by Ryan Casey
“Chloë, come on now,” Claudia said, pressing Chloë’s chest some more, no idea of whether she was pushing too hard or too weak. She lowered over her daughter’s cold, salty lips and breathed into them, then pressed again.
Then again. And again.
She sat upright as her daughter’s sickly saliva covered her face. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she stared out into the endless black of night sea, only the moon illuminating the water for company.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Claudia asked, her voice crackling. She’d done a good job in her personal opinion of staying tough for Chloë, especially after what had happened to Elizabeth, and especially with their dad, Pete, not being around. He’d always been around. Always the one to provide. Always the one to organise.
And now Riley was gone. Anna was gone. Pedro was gone. All of them were gone.
“Why do you take everyone away?” she muttered under her voice.
Just then, she heard a splutter on the hard pebbles beneath her. It took her a few moments to register truly what it was, but looking down at Chloë all lit up in the moonlight, she realised soon enough.
More tears dripped down her cheeks. Her stomach did a somersault.
“Chloë,” she said. She lunged down and wrapped her arms around her daughter, leaning her forward to cough her customary pint of water out of her lungs.
“Oh, Chloë,” Claudia said, tears streaming down her cheeks and making them even more salty now. “I thought…I thought…Thank God you’re okay.”
Chloë tried to mumble something. Instead, as her body shivered in the cold and the dampness, she spewed a load of saltwater down her mother’s back, and the pair of them sat there, arms wrapped around one another, in complete unison.
The door creaked open. Seeing light again was something Claudia had actually given up in the however long they’d been here. It made her eyes sting. Her heart raced when she looked over at the silhouettes by the door. The men who’d captured them. The two men—one of them with that dribbling grin on his face, the other with the dead eyes and the rough hands. She tried to think as the two men entered the room, another man closely behind them. She tried to talk as two of them walked in the direction of her daughter.
“Please,” she tried to say, but the words faded out from her chapped, dry lips. She couldn’t lose Chloë. People, they’d lost their humanity in this new world. Being at the barracks with Ivan and co. for two weeks had done enough to make her realise that.
Chloë had lost enough innocence as it was. These men, the looks on their faces…no. That couldn’t happen. Not to her girl. Not now.
Claudia moved backwards and forwards, tied down in the chair. She let out a loud moan from the bottom of her lungs as two of the men—the dead-eyed, rough-handed one and another man she didn’t recognise, walked over the mucky tiled floor and loomed over her, the light from outside shining through the boarded up, damp-smelling room.
The pair of them just stood there for a few seconds. The drooling man stood over by Chloë. All three of them watched in silence. The new man had an inquisitive look on his face. Like he was weighing Claudia up. Weighing the pair of them up.
Drooling man continued to drool.
“Please. We just…Let my girl go back to the boat wreckage where we washed up. Please.” Claudia whispered as quiet as possible, like speaking this way would reach out to the souls of these men or something. Over to her right, Chloë was also tied to a wooden chair. She just stared at the drooling man, her bottom lip quivering as drooling man stared back at her, grin extending.
“Don’t…not my daughter. Me, if you have to. Just me. Please.”
She knew this was all she could beg. A group of men in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, they were going to want things from two women. In a world where morals were skewed, and where killing was a part of everyday life, men felt like they were entitled to a treat every now and then. And two women…Claudia knew they’d certainly be a type of treat. She’d seen enough television shows and read enough books to know what they wanted from her.
The tall man behind the men who had captured her and Chloë from their shelter at the wreckage that morning walked over to Claudia. He kneeled down, staring right at her with his invasive, piercing blue eyes. He reached around her back, rubbed his slippery fingers against her wrist, all the time staring into her eyes, all the time staring right through into her soul. She knew what was going to happen. She had to let it. What other choice did she have?
“Lady, I think you’ve got us wrong,” the man said. He swiftly moved his fingers up to the cuffs around her wrists and did something that brought them free. “Same with the little girl, Seth,” the man said, turning to the drooling man.
Claudia noticed the disappointment on the drooling man’s face. Saw the protestation in his eyes.
But still, the drooling man went over to Chloë, reached around her back, and untied her wrists.
The man who had freed Claudia stepped back. Stood alongside drooling man and dead-eyed man. Smiled, as Claudia brought her chapped wrists and sweaty palms in front of her, trying to work out if there was supposed to be some kind of trick here.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” the tall man with the blue eyes said. “I’m Mike. This is Seth and this is Matt.” He pointed at drooly and dead-eye in turn, then smiled again. “You say you washed up on this coast?”
“They could be lying,” Matt said, not quite as welcoming as his blue-eyed friend.
Mike raised his hand and nodded at Claudia to answer.
“Yes…we…we had a boat. We had a boat and it—it crashed. It—”
“You’ve seen nobody else out here?”
Claudia shook her head. Closed her eyes tightly and tried to struggle through the ache that rattled through her mind. “No, I…me and my daughter, we just washed up. We just—please. Don’t hurt her. Hurt me, if you have to. Just not—”
“Miss,” Mike said, in that trademark calming voice of his that he’d spent the last few minutes speaking in. “We aren’t going to hurt you. We’ve got no interest in hurting you. We’re going to help you. Both of you.”
He smiled again, then walked towards the bright light of the door. Seth and Matt followed closely behind. They didn’t look best impressed. The bulge between Seth’s legs had maxed out, and his filthy eyes were still looking right at Chloë.
“Come down the stairs and into the main reception area. We have food, fresh water and clean clothes waiting for you. In your own time.”
Claudia expected the man to slam the door shut. To lock it—something to fuck with her psychologically.
Instead, the three men left the room, left the door wide open, and left the cuffs off Claudia and Chloë.
Claudia sat still for a few moments. Waited for them to come back. Waited for what she’d expected—what she knew men were capable of. Waited. Counted the seconds. Counted the minutes.
“Are we okay, Mum?”
Claudia looked to her right. Chloë was sitting on her chair, completely still although she’d been freed of her cuffs. She looked back at Claudia with her lovely big brown eyes. Her hair was greasy. Her jaw was shaking.
“I think we are,” Claudia said, a weight lifting from her shoulders. “I…I really think we might be.”
Chapter One
Claudia held Chloë’s hand as they stepped out of the dingy, damp-smelling room into the light outside. Turns out they were just in a boarded up room, by the looks of things in somewhere like a hotel. There were wooden doors just like the one they’d stepped out of all down a corridor. Outside, the place looked relatively clean. Untouched. As if this place was still running, regardless of the fact that it was the end of the world.
“Are those people okay, do you think?” Chloë asked as the pair of them moved over to a staircase. At the bottom of the stairs, Claudia could hear voices. Laughter, even. Voices and
laughter that didn’t sound like they belonged to Mike, Matt or Seth.
Which meant there were more people.
“Just keep hold of my hand,” Claudia said.
Chloë obliged. Probably didn’t need telling.
When the pair of them got to the bottom of the dark staircase, Claudia stopped by the metal door. The voices were definitely coming from the other side of this door.
This could be a trap. They could be in there, waiting for Claudia and her daughter to walk inside.
They could be toying with them, all along.
It was at that point that Claudia heard a woman’s voice. A woman’s laughter.
She froze for a second. If there was a woman laughing in there, then surely that meant that perhaps these men weren’t as bad as they’d first come across. Sure—Matt and Seth seemed like a creepy duo, but Mike looked like he had put them in line. Perhaps they were safe after all. Not that Claudia was ready to trust a new group again after what had happened with Ivan at the barracks. But just perhaps…
Claudia lowered the handle of the metal door and pulled it open.
“You keep hold of my hand,” Claudia repeated.
Chloë’s grip tightened even harder as the door opened.
In front of Claudia, there was a hotel reception area. A huge chandelier dangled down in the middle of the room, reminding Claudia of one she’d seen at a New York hotel on a family holiday with Pete. The lobby was lit with lamps, which were connected up to a prehistoric looking generator-like machine that constantly hummed.
And in the middle of the lobby area, silenced by their arrival, six people sat around an out-of-place dining table, like you’d find in a school canteen. Three of them Claudia recognised—Mike, Matt and Seth. But there were three others, too.
And one of them was a woman. Smiling. Sat alongside the men. She didn’t look bruised. She didn’t look violated. She looked…comfortable. This place…was it possible these men weren’t what they’d first appeared?
“Welcome,” Mike said, smile wide and eyes gleaming. “Let me introduce you to everyone. We’ve got Smith here—guy with the bald patch. Keith here with the spiky hair and big nose. Karen with the…well. The tits if you don’t mind me saying.”
Karen sighed and rolled her eyes. She shook her head as she stared at Claudia and Chloë. “You’ll get used to living with a bunch of men. Just learn when to stand up to them.”
Mike laughed. “And of course you’ve already met Matt and Seth…”
An awkward silence. Mike’s eyes peered at Matt and Seth. The pair of them just about managed to crack a smile for a split second, raising their hand in Claudia and Chloë’s direction.
“And you ladies are?” the man called Smith asked.
Claudia was completely still. The welcome had taken her more by surprise than the capture itself. The shock of what she thought was going to happen to her was replaced with the shock of what hadn’t happened to her.
“I…Claudia. My daughter’s called Chloë.” She squeezed her daughter’s hand tighter. A little tighter couldn’t do anybody any harm.
“Claudia and Chloë,” Mike said. He was stirring something in a murky looking white cup in front of him. Claudia hoped to God they had fresh milk at this place—long life, or anything like that. Even without milk. It’d been so long since she’d tasted tea. The watered down, weak shit on the narrowboat definitely hadn’t counted.
Mike squeezed a teabag against the side of the cup—oh God he actually did have tea—then dropped it into an ash tray in the centre of the table. “Well it’s nice to meet you both. Why don’t you sit down and join us? Plenty to chat about. In your own time, of course.”
Claudia hesitated for a few seconds.
But shit. The allure of Tetley’s was just too strong.
Nobody said very much in the hour or so of sitting at the table, and of the few words that were spoken, Claudia and Chloë managed the least of them.
Claudia finished two cups of tea. She’d checked the tang just in case they were trying to knock them out, but damn—it was probably worth being knocked out for tea this good. No milk, after all, but it didn’t matter. Just enough sugar to cover up the bitterness.
“So you came in from the sea,” Smith said. He was like a little rodent, with a meek voice and searching eyes. But he seemed nice enough. Harmless enough.
Which meant that he was one to watch out for.
“Yep,” Claudia said, staring down at the table, all eyes on her and her daughter.
“How…how long were you out there?” Keith asked.
“Erm—a week. Maybe a bit longer—”
“And you came from where?” Smith asked.
“Preston. I…I was with another group and then we hit a storm and…and yeah.”
“The rest of your group didn’t make it?” Karen asked.
Claudia shook her head. She wasn’t sure, really. But the chances of surviving the storm and ending up on shore, they couldn’t be great.
“Scuse us with all our bloody questions anyway,” Keith said. “It’s just we—”
“We right to question,” Seth said. His drool had gone. His lips were shaking. His eyes were still predominantly on Chloë.
“Seth,” Mike—who had been listening and taking in what Claudia and Chloë had to say—said. “Why don’t you and Matt go find our ladies a new room? Somewhere nicer than the shit tip they woke up in.”
Seth and Matt looked at one another with a grimace, then got up and walked over towards the staircase, muttering amongst themselves.
“I’m sorry about those two,” Mike said. He held out a can of Coke to Chloë and smiled. “They…they worry. In a world full of dead, sometimes it’s the living who scare the shit out of you. Because the living have histories. They have inconsistencies. Grey areas. It’s not all good and evil, not like the creatures. That’s truly terrifying.”
Claudia nodded as Chloë accepted the can of Coke, checking for her mum’s approval. “We…we know about that too well,” Claudia said, still keeping her cards close to her chest.
“If they give you any beef just tell ‘em to bugger off,” Karen said, still half-smiling. “Given me and Shania enough crap in’t last few weeks. But they’re harmless enough, really.”
Smith grunted and looked down at the table. Claudia sensed something of a disagreement regarding the morals and motives of Seth and Matt. All she knew is that they’d taken her daughter and her, stuffed them into the back of a car, and driven them to this place as roughly as they could.
Yes, they were creepy. But they were just being safe. Understandable.
To a point.
“They won’t bother you,” Mike said, sliding his chair back and stretching out his muscular chest. “But if they do, you come to me. Zero tolerance policy, and all that. Got to stick together if we want this to work, right?”
Claudia nodded. Didn’t quite meet Mike’s eyes.
“I want to make something very clear to you Claudia. And you too, Chloë. You’re welcome to walk out of this building and try your luck out there. But I would not recommend it. Not with…like I said. There’s creatures out there, sure, but there’s people out there too. And you never know when you’re going to come across a good bunch or a bad bunch. I think we’re a pretty decent bunch if I say so myself. Do the tough stuff that has to be done, but yeah. Logical. Plus, nobody deserves to spend Christmas alone. Now what do you say to some Ben and Jerry’s?”
Chloë’s eyes lit up. Her jaw dropped. She looked at her mother with the eyes of a kid that had been eating dried food and slimy freshly caught fish for the last few weeks of her life.
“If it’s okay with Mum. Of course.”
Claudia kept tight hold of her daughter’s hand then smiled, letting out a breath.
“Course,” she said. “Of course.”
The food was good. Very good.
Chloë stuffed her face with as much Ben and Jerry’s as possible. Claudia opted for a more conservative beans on toast. She’d been craving hot food since her arrival on land, and she’d never had the sweet tooth her daughter had.
“Must be her dad who gave her that sweet tooth,” Karen said, reading her mind as she sat behind her thick rimmed glasses.
Claudia’s smiled dropped as she watched Chloë stuff her face with ice-cream.
“I…I’m sorry,” Karen said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” Claudia said. “Her dad, he’s…he’s out there somewhere. Tough fella, he was. I’m sure wherever he is, he’ll be fine.”
“Why…What split you up?” Smith asked. It was just him, Karen and Mike at the table now. Keith had disappeared to check on a woman called Shania, who had apparently got sick with some kind of cold. Nothing contagious. Apparently.
“Smith,” Karen said, smacking Smith’s wrist.
Smith’s cheeks blushed. “Sorry. I just—”
“Dad was working away,” Chloë said as she licked the last of the ice-cream from her thumb. “Working down in London somewhere. Maybe he did get away. Maybe he didn’t. Least I’ve got my mum.”
Chloë’s words warmed Claudia up inside. She smiled. Chloë had grown detached in the early days—complaining about her sister, complaining everybody but herself was weak. And sure, she’d had to do some horrible things. But since the barracks, on the boat, a little bit of normality had been restored.
A little bit. She was a changed girl. But at least she was acting like a little girl again, within reason, of course.
“I’m sure he’s fine, your dad,” Karen said, grinning at Chloë and showing off her yellowing teeth.
Chloë looked back at her mum, smiled, then scraped even more melted ice cream from the bottom of the pot.
“How long have you been in this place?” Claudia asked.
Mike stood up. He really was a twitchy chap. “Best part of a week. Nicest hotel on the coast.”