Z-Minus Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Perrin Briar

9:17am

  Chris and Maisie emerged from the woods, their clothes splattered with mud and blood. They removed their masks and helmets and held them under their arms.

  “I’ll go get changed,” Maisie said.

  “No, come with me.”

  “I need to change.”

  Chris didn’t reply. Maisie sighed and followed him.

  “If you’re ever confronted with a zombie by yourself I want you to run,” Chris said. “Run as fast as your legs can carry you.”

  “I know, Dad. You’ve told me, like, a million times. Anyway, that’s what I did.”

  Chris went inside the barn and brought out the ladder. He leaned it against the side of the barn. Each plank of the wall represented a week with a line drawn down it to demark the days. The first week had just a single marking, barely even visible, but as time passed there were more lines, like a sheet of music.

  The ladder creaked as Chris ascended it, and then wobbled as he took a knife from his pocket and etched a series of tallies into the barn wall. Chris descended the ladder and looked up at his handiwork.

  “Another five zombies,” Chris said. “Won’t be long before there’s even more of them.”

  “Still only thirty-six in total. I bet it’s a lot less than most places.”

  “But there’s more every day. One day they’re going to overrun us. We’ll need to be ready to escape to somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “Maybe up in the mountains in Scotland. Maybe an island somewhere. I don’t know. But I don’t think we can stay here forever.”

  Maisie kicked her feet.

  “But I like it here,” she said.

  “So do I, but there’s no telling when they’ll descend down upon us once and for good.”

  “It might never happen,” Maisie said.

  “Or it might happen tonight. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. That’s how we survive. At the beginning there was just one a week, and then there were two, and then three, and then they started coming in groups of twos and fours. Soon they’ll come as a never-ending flood and we’ll never be able to stop them.”

  Maisie cocked her head to the side, looking at Chris in thoughtful repose.

  “Why didn’t you hit that zombie before?” she said.

  “What zombie?”

  “The one that was attacking me. You pulled him off me, but you wouldn’t hit him.”

  “What are you talking about? I did hit him.”

  “Not with your fists. Only with your axe. I don’t think you’ve ever hit a zombie with your hands.”

  “It’s never safe to hit them with your hands. They can always bite you.”

  Maisie looked down at her feet.

  “It’s not that, is it?” she said. “It’s something else.”

  Chris picked up the ladder and took it back inside, careful to keep his eyes off Maisie.

  “We got out okay, didn’t we?” he said.

  “Just. Next time we might not be so lucky. We could build more defences, more traps.”

  “I’ve already made a start, but there are only two of us, and there are a lot of access points to this farm. Speaking of which, I’d better teach you a few things about self-defence.”

  “I thought wearing this suit was my defence?”

  “It’s part of it. Follow me.”

  They moved between the tractors and other farm equipment, toward the farmhouse.

  “No one is ever going to come, are they?” Maisie said. “We’ve been here eight weeks and so far, no one.”

  “Someone might.”

  “At least you haven’t drunk anything in that time.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “Is it always there?” Maisie said. “Do you always want to drink?”

  “Yes. All the time. It’s in the back of my mind and if I let it, the voice will let me slip.”

  “Then you mustn’t let it.”

  “I won’t. So long as I have you.”

  Maisie smiled.

  “Why did you start drinking in the first place?” she said.

  “It’s… difficult to explain.”

  “Try.”

  “I did something I’m not proud of.”

  “What?”

  Chris shook his head.

  “Forget about me!” he said. “We need to focus on making you the new Rocky Marciano.”

  In a small garden overgrown with weeds and children’s games hung a punch bag Chris had installed shortly after arriving at the farm. Maisie leaned against the white picket fence.

  “You’re not going to be able to hit the bag from over there now, are you?” Chris said. “Come here. Put your feet a shoulders’ width apart. Like this. That’s it. A bit wider. Good. Now put your hands up. Make fists. Good, tight fists. Now punch the bag.”

  Maisie did, and the bag made small juddering movements.

  “Good,” Chris said. “But keep up on your toes.”

  She did, hitting the bag with her left and right. Maisie paused and dropped her fists.

  “This isn’t any good,” Maisie said. “My problem isn’t hitting this bag, it’s hitting them. It’s like when I see them, I freeze. It’s their eyes. They’re spooky.”

  “Then don’t look at their eyes. Look at their nose or their chin.”

  “But sometimes they’re worse than their eyes!”

  “It doesn’t matter what they look like. They’re all the same. They’re coming to hurt you, and your job is to stop them from doing that. Hold your hands up like this.”

  Chris altered her stance, making her almost crouch down. She held up her arms in front of her face.

  “Good,” he said. “Now, punch the bag. Do it slowly, you don’t want to injure yourself.”

  Maisie hit the bag with her tiny fists, the bag barely moving.

  “Now bounce on your toes, keep moving,” Chris said. “Feel like you could move in any direction at my moment.”

  “My hands hurt.”

  “Do it for long enough and eventually you’ll feel nothing.”

  “That sounds fun.”

  “It’s not meant to be fun. Keep your hands up. Good, that’s good. Don’t throw all your weight into the punch, you’ll lose balance. Control it. Keep your centre of gravity. You might need to bounce back and attack again.”

  Maisie lowered her arms.

  “What are you stopping for?” Chris said.

  “Show me,” Maisie said.

  “You’ve seen me do it a million times.”

  “Yes, but I’ve never really seen you before.”

  “All right,” Chris said.

  He took position in front of the bag and threw a punch. It juddered side to side.

  “Sometimes I’ll dodge to one side to avoid a blow, and throw a punch to the ribs,” Chris said. “See? With zombies it’s best not to overthink things, because they don’t think much.”

  He started to work the bag hard. He danced around on the balls of his feet, gripped the bag and kneed it, head butted it.

  “Is that allowed in the boxing ring?” Maisie said.

  “It’s not boxing,” Chris said. “It’s bareknuckle boxing. Anything’s allowed, and with zombies, you really can do anything.”

  “So it’s like cage fighting?”

  Chris blinked.

  “How do you know about that?” he said.

  “A kid in my school was always talking about it. The teacher had to keep sending him to the head master because he kept hitting the other kids.”

  “Sounds like a charming child. But bareknuckle boxing doesn’t really have codes or rules like normal boxing. Different places fight differently. We were allowed to use hands, feet, knees, elbows and heads. We could grapple too.”

  “What’s grappling?”

  Chris fell on Maisie and performed a ‘grapple’. He held her elbow and tickled her under the arm.

  “This is grappling,” he said.

  Maisie laughed.

  “Don’t!” she said. “Don�
�t!”

  “Grappling is wrestling, but to get someone in an arm lock or leg lock.”

  “I suppose you won’t want to do that with zombies. If they get you on the ground, you’re done for.”

  “They’ll think I’m done for, but if I can pivot and fight from the floor, it could save my life. Stay down. Let me teach you some moves.”

  Chris got up and stood over her.

  “Okay, now you’re on the floor,” he said. “The zombie is coming down to bite you. What do you do?”

  “Scream for help.”

  “What if there’s only you?”

  “Run away.”

  “But he’s got you by the ankle.”

  Chris grabbed her ankle. Maisie raised her free leg to kick him in the face.

  “Right,” Chris said. “So long as you’re still able to control your limbs you have a chance. Hit them in the face. Their skulls will be brittle and soft.”

  Chris hit the punch bag. He followed it with a one-two combination, a head butt and a knee, all in one smooth movement. The punch bag swung back, revealing a swarthy face with bright blue eyes. Chris threw a punch and the bag moved to one side. The face was there again, blood between his teeth and a swollen eye.

  Chris stopped punching the bag and leaned his head against it, his sweaty forehead pressed against the dirty cloth. Maisie could see the distant expression of horror on his face. She said nothing, and let him take his time. Chris regained his breath and stepped back from the punch bag.

  “And that’s how you fight,” he said.

  “You told me before that you did done something you weren’t very proud of,” Maisie said. “It made you start drinking. What was it?”

  Chris wiped the sweat off his forehead and wrapped the towel around his neck. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a distant revving sound. Something squealed like it was being forced against its will.

  “What is that?” Maisie said.

  “It’s an engine,” Chris said. “A car engine. Someone’s here.”

  10:52am

  Maisie stood up on her tiptoes and peered through a narrow gap between two slats. The world was cut into a long thin strip with the woods to the left and the field behind. A convoy of mismatched vehicles had been parked in a circle. Men and women wandered between them, but Maisie couldn’t quite make out their features. There was a woman with blonde hair, a man wearing a brown jacket, a pair of twins in matching blue dresses… There were more but she couldn’t make them out. Maisie angled herself to look up and down the field.

  “Looks like there’s a big family of them,” Maisie said. “I can see kids too.”

  “Get away from there,” Chris said. “They’ll see you.”

  Maisie stayed up on her toes, pressing her eyes to the gap.

  “Didn’t you hear what I just said?” Chris said.

  Maisie lowered herself back down.

  “Help me with this, will you?” Chris said.

  “What are you having trouble with?” Maisie said, crossing to Chris, who had a storybook open, pouring over the pages.

  “This word,” he said, pointing to it. “How do I pronounce it?”

  “I’m not sure,” Maisie said. “It’s a new word to me too.”

  She opened a dictionary and found the word. She read out the phonetic spelling.

  “Pneu-mon-i-a,” she said. “‘An inflammatory condition of the lung’.”

  Chris repeated the word to himself and then continued to read the story. He read in a halting fashion, like a child learning to read for the first time.

  “After… searching for her dog all… night,” he said. “The… girl caught… pneumonia and fell into a… deep slumber.”

  Maisie looked over his shoulder at the illustrations in the book. It showed a beautiful girl with shoulder-length frizzy hair that spilled over the surface of the stone table she laid on, her eyes closed.

  “She looks a bit like me,” Maisie said with a smile.

  “Do you think there’s a potion that can make her wake up again?”

  “It’s a fairy story. Probably.”

  “I meant in real life.”

  “Oh. There are smelling salts, I suppose,” Chris said, studying the words on the next page.

  “Could smelling salts work on zombies? Make them normal again, I mean?”

  Chris smiled at the idea.

  “No,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I was just thinking about Mum and Emily, if there was a way they could wake up one day. With a potion, maybe.”

  “Maisie…” Chris said.

  But he didn’t know what to say next. Then he was reminded of something a soldier told him once on his way to the farm.

  “Right now, scientists are trying to come up with a cure for the zombies,” Chris said.

  “A cure? Like, a potion?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Do you think they’ll be able to do it?”

  Chris hesitated only a moment.

  “Yes,” he said. “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “Do you think they’re close?”

  “I don’t know,” Chris said. “But they’ll do it. Eventually.”

  They shared a moment, their smiles reflecting back at one another.

  “Looks like no one’s here,” a deep voice outside the barn said.

  “We must be the first ones here,” a high-pitched voice answered. “Come on, let’s get unpacked.”

  “It’s been, what, eight weeks? I would have thought someone would have been here.”

  “Maybe there ain’t no one else left.”

  Maisie sneaked up to the gap in the slats. Two dark figures stood looking up at the barn. She turned to look at Chris.

  “Shouldn’t we go out to them?” she said. “Isn’t this what we’ve been waiting for? For people to come here?”

  “Yes,” Chris said. “But not them.”

  “Why don’t we just go and say hello?”

  “Because they’re not likely to say hello back.”

  “Why not?”

  Bleep!

  Chris didn’t need to check his watch to know it had just turned eleven o’clock.

  “We can’t stay in here forever,” Maisie said. “Eventually we have to go out there to them. They’re going to find out we’re in here.”

  “But right now they don’t. Just let me concentrate.”

  “You’re not concentrating. How can you concentrate? We have to go speak with them. Who are they?”

  Chris let out a sigh.

  “They’re the Joneses,” he said.

  “I thought you didn’t know who they were?”

  “Yes, well, they’re the Jones family.”

  “So? What’s wrong with them?”

  Chris shut the storybook and sat it on the table.

  “They’re not good people,” he said. “As soon as we get the chance we have to get out of here. They’re not going to be happy to see us.”

  “We can’t leave! We’re safe here! Where would we go?”

  Chris put his backpack on the small table they’d lifted from the farmhouse and began packing for a long journey: all their food supplies, fresh clothes, candles.

  “Anywhere,” he said. “Nowhere. I don’t care.”

  His movements were fast and frantic, jamming the items into the bag.

  “Why are you so afraid of them?” Maisie said.

  Chris whirled on her.

  “I’m not afraid of them!” he said.

  “You’re sure as shit not happy to see them.”

  “Language!” Chris said without feeling.

  “We should go welcome them,” Maisie said. “They might be happy to see us, and they look like they need help.”

  “We can’t live here with them. Come on. Get your things.”

  Maisie made to push the ladder over the side of the ledge and down onto the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Chris said.

  “I’m going to go say hello.”

>   “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Chris sighed.

  “Because they’re the Jones family,” he said again.

  “So?”

  “And we’re Smiths.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So, we don’t socialise with them.”

  “It’s the end of the world,” Maisie said. “I think we can talk to them now.”

  But Chris didn’t look so sure.

  “Why don’t the Smith and Jones get on?” Maisie said.

  “We just don’t. It’s always been that way. If there was a reason it’s been long since forgotten by now.”

  “Maybe if we go talk to them one of them will remember.”

  Maisie moved for the ladder.

  “Maisie,” Chris said, putting as much venom into his voice as he could. “Don’t you dare.”

  “How are we going to live here with them if you won’t even welcome them?” Maisie said.

  “Simple. We’re not going to live here with them. Pack your things.”

  “Why do you hate them so much?”

  “I don’t hate them. It’s just… It’s always been this way.”

  “Then change it.”

  “Look inside the barn,” the deep voice outside said. “There might be someone in there.”

  Chris and Maisie looked toward the barn doors. A pair of shadows moved across the gaps in the wooden slats.

  “Or something,” the shaky voice outside said.

  “What’s the matter?” the deep voice said. “You afraid of the dark?”

  “Bloody right I am, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m not going in there by myself.”

  “Don’t be such a baby.”

  “You go in there, then!”

  “All right, fine. We’ll both go in.” Then he grumbled under his breath: “Can’t believe I’m out here with a twenty-five-year-old baby.”

  “I heard that!”

  “You were supposed to. That’s why I said it. Come on, let’s get this door open.”

  Maisie turned to Chris.

  “They’re coming in!” she said, her voice a hushed whisper.

  “Get down!” Chris said.

  They got to the floor. Chris crawled on his hands and knees to the edge of their elevated position. He peeked over the side at the barn door. Two silhouettes pulled on the handle. It rattled against the chain Chris had wrapped around the handles.

  “It’s locked,” the scared voice said. “Let’s go and come back in the morning.”