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

Автор книги: Jack Lewis

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 10 страниц)

Chapter 16

I saw the sheer number of them, and my mouth fell open. There were at least a hundred dead faces, some with their lips torn off, eyes missing, arms cut in half, entrails hanging loose. Some stumbled into one another and fell to the floor, only to be trampled on by those behind them. There were so many that it was like a travelling battalion marching to war, except this army had no purpose or aim.

I looked at David. He was leant so far back against the car that it was like he was trying to melt into it. His hands clutched for the door handle behind him, as though he didn’t dare turn round to find it in case one of the infected pounced.

We needed to escape or fight, those were our only choices. The car was dead, so that was out of the question, and I didn’t want to be walking on the road on foot during the night. There were other things to worry about apart from the infected.

Fighting them would be foolish. I could take three of them, at a push, Justin could handle one and David was only good for standing there in shock. That left a hundred of them still left to fight.

Above us a sheet of black had covered the sky and blotted out the light so that not even the stars were shining.

I took a step forward, grabbed the handle and opened the car door. I shoved David’s shoulders down so that he didn’t bang his head and pushed him into the car. Justin followed suit and opened the passenger door, got inside and shut it as quietly as he could.

I looked at the infected getting closer, their numbers large enough to trample anything in their path, and something inside me wanted to shout out. I felt a cold panic in my chest, and my skin was tingling. I had never seen this many in my life.

“Kyle, get in,” said Justin.

I opened the driver door, sat down and tried to get my breath back.

“Now what?” asked Justin.

From the back of the car, David spoke. “Seen this lot before. They’re like a shoal of fish, they wander around and any infected they see get swept up. When I saw them there was half this many.”

“How do you know they’re the same ones?” I said.

“Recognise some of them.”

The infected got closer, so that now they were ten metres away from the car. It was clear that they were going to walk in our direction. I gripped the sides of my seat and sucked in the insides of my cheeks.

“What can we do?” I said.

David looked at my eyes in the rear view mirror. “Just wait it out.”

I shook my head. “No fucking way I’m just sitting here with a hundred of them close enough to spit on.”

He leaned forward a little. His voice was a whisper. “Nothing else you can do. You can’t run. You can’t fight. You have to trust me. Just wait it out.”

I leant my head back and banged it against my seat. Yet again I was put in a position where I had to go by someone else’s word. I never wanted any of this; I was just fine on my own. Well, not fine, but I survived.

 It was the end of the frigging world and it was still impossible to avoid people.

I sighed. “Not much of a choice.”

The infected stumbled past us. It was clear now that there was way more than a hundred of them; it was possible we were even looking at a thousand. How had they all collected together? Was it a conscious decision to group up, or did they just go with the flow?

As they walked down the road some of them brushed against the car. A rotten smell drifted in and clogged up my nostrils, and I realised the driver window was still open. As quietly as I could, I wound it up. The infected let out an orchestra of moans as they passed us.

“It’s going to take an hour by the looks of it,” I said.

I remember once Clara and I were driving home from the Lake District when  we got stopped in the road by a herd of roving cows. The farmer leading them apologised, but we were stuck in the road for half an hour waiting for them to pass. I remembered being pissed off at the time, but looking back I didn’t realise how lucky I was. After all, cows couldn’t eat you.

Justin leaned his head back and spoke to David. “What do you call a group of infected? Is it a pride?”

“Probably a herd,” said David.

“More like a murder,” I said.

David frowned. “That’s crows.”

“Still fits.”

“A parliament of infected,” said Justin, and laughed.

“What are you talking about?” I said.

Justin smiled. “A group of owls is called a ‘parliament’. I think it fits the infected, too.”

Soon David caught on and let out a chuckle, and even I found it hard not to smile.

I felt my calf muscles start to cramp a little, so I stuck my leg forward and stretched out the muscle. I looked to the trees in the distance and wondered if any owls were nesting in there, whether there were even any owls still living. I guessed that most of them would have been killed by stalkers.

The night wore on and the infected carried on shuffling past. We were about halfway through now, and it gave me the feeling of being in the eye of a tornado. I felt my stomach sink. Next to me, Justin was asleep. I looked at him and blinked, marvelling at how the kid had managed to sleep with hundreds of infected just feet away.

David cleared his throat, and leant forward.

“Kyle.”

I turned round. “Yeah?”

He paused for a second, as though he were trying to compose his words.

“I still need to know why.”

I let out a long sigh. I knew what he was asking me; he wanted to know why I had left him after Clara died. For years I tried to bury the memories of that night – of our group being attacked, people being ripped apart, turning round and seeing one of the infected  tearing flesh from Clara’s arm. I gritted my teeth and tried to push the images back.

“What does it matter now?” I said.

David hung his head. “You know me, Kyle. Better than anyone. Like a brother.”

I nodded.

“So I need to know why you abandoned me. We were the only survivors. I needed you, and you left me to die alone.”

Outside the sky looked bloated with darkness, as though any second it was going to vomit it out on top of us. The faint moans of the infected floated into the car.

“I’d just lost my wife. No, not lost. I’d let them kill her – I couldn’t protect her. And when it was all done, and it was just me and you, I couldn’t even look at you. “ I put my hands on the steering wheel and gripped it. “I failed her, David. I failed everyone.”

For a while the only sounds were the scuffling of the feet of the infected.  I sat and took in deep breaths. I could feel tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. I’d never spoken about this before. I’d barely even allowed myself to think about it.

David leaned forward and pout a hand on my shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said.

I let the words sink in. I could feel my whole body start to shake, and emotion overtook me. I felt it run through my arms and legs, like adrenaline but thicker and heavier. I blinked and put a hand to my eyes, wiping away the moisture.

I turned round and looked at David. Although they were brother and sister, he looked absolutely nothing like Clara.

“I’m sorry, David,” I said. “After it happened, I couldn’t face anyone. I didn’t trust myself to protect anyone again, because I knew that I’d only let them down and lose them.”

He nodded and squeezed my shoulder.

A weariness overtook my body and I felt the energy seep out of my arms and legs. I felt my eyelids start to drop. Then I took one look at the infected outside and I forced my eyes open. Now wasn’t the time for sleep.

“Go ahead,” said David. “Get some sleep. I’ll keep watch tonight.”

I shut my eyes, but I couldn’t let myself sleep.

***

Five hours later I watched the sun rise to the east of us, in the direction of the farm. We were only twenty-five miles away now, which was walkable in a day or so. As long as we avoided the parliament of infected, we would be okay.

I reached across and shook Justin’s shoulder. He groaned, lifted his head and rubbed his eyes.

“Jesus, what time is it?” he said.

“Time to go.”

I looked behind me. David was awake and picking at a loose thread on his coat. I stretched my arms and legs, feeling my joints crack and my muscles expand. I took a deep breath and tried to fill my lungs with air, but I spluttered.

“So stuffy in here,” I said. “It stinks.”

I grabbed the window handle and twisted it, and the glass wound down. As the cold morning air blew into the car, something else also drifted in.

It was the sound of an engine. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the vehicle getting closer.

“Shit,” I said.

It was a pick-up truck, and it was driving down the road toward us. Torben Tusk was behind the wheel.

Chapter 17

I slid down in my seat as much as I could and left only the top of my head on show. Behind me on the back seat, David was curled up and his eyes were shut. Next to me, Justin was asleep in the passenger seat. Too much of him was on show, and if Torben glanced at the car as he drove past he was sure to see him.

I tapped Justin on the shoulder, but he didn’t stir. A bubble of spit blew from the corner of his mouth and popped. I gave him a hove, and this time his eyelids flickered and then opened.

He looked at me, blinked, and then went to say something. I reached across and put my hand over his mouth.

“Don’t move, don’t speak. Trust me.”

When he nodded, I slid my hand slowly away from him. I moved back down my seat and beckoned Justin to do the same in his. He moved his body down the seat, finding a lot easier than I did. Now we just had to hope that David didn’t decide to wake up.

The truck got closer and soon it was driving next to us. Through some instinct I breathed in and held my breath as it passed, as though breathing might somehow give away our position. The truck rumbled past and stopped outside the Babe and Sickle. Torben got out followed by his friend who, last time we saw him in the pick-up, was the driver. Now I could see why he wasn’t anymore; he had a make-shift sling around his right arm, and part of it was smeared red.

The pub was only twenty feet away and it was a calm day, so we could hear the hunters talk. I reached for the handle and slowly wound down the window.

“Pass me the tracker,” said Torben. His voice sounded rougher than normal, his tone more clipped.

The driver reached over to the truck, picked something up and passed it to Torben. “What’d ya think they’re doing out here?” he asked.

Torben twisted the device in his hands, pressed something and then stared at it.

When I got a good look it at, I felt something sharp twist through my chest. That was my GPRS! Torben Tusk was holding my GPRS, and it seemed like it was working. I snapped my head to Justin to see if he was watching this. His wide eyes and furrowed brow confirmed that he was. I was dying to saying something, but now wasn’t the time.

I felt my forehead begin to sweat. My hands shook, and my face felt like it was heating up. There was no way this was a coincidence, no way that Torben had got his hands on another GPRS and just happened to be going in the same direction as us. There was only one explanation for this.

He’d gotten my GPRS to work, and he knew where the farm was.

I took a second to calculate our odds. From what I had seen there were a minimum of four hunters – minus the one I saw get eaten in the warehouse – with the probability of there being at least a few more that I hadn’t see yet. I knew they had at least two guns, double what we had, and they actually knew how to use them. That put us at a pretty big disadvantage.

There was nothing I could do right now other than listen and hope to get some idea of their plan.

“This fucking thing,” said Torben. “Never works properly. Thought you fixed it?”

The driver screwed up his face. “Got us here, didn’t it?”

Torben held the GPRS in one hand and picked at his teeth with the other. “Should have just snatched the kid,” he said. He tossed the GPRS back to the driver. “Anyway, get in there and see what they got. If you see any bottles of stout, grab me a couple,” he said, and pointed at the Babe and Sickle.

While the driver searched the pub Torben rested on the bonnet of the pick-up. From time to time he’d glance back in our direction, making me sink lower in my seat, but mostly he stared at the road ahead in contemplation.

After ten minutes the driver came back out. They got in the pick-up truck, revved the engine and then left.

As soon as they were out of sight, I turned to Justin. I poked him in the chest, jabbing my finger so hard it made him wince. I could feel my head get tight, and most lips curled.

“I thought you said it was broken? Huh? That nobody would be able to use it? That’s the only reason I didn’t beat the crap out of you when Torben took our stuff – because you promised me he wouldn’t be able to work it.”

Justin chewed his lip and furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry Kyle, I didn’t know. Really – I thought it was trashed.”

“Damn it” I said. I pounded the steering wheel, and the horn went off.

Behind me David jumped awake. He rubbed his head. “What’s going on?”

“We’re fucked, that’s what’s going on,” I spat.

I opened the car door and got out, slamming it behind me. I didn’t care who heard us now. I walked to the boot, opened our bag of supplies. I tipped most of it back into the boot and left a fifth still in the bottom of the rucksack, which I  slung over my shoulder. Next to all the food was the shotgun. I thought about taking it, but then I put my hand on my belt and rested on the handle of my knife.

That would be enough. They needed to gun more than me, and I wasn’t a total monster.

The passenger door and opened and Justin got out. He walked over to me and looked at the food scattered across the boot of the car.

“What are you doing?”

I could feel my blood running red hot through my veins. Right now Justin’s face annoyed me too much. Did he realise what he’d done? Did he understand that ever since he stuck his nose into my business, things had turned to shit?

I reached forward and shoved him in the chest, sending him down onto the floor.

“They know where the farm is, and they’re headed there right now. It’s all fucked Justin, and that’s on you.”

Justin sat up and drew his knees closer to his chest. There was a scared look to his eyes, as though he didn’t know what I was going to do next. I knew that for a second he was thinking about arguing with me, but then he decided better of it. “Look, Kyle, what can I say? I’m sorry.”

The back door of the car opened and David stretched a long leg out. “What’s happening?”

I slammed the boot of the car shut and looked at him. “I’m leaving,” I said. “You two can go to hell.”

Chapter 18

I walked away from the car. My face was burning and my blood was boiling in my veins. My mind was so clouded by a fog of anger that I didn’t even look where I was going; as long as I got away, that was all that mattered.

I put my foot on a stone wall and hopped over into the field. The earth was sodden and my foot was covered in mud before I’d even walked five steps. Behind me, I heard the car door open. I took a deep breath and picked up my pace. I wasn’t turning back this time. I wasn’t forgiving another one of Justin's mistakes. He’d screwed me over from the start, and now the only thing I had to cling on to was gone. The farm belonged to the hunters now.

“Kyle”

I heard David’s voice behind me, and I heard him grunt as he climbed over the wall.

“Shit!”

I turned round. David had slipped in the mud and he was flat on his back in the field, his coat covered in the brown mess.  He seemed to be waiting for me to come and help him up, but instead I turned and carried on walking.

A few minutes later he caught up with me. He put a muddy hand on my shoulder. I stopped and turned to him.

“Fuck off, David,” I said.

David scratched the back of his neck. There was something weighing on his mind, but as usual he was struggling to get the words out.

I put my hands in my pockets. “Just save it. There’s nothing you can say. The farm is theirs now. It’s all pointless.”

Finally the words came to him. “It’s not pointless. Not at all. You were right. The farm’s the answer; dad knew it, Clara knew it – I know it.”

His words were coming fast. He stared at me with narrowed eyes that were like brown marbles.

I looked across the field in front of me. It seemed to stretch for miles and connected into other fields in an endless bed of green and brown. I tried to see what was beyond it, whether there was anything worth looking for, but there was nothing in the distance to cling on to.

I looked at the floor. “Even if you’re right, the farm’s out of the question now. Torben has it, and there’s no way I can take on him and his guys alone.”

David sighed. “You’re not alone.  You never were. You’ve always had people with you Kyle,  you’ve always been a leader. But for some pig-headed reason you choose not to act like it.”

I looked at him and saw the sincerity on his face. “A leader wouldn’t watch as many people die as I have,” I said.

“You can’t do this alone,” said David.

The wind blew through the grass, sending the long stalks dancing in different directions. For miles on the horizon the fields all blew in unison. They were all overgrown and muddy, same as the farm would be, but with enough time and hard work something could be made out of them.

With the farm in the hands of the hunters, I felt empty inside, like someone had opened my chest and scooped everything out. I’d clung onto the idea of getting there for so long, that it was all I had.

Maybe David was right. Maybe we shouldn’t give it up. Perhaps it was time to fight.

I looked at him again. This time I felt something welling up in me, some kind of resolve. But there were something I had to say, things I had to get out of the way.

“I can’t watch someone else die,” I said.

“Everyone’s got to.”

I nodded. “But you and Justin – I don’t want to see that happen on my account.”

David screwed up his nose. He wiped his boot along the grass and let the mud slide of it.

“Sometimes you have to throw the dice,” he said.

He was right. For all this time, all these years of travelling alone, it wasn’t other people that I’d avoided. I had been running away from fear. I was scared that if I let my guard down and allowed people inside it, then sooner or later I was going to have to watch them die. I’d thought that being alone was better than risking losing someone, but I was wrong.

A man couldn’t live alone, especially not in a world like this. Man was on the ropes and the world was delivering the knockout blows. Unless someone did something, unless we stuck together, we were going to hit the floor.

I took my hands out of my pockets and turned back toward the car.

I noticed that the passenger door was open, but there was no sign of Justin. I looked around, but couldn’t see anything, and he certainly hadn’t followed us onto the field. So where was he?

***

When we got to the car it was empty. The passenger door was open, and on the floor beside it there were blobs of blood.  I looked around us but I couldn't see Justin anywhere, nor could I see any infected. Besides, if an infected had got him, they would have started eating him there and then. They didn’t drag away their kill to eat it later.

David walked round to the boot and popped it open.

“It’s gone.”

I shut the passenger door and walked around. I saw what he meant; the boot, where I’d left all the supplies, was now empty. Who had done it, and why hadn’t we seen them?

 How did things get screwed up for us at every turn?

I slammed the boot shut so quickly that David had to yank back his hand so that it didn’t get caught. He turned round and lent on the car.

“Who could have –“

“The hunters,” I said.

I had been stupid to think that the hunters would drive so close to us and not see anything. Torben was a hunter, so he certainly wasn’t oblivious to the clues and trails that people left behind. I guessed that their stop at the Babe and Sickle probably wasn’t about checking it for supplies. It was more likely that they stopped because they wanted me to know that they had the GPRS and were headed to the farm. Torben was laying a trap for me.

I snapped my head toward David. He had a faraway look in his eyes. “They’ve taken Justin, and they want us to come find him.” I said.

“So what do we do?” he asked.

The old me would have taken what supplies I could, turned round and walked in the opposite direction. But I knew what the hunters were and what they were capable of, and I couldn’t just abandon Justin to that. Whatever the risk, no matter the cost, I was going to have to try and do something.

I was going to be running into a death trap, but it was better to sprint into a quick death than walk into a lingering one.

“I can’t ask you to come,” I said.

David nodded solemnly.

I opened the car door and looked around for what supplies I could find. I looked under the passenger seat and let out a gasp. Tucked underneath, was our shotgun.  Justin must have hidden it before the hunters had grabbed him. I took it out and showed David.

“Clever kid,” he said.

I nodded.

“I’m coming with you,” said David.

“You sure?”

He nodded his head. “You have to be able to depend on people.”

I slammed the car door, took a deep breath and looked to the east, where the farm was waiting. I could already feel the adrenaline flowing inside me. This was it.

I looked up. Above us, a mean-looking black cloud loomed.