Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 1): Chloe (18 page)

J
onas Metcalf had
felt pain many times in his life before.

But having his right hand blasted off was on a different scale entirely.

He leaned back against the spongy cushion of the makeshift hospital bed. One of the very beds he’d helped create. The burning agony crept up his arm and towards his shoulder. He could hear voices above him. People worried. People panicking. The entire Church of Youth going to shit.

And because of what? Because of one lone ranger. Because of one woman.

Because of a little girl.

“Holy One, I—I’m not sure what we can do. The doc’s shot. He’s in bad shape. He’s—he’s—”

“Just stitch me the fuck up, Felix.”

Felix was a bald man with an impossibly round head. He perched over Jonas in the back room of the main building. The place they used as a medical bay. “I—I ain’t ever stitched a thing in my life before. I ain’t—”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” Jonas said.

He smiled at Felix. Smiled, even though his pain was immeasurable. He looked down at where his hand once was. The entire thing had just been blown to pieces. Exploded under the gunfire of that bitch in the woods. The one helping Pete Baines’ daughter.

Well, she’d pay.

She’d pay big-time.

He’d make sure of that.

Personally.

Felix pulled out some string and sharp instruments with his shaking hands. He stepped over to Jonas’ bedside. Outside the room, people shouted. Footsteps echoed up and down the corridors. Jonas had prided himself on this place being secure. A safe haven. He’d taken pride in the organised way in which the Church of Youth went about their lives. The civilised approach.

Right now, it resembled a shambles. A broken, leaderless shambles.

Felix leaned closer to Jonas. He held out some alcohol. Whisky. “You—you want some of this on the wound or—”

Jonas grabbed the whisky with his left hand.

Gulped it back. It was strong. Made him want to puke more than he already did.

But it was getting him drunk.

He needed to be drunk right now.

“Just … just imagine you’re tying up a knot,” Jonas said.

“But—but infection and—”

“If it kills me, it kills me. My legacy will live on. You and the others will make sure of that. Right?”

Felix looked down at the floor. A patch of blood that’d dripped from Jonas’ arm steadily grew.

“Go on,” Jonas said, vision getting blurrier. “Do it.”

Felix took in a deep breath.

Stuck the thread onto the end of the needle.

Pressed it into Jonas’ skin.

Jonas flinched. He let out a cry. His head crackled with electricity, pain like he’d never felt it before.

Felix backed away. “I—I’m sorry. I’m sorry—”

“The fuck you think you’re going?” Jonas shouted. “Get back here. Get back and finish it off.”

Felix stood there, completely still. He looked baffled. Amazed.

“Get back here. Stitch me up. Now.”

Felix nodded.

He walked over to Jonas’ bedside.

Held his shaky hands over the wound. Wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“I’m sorry, Holy—”

“Do it!”

Felix pressed the tip of the needle into Jonas’ arm.

Jonas bit right down onto his bottom lip.

Let a cry out from the pit of his stomach.

He remained awake for the first stitch. Felt every little bit of flesh slice apart as Felix got to work on his arm.

He remained awake for the second stitch, too.

And the third.

And the fourth.

But when the fifth round of stitching came along, Jonas felt his thoughts blurring. Felt his mind losing focus.

He opened his eyes.

Looked up at Felix.

“If … if I die,” Jonas muttered, the words not seeming like they were his. Like they were drifting out of someone else’s body entirely.

“Not gonna let that happen, Holy One. Not gonna let that happen to you.”

The shouts in the corridor faded. The taste of booze on his tongue dulled. Even the pain in his arm drifted away, became irrelevant, numbed.

“If … If I die. You … you wait for the girl to return. Then you kill the woman. You kill her slow. And…”

Darkness wrapped around Jonas’ consciousness.

All noises ceased.

“You find the girl. In the next seven days. By midnight. You keep … you keep Pete and that bitch alive until then. And—”

“Stay with me! Stay with me!”

Jonas’ vision faded completely. Every sensation in his body dulled.

All he was aware of were the words.

The words leaving his mouth.

“If you don’t find the girl in the next week, you leave her dad’s body on the gates for her to find. That’ll … that’ll draw her in. And when it does, you … you chop away her limbs. You put her through hell. And only when she’s nothing but an empty vessel of a human, you burn her. Alive.”

“Holy One! Jonas! Jonas, wake the fuck up!”

A consciousness-splitting cry from above.

Then, nothing.

A
lex Parbold slammed
the cell door and rubbed his left hand against his stinging fists.

He looked around the dingy room. Looked up and down the cell blocks. He could hear voices behind each and every door. Crying behind some. Coughing and spluttering behind others. Behind some of them, he could hear people crying out. Friends calling out. Old friends.

Old friends who’d stepped out of line.

Since Jonas slipped into unconsciousness and hadn’t woken up, the Church of Youth’s stronghold had collapsed in a rapid fashion that made Alex wonder whether it ever was so safe and orderly at all. There was dissent. Arguments over who should succeed Jonas, the Holy One. Conflict over who had the honourable right to stand where he’d stood.

There were fights. Conflicts. Shootings in the streets.

The Church of Youth was hardly renowned for its mercy.

But more blood had been spilled in the last seven days than any time under the Holy One’s leadership.

He swallowed a sickly lump in his throat. Walked down the cracked tiles of the corridor, away from the cell blocks, towards the door leading outside. He looked at his watch. Saw blood dripping down his hand. It made the nausea in his stomach intensify. The memory of what he’d had to do. The final orders that the Holy One had given to Felix—who also lay dead.

Make Pete Baines and the woman suffer.

Kill them if Pete’s kid doesn’t return in seven days.

Alex noticed the time. Five past ten.

There was less than two hours left of the seventh day.

He wiped the blood on his black trousers and walked over to the cell block door. Outside, he could see heavy rain lashing down, illuminated by the bright moonlight. The storm had been intense these last few days. Seemed typical, fitting, that as the Holy One slipped away, the gods rained down their rage on their civilisation.

But there was something else that bothered Alex about the storm, too.

The ground around the fences was growing muddier. The fences were less sturdy. It shouldn’t be a problem, really. After all, they had construction workers and architects recruited. People to help a place like this keep on going.

But the lead on the wall’s construction, Haiden Parker, was killed three days ago. Stabbed in the street.

And the rest of the team that worked on the wall. Something had happened to them, too. Either they’d been killed, imprisoned or tortured to a point that they were incapable of aiding the group.

Alex stared at the rain. Watched it hurtle down on the top of the wall, splash off the metal hangars.

This kind of chaos wouldn’t have happened under the Holy One.

Jonas would not have allowed it.

“Alex?”

He turned to the voice. Saw Peterson walking his way. Peterson had long, ginger hair, and always wore a black coat unzipped at the chest. Carried that rifle around everywhere with him these days. Alex wasn’t too keen on him. He was one of the brutes. Someone who wouldn’t hesitate in putting a bullet through a dissenter’s head.

Burned more people alive than Alex could count.

But he’d stayed on the right side of Peterson. He’d been careful. Watched what he said.

It was important to be friends with people like Peterson.

Might just be the difference between life and death. Especially as Peterson always fancied himself stepping up into the Holy One’s shoes if anything ever happened to him.

Peterson stopped. Leaned on the metal railing. Rain dripped down his thin ginger hair. “So. I see blood on your hands. I can assume you’ve done it?”

Peterson turned. Shot a glare at Alex.

Alex looked down at the knuckles on his right hand. Saw the bruising forming. The pain was bad. Should probably go down to med bay and have it stitched up. “I … There’s still—”

“Two hours,” Peterson said, somehow lighting a cigarette in these torrential conditions and blowing a plume of smoke off into the air. “Right. I get that. But what difference does it make? Really?”

Alex held a smile. Looked over at the Church of Youth grounds. So much quieter than it used to be. Other than the not-so-subtle presence of heavily armed guards. “The Holy One’s last command was to wait for the girl. If she didn’t return in seven full days, we—”

“Butcher the bitch and the dad. Right.” He took another puff on his cigarette. “But you seriously think that little kid’s just gonna come wandering back in here? Especially how armed up to our bollocks we are?”

Alex thought about the little girl. Chloë. The way she’d killed Mike, when she’d fled the camp. Mike was a tough motherfucker. So tough that nobody spoke about him being killed by a kid. Not something anyone’s pride wanted to deal with. “I think it’s important not to underestimate Chloë. If her dad and her friend are alive, we’ve got leverage.”

“She ain’t fucking coming back,” Peterson said. He tossed his cigarette off the balcony and towards the ground below. “And if she does, who gives a fuck what the Holy One said? He said a lot of shit. A lot of shit we know was wrong now.”

“Want to be careful saying that.”

Peterson smiled. “Why? Holy One’s ghost gonna come down and burn me?”

Alex didn’t want to smile back. He didn’t want to join in Peterson’s mockery.

But he had to.

Peterson cleared his throat. Alex smelled the booze that always clung to his breath. “Nah. We need to make a clean break. Place has gone to shit these last seven days. Like fucking ants without a queen. All this struggling for power. No leader figure. No one to give orders.” He leaned back against the balcony. Looked out at the guards in the grounds. “Need someone for these people to look up to again. All of ’em.”

Alex joined Peterson on the railing. “Thinking of volunteering?”

Peterson looked Alex in the eye. “Thinking of something.”

He turned. Looked back at the prison cell blocks. Then back at Alex.

“What you thinking?”

Peterson shook his head. “When the Holy One gained power. From Pete. He did it through shock. He did it through making these citizens here see how powerful he was. But he showed mercy, too. Mercy for those who accepted imprisonment. Mercy for the wives of the soldiers. Mercy for the children.”

“Mercy is key to the preservation of the human race.”

“And look where it fucking got us,” Peterson said.

Alex noticed Peterson’s hands. So tightly wrapped around the railing, they were turning yellow.

He let Peterson’s breathing ease. Didn’t want to interrupt him. He’d seen what happened to people who interrupted Peterson a few too many times.

“We need to kill them.”

“Like I said, we’ve got … just about two hours before—”

“Not just Pete and Alice. All of ‘em.”

Alex’s stomach turned. “All of … all of the prisoners? But they—”

“They turned against the Holy One, Alex. The Holy One you’re so keen to lick the fucking ass of.” Specks of spit hit Alex’s face, immediately washed away by the torrential rain. “We’ve shown mercy long enough. Now it’s time to show we’re ready for a new era. Show we’re not fucking afraid of the future. Of moving forward.”

He planted a heavy hand on Alex’s shoulder. “To show who’s in charge now.”

Alex’s heart raced. He thought at first maybe Peterson was just messing around. Just one of those wild claims he spouted now and then.

But no. That look in his eyes said everything. He was serious. Deadly serious.

“Order the guards to the cell blocks,” Peterson said.

“But—”

Peterson squared up to Alex. “Do you want to be in a fucking cell, too?”

Peterson’s bloodshot eyes peered at Alex. And right there, in that moment, Alex saw the Peterson he’d done his best to avoid in all his time in the Church of Youth. The violent man. The unstable psychopath.

The man making a break for complete control.

“No,” Alex said.

“Good,” Peterson said. “Have everyone in the cell blocks in the next five minutes. Guards, citizens, everyone. And make sure they bring something sharp.”

He turned. Walked towards the cell door.

“Something sharp?”

Peterson stopped. Looked back at Alex.

“We’re gonna give burning a miss this time. New era, and all. Figure skinning ’em alive will be something new. Something fresh.”

He smiled. His yellow teeth glowed in the moonlight.

Then he turned and walked back towards the cells again.

Alex looked around. Looked at the guards. Some of whom had people they cared about locked in these cells.

A new era.

A new era of fear.

He walked up to the metal barrier.

Put his hands against it.

Heart pounding.

Chest tightening.

He knew what he had to do. He just had to comply. All he’d ever done here was comply. It’d kept him alive. Kept him safe.

Even with all the wrong things he’d been forced to witness, forced to do, he’d just complied.

Compliance was the way of the new world.

He closed his eyes.

Took a deep breath.

Cleared his throat.

“Guards!” he shouted.

One by one, the guards turned. Looked at him standing there. Like he was on a pedestal, a stage.

He waited. Waited for them all to turn. And suddenly he didn’t want to speak. He didn’t want to give this order. It went against the Holy One’s last wishes. It went against everything Alex believed in.

“You … you need to gather the citizens and head to the cell blocks in the next five minutes.”

“Why the fuck would we do that?” someone shouted.

Alex swallowed. The rain grew heavier. He thought about all the lives he was condemning to death. All because he couldn’t stand up for himself. All because he could only comply.

“Because … because we’re ushering in a new era.”

The guards didn’t hear his final words.

He barely heard them himself.

Something smashed against the weakening walls around the stronghold.

Made a huge indentation in the metal.

“The fuck was that?” someone shouted.

Alex held his ground. Narrowed his eyes. The rest of the guards went over to investigate.

But Alex stayed put.

Because something wasn’t right.

He could feel it.

H
e didn’t see
her watching.

Nobody did.