Zero Hour (Zombie Apocalypse Book 2)

by James Loscombe

  She walked along the fence and a cow watched her with incurious eyes. The animals were still alive, which suggested there was someone looking after them, but it clearly wasn’t a full-time job. The barn was open on one side, but there still appeared to be plenty of places to hide. It was easy to imagine her sister behind one of the mouldy hay bales but, if she was there, she was still hiding.

  There was a gate near the barn. Beth opened it and walked in amongst the animals. They shifted to look at her but didn’t come any closer. Either they had recently been fed or they had learned to fear the humans that usually walked amongst them. Beth ignored the creatures, they weren’t what she had come to see.

  The barn was two stories tall and as dilapidated as the animals. Red paint peeled off the exposed sides, and it creaked in the wind. She walked towards the ladder that was standing in the middle.

  “Dawn?” she said softly. “Dawn it’s me. It’s Beth.”

  There was no reply, but the barn didn’t feel empty.

  At the top of the ladder, she stopped and looked around. There were plenty of places that her sister could be hiding.

  “Dawn are you here?” she said.

  No reply.

  She walked towards the nearest bale of hay, but Dawn wasn’t there. She sat down. The walking had taken its toll on her and she needed to rest. If Dawn wasn’t there, she thought, then perhaps she would just lay down and rest her eyes for a moment or two.

  A shuffling sound at the other end of the barn caught her attention and she turned towards it. She could see movement in the dark recesses of the barn but could not tell who was there.

  “Dawn is that you?” she said.

  A shape emerged, dark and malformed.

  “I’m not mad at you,” Beth said. “Whatever you did, it doesn’t matter to me.”

  The shape came closer, grew bigger and more clear. After a few more steps she could see that it was Dawn, and she knew, in that moment, that she really had killed Toby.

  Dawn appeared from the shadows and came towards her without speaking. Beth stood up and opened her arms to her sister. She was crying, and Beth held her. Neither of them said a word.

  * * * * *

  Dawn cried for at least ten minutes. She cried with her face buried against Beth’s chest, her whole body convulsing as if she was having a fit. Beth did her best to calm her sister, stroking her hair and making comforting sounds, but she was keenly aware that it wasn’t working.

  Eventually, Dawn calmed down enough to speak. “I didn’t want to do it,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” Beth said. “It’s going to be okay Dawn.”

  Dawn shook her head, and Beth thought that she was going to lose control again but, instead, she wiped her eyes and sat down on the bale of hay.

  Beth sat down beside her and took her hands.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” she said.

  “It’s my fault,” Dawn said. She tried to pull her hands away, but Beth wouldn’t let go.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Dawn sniffed, and Beth let her have a hand back to wipe her eyes.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Beth said. “We’ll get out of here.”

  Dawn nodded. The idea of leaving the compound seemed to make her feel better.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” Beth said.

  “He wanted to…” she trailed off, as if she found it too difficult to talk, but Beth needed to know what had happened.

  “I want to help Dawn, but I need to know what happened first.”

  Dawn nodded. “When we were in the convoy he kissed me.”

  Beth listened and forced herself to remain silent while Dawn told her how Toby had groomed her and forced her to have sex. They had called that rape once, but there were no longer courts or prisons to pass judgement over people. By the time Dawn had finished she was crying again and Beth wasn’t far from doing the same.

  “You did the right thing,” Beth said.

  Dawn looked at her, eyes open and hopeful.

  “You didn’t have any choice. He tried to hurt you.”

  “But I let him do it before,” she said. “It was my fault.”

  “No,” Beth said, firmly and finally. “No, it wasn’t your fault Dawn. He didn’t have the right to make you do that. You’re thirteen years old.”

  Consent laws probably didn’t apply any more either, she thought, but then neither did the rules about murder. There was nothing else Dawn could have done. If she hadn’t done it then Beth would have done it herself.

  * * * * *

  The sun set and the barn became so dark that Beth could no longer see her sister. In the distance, they could see light from a few of the buildings and hear the voices of people coming and going, but no one came close to the small farmyard.

  Dawn fell asleep with her head on Beth’s lap. Although she was hungry and thirsty, she put the thoughts away. There were more important things to focus on now, like how they were going to get out of the compound, what they would need to take with them and where they would go.

  Staying was no longer an option.

  She thought about Russell and Colette and the rest of the convoy. She thought about Rachel and Noel and all of the other people that they would be leaving behind. They would be better off staying.

  Even if Dawn hadn’t killed Toby, Beth thought, they would be better off going. She didn’t like it here. It reminded her of Dale and everything that he had been through. She felt as if Velma was watching her.

  Dawn woke late in the night.

  “What are we going to do?” Dawn said.

  “We’re going to get out of here,” Beth said.

  Dawn sniffed. “But where will we go?”

  Beth shook her head. “I don’t know. We’ll find somewhere. We can’t stay here.”

  “You should stay,” Dawn said. “It’s safe here.”

  “I’m going with you. It’s me and you, remember?”

  “I’m sorry,” Dawn said.

  “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Beth said, and she meant it. If anyone should have been sorry, it was her. She’d lost sight of what she should have been doing. She should have been looking after Dawn, not leading a convoy with Russell. “You tried to speak to me about it, didn’t you?”

  “You were busy,” Dawn said.

  Beth shook her head. The words were like shards of ice in her heart. “I shouldn’t ever be too busy to talk to you,” she said.

  Dawn said nothing and, Beth realised, that was as close to an agreement as she would ever get.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Beth woke first but remained still, enjoying the warmth of her little sister. This, she thought, was what it should have been like from the start. If it had remained just the two of them (if it had ever been) then they could have moved around more easily. They could have hidden from zombies when they came and eked out a small existence from the remains of the old world.

  Dawn stirred but didn’t wake.

  They wouldn’t need much. A few bottles for water and whatever food they could pick up along the way. There wasn’t much more to life anyway. Water, food and shelter. If they had that, then everything would work out.

  “What happened?” Dawn said, still struggling out of sleep.

  “It’s okay,” Beth said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Beneath them, the animals continued to bray and cackle. She couldn’t see them from her position behind the hay bale, but then she heard a sing-song voice calling out.

  She froze.

  “Who is it?” Dawn said.

  If, whoever it was, came in and found them, what would they do? Whatever happened now she couldn’t let them take Dawn away from her.

  “Wait here,” Beth said. She slipped her arm out from beneath Dawn and quietly stood. She thought there was too much noise and movement from the animals for any sound she made to draw attention, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “Be careful,” Dawn whispered back.
>
  Beth nodded and then crept around the hay stack.

  A woman moved around the small farmyard throwing handfuls of something (seed?) from a metal bucked. When she had finished she walked to the gate. Beth watched the woman until she had walked out of sight, around a corner beyond the nearest building. Then she turned back to Dawn.

  “We have to go,” Beth said.

  “We can’t,” Dawn said. “What if someone sees me?”

  “Maybe you should stay here then?”

  “On my own?”

  “I won’t be long. I just need to get some things. We’ll leave when it’s dark. You should try to get some sleep.”

  Dawn nodded but she didn’t seem convinced.

  Beth waited another thirty-minutes, until she was sure that the woman wouldn’t come back, then she climbed down the ladder into the farmyard and walked away.

  * * * * *

  She reached the living quarters an hour after leaving the farmyard. There were people standing outside, smoking and chatting. They paid no attention to her as she walked past them.

  The lift in the living quarters was out of order, the same as the one in the hospital had been. She walked up the stairs, hurrying between the floors and then lingering by the doors until she was sure that no one was coming and that she wouldn’t need to duck out of sight. In this way she made it to her quarters slowly, in fits and spurts. Her heart was racing by the time she got to her room.

  She went inside and looked around, half expecting there to be someone hiding under the bed. Although the most important things to take with them were water and food, she couldn’t stand the thought of another night in the cold. The bad weather would be starting soon, and she could already guess that it was going to be a tough winter.

  Beth pulled a coat out of the cupboard. It had been given to her when she arrived at the compound and was still the only thing hanging in the wardrobe.

  She rolled up the coat and carried it under her arm. The only other thing she needed was a bag, and she found the tattered old thing that she’d carried with her since Harmony. It was empty now but would provide ample room for bottles of food and water.

  There was another coat in Dawn’s room, along with the bag that she had taken to school with her the morning they had been forced to leave. It was too awkward (and conspicuous) carrying the coats under her arms so she stuffed them into Dawn’s bag. She would be able to carry enough food and drink in her bag to last them until they found somewhere new.

  She left Dawn’s room and headed for the kitchen.

  The noise from the canteen was deafening but when Beth glanced through the door, she saw no more than a couple of dozen soldiers banging their plates and stamping their feet.

  The kitchen was the next door along but, such was the size of the canteen, it took a full minute to reach it. By the time she arrived the soldiers shouts had become little more than a background rumble and she was happy to believe that she wouldn’t be disturbed.

  She pushed the swing door open and stepped into the kitchen. The lights flickered on as her movement was picked up by the motion detectors.

  Large freezers lined the rear wall. The hum was already alien to her, but she remembered it like a childhood home. Beth walked towards them and found fridges nearby as well. It looked as if there would be plenty of food, but her first priority was water.

  She found thick plastic bottles beside a large sink which had been cleaned to a high shine. She had no reason to think that the water wouldn’t be safe to drink so she took four of the bottles and filled them. Once they were in her bag, she returned to the fridges and started to open the door but then stopped.

  It didn’t make any sense to take food that needed to be refrigerated or frozen. She wouldn’t be able to do either once they were on the road. She closed the door and stepped away, rethinking her plans for food.

  She found what she was looking for behind the third door she tried. The cupboard were packed to bursting with energy bars and jerky. She stuffed them into her bag until it was so full that it threatened to split. Even so there were enough items left in the cupboard that she doubted anyone would notice what she had taken.

  Beth stopped at the door and wondered if there was anything she had forgotten. There were plenty of things that would make the journey more comfortable, but they had water, food and warmth, and if she tried to take more it would only slow them down. She had a feeling that speed was going to be essential.

  * * * * *

  They ate a little of what Beth had managed to take and drank one of the flasks. They both slept through the afternoon without being disturbed and woke, at about the same time, as the sun began to fall.

  “When should we go?” Dawn said.

  Beth looked out from the barn. The sun was red in the sky beyond the walls, it made the clouds seem pink. “Not yet,” she said. “We should wait until it gets dark.”

  Dawn nodded and turned away.

  While they waited, Beth occupied herself by packing and re-packing her bag. Once the sun was gone from the sky, it was cold enough to require coats, so she was able to split the water and food between the two bags.

  “If we lose each other you’ll still have something to eat,” Beth said.

  Dawn nodded and took the bag. “Is it time to go now?”

  Beth looked across the compound. The wall was impossible to see in the dark distance, but there were still a few lights on. She wondered if it would be safer to wait until they were gone as well, or if they would attract more attention sneaking around when everyone else was in their quarters.

  “Yes,” Beth said. “It’s time to go.”

  Dawn picked up her bag and stood. Beth led her down the ladder and into the farmyard. The cow guttered out a heavy breath and she heard some of the animals move around, but nothing that she thought would give them away, if anyone was even listening.

  She waited for Dawn to join her and then they set off.

  The compound was eerily quiet without the constant charge of soldiers and vehicles moving around. They didn’t even have the wind in the trees to accompany them.

  Every movement seemed loud and obnoxious, but she told herself that it was just her imagination. No one could hear them because no one was listening. All she had to do was keep going and everything would be okay.

  They passed the last of the buildings that stood between them and the wall and then they were walking across open ground. All of the lights were pointing away from the compound so she couldn’t see much more than a distant haze. Even Dawn, who she knew was close beside her, was difficult to make out clearly and might easily have been a shadow.

  They got nearer to the wall, but she couldn’t make out any detail. They kept going and the wall kept getting bigger and higher and soon it was impossible to see anything else. It occupied her whole horizon, and she knew that getting through it was not going to be a simple matter. This was not the kind of wall that had faults or blind spots.

  She stopped when they were about a hundred metres away.

  “What’s wrong?” Dawn said.

  Beth wondered whether her sister really didn’t realise it, or if she had such confidence in her that even a wall like this didn’t seem like it would be a problem. She wondered if the events of the last twenty-four hours had left her with the impression that Beth was more capable than she really was.

  “You know how to get through, right?” Dawn said.

  “I’m sure there’s a way,” Beth said.

  “Oh Jesus Beth!” Dawn said. “I thought you knew what you were doing.”

  “I did, I... I thought there would be a way through.”

  “Well it looks like you’re wrong,” Dawn said.

  Beth nodded. That was exactly what it looked like.

  “There has to be a way,” Beth said, speaking as much to herself as to Dawn. But she knew that, just because she wanted there to be a way, didn’t mean that there actually would be. It was entirely possible that there was nothing they could do and that
they were trapped.

  She continued to stare at the wall, willing it to give up its secrets and reveal to her exactly what she should do. The obvious solutions were as impractical as they were stupid: digging would take too long, it was too high to climb, and she couldn’t imagine a way to fly over it. It even seemed doubtful that they would be able to sneak into the back of a patrol vehicle because they were all highly guarded and this wasn’t a film.

  “Who’s that?” Dawn said.

  Beth turned towards Dawn and then in the direction she was looking. She squinted and then she saw it too. A dark shape had separated from the darkness of the wall and was moving towards them.

  “What do we do?” Dawn said.

  Beth shook her head. She didn’t have any idea.

  * * * * *

  The figure moved towards them but Beth found herself frozen to the spot.

  “Beth?” Dawn said.

  She didn’t look away from the person.

  “Beth we have to go!”

  It was as if she was under a spell. She could no more have turned and walked away than she could have stopped her heart from beating. She watched the figure and knew that she would still be there when it reached them.

  “I was wondering when I’d see you two,” said a man’s voice. “I was beginning to think I’d missed you.”

  He stopped in front of her and Beth adjusted to the sight of Noel standing there in the darkness. He looked more solid than she remembered, more real. It was clear that he hadn’t been missing any meals, and he was beginning to take on the shape of his late partner.

  “What are you doing here?” Beth said.

  “I suppose I could ask you the same question,” he said. “But that wouldn’t be polite. I’m looking for you.”