As if Mark had read her thoughts, he piped up again.
“To answer your question: no, they don’t have an advantage. Because we have something of theirs, and when they see it, believe me, they’re gonna hand over everything they took from us without hesitation.”
Emma didn’t have time to wonder what he meant by that.
The bus appeared up ahead in the road. It wasn’t moving and there seemed to be two cars parked haphazardly in front of it, blocking its way.
Mark automatically slowed the van at the sight of the enemy. But he must have realised that the other survivors would have undoubtedly noticed their approach already in the stillness of the defunct town, as he sped back up and then came to a stop behind the bus. They saw now that the two cars in front were dented and smashed up; probably a collision.
The two men sat there studying the bus for a minute before Sebastian said, “I don’t see anyone. Did they ditch it here, do you reckon?”
Mark shook his head. “They could be coming back. Maybe they ran out of fuel and they’ve gone to get some more.”
“How can we tell?
“You go take a look inside the bus,” Mark suggested. “If the keys aren’t in the console, my bet is they’re coming back. They wouldn’t bother taking the keys if they were ditching it, would they?”
Slowly, Sebastian nodded, opened his door and hopped out. They watched him edge toward the bus, keeping low as he passed the windows even though there was no sign of the other group. Sebastian reached the bus door and went in. The reflection of the sun in the windows made it hard to see anything but movement from inside.
Suddenly, Sebastian was pelting it back to the van, a troubled expression on his face.
“What—” Mark began as he opened the passenger door.
“They’re coming,” Sebastian cut him off, talking fast. “I saw them walking down the road, coming back to the bus. I’m not sure whether they saw me or not.”
Mark regarded the nervous young man for a second, then thumped on the storage compartment behind him with the back of his fist and yelled, “Bring her out, John!”
Her? Emma hadn’t noticed another female in their company. The worrying thought flashed through her mind that Mark was talking about her, that he was planning to use her in some way.
But then Mark got out of the van and before he closed the door, he looked at Emma. “You stay in here and rest your leg,” he said. “This won’t take long.”
What won’t take long? she wondered.
She heard the back doors click open and slam shut. Two figures came round the side of the van – John, leading a bound woman by the elbow.
Straight but knotted auburn hair drifted before Emma’s eyes, shiny with grease from a lack of washing. Something stirred in her memory, but her shock at discovering that these men had been keeping a prisoner in the back of their van was forefront in her mind just then, and she didn’t realise what was familiar about the bound woman until she turned her head and looked through the window of the van at Emma.
A name came to her: Samantha Greer.
Sammy, everyone called her; she was one of Kingsley’s best friends. She was one of Emma’s friends by extension, or used to be, at least. They hadn’t really talked since Emma and Kingsley had split.
Now she was being held hostage. Emma watched in absolute disbelief as Mark flipped open a pocket knife and pressed the blade to Sammy’s neck, waiting beside the bus for whoever was coming down the adjoining road to turn the corner.
*
As Eric, Kara and Rebecca walked back to the street where they had left the bus, Eric wished he had thought to check if there was a second handheld radio in Darren’s flat before they had left; there was one in the duffel bag he carried, pre-packed by Darren, but he hadn’t looked to see if the prepper had another one lying around somewhere in his flat.
If they’d had two radios, he could have given one to Kingsley before he left. Eric would’ve liked to have had a way to communicate with him in case he changed his mind – which, admittedly, was unlikely to happen. Stubborn bastard.
But no. Kingsley was gone, and Eric needed to start thinking about what their next move should be.
He considered how useful the homeware, garden and DIY stores near the railway might be when setting up a base for their long-term survival. Provided they hadn’t been looted clean, they would have ample materials for barricading and generators for when the national grid eventually stopped supplying power. The garden stores would have seed and fertiliser for crops, which they needed to start planting right away; many items of fresh fruit and veg were quick to spoil, and although they did have canned and dried options, those weren’t as nutrient-rich.
Without a balanced diet, their immune systems and energy levels would suffer. It was something they needed to start thinking about now if they wanted to prevail in the long run.
The thought of fruit made Eric’s stomach grumble, so he stopped to fish a slightly squashed, over-ripe banana from the duffel, peeled it and ate as he continued walking.
Soon they were back at the bus. They turned the street corner to go round the rear of the bus – and stopped. The banana dropped from Eric’s hand.
Sammy was right in front of him. She was alive, she was here… but there were three men with her, one of them standing behind Sammy with a knife to her throat.
The man holding the knife gave an ugly, snarling grin.
E P I S O D E F O U R
Rescue
1.
There was no time to feel the relief that the sight of Sammy standing in front of them, alive, should have brought. Because the man holding a knife to her throat – Sammy’s own pocket knife, Eric realised – clearly hadn’t kidnapped her only to bring her back to them for a happy reunion.
The memory of Sammy leaving her pocket knife on top of James’ body in the flat came back to him as he looked at the weapon, and the pieces of the puzzle began to click into place in his head.
“Figured out who I am, yet?” the man said, his voice raspy, loud, full of impatience. Eric got the impression that the man wasn’t used to raising his voice and shouting at people, that he was straining to make sure he was heard. Nevertheless, he had a blade at Sammy’s throat and Eric wasn’t going to question whether or not he would use it. His bloodshot eyes were manic.
Rebecca shot an incredulous look at Eric. “What is this?” She narrowed her eyes and turned them to the man with the knife. “Why should he know who you are? What’s going on?”
“Haven’t they told you about the man they murdered?” Sammy’s captor asked, addressing Rebecca. “In Braintree, your friends here – and the other one, the curly-haired prick, wherever he is – went into the flat of a man named Darren and stabbed him in the neck. I’m guessing it was because he took care of your mate who was bitten. Am I correct?”
Eric nodded, frowning. “His name was James. We didn’t know what the bites did to people then, and we were angry when he shot him.”
“What are your names?”
“Eric,” he said, then pointed to the women. “Kara and Rebecca.” He didn’t know why the man wanted to know it, but there was no point lying. The more they could humanise themselves, the more chance there was of the man empathising with them.
“I’m Mark, and these two guys next to me are Sebastian and John; we were a team, us three and Darren. He took us into his flat when we were in trouble and saved us from the snappers. He was a good person.”
Eric could see someone else sitting in the van, but he couldn’t see their face because of the reflection of the bright, cloudy sky in the window and Mark blocking his view. He wondered why Mark hadn’t mentioned this other person.
Who were they?
Her police training kicking in, Kara cleared her throat and spoke in a calm, clear voice.
“Whatever it is you want from us, we will do it. Just don’t hurt her. You have our compliance.” Raising one hand, Kara drew her police baton, squatted and placed it on th
e road by her feet, then straightened. She stared pointedly at Rebecca and Eric to do the same with their weapons, and they did.
“What do you want?” Eric asked as tears rolled down Sammy’s grimy cheeks.
“We want what’s ours, Eric. The weapons and supplies you took from the flat, all of them.”
Eric gestured to the duffel bag, backpack and chain mace he’d placed on the ground, the machete Rebecca had dropped and the rest of the supplies in hers and Kara’s bags. “It’s all there, apart from the food and drink we’ve already used.”
Mark’s gaze wandered over the bags and weapons. Then he shook his head.
“Where’s the crossbow? Has your curly-haired mate got it? Where the fuck is he? You better not be trying something with me or I swear—”
“Mark?” Sebastian interrupted him. The guy was pointing down the road at a cluster of snappers moving in their direction. “We’ve got company.”
The survivors stared at the sizable group of snappers. In their preoccupation, they’d failed to notice the sound that drifted on the wind of teeth gnashing at nothing and shoes scuffing on tarmac. The undead were already too close.
Had they left the engine of the butcher’s van on for too long or was it Mark’s shouting that had attracted them?
There were enough snappers that the vehicles would be swarmed if they didn’t leave right away; this must have dawned on Mark as he’d already bundled Sammy into the back of the van and was climbing into the driver’s seat. Before shutting the door, he cast a glance back at the supplies on the ground as if wondering whether they should have grabbed them before getting in the van. Too late for that now.
As the van’s ignition came on, Eric, Kara and Rebecca snatched their things up off the ground and made for the bus at Eric’s insistence, despite the fact that they didn’t have time to turn the bus around before the snappers reached them, meaning they would have to run a bunch of them over.
Eric jumped in the driver’s seat and jerked the key. The engine juddered on and he wrenched it into reverse.
The van took a left turn into a side road as the rear of the bus hit the first snapper with a bump and a tremor. Another bump as the second snapper threw itself at the side of the bus and bounced off, leaving a splotch of blood on the window.
They ran over at least five more before they’d reversed far enough to turn into the road that the van had gone down. Fingers squeaked on the glass of the rear window as rigorous hands pawed at it. Eric thrust the gear back into drive and floored the pedal while hauling the steering wheel to the left.
Another snapper caught the front left headlight as they swung into the road, crushing squirming bodies under their wheels, the bus wobbling on the uneven surface created by the fallen snappers.
Besides a smattering of blood and a few dents, the bus was unscathed.
The van was faster and more nimble than their vehicle. But Sammy needed their help, and Eric wasn’t going to let them slip through his fingers.
2.
Kingsley didn’t know where he was going, only that he was heading for the rolling fields and trees of the countryside.
He pictured himself stumbling upon a beautiful country manor with a well for water, an apple orchard and a vegetable garden. He pictured himself going out into the woods to shoot rabbits and squirrels; as much as he hated the thought of hunting animals to feed himself, snuffing out innocent life just to continue his own drab existence, he knew that hunger and desperation would sharpen his survival instincts and take over when hunting became necessary.
Mostly he craved solitude. The kind that couldn’t be found in these haunted streets.
A brisk wind propelled the clouds across the steely sky. Somewhere close by, a forgotten wind chime stirred outside someone’s home, the tuneless bells attracting a snapper that loped ahead toward the sound.
Hearing his footsteps as he trailed behind, the snapper twisted to face Kingsley. Killing them had gotten easier. He’d discovered that the best way was to plunge a knife through the eye or temple and pierce the brain – one push and they were dead. Sure, it was nauseating. But less so than smacking them several times in the skull with something heavy or trying to break their neck to paralyse them.
Kingsley pulled out his knife, waited for the snapper to come near, and was about to ram it into the snapper’s murky eye when he noticed the pair of glasses sitting on it’s nose.
The lenses shielded it’s eyes. Kingsley had to grasp the snapper by the top of the head and, holding it back, press his blade instead to the bottom of it’s wagging jaw and drive it upwards with a grunt, rupturing through soft flesh, terse cartilage and then brain tissue. He yanked the blade out and the body crumpled to the ground.
At some point in the past two days, Kingsley had stopped paying attention to their faces, to the people they used to be.
But the minor hindrance of the glasses had made him take a second look at this one. The body in front of him had once belonged to a man presumably in his late forties. Lank brown hair, a bald spot on the crest of his head. The polo shirt, knitted vest and chinos he wore suggested he’d been a golfer, or maybe he’d just had an outdated sense of fashion.
Kingsley looked away from the body. How fast was the world changing him if already he had stopped seeing the dead as people?
He’d left his best friend – his only remaining friend… and he felt less human.
Responsibility. Purpose. That’s what made people human; that’s what he lacked.
Hearing a voice, Kingsley scanned his surroundings for survivors. He caught movement at the front of a house ahead and to his left. Saw two people, a man and a woman with their backs to him, standing by a window and talking in low voices.
The man picked up a board from a pile of scrap wood and held it against the window. Sizing up boards to make a barricade with, Kingsley guessed.
The couple hadn’t seen him, and he stopped to listen to their conversation.
“Forget it,” the man said in response to a suggestion from the woman that Kingsley hadn’t heard. “We have everything we need here.”
“I know, it’s just, all our neighbours have gone and everyone else is infected—”
“Yes, everyone is leaving. Which is why we’ll be safer here. People are only gonna get more desperate as time goes on, and desperate people are dangerous. We need to keep ourselves to ourselves. If everyone’s going to the countryside, we’re safer here. Away from them.”
Kingsley stopped listening.
Everyone’s going to the countryside, he thought. Of course they are.
Why had it only just occurred to him? The couple they’d met on the road had told them they were staying away from towns and cities and advised them to do the same; he knew many people would have listened to the emergency broadcast and locked themselves in their homes with all the food and supplies they could carry from their local convenience store or supermarket, waiting for help to arrive.
But there also had to be a large part of the population that had ignored the broadcast and not stayed put. The neighbours of this couple, for instance. And where were those people?
There were a fair few snappers in the streets, but Kingsley was pretty sure there would be a lot more if all the people who’d left their homes had been infected. That meant a lot of the residents fleeing from Colchester had escaped.
Remembering how bad the A120 was, Kingsley couldn’t imagine many of them would have made it to another town even if they’d tried. With their options limited, most people would have dispersed into the countryside, seeking shelter in farmhouses and any other buildings they could find in the rural areas.
It seemed Kingsley wouldn’t be as alone as he had thought out there amidst the trees and hills. Fuck.
Where could he go to get away from people?
The woman started arguing with the man, her voice getting a little louder than was wise for an outdoor conversation. The man looked over his shoulders, wary of the racket she was making. Then his eyes
fell on Kingsley and he shushed the woman. He drew her behind him and his face hardened as he stood protectively in front of her, brandishing a length of wood.
The two men said nothing, their stares communicating an equal distrust towards one another.
Squeezing his crossbow, Kingsley walked on past the couple.
*
“Hey!” someone called, pulling Kingsley out of a daydream. “Hey, wait!”
He turned his head and saw a homeless man striding his way across the road, a rottweiler padding along next to him with it’s tongue out, panting.
Kingsley had seen this guy with his dog plenty of times before, sitting outside shops on the high street and asking for change. He remembered how Emma had once given the man some money, and afterwards, he’d told her the man probably wasn’t even homeless and was likely faking it for a bit of easy cash. He remembered Emma getting this expression on her face that was somewhat forlorn, and he felt guilty for robbing her of the pleasure that acts of kindness gave her.
Afterwards, every time they passed the homeless man again Emma wouldn’t even look at the guy.
Now Kingsley felt a fresh wave of guilt as he realised the homeless man was almost certainly not a con artist; the zombie apocalypse had come and he was still out here with his dog, wearing the same old clothes. If he was a fake, he was a very dedicated one.
“Do you have any water to spare for my dog?” the man asked, stopping in front of Kingsley. “Please. He’s proper thirsty.”
If it wasn’t for the dog, Kingsley wouldn’t have stopped. The rottweiler grinned up at him. He couldn’t say no to those shiny amber eyes.
He slid his backpack off and rooted through its contents for the bottle of water he’d half finished, clutching the crossbow to his chest with one hand and keeping an eye on the man in case he tried something sneaky.
Kingsley found the bottle and held it out for the man to take. But instead the man took off his own backpack, pulled out a dull metal dog’s bowl and placed it on the ground between them. Kingsley knelt and poured a generous amount of water into the bowl.
Thrive | Season 1 | Episodes 1-5 Page 13