It’s a chase scene in slo-mo, like one of those dreams where you try to run but can’t. The snow is not too deep, but there’s thick ice below it. We move as fast as we can — which is not very fast, just enough to keep the motley crew behind at a distance. Lily leads the way on foot with Cam on her back. The moaning behind us is louder — clearly they don’t like finding an obstacle in their way, either — but I don’t look around. Keep going and they can’t catch you.
It’s getting darker and it is mercilessly cold. At the back of my mind is a nagging realization that if we don’t find shelter, the cold may well finish us off before the monsters do. I can see the junction leading out onto the main road. I push myself off and glide past the girl and her brother. Please god, don’t let me wipe out — Smitty will never let me forget it. I reach the junction in no great style and try to remember which way we turned in — and did we pass through any villages before we got here? To the left is silent road and trees, to the right is the same, but leading up a steep hill. I’m stunned at my own lack of observation. I have absolutely no memory of what came before the Cheery Chomper. Luckily, I don’t have to remember.
“Turn right!” the girl shouts. “We live up there.”
“There’s a town?” I ask as she reaches me, panting.
She shakes her head. “It’s a wee village, really. But we’ll be safe in our house, and there’s a phone.”
“How far?” Smitty and Pete have caught up.
The girl shrugs. “A couple of minutes in the car.”
Smitty makes a face. “Lucky I brought my Ferrari.”
She stares at him. “Maybe a mile or something?”
I can see Pete begin to wilt.
“That’s nothing.” I force a smile. “What, twenty minutes on foot? We can get there before it’s totally dark.”
“Dragging Alice?” Pete begins to shake. “Up that hill? With them behind us?”
I look behind me. They’re still coming: the LEGO men, Booby Woman, the couple, and Gareth. All bar Carrot Man. Something tells me he’s probably rolling around in a ditch.
“Look how slow they are, man!” Smitty says. “We keep going, they’ll never catch us.”
So we start up the road. I focus on the brow of the hill. The horizon undulates ahead of me, the trees leaning in on each other over the road, the road appearing to move as if I’m on an endless white treadmill. I fix my gaze on it, willing it closer. And then it does move.
I stop. We all do.
Smitty looks up the hill and frowns.
“What’s wrong?” Pete asks, nervously looking behind us.
Our pursuers haven’t made it onto the main road.
Smitty raises a hand. “Listen.”
We strain our ears. There is something. Something is off. It’s almost as if the pressure’s changed, like when you’re on a plane and your ears pop and you start hearing things in a different key. It’s a hum, so low and constant that we didn’t notice it creeping in at first.
“A car!” Pete says, elated.
A truck, maybe. Or a tractor. Something grittier than a car. And it’s coming toward us from the direction of the hilltop. My mind races as I imagine truckloads of soldiers coming into view. I’ve never been one for boys in uniform, but I might be rapidly changing my mind on that one.
“Stay frosty, people,” says Smitty, but I can hear the hope in his voice.
“They’re coming,” Alice moans, her head lolling on Smitty’s shoulder.
“Hey, Malice!” Smitty says to her, almost affectionately. “Way to time waking up! Bang on, old girl!” He kisses her head, and a shameful little part of me dies somewhere deep inside. “Lean yourself against Uncle Pete for a mo’, ’kay?” He practically throws her onto Pete, and starts to stride up the hill. “Woo-hoo! Here we are!” he calls. f staying chill.
Then he stops. And at the same moment, I realize why.
The gray blur on the horizon sharpens into focus just as the noise does. No trucks, no tractors, no military men to whisk us away to safety, but hundreds of stumbling shapes, growling and groaning and grumbling.
An army of monsters.
Lily lets out a strangled half gasp.
“Scaredy Lily?” Cam mumbles into her shoulder.
“What do we do?” Pete whispers. His head whips from up the hill to down, where Gareth and his cutie coterie have started up the incline toward us, slow but relentless.
“Don’t panic,” I say, which must go down in history as the All Time Lamest Comment Ever. We instinctively back into the tree line, dragging Alice with us. Smitty is still transfixed by the hordes.
“We have to go back,” I say. And once I’ve made the decision, Pete’s throwing himself down the hill at speed, leaving me to prop up semi-conscious Alice. Lily follows with Cam. “Smitty!” I yell. He’s still staring up the hill at the oncoming masses. “Some help here!”
He looks back at me, utterly crestfallen. My heart breaks a little; I feel it, too.
The Gareth Posse are now walking in a line, shoulder to shoulder, across the road. Must be some kind of hunting instinct. Lily falters and turns to shout up at me. “We can cut into the woods!” She points. “Find a way up the hill to get to the village!”
I shake my head. “We’re faster on the road. And newsflash,” I add cruelly, “your village is infected. There’s no point heading there.”
“But what about — ?” She thrusts out a hand to the six who are cutting our way off, her face desperate and crumpled.
“We can get past them!” I struggle down the hill, sliding Alice on the board, and yes, she is heavier than she looks. There’s a dark red mat of hair at the back of her blond head. All things considered, it’s amazing she’s still standing. Then Smitty’s there, taking Alice’s other arm, his eyes wild and his breath heavy. I look at him and swallow hard. “Take my board. Whiz down the road and do your thing. We need you to distract them while we get Alice and the kid past.”
He doesn’t need telling twice. In fact, he’s almost too fast, already nearly down at the bottom of the hill before I can catch my breath. He buzzes Gareth, making him fall over on the hard ground, before doubling back and taking out the legs of Booby Woman.
“Quick!” I tell the others. “Get down the hill as fast as you can.”
Alice shrugs me off. It’s as if she’s drunk. She kicks her feet free, sits on the snowboard like it’s a sled, and before I can stop her, lies back and pushes off. The board flies down the bank. But she can’t control it, and as she leans and banks sharply left, she wipes out LEGO Zombie Chef.
“Go, Malice!” yells Smitty as he dodges past Gareth again. “Zombie Luge Bowling!”
It hasn’t done much for her concussion, though. She falls off the board into some soft snow by the tree line. Pete, Lily and Cam, and I hurry down the hill on the other side — as LEGO Zombie Builder stumbles toward her.
But Smitty’s on it. He pushes his board into action, and reaches her before LEGO Builder can. He pulls her up in front of him, and they ride his board in tandem, like some kind of weird ballet.
We’re past them. I look back up the hill. The growling legions are still advancing, but they don’t have snowboards, or brains, or even fully functioning legs. As they emerge out of the shadows, I can see young kids and grannies, and probably the mailman and the guy who came to fix the frozen pipes. How did they all turn? Did they get the evil Veggie Juice, or were they bitten? And how are there so many of them? Is this everywhere? Where will we be safe?
I run clumsily after the others. Alice is walking now, occasionally shooting out a hand to steady herself on Pete’s arm. Now I know she must be concussed — there’s no way she’d consciously touch him if she wasn’t. Smitty is trailblazing to who knows where. The road ahead gives no clues.
Full-on dark now. If it wasn�
�t for the snow and a sliver of moon, we’d be totally screwed. We could be heading from the frying pan into the fire, for all we know . . . but hey. Anywhere but here is fine with me, and if we stick to the road there’s always the chance we’ll meet some more live, non-monstery people — preferably with vehicles and big guns.
Soon we’ll be out of the zoms’ sight. I wonder if they can track us, or if they only chase what they can see or hear.
I catch up with the others. They’re having a discussion about where we’re headed.
“So, is it near?” Smitty is — typically — striding ahead, the board now tucked under his arm.
“I said I don’t know,” Lily says, exasperated.
“Actually you said you ‘dinny ken’!” shouts Smitty. “And unless he’s Ken” — he points to her brother — “I don’t have a clue what you’re on about.”
“Me neither,” I say. “What are we looking for?”
Lily turns to me, breathing heavily as she struggles to keep walking with Cam on her back. “There’s a village — or a small town, I think — a few miles away. I don’t know how far because we only moved here a few weeks ago.”
“Great!” Smitty blusters. “The only survivors we find haven’t got a clue where the hell they are, either!”
“Here!” Pete shouts at us from the side of the road. “This way!”
We rush over to where he’s brushing snow off a brown signpost pointing left. On it is a little picture of what looks like a chess piece and the words 1 MILE.
“It’s a castle!” he says, triumphant.
“So?” says Smitty.
“Fortification.” Pete’s eyes gleam.
Smitty frowns at him. “Wuh?”
“Thick stone walls. Big wooden doors with solid locks. Little windows. And weapons, Smitty, weapons.”
“Where is it?” Smitty’s decided.
“Wait!” I say. “What about sticking to the road in case there’s someone looking for us? And what about this village or town that might be a couple of miles away?”
“Might be,” says Pete. “Bobby, it’s cold, it’s dark, we’ve had kind of a big day —”
“They must have a phone!” says Lily, jumping ship. “And something to eat.”
There’s a thump a few feet behind us.
Alice has fallen headlong into the snow; she can go no farther.
“Castle it is, then,” I say.
Smitty and Pete gather her up. The turnoff is a single car-width of virgin snow.
I pause. “What if they can see our footprints?”
“More likely smell that trail of blood you’re leaving,” Smitty says.
My hand goes up to my nose. It’s started dripping again. “They’re not sharks, Smitty,” I say snippily. “For all we know, it’s your rancid feet they’re attracted to.”
We tramp down the lane in silence, Smitty and Pete sliding Alice on Smitty’s board this time, me feeling like a packhorse with all of our bags. The trees block out the sky in places. I feel like we’re trespassing, and that any minute now something is going to jump out of the darkness.
It doesn’t.
Every one of us keeps stealing a glance behind, hoping not to see we’re being followed. After a couple of times, it becomes a joke — let’s see who can hold out the longest without checking. But fate is kind, and it seems like we might have given them the slip. The adrenaline of the chase has gone now. I’m cold and exhausted.
Finally the lane bends sharply, revealing a black mass against a glittering background. A castle and a frozen loch.
And there’s a light on.
“There’s a light,” sings Smitty, “over at the Frankenstein place . . .”
We’re standing at the castle gates. Most of us are standing, anyway. Alice has collapsed onto her knees, and we’re too tired to pick her up. Smitty is the only one left with any energy: Manic, with a side of Musical Theater. He has been singing all the way down the lane since we spied the castle; at first it was kind of funny and creepy, now it’s just plain annoying. The wind is picking up and my un-gloved fingers are threatening to drop off. The straps of all the bags are cutting through my shoulders like the thinnest of ribbons. I clamp my hands under my armpits and look up at what has stopped us.
The gates are high, with a heap of heavy chain wrapped around them like a snake, and a big ol’ padlock. Whoever is in the castle is not at home for visitors. The light that led us here is from a ground-floor window next to a huge, dark doorway that I can barely see. One light on, and one only.
I look around for some kind of entry phone on the gates, but this is Scotland, not Beverly Hills. At the risk of losing my skin, I shake the gates of freezing metal, but they barely move. They’re made of elaborate wrought iron with no easy foot- or handholds, and are attached to an equally high brick wall, which Smitty has already tried to bounce over, Tigger-stylee.
“Do you think we can get in around the back?” I ask.
“Wouldn’t that defeat the point of having high walls?” Pete snaps.
“Why don’t we shout?” Lily says. “Whoever is in there will come and let us in.”
“No shouting!” Pete almost breaks his own rule, nervously glancing behind us. “For all we know, the hordes are close by.”
“Why . . . don’t we go in through the gates?” Alice slurs. She has dragged herself up and is leaning against one of them. She fiddles with the padlock and slowly unwinds the thick chain, which slithers to the ground with a muffled thud.
“How the hell . . . ?” Pete stutters.
“Malice?” Smitty says. “Did you pick the lock with a nail file?”
Alice makes a snarky face. “The padlock wasn’t closed, you wanger.” She holds it up in her hand.
We stare in silence. It has come to this. It takes the girl with the concussion to see what’s right in front of our noses.
“I dunno,” she mumbles. “Sometimes you losers like making things more complicated for yourselves.”
Smitty lets out a peal of laughter and claps Alice on the back as he pulls the gates open.
Everyone is buoyed by our success, and once we’ve rewrapped the chain around the gate behind us, we hurry with newly strong legs over the expanse of snow that separates us from the castle door.
The dark hulk of the castle crouches above us, the light from the single window casting an orange glow at our feet. We climb a few shallow steps up to the door. The window is too high to see in; there’s no curtain, but the glass is latticed with thin strips of lead. Not exactly prison bars, but way better than we could have hoped for. If we get in, there ain’t no way any Undead are gonna follow without some kind of missile launchers, and I haven’t seen them pull that particular trick just yet.
Smitty tries the huge, round handle. It’s obviously just for show.
“Maybe we should ring the bell first?” I point to a discreet metal buzzer to the side of the door. “We don’t want to scare whoever’s in there.”
Alice is already leaning on it. We wait, straining to hear approaching steps. Smitty presses his ear to the door.
“This is where the mad axman who lives here slices me through the face from the other side of the door.” He grins at me.
“Don’t,” I say. Seriously, it could absolutely happen today.
Smitty tries banging on the door instead. Alice sinks to the ground again, little Cam starts to whine in his sister’s arms, and Pete casts more freaked-out looks in the direction of the lane. But nobody comes to the door.
“So we go in the back.” Smitty is already walking away.
“No!” Lily calls out. She puts Cam down and gets a plastic bag out of her pocket, lays it on the snow-covered step, and sits. “We’ve gone far enough. You go round the back. When you find a way, come and let us in, aye?”
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br /> Smitty is fine with that. Alice and Pete are more than fine. I hover between the two camps: part of me wanting to stay put, the other not wanting Smitty to go alone. But my pause for thought is enough to ensure he slips off into the darkness without me. I’ll wait five minutes, I think, then I’ll go after him.
The wind has dropped. As I sit on the step between Alice and Lily, something tickles me on the nose. I look up; it’s snowing again. Just a few flakes.
“No,” moans Alice. “Like we need some more of that stuff.”
Cam begins to cry and squirm on Lily’s lap. “Hey now, laddie,” she says to him softly. “Any minute now we’ll be cozy inside with a canny roaring fire to sit beside.” He clings to her and she breathes onto his blond head. “We can make toast,” she continues. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Make some toast on the fire like we did at Christmas?” she says. The boy nods. “Who knows? They might have marshmallows in there, an’ all.”
I’m kind of dubious about her giving it the big buildup, but for now it seems to be working. Cam’s excited by the marshmallows idea. He squirms out of his sister’s lap and stands at the bottom of the steps, grinning.
“So, show me how you’re going to toast marshmallows like a big boy, then?” Lily says.
He holds out his hand like he’s got a fork, bending his knees and leaning toward us like we’re the fire. It’s too cute for words. Everyone laughs, even Pete.
“Watch out!” Lily says, her fingers wiggling like they’re flames. “The fire’s getting higher!” Her hands move toward him. “Don’t get burnt!”
With a squeal of delight he snatches away the imaginary fork before her fingers can get too close. I raise my hands, too; the fire just got bigger. He does the same trick on me, and I leave it until a little longer before the flames rise, to make the joke better. He takes a couple of steps backward into the snow, which is almost waist deep on him. Then it’s Alice’s turn, and when she reaches for him, he retreats farther still, picking his way through our footprints, through the falling snow, his little legs working hard.
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