by Park, Grant
The twitching, Ethan had seen it only the night before, just before Nathan had turned into one of them....
The blue shirt leapt to its feet and ran for him, but Ethan was ready. He put one round into its head and it suddenly erupted, showering his face in bone, brains and blood; one shot from his rifle shouldn’t have made its head explode like that. As he wiped the gore from his face he saw the dark skinned young girl in the doorway, with her shotgun pointed right at him.
Chapter
14
Quiet Chaos
She could have only been around sixteen; her unruly shoulder length black hair partially covered one of her eyes, she had on a torn and tattered white shirt and black trousers, and her face was filthy. She held the sawn off shotgun uncomfortably, as someone who was unfamiliar with the weapon would, but it was levelled with Ethan’s face. Her green eyes held pure terror within them though her features showed none of it, she fixed Ethan with a frown.
Ethan raised his hands from his rifle and let the sling take its weight, “I’m not going to turn in to one of them; I’m not bitten.” He said in a soothing manner, showing her his palms.
“That’s what Mrs Phillips from room five said, right before she ate the Stewarts!” Her voice was steady and cold with a slight Irish twang about it; as scared as she was Ethan had no doubts that she would pull the trigger if she felt she had to.
Ethan saw movement in his peripheral, he turned his head slowly to see Jim climbing up the stairs, slowly he moved his hand to stop him in his tracks but he already had the girl in his sights.
“Put down the gun, Lass, he’s no threat to you!” Jim said in firm voice.
If the girl’s eyes were terrified before, they were petrified now. She showed she had fired a gun before but it was evident that she wasn’t used to having one pointed at her, Ethan had to think fast.
“Point your rifle at me, Jim!”
“Eh?”
“At me! Point your rifle at me! If I turn, shoot me...!”
Jim quickly turned his rifle at Ethan, still keeping a close eye on the girl. “Are you bit, did it get you?” he said.
“No, I’m fine, but she doesn’t believe me, so just keep me in your sights just to make sure.
“Now, young lady, if you would be so kind as to lower your weapon, Jim here will put a bullet in my head no problem should I turn in to one of them.” Jim nodded, “But as your hands are a little shaky, I would feel a lot safer if you weren’t pointing your shotgun at me while my heart is still beating.”
Cassie, Sarah and Greg came climbing over the defences at the stairs and the girl visibly relaxed, she lowered the shotgun and slumped to the ground, her thin legs tangling around themselves she sat in a slump. Cassie and Sarah rushed over to her to check that she was ok; they slowly raised her to her feet, whispering inaudible soothing words to her and carried her inside. Ethan relaxed, a little.
“You can put your hands down now,” Jim said with a chuckle, “But I would have a wash if I were you!”
Ethan lowered his hands and ran them over his face, they came back smeared in blood; he just shook his head and followed Greg and Jim through the door, locking it firmly behind them.
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It was Zoe’s second summer working at the Haweswater Hotel for the Crawley’s; she had visited the hotel a couple of years ago with her parents when she was just fifteen, and had fallen in love with the place, it was so peaceful here. The Crawley’s had offered her the summer job as their son was leaving for college and she had jumped at the chance, anything to get her out of the city and away from her parents for a while; everything was paid for her, room and board, she had no need for the money she earned while she was here so went home with a good wage to see her through the rest of the year. She did have to work hard for the money though; the mornings would start at seven, serving breakfasts, then she would move on to the changeovers and vacuuming, by the time that was done they would be serving lunch, after which she would have a couple of hours to herself before dinner at six till nine thirty. Most nights she would take a walk along the reservoir after work just to be alone with nature for a while, just to hear the water birds chirping and the bees buzzing around the pretty flowers along the banks. It really was so beautiful here; not at all like the dirty old city, it reminded her of home, her real home in Larne that is, not Leeds!
Her parents had moved her to Leeds from Larne when she was thirteen; it was more her Father’s decision than her mother’s, Leeds was his home town and Larne was hers, he had been given a job opportunity that apparently they couldn’t refuse, so Leeds it was.
Zoe had hated it from the very first moment; she hated the smell of the place, exhaust fumes filled her nostrils from dawn till dusk and no one smiled, least not like they did in Larne.
She had never really made any friends there either, they seemed to sense her animosity towards their home city and didn’t appreciate it one bit; Zoe couldn’t care less, she was just biding her time till she could escape the horrible place and move back to the country.
But for now this was her refuge from the hustle and bustle of city life, for six sweet weeks of the year she could drink in the serenity of country life; right up to the point where people started to get sick.
It was all over the news, people everywhere were falling ill to the M.L.R. Virus; it all happened so quickly that Zoe didn’t even get the chance to go home to see her parents, her dad had told her to stay where she was because her mother wasn’t well, he had told her through text, the heartless bastard. She couldn’t stay mad at him for long though; only a day or so later he had sent her another message;
I’m sorry sweetheart but
your mother is gone! The virus
has now taken me also! Stay in
the country, please stay safe!
Love you with all our hearts
Mum and Dad X
That was the last she heard from him.
She had so relished being out on her own, but she had now never felt so lonely; her world had been torn apart and left her behind, she so wanted to go home but her father’s wishes prevented her, she was stuck in the hotel with panicking guests in similar situations to herself; there was Mr and Mrs Phillips in room five, the Stewarts in room eight, Mr Peters in room ten and the Dobson family in rooms three and four. The hotel was in quiet chaos, or so she thought, the real chaos started when the news reporters started talking about the Returned, people started rising from the grave in droves. Zoe even saw one of them attack a reporter on the TV.
‘Deadites’, that’s what Mr Crawley called them, ‘the souls of demons possessing the living!’ He had always been a little weird, Mr Crawley, but the Returned really sent him over the edge; he started patrolling the hotel with his shotgun and a chainsaw, everyone thought he had completely lost it, until the returned appeared on their doorstep.
The TV stations had long since stopped broadcasting by this point but the power was still on. As no one was paying to stay, Zoe didn’t see the point in serving anyone any more, she just let the guests get their own meals.
Zoe was up in her room reading when she heard the scream from outside, she rushed to the window to see a Deadite attacking Mr and Mrs Phillips, Mr Crawley was there in a flash, hacking at it with the chainsaw; the thing didn’t stop until he chopped its head off. She rushed down stairs just in time to see Mr Crawley shoot the disembodied head with his shotgun. Zoe went to help Mr Phillips when she saw him getting up covered in blood, only it wasn’t Mr Phillips, his eyes had turned to a milky white and he had the look of pure rage on his face, Zoe was shocked in seeing the kindly old man in this way and it stopped her in her tracks. Mr Phillips grabbed for his wife violently and they both tumbled to the ground in a tangle of tweed and beige; Mr Crawley jumped into the middle, peeled Mr Phillips away and dealt with him in the only manner he knew.
“Did he bite you?” Mr Crawley shouted at the shaken old lady as the others poured out of the hotel.
; “N-No, I don’t think so.” she said fearfully, seeing Mr Crawley covered in blood.
“Dear god, Ian! What happened here?” Asked Mrs Crawley as she rushed over to Mrs Phillips
“A Deadite, a Deadite attacked them! Then Mr Phillips turned into one of them, only he wasn’t one of them, he was different, like a zombie!”
“A zombie...? Don’t be so ridiculous, Ian! Here! Someone help me with Mrs Phillips!” The Stewarts quickly came to her aid.
“It’s true Mrs Crawley,” Zoe said, “I saw the whole thing.” Mrs Crawley just gave her an incredulous look, the same look Zoe had seen her give her husband on so many occasions, and walked away.
“What happened to him, Mr Crawley?” Zoe asked.
“It’s the bites, if the Deadites bite you; you become one of their slaves, a mindless zombie.” he reloaded his shotgun, “Whatever you do, Zoe, don’t get bitten!”
They heard a scream from within the hotel and both ran inside, through the lobby and towards room five which had Mrs Crawley stood outside shakily trying to lock the door.
“Mrs Phillips, she-she started to shake, and then she got up...... she’s eating them, eating them, Ian!”
Mr Crawley tenderly took his wife’s hand and drew the keys from her grasp, he handed them to Zoe, “Lock the door behind me and don’t open till I tell you it is safe to do so.”
“You’re not going in there?” Zoe pleaded.
“I will be fine, so long as I don’t get bitten,” he smiled, started up his chainsaw with a roar, and dove through the door. Zoe did as he asked and within a few minutes, and three shot gun blasts later, he shouted for her to open the door.
She opened the door just a crack.
“Give me the gun!” she shouted through the gap; she heard a chuckle from within before the butt end of the shotgun was poked through the gap in the door. She took the gun and backed quickly away from the opening, pointing it at Mr Crawley’s blood soaked figure.
“Be careful with that, it’s loaded!” He then bent down to help his wife up off of the floor, Zoe hadn’t even noticed her slump to the floor to weep. As Mr Crawley carried her away to their room he handed her some more shot gun shells and said, “If you see one; shoot it in the head; that seems to stop them!”
Zoe placed herself on top of the wall overlooking the road leading to the hotel, and waited.
She spent her following day’s nailing tabletops and doors over the downstairs windows and building the barricades surrounding the hotel; but every time they defended themselves from the Deadites, the shotgun blasts echoed over the reservoir and brought more of them to attack their stronghold.
Slowly their numbers were whittled away; after the Phillips’ and the Stewart’s, Mr Dobson was caught by one of the Zombies while protecting his family, then Mr Peters just disappeared one night; all of his things were left behind in his room, he just up and left; three days after that Mrs Crawley got taken by a Deadite, it somehow managed to get on to the roof and smash its way through a skylight, it tore her throat out right in front of Mrs Peters and her two children, Mr Crawley destroyed the it, but he couldn’t kill his wife, he just handed Zoe the shotgun and walked away, she did what she had to do, it wasn’t, after all, Mrs Crawley any more. The next day Zoe found the Peters in their room; Mrs Peters had taken an overdose after she had smothered son and daughter the night before, not even so much as a note was left to explain why, maybe she thought it to be a better death, maybe she just didn’t want to come back.
And so it was just Zoe and Mr Crawley left; the days dragged along, and Mr Crawley slowly changed from being strange to outright murderous, he felt it was now his duty to kill every Deadite that came to the hotel, and would go out of his way to do so. The Zombies weren’t so much of a problem; they didn’t seem able to overcome the defences that Zoe had helped put up around the hotel, so they only had to be disposed of when their numbers grew too large, but that could only be done once the Deadite’s were gone, they were the real problem; they moved fast and made mincemeat out of the defences, they would tear holes in the stairway blockade with no regard for their own safety, just at the thought of sinking their teeth into human flesh.
Mr Crawley would try not to use the shotgun, so he would leave it with Zoe to guard him and the front door while he repaired the stairwell. He was throwing the sofa from the lobby down the stairs when it came for him; he fought so hard to get it off, he managed to get his chainsaw and laid in to it, severing limb after limb, Zoe managed to shoot it in the head but he wouldn’t stop, he just kept on hacking and hacking.
Mr Crawley fell to the floor in some kind of fit.
___________________________
“I had to shoot him, he wasn’t Mr Crawley anymore!” Cassie listened to the poor girl’s heart wrenching story with tears stinging her black and puffy eyes, it made her feel guilty to have spent as long as she did in the safety of the bunker while innocent people were dying and struggling through the hell that this world had become.
“It’s ok, Zoe, we are here now, and tomorrow we will take you with us when we leave.” Sarah said in her tender motherly voice.
“Tomorrow? Oh no, you can’t go out tomorrow!” Zoe shouted, “The noise we made with the guns will bring them tonight and tomorrow, they will be coming, we can’t go out tomorrow!”
“It’s ok, dear. We won’t let anything bad happen to you. Now, why don’t you show me where your room is, you should rest a while.”
“It’s up top, right up top, it’s the safest place!” Sarah let the girl lead her away upstairs in order to calm her down.
The girl looked as if she had been living feral for the past weeks, and once inside, Cassie could see why; the once grand hotel was musty and dark, the boarded up windows wouldn’t let in much more light even at full noon never mind with dusk fast approaching, Cassie could just make out bloodstains on the walls and carpets, which were littered with old food wrappers and tin cans.
“Do you think she will be ok?” Ethan asked.
“It looks like she is in shock, but I’m sure she will pull through, she’s been through a lot but she is probably stronger than any one of us”
“I sure hope so; we still have a long way to go”
“But what if she’s right, what if more of them do come in the night and we get trapped here?”
“Then we will deal with them in the morning. For now we should find beds and get some rest.”
“Forget rest!” Greg put in, “I’m willing to bet a pound to a penny that this place has a bar, I’m going to get me a drink!”
Ethan gave a low growl as Greg walked down the hallway in search of the bar; there was a growing rift between them that, in time, would only spell trouble for the group. Cassie felt that she needed to mend some bridges, and she knew the best way to do it.
“I could actually do with a drink myself,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“Hmmm... Ok, but just the one.”
_________________________
Caleb drove the truck head first into the river with an almighty sploosh, sending a wave crashing over the bonnet and against the windscreen of the truck, as the water receded he could see a sign in front of him bearing the words ‘Docker Nook’. Quickly they all piled out of the truck and into the chill water.
Frank grabbed the life raft and pulled the chord before Caleb had the chance to even get it out of the back of the truck; it instantly popped the white barrel open down the middle and started to inflate its self upside down on the back of the cab. Not seeing any point in scolding Frank for the accident, Caleb just grabbed the raft and flipped in into the slow moving water surrounding them, then grabbed a rope attached to it and tied it to one of the rails on the back of the truck.
Pulling a large roll of duct tape from his bag, Caleb shouted, “We need to tape up anything that might poke a hole in the raft, and we need to do it quick, this thing inflating is a lot louder than I thought it would be!” he passed the roll to Brandon who had pulled the axe from hi
s belt and then started to disassemble his Naginata and strap it to his bag.
As Caleb was finishing prepping his bag for the raft he felt Brandon gently tapping his shoulder, he looked at the boy who was staring at the raft, which had finally stopped the loud hissing of its inflation; he turned around to see the raft in all of its glory, its bright fucking, day glow orange glory, even in the fading light it was impossible to miss; of course it was, it was a life raft, designed to be easily seen bobbing around in hundreds of fucking miles of water, and perfect for drawing the attention of friendly neighbourhood zombies! There was only one word!
“FUCK!”
“What are we going to do Dad?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Mud...!” Frank said.
“Eh?”
“Mud, we coat it in mud. Some of it may wash off but for now we coat it in mud!”
“You’re a fucking genius, Frank!”
All three of them piled their packs into the raft and went splashing for the river bank in search of mud glorious mud. It didn’t take them long to find it either, the gentle slope that Caleb had driven the truck down to get into the river had been nicely churned up by the trucks wheels making it pliable enough to grab fistfuls of. Pulling the raft to the banking they smeared the mud over every inch of the bright orange roof making it all but invisible in the darkening night.
“Well done lads!” Caleb said once the task was complete, “Let’s set sail shall we?”
They all clumsily piled into the raft and closed the Velcro strip behind them, each of them feeling quite happy to let the river carry them slowly down to Kendal. The packs had to be strapped to the sides of the large rubber ring making the main body of the raft, to stop them from moving to the middle and creating a dip in the soft rubber bottom, once that was done it actually became quite comfortable for them, despite their soaking wet trouser legs.