‘Look at it this way,’ said Kay. ‘The rest of us have to live with your shit taste in interior design, so you have to live with Sara.’
I saw Tracey suppress a giggle, clenching her lips together and taking a deep breath through her nose. ‘Come on,’ she said, once the giggle had safely passed. ‘Come and sit over here with me.’ Amy allowed Tracey to guide her to the back of the office where the two of them sat at a desk. Amy swung her chair around so her back faced the office, completely blocking Tracey’s petite frame from view.
I walked over to Sara and knelt on the floor beside Flick. Kelly sat across from me, next to Jay and we all watched him turn to a new page in the book on Sara’s lap. I recognised the book from when Jake was small – The Snail and the Whale. It had been one of his favourites with its illustrations in beautiful shades of blues and greens, about a tiny snail who goes travelling with a humpback whale. ‘Seeeeeeee,’ said Sara as she studied a picture of a giant wave.
‘Oh my god,’ said Flick.
‘I know,’ I said, grinning. ‘That’s amazing.’
‘She’s really talking,’ said Kelly. ‘That’s unreal.’
‘It’s more than that, Kelly,’ I said, a firework display of excitement exploding in my belly. ‘I’ve seen Sara look at the sea and say “Sea” but this is a drawing of the sea, a representation. Sara has enough brain function to recognise this drawing as being the sea.’
‘She’s a miracle,’ said Kelly. ‘And I think Jay likes her, too.’
Once Jay had grown bored of looking at books and had whizzed off to play with Cameron, Kelly gave a pile of children’s books to Flick to take back to their office, and I headed out to the hallway to keep watch and wait for Misfit.
I slumped on a chair and picked bits of foam with my fingers, exposed where Misfit had slashed the seat with his knife. Was I being paranoid or had Misfit become slightly distant with me? Was it because I pushed him away the other night when I had thought he would move in and kiss me? Or was it because he suspected that me, Kay and Sean hadn’t been paying attention yesterday when we were supposed to be keeping watch outside, and could no longer trust me? I shuddered at the thought an HZ could’ve got in while I was having a snowball fight. I’d been careless. Nothing had happened … but it could have done.
As the minutes ticked by, the firework display of excitement I’d had watching Sara with the picture book faded to leave the sickening thud in my heart that Misfit was out there and I was in here with no idea if he was OK. How had the world got so crazy? I thought. The dead walk the earth, some humans have turned into a new breed of savages and the rest of us live in fear everyday. But if none of it had ever happened, I would never have met Misfit.
At the sound of feet pounding up the steps, I stood and leapt across the landing. Gripping the railings at the top of the staircase, I peered down as far as I could until Misfit and Clay’s rosy cheeked faces came into view. They rounded the bend and sprinted up the last flight of steps, keeping pace with each other. ‘I found them,’ said Misfit, when he reached the top step. ‘I know where Marco is.’
‘Then let’s go get him,’ I said.
Entry Twenty-Eight
Misfit drove the Mazda out of Sainsbury’s car park, moving slowly in the thick, fresh snow. There had been an awkward moment when we were getting into the car – Charlotte climbed into the back, behind Misfit, while both me and Clay went for the passenger seat. I managed to slip in first and I shut the door, leaving Clay out in the cold with snow up to his knees. He let himself into the back and shuffled in next to Charlotte.
Nobody spoke as the car ploughed through the virgin snow and I guessed we all felt the same – like we were walking the green mile as we travelled towards Marco’s hideout.
When Misfit got back to the supermarket earlier, we immediately rounded everyone up in the front office. ‘I’ve found Marco,’ said Misfit.
‘What? How? Where?’ asked Soph.
‘The HZs have been watching us,’ he explained. ‘I spotted some tracks in the snow behind the supermarket this morning and followed them to some sort of weird looking tower in the harbour.’
‘You’ve seen Marco?’ asked Sean.
‘Yeah, he was standing on the top of the tower so I couldn’t get too close to the building but I got close enough to see HZs coming and going.’
‘Any idea how many?’ asked Sean.
‘No, I couldn’t tell,’ said Misfit.
‘Well, we’ll soon find out. So what’re we waiting for?’ said Kay. ‘Let’s go.’
‘There’s six of us,’ said Sean, looking from me to Kay, Misfit, Charlotte and Clay. ‘And an unknown number of HZs, not to mention Marco himself.’
‘Seven,’ said Soph.
‘What?’ said Chris. ‘Soph?’
‘I’m going with you,’ she said to Sean, ignoring Chris.
‘Eight,’ said Shane, stepping forwards.
‘Nine,’ said Sam, taking an eager step to stand next to his older brother. I saw Kelly open her mouth to speak but she thought better of it, picked Ella up and hugged her tightly.
‘Ten,’ said Tracey, her body poised like a ballerina, her head held high.
‘Eleven,’ said Jordan with a firm nod of her head.
‘This isn’t our fight,’ said Amy.
‘Yes. Yes it is, Amy. And Sophie was right before when she said we can’t just run away and make it someone else’s problem. While Marco is alive and killing humans like us, he is our problem. Consider me number twelve,’ said Chris. I smiled at him and gave him a nod.
‘I guess that makes me unlucky number thirteen then,’ said Flick.
‘Flick, thanks,’ I said. ‘But you should stay with Sara. If this place is being watched – and there could well be HZs out there right now – we can’t leave the vulnerable members of the team here in case they attack once the rest of us have gone. I need you, Kelly and Char to get the vulnerable somewhere safer and to protect them,’ I said.
‘Where can we go?’ asked Char.
‘What about my place?’ said Clay.
‘Perfect,’ I said, remembering he had constructed a panic room in the garage.
The mood had been sombre as everyone climbed into the vehicles and set off. Our car led the convoy, with Sam, Shane, Tracey and Jordan in the car behind, next came the van, driven by Kelly, with Flick and Sara sitting up front with her, and Char, Amy and the young and old in the back. Our combined tyre marks made a track in the virgin snow for the bikes at the back.
At the mini roundabout Misfit turned right, down Park Farm Road. The car behind us followed, while the van carried on over the roundabout and straight up, towards the main road that led to Clay’s place. The bikes – one ridden by Sean with Kay on the back, her axe through her belt and a chainsaw clutched in one hand, the other ridden by Chris with Soph on the back, also with a chainsaw – turned right to follow us.
‘You OK?’ I asked Misfit.
‘No. You?’ he replied, not taking his eyes off the snowy road ahead of us.
‘No. I think I’m going to have a heart attack.’ I remembered seeing a report on the local news, before the outbreak, that the UK’s butterfly numbers were declining with some species in danger of disappearing altogether – well, I can tell you, they’d not disappeared at all but moved into my stomach at that very moment. Millions of tiny wings fluttered inside me, churning what little food remained in there. I tried to settle the butterflies but the thought of Marco and the HZs became like a cat … a cat who chased the butterflies into a frenzy.
I sat with my elbow rested on the door, my chin on my hand and I glanced out the window. The snow had laid so thick I couldn’t see where the pavement ended and the road began, only the occasional parked car gave me an indication of where the two met. Clay and Charlotte remained silent in the back.
Misfit kept to a speed of just over 5 mph so the bikes wouldn’t lose control on the icy road, and I studied the ground below me. I noticed animal tracks in the snow. Cats,
foxes, dogs – I didn’t know which type of animal had laid those tracks but it came as a comfort to see signs of life, like the snow had purified the town. Further down the street, I saw the snow to the left had been raked, most likely by dead feet and I came back to the zombie apocalypse with a thump. I followed the zombie trial with my eyes as we rounded the corner, past B&Q until we caught up with the rotten things – at least ten of them, stumbling along in the snow just ahead. They became excited as we drove past them, reaching out for the car with their ravaged arms.
I looked back as we overtook the zombies and watched as their attention switched from our car, to the car behind and then to the bikes. One staggered forwards, its legs going deeper into the snow as it stumbled off the curb and onto the road. I pressed myself against the glass and saw the zombie swipe at one of the bikes. Kay raised her left leg and delivered a kick to the zombie’s crutch, while Sean concentrated on keeping the slow moving bike steady on the snow. The zombie overbalanced and the bike wobbled. The next zombie lunged at Kay, grabbed her elbow and dragged her from the bike. She fell onto her back with the zombie on top of her, while the bike’s tyres slid on the compacted snow. Sean lost control of it and it fell onto its left side.
‘Stop the car!’ I said to Misfit. He braked and the car came to a halt, the deep snow ahead of us acting like a buffer.
I flung open the car door and jumped out, my feet and legs sinking into the deep snow where it had drifted up against the curb. Me, Misfit, Clay – slipping his boxing gloves onto his hands as he ran – and Charlotte sprinted past the empty car behind, with Sam, Shane, Tracey and Jordan having already climbed out of the vehicle, wading ahead of us towards the zombies. I saw Kay sprawled on the ground. She struggled to hold the zombie off while trying to slide her axe from her belt, the chainsaw having fallen a little way from her when she came off the bike and laying just out of reach.
Sean pulled himself free of the bike and swung his crowbar at a zombie that lunged at him. He darted towards Kay, who still hadn’t managed to free her axe, using all her strength to hold the zombie off, but Chris leapt from his bike and got there first. He grabbed the zombie’s hair. Yanking its head back, Chris drove his knife into the base of its skull. Kay crawled out from beneath the zombie, grabbed her chainsaw, leaving her axe in her belt, and joined the rest of us as we battled the remaining zombies.
Soph and Kay’s chainsaws buzzed through zombies’ heads, showering themselves and the snow with thick black blood. Charlotte ploughed towards one of the zombies and high kicked it so it fell flat on its back. Pulling her cleaver from her belt, she dived onto the zombie’s body so she straddled it and swiped the cleaver down between its eyes. I stabbed one of the remaining zombies through the ear.
I glanced up and noticed more zombies – lots more, more than I could count – staggering out of the carpet warehouse we had driven past. ‘We need to get back to the vehicles before that lot get here,’ I said. But when I turned to the cars I saw a hoard of zombies lumbering up the road towards them. The front runners had already reached the Mazda. More zombies poured out from an industrial unit further ahead, cutting the road off. ‘Shit.’
‘Ah well,’ said Kay, holding the buzzing chainsaw out in front of her with both hands. ‘At least it’s never boring in the zombie apocalypse.’ She stomped off towards the zombies staggering up past the cars. Sean and Shane followed. I saw Shane swing his baseball bat at a zombie, sending a spray of black blood and teeth into the air.
‘Sam, Jordan, Chris you take the left side with Kay,’ I said, motioning them to the left with my hand. ‘The rest of you come with me to the right!’
The six of us formed a line of defence just a little further up the street than where Sean and Kay had left their bike, I wanted to branch out a bit so we had room to fall back if necessary. The front runners were only a couple of metres away as they slipped and slid on the snow and ice flattened by our vehicles, and I leapt forwards to meet them. I rammed my knife through the bulging eye of a withered zombie, its skin tight and papery on its yellowing bones, the flesh and muscle beneath having wasted away. Another zombie, its lower face missing, leaving it with a perma-grin, lunged at me with its ravaged, bloody hands. It slid on some ice and went down onto its hands and knees. I dived in and drove my knife into the back of its head.
I heard Clay grunt from beside me and turned to see him ramming the spikes of his gloves – left, right – into zombie heads as he moved forwards into the crowd. The zombies didn’t have a chance to swamp him, his fists flew so fast. Tracey held a crowbar that looked much too heavy for her petite frame, but over a year in the zombie apocalypse had toughened her and she wielded it with ease, smashing zombie heads like they were water balloons. Soph totted up the biggest head count on our side, with her chainsaw powering through skulls. She also made the most noise and mess.
The zombie of a teenage boy in a Slipknot t-shirt, a dried bite wound on top of its closely cropped scalp, grasped my left forearm with its withered hand. I raised my knife arm, ready to stab it when a zombie wearing a police uniform, half its face eaten to the yellowed bone, caught hold of the sleeve of my jacket, halting my blade in mid air. I tried to tug my arm free but Police-Zombie wrapped the fingers of its left hand around my wrist, preventing me from lowering my blade into Zombie-Boy’s head. As Zombie-Boy raised my left hand to its open mouth, Misfit dived over and grabbed the thinning hair on top of Police-Zombie’s head. As Police-Zombie turned its attention onto him, Misfit held its gnashing teeth away from his face, and slid his small hunting blade through its ear before tossing the zombie onto the slushy ground. My knife arm freed, I plunged the blade through Zombie-Boy’s eye.
The first wave of zombies had been dealt with but we barely had chance to catch our breath before the next, thicker wave came. I couldn’t even count how many zombies approached us, they filled the street. Just looking at them exhausted me. I chanced a glance behind me and could see the other group had a similar problem to deal with.
At my side, Misfit held his knife ready. A zombie fleshier than the others, I guess having only recently turned, staggered towards Misfit, dragging a useless tattered leg behind it. The zombie raised its arms, swiping at the air between it and Misfit. Once it was close enough, Misfit grasped the zombie’s wrist, pulled its putrid body towards him and pierced its skull. He leapt over the body as it fell and ploughed towards the hoard. He span like a principal dancer as he drove his blade in and out of decaying heads. Dead hands grasped his skin, hair and clothing but they let go instantly as he slaughtered each of them in turn with grace and speed.
I stabbed and sliced the zombies before me. From the corner of my eye I saw Tracey take a swing at a zombie with her crowbar but she slipped on a patch of ice and fell onto her side, the crowbar only clipping the zombie’s shoulder. It dived on top of her, pinning her small body to the ground. There were too many zombies between me and her and I could only watch as the zombie bit into the flesh of her exposed neck. She screamed as the zombie pulled its head back, her flesh in its mouth, while blood spurted from the wound. Charlotte, who was closest, leapt towards Tracey and kicked the zombie off her. It fell onto its back and Charlotte stamped on its rotten head, her boot sinking into a mush of brain and black blood as its skull cracked open.
Tracey lay on the ground, clutching her torn throat. Her body convulsed as she went into shock. Another zombie lunged down and bit into the top of her head. Charlotte swung her cleaver into the back of its head and the zombie splodged onto the snow beside Tracey. At the sight of the vibrant red blood spilt on the white snow, anger fuelled me and I threw myself at the zombies, stabbing and slicing in a frenzy. Dried, withered bodies fell left and right, the snow beneath my feet turning into a black, goey slush.
I lunged for a zombie but slipped on some ice. I managed to get my knife through its head before I went down on my right knee. Another zombie grabbed my left arm and before I could pull it free, the zombie bent forwards and sank its jaws into my arm. Its te
eth couldn’t go through the thick leather of the biker jacket, and, pulling my knife from the one I’d just killed, I swung it up and into the top of the zombie’s head. ‘You stupid dumb fuck!’ I yelled at it as its jaws went slack and it slid down onto the ground next to me.
Back on my feet, I continued with the fight until I saw the majority of the zombies had been slain, and only a few still trickled out from the carpet warehouse. I glanced behind me to the other side of the cars and saw that way had been similarly thinned out. I left Clay, Misfit and Soph to deal with the remaining zombies and headed over to Charlotte who crouched in the red slush next to Tracey. I stood at Tracey’s feet, looking down at her.
She was still alive, a hand to her torn throat and she made a horrible gurgling, rasping sound as she struggled to breathe. Tracey’s eyes were open but she didn’t seem able to focussing on anything. Charlotte held Tracey’s left hand in both of hers and she glanced up at me, but I couldn’t think of anything useful to say. I put my free hand to my forehead and ran it through my hair to the back of my head and closed my eyes. When I opened them, I saw Misfit, Soph and Clay – surrounded by the bodies of zombies – standing staring at me.
‘This part of the job never gets any easier,’ I said as I walked around Tracey so I stood looming over her head. I bent down and, wanting to save the others from the grim deed, I rammed my knife between Tracey’s eyes. I watched as she went silent and still and her hand slipped away from her throat to lay in the bloodstained snow.
I pulled my knife free, hating the sight of the red blood that dripped from it. Misfit walked over to me and placed an arm around my shoulders. Together we trudged through the slush towards the cars. The zombies in that direction had all been slain and I couldn’t see any more staggering through the snow towards us. I saw Sean, Kay, Chris, Shane and Sam dragging zombie bodies out of the road, piling them beside a fence to clear the road for the vehicles.
Blog of the Dead (Book 2): Life Page 22