Blood Memory: The Complete Season One (Books 1-5) (35 page)

Anne beat at the beast with her fists, but it made no difference. Jordan swung the car left and right to dislodge Queeni
e, but his grip was too strong.

Something rolled about on the floor, knocking against Anne’s leg. She reached for it.

Selena screamed as Queenie pulled harder on her hair, pulling himself further up her back.

Jessie hummed to herself, rocking, eyes closed.

Anne’s fingers came across the thing on the floor. She brought it up. A half-empty bottle of antifreeze.

Queenie, teeth stained red, grinned and opened its mouth for another taste. Selena screamed. There was a snap as Queenie pried something white from Selena’s back – Selena’s shoulder blade. The air smelled thick and clotted.

Selena cried out, her scream a mix of fear, rage and resignation.

Anne brought the bottle around and smacked the Lurcher
in the face. She pummelled him again and again. Queenie raised his one arm over his face, releasing Selena’s hair. He caught the bottle. Anne unscrewed the cap. The blue liquid spilled over the Lurcher’s face, stinging his eyes, and running down his throat.

Anne punched Queenie in the face. It tumbled back, but gripped the doorframe with its hand,
body dragging along the road. He never screamed nor made a sound.

The exposed tendons in Queenie’s arm tensed as he pulled himself up.
Anne slammed the door on his fingers, which jerked up straight like they were attached to an invisible pulley.

Queenie’s body rolled and slid to a stop on the tarmac. Anne opened the door and prodded Queenie’s quivering fingers outside.

In the rear view mirror, Jordan watched the figure lying in the road. It didn’t move. He found himself praying Queenie was dead once and for all. They rounded a corner and Queenie disappeared from view.

“Wrap her leg with something,” Stan said. “Staunch the bleeding.”

The muscle had been stripped away like a piece of lean beef. The
tendon was white, frayed in the middle from where it had snapped like an overstrung guitar string.

“
How could they know we would be coming this way?” Anne said as she tore her T-shirt into strips and wrapped them tightly around Selena’s calf.

“They didn’t,” Jordan said. “They just found the least congested road in the area, cleared it, and put a single car there for us to get out and push.”

“They set a trap?” Stan said. His face was drawn and pale. He looked like he’d aged ten years.

Anne turned to Selena
’s back and paused. Blood seeped out like water from a squeezed sponge. Selena’s shoulder blade jutted up like an alien object. Her flesh was torn and ragged, hanging in lumps around the pit Queenie had dug.

“Aren’t we the idiots,” Selena said through
bloody gritted teeth. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

The car sped past a sign that read, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING REEDHAM.

As the car zipped down the road, clumps of overgrown grass on either side slapped at the car wheels. Thick hedges ran along either side, blocking the view of the fields beyond.

Jordan pulled the car over. Up ahead were a series of terraced cottages built bluff to the country road. The first signs of the approaching town.

Selena convulsed, her body becoming stiff and rigid, her tendons standing up like they were trying to escape. Anne brushed the spittle off her chin. The convulsions relaxed.

“I… I don’t want to be a nzambi.”
Selena’s eyes were full of tears.

Anne looked around at the others. She opened her mouth but no words came.

Stan tapped Jordan on the shoulder and gestured to a Lurcher crawling down the quiet country road, its exposed spinal column leaving a thin bloody trail.

“It’s the blood,” Stan said. “It’s attracting him. There’ll be others.”

“Throw me out,” Selena said, coughing up a clot of blood.

“Don’t be stupid,” Anne said. “You’re going to be-”

“Bline?” Selena said. The word ‘fine’ had been corrupted by the congealing blood on her lips. She reached for the door handle, but lacked the strength to grasp it.

Stan pulled Jessie over into his seat and hugged her close. He ran his fingers through her hair, making soft shushing noises.

“There is nothing… nothing you can do,” Selena said. “Dump me out.”

“We’re not going to dump you,” Anne said, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Selena’s eyes were bloodshot-red, pupils dilated. Her body shook.

“There must be something we can do,” Anne said, looking at the others. None of them met her gaze.

Jordan reached into his pocket and came out with a yellow pill. “It won’t save her, but it might help with the pain.”

“What’s that?” Anne asked.

There was a spark of recognition in Selena’s eyes. “W… Where did you get that?”

“Sergeant Marsh gave it to me.”

“What is it?” Anne repeated.

“Medicine,” Jordan said. “Or, at least, I think it is. Marsh said it somehow erases our blood, so there’s nothing for them to feed on. The soldiers use it whenever they get bitten.”

“Give me it,” Selena said. “Please. The last thing I want is to give… give those things a snack.” She swallowed the pill, her face scrunching up as it got stuck in her dry throat. “Before I go, I want to tell you all that… that the past few days have been about the best of my life. Thank you for saving me. You saved me from a fate worse than death. Thank you all. God bless you.” Selena’s skin cooled rapidly, losing its natural dark tint.

Selena locked eyes on
Jordan. “Hope,” she said, a faint smile on her face. Her eyes fluttered closed and she reached out for something that wasn’t there. A lump caught in Anne’s throat. Selena’s body convulsed and shook.

“We have to put her outside
,” Jordan said. “The body rejects the blood.”

“We’re not going to just dump her on the street like she’s rubbish,” Anne said.

“I didn’t say dump.”

“It was what you meant.”

“We have to lay her outside if we’re going to keep using this car. Her blood will attract them for miles.”

Anne
shut her eyes and nodded. She opened the door and fed the body out, like a baby entering the world. “I’m sorry.”

Selena stared unblinking at the sky. Red blotches grew and spread across her skin like filter paper. Over-saturated, the blood flowed freely, staining the tarmac and grassy verge. It
was like watching a volcano erupt in slow motion. Her pores opened wide until they could stretch no further and then the body’s liquids began to seep from it. Selena’s clothes became saturated as her body shrank into a puddle.

The Lurcher crawling along the street hissed at an able-bodied Lurcher as it limped toward the beaten-up car.
The thick hedge rustled and shook as yet another Lurcher walked through it. It snagged its skin on a thorn but kept walking forward. The skin tore from its face down to its neck and shoulders, the fragment left to hang on the bush like a gruesome Christmas tree decoration.

Some of the Lurchers circled the car, but most were interested in the bloody puddle on the verge. The Lurcher with the skin stripped from its body supped on the blood. It paused, turning to look through Anne
’s open door at them all.

“
Anne,” Jordan said. “Shut the door.”

Anne stared at the puddle, too shocked to speak.

“Anne.”

The Lurcher stood up and stepped toward them. Jordan reached over and slammed
the door closed. The Lurcher beat on the window, making handprints with Selena’s blood.

“
Anne, what’s wrong with you?” Jordan’s anger dissipated when he saw Anne’s head go down and she began to weep. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jordan hit the accelerator. A
corpse bounced off the bonnet and smacked against the windscreen, cracking it. The Crawler reached up for the car as it approached. Jordan turned the steering wheel. The front tyre ran over the Crawler’s skull, barely registering inside the car.

They were silent a moment.

“What did she mean by ‘hope’?” Anne asked.

“Our boat name,” Jordan said. “She wanted to name it ‘Hope’.”

The terrace houses backed onto one another, their roofs jutting up at odd angles. The buildings leaned toward the street with arched backs, and away from the River Yare as if shunning it. A series of cobblestone bridges crossed the river at irregular intervals.

The beaten-up Vauxhall Cavalier
took a hill as it headed into Reedham town centre. The car made the rise and descended down the other side at speed.

“
Oh my God!” Jordan said.

Stretching from the riverbank on the left to the shops on the right was a large space usually reserved for local markets and public events. Today it hosted an entirely different kind of visitor. They stood still, barely moving. Most were naked, their skin a mottled grey. They were covered in scratches and scars, their heads perched on their shoulders. They turned on shuffling feet to see what had disturbed their slumber.

Jordan took his foot off the accelerator. They began to slow down.

“
No! Don’t stop!” Stan said. “Keep going.”

“
But we’ll crash into them,” Jordan said.

“
Stop now and they’ll surround us. We might never get going again. Plough through them.”

Jordan slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The car pulled forward, pushing them all back in their seats.

The Lurchers in the front row raised their arms, and smashed forward, their heads bouncing off the bonnet as the Vauxhall Cavalier ploughed into them. The right wing mirror snapped off, quickly followed by the left, hanging by internal wires.

The Lurchers turned and ambled toward the car. Jordan turned the wheel to avoid them, but it was no use. There were no empty spaces. They thudded against the car like horizontal rain. Heads exploded like balloons
across the windscreen. Jordan hit the window wipers lever. They wiped off the thick congealed blood and green pus, but left dirty black rainbows across the windscreen. Each impact caused the car to slow a fraction. Jordan dropped a gear, revs ringing high, and the car began to pick up speed again.

A Lurcher with a m
ohican landed on the car bonnet. Its legs had been torn off, its spinal column hung on the front grill. The Lurcher reached up to the bonnet, found a handhold and pulled itself up.

“
We’ve got a Klingon!” Stan said.

Jordan spun the wheel left and right to dislodge it. It lost
its grip with one hand, but still clung on with the other. The mohican Lurcher turned three hundred and sixty degrees. The arm would have dislocated on a normal person, but the mohican Lurcher held on.

Another Lurcher, female and almost skeletal,
latched onto the side of the car, her tiny breasts pressed against Jordan’s window. Jordan swerved, took the curb with a sharp scraping sound, and brushed her off with a brick wall.

Stan held Jessie close in the front passenger seat, shielding her eyes and holding her in a tight embrace.
The mohican Lurcher pulled his arm back and punched the front windscreen. Shards of glass sprayed Stan and Jessie.

Lurcher bodies pummelled the car, slipping under it. The wheels bounced over the bodies. The car bucked like a mechanical bull.
The mohican Lurcher’s hand, cut and congealed with blood, reached into the car, flailing. It put its head to the hole, trying to squeeze through the gap. It groaned and stretched for Stan’s face. Stan leaned back as far as he could. The arm kept coming. Stan’s hand found the chair lever. He turned it, and the seat lowered back.

Jordan hit the brakes and accelerator in quick succession. The
mohican Lurcher jolted back and fell from the bonnet. The car bounced as it drove over his head.

“Where the hell’s the bridge?” Jordan said.

“Straight on,” Stan said, spying a sign. “Five hundred yards.”

The fuel
light blinked on.

“Shit,” Jordan said. “We’re running out of fuel.”

“We can’t be out of fuel already, can we? The tank was full when we started.”

“I don’t know. We might have damaged the fuel tank when
we hit the kerb.”

T
he sound of Lurchers thudding into the car slowed, as if they were coming to the end.

“Stop!” Stan shouted.

Jordan hit the brakes. The car skidded to a halt. Everyone jerked forward, then back in their seats.

A flood of Lurchers
at least as thick as the horde they’d just passed through stumbled toward them, their inhuman moan loud and cacophonous. Stan hugged Jessie close, shielding her ears. The mass of Lurchers they’d avoided staggered toward them from behind.

“Where th
e hell did they all come from?” Jordan said. “A town this size shouldn’t have more than a few hundred Lurchers at most.”