by David Tyne
I un-cupped it and tossed the red stick in a perfect arch towards the other train wreckage. The surrounding dead seemed to fall in love with the intense light, as they immediately pushed into its radius with shallow murmurs. They really are mindless, I thought with a hint of melancholy as a clear path became visible overhead.
The orange sun was dropping further and further down into the skyline, casting a blood-infused shadow across the clouds. If anything, it only served to remind me that the darkness of night was fast approaching. Faster and more frantically than ever, I threw myself into the impending horde, having absolutely no clue where I was supposed to be heading next.
Various grunts and moans encapsulated my maddening sprint, from the low rustling of bushes all the way to the high fence gate that was being shaken from its very foundations. I was in awe of how many human bodies stood for no reason, even out here in the middle of nowhere, miles from the big city.
After pondering it for a while, I decided it was best not to worry about the scale. I couldn’t accept that it was all over, that this mess was unsalvageable. I wanted safety, security and hope for a better tomorrow... I wanted my home, flaws and all compared to this hellscape.
I managed to keep a steady pace in front of the ghoulish monstrosities, all of which were completely aware of my presence. I had no idea how much further I could go on for, my will outlasting those who persisted after death itself.
The faint outline of rural buildings came into view alongside the tracks, and that was when I noticed the sign for a local newsagents. I was pressed up against its brown-rusted shutters in record time, banging and screaming for help with as little dignity as possible.
Almost as though she'd been waiting on my arrival, two tiny hands lifted the shutters instantly by a couple of feet. I stopped, dropped and rolled into the little girl as she rattled the metal screen fully down. Safe.
“...Daniel? Hey, we were just about to come and look for you!” I heard Ian chuckle to himself, poking his head out of the backroom. “Did you get all your beauty sleep?”
I resisted the urge to throw my phone at his face and tell him off for not putting it on silent before leaving me to the wolves, but he'd done a good job. At the very least, Leo’s daughter Beth didn't seem too distraught in his company.
“Funny doesn't suit you, jeez... I liked it better when you were a giant scaredy-cat.” I teased him back. I couldn't see in the light, but I'm pretty sure he tossed me the bird. I chucked my middle finger at him anyway, just to be sure.
“...Owner's gone. He left all of his stock behind, and we’ll probably be stuck in here until it’s clear outside. Whaddaya think Beth, time for a sleepover?” As the child nodded and bounced on over to Ian, I couldn't help but notice how friendly they’d gotten with each other while I was out. As usual though, something came up that ruined the moment.
“Okay, but can you help me find my mummy soon? I haven’t seen her since she put me in the train driver's room... She didn't want me near those people, the ones who were acting all funny.”
Both Ian and I tensed up, and he cleared his throat with palpable guilt. “Umm... I don't know. L-Listen, you know that those funny people are... dangerous, right? You saw what happened to your daddy, and I don’t think your mum is—”
Ian stopped himself, realising that the orphaned girl was plodding away from him mid-sentence. Her tiny hands swiped an extra-large bag of strawberry sweets from a nearby shelf, raising it far above her own head.
“Can I have this for dinner?! Do you have any money, mister? I’ll pay you back!” She turned to me with widened puppy-eyes. I didn't know why, but her deflective innocence made me burn inside.
It wasn't anything that she did. There were so many hard things that she needed to know, and not just about her parents. Money had no value anymore, food was a waste of space except for the basic essentials... and every day of her short life was going to be a battle against the entire population of our country.
That lesson was for another day, though. In that moment, I’d already had enough to deal with over the past twelve hours. Breaking a motherless child’s spirit could always wait until the morning.
“...Tell you what... You just take anything you want. We'll have a big fancy meal before we all go to bed, and I'll leave the money for the cashier tomorrow morning. Okay?”
I faked a smile for her as she beamed brightly and collected a dozen more bags of sugary snacks. Not exactly useful like dehydrated food, tinned cans and bottles of water. It'll do for a brat, though.
9 | First Night
I never expected that first night to be so peaceful. We were just three strange kids, getting to know each other as we huddled around a makeshift iron-basket fireplace. Trying to stay warm, we kept the low embers fuelled with nearby newspapers and gas from the lighters.
Our sad little group munched on crisps, drank way too many soft drinks and told funny stories about ourselves and the people we once knew. Brave faces ricocheted across from each other, trying not to show the underlying fear between the cracks.
If only for a few hours, everyone stopped trying to rationalise the impossible things we saw that day. It was best to pretend that we were camping, that the occasional rustle of litter outside was 'just the wind'. For my own sanity, I needed that to be true.
Beth wouldn’t stop talking about nonsense for most of the night, hopped up on sugar and trying to keep herself occupied. She told us everything about her school life — and I do mean everything — down to the seating positions of her classmates and their entire year’s homework schedule.
We also learned about the time she painted the best picture in class and got a free Mars bar. A family holiday with her mum and dad to Benidorm where she got to swim with the sea turtles. How brave she was, when she found and liberated a spider from her bedroom wall.
The only mention of the reanimated dead was when Beth brought up 'the funny people', wondering why they looked so sad. We got into an overly-heated discussion after that, about whether to call them 'funny people' or Ian's preferred 'zombies' — needless to say, Beth didn't see the joke.
“That’s not very nice. I feel really bad for them... They don’t look happy, and they always wander about like they’re lost.”
That was genuinely profound, especially coming from a little girl. I thought carefully for a moment, and explained to her that we could make them happy by setting them free; helping them to pass on, so that their souls could go wherever they needed to be.
It wasn't exactly a lie, more of a convenient detour from the truth. It was good for my conscience to believe those words as well, because the day would inevitably come when we’d learn how this plague struck our country. A day when we'd all understand how these creatures were so much harsher than simple lost souls.
Ian whistled to himself, leaning back against the cashier's counter. “...The Lost, eh? Has a nice ring to it.” We agreed that would be their official nickname; it seemed to please Beth anyway, that we were acknowledging them as normal people who had lost their way.
Ian, after a few drinks of cola not-so-discreetly mixed with vodka, began to share his theatrically-performed account of how he dealt with his high-school bullies. He got chased and prank-called every day by a group of local thugs, escalating towards one night where he was beaten and almost got stabbed outside of his home. It was a good thing that Beth thought it was just a feeble attempt to try and scare her, or else she'd have even more nightmares to worry about.
Not exactly the information I was looking for, I waited until Beth went poking around the shelves for more snacks before asking him the details. “You said that your parents kicked you out... Is that why, or did something else happen?”
His drunken-red face tore itself away as he spluttered on his drink, clearly not liking the subject. “...I just want to forget about it, for now. My dad told me last night, he wishes that they would’ve finished me off.”
I spat my cola not-so-discreetly mixed with vodka all over
the shop floor, in a ridiculously-dramatic fashion. At least I managed to make Ian crack with laughter as I coughed up froth.
After our little slumber party, we were all pretty stressed from the day we'd had and decided to call it a night. Ian and I offered up my jacket and his fleece to make a comfy 'bed' for Beth on the counter. We both lay on the ground in front of her like guard dogs, staring into the shutters and hoping that they would hold for the rest of the night.
Beth tried to hide her face for our sakes, but the tearful sniffs told us how much she missed being around her parents. She was probably too young to understand what happened to them, and no one here was mature enough to put it into words.
At least she wasn’t alone… The three of us sobbed ourselves to sleep that night, some more silently than others.
----
Shortly after waking up from my half-hour sleep, I realised just how much time I’d spent staring at the metal grate as the sunlight began to filter through. Whether it was adrenaline or raw fear, the severe lack of rest didn’t seem to phase me one bit.
I filled up one of the rucksacks I'd found in the backroom with all of the provisions I could carry: bottled water, bags of fruit, tins of soup, a handful of lighters, a little more vodka... and I had to bring a ton of Beth’s strawberry sweets, of course. I had to make sure that she wasn’t watching me, as she still thought I was paying for all of this crap.
I wondered what my past self would’ve thought about all of this, before the unthinkable happened. I could never imagine looting shops, dodging military vehicles by a hair's length and de-jawing the Lost. In less than 24 hours, I’d broken enough laws to put myself in prison for life.
I barely had the time to worry about that, as Ian abruptly popped into existence behind the counter with a wide grin on his face. “Before you get any smart ideas... I call dibs!” he cackled, raising a giant cricket bat from his waist.
“What the fu— heck is that for?” I stumbled, trying not to trigger the little girl as she wandered into the owner’s bathroom.
“Pretty neat, huh? They must've used this in case anyone tried to hold up the store… Bigger than that silly little hammer, anyway.” Pretending it weighed a ton, he tossed the mallet over the counter feebly, to which I flipped him off for the second time and slipped it into my pocket.
Pausing for a second as he hopped up and over the desk, Ian hesitated before sheathing his new weapon down his back. I knew that troubled look of his, the same one he’d shown me in the university.
“Listen, I've still got that last flare from the train. We... We should give it to Beth, right? She needs to have something, in case there's an emergency.”
I nodded at the suggestion, and finished filling up my rucksack with the rest of the stolen goods. Hell if I'm not paying for it with my life, I thought grimly.
Once we were all set to go, the difficult part came as suddenly as I thought it would. Beth pottered up to the door, holding the flare in her tiny hand alongside a scarily-unprepared face. Ian repeatedly warned her to keep it safe, and not to use it unless she was in danger and needed our help.
“Okay, so the plan is to keep following the tracks — with any luck, we'll be able to find out where we are and our homes shouldn't be too far off. We'll swing by my place first, since it's just one block away from the train station, and... we'll see what happens from there. Does that work for everyone?”
“Wait, what about my mummy?” Beth uttered, shattering my fragile heart in its entirety. I tried to remember the crucial speech I'd been rehearsing in my mind all night. Before I could get a single word in, Ian stepped forward with the most dishonest smile I’d ever seen.
“...It's too dangerous to be heading back, especially to that wrecked train. I'll bet your mum would've followed those tracks once she got out, right? It’ll be okay… Even if we don't find her before dark, you've still got two strong lads to protect you, don't ya?”
Beth looked at both of us, then hesitantly nodded in agreement. “...Y-Yeah! My mum's really smart, she knows I'll be looking for her up ahead!!”
It was terrifying to witness, how easily Ian could lie to a child’s face about her butchered parents. Without so much as asking either him or Beth, I ripped open the metal shutters and let the morning sun shine through.
10 | Survivors
We must have walked along the train tracks for close to fifteen minutes, and we hadn't encountered a single soul... living or Lost. “...Maybe they only come out at night-time?” I suggested, checking our flank for the hundredth time.
Ian shook his head hesitantly, keeping his gaze fixed on the path straight ahead. “It's only been a day since they turned up. You saw what they did on that train, right? Most of them will be stuck indoors, and they’ll feed on the unlucky ones—”
“Ian.”
“Oh... Right. Sorry.”
I glanced worriedly at Beth, who thankfully wasn't listening to our morbid assumptions. Instead, she seemed far too invested in scoffing down a plus-sized chocolate bar to realise we were talking in detail about cannibalism. Might’ve spoiled her appetite, if she knew.
Before I could ask how it was possible for someone so little to eat so damn much, my rolling eyes just barely caught the afterimage of some faint movement up ahead. “Stop!!” I yelled, a little too loudly.
Both parties froze, and that's when I realised they thought I was talking to them... I was too stunned to move. They could hear me? “H-Hello?” Ian offered, almost testing to see whether they were alive.
When they finally spoke, it was a relief to hear other people’s voices for once. “...You... you guys aren't... y'know...”
The tall, slender man in a business-casual suit breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing our startled faces. The fact that we reflected any emotion at all was a clear sign that we were safe to approach.
He was accompanied by a petite, smartly-dressed brunette with glasses alongside a skinny, red-spotted teen boy. They were armed only with a large pair of scissors, a metre stick and a kitchen knife between them. Each must’ve had their own story to tell.
I'd say they were a mismatched group, but that'd be rich coming from us. The tall man looked down over our small statures, raising a sympathetic eyebrow. “...Jesus, you're just kids. Where did you guys come from?"
Ian instantly spilt his guts about the ordeals we'd faced, escaping the city centre as the military were completely out of their depth, riding on the train of death and spending the night in a cold, dark newsagents.
“...That's a damn shame. I'm sorry you had to go through a mess like that, all on your own.” The group then proceeded to talk about their story, convincing me to lower my guard and trust that they weren't going to attack us and rob our stolen loot. I had to constantly remind myself that this wasn’t a horror movie, where the survivors would always meet a 'rival' group.
They all met at the local community centre — which I happened to be familiar with — a place where pretty much every resident in the area was taken by the police, only ten or twenty minutes after hearing about the situation on the news.
Almost everyone was denied the opportunity to bring supplies, due to how fast the infection had spread. Once the centre’s doors were sealed off from the outside world, the people spent that first night in the freezing-cold main hall without any food or blankets.
All of the families stuck inside were currently starving, or in dire need of their prescription medication. After hours of arguing with the small police force present, a handful of three-man groups were sanctioned to grab whatever supplies they could from their homes, and their homes only. Not one police officer would escort them, claiming it 'wasn't their job'.
We listened to their every word, so absorbed in the story that I almost forgot we were standing out in the open. Ian drew a long breath, exhausted just from hearing about their troubles.
“That's pretty rough... It sounds like they’ve got their hands full over there. Thanks for warning us.” The small woman smiled bright
ly at us, her face far too optimistic after talking about something so stressful.
“It’s the least I can do. I know it sounds unpleasant right now, but it's the others I'm worried about... The old and the sick, they need proper medical attention."
Pausing slightly, the woman gave each of us a curious look. She was perhaps a year or two older than us, probably wondering why we were heading in that direction in the first place.
"Would you like to come back with us?” she asked, taking careful note of the little girl behind me. “If either of you live around here, your families probably wound up at the community centre. I'm sure that things will get much better soon... if we can find some more supplies, that is.”
It was likely that my mum, my step-dad and my friend Millie would have been taken there, as well as Ian's parents. There was no way to be sure, though.
Feeling that I could trust these people, the smiley brunette in particular, I turned to observe Leo's little girl as she stared up at the incredibly tall man in awe. More than anything, I wanted her to be as far away from those creatures as possible.
“I... I don't know,” I sighed. “It might be safer for Beth to stay in a place like that, but... Ian and I, we can't do anything reckless until we finish searching our homes. It's not like we can just drop her on you guys and run off—”
Beth shook her head unpleasantly, as though she'd just eaten something bitter. “No! If Mister Danny and Mister Ian are going to find their mummies and daddies, then... then so am I!” She folded her arms decisively, not budging an inch.
Ian thanked them for their offer, but refused with a light chortle at the child's reaction. “Sorry, but it sounds like you guys and those policemen have some things to decide. We'd hate to be a drain on resources, and besides, we really should check our own homes first.”
He was right; the last thing we needed was some pompous policeman telling us when we could and couldn't leave. Not when we had no clue whether our loved ones were even inside.