by Ryan Casey
His group.
He threw Chloë’s knife into the soil.
“Come on,” he said.
Colin and Arnold exchanged a glance.
And then, the three of them disappeared into the soundless night.
16
SIXTEEN
Chloë looked down at her knife poking out of the ground.
“Just gone,” Dean said, scratching his bald head. “Woke up this morning. Took a look around. Gone. Jackson, Colin, Arnold, all three of ‘em.”
“They can’t just have… gone,” Anisha said. “There has to be a reason. Why they’d leave.”
The awkward silence that followed gave Chloë—and everyone—the answer to Anisha’s statement. There was a reason. They’d left because of Chloë. They’d disappeared because they didn’t trust Chloë anymore.
But there was something wrong about this.
Something… off.
Chloë pulled her knife out of the ground. She looked ahead at the fields in the distance. Looked at the grey clouds overhead, the rain splattering down. It reminded her of times away with her family. The camping trips they’d taken. They always ended up rainy, especially the holidays they took in England. Elizabeth used to moan about the rain. How it messed up her hair. But Chloë didn’t mind it. She didn’t mind it because rain meant the other kids weren’t out to play around. She preferred life when she was on her own.
“So what do we do?” Hassan asked.
“What can we do?” Dad said.
“Well, I suggest we go take a look for them, for starters.”
“Where? In the woods? In those fields?”
Hassan tutted. A speck of sweat rolled down his face. “You really do just leave people behind, don’t you? You really don’t give a shit as long as you and your kid get to Pwll—fucking—heli all in one piece.”
“In one piece?” Dad said. He walked over to Chloë. Pointed at her arm. Then at the scars on her face. “You think my daughter is in one piece? You… you think her mind is in one piece after some of the things she’s seen? Some of the things she’s been through? Hmm?”
Hassan and Anisha looked at the ground. Dean and Cassandra stood behind them, arms folded. Alice was busy scanning the outside of the woods for some kind of fruit.
“No,” Dad said. “No. She isn’t in one piece. None of us are in one piece. But we’re here. We’re here and we’re conscious.”
“Barely,” Hassan mumbled.
Chloë cleared her throat. Felt the cool rain crashing against her. A sour taste built in her mouth. A taste that always came when she hadn’t got much sleep. She couldn’t remember dozing off for a moment last night. She was worried about what would happen. What she’d dream about.
Sometimes, as hard as it was to believe, the dreams were worse than reality.
Dad walked towards Hassan and Anisha. He lifted a hand. Rested it on Hassan’s shoulder. “I understand you’re tired. I understand you’re scared. But now’s not the time to split into—”
“We’ve already fucking split,” Hassan said. He batted Dad’s hand away. “Jackson was just about the only guy left capable of leading us to Pwllheli. Now he’s gone. So what next?”
There was a silence amongst the group. A slow realisation of Hassan’s words. Chloë didn’t like what Hassan was saying. Because Jackson wasn’t the only person capable of leading them to Pwllheli. She could do it. She could lead these people to somewhere safe. She could keep them out of trouble—away from the monsters, away from the other bad people. She could do it. She really could.
But to do it, she needed them to believe in her.
She wasn’t sure they did anymore.
“We’ve still got each other,” Dad said.
Hassan laughed. He laughed, turned to Anisha and his laughing got louder. “Each other. Each other! There were thirty-three of us. Now there’s seven. And you still expect us to survive just doing what we’ve been doing all along, right? You really think you and your daughter can lead us to—”
“We won’t get to Pwllheli by standing around arguing.”
The words felt unfamiliar as they left Chloë’s lips. Unnatural, even. But the moment she’d spoken them, she knew there was no going back on them.
“I’m sorry, kiddo,” Hassan said, walking towards her. “But I stopped believing in your crap when—”
“People have died. And more people will die. There’s nothing we can do about that. But we’re here. We’re here and we have a chance. A chance to get to Pwllheli. Before the bandits do. Before anyone…”
A thought invaded her mind.
Dominated her senses.
She looked down at the knife in her hand. Her knife. The one that Jackson had.
The one he’d held when he’d watched monster Dan get within inches of killing her.
He’d tried to get her to go down to that group. The one by the motorway bridge.
He’d been the one to reveal the news about the bandits. About the attack on Hopeforth. About the transmission.
And Dad. Dad said there was something wrong with him. That he sensed something dishonest about Jackson.
“It… It was him,” Chloë said.
Hassan frowned. He looked at Anisha. “It was what?”
“The gun. The gun Colin had. He… It was them. All along it was them.”
She turned around. Started walking across the grass. Then running. Running down the hill. Running away from the group.
“What was them?” Hassan shouted, the rest of the group following. “The hell are you on about?”
“Jackson,” Chloë shouted. Her mind spun, her heart raced. “He—he must’ve heard. He must’ve heard the transmission somehow. And—and he set this up. He set this up to get me out of the way. To split the group. To—”
“Chlo, you aren’t making sense,” Alice said.
“But it does make sense. The—the bandits. There were no bandits. It was just him. Just him and Arnold and Colin.”
Hassan shook his head. “Bullshit. Bull. Shit.”
“You know he didn’t like me. Didn’t like my dad.”
“Well, there’s motive for that, kid.”
Chloë stopped. She looked back at the knife. Flashbacks to when she’d got to her feet after being attacked by Dan. Something had hit her. Something hit her from behind. Knocked her back to the ground.
The more she thought about it, the more she wondered.
Wondered if she’d been pushed.
“He tried to kill me,” Chloë said.
Chloë waited for a response. Waited for Dad to tell her she was being rash. For Alice to tell her to stop being stupid. She waited for Hassan to swear. For Anisha to tut. For Dean or Cassandra to say something—anything.
But they didn’t.
Chloë looked back at them. “It was him. Jackson. He did this. To make a break for Pwllheli. He did this.”
She saw the group’s eyes staring at her blankly.
A tightness built in her chest.
“I’m telling you, it was him!”
And then Chloë realised something.
The group weren’t staring blankly at her.
They were staring at something behind her.
“What—”
She turned around.
Saw the monsters wandering towards her group from way in the distance.
But they didn’t worry her.
What worried her stood right opposite her.
The worst monster of all.
A man.
And he was holding a gun.
Pointing it right at Chloë.
17
SEVENTEEN
“Just give us whatever you’ve got and we can get this sorted nice and quick.”
Chloë looked the man in the eye. He was long-haired. Dishevelled. Covered in a brown film that gave away just how little he showered and washed these days. A brown film that all of them found themselves covered in. The falling specks of rain might just do him a favour.
Chlo
ë could smell his sweat from here. She could see his hand holding the gun, shakily. A bag in the other hand. A green rucksack. It didn’t look very full.
“We don’t have a thing,” Alice said. “So you might want to turn away and—”
“Bullshit,” the man said. Flecks of spit rolled down his chin. His eyes were red, like an animal that’d escaped its cage. “I saw you lot. Saw you last night. Saw the guns.”
“The guns?” Dad asked.
Chloë’s chest tightened. “You saw someone in our group with guns?”
The man’s eyes darted from Chloë to the rest of the group. Behind him, up the hill, the oncoming crowd of monsters approached. There were lots of them. Still far away, but enough of them to want to run away from. Fast. “Don’t mess about with me. I know what you’ve got. I seen what you’ve got.”
“Jackson,” Chloë muttered.
She turned. Looked at the rest of her group. They stared at her with wide eyes.
“Jackson. Colin. Arnold. I told you. I told you we couldn’t trust them.”
“And yet you trust this guy?” Dean asked.
Chloë looked back at the man. Looked at his wavering gun. A part of her wanted to lift her knife. To throw it at him as hard as she could. Because he was a person. He was a man. And men were threats.
Much bigger threats than the monsters.
“Just—just hand over your weapons,” he said. His gun shook. “Like I said. Doesn’t have to be any trouble here.”
“The weapons you saw. The people with the weapons. They aren’t with us anymore. They—”
“I know what I saw. I know who I saw. Now hand over your stuff.”
Chloë was about to respond when she heard branches snapping in the trees.
The man looked around. Kept his gun focused on Chloë.
Three monsters staggered out from the trees.
Torn clothes dangling from their emaciated bodies.
Blood dribbling down from their faces.
Meat wedged between their teeth.
The group staggered back. The man turned around. Raised his gun. “Don’t move a muscle!”
Chloë raised her hands. “We’re not going anywhere. But we’re being honest. We have a tiny bit of food. A tiny bit of water. But we don’t have any weapons.”
The man shook his head. Stepped closer towards the group as the monsters approached him. “Fuck. Fuck. Well we’ll have to see about that, won’t we? Have to see about that when these biters here step up to you.”
Chloë saw the look in the man’s eyes. The glow. And she knew right then she definitely wouldn’t be able to trust him, no matter what.
She watched him walk towards the group. Looked at him, gun pointed at them. Ahead, the monsters continued their approach. Snapping teeth echoed through the silence. Glazed eyes focused on their next meal—a buffet of people.
The man grabbed Chloë’s hand.
“Get your fucking hands off my daughter—”
“Hey!” he shouted. He pointed the gun to Chloë’s head. Stared back at Dad with manic, bloodshot eyes. “You’ll use your weapons, won’t you? You’ll use your weapons or your daughter will die. Simple as that.”
“Fucking psychopath!”
“We don’t have any weapons,” Chloë said. The monsters were just a matter of metres away now. Their rotting smell drifted through the breeze. Behind them, way into the distance, the rest of the monsters approached. “All I… All I have is a knife.”
“So you do have a weapon?”
“Our guns are gone. They took them.”
“Who took them?”
“The people! The people you saw. The people you…”
One of the monsters toppled over. Stretched its bony fingers out. Stuck them into the dirt and dragged itself towards Chloë.
Chloë felt a lump swelling in her throat. The man’s gun stayed pressed to her head. “You can kill us. But it won’t get you anywhere. Because we’ve no weapons. Nothing but the knife.”
The monsters were just three metres away now.
The man’s gun began to shake.
“You don’t have to do this,” Chloë said.
“I do have to do this.” The man’s eyes were glassy. His cheeks were puffy. His mouth started to quiver.
Chloë stared into the dead eyes of the oncoming monsters. “You… you don’t have to kill us. You can join us. You can be one of us.”
The man smirked. Adjusted his grip on the gun. “Like you’re ever gonna just let me in.”
“That’s… that’s what we do. To be strong. We let people in. We… we know a place. A safe place.”
The man laughed again. The groaning of the monsters drowned out everything. Dad made another run for Chloë, but the man tightened his grip on the trigger. Everybody else just watched, backed away slowly. “A safe place. There are no safe places.”
Chloë narrowed her eyelids as the monsters got within a few steps away. “There can be. If you just trust us. Please. Trust us.”
She felt the monster’s hand grab her ankle.
“Chloë!” Dad cried.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Waited for the burning pain.
And then she heard the blast.
She opened her eyes. Her head spun and her ears rang.
The monster that’d grabbed her ankle had a bullet in its skull.
Two more blasts.
One into the head of the first one.
Another into the next.
The monsters fell to the ground.
Silence filled the group.
The man looked on at the monsters he’d put down. He wiped the sweat from his upper lip. “So maybe you don’t have weapons. No group’d just allow a little kid to die. So this safe place. Where’s—”
Chloë knocked the gun from the man’s hand.
Stabbed him in his neck.
She heard the gasps behind her. Heard the swearing. The footsteps.
But she just held on to the knife.
Kept it pressed into the man’s neck.
Watched his eyes bulge.
Listened to him gurgle.
Twenty seconds later, he fell to the ground, and he went still.
Chloë wiped the knife on the man’s dirty white shirt. She lifted his gun. Looked out at the oncoming crowd of monsters.
“What the fuck?”
Chloë turned. Saw the rest of the group staring at her. Saw horror in their widened eyes, their loose jaws.
“Well we couldn’t trust him,” Chloë said. “Not after he turned a gun on us. Could we?”
She looked at her dad. Saw the dazed look on his face. He looked at Chloë. And then at the man’s body. And then back at Chloë again.
“Come on,” Chloë said. She looked down at the oncoming horde of monsters. “We’d better find another route.”
18
EIGHTEEN
Anisha Patel couldn’t remember the last time she wasn’t afraid.
She followed the group in silence. Well, close to silence. They had the noisy mass of zombies in the distance to contest with. The constant snapping of branches in the woods they found themselves in again. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if she heard those screams again. The screams that the zombies in the last woods made. The one that killed Dave. Dan. That bit Reggie.
She wasn’t sure she was strong enough for this world.
No. She knew she wasn’t strong enough for this world.
Which is why she needed a strong leader to look out for her.
Hassan tightened his grip on her hand. She loved the warmth it gave her. In fact, Hassan alone made her feel safe in the early days. She trusted him. Bit of a cliché, but he was her rock. He got her through the hard times. Pushed her through. Made her feel strong.
But not anymore.
Not with the way he was just standing by.
Standing by, like everyone else.
Everyone but Jackson.
“You okay?” Hassan asked.
Anisha turne
d. Looked him in his brown eyes. She could still see the man she’d fallen in love with eight years ago. She could still see that floppy dark hair. That rugged, unshaven look. Her first love. Her only love.
But he annoyed her now.
He annoyed her with his constant questioning of whether she was okay.
Because no. Of course she wasn’t fucking okay. She wasn’t fucking okay at all.
“Fine,” she said. She held a smile. Tightened her grip on his hand. “You okay?”
Hassan looked away. Nodded. “Just can’t stop thinking.”
“About what?”
“About… about what Chloë did back there. To that man. He’d lowered his weapon.”
Anisha turned away. Looked at Chloë. Walking ahead of the group with her dad, just like she always did. She’d been so grateful when she’d saved her from the Church of Youth. So thankful.
Now, she wasn’t so sure.
Least she had a strong leader when she was under CoY imprisonment.
“I mean… what she said. About Jackson. And the others. Leaving with guns. Starting to wonder if…”
He stopped.
“If what?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“No. Go on. If what?”
Hassan glanced up at the rest of the group. Took a deep breath, then turned back to Anisha. “I’m starting to wonder if maybe he had the right idea. If maybe we could be better off. Without Chloë.”
Anisha felt her stomach tingle. It was the first time Hassan had admitted to wanting to get Chloë out of the way. Which made things easier for Anisha going forward. Much easier. “I… I don’t know. Jackson does seem pretty… controlling.”
“But he’s a strong guy. He knows what he’s doing. And at least he had the balls to break away from the group. And I’ll bet he gets to Pwllheli. I’ll bet he gets there with more than he left with. Not this stupid killing for no reason.”
Anisha let Hassan collect his thoughts. She looked at Chloë again. She had no idea Anisha had a gun in her pocket. She was disappointed, in a way. Disappointed that the man had decided to shoot the undead back on the hill. Because that would’ve been perfect. A perfect way to get Chloë out of the way. A way to do it without splitting the rest of the group.
Because Jackson had been perfectly clear in his orders.