Safe Zone (Book 2): The Descent

by Suzanne Sussex

  He turned on his heel and opened the door, inviting one of the guards inside. As he faced the woman again ready to give instructions for Matty to hold her down, he saw that in her hand she held a sharp, gleaming knife.

  “Those vials could be used for the greater good, but you will use them for your own selfish gains,” She held the knife up to her windpipe. “I will tell you nothing,” she said, then plunged the knife in to her neck, dragging it along until a bloody mess remained.

  “No,” Brian shouted and leapt across the desk, desperate to stop the bleeding, to save the life of this stranger for his own twisted means.

  But his attempt was in vain. Nothing could stop the frantic flow of blood escaping from the gaping wound in her neck.

  Sally Carlton died with a smile on her lips and an image of the only man she had ever loved in her mind.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I want to cry. I want to rant and rave. To scream out that this is not fair, that I wasn't ready, I am too young for this. I want a do-over. But I do not, I cannot. I’m too busy running towards the screams echoing from the centre of the zone.

  “We’ll be too late.”

  I know it as soon as I heard the sound coming from the direction of the hospital. Bloodcurdling screams mixed with the unholy moans of the undead. I can picture the triage tents full of the injured getting coated with blood as those too hurt to move are ripped apart.

  “We’ll be too late.”

  I can feel it in my tired body. Battered and bruised from the intense war we have just waged, I cannot move faster, no matter how much I will my legs to run.

  “We’ll be too late.”

  I can see it in Joe's face, from the grim frown and furrowed brow, in his eyes, so fixed in determination, yet mingled with desperation. A face that must mirror my own.

  “We are too late. Way too late.”

  Thousands of zebs surround the triage tent; they’re our most vulnerable people, and they’re being slaughtered.

  The tents have collapsed in on themselves from the throng of bodies frantically trying to escape, but their fate is inevitable. No one could survive that horde.

  Joe pulls me to a stop and those following us follow suit. We stand in silence and watch the scene play out before us. As though observing from behind a pane of glass, it does not occur to either of us to turn heel and run. Yet neither do we rush in to help.

  We are too late.

  The zebs catch site of the next batch of fresh meat hanging around waiting to be picked off. A large group stumble in our direction, leaving their undead comrades to carry on their murderous campaign.

  I nock an arrow and loose it, earning a direct hit in the forehead of the nearest zeb. Others followed my lead, nocking and loosing. We take down many. But so many more replace them. The obstacles bestowed by the fallen zebs do little to stem the undead flow.

  I feel a hand on my elbow but nudge it away in irritation. Then the hand clings firmly to my upper arm.

  “It’s too late, Sammie, it’s gone,” Joe says.

  I lower my arrow and accept the truth.

  We had put all that we had into the fight with the living. Completely forgetting the threat of the dead. Somehow Brian had got the better of us. I nod dumbly and let myself be pulled away. He has won.

  Our Safe Zone had fallen.

  Somewhere in the distance echelons of my consciousness, I hear Joe shout the orders to retreat, and I mindlessly follow him, completely unaware of my actions. Together we weave in and out of the panicking crowd. More screams penetrate my mind, as the first of those who had raced with us back to the zone are torn apart by the undead monsters.

  “We need to get Sally,” Joe tells me, bringing me back to the here and now.

  Without further prompting I race up the steps and through the open doors of the council building. In my eagerness to rescue my aunt, my mind does not register the fact that the doors were open. Nor does it notice the silence that permeates through the building. So I am completely unprepared for what I find when I push my way into Sally’s office.

  Joe catches me as my legs give way at the sight of my beautiful aunt, slumped over her desk, her face resting in a pool of her own blood.

  “No …” I begin to wail before Joe clamps a hand around my mouth.

  “Sammie, I know it’s hard, but you need to stay quiet.”

  I nod against his grip, and he releases me. He takes a cursory glance around, as though looking for clues. It makes no sense that she took her own life. There is no way she could have known of the outcome of the battle, let alone the horror that is coming at us right now. I watched numbly as Joe bends down and retrieves a knife from the floor. The handle is wrapped in brown packaging tape. She must have fixed it to the underside of her desk as though expecting her own final stand.

  Then it hits me like a bullet to the heart.

  “He was here, he did this,” I tell Joe, not needing to vocalise to whom I am referring.

  “He was, but I suspect that she took her own life.”

  “The vials … she was protecting the vials.”

  Joe nods, “Sally and I thought that he would try to get to her. It was my idea for her to hide the knife. But I meant for her to use it to kill him. Not herself...” his brow furrows as though he is trying to make sense out of this madness, “he can’t have been alone, or he must have been threatening her with something.”

  These last words come out in a whisper, and I realise he is talking to himself, not to me.

  My mind flashes back to the conversation Sally and I had yesterday, “I bet he threatened her with torture. She knew she wouldn’t have been strong enough to resist.”

  Joe opens his mouth to answer, but a series of muted groans penetrate the room, “They’re here, we have to go.”

  I nod, but before I leave the office, I plant a kiss on the back of my aunt’s head.

  “I love you, Auntie Sal,” I whisper, then turn to follow Joe out of the room, closing the door behind me. I will not let those creatures of hell destroy her body.

  We are nearing the main door when I call out to him, “Wait, I need to get something.” I dart back into the S&T office and grab my satchel that I had left there for safe keeping before breakfast this morning.

  Joe glares at me as I dart back out of the office.

  “It’s important,” I mutter.

  He says something unintelligible and pulls open the main door.

  It is as though we have stepped out into hell.

  Men and woman beat, pummel and stab at the undead, but their movements are clumsy and awkward.

  Shots don’t land where they should, and it’s plain that they are losing. The tent where I served breakfast earlier is now splattered red from blood. Bodies lie on the floor, a few moaning in pain, but most of them still. Killed outright by the foul invaders. Soon they will rise and add to their numbers.

  “Joe, what can we do?" I ask as I stare out to the hopeless scene of destruction.

  “We can’t do anything, we need to get you out of here.”

  “No,” the venom drips from the single word, “We have to help them, they’re dying.” My words come out in a pathetic whine. I sound like a child whose toys have been taken away.

  Joe spins around and grabs me forcibly by the shoulders, he shakes me roughly, as though trying to bring me to my senses. But I have never been clearer. I can’t abandon these people.

  “Sammie. Listen to me,” Joe hisses. “We have to get you out of here. Sally told me that if she died, she wanted you to lead Zone E.”

  My mouth falls open, his words hitting me like a punch to the gut. I am not a leader.

  “Joe, I’m nineteen, I can’t lead this zone.” I flail my arms despairingly, "We don’t even have a zone anymore.”

  “Sally believed in you, I believe in you. The zone might have fallen, but we still have thousands of people waiting at the nozo compound who are going to need you.”

  I start to argue, but we are running out
of time. We can discuss this later. If we survive. But in the meantime, I might as well use my new position to my advantage. I smile sweetly, “Okay, Joe, first order of business. We help as many as we can.”

  Joe stares at me open mouthed, then he breaks out into a grin. “And that is why you will make a great leader,” then he turns back to the carnage playing out just a few steps away. His brow furrows in concentration, then he nods, ‘Okay, be ready to run.” He cups his hands around his mouth and roars, the sheer volume makes me jump out of my skin.

  “The zone is lost. Anyone who still can, run. Run now. Get to the outer gate.”

  “Last one there’s a sissy,” I scream at the top of my voice. Then clamp my hand over my mouth. What a moron.

  But for some reason, there is a transformation among the survivors. The mood seems to lift ever so slightly, as I hear some closest to us let out a spurt of laughter.

  But it seems that everyone who can, turns on their heel and runs. I doubt it is because they don’t want to be labelled a sissy. Maybe it is. Maybe my stupid joke made them feel that all was not lost.

  Joe gives me a brief sideways grin, then shouts, “Run.”

  I immediately see the threat. The zebs were attracted by the shouting and are coming up the steps towards us. Fortunately, they are quite clumsy and a few fall, blocking the way of others. But even so, they will be on us quickly. Following Joe, I run down the steps barrelling zebs out of the way as I go.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  A solitary figure stood at the window, hidden by the shadows where he waited. For what, he was not certain. He only knew that he must wait. For news, for a sign. For her.

  In the days that he stood waiting, he feared the worse. As each minute ticked by, a little more of his heart peeled away and died.

  The lack of any news from Zone E could mean a myriad of different things. The invasion had not yet happened, the person sent to bring them back to the zone had got lost.

  They say that no news is good news. But they are wrong. The scenarios that played out in Luca’s mind were dark, depressing, twisted.

  “Sammie’s dead, and no one else knows how to find the nozo compound. Everyone left in Zone E has been captured. No one has survived the attack.”

  The thoughts whirred in his mind. It was enough to turn a grown man mad.

  Over the days, Luca had been visited by many. Chloe had arrived yesterday, accompanied by his father. In better times, he might have noticed the shy looks that passed between them, or the occasional touch of their hands. So absorbed in the images in his mind, he let the blossoming friendship pass him by.

  They had tried to convince him to come back to the compound, that the news would find them soon enough. But he had refused. Better to wait here in isolation than to pretend all was well back in the cramped and noisy compound.

  Johanna had visited that morning. She laughed as she handed him a plate of food. “A reversal of roles,” she had called it, although she reminded him that he wasn’t locked away. He didn’t agree; he was trapped in a prison of his own making, and he would not be free until the news came.

  Johanna’s external wounds were healing, and the hearty food that she was eating was doing its job in filling her out. No longer the gaunt and beaten woman that she was, she looked healthy. It was only the haunted look that flashed in her eyes or the occasional lapse into silence that gave away the internal wounds that, perhaps, would never heal.

  She had left him alone when his words became monosyllabic and he had ceased all attempts to pretend to be listening as he stared out of that window. She had promised him that Sidney would be by in the evening. No doubt he would be accompanied by his wife. The couple had been inseparable ever since their happy reunion.

  The two had clung together, kissing and laughing and crying in equal measure. It had been a joy to behold, but for now, Luca pushed the memories away. They only led to thoughts of a reunion with Sammie.

  The day wore into evening. Sidney and his wife came and gave him food. Food which remained untouched on the table behind him. They had left quickly, his dark mood perhaps an unwelcome interruption of their rediscovered bliss.

  At first, Luca dismissed the shapes that appeared on the darkening horizon as nothing more than a figment of his imagination. The days of staring into nothingness were causing his mind to play tricks, giving him hope where there should be none. But as he continued to stare, the figures came into focus. People, hundreds of people.

  His heart beat so hard he feared it might break free from his rib cage and fly away. It was too far to see who was in the mass parade. But the mere existence of it told him one thing.

  Zone E had fallen.

  As the realisation dawned, he spun on his heels and swept through the house, taking the steps two at a time, breaking out into the streets and running as fast as he could to meet the crowd heading his way.

  Night had fully fallen by the time he reached the pack. He did not know if he was running into danger, but he did not care, he just ran.

  And there. At the head of the masses, she walked beside Joe. Luca could tell by the by the sag of her shoulders and the hang of her head that she was exhausted. Still, he ran. To her. To their future. Whatever that may hold.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  For the second time in less than a month, I am waiting for a vote, the outcome of which will change my life forever.

  I twist the small pill bottle idly between my thumb and finger, an action that has formed into a habit in the time we have been here. It offers me some comfort, some belief that despite all that has happened and all we have lost, we still have hope.

  I slept for two days when we got here. The fight, the flight, the long and frustratingly slow trip here had sapped me of all my strength. When Luca found me, I was ready to collapse. He held me the entire way back into the compound.

  Less than eight hundred of us made it back here. With the losses we suffered on the evacuation, there are less than four thousand left from Zone E. Our numbers have been bolstered in the most unlikely way.

  As we fled from the zone, we helped as many of the injured as we could, we did not have the time or the will to check to see from where they originated. We had secured the gates and barricaded the fence as best we could, trapping the undead inside. It was heart-breaking, but it was the right choice.

  We could not have that many zebs wandering in a horde, they would destroy everything in their path.

  It was only when the fences were secured, that Joe and I gathered all of the survivors around us. I offered those from Zone G a choice. Stay with us, even though we could not offer them anything except to be free from the tyrannical rule of Brian, or leave and go back to Zone G. I gave them a couple of hours to make their decision. We used that time to tend to the wounded.

  Three hundred and twenty-seven of the zoners from G made the decision to join us. The rest nominated a spokesman to come and talk with me. It was the baseball cap-wearing man that I met the other day. He greeted me nervously, as though I might lash out and kill him as soon as look at him. He told me that they had families back in the zone and needed to go home. He reassured me that they were not loyal to Brian, and if we sought to get revenge, they would fight with us. Then he thanked me for my compassion. I did not tell him that it was Sally that he should be thanking. It was her voice in my head that told me to make the offer in the first place.

  When we set out on the journey to the compound, we made sure everyone who wanted to come, was with us.

  No matter how bad the injuries, I promised we would help them. The few that had been bitten refused to come, not willing to put those of us left at risk. I accepted their decision with grace.

  The extent of some people's injuries was just too great, and we lost a few along the way. We travelled slowly and rested often. We kept talking to a minimum to avoid attracting the attention of any unfriendly nozos or hungry zebs. It took forever. It was exhausting, but we eventually got here.

  I shove the b
ottle back in my bag at the sound of Luca’s laughter. He and Red are walking towards me. I hide the bottle, because I am not willing to share the secret. Not yet.

  One day I suspect Luca may remember his dad passing me something over the campfire the night we fled Zone G. When he asks, I will tell him the truth. Of how, when we had no more cards to play, I had produced the Joker. Robert and I emptied the vial into this pill bottle and refilled it with water.

  I suspect Brian already knows. A virologist would have figured it out in a matter of hours. Sally’s death tells me that either he knows I purposefully tricked him, or maybe he believes that the vials are fake, but wanted them because we think they are real.

  It’s confusing, and it hurts my head to think of it. Plus it hurts my heart to think of him. Either way, it matters little. They are gone. Only Sally knows where they are and she is dead. The bottle I hold in my bag is all that is left of our most precious find.

  I smile nervously at Luca as he holds out his hand to pull me up, “Well?”

  “The vote was unanimous," he grins.

  “Shit …”

  He laughs, “Yep. Are you ready?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  He laughs again, then plants a kiss on my lips, “You’ll be great,” he says, then gives me a gentle shove, forcing me to walk out to the waiting crowd. Ready to address the refugees of Zone E, I stand in front of them for the first time as their new leader.

  Thousands of pairs of eyes stare up at me with hope and expectation written on their faces.

  “I’m only nineteen. Less than one month ago I had never left the zone. I don’t have the wisdom of Sally or the experience of Annie,” my words sound stilted and uncomfortable. I swallow nervously and continue, “but what I do have is such love for you all, and a passion for doing what is right.”

  I pause and wait for some sort of reaction. There is none, the crowd just stare back blankly at me.