They ran, aware that if they didn’t move they would be crushed. They found a gap in the wall, similar to the place they had stayed in before all of this had happened, and watched the train swing by. Inside were blurs of Blitzers. The brakes squealed, the train coming to a stop a few miles away from them. The train was long with carriages, and each one was full of red and orange colours. It was like the London rush hour; only the people coming to work were Blitzers who were ready to kill.
“The alarms must have warned them.” Zach gasped, peering over the wall they had leapt over.
The door of the train opened up with a whoosh, and footsteps crunched on the pebbles. Blitzers headed in to the underground Louvre, leaving the door open so the alarms blared through the tunnels.
“We’re in trouble,” Lara whispered. “They’re going to look over and find us.”
The Blitzers were dispersing. Some ran straight into The Louvre, in the hope of catching those that had trespassed. Others away from the entrance and into different platforms, in pursuit of blind leads. Whilst other Blitzers shone lights up and down the tunnel, in case the train had crushed those trying to flee.
It was then that Winter saw the woman who had seemed disjointed from reality. Her body was pinned up against the wall, her neck twisted. She hadn’t moved in time.
“One of the prisoners,” a Blitzer said, spotting the same thing. “They must be around here somewhere.”
Winter’s heart beat heavily. They were going to be caught. And if they were caught, they were going to be killed.
A line shone over the top of the wall they had been stood by. They ducked, afraid their cover had been blown.
“They wouldn’t have climbed through there,” a voice said to another. “It’s too narrow.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
The light drifted away. The door slammed shut, and knew that there were no more Blitzers going back into The Louvre. Footsteps faded, and peering over the wall again, Winter saw that they had a chance to escape.
“I’ll distract them,” the man with the beard said.
“No,” Lara said. “We’ve just saved you.”
“Please, let me.”
“No.”
“I’ve been injected with the virus. If you don’t let me go, you’re going to find that I’m going to turn. With those alarms ringing, they’ve probably attracted the dead. You don’t have long. Let me go.”
Lara looked crestfallen. She looked at Winter for guidance.
“Let him go.”
The man looked at Winter with gratitude. He climbed the wall, taking his time, before jumping on the other side. Once there he began to run away from them, shouting as he did so and banging the side of the train. The doors opened as he hit a button. He held up his thumb, signalling to Winter.
The Blitzers came running from the other end, chasing the voice. They ran past where Winter and the others were hiding. At first, Winter thought it was in the pursuit of the man, but then she heard the gurgling of the dead.
The man had been right. The dead were attracted by the now dimming sounds of the alarm.
“We need to get in that train.” Winter said, beginning to climb the wall. “Hurry, because we don’t have much time.”
Winter jumped, seeing the shadows much taller than her on the wall of the dead approaching. She ran across the pebbles, hoping she didn’t fall. She heard them scatter as the others jumped down one by one.
Winter leapt into the train, which swayed slightly. She counted as each person joined her: Lara, Zach, Connor, David. Then William, a few seconds later, cradling his arm. Lara hit the button on the doors, and they heard the train doors begin to shut. From the carriage nearest them came a thump, and Winter saw a few of the dead had got in through open doors further down. Winter opened the door leading into the compartment and fired at the dead until they didn’t move. For now, they were as safe as they could be when surrounded by the dead.
William sunk onto the floor. He had gone pale. Sweat glossed his forehead. His lips quivered as he realised what had just happened.
William had been bitten.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Inside a compartment, the blinds drawn on the window, they waited. They sat in silence, except for William’s stuttering and frequent sobs.
“I didn’t mean to be bitten.” He kept saying.
“We know,” Lara said, her mouth drawn and her features blank. She kept a firm grip of the gun in her hand.
Winter held back the tears. She couldn’t bear to see the inevitable happen to William, but her eyes kept drawing her back to his bitten arm. Blood gushed from the wound, dripping onto the fibre carpet.
“Will, you’ve been amazing,” Zach said, his voice low. “You saved Winter. You’ve been a great help to The Union. And you will be remembered as the first guy to research immunity.”
Connor sat across from William wrapped in a towel. He had known William first, having joined his group when he had been separated from Winter. His face was pale. He seemed distraught. “Will…”
“Don’t say anything, mate. It’s fine. I’m going to go, and you’re going to have to kill me before I wake up. It’s the easiest thing to do.”
“Easy,” Lara muttered.
Winter got on her knees. She touched William’s arm. “Bet you wish you could fix this.”
It was meant as a joke, something to lighten up the mood, but Winter felt cruel saying it. William smiled, though. “You bet.”
“We’ll fight for you, Will.”
“I know.” Tears dripping from his blue eyes. “Please, make sure you do. I need her gone.”
V. They all needed V gone. It was V’s fault they had lost home life. It was V’s fault they had escaped to France, and since then everything else had been troublesome. It was V’s fault they were here, underground, outside The Louvre, just waiting for the Blitzers to come back. It was V’s fault William had become another victim of the dead, and a victim of the virus that took people’s sanity.
Zach stood up and opened the compartment door. He hesitated, looking left and right. “I’m going to find the controls and turn them off, so the doors can’t be opened from the outside.”
“They can smash the windows,” Lara said.
“Well, they don’t have to know we’re on here, do they?” Zach asked, a hint of annoyance in his tone. “I’m going to keep low and do it. We need to stay on here for a while…” He looked at William. “We’ll figure something out.”
Lara said nothing. Winter gave Zach an encouraging smile and heard the door click shut behind her. When she turned back to William, she saw he was paler than before. The life was slipping out of him like a leak.
“It was great knowing you, Winter,” William whispered, seemingly forgetting David, Connor and Lara. “It was very strange, how we got together, wasn’t it?”
“Completely. But it was meant to be. We were meant to see one another. We were meant to survive.”
“I was meant to survive up until this point.” William waved his arm slightly. A strange grin had come upon his face. “But this is my time, now.”
Tears stung Winter’s eyes. “You’ll be okay.”
“Don’t,” William sighed. “Don’t give me that crap. I know I’m going to die. And what has it all been for? I studied at University, then the apocalypse came, ripped apart my family, took away my friends, took away my life…I train to be a doctor, haphazardly, and now I’ve been bitten. What the fuck has this life been about?”
“I don’t know…”
“No, none of us do.” William shrugged. His lips had begun to crack, and Winter was sure she could see blood vessels begin to rise. “Is it hot in here? I feel hot.” William licked his chapped lips, and lifted his top up over his head.
Winter gasped. His chest had turned a deep purple, as if he had been slammed in the chest with a sack full of bricks. William eyed it and swayed where he sat.
“Will…” Connor gasped, moving away ever so slightly.
<
br /> “Shit, that’s not good, is it?” William said.
He began to convulse. It was as if his body had caught up with him, as if it had been waiting for him to notice what was happening to trigger the change. Winter was reminded of a time she had stood on glass. She hadn’t noticed immediately the blood that had poured from the wound, but when she had, it had seared and throbbed with pain.
Now William was slipping. His eyes fluttered as his skin tightened, snapping in threads. Blood poured from fresh new wounds, and his skin turned different shades of purple and black. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. Lara stood, her gun pointed at William’s head.
“What are you waiting for?” Connor asked, wrapped in his towel and crouched in the corner. “Shoot him.”
Lara didn’t reply. William began to spit, flecks of blood coming out of his mouth.
“Lara, shoot him,” David urged.
Winter stayed where she was, only a few feet away from William. William let out a howl, painful and different to what it was before. His eyes flew open, bloodshot, and he lunged for Winter, ready to bite, driven only by hunger.
Lara pulled the trigger, and the blood and brains from William’s head littered the wall behind him. The smell stunk out the small compartment.
Zach opened the door a few moments later. He was white. “It’s done.”
“He turned.” Lara barely said.
They all backed out of the compartment, away from William, a dedicated and hard-working member of The Union, who had lost his life to the dead.
They shut the compartment door, locking William’s body inside. They walked into the next carriage, and found another compartment, locking themselves away and drawing the blinds. They sat on the floor, knees up, and said nothing.
* * *
Something beeped on Lara’s body. She drew back a sleeve on her right arm to reveal a silver watch. She pressed a button, stopping it from beeping anymore. They hadn’t heard anybody outside. The Blitzers had not yet come back to reclaim their train.
“It’s been two hours,” Lara muttered.
Two hours of silence. Two hours of reflection, of remembering William, of thinking and plotting a way out of this mess.
“I’ve been thinking about what just happened,” Zach said. “William…he was spitting blood. Like the one we killed in that tunnel.”
“Blood,” Winter repeated. “Like vomit. Like it was all built up and being churned back out.”
“Yes. We haven’t seen much of that before, have we?”
“No,” Lara said.
“There are different types,” Connor said. “At least, that is what I gathered from talk from the other cell mates. V has created different zombie types. I don’t think she meant to. I think it was a malfunction in her creation process. The blood you saw, the blood that was spat, if that goes directly into people’s bloodstream, they may turn.”
“Wow,” Zach exhaled. “That’s just what we need.”
“We need to research that further,” Lara said. “There’s so much The Union need to do but just aren’t doing.”
“I’ve heard V is afraid of them,” Connor said. “They can’t be bad.”
“She’s afraid of them because they’ve created an illusion of knowing what to do. They’ve hidden themselves well and created this idea that they’re everywhere and at any moment they’ll rip the carpet from underneath V’s feet. But they’re just a small group with big plans and no action to do anything. They didn’t save you tonight, Connor. We did.”
Connor looked afraid. “So, there’s no hope out there?”
Lara shook her head. “Barely any.”
“You can’t think of things like that,” David said. “Maria is doing everything she can…”
“IT’S NOT ENOUGH.” Lara screamed, shocking the compartment into silence. She breathed out. “It’s just not enough. She should be leading a revolution. Not sitting god knows where saying words that don’t mean a thing. We’ve lost a lot of people to the hands of V, and we want revenge.”
“You don’t think Maria knows this?” David asked. “We’re fighting in different ways. We can’t just walk out there and take her down.”
“We’ve just walked out and saved Connor.”
“Barely. And look at us now. Stuck on a tube train right outside the entrance to the underground, stuck, waiting for the Blitzers to come on board and shoot bullets through our heads.”
“David,” Winter groaned.
“What? It’s true. Maria knows what she’s doing. You guys are kids. You don’t understand.”
“Don’t call us kids,” Lara said. “I know exactly what to do in this situation, but I can’t do it by myself. Maria needs to lead us, because I’m not a leader, David. Tell me, how exactly is she combating V?”
“The newspaper we are working on, that will be distributed to the masses.”
“She doesn’t even know where the masses are.”
“The newspaper will recruit those that want to fight V.”
“As if.”
“And the newspaper will spread the truth, whilst V controls the headlines around this place.”
“No one is reading newspapers anymore, David,” Lara fired back. “People are either working for V and living as safely as they can, or they’re underground and dying.”
“Unfortunately, that’s the world right now.” David shrugged. “All we can do is plot and survive.”
Lara shook her head. “I’m not having it.”
“You’re going to have to, if you want to get out of this situation. Look, I’m going to tell you all now, Maria is our saviour. She is recruiting strong people. Doctors, nurses, health care staff. She’s recruiting fighters, securing relations in other countries. Did you know, in Amsterdam, there are survivors working on a cure?”
“Bullshit,”
“Truth,” David said. “Maria has been building those connections. Sure, Cedric told her about it, but she’s taken it on herself to develop the connections, find out everything she can, and find a way for us to be involved. There are people out there, in this world, in this fucking country, that know what is going on and want to stop it. It just takes time to gather these people together, come up with a plan, and revolt.”
“It’s time we don’t have,” Lara said, and when David went to argue again she interrupted. “End of discussion. There is no need to say anymore.” Lara got to her feet, carrying her gun in her hand. “I’m going for some peace. I’m going to find a way out of this.”
“Good luck,” David hissed.
Lara slammed the door after her.
Connor exhaled. “This is intense.”
“Is she always like that?”
“She’s uptight, yes,” Zach said. “But can you blame her?”
“She should have a little faith in what Maria is doing. Without Maria, she’d probably be dead.”
“To be fair, Maria didn’t save me tonight,” Connor said.
“No, she didn’t,” David agreed. “But it is a miracle these managed to get you out. Good timing and lack of Blitzers. That is all it was. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
“We’ll get out of this mess,” Zach said. “I know we will.”
“Are the doors locked?” Winter asked.
“Yes.” Zach nodded. “There was a control panel which I switched off, to disable the doors. Everything else can run, but that.”
“Good. Keeps the Blitzers and the dead out for a little bit longer.”
“There’s no doubt we’re in trouble.” Connor peered through the blinds. He recoiled at the sight. “The dead are flooding this tunnel. We’re surrounded.”
“Great,” Winter sighed.
“I just can’t believe William’s gone.” Zach shook his head. “All of that, and he got himself bitten.”
“It happens,” David shrugged. “Makes a great story.”
Fury burned through Winter. “That’s a horrible thing to say!”
“But it does! That will all get report
ed. It makes The Union stronger, shows what people go through and the sacrifices they make.”
“I wouldn’t say losing a life is a sacrifice,” Zach snapped.
“I would say it is tragic.” David smirked. “And people like tragedy.”
“You can’t cash in on death.” Winter remarked.
“That’s what everybody is doing right now, Winter.” David pointed out. “The sooner you realise that, the better off you’ll be.”
“I doubt that.”
“Doubt it all you like.”
Winter hated the man sat across from her. He had always been smug, and had forced his own opinions upon everyone else. Even in a time like this, where everyone was supposed to be together and work together, he was always looking for a new story, a dramatic tension that he could twist. The journalist inside him had never died.
The train lurched. Seconds later, it began to move. They heard the bodies of the dead being hit, heard them crumble underneath the tracks. The train built speed, and Connor pulled open the blinds. The walls sped away from them. Watching them was like watching a screen. It didn’t seem real. Winter saw her dirty reflection staring back at her.
“How are we moving?”
“Have we been hijacked?”
They hurried out of their compartment and walked down the train in single file. They passed rows upon rows of empty chairs, until they came to the control room. They knocked the door.
It took a few seconds, but Lara opened up. She seemed pleased with herself. She indicated behind her. A man was driving the train away from them. He was balding and marked with scars. He was also being held at gunpoint.
“This guy is taking us to safety.”
“Where’s safety?” Winter asked.
Lara looked at David. “We’re going to Cannes.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It took them three hours to arrive at Cannes. They waved goodbye to the man driving the train and escaped the tube station, which had been locked up but was less damaged than Paris, and climbed the hills, the scenic backdrop of the water stretched out behind them. Yachts still bobbed in the water, but they no longer glistened lights of wealth. Money meant nothing right now.
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