But the area was quiet, the only sounds those of the water chuckling across the river stones that pebbled it and the birdsong in the trees. Even so, she was in more trouble than she’d ever been before in her life. This time you’re really in for it, girl.
Goosebumps pebbled her skin as the cold set in, her body warmth leaching away with each breath. She had to get out of the water, and she had to treat her wound…stop the bleeding.
Nadia thrashed about like a fish out of water as she struggled to climb the muddy embankment, each step an effort not to slide back into the river. Finally, she reached the top and lay gasping, each breath a battle to be won.
Finally, she gathered the strength to sit upright. Mud coated her clothes and skin. She lifted her shirt and winced when she saw the angry red stab wound weeping blood in her middle. When Jay had stabbed her, he’d aimed for her stomach. She’d managed to twist at the last moment, and hoped that his blade had missed her vital organs. Still, it was bad. Very bad. She could either bleed to death or die of infection without antibiotics.
Nadia pulled off her leather jacket and shook some of the water out of it before draping it across the ground. With shivering hands, she removed her shirt, leaving behind only her thin vest. With her teeth, she tore the shirt into long strips and lay them aside. Next, she grabbed handfuls of the moss growing between the roots of the willow trees, their spongy mass the best thing next to gauze. This she bound over her injury using the strips from her shirt. It would slow the bleeding, if not stop it.
Once her wound was taken care of, she put her jacket back on and got to her feet. She searched her pockets but found nothing except a wet lighter, a nail file, and a stick of chewing gum which she popped into her mouth.
At least, she still carried the cross around her neck. A small mercy. She removed it, wrapping the chain around her palm with the sharp end ready to stab anything that came near her.
With that, she set off, following the river downstream. She didn’t dare go back, not with Jay and his Ravagers there. There were too many of them, the back streets and alleys crawling with their evil forms like cockroaches in the night.
Neil and the council might not know it yet, but they were doomed. The town wasn’t safe anymore, and Jay was coming for them. Their only hope, Cat and Lisa’s only hope, lay with Nadia and her survival. I have to fetch help. It’s the only way. I must get to St. Francis.
“Not that I know where the hell I am. Or where civilization is. I need a ride. I can’t walk the entire way. Not like this,” she muttered. “Follow the river. It should lead to something, and at least you’ll have water.”
She carried on walking until the embankment sloped down at a gentle degree to the river’s edge. Nadia stumbled over and sank to her knees, scooping handfuls of water into her mouth. It occurred to her that the water might be dirty, but she was so thirsty, she didn’t care.
“Besides, isn’t shallow river water that flows over rocks supposed to be okay? It looks clear enough and tastes fine,” she mused. “Either way, it’s too late now.”
With an effort, she got back to her feet and pushed on, one hand pressed to her middle, the other clutching her cross. She grunted with pain when her foot slid sideways, jolting her torso. An answering groan emerged from a clearing in front of her, and Nadia froze. Shit!
A shambling figure emerged from the gloom, heading straight for her. It was a particularly nasty specimen, strips of flesh peeling away from its scalp and cheeks. Its eyes were blackened pits, and its teeth rotted and decayed.
It groaned, barely able to move. At least, the thing was slow. Nadia gritted her teeth and readied herself to fight. There was no way she could run away from the thing in her condition.
The zombie reached for her with clawed hands, and she grabbed his wrist to pull him off balance. Rotten meat sloughed off his bones at her touch, thick slime coating her fingers. The stench of rotting offal hit her nostrils, and she gagged. “Holy shit!”
Not daring to let go, she yanked its arm again, harder this time, and stepped to the side. As the thing fell forward, she stabbed it in the eye with the cross, allowing the sharp end to slide in as its weight came down.
She let go and danced back, hoping the zombie was dead. When it didn’t move, she prodded it with her foot. It was a goner, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Reaching down, she pulled her cross free before searching its pockets. Nothing.
Swallowing her disappointment, she made her way back to the water’s edge, washing her hands and her cross until it was free of the blood and slime. With no other options open to her, Nadia kept moving, fighting against the pain and fatigue that threatened to bring her to her knees.
“Keep going, Nadia. Keep going,” she muttered.
As she forced one foot in front of the other, those words became her mantra. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Until the words swam through her head on a loop. Over and over again. She stopped twice more to drink water, her thirst a raging beast that wouldn’t let go.
The moss padding her wound had soaked through, and blood trickled down her leg in a warm stream. Nadia gritted her teeth as yet another wave of dizziness almost brought her to her knees. If another zombie found her now, she was done for.
“Come on. You can do it. Move. One step, two steps…that’s it,” Nadia coaxed, staring at her feet as if she could move them through sheer willpower.
A ditch hidden by leaves proved her undoing, and Nadia felt herself falling with no way to stop. She tumbled into the hole, rolling head over heels until she landed flat on her back, lungs heaving as her wound set alight. Her mind cried out in agony, and she longed to scream for real, to trumpet her suffering to the world, but common sense kept her lips shut. She lay in silence, breathing through the pain until it became part of her, settling into a dull throb. Only then did she fight her way out of the ditch and back to her feet.
The sun moved across the sky as she walked, the hours passing faster than she wished. Night was coming, and she had nowhere to shelter, nowhere to hide from the infected that roamed the woods.
Bit by bit, the light grew fainter, fading from bright yellow to dull orange, burnt red, and finally, steel grey. The woods came alive with the oncoming darkness as nocturnal animals stirred, ready for the hours of activity ahead. Nadia started at every rustle, every twig that snapped or leaf that moved.
Hopelessness set in, and despair weighed on her shoulders. “I can’t go on. Not anymore. I’m done…I’m done.”
Nadia was prepared to give up when her next steps took her into a clearing. Her eyes roamed across the open space until they froze in shock. Her breathing quickened as hope filled her being, lightening her tread and granting her the strength to keep going. A cabin!
“Oh, thank, God,” she whispered, pushing her body forward until she faced the steps leading up to the door.
The wooden house was old but sturdy. Its windows were covered in wooden shutters, and the door looked solid. A chimney rose from the roof, and a stack of firewood sat next to the door along with a bucket.
Nadia looked around, searching the area for the telltale shuffle of a zombie. An ax leaned against the porch railing, and she picked it up, brushing away a layer of dust. “Here zombie, zombie, zombie,” she called in a low voice.
Nothing happened.
With her heart banging in her throat, she walked up the steps. With a fist, she pounded on the door and listened for the sounds of infected from within.
Still nothing.
Almost fainting with relief, she opened the door and waited. The air that wafted out was stale but free of rot. Inside, it was empty. The one-room cabin was just as its owner had left it.
Nadia sagged with exhaustion, her energy reserves spent, but she couldn’t relax yet. Night was coming. She had to hurry. Still carrying the ax, she took the empty bucket and filled it at the river’s edge. She used it to rinse and fill the enormous kettle standing next to the fireplace before topping up the bucket again. Satisfied that she had enou
gh water to last the night, she turned her attention to warmth.
The fireplace was empty, and she stacked it with wood and kindling. A box of matches lay on the mantle, and she managed to get a fire going. Not content, she carried in the rest of the wood as well, enough to last her the night. She kept the ax too.
As night fell across the woods, Nadia closed the cabin door and barred it from within. After that, she checked the shutters, making sure each of them was secured from within and couldn’t be pried open.
At last, she was safe, or as safe as it was possible to be, and sank onto the bed as her knees gave way. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she faced the realization that she was alone and friendless, injured and vulnerable.
After a minute, she shook her head, her will to survive stronger than self-pity. She wasn’t friendless. She had Lisa and Cat who relied on her. She was their only hope. Nadia brushed away her tears. “Get it together, girl. You’re better than this. You will survive, and you will save them. That’s a promise.”
Chapter 2 - Lisa
Lisa woke before dawn, the plastic alarm clock next to her bed blaring loudly enough to wake the dead. She groaned before rolling over to switch it off, resisting the urge to smash it into oblivion. Still, it was better to get up. It wasn’t as if the thin mattress on the hard metal bed frame was particularly comfortable. Nor were the sheets that smelled of disinfectant in typical hospital fashion.
She swung her bare legs off the cot and examined the faint bruising still visible in places. It was almost completely gone. She’d healed nicely, and the only remnants of her fall that still remained were her broken ribs and sprained wrist, and even those weren’t so bad anymore. As long as she had a brace on her wrist, bandages strapped around her torso, and a couple of painkillers floating through her system she was fine.
Her stomach rumbled at that moment, and she remembered it was flapjack day. The best day of the week. “I’d better hurry before there’s nothing left!”
With newfound haste, Lisa scrambled off the bed and slipped out of the cotton pajama gown she wore. It was a gift from Cat’s mom and sported a picture of a unicorn on the chest. Not her usual style, but beggars can’t be choosers. This she folded and placed inside the wooden cupboard in the corner.
Besides the bed and single-door wardrobe, the tiny room boasted only a single window set high in the wall near the ceiling, a rickety fan that barely did the job, a chair, and a single rack set in the wall with a couple of books on it. To top it off, everything was either white or beige. The bedding, the curtain, the floor, the ceiling, the walls, even the damned cupboard was painted white. The only spot of color was the chair, a wicker variety with deep blue cushions that she stole from the lounge area.
Still, Lisa didn’t complain. This was her home for now. An oasis of quiet to retreat to at night when her fourteen-hour shift was over. It was the only place where she could be alone, and after a long day spent looking after sick and injured people, privacy was exactly what she needed.
She pulled a fresh set of scrubs and undies out of the wardrobe, slipping on the plain blue cotton trousers and shirt over her bra and panties. That too smelled of disinfectant, the pungent smell now hardly noticeable to her anymore.
She scraped her hair back into a bun and pulled on a pair of white tennis shoes before rushing to the communal bathroom she shared with the other nurses. It was already filling up, the showers occupied by those coming off the night shift.
Lisa quickly washed her hands and face after using the toilet, then she was jogging down the corridors toward the kitchen and cafeteria, her stomach cramping at the thought of freshly baked flapjacks topped with butter and syrup.
The smell greeted her long before she got there and saliva pooled in her mouth. She got to the cafeteria in time for Cook to slam down a platter heaped high with the fluffy things and grabbed a plate before anyone could corner her with useless chit-chat. The room was buzzing this time of the morning, the staff preparing for the long day ahead. Many of the girls liked to talk, a fact that irritated her in no small measure. She was there to eat, not make friends.
Lisa piled her plate high with flapjacks before moving to the next station where a blob of butter and a squeeze of oozy golden deliciousness topped them off. A green apple and a cup of coffee rounded out her breakfast, and she sat down in the farthest corner to enjoy the meal.
While she ate, her eyes roamed across the room, gathering information for the day ahead. Dr. Heinz was up early which was a bad sign. It meant he’d be in a particularly bad mood, and she vowed to avoid him as far as possible.
The Matron appeared to be in an equally foul frame of mind, her haggard visage speaking of hours spent on her feet. She had a tendency to work overtime to set an example to those underneath her, but in reality, it only served to turn her into a bitch. Lisa shuddered to think of the horrible chores the woman would dish out to those unfortunate to cross her path. Just not bedpan duty again.
Cecelia and Tamara were tittering over something, prompting an eye roll from Lisa who couldn’t stand the two airheads. Like her, they were former patients, now recovered, who had been pressed into service. The hospital was overflowing with the sick and injured ever since Jay took over, and it was up to people like her to keep things running.
“Got any room for a friend?” A deep voice broke into her thoughts, and she was glad to see it was Trevor and not somebody else come to bother her.
“Hey, Trevor. Have a seat.”
Trevor sat down across from her, also dressed in scrubs. He was a nurse, and the only one she’d managed to make friends with. As ever, he looked striking with his shaven head, golden brown eyes, and the white scar that cut across the dark skin of his throat like a lightning strike. A legacy of a run-in with some of the sick people birthed by the apocalypse.
“I didn’t know you were on day shift,” she remarked before shoving a glob of butter and flapjack into her mouth.
“I switched over yesterday.” He reached over and smacked her arm. “In fact, I aligned my schedule to yours, so from now on, we’re working buddies.”
Lisa smiled as genuine warmth blossomed in her chest and the gloom of the day lifted from her shoulders. “That’s the best news I’ve had all day, and the only present I could ask for.”
“Present?” Trevor asked, a frown playing across his brow. “Is it possible that today’s your birthday, and you forgot to tell me?”
“Um…no, of course not, I just…”
“You’re a terrible liar, Lisa. It is your birthday, isn’t it?”
She glanced around and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Yeah, okay, fine, but don’t say anything to anyone, please.”
“If it’s that important to you, I won’t, but why so down in the dumps? It’s your birthday. You should be happy,” Trevor replied. Patiently awaiting her answer, he tucked into his own food, crunching on an apple.
Lisa sighed. “I’m not down. It’s just…the whole situation, you know? I miss Cat and Nadia, I have no idea what’s going on in the world outside, and I’m stuck in here as a hostage scrubbing bedpans every day. I mean, I don’t mind helping out, it keeps me busy, but how come blonde and blonder never get that unpleasant job?”
“Oh, you mean Cecelia and Tamara? I know what you mean. Those two are shoved so far up the Matron and Dr. Heinz’s butt holes they have brown rings around their necks,” Trevor quipped.
The joke landed just as Lisa took a sip of her coffee, and she choked, spraying Trevor across the face. He blinked, the sticky fluid dripping off his eyelashes and skin while Lisa gaped in horror. “Oh, crap! I’m so sorry, here let me clean that up.”
Trevor broke into a deep belly laugh, holding up both hands to fend off the frantic Lisa as she tried to wipe him down with a napkin. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m fine. Really.”
“Are you sure? I’m so sorry. Really,” she repeated.
After cleaning himself up, Trevor laughed once more. “I assure you, I’m fine. It takes mor
e than just a little bit of coffee in the face to take me down.”
“Ugh. If this is the way my day starts, then I can’t imagine it getting any better,” Lisa muttered.
“Not true. Today is going to be awesome. I’m making it my personal mission,” Trevor said. “Now, finish your food before it gets cold. At least, you can’t complain about that.”
“True. I love flapjacks.”
“I’ve noticed. It’s hard not to when it gets stolen off my plate every week,” he said.
Lisa gasped in mock outrage. “I would never.”
“Sure. I’ve heard that one before. Now go ahead and grab my last flapjack before I change my mind.”
She grinned and speared it with her fork in one swift move. “Since you offered, don’t mind if I do.”
They finished their breakfast in companionable silence and were getting ready to leave when Dr. Heinz walked over with a sour expression on his face. He pinned Lisa to her chair with a grim look. “I’m glad I caught you, Lisa. The infirmary is full again today, and I’ll need you on bedpan duty again. When you’re done with that, you can change the sheets on the beds and help in the laundry.”
Lisa nodded, her former cheer changing to a hard lump in her stomach, but before she could agree, Trevor interrupted. “Actually, Dr. Heinz, she can’t help you today.”
Dr. Heinz frowned. “How so?”
“Neil has requested her presence. He’s holding a games day in the lounge to cheer up some of the patients and take their minds off…you know and needs her help. Also, I’ll need her assistance serving breakfast to the children’s ward. Florence is ill and can’t work today,” Trevor answered with a bland expression.
“I see. Neil asked for her specifically? Because I’m sure either Cecilia or Tamara could help him,” Dr. Heinz said.
“No, he wants her specifically. Why don’t you put Cecilia and Tamara on bed pan duty? I’m sure they won’t mind. We’re all happy to do our bit, after all.”
Children of the Apocalypse: Mega Boxed Set Page 140