Zom-B Mission

by Darren Shan

  My smile fades. I’m sorry now that I teased him. ‘Has it helped?’ I ask.

  ‘Not really. But once I’d made a few runs with the Angels, I felt compelled to carry on. I saw how they risked their lives for people who in some cases openly despised them. Once I was part of the gang, I didn’t feel like it would be fair to pull out.’ Vinyl grimaces. ‘Burke probably bet on that. He’s a clever sod. Not much gets by him. I’m sure he knew that once he’d got me to do one run, I wouldn’t be able to . . .’

  Vinyl catches my expression and trails off into silence. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks quietly, although he can probably guess.

  I tell him about Burke, how Mr Dowling must have messed with his mind and sent him to kill Dr Oystein, the way I scratched him while I was disarming him, holding him in my arms while he died. I can’t cry, but my voice shakes and I moan during the telling.

  Vinyl stares at the ceiling glumly when I’m finished. ‘That sucks. Burke always said he’d be taken down sooner rather than later, that you couldn’t throw in your lot with the undead and expect to last very long. That didn’t bother him. But to be turned by one of your own, on your home turf . . .’

  ‘I had to do it,’ I snap. ‘He was shooting at Dr Oystein. He had to be stopped. I didn’t want to kill him. It was an accident. But he left me no choice.’

  ‘Easy,’ Vinyl soothes me. ‘I wasn’t having a go. I just mean it’s a pity that he couldn’t have been killed by zombies, out in the field, fighting to help a group of people to freedom. He deserved a hell of an end, not to go meekly.’

  ‘Yeah, well, few of us get what we deserve,’ I sniff.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Vinyl sighs.

  We’re silent for a while. I think about telling Vinyl that Burke was vaccinated, that we’re keeping him locked up in case he ever recovers, but I’m not sure how he’d take that. Remembering what he said about his parents, I figure he might be of the opinion that it would be better to execute our old teacher. I don’t want to argue with him, so it’s easier to say nothing about it.

  ‘Does it change anything, Burke being dead?’ I finally ask.

  ‘Nah,’ Vinyl says. ‘I never saw much of him anyway. I’ll carry on the same as usual. But I’ll miss him. He was a star.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I mumble. I know I shouldn’t feel horrible or guilty, but I do.

  ‘You couldn’t help it, B,’ Vinyl says softly, seeing the self-hatred in my eyes.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But you feel bad anyway?’

  I nod stiffly.

  ‘Best way to make up for it is to do what Burke would have wanted,’ Vinyl says. ‘See this lot to safety. Then return and rescue some more of the living.’

  ‘Yeah. But how many more good deeds do I have to do before I stop feeling like a rat?’ I ask.

  Vinyl shrugs. ‘If I knew that, I’d be a very wise man. But I’m just a guy who likes old records and hanging out with racist birds.’

  ‘Less of it,’ I growl as he stands and yawns, but I’m grinning.

  We return to the atrium and spend the rest of the evening and early part of the night with the other Angels. Pearse and Conall have done this run a few times and they’ve become good friends with Vinyl. He gets to know the rest of the gang and amuses them with some stories about me from the distant past. We play cards – all of us careful never to pass cards directly to Vinyl or come within scraping distance of him – and Vinyl downs a couple of beers.

  Emma comes to see us later, carrying a tray of sandwiches. She tries to make small talk. I think she feels bad for having deserted us. Vinyl munches a few of the sandwiches, chats with Emma, makes her laugh. She leaves looking less solemn.

  ‘You’re a real man of the people, aren’t you?’ I smirk.

  ‘A Big Chief has to be,’ he winks. ‘I plan on running for prime minister when we get this world back in order. I might need her vote.’

  ‘You really think we can knock the world back into shape?’ I ask sceptically.

  ‘With people like you and me on the case, how can we fail?’ he laughs.

  Eventually Vinyl bids us goodnight. ‘I know you guys don’t need any shut-eye, but this boy soldier needs his beauty sleep.’

  ‘Will you bed down with the others?’ I ask.

  ‘No, I’ll be sleeping by myself, the way I always do.’

  ‘Because nobody wants to share a bed with you?’ I joke.

  Vinyl winces. ‘No. Because I don’t want to scare anyone when I wake up screaming.’

  With a short wave he heads for bed, leaving the darkest, most twisted hours of the night to those of us best suited to them.

  THIRTEEN

  In the morning we ready the humans and make sure they’ve sprayed perfume or aftershave all over . They wear old, dusty clothes, and have stained the fronts of many of them with their own blood, which they’ve extracted with syringes over the last few days, to make it look as if they’ve fed from the living. We warn them not to talk when we’re outside, unless it’s essential. No yawning, burping or farting. They’re not to look around or show interest in anything.

  We need them to appear as corpse-like as possible. Their disguise won’t hold if any zombies come close, but from a distance they shouldn’t draw too much attention. Of course every member of the undead will be interested in anything that braves the sunlight world, but we won’t be the only zombies out there on the streets. I’ve seen groups at large before, packs which had to move on when their shelter burnt down, or stragglers who fell behind when they were chasing prey and who weren’t prepared to admit defeat.

  It won’t be easy getting these guys to New Kirkham, but it’s not Mission Impossible either. A slice of luck will be welcome, but we can probably do without it if we have to.

  When everyone’s good to go, we let ourselves out, cross the river and head south. Pearse and Conall lead the way. They’re an odd couple. Both have ginger hair, but there the similarities end. Pearse is small and skinny, whereas Conall is built like a tower of bricks, almost a match for Rage.

  They wear distinctive headgear. Conall prefers a pair of baseball caps, one the right way round, the other back to front to cover his neck. But Pearse has opted for a beekeeper’s hat, mesh and all. He says it’s because he has naturally delicate skin. ‘The sun burnt the hell out of me even when I was alive,’ he laughs. ‘I have to be extra cautious now.’

  Vinyl moves among the humans, circling constantly, quietly reassuring them, communicating any commands that we wish to pass on, holding everyone together.

  I’m almost as nervous as the living. I don’t know this area. I was an East End girl—nowhere east of Wapping fazed me in the slightest. I’ve adapted to Central London since moving to County Hall and have started to feel comfortable there. But places like Putney and Roehampton are alien to me.

  We stick to open areas as much as we can, the middle of wide roads, parks when we come to them. I thought suburbia would be a breeze after the narrow streets of the city, but we’re attacked far more frequently than we were on our way from Westminster to Hammersmith.

  Fortunately there are rarely more than three or four zombies per group. They tend to gather in small packs here, making their base in what used to be family homes, rather than pile into a factory or warehouse in their dozens. Vinyl laughs quietly when I mention that.

  ‘It must be a middle-class thing,’ he says. ‘The posh lot crave privacy, even in death. Don’t want to be mixing with the wrong sort of people.’

  We have a good chuckle, but Vinyl is serious when I comment on the frequency of the attacks.

  ‘They’re hungrier than the zombies in the more central areas,’ he says. ‘Not so many people out here, therefore not so many corpses. There used to be more of the undead when I first started coming this way. A lot have moved on, either heading for the city centre or off to find richer pickings in the country. Those who’ve remained must be desperate. They’ll have a serious sniff at anything that passes, just in case.’

&nb
sp; The attacks are more of a nuisance than a threat, though I’m sure the survivors don’t see them that way. They tense every time a zombie lunges at us, follow each brief battle with wide, worried eyes. They’re sweating with fear, so they have to keep reapplying scent.

  By early afternoon we’re marching through the countryside proper and the humans relax slightly. It’s a cloudy day, but the clouds keep breaking and letting the sun through in bursts. Nice for the humans, a pain for us. I want to put on my sunglasses, but only a few of us can wear them at a time. It would look suspicious if we all went marching around in matching shades—reviveds aren’t the sharpest tools in the box, but they’re not completely clueless.

  We stop for lunch by a tree with plenty of shade, on a hill with a clear view of the open fields. The Angels don’t eat, but the living tuck into more of Emma’s sandwiches. They sit on the grass and treat this like a picnic, whispering away happily, washing down the food with water and fizzy drinks.

  There are no zombies anywhere in sight, which frees us to pull out our sunglasses and put them on. The world comes into much sharper focus and my eyes stop stinging. I breathe a happy sigh and wish for the millionth time since I revitalised that my eyelids still functioned.

  The little girl, Liz, finishes eating before the adults and decides she wants to climb the tree. Shane checks it out first, scampering up the trunk like a squirrel with his extra sharp nails, to make sure there are no nasty surprises lying in store for her. When he gives her the all-clear, she clambers up and starts to play. After a while, she calls for Declan to join her, and though he resists at first, eventually he wanders across and lets Liz help pull him up.

  I watch the kids playing together, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a nice warm feeling inside. But it’s nowhere near as warm as the sun when the clouds part. With a scowl I take off my hat to scratch my scalp, then squat beside Vinyl, who’s chewing a blade of grass and peering off into the distance, cool as you like. ‘How much further is this place?’ I ask.

  ‘We won’t get there today,’ he says. ‘There’s a safe house we use, a few hours down the road. We’ll rest there overnight, head off bright and early, should make New Kirkham before midday tomorrow.’

  ‘Aren’t there any compounds closer than that?’

  He shrugs. ‘A few, but they’re run by the army. We don’t have much to do with them.’

  ‘You’re not a fan of soldiers, are you?’ I note.

  ‘I don’t mind them,’ he says. ‘They’ve done a good job in lots of places, even if they tend to govern with an iron fist. But they rule the airwaves completely and crack down on anyone who doesn’t toe the line. And nobody ever found out how the zombie virus spread so swiftly in the first place. Many think it was a military experiment gone wrong, and there have been lots of rumours of places like the underground complex you were telling me about, where they’re conducting all sorts of horrible tests.’

  ‘On zombies?’ I ask.

  ‘I think so, yeah.’

  ‘Why does that bother you?’

  He shrugs. ‘They were normal people once. They’re the enemy now, obviously, and we have to eradicate them if we’re to restore order to the world. But we should still treat them with respect. I mean, how would you like it if they were cutting up your mum?’

  ‘If it helped them find a cure . . .’ I mutter.

  ‘There’s no cure,’ Vinyl snorts. ‘They’re just looking for a virus which will wipe out the undead, save us the job of having to shoot them all. And I’m fine with that. But according to the rumour mill, some of the scientists are slicing up the dead for sport, toying with them, tormenting them.’

  I think back to my time on the Belfast, Dan-Dan and Lord Luca and the rest of those stinking-rich bastards. I recall the way they treated the living dead as vermin, as if we existed just to entertain them. They thought they could do anything to us, that we didn’t matter.

  ‘You know what, Vinyl?’ I sniff. ‘You’re not bad for a human.’

  He chuckles. ‘That’s the strangest compliment I’ve ever been paid.’

  As the rest of the living finish their sandwiches and tidy up – old habits die hard – a small bird flutters down out of nowhere and begins picking at the crumbs. Everyone stops and smiles at our unlikely visitor. While lots of birds are still at large, they tend to give people a wide berth, since zombies will catch them if possible to eat their bite-sized brains.

  ‘Any idea what sort of a bird it is?’ I ask Vinyl softly.

  ‘A finch, I think, but I’m not sure. Birds were never my thing.’

  The bird picks up a crust and flies up into the tree, settling on a branch well above Liz and Declan, who are still happily playing. It tears into the crust, pinning it against the branch with its feet, shaking its feathers as it wriggles about.

  Some specks of dirt fly from the bird’s feathers as it’s shaking them, and one of the specks hits Liz’s forehead. She brushes it away without blinking, thinking nothing of it. But the dirt leaves a stain behind that unsettles me. Removing my sunglasses, I stare until my eyes focus, and when I see the colour of the stain, my teeth grind together with fear.

  It’s red.

  ‘Declan,’ I call, trying not to let my anxiety show, praying that I’m working myself up into a panic over nothing. The boy looks down at me. ‘Come here.’

  Declan frowns then ignores me.

  ‘Emma.’ She glances at me, still smiling about the bird. ‘Call him to you. Now.’

  Emma notes my tense expression. She doesn’t know what I’m worried about, but she reacts immediately. ‘Declan. Come to me.’

  ‘Play,’ he says stubbornly. He was the most obedient boy I’ve ever seen up until this, but now that Liz has lured him out of his shell, he’s become more like other children his age.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Vinyl asks, as others start to pay attention.

  ‘The bird,’ I explain. ‘There was blood on its feathers. A drop hit Liz. It might be blood from an animal or a corpse, but it could also be from –’

  Liz screams before I can finish. It’s a very specific type of scream, one I’ve heard lots of times before, one I had hoped never to hear again.

  ‘Jump, Declan!’ I roar, turning to Vinyl and Emma. ‘Catch him,’ I bark as I run to the tree and climb the trunk.

  Vinyl and Emma realise what is happening and they start shouting at Declan to jump, holding out their arms, promising to catch him. But the boy has frozen. He stares at the people on the ground – others are shouting at him too now – then at Liz, who is shuddering and frothing, shaking as she clings to the tree, eyes rolling madly in their sockets.

  Scared by all the activity, the bird abandons the crust of bread and flies away, but the damage has already been done, and I curse the innocent creature as it takes to the sky and swiftly disappears from sight.

  Reaching the two children, I wrap my arms round Liz and hold her as still as I can. Declan is looking at me with wide eyes. His cheeks are pale and he’s trembling.

  ‘Go,’ I tell him.

  Declan shakes his head and whispers, ‘Liz?’

  ‘Go!’ I shout and bare my fangs to shock him into action. The tactic works and Declan hurls himself from the tree with a frightened shriek. Vinyl and Emma catch him between them, then Emma buries his face in her chest and rushes away with him as the other humans and Angels press closer to the tree. Many of the people are crying.

  ‘Liz,’ a woman moans, but nobody else says her name or pleads with me to stop. They know what has happened and they know what has to be done.

  As Liz shudders and undergoes the change from a living girl to an undead monstrosity, I quickly check her legs and arms for any evidence of a c-shaped scar. If she has been vaccinated by Dr Oystein’s team, one of us can escort her back to County Hall, in case she revitalises later.

  But there’s no scar. The girl is without hope. If I let this run its natural course, she will become a brain-dead revived, with no chance of ever regaining
her senses.

  ‘Get everyone away from here,’ I tell Vinyl. ‘They don’t need to see this. And I don’t want any of them to get splattered by her blood.’

  ‘Come on,’ Vinyl says, and quickly shepherds the survivors away. The Angels remain, grim-faced but supportive.

  ‘Do you want me to do it?’ Rage asks. ‘I know you’re sensitive when children are involved.’

  ‘There’s no room for sensitivity in this world,’ I say sadly.

  And then, before Liz has completed her awful evolution, before bones force their way out through her fingertips and her teeth lengthen into fangs, I press her skull against the tree trunk, make a fist, and release the unfortunate orphan from the horror.

  FOURTEEN

  We bury Liz in a deep grave and the humans say some prayers over it. I don’t hang around to listen. I spend the time wiping my hands through the grass, over and over, cleaning them of every last horrible stain. The others leave me be. Each one of them knows what this is like. We’ve all executed a zombie like Liz before, some of them even younger than she was. There’s nothing you can say at a time like this. Liz was a doomed killer, but she was also a little girl, and while I know I had to do what I did, I still feel absolutely wretched, and will for a long time to come.

  We press on once the living are done praying. We march in solemn silence, the survivors glancing at us bitterly every so often. I know what they’re thinking—If we’d stayed in Hammersmith, Liz would be alive now. And they’re right. That’s what makes it so hard to bear. We’re trying to do good here, but a little girl is dead because of our interference. There’s no getting away from that.

  We reach the safe house and settle down for the night, the humans in a few of the rooms, the Angels in another. I sit in a corner by myself, lost in thought. Vinyl enters at one point, to try and comfort me, but I just shake my head at him and he leaves without saying anything.

  In the morning, while the living are having a quick breakfast, Ashtat approaches me. ‘Will you be OK?’ she asks.