After the Fall (Book 1): Outside

by Stephen Cross

  The rabbits again.

  “We were all scared once,” said Ash, “and I’m sure we all will be again. We don’t know what happened. We can only take Jack’s word for it. If he’s lying,” she looked at Jack, stared at him, “then he will have to deal with it.”

  Simon let his hold go and Jack stood up.

  “What happened Jack?” said Ash.

  Jack faced Ash, glad to get the chance to turn away from Simon. “I don’t know, not for sure. We were running, and then the shelves fell, and next thing I was on the ground. I think something hit me. When I got up, they were already on Marcus. I couldn’t do anything.”

  “That’s what we will tell his Mum,” said Ash.

  “He was your responsibility Jack,” said Simon.

  “We are all each other’s responsibility, Simon,” said Ash. “You invited Jack, remember. You told us he was ready.”

  Simon glared at Jack. “Fucking zombies. I hate this fucking world.” He jumped off the pick-up and got back in the cab, slamming the door behind him.

  “You want to get in the cab?” said Ash, “this rain is getting heavy.”

  Jack shook his head. He didn’t want to be near Simon.

  “Fair enough.”

  Ash got in the driver’s seat. Jack sat down in the flatbed. They set off for camp.

  Annie climbed up a large pile of boulders resting against the base of the headland. They were slippy, due to the rain, so she was being extra careful. She didn’t want to look like a coward again in front of Tom, who had scaled the boulder no problem. He had better trainers though. They had good grips.

  She eventually got to the top and stood up next to Tom. Big waves tumbled into the rocks at the edge of the headland. The sky, the sea, all were a heavy grey. A biting wind blew.

  The fence looked far away and she was cold and wet. She pulled her coat in around her.

  “I think we should go back.”

  Tom let out another of his theatrical sighs. “We’ve only just got here.”

  “I know, but it’s cold, I think we should go back.”

  “Are you scared?”

  Annie shook her head, but she was. She felt her lip trembling. The holiday camp looked so far away. She wanted to be back in her chalet, with Daddy.

  “Ok,” said Tom. “Let’s go then. It’s raining anyway.”

  He walked to the edge of the rock and suddenly stopped.

  “What is it?” said Annie.

  Tom didn’t answer. He stood still, staring down at the beach.

  “What is it?” said Annie again. Her silly butterflies were going crazy.

  Still no answer from Tom. She felt very scared now. Why wasn’t he answering?

  She walked slowly to stand beside him. When she saw what Tom was looking at, she screamed.

  An old man, half of his skull caved in, his yellow grey flesh dashed with red against his torn and ragged clothes, was below. He was looking up at them, his nails scraping against the rock. He hissed and moaned, reaching for the two children.

  He blocked the only path down from the rock.

  Behind him, four more zombies were approaching. Annie fell to her knees, her lip trembling.

  Jack’s was the second truck back, and the immediate centre of attention once news spread about what had happened.

  James listened as Jack related the tumbling aisles, the zombie attack, and the death of Marcus. Each time he told the story it became easier, and it even stared to feel like the truth in a strange sort of way. Maybe it was what had happened. If he had been knocked out, maybe he hadn’t remembered things properly?

  James led Jack away from the main group in the car park.

  “Are you ok Jack?”

  Jack nodded, but said nothing.

  “It’s ok if you’re not. This new world, it’s, well things are happening that we aren’t used to. We aren’t prepared for any of this. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I just want to look after Annie.”

  “I know Jack, and that’s right. That’s what you should do.” James glanced at what seemed to be a new commotion in the crowd, before turning back to Jack. “Are you ok, I mean, able to look after Annie?”

  “Of course I am. She’s all I’ve got left.”

  James put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and eyed him carefully. “What you told those guys, back there, that’s what happened?”

  “Yes. That’s what happened.”

  “Ok, but if you need to talk, about anything, you come find me, ok?”

  “Sure.”

  James looked over Jack’s shoulder, irritated. “What is going on?”

  Simon ran towards them. “Jack, Jack! The kids,” he came to a halt, panic across his face. “They’ve gone.”

  “What?”

  “No one can find them. They went out to play and… no-one’s seen them.”

  “We have to find them,” said Jack, looking around at the faces fixed on him and Simon. Then he shouted, “We have to find them!”

  Chapter 9

  Jack ran to the shop, or the armoury as it now was. He scanned the rack of sledgehammers, axes and knives. He took a 10lb sledgehammer to replace the one he had lost in the building store.

  James and Simon burst in after him.

  “Jack,” said Simon, “Come on, calm down, we need to think about how we’re going to do this. We got about thirty people out there who are going to help. We need to organise a search party and be methodical.”

  Jack shook his head. “No. You do that, but I’m going to run the fence.”

  “Why?” said Simon.

  “If they are in the perimeter, then great, your search party can find them. But if they are outside the fence, then we need to know and get out there as soon as possible.”

  Simon turned to James. “Jack’s right. I’m going with him. We’ll run the fence and check for any breaches.”

  “Ok,” said James. “That makes sense, and I guess I can’t stop you anyway. Got your radios?”

  Simon held his up, Jack nodded.

  “Keep in touch with me. I’ll create a few search teams and act as liaison for you all. You find anything, let me know.”

  “Will do,” said Simon.

  “Come on, we’re wasting time,” said Jack. He ran out of the armoury, heading towards the beach.

  Simon ran to catch up. “Where are we starting, you know something?”

  “We check the beach first,” said Jack through panting breaths. “The fence is weakest there. We made a lot of quick fixes as we couldn’t get the vehicles and heavy goods round to secure it.”

  They ran along a number of paths and past several chalets before reaching the dunes. They took the first rise, the sand wet and heavy in the now thumping rain.

  Standing at the top of the rise, Jack looked across the fence below. It hugged the bottom of the line of dunes tightly. Piled sand and lumps of concrete extruded at places on its length like cancerous growths. Evergreen branches threaded through the fence, dashes of green on the otherwise dull construction.

  It ran for a good mile along the beach.

  “We need to split up,” said Simon. “There’s no way we’ll cover it all together, not quickly enough anyway.”

  “Ok, I’ll go left, you go right. We’ll circle the whole camp. Radio if you get anything.”

  The two men ran down the mound, wet sand tumbling behind them. Reaching the fence they crashed to a halt and without words, Jack went left and Simon right.

  Wind and rain pelted Jack’s face and within minutes his skin was red raw, his nose going numb under the cold. He thought of Annie outside somewhere, scared and freezing. Zombies nearby.

  He walked quickly along the fence, shaking it, looking for gaps or climbing spots, but found nothing within the first ten minutes. Fear gnawed at him. He tried to shut it down. He needed to concentrate.

  Up ahead, he saw a wooden pallet. He remembered carting a few of them down here with Ian, the accountant he had met on the first day (dead now, of course
). They had used the pallets to block gaps, with mind to fill them with concrete, sand, tree limbs, anything more permanent later on.

  They never had.

  The pallet he saw was laying back against a thick growth of marram grass - not the fence, where it should be. He broke into a run, willing his feet to pull through the heavy sand.

  Out of breath, wheezing almost, he reached the pallet. There was a gap in the fence.

  “Shit.”

  He peered through. The beach stretched in bleak monotony for fifty yards before being met by the sea, large grey waves exploding in dirty white foam.

  He fumbled with the radio.

  “Simon, come in, Simon!”

  There was few seconds of static, then, “You found something?”

  “A hole in the fence, about ten minutes from where we started, five if you run.”

  “Ok, wait for me.”

  “No, I’m going now. Radio me when you get to the beach. I’ll tell you where I am.”

  He signed off and crawled though the gap. Small and low for him, but perfect for a six and an eight year old.

  Once through, he ran out onto the hard sand of the beach. He looked for footprints, but saw nothing - the rain was too heavy, the sand pitted with millions of raindrop rivulets.

  When a good distance from the fence he looked left and right, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the rain. Something on the headland caught his attention. He thought he saw movement. He squinted and tried to keep his gaze steady, staring through the rain and grey of the beach.

  There it was, shapes moving, against the rocks. Something white. His daughter’s dress was white.

  He keyed his radio. “The headland, when you reach the beach, get to the headland.”

  Jack broke into another run, his lungs screaming in protest.

  Annie ran round the edge of the large rock. To three sides, it dropped steeply, too high for her to jump. To the last side, stood the zombies. There were now five. Moaning, crawling, scratching, pushing, hissing, reaching.

  She stared at them in horror. They were so ugly, soscary.She had once watched a scary film about vampires round at Jenny Dean’s house and that had scared her, but this was different. This was the things that had killed mummy. And now they wanted to kill her too.

  “I want my Daddy,” she mewed, her legs giving way as she slumped onto the rock, above the zombies, unable to take her eyes off them.

  Tom sat next to her. He cried loudly, his face red, his body shaking with large sobs.

  Annie wiped away her tears and looked away from the zombies, she didn’t want to see them anymore.

  But something else was moving on the beach, far away. Something was running, quickly, coming towards them.

  She stood up slowly, and pulled back her hair to keep it from the wind. She stared hard.

  “Daddy?” she said to herself.

  Was she imagining it?

  No. The something got closer. It was a figure, holding a sledgehammer like Daddy used to when he went to work on the fence.

  “Daddy?” she said. Then she shouted. “Daddy!” She jumped up and down, waving her arms. The zombies below burst into raucous excitement, as if joining the party, but she didn’t care.

  Tom stopped crying, and soon he was beside Annie, shouting with all his strength.

  chapter 10

  Jack’s feet ploughed through the wet sand, rain pounding his face. He wiped his eyes so he could see his target - the five zombies gathered around the rock his daughter stood on. Tom was there too, both of them jumping, shouting, waving.

  They were ok.

  Each step took him closer to the reaching, grabbing group of dead; all trying to get to his daughter.

  Almost in striking distance, he raised his sledgehammer. They didn’t see him coming.

  He brought down the sledgehammer hard, and the head of the nearest zombie smashed into small pieces. Blood, skull and globules of brown rotten flesh splattered wide, some hitting his face.

  The first zombie may have been dispatched easily, but his swing was too hard and he lost his balance. He fell into the next zombie, its back turned to Jack, its head covered with a mane of long red hair. Putting out one of his hands to steady himself, he pushed through the back of Red hair’s rotten ribcage, the fragile bones giving way easily with a crack, like dry twigs. Jack found himself impaled to the back of Red hair, his arm stuck up to his shoulder.

  “Look out Daddy!” shouted Annie from ten feet above him.

  The other zombies noticed the action and turned to Jack. The closest one moved in with its rotten face, one eyeball missing, snapping its jaws in a horrible click clack.

  Jack instinctively took a few steps back, tripped and tumbled onto the sand, pulling Red hair, still implied on his arm, with him. Luckily Red hair was facing away from Jack. It moved its head manically from left to right, its teeth chattering in crazed frustration.

  Jack took his free arm and pushed hard on the back of Red hair’s head. Its neck snapped, but the teeth kept chattering. He turned onto his side and pulled his hand out of its innards, taking a trail of guts with him. The smell turned his stomach.

  He rolled across the sand, away from the zombies, then jumped up and raised his sledgehammer. He was a good ten feet away from the four left standing. Red hair was rolling on the sand, like an upside down beetle, its head hanging limp. The three standing shuffled towards him.

  He walked towards the nearest zombie, old One eye, and swung his sledgehammer with force, being careful to apply control this time.

  One eye’s skull caved in and the zombie dropped to the ground, like a machine turned off.

  He then did the same to the next. Controlled swing, crush the skull. Dead.

  And the next.

  Last was Red hair, still flapping uselessly on the ground. It looked like it used to be a teenage girl. He raised his sledgehammer and pulverised its skull into the sand.

  He ran to the bottom of the rock.

  “Come on Annie, it’s safe now, come on,” he shouted up to his daughter, holding his arms up.

  “I’m scared Daddy,” she said, her words nearly lost in the wind and rain.

  “It’s ok. I told you I wouldn’t ever let anything hurt you, and I won’t.”

  “Are you angry?”

  “No.”

  Annie made a slow and careful descent as Jack took furtive looks around him.

  Tom followed Annie and after a few long moments, they were both on the sand. Annie jumped into his arms and he hugged her tightly. Tears joined the raindrops on his cheeks.

  He kneeled and reached for Tom too, who was standing apart from them both, crying.

  “Come on,” said Jack. The three hugged.

  “Dad!” shouted Tom.

  “Tom,” said a voice from behind them. Simon.

  Jack stood up, still holding his daughter in his arms, and Tom ran to his Dad, who hugged him tightly.

  Simon looked at the dead zombies lying in the sand. He nodded at Jack. “Good work.”

  “Let’s get back,” said Jack.

  They set off across the sand, back towards the hole in the fence.

  Annie held on tight to her Dad, burying her head in his shoulder.

  “I messed up,” said Jack.

  “What do you mean?” said Simon, “you saved them.”

  “The fence. We were meant to go back and fix that piece of fencing. But we didn’t. I didn’t.” Jack shook his head, seething at himself.

  “We can fix it now,” said Simon. “I think you did good.”

  “They could have died, Simon, we could have lost them, and it would have been my fault.”

  “Look, you’ve had a bad day. Stop beating on yourself. None of us are doing so well at the moment. But you saved them Jack.”

  “It was my fence to fix. It’s not going to happen again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The wind buffeted their words, and Jack had to almost shout to be heard. “We need to do so
mething about the fence. I’m going to make sure it never goes again. We need to keep the zombies out, but we also need to keep people in.”

  “Don’t think about it now, Jack,” said Simon. “Let’s just get back and rest. Today has been tough. Too tough.”

  Jack didn’t answer.

  He stared at the gap in the fence as they approached.

  “Daddy, you’re squishing me,” said Annie quietly into his neck.

  He loosened his embrace. Just a bit.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur.

  Jack remembered being congratulated by many. He was told several times how brave he was. To leave the holiday park on his own, to take on the zombies and save the children.

  People suggested that Jack should become the head of all future runs as he was obviously a talented and fearless zombie killer.

  Marcus’ mum had even taken time out of her despair to thank Jack. “I’m sure you did everything you could to save my son. If you couldn’t have saved him, then no-one could.”

  Simon had pulled him to the side. “Sorry I doubted you before, about Marcus. Things, they get on top of you. I’m sure you know. Thanks for saving Tom.”

  James asked him if he wanted to lead the runs.

  “No,” said Jack. “I need to fix the fence.”

  “Ok. You tell us what you think needs to be done, and we’ll look at it.”

  Jack watched as Marcus’ mother walked from the car park, friends around her. She walked delicately, her shoulders humped up like an old woman. She could only have been five years older than him.

  By the time Jack and Annie got back to their chalet, he was exhausted. His brain drifted in a smokey haze, like a dream. A bad one.

  “I’ll move your bed into my room,” he said to Annie. “I think it’s best if we stick together for a while, at least until the fence is fixed.”

  Annie agreed. The events at the beach had left her shaken. “I’m sorry I went out Daddy. You were right. Tom said you were a coward, but I think he’s wrong.”

  Jack didn’t say anything.

  He put Annie to bed, tucking her in tight. “I hope you sleep well. Try not to dream too much.”

  “I’ll think of Mummy,” said Annie.

  “She’ll be thinking of you too.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Good night.”