Thirteen Roses Book Four: Alone: A Paranormal Zombie Saga

by Cairns, Michael

  His heart was hammering as he scrambled in. The glass cut the side of his hands and the growls from outside grew louder as they smelled it. He would have to get out of here at some point, but he could worry about that in a minute. As his foot touched the floor, the growls were obscured entirely by a howling siren that made his teeth ache.

  He clapped his hands over his ears, which made very little difference, and staggered into the shop. He could see a keypad behind the desk with a flashing red light, but without the necessary code, he couldn’t do anything about it. This floor was all clothing so he raced upstairs. He found a rucksack into which he put two stoves, some gas canisters, a knife, a small axe, a sleeping bag and, back downstairs again, some clothing.

  He swung it onto his shoulders and bent double, taking deep breaths as the weight tried to shove him onto the floor. He couldn’t run with this, not like before. He climbed back up the stairs, head ringing, and found the walking poles. He picked out two of the heaviest and sat for a moment. He was tired again already. His eyes flickered for a moment and he contemplated having a nap. But the window wouldn’t hold.

  Dave peered through the front window. The zombies were backed away to the other side of the street. They looked the same as when they were near the device, pushing against an unseen barrier.

  The alarm. The sound, which he was nowhere near getting used to, must have driven them away. It was useful, up to a point. The idea of having to travel around with this sound made him want to vomit.

  The top floor of the shop had a fire escape. He pushed open the door and headed out onto a narrow, black metal staircase that ran down into a tiny street behind the shop. All he had to do was make it back to the theatre. Then he could lock the door and sleep.

  He took careful steps down to the street below, hefted his walking poles, and set out.

  Bayleigh

  She wanted to laugh at him. The idea of her going out there was ridiculous and made her stomach clench into knots. But maybe he was right. She’d spent the morning being grumpy about Krystal being chosen to scout with Luke. She’d spent the afternoon being excited about discovering this amazing ability, and through it all she’d been dealing, or trying to deal, with a murder and a bunch of angry church goers.

  Maybe getting out and doing something proactive was just what she needed. ‘What do you suggest?’

  She could feel Ed’s and Alex’s eyes on her. Had they been expecting something else? The corners of her mouth drew up. She wasn’t used to surprising people.

  ‘I don’t know. I just thought if you could get out there safely and we could figure out how to kill them…’

  ‘We could just shoot them from here.’ Ed said. ‘If I had a sniper rifle…’ He shifted across the bed, pretending to point a gun through the glass.

  ‘That’s not a bad idea.’ Alex replied. ‘Where are there guns?’

  ‘No idea. The guards at the palace would have them. The police might have some, at the station.’ She pulled her phone from her bag and went on maps, finding the nearest police station.

  ‘Hold on. Before you go running off miles away, can we think about the original idea? You need something sharp enough to stick straight in their heads without slowing down.’

  Ed’s face brightened. ‘We could make stakes, like in Buffy.’

  Bayleigh laughed and nodded. ‘Takes me back to my student days.’

  ‘Isn’t Buffy a kid’s show?’ Alex said.

  She and Ed turned to glare at him at the same time. He backed away, hands raised in defence. ‘Fine, sure, whatever. So stakes. We need wood and a knife.’

  ‘Why not just a knife?’ She asked. ‘Any idea how much of their brain we actually have to skewer?’

  Everyone shrugged, so she decided to go with that. She’d find out, one way or another. A few minutes later they were crouched outside the room, watching where their hallway met the main corridor. The zombies were in the hospital now, but hadn’t found them, which was just fine. The longer they could keep their hiding place a secret, the better.

  Bayleigh had four kitchen knives stuffed in her belt. Two of them were closer to normal dinner knives, but they were long enough to go most of the way through someone’s brain and plenty sharp enough considering how easily the zombies broke. She took a moment, reflecting on the fact she was thinking about the relative merits of different knives for the task of stabbing someone to death.

  She shook her head and turned to the others. ‘Get back in the room and watch from the window, okay?’

  ‘Not a chance. I’m coming down to the front. It’s too far away up here, I’d never get to you in time.’

  She smiled, cheeks reddening. ‘That’s really sweet, but you wouldn’t get to me in time anyway. It would just be a waste.’ She wanted to add that they couldn’t leave Ed alone. Luke and Krystal should be on their way back, but if they weren’t, she wasn’t convinced about leaving Ed with the ladies. She wasn’t convinced about leaving Alex with them either, but that was for very different reasons.

  Alex gritted his teeth and explained that he was coming down whether she liked it or not. His cheeks were flushed and she realised she might have embarrassed him. Tough. Now wasn’t the time to be over sensitive.

  ‘I’m not waiting for you. I’m running the moment I leave the field, so I won’t be able to protect you.’ Once you’ve done the damage, why not twist the knife?

  ‘I think I’ll be just fine. Ready?’

  His eyes wouldn’t meet hers and she sighed. ‘Ed. Head back to the room. If we die, keep trying to get in touch with Luke and Krystal, right?’

  He nodded, lower lip wobbling.

  ‘Hey, it’s fine, I’m not gonna die. But just in case, you know?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He walked away, not looking back until he reached the door to the private room. Then he glanced back and raised a hand before disappearing inside.

  ‘Right. Let’s go.’

  Without waiting for him, Bayleigh rose to her feet. She was about to run when Alex grabbed her sleeve. ‘Hey, hold on.’

  ‘What?’ Her stomach was doing flips. She needed to go, she needed to get this done. Alex obviously saw it on her face, because he swallowed whatever he’d been about to say.

  ‘Nothing, just, be careful, alright.’

  ‘Yeah, of course, you too.’

  She dashed down the corridor and out to the landing. Zombies still cluttered the reception area by the front doors and she paused at the top. What had he been about to say? She knew exactly what it was so why the hell did she stop him? She shook her head and charged down the stairs.

  She raced past the zombies and had to wait while the front doors hissed open, skipping from foot to foot. Then she dashed into the street. It was easier in the dark. The zombies weren’t always obvious but neither was she. She paused in the shadows beside the hospital.

  From here she could see the trap, the zombies lumbering back and forth on their assigned paths. They had even cleared the remains of their last victim from the centre so it wasn’t obvious. The two leaders still stood near the wall, watching, waiting.

  She flew across the road, aware of how fast she was going because of how quickly the opposite wall came at her. She put her hands out to stop and almost yelped as she thumped into the wall. The wind was knocked out of her and she flattened her back against the bricks, breathing hard. Sweat trickled down the side of her face. They were everywhere. The trap was where it were supposed to be, but there were other zombies as well, stumbling this way and that. Any moment they might smell her.

  But she could run. She could run and never stop. She could run to safety. She could leave now and not come back, just leave the city and run until she found a mountain with not a soul around. And she could stay there.

  She sucked in more air and pulled one of the knives from her belt. She could do all that. Or she could kill two of the bastards and prove to Luke she deserved the sword. She could prove to herself she was capable of more than just running a
shop and looking after Dad.

  What would he have thought about all this? She was glad he died before the zombies came. She tried to imagine him lying on his bed, Jungle Book on the TV while he chewed on her arm. It brought bile to her throat and she swallowed it down, then burst out coughing. She covered her mouth to drown out the sound, eyes flicking this way and that.

  She tightened her grip on the knife and edged along the wall, drawing closer and closer to the leaders. She wanted to run straight past and not even stop, but she wasn’t convinced it would work. She wouldn’t know until she got there. She had to get there first.

  She stared at her feet and legs, willing them to move. But the butterflies in her stomach had moved down and they felt like jelly, barely holding her up. With a sneer, she jabbed the knife into one and jumped on the spot. She tried to imagine it like a sporting event. This race was for the gold in the two hundred metres. She was Usain Bolt. She grinned. She was faster than him.

  Her legs moved and she was running, the ground blurring beneath her. Before she had time to draw breath she reached the leaders and went past them. She thrust the knife and it was wrenched from her hand. She kept going, resisting the urge to punch her fist in the air. She’d done it, she’d actually done it.

  She ran back into the darkness at the edge of the street and turned. Both leaders were still standing. One was looking, with a frown on its face, at the knife protruding from its belly. She blushed in the darkness and swore under her breath. She hadn’t quite done it. But she would this time.

  She knew she should hold off for a moment, give them time to forget they saw her, but if she waited, she might not go again. She dragged the next knife from her belt and ran. She slowed as she neared them, enough to get a bead on the nearest one’s head. It saw her this time and she was going slow enough to deliberately plant the knife hilt-deep in its eye. She raced away and reached the shadows in time to turn and see the zombie collapse in a heap.

  The horrible twisting in her gut transformed, and she giggled and gasped. She’d done it. She’d killed them before, but this time there’d been no struggle, no impending sense of being about to die. She was in control. She stared up at the windows of the hospital, trying to find the right one. But there were four with people in, all staring down at the street. Zombie watching had become a national pastime.

  She guessed which one she thought was Ed and Alex and stared up at them. They confused her in equal measure. She blinked and looked away. Not now. The other leader hadn’t moved, except to kneel and chew on his companion’s hand. That made it even easier.

  She sprinted across the space between them, wind whipping the strands of hair that had escaped her pony tail. She barely slowed this time and drove the third knife straight down into the top of its head. She kept running, heading away from the hospital down the street. She didn’t want to stop.

  She was buffeted as though she sat astride a motorcycle, the wind loud in her ears. She needed to find some way to measure her speed. Perhaps she could race Luke on his bike. That thought brought her down from her high and she slowed, nipping up an alleyway into the darkness. She stopped, heart racing.

  Calm down. There was zombies everywhere. She could run fast but it meant nothing if she tripped over. They would eat her nice and slow and she couldn’t run without feet. She shuddered and slipped down the alleyway, peering out the way she had come.

  A zombie lurched through the darkness towards her. It was pulling something behind it that jerked and bobbled from side to side in time with its steps. Something flashed blue beneath the street lamp and she realised it was the tufty remains of dyed hair that clung tenaciously to its peeling scalp. The old woman came fully into view, her granny bag trundling along behind her.

  Bayleigh tried to imagine what her face looked like before the plague got her, but she couldn’t see it being much different. The zombie paused and spotted her, grimacing to show a set of surprisingly good teeth. It shuffled across the concrete towards her and Bayleigh stepped back into the alley.

  She couldn’t kill an old lady, she just couldn’t. But it wasn’t an old lady any more. It had been, but now it was a zombie.

  She stepped back further, leading her into the alleyway. The creature - she had to think of it as a creature - came on, one hand leaving its bag to claw for her. Bayleigh hauled the knife from her waist band and set her feet.

  There was something horribly comical and grotesque about it. It was like kicking one of those small, pointless dogs people had. Or used to have. But she couldn’t miss the teeth that flashed in the dim light. She glanced at her knife. Last one. She wanted to keep this.

  She jumped, trying to make it as sudden as possible to give the zombie no warning. She slammed the knife straight into the side of the old woman’s head. There was a brief moment as she pulled it out when the woman turned to her and she thought she saw normal, human eyes that pleaded with her and asked why she’d killed her.

  Then she fell into the darkness, her skull cracking against the stone. Bayleigh swallowed the saliva that filled her mouth and knelt to wipe her knife on the old woman’s clothing. Her bag had fallen as well and she found herself opening the lid. She flapped it shut, staggered away into the darkness and lost her lunch.

  When the retching stopped, she slid the knife into her belt and headed away from the dead zombie and the bag. There were some things she could never un-see and never forget, no matter how hard she tried.

  She dashed out into the street and headed for the hospital. She was so desperate to be away from the hell that existed out here on the streets, she almost ran straight into the trap. She spotted a zombie turning and staggering back the same way he’d come and with the lit hospital windows above, she realised where she was.

  She did a u-turn, feet sliding across the tarmac as she changed direction. She knew how close she’d come because moments later a zombie wandered in from the opposite direction and was torn apart, metres from where she’d stopped. She picked up a couple of pursuers, more ambitious zombies trying to keep up. She raced away, doing a lap of the block before returning to the trap from the other side.

  The leaders lay where she’d killed them, already being feasted on by others. But the majority of those in the trap were still there, moving back and forth on their paths. It was like they’d been programmed and would do this forever. Perhaps it was the promise of food. A primal instinct that told them if they kept doing what they were doing, they wouldn’t go hungry.

  She paused in the shadows, watching. So long as Luke and Krystal didn’t turn up, it didn’t matter. She pulled her phone out and checked the screen. Nothing. Where were they? She hesitated. Should she go back in the hospital? She didn’t want to because she was useless in there. Out here she could do something. She just had to figure out what. At least she had time.

  She got no further with her planning as the rumble of motorcycle engines grew rapidly louder.

  Luke

  They were being attacked by Metallica’s fan club. As an observer of human life for hundreds of years, there were many things he’d been exposed to. But even before that, music had played a part in some of the horrors he’d inflicted in Hell. Taste, the human tendency to like and dislike, gave the average demon more ammunition than any amount of physical pain. Metallica he didn’t mind too much, though his experience was limited to the occasional burst overheard from head phones.

  Now he would be quite happy if the world had never heard of the band. He gunned his bike and checked on Krystal. She hadn’t stopped amazing him the entire time they’d been out and she wasn’t showing any signs of doing so now. He was stronger, faster, and fitter than anyone else on Earth, by some distance. She was a normal human, and a skinny, malnourished one at that. Yet here she was, still standing and smiling with it.

  ‘Could we just ride at them, shouting?’ She asked.

  ‘I’m not sure that would work. Hang on.’ He jumped off his bike and pulled off his leather jacket. The jumper underneath came off
as well. He pulled the jacket back on then twisted the jumper into a roll of material. He unscrewed the petrol cap on the top of his bike and stuffed his jumper in until only a little poked out the top.

  Krystal tapped her handlebars, one eye on him but the other watching the horde coming rapidly closer. He checked as well, nodding in satisfaction. There was still forty feet between them and though it felt like they were moving fast, they weren’t. The pushing and shoving slowed them further.

  ‘Can you ride with me as passenger?’ He asked.

  ‘What are you going to do if I say no?’

  He shrugged. ‘Push you off and steal your bike?’

  She laughed and shifted forward on the saddle.

  ‘Be ready. We’re heading down the left side and there’ll be flames, okay?’

  She nodded and flipped her visor up. Her confident body language belied the tension in her face as she hid it from view. She was close to exhaustion and he couldn’t blame her in the least.

  He pulled his lighter out and held it to the end of his jumper. It smouldered a little but refused to catch completely. This was going to be tricky.

  He shook the bike, making the petrol slosh around inside. He could feel it when he squeezed the jumper. That would have to do. He started the engine and slipped it into first gear, keeping the revs up as it started to move. He jogged alongside as he approached the zombies. Krystal appeared on the far side of the bike, cruising at the same speed.

  ‘Get back a bit, just in case.’

  She blanched but did as he said. He got his lighter out again, struggling to control the bike with one hand. It was only the forward momentum that kept it up. The zombies were much closer now and he could hear their growling over the revs. He gunned the throttle as far as he could, flicked the lighter and held it to the jumper. The second the flame flared into life, he revved once more and shoved the bike forward.