Текст книги "Fear the Dead: A Zombie Apocalypse Book"

Автор книги: Jack Lewis

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 10 страниц)

Chapter 9

I needed to find shelter before the sun completely disappeared and covered the countryside in darkness. We left Blackfoot as far behind us as we could, and as we climbed a muddy hill I looked over my shoulder from time to time, checking there was no movement coming from below. There was no sign of Torben and the hunters.

I didn’t know where they were headed but I knew one thing – they were hunting us now. Torben wasn’t just a survivor in this world, I realised; he actually relished it. The trophies that hung from his belt said as much. Everyone in the wilds had to hunt to survive, but I hadn’t yet met anyone else who wore the spoils of their hunt around their waist.

And I had never met a man who hunted humans before.

Justin took big strides beside me. He had his hands curled into fists at his side, and he seemed full of nervous energy.

“Did you see it? The way I smashed into him?”

“I saw him punch you in the face.”

Justin’s cheek was red from where Torben’s fist had connected with it, though mercifully the hunter had missed his eye.

Justin turned his head to me. “You could at least say thanks, you know.”

“For nearly getting us killed?”

He shook his head. “For saving you.”

I stopped walking. The side of the slope was slippery and the quickly darkening sky didn’t give us much time to waste, but I felt if I didn’t straighten this out right now I was going to end up pushing the kid down the hill.

“When we set out, when I agreed to let you come with me, what did I say?” I prodded his chest. “I told you that you do exactly what I tell you.”

He scratched his ear. “But you weren’t – “

“Shut up,” I said. I felt my body tense up and my pulse quicken. “If it weren’t for you climbing through the barricade like some clumsy chimp, we wouldn’t be in half the shit we are now.”

“I just thought – “

“Shut. Up.” I said, through clenched teeth.

We walked up the hill for thirty minutes, enough for my calf muscles to start to throb. It would have been more of a struggle of course, if I had my rucksack with me. But thanks to Torben, that was gone, and along with it were ninety per cent of our supplies and the GPRS tracker.

A freezing breeze lashed at my cheeks and nipped at my skin. I felt my chest and arms go cold, but I didn’t zip up my coat. I was thankful for it, truth be told, because it would make it much easier to stay awake, and I had a long night’s watch ahead of me. The sky was completely black now save for the glow of the moon and stars.

“Here’s good,” I said.

We stopped fifty metres short of the summit, where some natural force had carved a small recess into the side of the hill. It wasn’t a four-star room with a king-sized bed, but it would be good enough to give us some protection for the night. Besides, there wasn’t much likelihood of stalkers all the way up here.

Justin threw his pack on the ground and was about to sit on it.

“Wait. Open that up and tell me what we’ve got.”

He knelt down and unzipped his bag. He put his hands in and fished through it, and then sighed.

“Pass it here,” I said.

With my rucksack gone, whatever was in Justin’s pack was all that we had. With the shortcut through the village now out of the question due to the barricade and the presence of the hunters, taking the motorway route was our only course. I needed to see if we had enough supplies to make it.

I opened the bag and tried to see what was inside by the dim glow of the moonlight. I couldn’t read the labels on the tins, but I could see how many we had, and it didn’t look good; a few tins, some water, a can of fizzy pop and a bar of chocolate. We had enough for a few days at most, nowhere near enough to make it to the farm. All things considered, we were screwed.

“What’d you reckon?” asked Justin.

I looked at him. He was already a skinny boy, despite living in the safety of the town where food wasn’t much of a pressing concern. He was probably just a naturally thin person. God knows what he was going to look like after a month in the wilds.

“I think you’re going to need to get a belt soon,” I said.

Justin rubbed his hands together. His coat was thick and it was zipped all the way to the top, but his body still shook.

“Can you light a fire?” he asked.

“No chance.”

“But I’m freezing.”

I clenched my fists, breathed in, and fought back the rising irritation. I couldn’t afford to spare the energy it would take to be angry with him. “Weren’t you listening back in the village?”

“Course.”

“Then use this genius memory of yours and tell me what Torben said.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets. “That they’re going to hunt us.”

I nodded. “And evidentially, this is a game to them. If we light a fire up here at night, we might as throw them a welcome party. Wait ‘til the morning”

It was pitch black and the only sound was that of the wind as it blew through the grass. From our shelter we had a perfect view of the countryside for miles around us, though in the night time, that didn’t help much. Even the most innocent of shadows took on a menacing form; the branch of a tree became the spindly arm of a stalker, the swaying of a bush in the wind became the movement of an infected. Now though, we didn’t just have the stalkers and the infected to worry about. For all I knew, the hunters could be sneaking up the hill side ready to attack.  Maybe Torben would tire of making this a game, and would just decide to kill us instead of toying with us.

I looked at Justin. His eyes were wide open, and he was staring into the distance.

“You sure they can’t fix it?” I said.

He turned and looked at me. I could see faint rings under his eyes, the beginnings of the marks of those who live in the wilds. He was starting to realise that sleep was hard to come by out here.

“I told you, I took the battery out and I broke it. Even if they got another one, they wouldn’t be able to do anything. I’m not stupid.”

I let out a long breath. “I hope you’re right.”

Justin picked up a stone from the ground. He twisted it in his hands, moving his fingers along its surface. Then he pulled his arm back and threw it down the hill.

“None of this would have happened if you’d listened to me,” he said.

“’Scuse me?”

He scrunched up his face. “I wanted to take the motorway route. I told you that’s the route the GPRS programmed. But no – you didn’t listen to me. Because you never listen to anyone.”

“Listen to people and you start to hear the wrong things,” I said.

“If your way was right, then I’d hate to be around when you’re wrong.”

“Shut up and get some sleep.”

He was right, I knew. This time, just this once, he was right. If we had taken the motorway route, none of this would have happened. But then, how was I supposed to know Blackfoot would be barricaded? There was no way to predict something like that, and on paper it was a good short cut.

Still, I should have listened, and because I hadn’t our situation was a hundred times worse. We had hardly any food, and as well as the stalkers, infected and whatever the hell else was out there, we also had a group of men hunting us for fun. We were hundreds of miles away from the farm, and the idea of getting there seemed so far in the distance that if it weren’t so damn cold, I would have said it was a mirage.

“Want me to take watch tonight?” said Justin.

“No,” I said, my body screaming at me as I spoke the word. I felt tired all the way down to my bones, and my eyelids were lead weights, but it was too dangerous for me to sleep.

It was going to be another restless night.

Chapter 10

Dawn broke and the sun hung weakly in the sky, the gas giant finding it as hard to rise as I was. My back ached from a night spent propped up against the side of a hill, and there was a deep pain in my stomach. When I moved I felt a pang in my stomach, and I couldn’t stop the groan that escaped my lips.

Justin was already awake. He’d arranged a pile of twigs in front of him and he was furiously rubbing two stones together.

“Why didn’t we just take the stove from the scout shack?” he asked.

I shook my head, trying to clear away the fog.

“It wasn’t ours to take.”

“It would have been easier.”

I stretched out my arms and felt my elbow joints crack. “Tell me I didn’t fall asleep.”

He nodded. “You were out when I woke. I thought I’d let you get a couple of hours.”

That worried me. I knew my body needed sleep as much as the next man, but I couldn’t ever let myself drop off while there was nobody on watch. I didn’t know what to do. I needed some rest, and I didn’t know where I was going to get it. My head pounded.

Justin carried on banging the rocks together, and I almost laughed.

“What’re you trying to do?”

His cheeks were tinted red. “I was going to cook us some beans.”

“By smashing rocks together?”

“Thought that’s how you did it.”

I grinned. Through all his learning and his amazing memory, he still had no clue. “Where’d you get the sticks from?”

He gestured toward the pocket of his raincoat. “Collected them when we were in the woods. I got sticks and kindling, now I just need the spark.”

“You’re not going to get it that way. Hand me the chocolate and the soda from the bag.”

He passed me the items and I spent twenty-five minutes painstaking showing him the chocolate-soda can method of lighting a fire. It took a hell of a lot of patience, but if you were in the wilds with nothing to set a fire going, it was as good a method as any. All you had to do was use the chocolate to polish the can until it was all nice and shiny,  then angle it toward the sun and use it to get the tinder smouldering. It acted like a crude magnifying glass.

“Wow, where did you learn that?” he said.

“I used to do a bit of camping back in the old days. It was just a hobby then. Never thought it would become my life.”

Justin had a wide smile on his face. “I love learning this stuff.”

“Remember it for when I cut you loose,” I said.

I hated to admit it, but a small part of me got a kick from teaching him. He was an eager student, and he seemed to be getting the hang of knowing when to shut up. Back when I was a hiking enthusiast, I’d always looked forward to the day me and Clara would have a child – obviously a boy – and I’d get to teach him things like this. Then the world decided to give us a big ‘fuck you’ and any plans for the future rotted away.

As the beans cooked, the smell of the tomato sauce drifted through my nostrils, down my throat and put my stomach in a twist. It was so overpowering that I felt spit collect in my mouth.

“What are we going to do?” said Justin.

I scratched my chin and my beard felt rough beneath my fingers. When I had last shaved? It must have been weeks ago.  “We don’t have a lot of options.”

Justin looked into the distance. “The GPRS said – “

“Enough with the GPRS.”

“Is this just because I know the route and you don’t?”

Of course it is, I thought. If you hadn’t have taken it upon yourself to screw me over just so you could tag along, I’d be fine. I felt my chest tighten and the familiar feeling of anger welled up inside me. I tried to let it settle back down, because I didn’t have the strength to get mad.

“If we’re taking the motorway, we’ve got some work to do. We’ve got supplies for another couple of days, and that isn’t going to get us far.” I said.

Justin bit his lip. “We could ration ourselves.”

I shook my head. “Still won’t cut it.”

“Then what?”

“We either get a car and cut our travel time, or we get more food somewhere.”

On hearing the word ‘car’, Justin’s eyes lit up.  I wondered if he’d ever actually seen one before the pick-up truck yesterday, because working cars were rare these days. There were plenty of them scattered around and most of them still had the keys in the ignition, most likely because their drivers had met an untimely death. The problem was that batteries soon drained, and there weren’t exactly any mechanics out there waiting for a callout.

“Let’s get a car!” he said.

“Not that simple.”

Rare as they were these days, I knew someone who had one. He was also the only man alive besides me who knew where the farm was. The problem was, I didn’t have any desire to see him again. It wasn’t that he was a bad guy; more that he reminded me of what I had lost, of who I had failed to protect.

Getting a car would be easier than getting enough food to last the trip, but it wasn’t an option.

“How dangerous is the wholesalers, really?” I said.

Justin looked at the floor. His eyes looked grave. “Kyle, please. Let’s not do that.”

“Come on kid, can’t be that bad.”

Above us a grey cloud had gathered. The edges were white, but in the middle of it was a heavy darkness. It started to spit, and I felt the flecks of rain drop on my head. I was in for another drenching if this carried on. I should have just picked up a new raincoat when I was in town.

Justin pulled his hood over his head. He looked at me, and I could see in his eyes that he was scared.

“Moe sent five guys there once. They were supposed to be gone a week and come back with loads of stuff. Two months later, we’re still waiting.”

“Hunters or infected?” I said. I hated having to ask that question, and I thought back fondly to the time when the infected were all I had to worry about.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Justin.

The rain was coming down heavier, and the storm cloud seemed like it had deliberately positioned itself above us. That was the way the world was now – it actively worked against you. Once man was the king of the planet, and now our home was trying to destroy us. How else could you explain all this shit? The infected, the stalkers, men hunting men. This was the end.

I wasn’t going down so easily.

“They must be ready now,” I said, nodding at the beans. My stomach ached.

Justin dished us both a share. The smell of them was intoxicating, and my mouth watered as I lifted them to my lips. They tasted amazing; it was the most glorious breakfast I’d ever had.

So here was the choice then. We could go get a car, and I’d have to face someone I had no interest in ever seeing again. The only other option was to go to the wholesalers and run straight into a den of either the hunters or the infected. It all came down to this question; would I rather risk emotional pain, or would I rather risk my life?

I shovelled another spoonful of beans and felt a warm glow in my stomach. Above us the rain cloud gathered force and blotted out the sun. The rain thickened into a torrent, the water battering the grass as it landed. I closed my eyes and made my decision, knowing the choice I made could mean the end of myself mentally, or the end of us both physically.

Chapter 11

GO AWAY.

I looked at the message painted in red letters on the wholesaler wall, and I wondered if we should listen to it. The building was a giant warehouse with a main entrance that faced us as well as a row of windows, though the glass was dirty to see anything inside. Round back a truck was parked up, and although I couldn’t see it, I guessed there would be a larger entrance that was used for deliveries. The whole place was deathly quiet, and if there were any infected hanging around, I couldn’t see any of them. Above the main entrance there was a sign that read ‘NJB Foods”.  The place looked so silent I wouldn’t have believed Justin’s warning of how dangerous it was were it not for the spray of bullet holes carved into the brick wall facing us, and the long smear of blood on the floor.

“About as optimistic a welcome as I expected,” I said, looking at the crudely painted message.

Justin squinted. He was starting to look more and talk less, a turn of personality that I welcomed. “Doesn’t look like the hunters.”

We were sat on a grassy embankment a few hundred yards away. We’d been here two hours so far, and my feet were starting to itch. I wanted to get in, grab enough supplies for the journey and then get on our way. We’d already wasted too much time over the last couple of days, and with the hunters lurking out there somewhere, I needed  to get as far away as possible.

“Tell me everything you remember about this place,” I said.

Justin looked confused. “I’ve never been here.”

“I mean what Moe or the others told you.”

He took a deep breath. “They said it was well-stocked and untouched, and that’s why Moe sent a scout party here. But like I said, they never came back. People assumed they got killed.”

“Could have been the infected.”

Justin nodded.

I looked up at the sky. The storm cloud had decided not to follow us here, though my back was still wet from where the rain had seeped through earlier. I shivered.

“I don’t want to spend any more time here than we have to. Follow my lead, keep your mouth shut and for god’s sake do exactly as I say.”

Some part of me had expected to find the wholesalers locked shut as if the owner, sensing the shitstorm that was about to engulf the world, had locked it up tight. Instead I twisted the handle and the door opened, and for a second I was so surprised I almost didn’t want to step inside.

As soon I walked in a sour smell hit me. It was the smell of rotting food, a stench so thick that it stuck to the back of my throat. Justin lifted his sleeve to his face and covered his mouth.  We walked around a corner, opened another door and then we saw it.

There were rows upon rows of shelves, but most of them were empty. Of those that did have food, most of it was thick with what looked like hair, but I soon saw that it was mold. Apparently there had once been a fresh produce section, but now it had rotted so badly that it resembled a mossy tumour. On the other rows there were a few cans scattered here and there, but most of the shelves held only dust. My heart sank.

“Could be more at the back. It’s a big place,” said Justin, trying to reassure me.

Something was wrong here. All my nerve endings were on edge, and all of them were firing a message up to my brain that translate as ‘GET OUT’. Maybe the sign on the front of the building had been right; perhaps it was best to just go away. But who had written it? Who had taken all the food? Whatever had happened, we were going to have to explore more before giving up.

The warehouse seemed to stretch far back, endless rows of metal shelves that were as long as a bus and reached up to the ceiling. I couldn’t see the back of the room, because the further back the warehouse stretched, the darker it got. I guessed if I walked to the end I would find the delivery doors.

With so little natural light coming in from the windows and the complete failure of the electrical ones, the place was a dark abyss.

Justin took a step forward. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Remember what I said; you’re not Indiana Jones. “

“Who’s Indiana Jones?” he said.

“Just don’t go running off. I don’t trust this place.”

The sound of every step we took echoed off the floor and drifted up toward the ceiling. It was like walking in a cave. As we walked past the rows of empty shelves Justin ran his finger along one of them, disturbing the dust.

“Stop that.”

The further into the warehouse we went the dimmer it became, and we had to stop to let our eyes adjust. It was an eerie place; so black, and so still. I felt the hairs on my arms stand on end, and my eyes started to see things in the shadows. Part of me wished we hadn’t taken this route; surely the threat of emotional pain couldn’t have been as nerve racking as worrying about what lurked in the shadows? Should we have just gotten a car?

“Kyle, look,” Justin whispered.

I followed his outstretched hand and when I saw where it led, my breath caught in my chest. Wedged between two shelves was a small tent, and inside it was the faint shape of a person.

My pulse started to quicken. Someone was definitely in there, and from the outline of their shape, they were sitting up. That meant that they were aware of us.

So why weren’t they moving?

I reached for my knife. Whoever it was, whatever their problem was, I wasn’t taking any chances. Nor was I leaving here with nothing. They would have to be dealt with right now. I took a step toward the tent and crouched at the entrance. I flicked my hand in the air and beckoned Justin over to me.

He moved hesitantly, and his steps were quieter than usual. Maybe he was finally getting the hang of this.

“You pull the zipper,” I said.

He looked at me and swallowed.

“I’m right here,” I said, and held my knife in the air ready to strike.

The darkness of the warehouse seemed heavy now. The utter silence was so thick that it was like another presence in itself. It could be our ally or our enemy, I knew. Silence helped you hear what was there, but it could also betray your own footsteps.

Justin grabbed the zipper. I could see his hands shaking, and I felt my own heart hammer. I took a deep breath and tensed my arm. Whoever came out of that tent, whatever their state, I wouldn’t give them chance to strike.

He slowly moved his hand. The sound of the zipper moving was louder than it should have been, and out of instinct I looked around me as if someone were listening.  Justin stopped, and looked at me. I nodded for him to carry on. He moved the zipper all the way to the top, and the tent door flapped open.

I thought whatever was in there would come charging out, but for some reason it didn’t move. I waited, my bicep tensed, my hand wrapped tightly around the knife, but there was nothing. I was going to have to get in the tent.

I got Justin’s attention and pointed at his belt. By now he was beginning to understand my unspoken commands better, and he reached down and took hold of his knife. He held at shoulder height, his arm stiff. I pointed at him, then at my eyes and then at the tent. He nodded.

Taking a deep breath and holding it in my lungs, I got to my knees. I could feel my body start to shake, so I tensed my muscles. I started to crawl slowly into the tent. Adrenaline shot through my body, and my veins throbbed. I felt panic rise up in me, and I tried to bury it deep inside me, tried to keep arm ready to send my knife plunging into whatever was in the tent.

It was for nothing.

There was nothing in there but a pile of cardboard boxes. I let out a breath and almost smiled at my idiocy.

Behind me, there was a moan. Justin screamed out, and I had just enough time to see something move out of the shadows and toward him before he fell into the tent, sending the fabric crumbling around me.

“Justin!” I shouted.

I hunted for the entrance. On top of the now-collapsed tent Justin wrestled with the thing. From the snarls it made it must have been an infected, and both it and Justin were so heavy that they weighed down the fabric of the tent on top of me.

Taking care not to accidentally hit Justin, I swung my knife and sliced through the tent, cutting an opening big enough for me to escape through. When I was out, I saw that he was led on the ground, and his hands were wrapped tightly round the throat of an infected. His arm muscles were straining with the effort. The monster struggled against him, snapping its teeth so close to Justin’s eyes that it nearly took off his eyelashes.

I took a step forward and grabbed the infected by the hair, but the scraggly strands tore from its skull too easily and sent the infected’s face closer to Justin.

“Hold it up,” I said.

The infected snarled and gnashed its teeth. Justin let out a grunt, and with all his strength he held the infected’s head toward me. I gave one short, strong stab with my knife and pierced its skull, sending the metal deep into its brain.

I took a deep breath and let my heartbeat settle.

“You can put it down now,” I said.

Justin let the infected’s body drop to one side. His eyes were wide with shock and he was panting.

“Deep breaths kid,” I said.

I looked around me. I couldn’t see any more of them, nor could I hear the tell-tale moans that said they were near. That didn’t mean we were alone, though.  I looked up at the shelf next to me, and suddenly my eyes were as wide as Justin’s.

“Think we got lucky,” I said.

Justin followed my gaze and saw what I was looking at. The shelf next to the tent was empty, all save one row at the top, on which were several boxes full of tins. I couldn’t see what they were and I didn’t care; they could be tinned fruit, beans, chili or spaghetti, it didn’t matter. It was food, that’s all we needed. That would be enough.

“Okay monkey boy, time to climb again.”

Justin put his hand on the shelf and shakily pulled himself up.  I put my hand on his shoulder. “Think you can do this?” I said.

He nodded. His breaths were steadying and his eyes came into focus.

“Good. I’ll let a little light in here,” I said. I didn’t want him climbing twenty feet up the shelf in the dark, because the last thing we needed was him falling and breaking his leg.

I walked past a row of shelves and to the back of the warehouse. There were two enormous metal shutters, which as I suspected, were used for trucks when they made deliveries. If I could open them and let a little light in, it might just give enough visibility to let Justin to climb safely to the top of the shelf. Then we would get the hell out of here.

I unhooked the bolt, took hold of the door handle and put my weight behind it. Slowly, the shutter started to move open and cracks of daylight seeped in. I strained against it and slid the door all the way to the end, then stood to admire the afternoon sun.  When my eyes adjusted to the light, I stopped dead. My breath choked in my mouth, and I my throat was tight.

 In the yard outside, a mere twenty feet away, there were over fifty infected walking around. They all saw me and then turned in my direction, their arms outstretched and their teeth clamping together. They starting moving in my direction, toward the warehouse.

I turned and ran over to Justin. He had started his climb onto the shelf, and he was about halfway up.

“Jump down, we need to get the hell out,” I said.

“What’s wrong, we need to –“

“Just get down!” I shouted.

My heart was pounding and my body was covered in sweat. From the other end of the warehouse I could hear the infected moaning. It didn’t matter how dark it was in here; their hunger was so powerful a drive that they would find their way to us eventually. If we stayed, we would die.

Justin looked back toward the shelf, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him along with me. I wasn’t taking any chances. We just had to get out, and we’d figure out what to do later.

“Kyle!” Justin said, and he stopped. I tugged at him again, but he wouldn’t budge.

“What is it?” I said

“Listen.”

Despite the blood throbbing in my eardrums, I listened. That’s when I realised how screwed we truly were. From the front entrance, our only way out of the building, I could hear laughing and voices. One voice was louder than all the rest.

It was Torben’s.