by Thomas Hall
There were no lights on in the building and she found herself wondering what Margaret and the others were doing. What their plan for survival was. Maybe they were hiding in the basement, locked away and hoping that the zombies would leave them alone. That even if the heavy doors failed and the zombies got inside, they wouldn’t be able to find them.
Zombies weren’t good at steps, especially the slow moving kind, but it still seemed like a dangerous plan, to leave the survival of your people down to fate. She knew that she wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Or maybe they were behind those closed curtains, living their lives as normal and trying to ignore the sound of the zombies. It was easier to imagine Margaret doing that, than hiding, but Beth hardly knew the woman and was prepared to admit that she could be capable of anything.
They stopped at the other end of the park and looked out through the gates.
There were zombies there. Not many yet, but they were still outnumbered and, they were too close to the main pack to start shooting.
‘Looks like this is as far as we go,’ Russell said.
Beth found herself nodding but she wasn’t prepared to give up yet.
They crouched on the ground with their backs against the wall and listened to the zombies. Beth couldn’t see them, but it sounded like there were more now than there had been. If they were massing outside the park, then maybe they knew they were there. She was aware that the others were waiting for her to give orders to head back to the street, to give up trying to help the Townies.
She thought about Dawn and wondered whether she’d tried hard enough to appease her sister.
The sound of wood cracking drew her attention. She got up to go and check, but Russell put out an arm and held her in place. He nodded along the line and she saw Darrel crouching by the gate, looking through.
Darrel came back a moment later.
‘What’s going on?’ Beth said.
‘They’ve got a door down,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t look like it goes anywhere but they’ll get another soon.’
There was nothing she could do to help them, it seemed, but that didn’t stop her feeling guilty. But even if Margaret had accepted her help, there might have been nothing they could do against this many zombies and the mutants that walked amongst them.
‘Beth--‘ Russell began.
‘I know!’ she said sharply, cutting him off. He was going to tell her that there was nothing they could do and that they would be better off heading back to the street where they could, at least, defend their own people.
‘No,’ Russell said. ‘That’s not what I mean. Maybe there’s something we can do.’
She turned to look at him. Her mind was blank; she couldn’t think of a single thing they would be able to do against the zombies.
‘Your friend,’ Russell said.
She frowned at him, had no idea what he was talking about. She shook her head and began to ask him but before the words came out it hit her.
‘No…’ she said. ‘No, I can’t.’
‘If you want to help those people it might be the only way,’ he said.
‘But he’s… it’s…’ What? What was the super zombie? The last piece of Dale she had left? The super zombie was a monster but she had come to rely on him, to trust him to be there for her. ‘There’s too many of them.’
Russell was nodding. ‘Maybe, but what’s the other choice? We go back to the street, we hide and hope they don’t come after us once they kill everyone in there?’
That sounded like a better option than sending the super zombie to fight for her. Although it had done so before, she never would have dreamed of letting it loose amongst this many.
‘They’ll come for us next,’ Russell said. ‘You know they will.’
There was a sound on the other side of the park and they all stopped to look towards it. Beth couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but she had heard it and knew there was something there.
She couldn’t hear a moan but, apparently, that didn’t mean anything anymore.
‘Wait here,’ Russell said.
He was on his feet and walking into the darkness before any of them could say or do anything to stop him.
Beth listened to the sound of his footsteps until she could no longer hear them. Then she waited to hear the sound of fighting or, better yet, voices. But she heard neither.
They sat together in the cold park and stared into the darkness. There was no way that any of them could see what was happening, but they could imagine.
Minutes seemed to pass and they heard nothing. Russell didn’t return.
Eventually Darrel stood up and checked his weapon.
‘What are you doing?’ Beth whispered.
‘Going to make sure he’s alright,’ Darrel said.
Beth stood as well, so did Noel and the others.
‘Stay here,’ Darrel said. ‘I won’t be long.’
‘I’m coming as well,’ she said.
He looked as if he was considering an argument, but in the end he just shook his head. He started walking and Beth followed. Noel and the others came along behind her.
They followed Russell’s footprints across the park. He hadn’t gone far.
Three zombies stood in the middle of the park. They didn’t make a sound.
Darrel raised his gun and aimed at them. Beth did the same.
The zombies didn’t move which seemed strange. She could see that they were the quick kind, but they just stood there, watching them with a curiosity that she didn’t think was genuine. She felt uneasy.
A fourth zombie appeared, seemingly from nowhere. It was large and quick and heartbreakingly familiar. Beth was too shocked to do anything except stare at Russell as he came charging towards them, blood dripping from his mouth and his vacant, unfocused eyes.
Darrel raised his gun and aimed at his father. Beth wondered how he could switch so easily. The man, no, zombie now, that he was aiming at had been talking to them no more than ten minutes ago. But she realised that man was dead. Whatever was coming for them now wasn’t Russell, it was something else that was using his body. A living virus that would kill and infect them all.
Darrel lowered his gun, shaking his head and shivering. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said.
Beth understood. She raised her own gun and aimed it at Russell’s head.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Then she pulled the trigger.
His head didn’t explode and, for a moment, she thought she had been wrong, that Russell hadn’t been turned at all and that she had just killed him. But then his body started to fall and she saw it in his eyes, something like gratitude and, if it hadn’t been that, then she was prepared to lie to herself for the rest of her life that it had been.
The other three zombies came towards them, running over Russell’s body as if it wasn’t there at all.
She turned her gun on them, but before she could squeeze the trigger they dropped to the ground. Beth turned and saw Noel, Darrel and Kris with their guns up.
The immediate threat was gone but none of them moved. Beth didn’t think she would be able to if she tried. Russell was dead. She couldn’t believe it. He was gone.
The body on the ground didn’t look like Russell and, in a way, that made it more difficult to cope with. It would have been all too easy to believe that it wasn’t him at all, that, somehow, it was someone else who had been turned. But she knew it was Russell.
Someone touched her arm and she turned to see Noel.
‘We have to go,’ he said.
She could hear them coming. The low moaners and the silent ones. They had been drawn by the gunfire and it wouldn’t take them long to break through the gate.
There was a loud clang and a crash and then, all of a sudden, it seemed as if there were zombies everywhere.
Beth still couldn’t move.
She wanted to tell them to go, to leave her there rather than get themselves killed, but she couldn’t seem to move her mouth to speak.
; The zombies got closer, she thought she could smell them, but the others didn’t abandon her. They raised their guns and loaded another magazine, ready to fight and, most likely, die beside her.
Russell had been the real soldier; she’d just been playing at it. Now she was being found out and there was nothing she could do except watch more of her friends get killed by the zombies. If she was lucky then she would be the first to go.
CHAPTER 17
DARREL FIRED THE FIRST SHOT AND AFTER THAT she lost track. She reached for her own gun and started to fire blindly into the mass of zombies, even though she knew that the best she could hope for was to delay the inevitable and take a few of the creatures down with her.
Why hadn’t she thought to bring a few hand grenades with her?
She became aware of another sound amongst the zombie moans. It was different again and it took her a moment to place it.
Beth turned around and looked back towards the town hall. It was on fire.
The smoke was curling into the sky, dark plumes that would suffocate and kill. She could only see them because of the flames that were climbing the walls.
For a moment she didn’t have any idea what had happened. It didn’t make any sense.
Then she thought about what the Townies might have done to defend themselves when the first zombies broke in. She suspected they had weapons, even if they were reluctant to use them. But it looked very much like they had tried to blow the zombies up while they were still in the same building.
A gut shaking boom was followed by more fire and smoke which seemed to confirm her theory. Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t working. New zombies simply climbed over the bodies of those who had taken the full force of the blast.
‘Beth!’ Darrel shouted.
She turned away from the blaze and saw that the zombies had gotten closer. They were being held back only by the continuous staccato thud of machine gun fire, but that wouldn’t last forever. Soon they would run out of bullets and they would be as dead as Russell.
She didn’t know what to do and was beginning to suspect that she couldn’t do anything, that they were all going to die and then there would be nothing to stop the zombies heading for the street and killing the rest of her people.
A creature with the fangs of a spider and bloody red eyes lurched towards her. She swallowed her revulsion and fired a shot cleanly into its distorted head. Whatever the thing was she didn’t want it to live.
She fired again and again and seemed to feel her gun get lighter as the ammunition ran low. How long did she have left? How many more shots could she make?
Russell had told her to bring the super zombie and maybe he’d been right.
Beth turned a complete circle.
For the most part they were completely blocked in by the zombies, but maybe one of them could get away. She wondered who she would send and then realised that she couldn’t send anyone; the super zombie would only come to her, would only listen and do as she said.
Would it go to its death for her though?
She didn’t know, but she realised she had to find out. There was no other chance of success. If she didn’t do it, then the Townies would burn to death and her friends would become zombies.
‘Beth?’ Noel said.
‘Keep them back, okay?’ she said. There was no time to explain what she was going to do and she didn’t wait for an answer. Beth backed away from the group and then threw herself into the middle of the horde, hoping that she could fight her way through and get to the super zombie before it was too late.
She had to push and shove to get through, but few of the zombies posed a serious threat. They weren’t looking at her. They were all pushing one another, struggling to get to the others. It occurred to Beth that she was using her friends as a distraction, but she couldn’t afford to let that hold her back.
If there was any hope at all, it lay with the super zombie.
Once she was free, she ran as quickly as she could. If any of them chased her, she was unaware of it. Looking back to check would take extra time, which she didn’t have.
The snow was coming down more heavily now and, at times, she could barely see a metre ahead. She remembered a time in her life when snow had been something beautiful, now it meant death. Everything seemed to mean death now.
She slowed and turned back. There was no sign of zombies behind her, but she could still hear them moaning on the other side of the walls that surrounded the park, punctuated occasionally by the sound of machine gun fire.
At least that meant they were still alive.
She started to run again, less quickly and more in control.
Beth headed back towards the street but hoped that the super zombie would find her before she made it that far. Darrel and the others couldn’t hold out against the zombies forever.
She made it to the college and followed the path down to the river where she had last seen the super zombie. When she reached the spot where they had sat and spoken, she stopped. It was nowhere to be seen.
Beth paced back and forth. There was an abandoned newsagent opposite the college carpark but no sign of life. Even the river had frozen. The only sound she could hear was her own breathing as she tried to calm down.
A part of her wanted to turn around and go back, but what good would she be on her own?
If she returned to the street then she might be able to convince others to join her, but that would mean putting more people in danger. Their chances of succeeding were slim, even with the super zombie to fight for them.
Then she heard it.
The super zombie moved with surprising grace and silence. One moment she felt as if she was standing on her own, the next it was beside her, looming down from its great height.
She turned towards it. The super zombie was as scarred and rotting as any other zombie most of the time, but it seemed able to regenerate. Now it stood before her with skin red raw, like a freshly picked scab. It had never looked more like Dale.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ she said.
The creature murmured but it had no words to reply.
‘We’re in trouble,’ she said. ‘I need your help.’
It lowered and raised its head in a sort of nod. The gesture looked awkward on its hulking frame.
‘There’s a lot of zombies,’ she said, cringing over the word as if it was an insult. ‘And some new ones I haven’t seen before.’
The super zombie nodded again.
She wished that it could talk, just so that it would question what she was planning to do. It wasn’t right to ask the creature to sacrifice itself for her, but she had a feeling that was exactly what she was doing. The super zombie couldn’t know the danger it would be facing, but she could.
‘Will you help?’ she said, even if it didn’t understand, she would feel better if she got its agreement.
The super zombie nodded.
Beth reached for its hand and cringed as she felt its new, soft flesh against hers. It was like touching a baby’s hand, if that baby was a giant virus that had killed most of the people on Earth.
She led it away, forcing herself to keep holding its hand, regardless of the disgust that she felt. This might be the last time that she was alone with the creature, alone with Dale, and it wasn’t just for her that she did it. Beth had known for a long time that the creature loved her but this was as close as she could get to loving it back.
It wasn’t Dale, it wasn’t even a proxy of Dale, it was a creature that had been made using a part of his genetics, but it was all she had. They walked together into the snow and to find the battle that would likely part them forever.
They walked more quickly as they neared the park. Beth could see the fire raging in the town hall from a distance, spreading to other buildings nearby. It would be worse if not for the snow.
When she heard the moans of the zombies in the park she stopped and waited to see whether she would also hear the machine guns firing. She didn’t, but told herself tha
t didn’t mean her friends were dead. They might have found another way to survive.
The super zombie let go of her hand. It turned towards the park and seemed to be listening to the zombies.
‘What are they saying?’ Beth said. ‘Are they talking?’
The super zombie shook its head and she realised that she was being stupid, holding onto some grim hope that she didn’t have to do this because zombies if zombies could talk then it meant they were sentient creatures and she wouldn’t order their deaths. But no, they were mindless killers, their moans the slack-jawed sound of a dead mind.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Beth said, almost immediately ignoring her own principle. But the super zombie was different, wasn’t it?
The creature didn’t answer. Instead it looked at her, then turned and started to run.
The snow flew away from the super zombie as if the nakedness of his flesh offended it. Beth lost track of it as it charged through the gate and into the park.
Beth didn’t trust herself to go running after the super zombie. She didn’t know what part she was going to play in any of this because the super zombie hadn’t been able to explain it to her. Did it have any expectations at all?
Once she had caught her breath she began moving slowly towards the gate.
The noises coming from inside had changed now. The moaning had taken on a more urgent tone, it made her skin crawl.
She crept around the corner, cautiously, not sure what she was going to find. A part of her expected to see Noel and Darrel but as zombies.
There were bodies everywhere.
Beth didn’t know how many zombies Darrel and the others had managed to kill, but it was clear that the super zombie was much more efficient. It stood in the middle of the park, just a silhouette against the burning town hall, and lifted the regular zombies off their feet, crushing their skulls with its bare hands and then discarding the bodies like empty monkey nuts.