Chronicles of the Infected Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Wood, Rick

  Gus hit the brakes, then swung around another corner.

  The cinema grew closer.

  They were nearly there.

  “Hold on!”

  He fired them into the car park, ignoring the eager groans and frantic moans chasing behind them.

  He brought the car to a stop beside the stone wall that separated London from the rest of the country. As soon he had skidded to a halt, he burst out of the car and opened the backdoor. He grabbed Laney and climbed on top of the car.

  “Listen to me,” he told her. “I’m going to swing you over the wall, do you understand?”

  “What?” Her eyebrows raised, her lip trembled, her body shook.

  “We don’t have time to think about it – I’m going to swing you and throw you over that wall. Then there is a man and a girl waiting by a car. You go to them, you understand? They will take you home.”

  “But–”

  Before she could object, he grabbed her hands and began swinging. Spinning a few times, getting enough force, ignoring her continuous scream, and let go as he directed her upwards. She flew over the wall, disappearing behind it.

  She was safe.

  He’d done it.

  He stayed atop the police car.

  The horde thudded into the far side of the car park.

  All of them, parading forward, their arms outstretched for him.

  They were seconds away.

  He took the pills from his pocket.

  It was time.

  He was going to be reunited with his family.

  The horde were halfway across the car park. A thousand old friends joining him for lunch.

  He put the pills in his mouth.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Janet’s sweet smile reached out for Gus.

  Those eyes. Those damn perfect eyes. Glazing over with tears.

  Bitten.

  Those eyes turning yellow. Turning to terror. Becoming something Gus had never seen before.

  How he longed to kiss her. To touch her face, to run his hand down her gentle skin. To hold her close during a thunderstorm. To hold her hand as she gave birth. To kiss her on their wedding day.

  Love like theirs only existed in movies. It wasn’t just a standard marriage, where you exist together. It was earth-shattering. World-changing. After so many years, she still made his heart race. He would still wake up in the morning, looking at her sleeping peacefully beside him, and wonder how he got so damn lucky.

  Men like him didn’t get things like this.

  Then his daughter would run in. Her eyes would light up the room stronger than the early morning sun. For the entirety of their Sunday morning they would lay in bed together, laughing, playing. Being the family that you only saw in catalogues. The family that everyone else envied.

  He would kiss his wife on her forehead. Ruffle his daughter’s hair.

  And he would tell them he loved them.

  Every morning he would tell them he loved them.

  Janet would not want him to be living like this.

  Neither of them would.

  Gus opened his eyes.

  The horde reached the base of the police car he stood upon. Reached out for him. Clambered at his feet.

  But he knew it’s not what they would have wanted.

  Janet would not want them to be reunited. Not yet. Not until the time was right. When it was nature’s choice, not his.

  She would kill to see his face again.

  But not like this.

  He spat out the pills.

  Turned to the wall.

  It was too big.

  A hand grabbed his ankle and he shook it off.

  The car was beginning to rock. Nudging from side to side. Keeping his balance was becoming tough, as was staying out of the reach of the all the zombies clambering for him.

  He jumped, trying for the top of the wall.

  He just needed another metre.

  He looked to the pale, demented faces below, chopping their jaws at him. He had an idea.

  He placed his feet shoulder width apart and rocked the car back and forth. Using the momentum that the zombies had created, he forced it further into an uneasy rock.

  The car swung upwards and landed onto its side.

  Seizing the opportunity, Gus jumped onto the side of the upturned car.

  Just as the car turned once again beneath his feet, he used it to gain the extra metre he needed and jumped upwards, reaching his hands out for the top of the wall. One hand scraped off, but the other held tight.

  His fingers slipped.

  They were reaching for him.

  He swung his other hand up, attempting to hold on more securely.

  His entire body weight was being held by the strength of a few fingers.

  He slipped again, but held on. He pushed his arm upwards, until he had securely mounted the top of the wall.

  Using his feet as leverage, he pushed his body up, ignoring the continual pain of his calf, and rolled onto the top of the wall.

  He lay there for a few moments, allowing his breathing to calm, finally feeling himself overcome with exhaustion. He had denied himself rest for so long that now he was able to lay on something flat, he could feel each ache in every muscle.

  Pushing himself to his feet, he leapt to the wire fence and climbed down. He pushed himself up the verge of the hill, making it to the car, where Laney stood beside Sadie.

  He smiled at the sight of them.

  Now it was just the drive back. That was it. It was over, and all he had to do was drive. He had achieved the impossible.

  He walked to the door of the car, placed his hand on the handle, then stopped.

  Something wasn’t right.

  He looked to Sadie, who stood still, staring at him with wounded eyes.

  Something was going on.

  He looked around himself.

  “Where’s Donny?” he asked.

  Sadie looked blankly back at him.

  “Where is he?”

  Sadie looked down.

  “People,” she said. “Took him. Away.”

  Gus closed his eyes and bowed his head. Why? Why did that inept kid have to do this?

  He looked to Laney, looking back at him with those big, innocent eyes.

  The mission was the most important thing.

  He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t wait any longer. London was going up in flames, he hadn’t enough time. He had one purpose, one sole purpose, and that was the girl.

  Laney.

  He had to get her back to her father.

  If only someone had thought that about his girl.

  “Get in the car,” he demanded, placing Laney in the passenger seat.

  “Donny!” Sadie protested, furiously shaking her head.

  “Get in the car, or I’ll soddin’ leave you too!”

  Gus sat in the driver’s seat, waiting for Sadie to reluctantly get in. Once she did, he paused.

  Then he drove away, watching London grow smaller in the rear-view mirror.

  Minus Forty Minutes

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Gus ran his fingers through his thick hair.

  The motorway was clear, and the drive home seemed to be taking far less time than the forward journey had.

  A glance in the mirror showed him that Sadie was still sulking. Her arms folded, her eyebrows pushed downwards, and her irritated eyes focussed on him in the mirror.

  “I told you,” Gus said. “We can’t go back.”

  Sadie’s expression did not falter.

  Gus glanced at Laney in the passenger seat next to him, soundly asleep.

  “We had a mission. It was to extract the target. We have done that. We can’t go back for a fallen soldier.”

  He thought about all the times it had been true. In Afghanistan, when they had to clear the area and leave a fallen comrade behind.

  But he’d have wanted them to do the same.

  The mission is the most important thing. Above all else, the mission
is important. As is brotherhood and loyalty to your fellow soldiers, yes – but if the squad returned for that soldier they left behind, it would be more than one dead.

  Still, Sadie’s expression remained the same.

  “We don’t even know if he’s still alive. And besides, you are important, too.”

  She was.

  She had survived a zombie bite. Her blood had mixed with that of the infected, and she was alive. Not properly, but she was alive. She could be the solution to this mess.

  He hesitated. Looked out the window at the burnt-out cars and corpses with exploded heads. The destruction of the world. A world that, until a few days ago, Gus couldn’t see being saved.

  “Your blood, Sadie, may have the key to… I don’t know. I don’t know science, I don’t know how it works, but ultimately, you’re a zombie without the… zombieness. You are important. More so than me, or Donny, or…”

  No.

  She was never going to understand.

  She was a child. Barely even that. She was an animal. She had the disposition of a feral human being. She had no cognition, no ability to talk. She relied on instinct. She was, ultimately, one of them – only she didn’t try and kill people.

  Instead, she saved them.

  And she had saved them. Protected them from an oncoming horde. Done it all single-handedly.

  He sighed.

  He looked to Laney.

  Something glistened by her feet. Something reflecting the full moon. Something…

  Donny’s sunglasses.

  The little weirdo, going on about his sunglasses.

  But he was so chuffed with them. He wore them, and would not stop smiling, and…

  And he went after Gus. When he could have left. He went after Gus and forced himself to shoot someone. Something that took so much out of him.

  Donny had barely been able to lift a gun.

  Yet Donny had pointed that gun, fooled the man into thinking he wouldn’t, then pulled the trigger.

  He had saved Gus’s life.

  But the mission.

  The mission was most important.

  No one would understand how important.

  But why? A politician’s daughter’s life was not more precious than anyone else’s.

  God damn, this is tough.

  He looked back in his mirror. Sadie’s glare still focussed on him. That intense stare, those fixed eyes.

  She was mouthing something.

  Whispering something.

  Gus strained to hear what it was.

  And he heard, ever so slightly:

  “Friend.”

  Gus brought the car to a sudden halt.

  He let out a large, aggressive growl. Furious with himself. Loathing his weak temperament for what he was about to do.

  He spun the car in a circle and turned back, speeding as fast as the car would take him.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Heat radiated against Donny’s flesh, illuminating him with a flickering amber glow. He coughed as his lungs rejected the mouthfuls of smoke he was forced to keep swallowing. As his eyes readjusted, orange blurs transformed to the terrifying sight of the flames that were going to cook his flesh.

  As soon as he realised what the fire was for, a pertinent thought hit the forefront of his mind.

  Why am I alive?

  He went to move his hands. He couldn’t. Something was stopping him, something that was burning his wrists. Rope.

  He tried his feet. His ankles too were burning from the rubbing of harsh, bristly rope.

  A draught floated against his back, and it abruptly occurred to him that he was half-clothed.

  “Help!” he immediately shouted. “Help! Please!”

  “Aw, are you waking up?” came the patronising voice of a ten-year-old girl behind him. “You really are infantile, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  Stacey flopped to the floor beside Donny and began drawing things in the soil with her finger.

  “If you shout out, all you’ll do is attract zombies, and they will eat you far sooner than we will.”

  “You – you – you psycho bitch!”

  Stacey gasped and slapped him hard across the face.

  “Mummy says you are not supposed to use language like that! It is not becoming of a gentleman, or a lady.”

  His eyes switched between the fire and Stacey. To the fire. To Stacey.

  Why am I still alive?

  “Listen, please, just let me go,” Donny begged. “You don’t need to do this. There is still plenty of food available. You can do it other ways.”

  “You mean canned goods?” came Trisha’s voice as she walked past with her arms full of logs that she dumped on the ever-growing fire. “How ghastly! Really, why settle for such things when you can eat like queens?”

  “But I am a human, it is wrong!”

  “How so? You eat chicken, do you not? Pig? Cow? You think they die by magic? No, they tie them up and slit their throats. You’re no different.”

  These people were crazy. Mental. A bizarre mixture of etiquette and sociopathy. Is this what the zombie apocalypse had done to them?

  Maybe not.

  Maybe they had been doing this for a while, and the sour events of the world had just freed them of having to do it in private.

  “Please, I will give you whatever you want, I’ll do whatever, please…”

  “Stacey, darling, would you gag him? He is starting to get quite irritating.”

  “Yes, Mummy.”

  “No, please, no–”

  Stacey took a roll of duct tape, ripped off a piece, and stretched it across Donny’s mouth.

  He tried begging more. Tried reasoning, but only inaudible sounds were coming out.

  “Mummy, can I kill him now? He is so annoying.”

  Why am I still alive? Why have they not killed me yet?

  Stacey took a large blade and ran it between her hands.

  “Soon, darling, soon. Then I will let you butcher him in whatever way you wish!” Trisha smiled at her daughter as if rewarding her with a special treat, one that was greeted with a huge smile in return.

  “Thank you, Mummy.”

  “You don’t want anything rotten stuck in your teeth, do you now, darling?”

  “No, Mummy.”

  That’s when it occurred to him.

  The answer to his question.

  I know why I’m still alive…

  Because they were trying to keep him fresh.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Gus brought the car to a slow halt on the grassy verge overlooking London. The masses of undead had regathered and were continuing to push against the walls, which seemed to be losing their solidity. From afar they looked to be standing strong, but to Gus’s astute, focussed eyes, he could swear he saw the wall buckle.

  He turned to Sadie, then looked to Laney still asleep in the seat beside him.

  “I need you to stay here,” Gus instructed her.

  “No! Donny!”

  “I know you want to save Donny, but leave that to me. I need you to protect this girl, do you understand?”

  Sadie folded her arms and stuck out her bottom lip.

  Gus pointed at Laney.

  “Friend. See? Friend. Needs your help.”

  Sadie looked at Laney, then back to Gus. Her arms dropped to her lap and she nodded.

  Gus left a despondent smile lingering in the car and made his way to the boot. He took out a machine gun, placed ammo over his shoulder, and made his way to the opening of the woods beside the car.

  His eyes scanned the ground, looking for tracks. Footprints. Evidence of feet sliding across the ground.

  Finally, he found it. Faint, but definitely there. There were two lines where Donny’s feet must have been dragged. Gus could also make out two sets of prints. One that looked like a set of adult’s trainers. And one that looked like…

  Bare feet.

  Child’s feet.

  No. It couldn’t be.

 
; Donny shot her. The little girl was thrown onto her back, and the mother ran for it. How could the little girl be alive? The mother surely wouldn’t abandon her otherwise?

  But there they were. Child’s footprints.

  How many children would drag people away?

  More pertinently, how could a girl take three shots to the chest and survive?

  But then again, six months ago, you could have asked – how would the dead get up and start walking? But they did.

  And until a few days ago, you could ask how someone would be immune to a zombie bite.

  But there’s the answer sitting in the backseat of the car.

  He took the safety off the machine gun and edged between the trees, cautiously twisting his head back and forth, looking for signs of the demented family that tried to eat him not too long ago.

  The tracks continued to occur steadily through the narrow footpath, then veered off it. Branches, trees, nettles, bushes, all encompassed the new path he would have to forge. The tracks disappeared with the lack of set path, and he would have to rely on observing which trees looked the most disturbed.

  He crouched low and moved slowly forward, keeping himself camouflaged by the green that surrounded him.

  Minus Twenty Minutes

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  A victory cigar hung out the end of Eugene’s lips like it was an extension of his tongue.

  He tapped the ash out on a lavish, glass ashtray, then took a slow, delightful sip of his seventy-year-old whiskey from his tumbler with decorated carvings around its base.

  He huffed. Closed his eyes. Leant back in his chair. Savoured the silence.

  Savoured it because it wouldn’t be staying for long.

  Soon the commotion would begin. His façade would continue. His game face would have to be on.

  His intercom buzzed.

  He sighed and pressed the button that allowed him to communicate with Sandra, his secretary, taking a moment to ready himself for a long few hours.

  “Yes?”

  “Prime Minister, General Boris Hayes is here.”