Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 1): Chloe (17 page)

C
hloë couldn’t watch
as the Holy One held the match to the little boy’s head.

She squeezed her stinging eyes shut. Held her breath. Waited for the sizzling sound of flames to fill the air; for the boy’s cries to etch themselves onto her mind forever. For his burning flesh to fill her nostrils.

She didn’t experience any of these sensations.

Instead, she heard a thud.

A cry.

Then, frenzy.

She opened her eyes. Looked over the edge of the watchtower.

The CoY people were going crazy. Running in every direction. They looked fearful. Terrified.

But the little boy …

The little boy was still kneeling.

Still alive.

Only his hair was covered with something.

Chloë squinted. Looked closer.

Realised exactly what it was.

Blood.

Behind him, in front of the mounting panic, the Holy One stood. He still had his arm out, after trying to set the boy alight.

Only he was missing half of his arm now.

Staring down at it, frowning, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was looking at.

His right arm had been blown to pieces.

Another thud split the air. And as it did, another armed member of CoY fell. The panicked guards looked around at the trees. Lifted their guns. Fired into nothingness.

Someone was helping the good people.

Someone was attacking CoY.

Someone was…

Chloë saw her dad. Saw him still crouching there in the dirt. People were flocking around the Holy One. Wrapping their arms around his shoulder. Easing him back towards the CoY stronghold.

And as gunfire peppered the landscape, the rest of the crowd followed.

Dragging Chloë’s dad with them.

Chloë’s heart pounded. A nauseous lump swelled in her throat. She knew she was in danger. If those people were heading her way, her days were numbered. They’d come in here. Use her to get to her dad. She saw that now. She’d heard it in the Holy One’s words.

Her dad was the prisoner and she was the thing he cared about most.

So if she wanted to save him, she had to stay alive. Even if it meant running away. The longer she could buy, the better. She realised that now, too.

She turned around. Climbed down the ladder. Almost tripped on the slippery fourth step. She had to keep her cool. Couldn’t do anything stupid now. She’d been given a chance. She could still hear gunfire cracking through the air behind her. They were distracted. She had a chance. An opportunity to get away.

Even though it went against everything she’d fought for.

She landed at the bottom of the ladder. Ran to the gate. They were closed. Tightly closed. She grabbed the edge of the metal. Tried to drag it open. No use. Fuck. Fuck.

She turned around. Looked at the vast expanse of the CoY base. She could hide. The place was big enough. Bide her time and wait for them all to return. Make them think she’d done a runner, then swoop in and rescue her dad when they least expected it.

And as appealing as the attack was, she knew it was reckless. She knew it’d likely result in her death, as well as her dad’s death.

No.

She needed to get out of here.

It might be conceding defeat in the short term, but in the long run, it might just work in her favour.

She understood what Dad meant when he used to say that to her about ignoring the school bullies, now.

She ran down the middle of the street. Her feet crunched through burned wood, questionable other substances. She flew past boarded-up windows. Past metal stakes. Past locked doors and empty hangars. Behind, she could hear the CoY citizens getting closer. Hear their footsteps echoing through the valley.

She had to hurry.

She had to find a way out of here.

She had to…

She stopped. To her left, she saw an alleyway. At the top of the fence, a slight opening in the barbed wire. Tiny. Barely large enough for her to squeeze through. Probably end up slicing her to bits as she reached it.

But it was all she had.

She ran towards the wall at the west side of the camp. Looked around for something to climb up; something to cling on to. She couldn’t scale the wall. It was flat. Completely flat.

But she could scale the metal hanger beside it.

Or at least, she could try.

Chloë ran to the front of the hangar. Reached on to the handle. Stretching hurt her chest wound, pained her blistered feet. But she didn’t have an option here. A few burst stitches would be worth it if it meant getting away from here, finding a chance to regroup.

She tried again. Tried stretching her foot onto the handle.

After a struggle, she made it.

Shifted all her body weight onto the handle.

And then the handle shifted.

Twisted away under her feet.

She fell onto her back. Cracked her head on the rough gravel. She heard movement. The sound of the gates banging, screeching open.

She bit her tongue. She had to push on. She had to try again.

She lifted herself upright when she saw something in the open door of the hangar.

Inside that hangar, there were clothes. Shoes, coats, all kinds of items. Must’ve been the stuff they’d confiscated from the prisoners.

But at the front of the hangar, Chloë noticed something else.

Something familiar.

A black rucksack.

She walked towards it. Lifted it. Looked inside.

Sure enough, it was hers. The rucksack she’d lost in her fight with Dan.

The one with the last of her supplies in it.

Only they’d disappeared.

All that remained in the bag was the sharp wire.

She thought about leaving the rucksack behind. But then she got an idea.

She put it on her back.

Rushed out of the front of the hangar.

Two armed men caught her eye to the left.

She stepped back into the hangar. Put her back to the wall. Shit. They were in. They were back. They were here and they were going to find her.

Chloë swallowed a lump in her throat. Listened to the footsteps. They were going further away. Further away from her. She was okay. She could make this. She could…

She saw light peeking through the top of the hangar.

A hole. A hole in the metal right in the top corner. She could get up there. Climb out. Walk over to the wall. Get out of here.

She took a few steps towards the pile of bags.

Then she heard footsteps coming her way.

She stepped back. Turned around. One of the guards. They were coming to the door.

She reached into her pocket. Pulled out her knife. Raised it. Held her breath.

She saw the silhouette reach the door. Saw the tip of a gun poke around the entrance.

“Gav, I think someone’s—”

Chloë rammed the knife through his chest.

Then she turned back to the mountain of bags and she ran.

She sprinted to the top of them. Clambered her way up. Back at the hangar entrance, she heard the man she’d stabbed drop to his knees. She knew someone would find him. Knew she was being reckless.

But she had to get out.

Had to get away.

She reached the opening of the hangar.

Dragged herself out, scratching her arms in the process.

Just before she climbed on top of the hangar, she heard more footsteps heading towards its entrance.

She reached back down into the hangar. Lifted a bag. Squeezed it into the gap that the light shone down.

When she was sure the hangar was covered in darkness, her escape route hidden for the time being, she crept across the top of the hangar towards the gap in the barbed wire.

She kept her eyes on the wall. Kept low. Tried not to look at the bodies swarming the CoY base. She couldn’t be distracted. Couldn’t allow that.

She just had to get away.

Just had to get out.

She dragged herself onto the top of the wall. Felt the barbed wire cut her hands, scrape her arms, nip at her face. She held on. Tried not to fall, even though her chest might just split on her any shitting second.

She looked down the side of the wall. A hefty drop. But there were little indentations that went about halfway down. She could try climbing down those. And then she’d have to drop.

The drop might just kill her.

Or worse—it might break her legs and keep her alive.

She wouldn’t know until she tried.

And she had to try fast.

In the distance, from the trees, she saw monsters approaching. A dozen or so. All gazing up at her. All staggering in her direction.

She lowered herself down the side of the wall. Great. So if she survived the fall, she had a choice between screaming for the group who wanted to torture her or waiting for the monsters to rip her apart. She honestly wasn’t sure which option she preferred.

She turned back ahead. Took a deep breath. Lowered herself.

As she took her first step, she saw something in the CoY camp.

Three CoY guards were dragging two prisoners up the stairs towards the red-bricked building.

One of them was her dad.

Another of them was…

Shit. Alice.

She’d been beaten. Bruised. Cuts covered her skin.

“This is the fucker,” one of the guards shouted. “Better teach this bitch some manners.”

Chloë’s fingers tightened around the top of the wall.

She wanted to go back. Wanted to go back and fight. For Alice. For her dad.

But as the guards dragged the pair of them inside the red-bricked building, Chloë knew that her best chance of fighting lay outside these walls.

She knew that if she stayed in here, she’d die, and so too would Alice, so too would her dad.

She watched the guards boot Alice into the building. Watched them throw Dad inside, face first.

A lump swelled in her throat. Tears filled her eyes.

The door to the building slammed shut.

Alice and Dad were gone.

And all Chloë could do was climb away.

T
he pain
of walking away from the place where her dad and Alice were suffering never left the forefront of Chloë’s mind.

She walked through the trees. Walked roughly in the direction she’d come from. She had to loop around to keep off the CoY radar, but she was pretty certain most of the guards were back at the camp now, anyway.

Which meant they’d be looking for her. Searching all over for her.

They wouldn’t find her.

Not today.

She looked up at the thick trees above. Took a deep breath of the crisp late afternoon air. She wondered how long her dad had left. How long it’d be before they gave up trying to find Chloë and just finished him off.

And Alice. Alice, who’d helped Chloë make it this far. She couldn’t just walk away from her. She couldn’t just run.

She had to think of something.

But she’d done so much thinking and always ended up right in the same place.

Her death.

Her dad’s death.

Alice’s death.

She heard shuffling to her right. Looked up. Saw a monster traipsing out of the trees. Grey skin. Windpipe dangling by a bloody thread. Chloë knew she should be scared. She knew it was right to fear the monsters.

But she had other things to fear right now.

So she lifted her knife. Let the monster get close to her. Heard its teeth snapping together amidst the silence.

And then she rammed the knife in through the side of its skull.

It fell to the forest floor with a thump. A noise that made Chloë jump. She was in a daze. Lost in her distorted thoughts about going back for Dad, going back for Alice.

She was desperate for something. Just a thought. Just an idea. Just a flicker of hope.

But there was nothing.

In this woods, there was nothing.

“Why did you have to go and blow it?” Chloë muttered. She thought back to the moment she’d crept down the side of the valley and into the gates of the CoY camp. The moment she’d fucked it up. Fucked everything up.

Another monster staggered out from behind a tree. Both of its arms were missing.

“Why did you have to go and fuck it up?”

She swung her knife at the monster. Stabbed its head.

And then she perched on top of it.

Stabbed it again.

Again.

Again.

Pierced its eyes.

Its neck.

Everywhere.

The smell of decay surrounded her. Her hands were covered in cool, brown blood. She kneeled on top of the monster. Kneeled there in silence. Her eyes built up with stinging tears. Why did she have to go and throw everything away? Why couldn’t she just have someone? Just for once?

A thought flashed into her mind. A memory. Something Dad once said to her.

“Don’t let the world beat you down, Chlo. If you let it beat you down, you’ll never win. Secret to being tough is pretending you’re tough. ’Cause everyone’s just pretending, really.”

And another memory. Doing maths homework with her dad. Throwing a tantrum ’cause she couldn’t for the life of her figure out the answer.

“Use that head of yours, Chlo. Use that head of yours.”

She clenched her eyelids together. Leaned face-first against the dead weight of the monster.

Use that head of yours.

Use that…

A thought flashed into Chloë’s mind. Or more, a memory. A memory of something long ago. Months ago, even.

There was a place. A place she’d come across last winter when she was separated from the rest of her group. A Warburtons factory. She’d gone there in search of her dad. It wasn’t far away from the Morecambe area that her old group got split up around.

She just remembered the endless walks through the icy woods. The harsh grasp of winter.

But most of all, Chloë remembered that factory.

Remembered the trucks parked outside.

Her stomach started to tingle. She lifted her face from the dead body of the monster. Her heart started to race. She didn’t know exactly where that factory was. She didn’t know how long it’d take her to get there.

But she had a plan.

She stood up. Wiped the loose flesh of the monster away from her body. A plan formulated itself in her mind. One step followed the next. A risky plan, sure, but the best plan she had.

It would take time. Days. Weeks, even.

And it would take a bit of luck even to get it started.

But she had a plan.

She had something.

Something other than blind faith, something other than cursing herself and blaming herself for the capture of Dad and Alice.

She had an idea.

She stepped away from the fallen bodies. Walked away. Walked towards the thickening trees.

It might be like finding a needle in a haystack—as Mum always used to say when she was looking for something in the shed—but she knew that what she needed was here, in these woods somewhere.

She knew the factory couldn’t be too far away.

She just had to find it.

She heard a groan. Heard footsteps. Turned, saw three monsters staggering out of the trees behind her. All in various stages of decomposition, all with nasty bite wounds, all with empty eyes.

Chloë looked at them.

Narrowed her eyes.

“I’m coming for you, Dad.”

She lifted the knife.

Hurtled towards the monsters.

Took them down, one by one.

Then she turned.

Looked into the thickening woods.

Took a deep breath.

Ran.