he agreed, wiping his eyes quickly.
“And now you should go,” she told him, not wanting to think about the strange sensation creeping through her body and the flashes that had started to play in her mind that was willing her to hunger for blood.
“Go, now...” she whispered, taking a sharp breath and blinking as her vision became misty and her eyes began to cloud grey.
Mickey saw it, the first signs of change. He backed off, then headed for the turn in the road and looked back once to see Lina turn again towards the sunrise. He walked stiffly to the lorry and climbed up to the cab and got in.
“Go,” he said in a hushed voice, wiping his eyes again.
Joy said nothing in reply as she started the engine.
The three vehicles had started up and then as they drove away, Lina had turned back and watched as they took the rise of the hill and the went down the other side of it. Now she stood alone in the field, bathed in morning sunrise with a gun in her hand. Blood had started to run from her mouth. Hunger was creeping through her veins. If she waited, she would be too late. She focused on the misty view of the sunrise as she put the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger, then her body fell back to the ground and bled out on the grass, leaving blood and brains spattered on the bark of the tree.
As the vehicles travelled onwards, the mood was sombre. River and Chris drove on in quiet reflection as they thought on the matter of Lina's fate. They had both agreed, that same fate could befall any one of them, eventually – all it took was one bite. In the car, Poppy had been asking questions:
Where was this zombie Lina had to kill?
And why didn't they go back for her?
“Maybe she's okay,” Poppy had said to her sister as Sage looked to the road ahead, “It was only a bite to her hand. I heard sometimes people can get tiny bites or scratches and not turn into a zombie. It depends how deep the bite mark is!”
It was all the way down to the bone, Sage thought as she nodded and glanced at her then looked back to the road, silently recalling how they had all seen her standing there in the dark, the headlights of all three vehicles on her as she held up her hand, showing that deep bite, showing bloodied flesh and white bone beneath the surface... She had known at that moment she was doomed. It was there in her eyes as she had stood there, announcing to all of them she had been bitten, she was infected. Sage didn't doubt that a weaker person would have tried to hide it, lied about the injury, anything to stall for time... But Lina had been brave. She hoped one day when Poppy was older and she looked back on these dark days, she would remember the brave who had fallen and take inspiration from their memory to forge her life in what ever this world would become in the future...
In the lorry, Joy was driving onward, watching the empty road ahead as it struck her that maybe everything was futile. They had no home to return to, the village was gone. Now their only safe place had turned into a deathtrap, and here they were again on the open road, knowing only that they had to keep moving. To be heading onward with no destination felt like the worst of a hollow existence. Life without point, no meaning to the struggle to stay alive... And Lina's death seemed to have underlined that fact. Was this how life would be? Running forever, until there was no where left to go, until the zombies closed in? She glanced at Mickey. He was wiping his eyes again. He turned his head and briefly met her gaze.
“Lina was a good person. Loyal. Not many were loyal to me – I had the kind of loyalty that money assured, and when someone else paid more, they soon turned on me...But even in the shadow of my sister's empire, she was always on my side. Others betrayed me. But not Lina. She was rare....”
“I'm sorry,” Joy said honestly as she watched the road, “At times like this I wonder if there's any point in carrying on. We keep clinging to the hope that this virus will burn itself out in a year. That could be a theory that means nothing. We could still be like this ten years from now – no, forget that. If it's still like this in a decade, we'll all be dead.”
Mickey leaned back against the seat, pausing to rub his weak wrist as the joint felt stiff and started to ache.
“I miss so much of the way life used to be. It's the stupid little things like feeling safe in my own home – actually....” he paused for a moment, then shook his head at the irony of his words, “Life as a gun smuggler was never safe. I was always watching my back. So maybe, this new world isn't so different for me. Just different threats.”
“I've seen a fair amount of the bad side of life as a copper,” Joy replied, “Domestic violence, drunken fights, people with terrible injuries, road accidents, a couple of shootings... but that was just the world of the human monsters. Look what humanity has become. More than half of them are real monsters now.”
“At least we can kill them,” Mickey added, “Killing zombies is necessary. No one cares when a zombie dies. But it's different when it's one of our own.”
“As long as we feel that grief, we're still human,” she replied.
They exchanged a glance, saying no more as they thought on the state of the world, and drove on in silence.
The small convoy went on as the sun got brighter and the chill was banished from the air. The fields looked peaceful, like they were beckoning to the travellers to pull over at the roadside and stop and get out and breathe fresh air and appreciate the beauty of the countryside. Now the town was far behind them, and open road stretched ahead only marred in its emptiness by vehicles here and there, randomly abandoned.
River was focusing on the road ahead thinking of nothing but keeping going. At the back of her mind, she was thinking on Lina and the bite and the fact that a bite meant death or to become one of those creatures. The bite was death itself...
In the car, Poppy was sat in the back, watching the fields roll by as she said nothing, still thinking on what Lina had meant when she said she had to go and kill a zombie. She had not seen any zombies wandering where they had left her, Lina was all alone... Sage stayed quiet, trying not to think about Lina's body, left to decay beneath a springtime sun that would soon turn to summer. Wandering zombies would eventually find her. By the time they went on their way, her bones would be picked clean... Dead people were zombie food now. That thought turned her stomach. She wished they had stayed to bury her.
In the van, as River spoke up, she kept her voice low, reluctant to voice her thoughts loudly, because they had turned down dark.
“Chris, if I'm next – or whenever – if my time comes like it did for Lina, don't let me turn.”
He had been sitting there in silence thinking about Lina. Death wasn't something anyone could get used to, life was dangerous out here on the road but they had reached a point where they had expected everyone to stick toge
ther, and be safe. But that didn't mean everyone would make it. That thought was still sinking in as he watched a world of shapes and shadows rushing by, knowing the sun was out because of the way the light and dark danced together behind his glasses.
“You want me to kill you?”
“If I was bitten.”
He smiled, making light of the horror because it was the only way to handle it and stay sane.
“Okay, I thought you meant right now, maybe it was a boredom thing...Well obviously I won't do it right now, for fun, River! You mean, if it happened to you, if there was no other way -”
“How can there be any other way?” she whispered, anxiety creeping into her voice, “There's no cure, there's no hope -”
“And if we all think like that we'll be putting our guns in our mouths by nightfall, there's not much to hold on to any more, so let's stay away from thoughts of the end?”
River took in a sharp breath, struggling to rein in her emotion.
“Damn right it's getting hopeless. I shouldn't even be thinking about that. It was the worst thing to say.”
Chris reached for her hand, briefly patting the back of it.
“But it's not the end yet,” he reminded her.
In the car Poppy had spoken up, seeing something odd in a nearby field, just as Sage had noticed it too. River had looked over at field and Joy, in the lorry, had done the same as Mickey stared at the strange sight.
“Oh look, scarecrows!” exclaimed Poppy.
She pointed over at a field where crops were poking through spring soil. There was a farmhouse in the distance, an old building surrounded by a low brick wall. And the field was dotted with scarecrows, all in tattered clothing and.... were they moving?
“That's odd,” Sage said, slowing the car and pulling over at the side of the road.
The vehicles stopped one by one. Poppy was out of the car first, making a run for the field as Sage grabbed her by her coat and tugged her back.