“I understand that it’s one zombie,” Russell said. “And I don’t care how big it is, we’ve got guns.”
Darrel shook his head and then they both turned towards Beth as if they expected her to take their side. She shook her head because she didn’t know what to say.
Thunder tore through the sky, and she looked up just as a flash of lightning illuminated the world. It would be bad to lose the jeep but if Darrel was right, if this really was some new kind of zombie, then they would be better off avoiding it.
“We can come back for it,” she said. “Can’t we?”
They were both still looking at her, and she wanted to turn away. She didn’t want to be the one to make the decision, but it looked like she already had.
“Dad?” Darrel said.
Russell gave her a disappointed look and then turned to Darrel. “Fine. But we are coming back.”
“Sure,” Darrel said. “Whatever you say.”
They turned to go back to the caravans. Russell and his family would have to share space with the rest of them. They got two steps away from the jeep before a sound that was nothing like thunder, but just as angry, ripped through the air and caused them all to stop.
* * * * *
Darrel was the first to turn. He stood in front of Beth, and she could see in his expression that the zombie was there. He didn’t say anything and for a moment, Beth didn’t look. She didn’t know if she wanted to see it, couldn’t think how it would benefit her at all.
Then Russell turned, and she felt like she had to as well.
Beth looked up the hill, and her mouth fell open.
The creature was unlike any she had seen before. It had, broadly, human features but they had been warped and distorted by its extreme growth. Even at a distance she could see that its skin was stretched over freakishly large muscles. Darrel hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d described its size.
Beth took a step back.
“What is it?” she said. It might have been a zombie, there were certainly plenty of similarities, but it was also something else.
“I don’t know,” grumbled Russell, “but we want to get out of its way.”
“Agreed,” Darrel said.
They backed away together, none of them seeming to want to turn their backs on the creature.
Beth watched it turn to look at them. Its eyes were different to those of a regular zombie. She didn’t want to think of it as having a kind of humanity, but that seemed to be the case.
It felt wrong to even call it a zombie.
The creature began moving towards them. She stared at it, no longer able to move. Even if they abandoned the jeep now, she thought, they wouldn’t be able to escape from the creature.
It came down the hill towards them, and she saw that it wasn’t alone. In its wake, there were regular zombies. Hundreds of them.
“We have to go,” she said, still not looking away from the creature.
“There’s no time,” Russell said. “Get the guns, we’ll have to kill it.”
“Tell the others to go,” Beth said.
“What?” Russell said.
“Anyone who wants to fight can stay,” she said. “But the children go.”
Russell nodded and then he told Darrel to go and inform the caravans of the plan.
She didn’t think they had a chance of defeating the zombies, but maybe they could delay them long enough for the rest of the convoy to escape.
The thought that she might die didn’t scare her. When she heard the engines starting, and the vehicles move away, she thought about Dale and understood that he had been right. Sometimes sacrifice was the only way to save the people you loved. Better they live on to mourn you than you all die together.
Russell pressed a gun into her hands. Less than a dozen people had stayed behind. It hurt to think that she might never see her sister again, but she knew that this was the only way for one of them to survive.
The creature got closer, and she turned to face it. She didn’t know what it was, nor where it had come from, but it was a threat, and she would do whatever she could to stop it reaching the convoy and killing the people she cared about.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Velma slowed the jeep as they approached a dip in the road. When she got closer, she saw that it was a hole as big as a swimming pool. She stopped the jeep completely.
“What’s wrong?” Lucy said. She had been asleep in the passenger seat, but now she was suddenly wide-eyed and alert. She looked out of the window. “Is there a way round it?”
Velma looked, but she couldn’t see one. “We’ll have to go back,” she said.
There was movement behind her and Sam leaned forwards. “I could have a go,” he said.
Since the incident with Mark they hadn’t become friends, but they were showing her the respect a senior officer deserved. And really, that was better than she could have hoped for.
“You think you can get through there?” she said.
He shrugged. “I could have a go.”
“If you get it stuck we’re walking,” she reminded him.
“I won’t get it stuck.”
They were a week out of the compound and running low on everything. Even if he managed to get the jeep to the other side of the hole they didn’t have more than a day’s worth of fuel left, and even less food and water. After that, they would be walking whether he got the jeep stuck or not. Worst case scenario was that they set off on foot a few hours early.
“Okay,” she said. “Everyone out.”
They all got out and Sam climbed into the drivers seat. She had a sudden fear that he was just going to turn the vehicle around and drive off without them (her), but it was clearly unfounded. Although she had no doubt that he would abandon her in the middle of nowhere, by now, she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t do that to the others.
She stood by the side of the road and watched him edge the jeep forwards. He moved slowly enough that she began to wonder whether he had changed his mind. Perhaps the hole looked more daunting from the driver’s seat. Then he reached the edge, and the front wheels went over.
* * * * *
Velma watched the rear end of the jeep follow the front and then the whole thing disappeared. She started walking towards the hole to watch Sam’s progress, but before she had taken two steps, she felt a hand on her arm. She turned and saw Lucy standing there.
“Can I talk to you?” Lucy said.
Velma looked at the hole. She felt like she should be watching what happened to her jeep, but she also felt like she owed Lucy “Sure,” she said.
They walked away from the others so they couldn’t be overheard. Lucy brushed red hair out of her face.
“What is it?” Velma said.
“I’ve been watching the zombies,” she said.
Velma nodded. They had all been watching the zombies.
“Have you noticed how they all seem to be going north?” she said.
“North?” Velma said. She wasn’t even sure which direction north was, but then she was a doctor, not a soldier.
Lucy nodded. “It’s like they’re travelling towards something.”
“That’s just your imagination,” Velma said. “We did tests on them, they don’t have the intelligence to know where they’re going. They follow food.”
“What about danger?” Lucy said.
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
“Well, what if they’re not travelling towards something, what if they’re travelling away from it?”
“You mean the super zombie?”
Lucy nodded. She looked embarrassed and maybe that was because she was a soldier, used to taking orders but rarely thinking for herself. Velma was the scientist, if there was a pattern, then she should have been the one to notice it.
“I’m not sure how that helps us,” Velma said. “We’re already following its trail.”
“But we don’t know how far away we are,” Lucy said. “We’ve got about twelve hour
s of fuel left and after that, we’ll never catch it.”
“You think we might catch up if we follow the zombies?”
“Not follow them, if they’re running away from it then we’ll need to go in the opposite direction to them.”
Velma nodded. Behind her, she could hear the jeep engine being revved, but she didn’t turn around. What Lucy was saying made sense. Although they had never seen evidence of zombies showing fear, they hadn’t looked for it either. There was a chance she was right.
“Okay,” Velma said. “Okay, let’s give it a try.”
They turned in time to see the jeep crest the other side of the hole. The camouflaged front was airborne for what seemed like minutes before it came crashing down on the ground, bouncing on its suspension. The others cheered and clapped and then started making their way around the narrow edge of the hole to get to it.
“Come on,” Velma said.
She and Lucy walked back to the jeep, and when they reached it, Sam was getting out of the driver’s seat.
“Nice work,” Velma said as she passed him.
“Any time boss,” he said.
She tried not to show it, but she felt a smile straining to come out. Lucy’s advice had helped her win the respect of the soldiers and, she hoped, it would get them to the super zombie before they ran out of fuel.
* * * * *
They cleared the forest twenty minutes later and in the open country, she could see small herds of zombies. Now that she was looking at them, studying them, again, she could see that they really were all moving in the same direction.
Velma wondered what they would find in the north. It was possible that right now a community was being swarmed by the creatures with no idea why. By letting the super zombie free, they might have killed a lot of people.
Lucy turned the jeep away from the trail. The zombies were all coming from the same direction which made it easy to see which way they should go.
Once they’d found the trail, the path became too narrow and the zombies too numerous to travel much above walking speed.
Velma turned back to the others. “Mark, Michelle, see if you can clear us a path.”
“Out there?” Michelle said.
“You heard me,” Velma said. “And no guns. I don’t want you bringing them all towards us.”
“Yes boss,” Michelle said sarcastically.
The back doors opened, and they climbed out.
Velma watched as they began cutting through zombies and kicking their bodies off the path. They were now limited to the speed that Mark and Michelle could walk, but it was better than having zombies pawing at the jeep as they went past.
Progress was slow, but she began to believe that Lucy had been right. She leaned over and looked at the petrol gauge. They were close to running on empty, and there was no fuel left in the canisters in the back. If they didn’t find the creature soon, then they would have to get out and walk. The soldiers would likely be fine, but she didn’t rate her own chances, and she didn’t think that any of them liked her enough to put their life in danger to protect her.
* * * * *
An hour later they were moving even more slowly. Mark and Michelle had been joined by Alice, but there were now so many of the undead that they’d had to stop completely.
“I’m not going to be able to get through,” Lucy said.
“Do you want me to have a go?” Sam said, now the only one sitting in the back seat.
Lucy looked at Velma.
She stared out of the window and everywhere she looked there were more zombies. There was clearly no way that anyone could get the jeep through, not even Sam.
“No,” she said. “We’ll walk.”
“With all due respect—“ Sam began.
“We’ll walk,” Velma said.
Neither of them said anything, but they began to gather the guns and other weapons. Lucy switched off the engine.
“It must be close,” Velma said.
“But there’s so many of them,” Lucy said.
Velma took a breath. It went against every instinct that she possessed, but she forced herself to open the door and climb out.
The air was thick with the smell death. She had worked in morgues before but never smelled anything as bad as this. She wanted to vomit but managed to stop herself.
“This way,” she said.
Mark, Michelle and Alice turned to look at her, and she could see the surprise in their expressions. They hadn’t expected her to risk her own life by getting out of the jeep, and she was glad to show them that she was willing to do so.
Velma let the three of them go ahead to cut through the mass of zombies. Lucy and Sam followed behind and took care of those that were trying to sneak up on them. She held her own knife tightly but hoped that she wouldn’t need to use it. She had cut up plenty of dead bodies but none that had still been moving.
A face loomed at her from the shadows of the forest. It moved towards her with superhuman speed. It was a fresh zombie, she thought, in the brief moment before it landed on her and she was knocked to the ground, her knife falling out of her hand.
The air was forced out of her lungs. She tried to push the creature away, but she couldn’t get any purchase on its blood-soaked chest.
The zombie opened its mouth, and she saw its rotten tongue flailing about. She cried out for help but already knew that none of the soldiers would come to her. Even Lucy wasn’t really her friend.
She blindly reached for her knife. With her left hand, she tried to hold the monster back, but it was close enough for her to smell its rancid breath. She tried to remember whether she had any recent injuries or anything that might allow an infection to get in.
It was impossible to tell whether the zombie had been a man or a woman. Long dirty hair hung down in front of its face blocking her view.
She felt her arms go limp as she accepted what was going to come next. Would she be aware that she had become a zombie? When she had turned, which of the soldiers would destroy her? She hoped that it would be Mark.
The explosion of the gun was so close that, for a moment, she was sure that she had been shot. Her face was suddenly covered with blood, and she closed her mouth quickly. The zombie fell on her.
A moment later the creature fell away, and she found herself looking up at Sam. He reached out and picked her up.
“Did it get you?” he said.
She shook her head, still confused about what had happened. “I don’t think so.”
There was a pain in her leg but when she looked down the fabric of her trousers was intact, so she guessed it was just where she’d fallen. As her mind cleared, she began to understand that Sam had saved her.
“Come on,” Sam said. “We need to get out of here.”
Velma nodded and bent to pick up her knife. Her ankle throbbed painfully, and that worried her, but she put it away to think about another time. Sam was right: they needed to go.
* * * * *
Working as a team, they were able to hack their way through the zombies and left a trail of corpses behind as they made their way along the path. They didn’t talk as they went, but Velma was reassured by their grunts and cursing.
Ahead she could see the end of the path and the forest. She could see where the zombies were coming from, bursting through the trees. In its panic, one of the zombies had become lodged against a tree and didn’t seem to have worked out that it just needed to turn a little to the left, and it would be free. Velma watched it for a moment and then Alice removed its head.
They stumbled past the last trees together and practically fell out of the forest. The rain soaked through her almost at once and, as if marking their passage from one world to the next, thunder boomed overhead.
Velma wiped a hand across her face to clear the rain and then she looked down the hill. The first thing she saw was not the super zombie, it was the caravans. She counted five vehicles in total but there might have been more, it was difficult to tell as everything seemed
washed out by the rain.
Were there people there?
The super zombie was moving towards the caravans. Behind it, there was a trail of regular zombies which seemed to have gotten over their fear and were following it, rather than running away. Perhaps they had learned to pick at its remains like carrion birds.
A gunshot rang out above the sound of thunder, and she realised that the caravans were not abandoned. There were people down there and if she didn’t do something, they would all be killed.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A gunshot rang out. Beth watched the creature and saw its left shoulder knocked back by the impact, but it barely slowed down. If it had been a regular zombie, then the bullet wouldn’t have killed it, but it would have had an effect. The giant kept coming.
She turned to Russell and Darrel, and they looked at her.
“What do we do?” she said.
“We have to get out of here,” Darrel said.
“It’s too late for that,” Russell said. “We’ll never outrun it.”
Beth was inclined to agree, but she didn’t see how they could stop it. A head shot might still work, but she had a feeling they would need to use more powerful weapons than they carried. Which meant they could stand and fight, and die. Or they could run, and die. It was a lose-lose situation.
“We need guns,” she said.
They both nodded and for a moment she realised that she had taken charge of the situation.
“The biggest guns you’ve got,” she added.
Russell went to the van behind the jeep and slid the door open. She hadn’t actually seen inside before and, now that she could, Beth was impressed with the variety and number of weapons they had collected. She had never doubted Russell’s story about the military base, but she was still surprised by how much he had been able to get away with.
Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Zero Hour Page 16