Thirteen Roses Book Four: Alone: A Paranormal Zombie Saga

by Cairns, Michael

  ‘Who? What did you say to Bayleigh?’

  ‘Not her, Krystal. She should have let me finish it back at the house.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You weren’t there, that’s why, of course you don’t know. But I knew it then. We’re all going to die. Why are we prolonging it, like we’ve got a chance?’

  He sniffed and scrubbed his face with his hands. Alex opened his mouth and closed it again. He couldn’t find anything that might make this any better. There were no words that wouldn’t sound like dissembling and Ed was right. He wasn’t stupid, not at all.

  Ed glared up at him, took another look out the window, and stomped from the room. Alex sighed, leaning his forehead against the glass. This was difficult enough without Ed freaking out. Probably better he wasn’t here, though. He could find a room to hide in until Bayleigh came back. If he was lucky maybe he’d find some of the ladies to make him feel better.

  Alex grinned. There were plenty of ladies here who could make him feel better. He looked out of the window and watched Bayleigh dash across the road. She moved ridiculously fast. It was like watching a movie on fast forward, only she was still graceful and smooth. Did she do everything fast now?

  She hunkered down in the shadows and when he flicked his eyes away from her, he couldn’t find her again. Why wasn’t she coming inside? The trap. She had to stay there until Luke and Krystal came back. She had to warn them. It was a typical Bayleigh thing to do, thinking of others first.

  Her entire life seemed to have based around that. She’d talked a bit about her dad in the last couple of days and it didn’t sound good. Looking after him for however many years must have been tough. It sounded like he died only a couple of weeks ago, though he wasn’t sure about the details. It had something to do with Luke, he knew that much.

  He sighed and turned away from the window. He should go back to reception. He hadn’t been able to see anything from down there and the zombies were too numerous to hang around so he’d come back upstairs. Now he wanted to go down and out into the street. Bayleigh made it look so easy, running back and forth and attacking people with knives.

  He wouldn’t find it so easy. Who would it help if he went down there and got himself killed? Was he a coward? There was a sixteen year old girl out there somewhere, armed with only a sword. Bay was down in the street with a butter knife to keep her safe. He was stood up here within the safety of the devices and still he was scared.

  He sneered at himself and left the room. He could do this. He had to do this. He had to prove he was as worthy as the rest of them. Not as worthy, more worthy. After all, this was his fault. As long as they didn’t know that it was alright. But if they found out, if Bayleigh found out, and he was hiding and staying away from danger, she’d have every right to hate him.

  He reached the top of the stairs, baseball bat in hand, and paused. Three zombies roamed around reception, but it wasn’t them that gave him pause. It was Ed, halfway down the stairs with nothing to defend himself. His head hung like he was already dead, hands swinging limp at his sides.

  Alex wanted to shout but the noise would draw the zombies. He took the stairs two at a time and grabbed Ed’s shoulder. The boy turned and Alex had to work hard to stand his ground. It was like staring at one of the zombies below. There was pain in the boy’s eyes, and something else besides. He was pleading, begging for something, but Alex didn’t know what.

  ‘What can I do?’ Why had he asked that? Ed shook his head and turned back to the zombies, trying to resume his descent. Alex grabbed him again but Ed shook him off.

  ‘Get off me.’

  ‘You aren’t going down there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you’ll die.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I don’t want you to die. And neither does Bayleigh, or Krystal.’

  ‘You didn’t mention Luke.’

  ‘You already know Luke doesn’t and—’ He cut off as the zombies heard his voice and turned. They lurched across the floor towards them. ‘You know why Luke wants you alive. I’m not sure you get why Bayleigh and Krystal do.’

  ‘Because they care about me. Because they want to protect me from the world and keep me safe and all that other bullshit.’

  ‘Why is that bad? Why is that bullshit?’

  Ed spun back around to face him. Tears ran from his screwed-up eyes. ‘Because they can’t protect me from me.’

  Alex frowned. How was he supposed to handle this? What did the kid mean? ‘What do you mean? What are you going to do?’

  ‘My brain hates me. My brain thinks I should just go and kill myself. It’s easy now cos I can just walk down these stairs and they’ll do it for me.’

  ‘You aren’t going down those stairs.’

  ‘WHY NOT? WHY THE HELL NOT?’

  Alex ducked as his screams bounced around the huge space. Ed’s voice cracked halfway through. Alex wanted to hug him, though he had no idea if that was the right thing to do. What was wrong with him? He smiled inwardly as he answered his own question. Ed was a teenager who’d come from an abusive home life and spent the last six months on the street. He was now living, or doing something resembling it, in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. That would do it.

  Ed was stomping down the stairs again and he watched him go. He couldn’t stop him, not without physically restraining him. But he could get rid of the zombies. Without them, Ed would have no choice but to live. Alex raised the baseball bat and stared at it. The end shook and he tried to convince himself it was just the weight.

  He raced down the stairs, shoving past Ed without looking at him. He wanted to check whether he’d stopped, but he couldn’t think about anything except the zombie lurching towards him. He raised the bat and tried to pretend he was Luke or Bayleigh. It came close enough for him to catch a whiff of the rot. That was far enough.

  He swung the bat as hard as he could and struck the zombie full on the side of the head. The bat kept moving. In fact, all of him did, as the head tore free from the body and flew across the room. His swing completely over balanced him and he spun around to face Ed, bat bouncing off the stair rail.

  The boy had stopped and was staring at him with wide, angry eyes. Alex didn’t want to see them. He didn’t want to see him at all. He wanted to be back upstairs, watching through the window to make sure Bayleigh was alright. But he hefted the bat and turned to face the next zombie.

  He tried the same swing but this time caught it on the shoulder. The bat sank deep into its flesh and the sound of cracking bone was loud in the reception area. The zombie stumbled and fell, tripping over itself. Alex pounced, slamming the end of the bat into its face again and again. When the sound became that of the bat hitting the floor, he looked up.

  The third zombie was already there. It grabbed him, claws digging into his shoulders. He twisted and squirmed until the hands fell away. He grabbed the bat in both hands and rammed the creature beneath the chin. It staggered away and he steadied himself.

  He brought it straight over his head from behind and struck the zombie plumb in the middle of its skull. Brain erupted from around the bat, while blood squirted from its eyes and mouth and nose. Alex stepped back, covering his mouth as the corpse crumpled to the floor.

  Reception was empty, save for him and Ed. Alex tried to flick the worst of the blood off the bat but it wasn’t working. Screw it. He rested it on his shoulder, trying to ignore the smell and focus on what he’d just done. He could fight. He could be useful. He could make amends for what he’d done.

  ‘What did you do?’

  He jumped and turned to Ed. ‘What?’

  ‘What did you do. They were for me.’

  ‘You aren’t killing yourself.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to, they were going to do it for me.’

  ‘There’s no difference. You might as well have drunk poison by coming down here. The end result is the same. And Ed,’ He stood at the bottom of the steps and stared up at h
im. ‘You aren’t killing yourself.’

  ‘That’s not your choice, that’s my choice.’

  ‘That’s true. But this is about more than just you and me. You’re the youngest person on Earth. You will live longer, probably, than everyone else. There’ll come a time when you’re the only person alive who remembers what happened here. You can’t kill yourself.’

  Ed’s face dropped and he stared at his shoes. It looked like it was working. He wanted to say more, but he thought he might scare the kid. Better to leave it at that and let him reach his own conclusions.

  ‘I’m the youngest person on Earth.’

  ‘Yeah, weird, isn’t it?’

  Ed shook his head and whistled through his teeth. ‘You can’t be sure.’

  ‘Of course not. But we’re the only people alive except all the soldiers of God around the world and their hostages. So it seems pretty likely. Now can we go back upstairs?’

  Ed stared at him and again he saw the pleading look. What did he want?

  ‘Can I do anything?’

  Ed shook his head. His hair came down to mask his face, the vulnerability hidden away once more. But he turned and trudged back up. Alex let out the breath he was holding and followed him. He was most of the way up when he heard the rumble of motorbikes.

  Luke

  The boat twisted and turned and he knew he should care. But he couldn’t feel his legs and his arms were shaking uncontrollably. His teeth rattled together as Krystal dumped him in the bottom of the boat. She screamed and threw herself away from him, then the boat twisted and shot sideways, throwing her back on top of him.

  The dark underneath of the railway bridge flashed by above before they were spat out beneath the streetlights of the South Bank.

  ‘Oh God, could have done without that. Jesus. Right.’

  He listened to her, waiting for something approaching sense to emerge, but she kept saying ‘Jesus’ and ‘okay’ and ‘right’ a lot, so he tuned her out and focused on his pain. There wasn’t much right now, which he thought should be a good thing, but had a sneaking suspicion wasn’t.

  ‘I think I need to get dry.’

  ‘D’you think? Next you’ll be saying you want to be warm as well.’

  She flashed him a grin he tried and failed to replicate. His lips felt like silly putty, all chunky and lazy. He pressed his fingers against his cheek and got only the slightest response. ‘I think it needs to be soon.’

  She hissed at him and put more power on, drawing the boat away from the centre of the river and back towards the north bank. She slowed it, keeping quiet as they nudged up next to one of the floating restaurants. She got the rope curled up at the back and threw the end to him.

  ‘Tie us to the restaurant.’

  He looked at her, waiting for instructions as to how he was going to do that with sausages for fingers. She ignored him, her forehead creased as she concentrated on keeping the boat beside the restaurant. It was like wearing really thick gloves. Not that he’d ever worn gloves.

  He fumbled about but eventually succeeded in getting their rope behind the one that ran in loops down the side of the restaurant ship. He pulled it tight by grabbing it in both hands and falling to the bottom of the boat. They rocked but were dragged tight to the restaurant, the front of their boat lifted from the water. He wrapped the end of the rope around the post at the front of the boat and looked around.

  Krystal was already beside him and balancing on the edge of the boat. She tucked one foot into the loop of rope, shoved herself up, grabbed the side of the restaurant and slipped over the rail out of sight. Luke stared up, blinking. Was she coming back for him? Why did he feel so pathetic? His brain was refusing to do anything more challenging than make basic observations.

  Krystal’s face appeared above him and he beamed at her. She gave him a look and shook her head.

  ‘Get up and do what I did.’

  He almost complained before something told him that would be an unwise thing to do. He leant against the boat and lifted one heavy leg into the loop of rope. He heaved and went precisely nowhere. He tried again and felt something in his leg. Unfortunately, it was a grinding, stabbing pain that made him whimper. And he still didn’t move.

  The pain didn’t stop and suddenly he longed for the numbness. Krystal leant over the rail and offered him her hands. He grabbed them, pushed up with his legs, and somehow she was pressing his hands onto the rail of the restaurant. He clung to it for a while, taking deep breaths, before he pulled himself up.

  He rolled over the rail and landed with a thump on the narrow slice of deck. Krystal stood over him, hands on her hips. ‘Any chance you gonna man up any time soon?’

  He glared at her, wondering if she’d ever known the kind of pain that was cutting through his legs. She probably had. Still. He sat up and pulled his knees closer, resting his head atop them. She gave him about two seconds.

  ‘Get up. We need to get going.’

  ‘I need to get dry.’

  ‘You sound like Ed. Come on.’

  She grabbed his hand and yanked him to his feet. He hobbled after her, every step sending bursts of agony through his legs. She found an open door and led him into the restaurant. Tables were crammed together and laid beautifully with knives and forks and glasses. And a zombie.

  He wore chef’s whites and staggered towards them, bumping off tables. Krystal went to meet him and Luke beamed again. She was ready now, for whatever came. She was a couple of tables away when she stopped. He could almost hear her thinking. Then she reached for a wine glass and threw it at the zombie. It broke over him and he shook his head about like a wounded bear.

  Next she selected a knife, gripped it by the blade, and tossed it at the zombie. She missed. He heard her swear and go for another. This one hit him in the face, handle first and he shook it off again. Luke was about to remind her they were in a hurry when she scurried around the table so there was only one between them. She grabbed the edge of it and rammed it hard towards the zombie.

  It slammed into his gut and he doubled over, chef’s hat tumbling to the floor. Her sword appeared in her hand and she drove it straight through the top of his head. The chef stiffened and collapsed face first onto the table, then slid to the floor. Without saying a word, Krystal headed for the kitchen on the far side of the boat.

  Luke was happy to find a chair and sit as his legs went from pure agony to sharp, intermittent stabbing pains. A moment later, Krystal emerged carrying a pair of white trousers and a chef’s top. Luke stared at her as she weaved her way towards him through the tables. She’d gone, in a night, from being a scared sixteen year old to a capable young woman.

  There was, he supposed, nothing like zombies to bring out the best in someone.

  ‘Get your clothes off.’

  Or not. He struggled out of his soaking clothes and stood shivering.

  ‘Get dressed then.’

  He pulled on the chef’s trousers and top and felt a little better. ‘What about you?’

  ‘They’re mostly dry already. Can’t be arsed, there’s nothing in there my size.’

  She was already stomping to the door.

  ‘Hang on a minute, can I have a minute, please.’

  She turned, eyebrow raised, then came back and sat down. Her shoulders slumped as she put one elbow on the table and he realised why she hadn’t wanted to stop. He wasn’t sure he could get up, but she’d done so much more than him in the last few hours. He heaved himself from his chair, groaning as he put weight on his legs, and patted her shoulder. ‘You saved my life. Thank you.’

  She looked up at him through bleary eyes. ‘Whatever. You ready?’

  He chuckled and shook his head. Seeing her expression, he nodded. ‘Yes, absolutely, sorry. I was just reflecting on how different you are to when I gave you the rose.’

  ‘Well, I’m not homeless anymore.’

  ‘That is very true. And you have a sword.’

  She patted it and rose smiling from her seat.
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br />   Embankment was quieter than usual, only the odd zombie shambling along.

  ‘Where’ve they gone?’ She asked.

  ‘The packs will be finding places to hunt. They’ll come here when other grounds are empty.’

  ‘They aren’t on the bloody African savannah.’

  ‘But the logic is the same. They will make packs and hunt down the weaker ones. After that…’ He spread his hands palms up, and shrugged. ‘What happens then? Will they grow in intelligence? In twenty years we could be fighting pitched battles. At the moment the weight of numbers is only a problem if you let them surround you. But give them weapons and it’s another story altogether.’

  ‘Well aren’t you a bundle of bloody joy. Can we settle for getting back to the hospital tonight?’

  They found another bike without much bother, got it started, climbed on, and went searching for a second. A few minutes later they found it. It was a police bike, huge and unwieldy, but with plenty of power. It sounded beautiful when he started it up. He caught Krystal grinning at him. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re looking different, that’s all. More human.’

  He nodded, ignoring the frisson of doubt that ran through him. He didn’t want to feel more human. He didn’t want to lose the edge that meant he could do what he needed to. And he didn’t want to become weak.

  He was no nearer deciding what he would do with Az and Seph, but he would need his strength and he would need to be ruthless, regardless of which path he chose. He would be fighting either the Father, or two very powerful beings. Either way, the sticky human emotions that were gaining more and more control everyday were bad news.

  But the bike sounded great. He revved the engine and they set off north, away from the river. He glanced down a side street and saw a pack. It was hard to tell in the gloom, but it looked like twenty or thirty zombies gathered around something on the floor. They were listening, silent in the dark of the alleyway, and his skin crawled.