ALL OUR TOMORROWS
Peter Cawdron
thinkingscifi.wordpress.com
Copyright © Peter Cawdron 2014
Copyright 2015
All rights reserved
The right of Peter Cawdron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published as an eBook by Peter Cawdron
US Kindle Edition
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental
Dedication
For Sarah
Reading is exploration,
an expedition of the heart.
Synopsis
Hazel is alone in a crowd. No one understands her, not even her father. The only people that ever really understood her were Steve, David and Jane. But they’re dead. If they’re not dead, they’re dying stranded outside the compound. Hazel can’t accept the bitter reality of life in the zombie apocalypse, she can’t accept that her friends are probably dead. She has to find them.
Chapter 01: Moonlight
I’m sitting in the lounge, listening as Steve creeps down the stairs. It’s late. Moonlight falls through the window, lighting the darkness. A cool breeze blows through the opening, causing the lace curtains to drift to one side. The last of the candles burns down, leaving barely a lick of flame as it fights against the night.
A shadowy figure appears in the hallway.
“Haze?”
I’m feeling playful, frisky. I get up and walk silently toward Steve.
“David said it was urgent.”
“Oh, it is,” I say, running my hands up over his chest and around his neck.
Our lips touch, but Steve is hesitant.
“Is everything OK?”
“Life,” I say, pausing for a moment. “Life is wonderful.”
I pull his thick flannel shirt from beneath his belt and slip my fingers under the warm material, touching at his skin. Our lips meet. My hands crumple his shirt as my fingernails run up over his bare chest.
“Wow,” he says, pulling away for a second. “What brought this on?”
“You’re surprised?” I ask, pushing him gently back into a dresser by the window.
“Delighted would be a better term,” he replies, smiling in the soft light of the candle flickering on the mantle. “It’s just, I thought...”
My fingers fumble with the buttons on his shirt. I’m ready to tear his shirt open in frustration.
“You thought what?” I ask, between kisses.
“Nothing,” he says, pulling his shirt off. There’s a bandage on the side of his neck and his right arm is wrapped from his elbow to his wrist.
“What if someone hears us?” he asks.
“Try not to squeal,” I reply, laughing playfully as he turns me around and lifts me up, sitting me on the dresser. I lean back on the polished wood and wrap my legs around his waist, holding him tight. His hands slip under my shirt and up over my back as we kiss. I can feel him fiddling with my bra strap. My skin tingles.
Fingers wrap around my wrist, holding me tight. At first, I think nothing of them until my bra clasp comes loose and I realize that unhooking the straps took both of Steve’s hands.
Bony fingers dig into my skin, pulling at my arm.
Fear strikes my heart.
I twist away from Steve as he continues kissing me passionately.
“No,” I cry, and Steve looks confused.
I try to pull my arm from the dresser only to hear Zee growl outside.
My heart races.
The breeze blows the curtains back for a moment, and I see dark eyes staring at me.
Rotten teeth snap at the air.
Sweat breaks out on my forehead.
Steve jumps back. He must see the terror in my eyes.
“HELP!” I scream, pushing off the dresser, but Zee has a firm grip. His head lunges through the open window. He snarls, growling as I try desperately to pull my arm from his grasp.
“He’s got me!” I cry, twisting and jerking against the zombie. I use the dresser for leverage, trying to wrestle my arm free. For his part, Zee is trying to pull me out the window. From outside, the window must be almost at head height, so I have an advantage in that I can use the height against Zee, forcing him off balance.
Steve punches at the zombie, but with no effect.
He grabs a picture frame and brings it down over the head of the zombie. The glass shatters and the frame breaks, but Zee isn’t fazed. I pry at the zombie’s fingers with my free hand, but his nails dig deeper into my skin, drawing blood.
“We need help,” Steve cries, leaving me by the window.
“Wait! No!” I yell, terrified at the thought of being abandoned.
Steve yells for help. He grabs the chain hanging from the dinner bell mounted by the kitchen. With a burst of vigor, he rings the bell, clanging the chain back and forth and raising the alarm.
Neither of us have our guns. With so many people in the home, and being so far from the fence, most survivors don’t bother carrying their handguns indoors. Guns are uncomfortable when sitting down, digging into the small of the back or the side of my hip. Right now, I’m regretting that habit.
“Steve, please!” I yell, pleading with him for help, but he darts into the kitchen. The two-way door swings violently on its hinges behind him.
Glass breaks in the kitchen.
Zombies moan, pounding on the door leading from the kitchen to the yard.
On the far side of the living room, I see dark shapes in silhouette. Zee ambles past the windows by the barn. We’re surrounded.
“They’re everywhere,” he cries, running back into the lounge with a meat cleaver. I pull the zombie taut, stretching his arm across the dresser. Zee reaches out with his other hand, trying to get a better hold on me. Steve brings the meat cleaver thundering down on the zombie’s right arm, severing it just above the wrist. I’m pushing so hard against the dresser I go flying and tumble across the darkened living room.
Blood squirts across the white lace curtains.
Footsteps pound down the stairs. Yelling and screaming fills the air.
More windows break. Glass shatters, scattering across the wooden floor.
Gunshots ring out, but they’re distant. Someone’s firing on Zee from outside the homestead.
The zombie hand is still clinging to my wrist. I frantically try to shake the hand loose.
“Get it off me! GET IT OFF ME!!!” I scream in a panic, trying to pry the fingers away from my wrist.
Steve grabs the bloody, severed hand and wrenches it free. He tosses it to one side and holds me. I bury my head in his shoulder, sobbing.
“We’ve got to move,” he says, dragging me to my feet. Zombies come crashing through the kitchen into the lounge, knocking into the coffee table and turning over chairs.
I’m blubbering. “What’s happening? Why? Why are they here? What are they doing here? They can’t get into the commune—they can’t!”
“I know. I know,” Steve says, wrapping his arms around me and rushing me into the hallway.
Gunshots echo within the old house, shaking me to my core. I flinch. Each shot seems to pass right through me.
Zombies crash through the front door, breaking the wood and busting the doorframe.
“Upstairs,” someone yells, but I have no idea who. Everything is so confusing. People are running everywhere. “Quick, before they cut us off.”
My feet feel like lead weights. Steve drags me down the hallway. I’m still in shock.
Zombies burst in through the laundry door.
Dozens of arms reach through the windows in the library ro
om.
“Go. Go. Go,” Steve yells, pushing me up the stairs ahead of him. He shoves me past zombies already clambering up the steps.
Zee grabs at us. He’s dark, menacing. In my mind, he’s everywhere. Withered hands grab at my shirt, tearing my sleeve.
I run. My feet thump on the old wooden stairs.
David’s on the landing above. He has his gun out pointing at me. He fires. The shot is deafening, ripping by just inches from my head. I feel the compression wave of the bullet whip by my neck. A zombie falls beside me, his arms grabbing at my back as he collapses onto the stairs. Dying fingers clutch at the air.
David fires again and again. Each time, I finch, acting as though I must shelter from the deafening boom and somehow dodge each bullet to stay alive. I can’t. At a rational level, I know that, but emotion rules the moment. Each shot tears through the air and strikes its target long before I react. My life is balanced against David’s aim.
“Come on,” one of the marauders yells at me. I’m moving as fast as I can, but seconds feel like hours. My feet feel like lead weights.
Hands reach down from above, grabbing me and pulling me to the safety of the second floor as zombies claw at my legs.
“There’s no time,” someone yells.
I’m thrown to one side as the marauders grab someone else, hauling them to safety.
I find myself staring through the balustrade as dozens of zombies clamber over fallen bodies. Shots ring out in rapid succession like thunder breaking directly overhead, but there are too many zombies.
“STEEEEVE!!!” I yell. I can see him between the wooden railings. He’s halfway up the stairs, pushing past a rabid zombie. Dark hands grab at his ankles, pulling his feet backwards and he falls on the stairs. David shoots the zombie crouching over him, but there are too many of them. They drag Steve down the stairs into the dark, seething mass of rabid zombies.
“NOOOO!” I scream, catching a glimpse of Steve sinking beneath a swarm of arms. “Please, no! Not Steve!”
Two men shove a sideboard down the stairs, trapping Zee below us, but they’ve also blocked our escape from the first floor.
“Wait!” I cry, even though the job is already done.
The men jam another sideboard and a dresser into the staircase, blocking any access around the edges. Zee is angry. He pounds on the wooden furniture. Dozens of fists beat as one. Wooden panels splinter and break.
“Oh, Steve,” I cry with tears streaming from my eyes. I pull feebly at one of the men at the top of the stairs, trying to get past him, wanting to pull the dresser away.
“There are still people down there,” I plead. “Please, you’ve got to give them a chance.”
Marge takes me to one side. She rests her hands on my shoulders and looks me in the eye as she speaks. “Hazel. I’m sorry. It’s too late for them.”
“No, please,” I stutter, choking on my words.
“Don’t let their deaths be in vain,” she says. “They brought us time. They raised the alarm. We need to honor their sacrifice. We need to live—to survive.”
I bury my head in her shoulder.
Marge strokes my hair.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Ferguson comes up beside us. “There’s hundreds of them.”
“How the hell did they get through the fence?” Marge asks as I try to compose myself and realize we’re still not out of danger. I step away from her, wiping my eyes.
Marge grills Ferguson, which is quite a sight considering she’s wearing an old fashioned nightgown. “What happened to the night watch? How did those zombies make it to the house undetected?”
“I don’t know,” Ferguson replies, and to be fair to him, no one could know that yet. I’m sure there will be a debriefing later, but for now we need to concentrate on survival.
“Can we hold them?” Marge asks.
“I doubt it,” Ferguson replies. “We have maybe fifty, sixty rounds between us. Without getting to the armory, we don’t stand a chance.”
Zombies tear at the furniture blocking the stairs, breaking through the thin wooden panels and pulling at the wreckage.
Marge says, “We need to get to the attic and out onto the roof. We can buy ourselves time by moving higher.”
“Understood,” Ferguson says, and he’s off.
Jane runs up to me.
“Steve?” she asks, with a quiver in her voice. His absence from my side must tell her all she needs to know. Her eyes drop.
I shake my head. I can’t bring myself to say the words—Steve’s dead.
“But you made it,” Jane says, grabbing my shoulder. Her voice breaks as she speaks. She’s struggling with what has happened so quickly and so violently in the calm of night. “Steve would have wanted—he would have wanted to know you made it.”
I nod.
I don’t want to nod, but I do. There’s no solace in her words even though she’s right. I want him back. Am I being selfish? Is that all love is? The selfish desire for a companion? But there’s so much left unsaid between us. It’s not the loss of all we could have done together that aches, it’s what we could have been together. All our tomorrows are gone. Decades have been cruelly snatched away in an instant. With each breath, his memory slips further into the past, and I hate that.
My chest heaves as sorrow washes over me.
Jane puts her arm around my shoulder and leads me along the landing toward the stairs leading to the attic.
People are yelling, some of them are screaming in pain. Zombie hands reach between the balustrades, trying to grab us as we walk past. Young kids are crying. Most people are wearing nightgowns or nightshirts. A few of the marauders are dressed, but they only have handguns. The rifles are in the armory next to the barn.
I am numb. I stumble along with Jane, feeling as cold as winter.
The smell of smoke drifts through the air.
Someone yells, “Fire!”
Zee must have knocked over one of the candleholders.
We climb the stairs to the attic, but a sense of dread descends over me. We’re not going to make it out of here alive.
Inside the attic, a couple of men are hacking at the roof from beneath. They’re using hammers to break up the roof tiles, making a hole large enough for us to climb out, but where can we go from there? It’s the end of the road.
I look around. Boxes lay stacked to one side. There are a few sheets of aging plywood, warping with the years. A spare door leans against one of the rafters. Paint cans and an old fashioned sewing machine sit on wooden shelves. Cobwebs hang from the rafters.
“This way,” David says, ushering us out through the hole in the roof.
Ferguson yells at a couple of men, saying, “Get that wood. We need to seal this hole once everyone’s out.”
Zee stumbles around below us, bumping into things. I think he’s made it to the second floor.
The smoke in the air is already quite pungent. We’re not going to last long enough to worry about being eaten by zombies, but I can’t stop thinking about Steve. I can still see the horror on his face as he was dragged into the horde. There was nothing I could do. Nothing any of us could do.
Jane helps me climb out through the hole in the roof and directs me to one side. She’s always had a big heart. I can see her standing on the tiles reaching in and helping each of the survivors climb through the jagged hole.
It’s been raining and the roof is slippery. The pitch of the roof feels steeper than it probably is and I struggle with my footing. Being so used to standing on flat ground, I can’t help but feel like I’m about to tumble over the edge and into the mass of zombies crowding around the house. I creep away from the hole, crouching and touching the tiles with one hand as I waddle to one side, trying not to lose my balance.
I sit down near a group of survivors huddled together, hoping my dad has made it this far. I want to look for him, but I can’t. The pain of losing Steve feels as real as a knife thrust into my chest. I can’t lose both of t
hem, not in one night. I cannot bring myself to look for my dad. I can only hope.
Zee sees us. He roars from below. Arms reach out for us. Moans drown out the voice of the young girl next to me.
“—to die,” is all I catch. I don’t need to know how that sentence started. I understand her fear, and she’s right. We’re going to die. Either from the flames, from the fall, or from being torn apart by zombies. There’s not much choice.
Clouds billow overhead, and the moonlight fades. A torrential downpour would be nice, I think. But there’s nothing more than a wispy mist in the air.
Windows break on the far side of the house, but this is a different sound from that of zombies smashing glass in a rage. The crackle of fire burning and the smell of smoke adds to our fear. The flickering yellow glow of flames within the house lights up the dark faces staring at us from the ground.
We’re trapped.
I look around for David and Jane.
David’s working with a couple of the marauders to pull the spare wooden panels out of the attic. They lay them on the tiles. As the last of the survivors clamber out onto the roof, one of the soldiers starts nailing a sheet of wood over the hole. He can’t nail the wood to the tiles, so there’s invariably a gap left around the edge of the exposed rafters. His efforts won’t matter. Zee might not get us, but the flames will.
Jane spots me.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asks, walking over and standing behind me, and suddenly I feel stupid cowering on the tiles. I’m fine. I’ve got a few scratches and I’m a bit shaken up, but I’m okay, I decide. I’ve been in a dreamlike daze, but Jane’s voice helps to snap me out of it.
I’m afraid. We all are, but death comes sooner or later to everyone. We’d all prefer later, but we don’t always have a choice. Steve didn’t. At least I can choose to stand beside her. If death is coming, I won’t cower. I want to look that thieving bastard in the eye.
Getting up, I feel a tinge of vertigo, which is crazy, really, as I’m not right on the edge of the gutter. There are four or five rows of tiles between me and the drop, but self-preservation kicks in and I find myself moving cautiously. Jane is much more relaxed.
All Our Tomorrows Page 1