Who’s that?
“Okay, let’s get going!” William says, parking the car and shutting off the engine. “After me, hurry!”
“Wait!” Dan shouts, just as William opens the door. “Someone’s in the house!”
William has already jumped out and is bending down to grab the fake well cover. Now, he looks back into the car. “What do you mean? Of course someone’s in the house!”
“It’s someone we don’t know,” Dan says, staring at the house. The woman is still in the window. “A woman. She’s right there!”
Nasira and Dad hesitate. So does William.
“What do we do?” Dad asks.
“We need to get inside,” William says, grabbing the cover. “It’s probably just someone Holger invited in. Maybe someone he knows who came by, or—what the fuck? I can’t get this thing open!”
He tugs at the hatch, trying different angles, but it doesn’t budge.
Dan looks over at the window again. The woman is still looking right back out at him, her expression is weirdly emotionless. For some reason, Dan gets the chills.
Why is she just standing there?
“They’re coming, William!” Dad warns him, as the zombies begin losing interest in the house and turning one by one to stagger towards the car instead.
“Fuck!” William exclaims, kicking the hatch.
“Something’s wrong,” Dan mutters.
“You’re damn right something’s wrong,” William says, panting as he gets back into the car and slams the door. “They locked the hatch. Why the fuck would they lock it?”
“What do we do?” Nasira asks, pulling away from the window as the zombies approach the car.
“Don’t do anything right now,” William says, pulling out his phone. “We need to try again, once Holger has unlocked the hatch. I’m calling him now.”
He makes the call, then puts it on speaker and places it on the dashboard, freeing up both his hands. Silence in the car as William’s phone rings. From the trunk, the dog gives off a low growl. Everyone looks out at the zombies who gather around the car and begin pushing and shoving to get inside.
Dan is the only one still looking over at the house. The woman in the window—there’s something about her, something sinister. Dan gets a very clear feeling that something bad happened.
“Pick up, Holger,” William mutters, and then, to the zombie outside his window: “Hey, stop drooling on my car, asshole!”
Dan sees the woman raise her hand and put it to her ear.
Then, the call is answered.
Dan sees the woman mouth the word, and a split-second later, her voice comes through the phone: “Hello.”
“Who … who the hell are you?” William says, staring at the phone in surprise. “Why are you answering Holger’s phone? Where’s Holger? Put him on!”
“Holger’s not able to come to the phone,” the woman says calmly, not taking her eyes off Dan.
“Then tell him to come unlock the hatch so we can get in!”
“I’m afraid the hatch is jammed. We already tried, but we can’t get it to open.”
“What do mean, jammed? There’s no lock on it!”
“There is now.”
“Wha—” William cuts himself off, as he finally realizes what the woman means.
“I know that voice,” Dan’s father mutters.
“She’s standing right there,” Dan says and points. “She’s looking out at us.”
Everyone in the car turns their heads in unison.
“That’s her,” Dad confirms, nodding grimly. “That’s the woman who stole my car.”
“Oh, you piece of shit,” William growls. “You come open that hatch right now! And let me talk to Holger!”
The woman doesn’t move an inch, and her expression doesn’t change. “I can do one of those for you,” she says calmly. “Hold on a moment.” She lowers Holger’s phone and presses it to her chest. “Dennis!” she calls out, her voice making it through the phone. “Let Holger out!”
Dan has been feeling a growing sense of discomfort ever since he saw the woman, and now the feeling intensifies.
“They’ve locked up Holger,” William mutters. “Those fucking assholes—how the hell did they get in?”
Before anyone in the car can come up with an answer, Dan notices a movement from the roof of the house. He looks up and sees the dormer window swing open. The face of a boy not much older than him appears for a second, before vanishing again. Then, something else appears. It’s Holger. At first, it looks to Dan like Holger is climbing out the window.
“Holy hell,” Dad murmurs. “Look up there.”
“That’s … that’s Holger,” William says. “What the hell are they doing?”
Holger is hanging halfway out the window, one arm dangling limply down the roof, and as he turns awkwardly to the side, Dan gets a better look at his face and realizes his eyes are closed. There’s a stream of dried-up blood on his cheek.
“He’s … he’s dead,” Nasira whispers. “Look at the blood on his face.”
“Oh, no,” William exclaims, grabbing his head. “Oh, fuck, no! Maybe … maybe he’s just unconscious. Maybe they knocked him out to keep him as a hostage. Maybe—”
Before William can put forth another suggestion as to what might be going on, the answer becomes obvious, as Holger is thrust from the window.
Nasira screams, Dan’s father gasps aloud, and Dan feels the air getting sucked from his lungs as Holger tumbles down the roof and out over the gutter. He lands on the gravel right next to the front door with a heavy, bone-chilling thud and lies completely still.
The zombies clawing at the front door don’t even flinch, but simply keep on clawing.
“He’s … he’s really dead,” Dan hears himself say. “Look at the zombies. They don’t even care.”
“You fucking … you fucking assholes,” Williams says, his voice rising as he stares blankly at his dead uncle lying in an awkward posture on the gravel. “You’re going to pay for that! You hear me!?”
Dan looks at the kitchen window again. The woman is still gazing out at them, her expression still serene. She doesn’t look down at Holger’s body even for a second, and Dan thinks to himself with surprising clarity: She’s a psychopath. A real-life psychopath.
“We’ve filled the underground tunnel with gasoline,” she tells them through the phone in a matter-of-fact way. “If anyone tries to force their way in, we’ll light a match and burn the intruders alive.”
“We’ll find another way!” William shouts. “You rest assured! We’re going to—”
“This is our place now,” the woman interrupts him, only raising her voice slightly, yet something in her tone makes William shut up. Something very cold and sharp. “I’m sorry it had to happen this way, but Holger attacked us first. And these are desperate times, I’m sure you’ll agree. We all need to do whatever we can to make sure our loved ones survive.”
“You’re going to prison for this, you crazy bitch,” William mutters.
“That may be,” the woman replies, still with an eerie calm, like a customer service employee explaining something to an unsatisfied customer. “Although I’m not sure there will be any prisons in the near future.”
Then Dan remembers. “What about Mille?” he asks, fearing the answer. When the woman doesn’t hear him, he leans towards William’s phone and repeats the question. “What about the girl? What did you do to her?”
“Nothing. Mille left with her mom right after we came.”
It could be a lie, but Dan sees no good reason why the woman shouldn’t be telling the truth; she has been, so far.
William takes the phone from the dashboard. “This is not over,” he sneers into it before ending the call.
In the window, Dan sees the woman lower the phone, look at them for another moment, then simply walking away.
“Is there any other way in?” Dan’s father asks.
“No,” William says. “Not one that we can get t
o, anyway. I’m sure they locked the front door, and all the windows have bars. Besides, if we break into the house, we would have made a perfect entrance for the zombies, and the place would be useless as a hideout.”
“You think she was telling the truth about the gasoline?” Dad asks.
“I’m not sure,” William says, running his hands through his hair. “But does it matter? We can’t take the chance. I’m not going to risk getting burnt alive. Oh, Jesus, everything is fucked up now. Poor Holger.”
“Where do we go?” Nasira asks in a low voice.
William shakes his head. “I have no idea.”
“Well, we can’t stay here,” Dan’s father says. “Maybe we can go to one of the other houses around here and ask for shelter.”
“We could,” William says in a sour tone. “But who would let in five people and a dog?”
“Someone with compassion,” Nasira answers.
William scoffs. “Someone with little sense,” he corrects her. “Even if we did find someone willing to let us in, how long could we survive? We’re too many now. Normal people don’t have food for several days in their home, much less any sustainable sources once they run out. Holger did. That’s why this was the perfect place.” He looks over at the house, grinding his teeth. “We should have never left. What was I thinking?”
“Can’t we just get out of here for a start?” Nasira asks. “Those things out there are starting to get on my nerves.”
Dan is surprised to find he almost managed to forget about the zombies pushing and shoving outside the car, squeezing against the windows and fumbling for a way in. Apparently, you get used to sitting in a car surrounded by zombies once you’ve tried it a couple of times. Amazing what the mind can learn to filter out.
William puts the car in reverse and backs up. He pays no particular heed to the zombies, either, knocking over two of them as he drives out of Holger’s courtyard and heads back down the driveway.
“How about going back to Jens?” Dan suggests. “Maybe he’ll let us stay at his boss’s farm. He said they have cows, didn’t he? That means they’ll have food for a long time.”
“I don’t know,” William says. “I think we might be better off trying to get out of here altogether. Holger’s place was definitely our best bet if we had to stay. Now that it’s no longer an option, I prefer getting as far away from here as possible.”
“I agree,” Dad says. “I think we should leave the country until they get this situation under control.”
“If,” William mutters.
“What’s that?”
“If they get the situation under control.”
“Sure they will,” Dad says, sounding like he’s not sure at all.
Suddenly, Dan gets an idea. “Wait, what about Mille? The woman said she left with her mom.”
“She was probably lying,” William scuffs. “They probably killed her too.”
“Why would she lie about that, but not about Holger? No, I think she told the truth about Mille. I could call her and ask where they went.”
William looks at him in the mirror. “You’ve got her number?”
“Sure. She gave it to me.”
William raises one eyebrow. “Well done, dude.”
Dan pulls out his phone and calls up Mille just as they reach the end of Holger’s driveway. William stops the car and looks at Dan, waiting to see if Mille will have anything to tell them.
Dan puts the call on speaker.
Mille answers after the third ring. “Dan?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Are you okay?”
“Sure. I was just about to ask you that. You found your parents?”
“We did,” Dan says simply, avoiding Dad’s eyes. “But when we returned to Holger’s place … there was a woman there. And her son.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s Birgit and Dennis. They came right after you guys left.”
“What do you mean, ‘they came’?” William interjects. “Who let them in?”
A short pause. “No one did. They came in through the tunnel. Why? Is anything wrong?”
“You could say that,” William growls. “They killed Holger.”
Mille gasps. “Oh, no!”
Someone speaks in the background on Mille’s end.
“Is that your mom?” Dan asks.
Mille doesn’t answer right away. She sounds like she’s fighting to keep calm. “Yes … I’m with her now. Oh, my God, I’m so … I’m so sorry about Holger. I shouldn’t have left him alone …”
“No, you probably shouldn’t,” William says.
“Shut up, William,” Dan says, ignoring the look of surprise William sends him in the mirror. “It wasn’t her fault. If she hadn’t left, they would have just killed her, too.”
A moment of silence.
Then, Mille whispers: “I can’t believe I trusted her. I did notice there was … something odd about her. Something dangerous. But I … I let her convince me she wouldn’t … oh, God.”
“Where are you now?” Dan asks.
“We just left the area. We’re headed for Frederikshavn. Torben—my Mom’s boyfriend—he’s got a cabin up in Sweden somewhere. We’ll try and get there.”
“Wait,” William chimes in. “Did you say you left the area? How did you manage that? I thought they sealed it off?”
“They did. There are military posts on all the highways and the smaller ones, too. But we found another way. A dirt road they haven’t blocked.”
“Where?” William demands.
“It’s just down road from Holger, then make a right after the next house, and once you get to the trees, you turn left. Keep going till you hit the highway again.”
William puts the car in drive and heads out onto the road.
“Thank you,” Dan says. “We’ll try and get out that way too.”
“I hope you make it,” Mille says.
Dan switches the call off speaker and puts the phone to his ear. “I’m glad your mom came for you, Mille.”
Another short pause. “Yeah, me too.”
She doesn’t sound completely sincere, though.
Suddenly, he’s not sure what to say. “So, I guess … good luck.”
“Good luck. And Dan?”
“Yeah?”
“You can always call me if … you know, anything.”
“Same.”
“Right. Stay safe.”
“You too.”
He disconnects. Dad puts an arm around his shoulder and smiles at him. Then, he says something totally unexpected: “I’m proud of you, son.”
“Uhm … thanks, Dad.”
“Listen,” William says. “While you were flirting it up with Mille back there, I got an idea. My friend, Janus, he, um … well, he died yesterday. But he has a brother who lives down in Haderslev. He’s an airline pilot, and Janus told me he has his own plane. Maybe we can get him to fly us all the hell out of here. To an island somewhere.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Dad says. “But what if he doesn’t want to?”
“I’m sure we can convince him,” William says. “He’ll probably want to save his own family, too. And if we can’t get him to do it, we just keep going down through Germany. That’s our plan B.”
They exchange looks. No one seems to have any objections.
“That’s settled, then,” William concludes, speeding up.
TWENTY-FIVE
“Hello? Excuse me? Could somebody please come?”
Dorte listens as the words echo back to her down the empty corridor, then die out. No one answers. She’s been calling for twenty minutes now.
The guard who brought her dinner told her someone would come and take her statement within an hour. It’s been four now, and she hasn’t seen anyone.
There are only four detention rooms in this corridor—she noticed when they put her in here—and none of the other three seem to have any occupants. At least she hasn’t heard anything.
They took her phone, so she hasn’t been able to call any
one—but who would she call? The two persons closest to her are both dead, and just the thought of breaking the news about Rikke to her dad is too much. It will crush him. He’s not sick with cancer, like she told Martin and the other soldier at the roadblock; he’s in his home in Copenhagen with his new wife. Besides, the authorities may have already done the job for her of calling him up and delivering the bad news.
Unless, of course, Rikke hasn’t been found yet.
The tiny, wall-mounted TV is running on mute, showing a news channel covering what’s going on in Viborg. An hour ago, they began showing footage from Aarhus as well. It was a mixture of private videos captured from phones and a news helicopter hovering overhead. They showed a gas station being overrun by four infected people and a pedestrian street where people fled in panic.
The images were very disturbing. Not so much because of the infected, but because it was obvious that things weren’t under control, despite the news reporter saying that “unlike Viborg, the police and the military got a head start on things in Aarhus” and were doing “a very effective job of pacifying and isolating the infected.’”
They showed gunmen in full protective gear armed with guns, and they informed the viewers that everything was being done to not harm the infected, but simply get them into custody, using rubber bullets, water cannons and other nonlethal equipment.
To Dorte, this sounded like something they would say to keep people reassured rather than telling the truth.
From her tiny, barred-up window she only had a view of the courtyard. But she had heard gunfire earlier. What sounded like a car crashing; or perhaps an explosion. Someone screaming. Sirens.
It was like being dropped into an American disaster movie. She got to witness everything turn to chaos from her claustrophobically small detention cell, and there was nothing she could do.
What was worse: it was her fault the disease had reached Aarhus.
The disease.
She kept thinking about it like that. Her brain was too well trained to accept anything else.
Whatever had happened to Rikke and Peter, it sure looked like a disease; it had plenty of physical symptoms. Except none of them could be measured. At least not with any medical device.
Dead Meat (Book 4): Dead Meat [Day 4] Page 15