She crouched down beside him and whispered in his ear: “I need you to come with me.”
Noel nodded and stood up, at the same time he lowered Dawn to the ground so that she was laying on her side, using his bag as a pillow. Still without speaking, he followed Beth back to the cave entrance.
A few people shifted around to look at them as they passed, but no one said anything. That was good, she thought, if she was going crazy (and she hadn’t dismissed the possibility) then she didn’t want them to know about it.
They stopped in front of the cave entrance.
“What is it?” Noel said. Although she was sure he hadn’t been asleep when she’d gone to him, his voice was rough and cracked and, maybe in another couple of minutes, he would have been.
“Can you hear that?” Beth said.
Noel looked at her as if he too was considering the possibility that she had gone mad. But he took a step towards her and angled his head so that his right ear was towards the cave entrance.
Beth watched him while he listened and tried to work out whether he could hear the engines as well. His expression didn’t give anything away. After a few moments, he stood back and looked at her.
“Well?” Beth said.
Noel shook his head. “All I can hear is the zombies,” he said. “What am I supposed to be listening to?”
Beth tried to hear the engines again but she couldn’t.
She shook her head. “Nothing I guess.”
He gave her a look that was a mixture of pity and annoyance. He started to turn away until the background moan of zombies was disturbed by the rapid clack-clack of machine gun fire.
Noel turned back and looked at her with wide eyes. Around them the other survivors had begun to get up off the floor and were looking in their direction, wondering what they had heard.
The machine guns fired and then stopped. Fired and then stopped. The process was repeated several times. When it was over, she couldn’t tell whether her ears had been so badly damaged that she could no longer hear the zombies, or if they had actually gone.
“You heard that too, didn’t you?” she said to Noel.
His expression hadn’t changed, but he nodded.
That was all the encouragement Beth needed. She didn’t have a plan for getting the others to safety, but she knew that something needed to be done. If they stayed in the cave, then they were as good as dead. She understood the risk but, it seemed to her, that she didn’t have any choice.
“I’m going out,” she said.
Noel grabbed her arm. She swung back to look at him. “Don’t be stupid Beth, you can’t go out there.”
“Why not?” she said. “Can you hear any zombies?”
Noel listened again and then shook his head.
“Somebody took care of them. They might be able to help us.”
“And they might not,” he said. “You don’t know who that was, it could be anyone. They might not be friendly.”
Even if they weren’t friendly, at least they weren’t zombies. Even if they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, help them, then they might at least not kill them.
“I’m going Noel,” she said.
“Let me go,” he said. “Or send somebody else. It’s too dangerous for you.”
Beth shook her head. If it was dangerous, then she was the only one she felt comfortable sending. How could she live with herself if she sent Noel or one of the others and they were killed?
She pulled her arm away from him and looked him in the eyes. “I’m going,” she said.
He said nothing and she turned away. She had to duck down to get through the bushes and out to the campsite.
She listened for zombies but didn’t hear them. She could hear people talking and she felt hopeful. Beth climbed out of the hole and stood up.
* * * * *
The ground was covered with zombies. There was no clear path to walk on and she didn’t want to step on any of the bodies. Beth looked down the hill and saw several men and women standing by the fire pit. It was the first time, in what felt like months, that she had seen a new face. For a moment, she didn’t know what to make of them.
At the centre of the group, there was a stocky man with long, greasy, grey hair. He was wearing a long grey coat. He had a machine gun in one hand, hanging by his side, and a cigarette in the other. He was talking to a younger man with short dark hair and a beard who was also holding a gun. Neither they nor any of the other people in the group, looked up the hill and noticed her.
There were two off-road motorbikes standing on the other side of the pit which explained the engines she had heard.
Beth wondered whether she could trust them.
When they started to move, she ducked back and tried to stay out of sight. Her plan was to watch them for a while before deciding what to do. She was sure that, if they were bad guys then, sooner or later, they would do something to reveal it. So far she couldn’t tell.
The man in the grey coat dropped his cigarette in the pit and looked around. He said something to the younger man which Beth couldn’t hear. Then the younger man nodded and went around the pit. He got on one of the motorbikes and started it up. He rode up the hill and disappeared from her sight in the forest.
Beth leaned against the cave and watched the man in the grey coat turn to the other people in his group. They were all carrying guns and looking at the zombies they had killed, thinking, no doubt, that one of them might not be fully dead and could come back and attack them.
The man said something and they all laughed. He patted one of them on the back and lit another cigarette.
They didn’t look like bad guys, she thought. Her mind raced with questions and concerns, but she pushed them all away. She thought about the people in the cave, the people who had decided, for one reason or another, that she was the right one to lead them. They had been wrong about that, but she still might be able to help them.
Beth made the decision without realising she had done so. Her body seemed to be one step ahead of her mind, and she suddenly found herself walking forwards. She stepped over one corpse and put her foot down on another. She almost screamed when she felt the softness (like rotten fruit) beneath her but managed to hold it in.
She took three more steps towards the group and then they saw her. Every one of them raised their guns. She froze with one foot on the ground and the other balanced on top of a zombie she had been about to step on.
“Who are you?” the man in the grey coat said.
Beth was so shocked to see a dozen guns pointed in her direction that, for a moment, she found she couldn’t speak.
“What’s your name?” the man said.
She licked her lips, but there was no moisture on her tongue to make a difference. When she spoke, it sounded as if her throat had been lined with sandpaper. “Beth,” she said.
“Beth who?” the man said.
“Beth Malone,” she said. She looked at the guns and noticed that they hadn’t been lowered, even though she’d spoken her name and proven that she wasn’t a zombie. Maybe she had made a mistake, and they weren’t good people.
“Is there anyone else here Beth?” the man said.
She thought about the people in the cave and knew that they would have no way of defending themselves against a dozen men and women with guns. If the man decided to kill her and go after them, then they would all die.
The man seemed to recognise her concern. He turned to the others in the group. “Put your guns down,” he said. “She’s not a zombie.”
One by one all of the guns were lowered, and she heard clicks as, she assumed, the safety mechanisms were reengaged. The man in the grey coat took a couple of steps towards her.
“Are you hurt Beth?” he said.
She shook her head.
“No bites? No scratches?”
She shook her head again. Now he was standing right in front of her.
“My name’s Russell Wright,” he said. He held out his hand, and she looked at it as if
the gesture was entirely foreign. After a moment, she shook it. “Pleased to meet you.”
Beth managed to smile.
“What are you doing here Beth?” he said. “Have you got people?”
He smelled clean and that, odd though it might have been, was the thing that ultimately made up her mind. If he was a bad guy, then he was doing a good job of hiding it. If he wanted to kill her (or worse), he could have done so already.
“There’s a cave,” she said. “We were hiding from the zombies.”
Russell nodded. “Well they’re gone now,” he said. “You can tell your people that it’s safe to come out.”
Beth nodded right back at him. He sounded as if he was from London, somewhere south of the river, but she didn’t know the place well enough to be sure. He had a friendly smile though, and that was more than she’d experienced recently. Without him needing to suggest it again she turned back towards the cave and led him to where the others were still hiding.
* * * * *
She kept expecting the zombies to come back. Now that the sanctity of the camp had been violated in such an extreme way, it felt like it was only a matter of time. The rest of the group were out of the cave now, but they hadn’t dared come too far towards the others. They clung together by the cave entrance and Beth stood with Russell, between the two groups.
“We don’t have to stay here,” Russell said. “We’ve got a camp on the other side of the hill. We can talk.”
She nodded and began to follow him. She turned back to the others and saw that they were no longer looking at her. They weren’t talking either, but at least they weren’t following her around like lost puppies.
Beth followed Russell up the hill and into the forest. He didn’t say anything to her and, for a moment, she wondered what he really had in mind. She guessed that he was about sixty, maybe a couple of years younger, and he had a confidence that she couldn’t deny was attractive. He also reminded her too much of Wesley to seriously consider any romantic involvement. But, if he thought differently, was there anything she could do to stop him?
There were more zombies on the ground in the forest and, for the first time, Beth seriously considered the scope of the threat. It now seemed as if there was no way they could have survived without Russell’s help. The zombies would either have found them in the cave or stuck around until they’d starved to death.
“How long have you been on the road?” Russell said.
Beth shook her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t know, but her mind had been elsewhere (still in the cave?) and she hadn’t heard him properly.
“Never mind, we’ll talk inside.”
Inside? She thought. But, before she could ask him what he meant by that, she saw for herself. At the bottom of the hill, parked in the field of dying corn, there were half a dozen vehicles. She counted three large caravans, two vans, and an open-topped jeep. In addition to that, there were five motorbikes like the one she had seen the other man ride away on. There were people as well, at least thirty of them and ranging in age from young children to a woman who looked old enough to be Russell’s mother. Even from a distance, Beth could see that they were well fed and cared for. Behind the final caravan, there were cows and sheep.
She didn’t know what to say. She glanced at Russell but he didn’t appear to appreciate how remarkable his little convoy was.
“I’ll introduce you,” Russell said..
“Maybe later,” Beth said. Meeting Russell had been enough of a shock to her system, for now. It would be overwhelming to meet so many new people all at once. “You said you wanted to talk.”
“I think we should,” he said.
She followed him down the hill, and some of the people turned to look at him and, by association, her. At first, she thought that they didn’t like the look of her (and why would they?), but then she recognised that they were simply curious. They weren’t looking at her to solve all of their problems, an expression that she had become used to in the last few weeks.
He led her to the caravan at the back of the convoy and opened the door. “In here,” he said. “No one will disturb us.”
She went in ahead of him.
“Just put the boxes on the floor,” Russell said as he pulled the door closed behind him. “Take a seat.”
Beth did as he told her and simply following an instruction was a relief. Once there was a space cleared, to reveal a brown striped seat, she sat down.
“Do you want something to drink?” Russell said.
“Sure,” she said.
He went to the sink. “Is coffee okay? I can go and get tea if you’d rather have that.”
Beth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d thought she’d drunk her last cup of coffee in Harmony. She nodded but tried not to seem too enthusiastic, she still didn’t know what Russell wanted, and she refused to be bribed with coffee, even if it was the thing she missed the second most in the world. “Coffee is fine.”
He took a two litre bottle of water out from under the sink and filled the kettle. The stove in the caravan actually worked, and she marveled at it the way a cave man might have done. While he was making the coffee, she looked around. She guessed the caravan it could have slept six or seven people comfortably, maybe twice that at a push.
“There’s no milk,” Russell said as he stepped over a box holding two chipped mugs. He handed one of them to Beth, and she wrapped her hands around it, enjoying the way it burned the skin on her palms.
“Black’s fine,” she said.
He sat down opposite her and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. “Do you mind?”
She shook her head. He lit the cigarette, and even the rancid smell of burning tobacco was a welcome one.
“Where are you from Beth?” he said.
“Straight down to business then?” she said.
Russell shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s fine,” she said. She raised the cup to her face and inhaled the aroma of coffee. It was only instant, but it was still the best thing she had smelled in a very long time. It tasted even better. “We’re from a place called Harmony. There was an attack, we got away.”
“Harmony,” he said thoughtfully and shook his head. “Never heard of it. You came on foot, though, so it can’t be far away.”
Looking down the hill in the direction the convoy had come from Beth thought that they must have passed straight through it. Although she had known that there couldn’t be anything left of Harmony, it was difficult to see it so bluntly put. “I don’t know what it was called before. Wesley renamed it after my grandmother.”
“You know, we’ve been travelling around for so long that I’m not really sure where we’re from anymore,” he said. “I was in Brixton when it started, but I got out of London as quickly as I could.”
Beth sipped her coffee, trying to savour every mouthful of the unexpected treat. Russell told her about how he’d found the first caravan, the one they were sitting in now, and taken his family as far away from the city as he could get them. They went north and met more people, he didn’t say where, because he didn’t know. Before the zombies had come, he’d barely left London.
They met more people as other towns and cities emptied. Some of them stuck around, like the old woman Kathy, who he seemed to have a special affection for, and others went their own way. About a year after the first zombie had appeared he realised that they needed to arm themselves. The cities were empty so the zombies moved to the country. He found an abandoned military base and broke in. There were weapons and supplies and the five motorbikes that she had seen outside.
By the time Beth had finished her coffee, she had a pretty good overview of Russell’s journey. He spoke in a friendly way, and she couldn’t help but be drawn to him. When he took out another cigarette and lit it, signaling the end of their exchange, she decided that she liked him.
“Down to business then,” he said.
She shifted awkwar
dly in her seat. What did he want from her and, maybe just as importantly, what did she want in return?
* * * * *
Russell leaned towards her, his face split into a smile that did little to reassure her. “Don’t look so worried Beth.”
“What sort of business?” she said.
“Well,” Russell said, punctuating himself with another draw on his cigarette. “It seems to me like you and yours are in a bit of bother. Could use a helping hand, so to speak.”
That was true, she was prepared to admit to that, but there was still the question of what he was offering and what he would want in return.
“Maybe we could help you,” Russell said.
“How could you help us?” Beth said.
Russell shrugged and leaned back in his chair. He was a powerful man and made no secret of it. “We’ve got space, you could join us.” He leaned forward suddenly. “If you think it might help.”
“Join your convoy?” she said.
If she had been offered the same earlier that day, or any of the days of hunger and thirst leading up to it, she would have jumped at the chance. She wasn’t sure why, but now, she found herself hesitant.
“It doesn’t have to be my convoy,” Russell said. “Tell you the truth; I’m not much of a leader. Just do what I think will keep my family safe and everyone else is welcome to come along. I don’t mind sharing the burden with you. You’ve got your own people.”
“And what do you get in return?” she said.
“Now that’s the question, isn’t it?” he said.
She watched him, but he made no attempt to undress her with his eyes, nor his hands. He stroked the grey-white beard that covered his neck but not in a lecherous way. The two parts of her mind were dueling, still unsure whether he was a threat or not.
“We can always use some extra help,” he said. “And I don’t want you thinking it’s an easy life on the road. There’s no farming, no staying anywhere for more than a few days at a time. It’s hard work and dangerous. Maybe you’ll just want to stay until we find a nice village somewhere.”
Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Zero Hour Page 9