by Wood, J N
I offered Jack my hand, he took it and I pulled him up.
‘Pick up your axe,’ I told him, then ran back to get my baseball bat.
Ten seconds later, with the Smasher back in my hand, I was running alongside Jack, hopefully in the direction of the others.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked him.
‘Yep, just a tad warm,’ he replied. ‘I might not have any skin left by tomorrow.’
We very nearly ran into the fence, just managing to stop before we ran face first into it.
‘Check the fence,’ Jack said, running his hands over the bottom of it, near the ground. ‘They must have come through here.’
I could hear flapping again. I turned to see three more fiery zombies heading towards us. These three weren’t entirely engulfed, and only one of them was moving quickly. The fires must have been destroying their already weakened states.
‘Keep looking Jack,’ I told him, and ran towards them.
I slowed as the faster one neared me, and then swung the Smasher into its knees. Both legs disintegrated and its top half flew past me. A burning arm stretched out for my face, making me lean back and almost fall over.
I quickly pulled out my other water bottle, and squirted it onto my left thigh, which seemed to have caught fire at some point. I stepped away from the burning arms trying to reach me on the ground. They were dragging a flaming head and torso closer to me. I headed towards the other two fiery creatures.
‘Chris,’ Jack shouted. ‘Fuck those two, let’s get out of here.’
I turned around to find him, but he wasn’t where I’d left him. ‘Where are you?’ I shouted.
‘Over here,’ Ali shouted.
I followed her voice and waited for the smoke to shift. They were both standing together. Ali was in Canada. Jack was still on this side of the fence, holding a section of it up, and waiting for me to get through. I stepped around the burning creature still trying to drag its way to me along the ground, and ran towards them.
I ducked my head down to squeeze through, then reached back through the gap Ali must have made, to hold it open for Jack. He followed me in.
Into Canada.
‘Is everyone okay?’ I asked Ali.
‘Yeah, they’re all fine’ she said, already turning around to move. ‘Come on, we have to go, there are soldiers here.’
We ran through the construction site of the border wall, over concrete sections lying on the ground, and around wheel barrows, and stacks of plastic pipes. Everything appeared out of the smoke when we were almost right on top of it.
‘You need to jump here,’ Ali told us. She then launched herself over a three foot wide hole, and again over another similarly sized hole.
Jack and I followed her, jumping over what looked like the foundations for the wall, and then running through more of the swirling smoke, which seemed to be never ending.
‘Wait,’ she said to us, holding her hand out. ‘Under here, now.’ She got down onto her belly, and crawled under what looked like a huge mobile crane. We swiftly followed, not knowing what she’d seen or heard.
We stared out from underneath the massive machine, the black smoke swirling around us. Sunshine was trying force itself through, almost looking like it was dancing with the smoke. One of the silent jeeps zipped past in front of us, shining a floodlight towards the fence behind us. Only the bright white circle of the floodlight was visible once it had passed, it was still aimed in the direction of the fence. The sound of boots hitting the ground rang out.
‘Keep low,’ Ali whispered. ‘Let’s go.’ She crawled out, and we dutifully followed her into the blackness.
I flinched and ducked my head down even lower when the gunfire started.
‘Keep going,’ Ali hissed. ‘I don’t think they’re shooting at us.’
‘Shite,’ I called after her. ‘Have we let burning zombies into Canada?’
Jack moved up so he was alongside me. ‘They’ll take care of it. We only made a small hole. Just keep running.’
The smoke had been thinning as we ran through open fields. I glanced behind me, nobody was following us. A thick wall of black smoke covered a large section of the border.
We really couldn’t have done a better job.
Ali pointed ahead of us, towards woodland at the edge of the grass field. ‘Everyone should be in those woods somewhere.’
‘What do you mean? Somewhere?’ Jack asked her.
‘I had to tell them to keep going, soldiers started to arrive. I told them to wait for us as soon as they entered the woods. They’ll be looking out for us.’
Chapter 29: Two Weeks Ago
Beth ran to Jack when she saw us, almost throwing herself at him when they met.
We’d found them hiding just within the tree line. They’d found us really, calling out our names as we neared the edge of the field.
When Beth finally let go of Jack, she ran her fingers through his hair.
‘You’ve burnt some of your hair off,’ she told him.
He stepped away from her slightly and looked down at himself. ‘Burnt some of my clothes as well.’
‘Come on everyone,’ Ali said. ‘We need to get further away from the border. I don’t know if the soldiers know anyone alive made it across, but let’s not risk hanging around.’
‘Anyone alive? Did the dead manage to get through the fence?’ Sandra asked.
‘We don’t know,’ Ali replied. ‘Come on. Let’s get further into the woods before we take a break.’
As we walked, Roy passed around bottles of water to anyone that needed it. I certainly had. My throat felt like I’d been swallowing razor blades. I drank some, before pouring half the bottle over my face, desperately hoping to relieve some of the pain, in and around my eyes.
It worked for about twenty seconds, the pain soon returning after the water had drained away.
After an hour of trekking through the trees, we stopped to eat something and rest for five minutes. I threw on a fleece we’d found in the camping shop. The adrenaline, combined with slowly cooking in the fields, meant I’d still been quite warm after throwing away my frazzled jacket. I’d started to cool down after sitting down to eat something. Charles’s beef jerky was still on the menu, so I was eating some of that.
Ali was eating something disgusting looking out of a tin. ‘We haven’t really discussed what we’d all do if we made it across.’ She looked up and smiled. ‘Well, we made it.’ Her eyes were glistening as they slowly moved around our small group, taking us all in. She was probably thinking about the people that didn’t make it. I certainly was.
‘I’m going to try and get to the east coast,’ I said. ‘And then swim to England.’
‘We’re going to do whatever we can to help Chris get to the east coast,’ Beth said, smiling at me. ‘And then try and stop him from swimming across the Atlantic.’
I returned the smile.
‘I’d like to come with you Chris,’ Roy said to me. ‘All the way back to England. Although preferably not by swimming.’
‘You’re honestly more than welcome Roy,’ I replied, the smile stretching even further across my face.
Beth shot a grateful smile towards Roy.
‘What about the Rodriguez’s?’ I asked. My mood was definitely lifted after Roy’s offer to join me. ‘What are your plans?’
‘First of all,’ Sandra said. ‘There should be a town just south of Cultus Lake.’ She looked down at the Mount Baker visitor’s map. ‘It’s really not very far from here. It doesn’t say what it’s called though. This map really is terrible Chris.’
‘We’re in Canada now,’ I told her. ‘It’s not going to have that much detail for another country.’
She flipped the map around to face me. ‘It doesn’t have much detail for the American side.’
‘Yes okay,’ I said. ‘It’s a rubbish map.’
‘Anyway, after we’ve been to the nameless town, we need to go to Milk River. We have to meet up with two very special people. It’s just on the other
side of the border.’ She looked down to the three boys, all munching away on strips of jerky, before looking back up to Ali. ‘After that, not sure.’
Ali returned her gaze. ‘Vancouver is nice, but too close to the States. Alaska maybe?’
‘That’s maybe a bit too far,’ Pete said.
‘We’ll try and work our way north,’ Sandra said. ‘British Columbia is very nice, and a very big state. We’ll stop when we find somewhere we like.’ She smiled at both of her cousins.
‘Michael and Shannon said they were planning on living in Alaska,’ Jack said. ‘In Anchorage I think.’ He looked down at the energy bar in his hand, smiling to himself, thinking about happy memories maybe.
‘Better get to this town with no name then,’ I said, standing up.
We started moving again, soon coming across a road in the middle of the woods. We stood on the edge of the trees, looking down at the empty road.
‘We should probably stay off the roads,’ Jack said. ‘Just in case any army vehicles drive by. We should avoid anyone official looking until we’re much further away from our border crossing spot.’
‘Yeah you’re right,’ Ali agreed.
‘This road should lead to the nameless town,’ Sandra said. ‘So should we maybe try and follow it from a distance?’
We agreed and kept the road within eyeshot.
Ten minutes later, we saw a sign for Lindell Beach.
‘Do you think it will have a beach?’ Beth mused. ‘On the lake maybe?’
‘It’s a bit cold for the beach,’ I said.
‘I hope there is a beach,’ Beth said, more to herself than anyone else.
Not long after seeing the town’s sign, there had been a residential street off to the right. We decided to risk it, and climbed down the steep embankment to walk on the road.
It was very quiet. We were all nervously glancing at our surroundings. Every little sound made our heads snap towards it.
The occasional bird calls were startling us. The wind was blowing litter across the road. A coke can skittered away from us along the road, making Sandra clutch Seth closer to her body.
‘Sheriff McCallany and my wife did say parts of Canada might have been evacuated,’ I told everyone. ‘It would make sense to move everyone away from the border.’
We walked past more and more houses, nothing stirred in the windows or down on the streets. Some homes still had cars parked on the drive, or out the front. There were no people at all.
‘I’m guessing the rules on car theft change when the car’s owners are still alive?’ Roy asked.
‘I never finished law school,’ Sandra said. ‘But I think it’s still illegal if the owners are dead.’
We were in no doubt the town of Lindell Beach had been evacuated. We carried on regardless, eventually finding ourselves near the lake.
Sandra, Roy, and the three kids were looking into Lindell Beach General Store’s front window, trying to see if there was anything edible inside.
Something brushed against my shins. I looked down to see a black cat weaving in and out of my legs.
‘Hello cat,’ I said, crouching down to stroke him. He leaned into my hand as I scratched the side of his head. ‘How come you haven’t been evacuated?’
Beth crouched down alongside me. She stroked her hand down the full length of the cat’s back. ‘He doesn’t look hungry. He’s just after some attention. Aren’t you? You beautiful little boy,’ she said to the cat.
The sound of paper being blown around behind us was getting louder and louder. Just as turned to look for what was creating the sound, a newspaper hit Beth on the back of the head. It stayed wrapped around her, flapping in the wind.
I laughed, and peeled the sheets away from her hair.
Beth was feeling the back of her head. ‘It hasn’t left anything disgusting in my hair has it?’ she asked.
I glanced at her hair. ‘Nah, I think you’re alright.’
Despite the wind trying to rip the paper out of my hand, I managed to fold it back over and look at the front page.
In big red bold type, the headline read, KILLER VIRUS CONFIRMED IN EUROPE.
I quickly read the first few lines of the story below.
The number of victims has not yet been confirmed, but the south east of England and northern France today reported their first cases of the Florida Virus.
It hit me like a slap in the face. The words on the page began to blur, and I was suddenly unsteady on my feet.
‘No, no, no,’ I said. ‘Fucking no!’
‘What is it?’ Jack asked me. ‘What’s the matter?’
Everyone started to crowd around me, trying to read the newspaper in my trembling hands.
‘Oh no,’ Roy exclaimed. ‘What date was it published?’
I looked up to the top of the page, just about managing to read the date. ‘It’s from two weeks ago.’
THE END OF BOOK TWO: BORDER
Coming soon
BOOK THREE: FARM