Thrive (Episode 2): Follow

by Lamb, Harrison J.

  They had pulled over on the verge of a back lane that skirted the village to catch a few hours of rest for the night. One person watched for danger on the road while the rest of them slept…

  Don’t fall asleep…

  Don’t fall asleep…

  You’re supposed to be…

  Shit!

  Kingsley shot upright, squinting at his surroundings, feeling dazed and vulnerable. He was supposed to be keeping a lookout but had dozed off in his seat. He must not have realised how exhausted he was. How do I let these things happen?

  His eyes were bleary as he tried to make out the shapes around him, the sleeping forms of his friends. His heart began to calm as he saw they were all still there, slumped across the seats, chests slowly rising and falling. A glance out the window showed no snappers lurking on the road; no movement outside except for the rustle of bushes in the wind.

  Sammy moved in her seat across from Kingsley’s and he noticed then that her eyes were open and she was awake.

  She watched Kingsley for a moment, then spoke in a hushed voice. “Don’t worry, I’ve been keeping watch. I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see it all again… everything that’s happened.”

  Kingsley rubbed his eyes. “You know, sleep is important when you’re grieving. It doesn’t just rest your body. It allows your mind to organise your thoughts, emotions and memories, to process them.” He yawned. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but getting some decent sleep will help you deal with it all. I promise.”

  “My whole life I’ve been focusing on the wrong things,” Sammy said, apparently ignoring Kingsley’s words. “I’ve never known what I’m working towards, what I want my life to be. I’ve done a lot of things purely because people told me I should do them, not because they mattered to me… What matters to me are the things that have been right in front of me all along: friends. Family.” That last word almost choked her.

  “Your friends are your family now, Sammy. We’re here for you whenever you need us.”

  She turned to face the window. Kingsley saw that she had a folded piece of paper in her hand and was rotating it between her fingers, contemplatively.

  “But it won’t last,” Sammy said. “Will it?”

  “What won’t?”

  “This. Us. How long will we last, realistically?”

  Kingsley shrugged in the darkness. “We can’t think like that. It’s pointless, and it doesn’t help.

  “So many people are dead already. The world is falling apart and no one is coming to pick up the pieces. Where’s the military? Where’s the government?”

  Kingsley wanted to reassure her. He wanted to tell her that the government had plans in place to deal with catastrophes like this and they were probably putting them into action as they spoke. But how many days had it been since the infection started spreading? If things were already this chaotic, it must have begun spreading at least a few days ago; yet people were dying in the streets and there was no army, no law enforcement here to save them.

  “I need some fresh air,” Sammy said, getting up and walking out into the night without another word.

  On his own in the dark and the quiet, Emma stole into Kingsley’s thoughts again.

  What would happen if they got to Colchester and she wasn’t there? Or she was dead? Or worse, she had met the same fate as Sammy’s parents? Could he deal with that? He hadn’t really taken the time to consider the possibilities. There was a part of him that believed he was following a fantasy and it was unlikely he would ever see Emma again.

  Before Emma had told him she was pregnant with his child, Kingsley had never held a job for longer than eight months without getting fired for “attitude problems”. Before Emma’s pregnancy, he had never made much of an effort to get to know her friends or show up to their special occasions. Before Emma’s pregnancy, he hadn’t realised he wanted a kid.

  But he did. And things had started to work out after she gave him the news; he began to put in more effort at work and actually got a promoted to Assistant Manager at the clothes shop where he was employed. He stopped criticising and judging other people, stopped dismissing them as nothing more than pathetic slaves to society. He had more empathy for those around him.

  Kingsley knew that if he wanted to raise a child in this world, he would have to be a better citizen – so he had become one.

  What went wrong?

  Fast forward a few months to that fateful afternoon, driving to their anniversary dinner at a lavish restaurant in Chelmsford. Kingsley at the wheel, anxious because he was planning to propose to her that evening. The stress. The anticipation.

  It was not that Kingsley had a habit of self-sabotage. He used to think that was the case, but no; he knew now that there was a part of him that craved chaos, a part of him that thrived in the buzzing alertness which came moments before something terrible was about to happen.

  He’d needed a release from the stress he was feeling over the proposal.

  So Kingsley had allowed the chaos-craving side of him to take over and before he knew it, his foot was laying a little too heavy on the accelerator… Relinquishing his self-control for that one moment had ended up costing him everything. No marriage. No child. Back to his old frustrated ways.

  He let out a deep sigh.

  Maybe Sammy was right about there being no hope for the future. Maybe there was little chance they would find Emma alive.

  But fuck chance. So what if Kingsley was a hopeless romantic? He had never let the world define him before, and he wasn’t about to start.

  Standing and stretching, Kingsley realised he’d lost track of time and began to wonder what Sammy was doing. How long had she been outside? She had probably gone out to cry, he thought. In which case there was nothing to worry about.

  Still, Kingsley paced up and down the bus. If she wasn’t back in five minutes, he would go out and check, make sure nothing had happened to her.

  The folded piece of paper Sammy had left on her seat caught his eye again, and he hesitated for all of six seconds before curiosity got the better of him. Kingsley picked it up and unfolded it, revealing a short message written in large, capital letters. He tilted the paper towards the moonlight so he could read it.

  Three words; at first, they confused him.

  Then he understood and panic set in.

  *

  Sammy walked.

  She didn’t know where she was going, only that she wanted to get away.

  Although leaving her friends was not the smartest idea in a time like this, there was no way of avoiding more heartbreak and loss if she stayed with them. And if she ever had to go through that pain again, she would crumble.

  Part of her had already crumbled along with the loved ones she’d lost over the past two days. Kingsley was right – her friends were her family. Her only family now, and that was exactly why Sammy couldn’t stick around to watch them die, one by one. It was going to happen. This world was fucked.

  She walked, and walked, and walked, keeping to the verge. She was ready to squat in the bushes and hide if snappers came traipsing down the road. They were slow and dumb. She was quick and smart. Avoiding encounters with the dead was easy enough most of the time, and Sammy could kill them if it came to it. She hadn’t taken any of the supplies from the bus. She didn’t need them. All she needed was her knife and her wits.

  Every fifty steps she took, Sammy would stop and hesitate, on the brink of turning and heading back. She’d only left about five minutes ago. There was a good chance that Kingsley wasn’t even worried yet, and that he hadn’t found the note she had left on the seat.

  DON’T FOLLOW ME, it said. Big and bold in capital letters, a note as decisive and assured as Sammy wished she was herself.

  Well, this was a start, she guessed. It was the first big decision she had made without consulting anyone else, probably in her whole life.

  Sammy paused again, but this time it was because she heard movement nearby – footsteps on
the road. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but it was still difficult to make out anything other than ill-defined shapes and the black silhouettes of the trees and bushes that hemmed her in on both sides.

  There was a figure moving drunkenly down the road towards her. Before she could decide whether it was living or dead, the sound of snapping teeth eliminated any doubts Sammy had and she crouched down in the bracken, entangling herself in thorns.

  As Sammy listened to the snapper’s feet scuffing on the tarmac, she became aware of a burning desire in her chest – a desire to destroy things, to hit, stab, burn, impale, and kill. She wondered how many snappers she could rid the world of by herself, if she really put her mind to it.

  It then struck her that the snapper walking past her now was heading toward the bus. One of them wouldn’t be much trouble for her friends. Kingsley would take care of it. However, he would then realise Sammy was still out there while snappers were wandering dangerously close to the bus, and he would go looking for her. If he wasn’t looking already.

  She crept out of her hiding place and started towards the oblivious snapper, ready with her knife.

  Unable to look at the ungainly figure without thinking of her mum and dad again, Sammy’s emotions swelled and she seized the snapper by the hair, bringing her knife up to push it into the soft spot at the base of the skull. Rage did not work in her favour in the low visibility, though; the blade of her knife hit too high and met a solid clump of bone.

  Sammy didn’t panic. Not at first. But as she readjusted her grip on the knife, the snapper spun whilst flailing it’s arms – one of which hit Sammy’s wrist with the force of a tree branch caught in a hurricane, causing her to let go of the knife. Her only weapon fell to the ground and skittered into the grass that bordered the road.

  Now she panicked.

  Struggling to keep the snapper at arm’s length, Sammy stumbled over a prodding foot and went down on her back, still grappling with the snapper. The impact drove the air from Sammy’s lungs and, gasping for breath, it was almost impossible to summon the strength to fend off the gnashing mouth now inches from her face.

  I’m dead, Sammy thought, bracing for the feel of cold teeth perforating her skin. I should have stayed.

  When most people picture their own deaths, they often imagine their final moments to be dramatic and profound, like the death of a character in a film. But knowing her life was about to end, Sammy was struck by how insignificant a moment this was. The life would seep from her body in the night while she lay alone on a cracked, unlit back road, her flesh becoming the food of a mindless creature; she was an ant about to be squashed under a child’s shoe.

  As much as she wanted to shut her eyes and let it be over, primal desperation forced her to search for something – anything – that would help her overpower the monster.

  And then she saw the light. A faint glow creeping across the road next to where she lay. At first, she thought she was imagining it. But it rapidly grew brighter, and above the roaring of her pulse in her ears, she heard the hum of an engine.

  The headlights glinted in the unblinking eyes of the snapper above her, expanding as the vehicle drew closer. For a second, Sammy feared the person driving the vehicle wouldn’t notice her pinned to the ground beneath the snapper and would drive right over what they thought was only an undead writhing in the middle of the road, taking them both out.

  But the vehicle ground to a halt as it approached. The snapper briefly lifted it’s head to ogle at the newcomer before continuing it’s struggle against Sammy. Her heart pounded as she strained to keep the infected teeth away from her face, while the vehicle idled meters away as if the driver was deciding whether to help or not.

  It felt like almost a minute of struggling on the ground – desperation forcing Sammy to twist her head towards the vehicle and shout for help at the top of her lungs – before she heard the door click open and footsteps rush in her direction.

  A solid object hit the snapper’s head with a wooden thwack and the zombie fell off of her. Sammy clambered to her feet, turning to greet her saviour.

  The man took another swing at the snapper’s head with his cricket bat to make sure it wouldn’t get back up, then looked at Sammy, eyeing her from head-to-toe in scrutiny.

  “Thanks,” Sammy said, huffing in exertion as she made the same quick assessment of him. The man was short and pale-skinned. Asian features. His tousled, black hair along with his narrow frame and height gave a juvenile impression, which wasn’t helped by the mole that looked like a smear of food at the corner of his small mouth.

  Whether it was his youthfulness or the fact that he had saved her from the snapper, Sammy felt that he was friendly.

  The same couldn’t be said for the other two men who then emerged from the vehicle – a white van with a vaguely familiar logo on the bonnet – to surround her.

  One was an older guy with a scowling face, who came up behind her brandishing a hunting knife. The other came and stood between his two pals so that Sammy was penned against the front of the van.

  This man was the most intimidating of the three. Not for his physical structure; he was skinny, taller than the guy with the cricket bat, but not as tall as the old bloke. There was strength in the way he carried himself, the kind of strength that comes from survival and the necessity for brutality. But he was far from Eric’s muscled physique.

  No. What frightened Sammy about this man was the sense she got from his bloodshot eyes and the twitching of his fingers. The sense that he was about to snap at any moment, explode in a frenzy of madness.

  “Thank you so much for saving my life,” Sammy said. “Really – thank you. Now if you don’t mind, I need to get going. My friend lives in the village. Her house isn’t far from here.” In truth, she wanted to go back to the bus and pretend none of this had happened, but she didn’t want to lead these strangers to her friends. Hopefully, they wouldn’t ask questions or try to follow her.

  The men said nothing. Only traded strange looks with one another and scoped her suspiciously.

  “Nice meeting you.” Sammy went to sidle past the old man on her left, but was shoved back in front of the van.

  “Where are your friends?” It was the guy with the bloodshot eyes who spoke, his voice low and raspy as if he had strained it from shouting too much.

  Friends. How did he know? Sammy stammered, groping for a response.

  “I… Friends? What fre—what are you talking about?” The specks of blood on the man’s fleece jacket seemed all the more sinister now. “Who are—” she began, but stopped as her eyes were drawn to the pocket knife clutched in his right hand.

  Her Swiss pocket knife.

  In a flash of fear, Sammy remembered where she had seen the logo on the van behind her. It was the same one that had adorned the butcher’s van outside Darren’s flat in Braintree; these were Darren’s friends. They must have followed her and the others to Kelvedon.

  And they had taken Sammy’s knife from James’ body where she’d left it like a bouquet on his grave.

  Sammy’s mouth opened and closed several times, her rattled mind trying to form something coherent to say. But all that came out was, “Shit,” before the cricket bat hit her head and fear gave way to cold, black unconsciousness.

  To Be Continued

  Author’s Note

  If you’ve read this far, I’m going to assume you are invested in this story somewhat. Thanks again for taking the time out of your day to read it. I am humbled by the lovely, supportive reviews some of you left for episode one. Reviews are very helpful – even the ones that are only a sentence or two long.

  In episode three of Thrive, you’ll not only get to read more of Kingsley and the survivors on the bus, but you’ll also get to see how Kingsley’s ex, Emma, is dealing with the apocalypse. So far, I have the next three episodes outlined chapter-by-chapter, and I’m really proud of how all the character arcs and plot threads tie together at the end of episode five. I think you’re go
ing to love it.

  Yours sincerely,

  Harrison J. Lamb