by Perrin Briar
Hugo raised his sword high, gauging based on the zombie’s height. The zombie was wearing an army uniform. As the figure rose to his full height, he peered at Hugo with his one good working eye.
Hugo’s stomach fell to his feet.
He dropped his sword, letting it fall on the soft earth. Hugo backed away as the zombie stumbled after him, first in a slow walk, gradually building into a shambling run.
Hugo was a worrier. He could prepare himself for almost every eventuality.
Except those that came completely out of the blue.
And that was what this zombie was. Hugo’s response was the same as it would be in any other situation like this.
He turned and fled.
Chapter Fifty-Three
THE CARS LINED the street like the public displays of personal wealth they were. Some doors had been flung wide open, others jam-packed with personal belongings. Whoever the owners were had, for whatever reason, decided to change their minds about how they were going to escape the apocalypse.
Dana approached a car, checking up and down the street. There were no undead so far as she could see. She ran her expert juvie eye over the vehicle.
It was modern, with all the security equipment and sensors that came with it. She’d need to be quick. As soon as she beat on the cars the zombies would be on her.
She ran to a postbox. It was perched on a sturdy white fence post. She kicked at it, pressing her weight against it rather than trying to damage it. She grabbed the box and twisted it off.
Then she grabbed the stake and pulled it back and forth, widening the hold it had been jammed into. Finally, she pulled it free. She ran to the first car and swung at it.
Once.
No alarm.
Again.
No alarm.
A third time.
This time it worked.
The lights flashed and the alarm, like a bird in pain, rose above the house alarms down the street.
Dana moved away from the car, not at a run, but a fast walk. She watched as undead started appearing, drawn to the noise.
Dana struck another car, harder this time. The alarm began to wail immediately. Dana had no idea how many had left their front gate, but these distractions would at least ease some of the pressure.
Undead from other parts of the city were heading in the wailing cars’ direction. Had Dana had the opposite effect she thought she was having? Was she attracting more undead? Which would, in turn, lead to an even bigger problem later?
She wouldn’t worry about that now. The undead were also coming from the direction of the woods their house was concealed behind. Even more zombies were coming from up the street, heading in her direction. She was being flanked on both sides.
Worse, she wasn’t going to get back to the rowboat. Or, if she did, the undead would follow her…
Back toward their safe haven.
Why were things never easy?
Dana moved to another car farther down the road and smashed a wing mirror. It took three strikes before it came off.
Uhhhhhhhhhhh.
The groan came directly behind her.
Dana spun around.
“Shit!” she said.
She realized then she’d made an even bigger mistake. Zombies recognized words from a human throat even if they could not understand them. She had just made it clear what she was.
It fell upon her.
It buried its teeth into her elbow.
Lucky it was mostly bone. Blood spilled down her forearm. She did not feel the pain. Dana staggered aside and swung the fence post, caving in the creature’s skull.
Dana backed away, clutching her elbow in her hand. Her blood dripped through her fingers. She headed up the path into a house. The door, thankfully, was unlocked. She shut it behind her and headed up the stairs. She turned into the first room she came to.
A bare bedroom with a single soulless flower painting on the wall. She looked out the window and saw the undead sniffing at the spots of her blood that trailed up the path.
Leading to her location. She needed to get out.
Chapter Fifty-Four
IT WASN’T THE FACT it was a zombie that bothered Hugo. It was the fact it was a soldier he knew, and knew well.
In life, the soldier’s name was Jonesy. His first name began with the letter D but Hugo never knew what it stood for.
With Hugo’s father often away on missions, taking command, Jonesy became like an older brother to Hugo. Not just him, of course. There were others too. But Jonesy was the one closest to Hugo’s heart because he was the kindest. He played with him, even taught him to fight to beat his bullies. Not that Hugo ever used those skills.
Except for now.
He had to use those skills to kill him. Kill Jonesy.
No matter how many times he told himself Jonesy was already dead, that this walking corpse was just that, he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.
Jonesy was inside the house now. He moved to a window and pressed himself against it, smearing blood. Hugo was keeping an eye on him to ensure he didn’t hurt one of the others, all the while gathering up his courage.
Then, horror of horrors…
Through the window Jonesy was pushing himself against, Hugo could see Poe.
He was heading toward the door, unaware of Jonesy, who was like a cat watching a mouse. Jonesy bolted left, in the direction Poe was coming.
Poe opened the door.
Jonesy fell upon him…
But Hugo was somehow already there, having driven his sword through the back of Jonesy’s head.
Poe glanced at the undead and Hugo and then continued on through the living room and into the kitchen. He hadn’t even realized what had happened.
Hugo pushed Jonesy outside and shut the door. He dragged Jonesy’s body across the lawn and lay him beside the family’s unmoving corpses.
He suspected there would be a lot more dead bodies that needed burying here in the future. He only hoped no more belonged to people he knew.
Tears stung his eyes as he picked up the shovel and began to dig.
Chapter Fifty-Five
DANA WAS LIGHTHEADED, floundering. She patched herself up with bandages she found in the bathroom cabinet. The undead were bumping against the front door. They would eventually get in. By accident or design.
But they would get in.
Dana moved to the main bedroom at the back of the house. She climbed out of the window and slid down the conservatory roof. She had lost more blood than she thought, her movements scattered and unsure.
She hit the ground, landing on her shoulder. As infected, she doesn’t feel the pain, but she could feel the air being knocked from her lungs. She staggered through a hedge and into the neighbor’s backyard.
She lay with a face full of black flies, a dark cloud that obscured her vision. She gagged, tasting the buzzing flies at the back of her throat. She got to her feet and staggered away. She regained her feet using the shallow lip of a water feature.
Dana gagged again when she saw what had caused the flies to accumulate in such numbers. The discarded remains of beheaded dogs and children’s bodies. Cute little bright blue shoes and red drainpipe pants.
Dana turned away and threw up what little food she had in her stomach. She couldn’t stay. She had to press on.
She moved from one back garden to another, heading in the direction of their safe house. Finally, she got to the house that sat directly opposite the woodland that acted as a shield to their home.
The undead were still peeling out of it, heading toward the cars and houses with their blaring alarms. They had already broken into the others houses and were smashing it to pieces. It would soon become derelict. They had demolished one car and proceeded onto the next.
Black spots danced in Dana’s vision. It wouldn’t be long before she lost consciousness. She had lost too much blood. She prayed to God she wouldn’t pass out before she returned to the house.
She crossed the st
reet and made it to the trees. She could barely keep her eyes open. She felt cold. She needed to hurry or she would bleed out.
She got to the clearing at the front gate and stopped. There were still some undead there. Perhaps a dozen. Too many for her to deal with in her current state.
They stood there, listless and lost.
Dana turned and walked parallel to the wall. She then turned left and walked along the eastern wall. There were no undead here, and the crying alarms were almost silent. Dana waved at a security camera with one hand, the other keeping pressure on her elbow. She didn’t dare shout. She was feeling faint again. She sat down, her back to the wall.
So, this was how she would die. She felt sad, sorry to Max that she wouldn’t keep her promise and save her. But at least Hugo was safe. Maybe he would finish what she had started.
Her head nodded with the onset of sleep. As soon as her eyes closed, surrendering to the darkness, it would all be over. It wasn’t so bad. At least she wasn’t being eaten alive.
She had never felt so tired…
Chapter Fifty-Six
SOMETHING HIT THE TOP of Dana’s head, causing her to start. She was too weak to look at what it was. Probably an undead. If so, she wanted to drift to sleep and let it do to her what it would.
The next thing she knew, a ladder floated down and sat on the ground beside her. Hugo descended it and wrapped something around her. It was soft when he leaned her head against it. Then Hugo went back up the ladder. It lifted up, back over the wall.
Nice of Hugo to give her something soft to lean her head against, Dana thought.
There was a revving sound. Dana rose off the ground, up and up, and then crashed down on the other side onto something soft.
Her eyes fluttered open and then closed again. If she could shut her eyes for a second she’d be fine…
“Stay awake!” Hugo shouted into her face. “Stay awake!”
He was at her side now, removing the soft blanket he had placed around her, and then the bandages too.
Dana flinched, not from the pain, but from how cold her arm felt. Hugo replaced the soiled bandages with the ones he’d found in their new house.
He stabbed something in her arm.
Dana bolted upright, instantly awake. She turned and looked about her.
Hugo, the car he’d used to drag her over the wall, as well as the blankets he’d used as a stretcher.
“Are you all right?” Hugo said. “Are you okay?”
She was neither of those things, but she had a feeling she would be okay soon. She felt her own courage and seized it.
She would not die. Not today.
Hugo helped her onto her feet and into the house.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
DANA WAS ONCE again back in bed. She was grazing on food Hugo had cooked for her. He turned out to be a wonderful chef. Dana suspected he felt guilty for her having been the one to take all the risks and head out by herself. On top of that, she’d gotten injured and almost died.
Dana felt better already. Still a little weak, and unsteady on her feet. She was strong enough.
“You should rest,” Hugo said.
“I will,” Dana said. “How’s our guy doing?”
“I haven’t had time to check up on him,” Hugo said. “Don’t worry. I put Poe in charge of keeping an eye on him.”
That didn’t exactly fill Dana will confidence. It felt like she’d been out of the house a lot longer than an hour. But clocks did not lie.
“We’d best go look then, hadn’t we?” Dana said, tossing the blankets aside.
Even that small movement was enough to knock the wind from Dana’s sails.
“Don’t move,” Hugo said. “You haven’t fully recovered yet.”
Despite her swimming head, Dana got to her feet. She braced herself against the wall, Hugo on the other side. He didn’t try to stop her again, knowing he would only be wasting his breath.
They crossed the hall to the spare bedroom. Poe stood guard outside. His eyes unblinking, staring with complete conviction at the locked door. Hugo patted him on the head, causing Poe to start.
There was no sound on the other side of the door. That either boded very well or very badly in Dana’s eyes.
“Careful,” Dana said.
With her the way she was, only Hugo was capable of defending them if anything went awry.
They needn’t have worried. Opening the door revealed Stewart on his back on the floor. He wasn’t looking good. He hadn’t turned yet, but he was close.
“How am I doing?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Dana said. “I never saw anyone turn before.”
“That’s comforting,” Stewart said, coughing and hacking up a thick wad of blood.
“But we never did that when we turned,” Dana said.
“Yeah well,” Stewart said, wiping his mouth with his dirty sleeve. “At least you guys gave me the chance. Anybody else would have put me down on the spot. You know, I’ve been thinking about what you asked me before. About the university.”
Dana’s ears pricked up at that.
“Do you remember her?” Dana said. “Do you remember seeing Max?”
“No,” Stewart said. “I’m still drawing a blank on that one. Like I told you, I wasn’t there. What I wanted to ask you was this: was there no one else left alive at the university?”
“No,” Dana said. “Except for a lying useless old hag.”
“An old woman?” Stewart said.
“She was in the room the soldiers left a bunch of people inside,” Dana said. “To die, or turn. We don’t know why.”
“Wait,” Stewart said. “She was in a room full of the undead? That doesn’t make sense. They wouldn’t have left them in there with the infected.”
“Then why did they leave them there?” Dana said.
“For safety,” Stewart said. “They would have wanted to protect them. The reason they couldn’t go back was because the undead took over. They were always going to go back to get them.”
“Then why were they all infected?” Hugo said.
“One must have been infected when they were put in there,” Stewart said. “He turned, and then the others got bitten and turned too.”
Dana shook the images and sounds from her mind. How terrifying it must have been for them all.
“But there’s one thing I’m certain of,” Stewart said. “The people in the room would have known where they were going.”
“Why?” Dana said.
“Hope,” Stewart said. “It would have calmed them down, knowing they were going to a better place. Though in the end, they ended up going to a very different better place than the one they thought. But they would have told them, to calm them, to get them to do what they wanted. That’s what I would have done, anyway. And besides, who does it harm? If they managed to get out, they could come to you in the end anyway.”
Stewart had turned pale, a clear sign he was on the verge of turning into one of those things.
“I need to… to sleep a minute,” Stewart said.
“You sleep as much as you need,” Dana said. “We’ll take care of you.”
Stewart mumbled under his voice, what might have been thanks, or a curse, Dana didn’t know.
Hugo checked Stewart’s pulse. He turned to Dana and shook his head. Dead. Hugo put the blade of his sword to Stewart’s eye and then pushed down with his weight, puncturing his brain.
“Where is she?” Dana said. “Where is the lying old hag?”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
“TAKE IT EASY on her,” Hugo said, struggling to keep up with Dana, despite her injuries. “She’s old.”
“She’s been playing us for fools all along,” Dana said. “It’s about time she was honest with us.”
She hurtled down the stairs. Without the anger and bile simmering in her veins, Dana might never have made it down. That was all driving her at that point.
“But she might not know anything,” Hugo said.
&n
bsp; “She knows enough to lie to us,” Dana said. “I’ll beat the truth out of her if I have to.”
Debbie was where she had been ever since they had arrived: asleep in a lounge chair in the front room.
While they had been working hard, risking their lives to protect them all, she hadn’t even offered to lift a finger. Even Hugo found it difficult to have any empathy for her.
Dana shoved Debbie onto the floor. She landed badly, but Dana didn’t care.
Debbie was grumpy, flustered and annoyed she’d been woken up. She turned to look at Dana, who was moving around the chair to face her. Before the old woman could react, Dana was on top of her, pinning her down and holding her in place.
“Get off me!” Debbie screeched, and it really was a screech.
Dana didn’t care. She grabbed the old woman by the forearms and held her down. Debbie spat at Dana, tossing her head of grey wire-like hair side to side.
“That problem with you Americans!” Debbie shouted. “No respect for old!”
She continued to struggle, but Dana was paying her no mind. She grabbed Debbie by the hair and slammed her head hard against the floor. It was stone, with no carpet and made a meaty slap.
Debbie howled in pain. Poe whined and put his hands over his head, rocking back and forth. Hugo restrained him, holding him.
“Where did the soldiers go?” Dana said.
“I tell you already!” Debbie said. “I no know!”
Dana smacked the old woman’s head against the floor again.
“Where?” Dana said.
“I no know!” Debbie said.
Dana smashed the old hag’s head against the floor again. Her hair was wet to Dana’s fingers.
“Look at me,” Dana said.
The old woman kept her eyes clamped shut.
“I said look at me!” Dana said, her voice growling and sinister.
Debbie opened her eyes.
“You might think that by keeping us here we have to look after you,” Dana said. “You might think Hugo here will keep cooking for you and we’ll keep hunting for food. But you’re wrong. I will kill you before I let you have another morsel of food. You are weak and old. You are useless to us. We do not need you. We will not care for you. Maybe it’s only people like you who can survive in the new world order. But we are not stupid enough to let you do it to us. Do you hear me? You have one chance left. Be useful to us and tell me where they took my sister.”