Solstice: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse

by Donna Burgess

A half-dozen tents stood, along with a semicircle of sleeping bags outside the tents, camping stoves, the microwave, and a large flat-screen television connected to a Blu-ray player. It appeared quite comfortable.

  Tomas, Christopher, and Melanie took seats at a small, pre-fabricated picnic table. Bo sat beside them, grinning his happy dog grin.

  After the introductions, food was served.

  “Curried chicken,” Denise said, placing trays in front of him and Melanie. “And Chicken en Croute with Creamy Mushroom.”

  Gladys passed a pair of mini-cheeseburgers to Christopher. “Those are the last two burgers, sweetie,” she chirped, her voice surprisingly high for a woman of her girth.

  Christopher ate quickly and ecstatically; he hadn’t had a burger in a long time. Leila had seldom allowed such indulgence. “Do you have French fries?”

  “No, dear. No French fries. We have some crisps,” she offered. Christopher opted for Cool Ranch Doritos.

  The black woman, Tana, brought out a liter bottle of Cherry Coke and poured it into plastic picnic cups. “We have some ale left, too. We’ll have a drink after you rest.”

  Bo was served two large cans of organic dog food. Tomas dreaded taking him out later, but knew it was necessary if they all were going to be happy and stench-free inside the supermarket.

  A tent was prepared for them, furnished with three thick, warm pallets. Tomas and Stu ventured back out to the car and brought in a few bags, including Melanie’s iPod, Tomas’s computer, clothing, toiletries, and a few of Christopher’s favorite toys.

  Tana’s son Davis climbed into the tent and helped Christopher with straightening out his bedding. The little boy seemed genuinely thrilled to have a new, healthy playmate.

  “My other son, Aidan, is—was—about your son’s age,” Tana explained. “I know Davis misses him terribly.”

  Melanie placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Was he killed?”

  Tana shook her head. “No. He’s out there somewhere. One of them.”

  Christopher and Davis popped out of the tent. Christopher dashed along the empty camping aisle, his short legs pumping, ecstatic to have room to run. Davis chased him, laughing. They vanished around the end of the shelves and, in a moment, circled back to the camp area.

  Tomas watched Tana a moment, wondering how she got through such a thing. Of course, she still had a boy to live for. As Christopher jogged past, Tomas swept him up and kissed his cheek loudly, making the boy giggle. At the same time, he said a small, inward prayer for the safety of his dear son.

  Stu approached, looking miserable. He had just broken the word to the nurses about Ken. Nobody knew the poor man very well, but he had been an affable fellow. With so few people left, that had been enough.

  Tana slipped her arm around his waist. “We have hot water, if you want a shower,” she told Melanie. “It does wonders for the psyche.” She nudged Stu playfully in the ribs. “Doesn’t it?”

  Tomas thought he caught a very subtle invitation, and he glanced at Melanie. She grinned like a schoolgirl. Neither of them would have put the small, bookish American with the stunning black Brit, but at the end of the world, anything went. Even he and his best friend’s young daughter.

  “That would be terrific,” Tomas said.

  February 5- 11

  Chapter 44

  London, England

  Stu and Tomas stood atop an apartment building across the street from the store, five stories above the dead city. The freezing air cut at their faces, making their eyes water. They could see the church a few blocks over. Further away, fires, some large and others dying, dotted the black landscape like spots of splattered paint. From time to time, they caught headlights moving through the streets. Tomas wondered if they were friendly, not that it mattered very much. Safety in numbers wasn’t necessarily accurate in the new world. More people would only serve to slow them down.

  He squinted through a pair of binoculars. A black SUV oozed down the lane and stopped in front of the church. A group of men and women who looked like Road Warrior rejects climbed out, followed by a fat, weeping woman and a little girl.

  “Shit,” Tomas said. “They have a child.” He passed the glasses to Stu.

  “Just one of many, my friend. The church is lousy with kids. And women. The elderly. The Ragers aren’t discriminating.”

  “What do you think about taking the kids with us?”

  Stu turned to Tomas, furrowing his brow. “I think it’s a shitty idea, frankly,” he said. “But I’ve also been kicking the notion around in the back of my mind. It’s… well, I was afraid I would get them all killed. I’ve dealt with enough dead kids already.”

  “How do you think we should handle moving them ”

  “I’d suggest creating a diversion. I’m still not sure we could get them out fast enough.”

  “I think you’re right.” Tomas answered.

  Tomas nodded. Stu was obviously dealing with many issues—his excessive drinking and nervous hands told Tomas that. But Stu was a good guy. Anyone as devoted to his child as Stu appeared to be had to be a good guy.

  Chapter 45

  London, England

  Tana was everything Melanie wished she could be—beautiful and tough. She appeared comfortable with who she was. Like Melanie, the woman was committed to a man and a child, but Tana was selfless. Melanie hated herself for being so afraid. As flighty as a schoolgirl, even at the end of the world, she was worried over a thing like loneliness. Tana was a leader, even if there weren’t many left to lead—two over-the-hill nurses, four mentally challenged kids, a pair of hysterical high school girls, her own little boy who didn’t understand, and a drunken man too far away from home.

  Stu outlined their plan, with Tana next to him on a folding lounge chair, her hand on his leg. They were a pair, a partnership. Melanie saw a glimpse of that in her relationship with Tomas, but most times, he was the protector, and she was a child, just like Christopher. Nevertheless, when he sat down beside her and slinked his arm around her, she snuggled against him, loving his warmth and lilac-soapy scent.

  “We’re going to get that bus outside restarted,” Stu said. “All we need is a new battery and gasoline.”

  “What if we don’t want to go?” Gladys, asked. She wrapped her thick fingers around a paper cup filled with cheap wine from a box.

  “We can’t abide placing these children into danger over a wild goose chase, Mr. McCarthy,” Denise added.

  “I agree. But we’re armed. With Tomas here, I believe we can get everyone inside and well on the way before anyone becomes aware,” Stu replied. “How far is it to Southampton?”

  “More than an hour, less than two, depending on the condition of the roads,” Tana said.

  “What if there’s no Sanctuary?” Gladys asked. “What then?”

  Tomas could understand her uncertainty. She had four lives counting on her. But he was nevertheless growing tired of justifying his determination to find a safe haven for his child, Melanie, and himself. He was no savior. He was a father. There was a limit to his caring about others. “You’ve heard the broadcasts. We have to take them at their word. My family is moving on, and it sounds like Stu, Tana, and the girls are doing the same. You can stay, but rest assured the Ragers will come, and if not Ragers, then marauders. And very soon.”

  On her lap, Ashley held a small towheaded boy with thick glasses and a contented but unknowing expression. “I’ll stay, if they stay,” she said. “I’m not sure I want to see what’s left at home, anyway.”

  “That’s not an option, Ashley,” Stu said, transforming instantly from friend to teacher. “I’m in charge of you.”

  “Not any more, Mr. McCarthy,” Portia said. “Everything we knew is gone. You do what you need to. I’m with Ash.”

  Denise listened, sipping her wine. “We’ll soon be out of food and supplies here, Gladys. What will we do then? We can’t move these kids to a new location without a transport. Frankly, I feel we’re safer with
Stu. Even if Sanctuary turns out to be a dream, we can find a new place to hide. Perhaps a country house. The city is a trap waiting to snap closed, anyway.”

  Chapter 46

  London, England

  Melanie never considered how quickly a person could become close with others in the face of dire situations. Disasters, wars, famines, pandemics—those horrors brought out both the best and the worst of people. Back in the village, they’d allowed fear to drive them. Nothing was more horrifying that witnessing a group succumbing to mob rule. She imagined it was even worse in larger cites. Only blocks away, who knew what was happening? Were people being sacrificed? Pushed out, enslaved? Raped? Of course, the alternative unfolding inside the nearby church was much worse.

  She shivered while envisioning it and tried to think about other, simpler tasks, like packing canned fruits and vegetables into boxes.

  “Are you okay?” Stu asked, glancing down from atop the stepladder. He was rummaging through the higher shelves to see if they had overlooked anything that might be of use on the trip.

  “Yes. I was just letting my mind wander a little too much.”

  “Mine has a habit of doing that lately, too.” Then, he gave a sharp gasp. “Wow. I can’t believe we missed this.” He rubbed his hands together, then grabbed a case of bottled Guinness that a worker had apparently hidden away to steal later. “I imagine Tomas might like a pint or two.”

  Melanie smiled. “I imagine he might.”

  Stu was easy to be around, and she could see how Tana and the others had taken to him. He was a little odd, more than a little shell-shocked, but he tried hard to keep everyone’s spirits up, even when it was through gritted teeth and clenched jaws. That reminded her of Tomas.

  “What subject did you teach, Stu?” She wanted to keep him talking, to keep her mind from becoming idle. An idle mind could get her in trouble, and she was paranoid enough already.

  “Honors English. A bunch of cocky, know-it-all, straight-A students. I loved it.”

  She watched his face for a moment, the suddenly flash of happiness there and then gone again. “Sure wish it had been science, now. Maybe then I could reason out what’s happened to our world.”

  “Did you have a favorite work?” She moved on to a partially empty case of Spam. Just like the Monty Python skit, she hated the stuff, but this excuse for meat might be better than nothing, if it came to that.

  Stu brought the stout down the ladder and placed it beside the large loading dock roll-down door. “Too many to name, really.” He walked over to her and began helping her with the Spam. “Nasty stuff,” he commented.

  The warehouse was much cooler than the rest of the store because they had shut off the heat in that area to conserve the dwindling propane. Melanie blew into her fingers and then moved on to the next box, which happened to be batteries of all different sizes. “We can certainly use these.”

  “Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be, for my unconquerable soul,” Stu said. “It’s very fitting, isn’t it?”

  “What is it?”

  “Invictus. William Ernest Henley.”

  “Can I hear the rest?” Melanie asked.

  “Let’s see if I remember.” He paused a moment, and then went on, “’In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud, under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears, looms but the horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the year finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.’”

  Melanie allowed the beautiful, yet unsettling lines, to sink in.

  “Are you the captain of your soul, Melanie?” he asked softly.

  Melanie laughed. “I… uh… probably not.” She shrugged.

  “I want you to make sure they go with you to Sanctuary. Tana and Davis, I mean. In case something should happen.”

  She suddenly felt as though a band had been wrapped around her chest, squeezing. She touched the inhaler in her jacket pocket, but didn’t draw it out. Instead, she took a deep, tremulous breath. “Don’t worry about anything. Besides, Tomas will keep us safe.”

  Stu nodded, then turned away and went back to sorting and packing. The next box contained espresso in airtight bricks. “So, do you have a favorite poem?” he asked, falsely cheerful.

  “No. I never was one for poetry. But I loved Angela Carter. My mother named me for a character from one of Carter’s novels, so it was only proper that I read her. I remember the scariest line from her novel, The Bloody Chamber. ‘The wolf is carnivore incarnate, and he's as cunning as he is ferocious; once he's had a taste of flesh, then nothing else will do.’”

  “Quite appropriate, as well, isn’t it?” Stu asked.

  “I suppose. But the book was a fairy tale, not real life.”

  ***

  About a half an hour later, Tana showed up with a couple of cheese sandwiches on toast and a bag of Cheetos that were just this side of stale. Stu grabbed three stouts from the case of Guinness, popped the tops, and handed one to Melanie and one to Tana.

  “Cheers,” he said, “to finding something better out there.”

  They touched bottles and drank, but the look on both his and Tana’s faces told her that neither of them were feeling especially hopeful. Tana looked tired, the rims beneath her dark eyes bruised.

  She hadn’t slept, she told them. “Nightmares about Aidan.” Although the child had become infected, she was having a difficult time with leaving him behind.

  “It’s silly,” she said. “He’s as good as gone, but I feel I’ve abandoned him.” She quickly turned her beer up to hide the fact she was about to cry. Stu slipped his arm around her and kissed her temple. He didn’t offer any words, but instead found the small transistor radio and flipped it on.

  They sat on unopened boxes of useless electronics—cell phone chargers, iPod adapters, Wi-Fi cards—and ate their sandwiches, chatting about some of the terrors they had seen. Melanie rehashed an abridged version of her rail trip from Stockholm to Gothenburg. She considered telling them about Finn and Colleen, but thinking of them made her heart ache. She forced them from her thoughts.

  Tana told her about George Edwards and how he had transformed from a kindly, elderly man to a snarling, nasty creature in the matter of hours after having been bitten. The notion of that chilled Melanie to the bone.

  “So do you think there’s any way to avoid infection, if you’re bitten?” Melanie asked.

  Tomas, Stu, and Tana would be the ones going out for the gasoline. Tomas had already determined that Melanie should stay behind with Christopher. She didn’t argue. How could she? Someone had to protect Christopher and the others. Neither the younger girls nor the two cynical nurses had ever touched a firearm. They needed someone there who could shoot, if necessary. She wasn’t a great shot, but she was better than nothing.

  “By my watch, it’s three o’clock,” Stu announced finally. “Let’s see what happens.” He turned on the radio.

  After a few anxious moments of static, a woman’s voice broke in, “Is there anyone out there? It’s Zombie Radio X. We’re still here, and we hope you’re still there, hanging on. We’re looking at roughly T-minus seventy-two hours until Sanctuary. A small group of marauders attacked around five a.m. and were taken out. So if any more of you assholes think you’re gonna come in and take this away from us, you’d better think again.” She sounded tired, her voice cracking. She sniffed loudly; she was either weeping or had contracted a cold. “Seventy-two hours. Southampton. You’ll know us when you see us. Charlie and Kurt will be placing signs closer to launch time. We don’t want to give away too much, too soon. We know the kinds of freaks that are listening. You show yourselves, and you’ll keep your head.”

  A man’s voice chimed in, “Why couldn’t they have really been like Dawn of the Dead? This shit would’ve been
a lot easier, wouldn’t it? I never thought it was the uninfected we’d need to worry about.

  Tomas ambled into the stockroom, Christopher riding high on his shoulders. Davis followed, leading Bo on a leash. They had placed a colorful bandanna around the pooch’s neck, and the dog seemed pleased with the extra attention.

  “If you’re going to dress him, why not give him a bath?” Melanie teased.

  “Why don’t you? And you can give me one while you’re at it,” Tomas quipped. Melanie smiled, entertaining the notion for a moment before taking Christopher from his roost and blowing a raspberry on his warm, round cheek. The little boy giggled. She was so happy Tomas had come in to lighten the increasingly gloomy mood of the room.

  The broadcast had switched to music, some electronic mid-80s Goth that Melanie couldn’t identify. Tana grabbed Stu’s hand and pulled him to his feet. They danced around awkwardly, laughing softly. Melanie caught Tomas looking at her. He smiled and shot her a little wink. She blushed like a stupid teenager.

  Tomas had lost some of the awkwardness he had around her following their night together, and she felt as though their relationship had moved to another level. However, she still felt weird, even though she had finally gotten what she’d always wanted.

  She supposed catastrophe brought people together. He would’ve never wanted her if the world hadn’t decided to fall apart.

  February 12

  Chapter 47

  London, England

  The fires smelled especially strong. The orange glow tinted the sky and painted the low bellies of the clouds. From where they stood, Tomas couldn’t determine what was on fire or how close it was. He brought his gloved fingers to his face and breathed in the faint scent of Melanie’s shampoo.

  They were only a couple of blocks away from the market, but Tomas felt he was a hundred miles away from his people. Tana had given Tomas one of the rifles, so he had handed over his pistol to Melanie, praying, as he had back in Folkestone, that she wouldn’t have to use it.