Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 1): Chloe (7 page)

C
hloë crouched
in the grass and stared at the camp.

The air was cooling. The sun was setting. Even though it’d be a while before it actually set, darkness had already engulfed the woods. Later, as the sun reached the horizon, it might peek through some of the thinner trees. There might be a glimpse of it as it descended for another long and arduous night.

But not usually.

In the woods, there was light, and then there was darkness.

Chloë listened to the mutter of conversation. The occasional sobs. She’d returned to the camp she’d stumbled upon earlier. The one with the barbed and spiked fences, the ditches. It’d taken her a while to find her way back here. She’d lost the trail of the motorbike a few times. Didn’t help that stabbing pains split through the soles of her feet every step she took; that aching crippled her chest and stomach.

It didn’t help that the monsters had stayed hot on her trail even after Dan, the CoY man, disappeared into the crowd of them.

It didn’t help that she had no weapons.

No food.

No water.

Nothing.

She smelled meat cooking. Imagined the taste of luscious squirrel, of tender rabbit. Or rat. Rat would do. Rat would suffice.

She just wanted something.

Just needed something.

But most of all, she needed to find her dad.

She thought back to the diary. Tried to remember what Dad had written in it. She’d lost it while fleeing Dan and the monsters, just like she’d lost everything.

All she could remember word for word was that one line.

I miss Chloë. I miss Elizabeth. I pray they’re okay. I pray Claudia’s okay.

And those final lines. The ones in February about how worried he was. About someone called Jonas.

The rest just blurred together in Chloë’s mind.

All that mattered was the place Seth said he’d found the diary.

“One of the prisoners…”

Did that mean her dad was a prisoner?

She lowered her head as the red-haired woman in the brown cardigan leaned in closer to the crackling fire in the middle of the camp. The second motorbike rested against the door of their wooden cabin. They’d gone out there. Found out something had happened to their friend. Or they’d just assumed something had happened because he hadn’t come back.

Had her dad faced the same fate?

The thought made Chloë feel sick. No. Her dad was strong. Her dad was tough. And in his diary, it sounded like people respected him.

No one would hurt him. He’d find a way to talk himself out of being hurt.

Chloë clung on to that thought as tightly as she could.

She wasn’t sure whether she truly believed it.

Just that she had to find out the truth.

One way or another, she had to find out the truth.

Darkness spread even thicker around the woods. The chattering of insects filled the surroundings. Chloë watched the group. Watched and waited as they sat around the orange glow of the fire. And a part of her wanted to get up. To just say
something
. Something like “Hello”. Something like, “Can you help me?”

But that fantasy didn’t last long.

It didn’t last long because she knew what happened when she trusted people.

To her.

To them.

She knew what happened when she put her faith in others.

They always saw through her.

Or they did something to her.

Or they died.

Always.

She waited for the group to stand. Waited for them to walk over to the cabin. One of the men—tall and blond—put his arm around the crying woman. Led her back towards the cabin. The other man—pot-bellied, with thinning brown hair and a friendly face—stood over the fire. Stared at it. Stared into it, like there was something in there. Something looking back at him. Something reading his thoughts.

He stood there for a few minutes, maybe longer. Stood there as total darkness filled the forest.

Then, he kicked some dirt over the fire.

Covered the flames.

The fire flickered out.

Darkness engulfed the camp.

Chloë stayed on the ground. She listened to the man’s footsteps as he made his way back to the camp. She blinked a few times. Looked around at the trees. Looked at their outline in the night sky. Got a general sense of direction. Of where she was. Of where she had to go.

Then, she looked back at the camp.

Looked over at the motorcycle.

At the tent where she’d seen the group walking in and out with food, water.

She stood up.

Took a deep breath.

Walked around the spiked fence of the camp.

If she couldn’t trust them, she’d rob them.

And then she’d go after her dad.

She’d find her dad.

Whether it meant killing these people or not.

C
hloë stretched
for the top of the spiked fence.

She fumbled around for a gap between the spikes. Last thing she wanted to do was climb up there and impale herself. Didn’t help that it was dark. The middle of the night. No movement but for her hands. No sounds but for the light snoring coming from the group’s cabin.

No margin for error.

She got a grip on a flat section of the fence. Moved her other hand over, struggling to grip hold of the top of the fence.

And then she had hold of it.

A chance to lift herself up.

She held her breath, a lump welling in her throat.

She could do this.

She had to do this.

She lifted herself up the side of the fence.

The climb strained her weakened biceps. But she knew she couldn’t fall. The fence wasn’t all that high a drop on this side, but she’d make a thud when she fell. Hurt her back.

And while she’d make a thud when she fell on the other side, too … well, that was just something she’d have to deal with when she came to it.

She dragged herself up the fence. Her blistered feet scraped against the wood. Splinters pierced her toes, making the pain even worse.

But still, she pulled herself up.

Still, she kept on pulling.

After moments of struggling, trying to keep as quiet as possible in the silent dark, she reached the top. Got a glimpse of the wood cabin the group had built. The mound of dirt where the fire had been lit.

The three tents. A supply tent, and two sleeping tents.

The motorbike.

She looked at that bike. She knew that was her way out. She’d go into the tent, take what she could, then she’d leave. She didn’t need to take a lot. Just enough to get by. She didn’t want to bring too much attention to herself. Not without a weapon. Not in this darkness.

She looked down at the drop below.

Her stomach turned.

She hadn’t seen down into the ditches inside the camp when she’d scouted this place earlier. But at the bottom of them, four feet below the ground, there were spikes. Wooden spikes, just like the ones lined along the side of the fence.

Chloë’s heart picked up. She dry-swallowed. She knew one slight miscalculation of her leap would see her at the bottom of that ditch. Impaled on those spikes. She had to jump. She had to throw herself onto the ground further ahead.

And she had to do it as swiftly and as quietly as possible.

She took a few deep breaths. The cool night air seemed frozen around her, not a trace of wind.

She looked down at the drop.

Then ahead at the soily ground in front of the cabin.

She counted down from three.

And she jumped.

At first, as she flew through the air, Chloë felt like she’d misjudged her jump completely. She flailed, like a cat tossed from a building. Tried to stretch out her arms and legs in front of her.

Then she remembered what Mum said.

When her friend stayed over that night. Carrie. The one who always sleepwalked. To the point that she sometimes jumped out of her bedroom window and onto the garden.

Chloë could never understand how Carrie escaped unscathed. How she got away with just a few cuts and bruises, the occasional twisted ankle.

“
Carrie’s asleep
,” Mum said. “
She loosens her muscles when she’s asleep. That’s what keeps her alive.
”

Chloë remembered Mum’s words as the ground inched closer.

She loosened her muscles.

Thumped into the ground.

For a moment, she felt startled. Her head had collided with the ground, which was far more solid than its soily surface suggested. She heard ringing in her ears. Tasted blood in her mouth from her bitten tongue.

But she was over.

She hadn’t fallen into the ditch.

She was alive.

She was—

She heard rustling. Rustling right opposite.

Rustling from the cabin.

She froze. Her heart picked up. She had to move. She had to hide. Nobody could find her out here. Nobody could—

The tall, blond man stepped out the front of the cabin.

Chloë was convinced he’d seen her. She sat there, completely still. Saw him just ten feet away.

She swore he looked right at her.

But instead of walking towards her, instead of acknowledging her at all, he turned and headed past the front of the cabin.

Unzipped his trousers and started peeing against the fence.

Chloë’s muscles loosened. She knew she was hardly safe, still. She had to hurry. Get into the tent before he came back. She couldn’t risk him looking at her. Not after she’d come so close to being seen the first time.

He kept on pissing against the fence.

Chloë twisted her neck in the direction of the tent.

So close. Just a few metres away.

She took another couple of deep breaths.

And she ran.

She felt something burn through the sole of her foot just before she reached the tent. Something that made her stumble.

Shit. The fire. The charred logs of the fire.

She hobbled towards the tent. Pulled aside the opening. Tried to stay as quiet as possible. Tried not to—

“Hello?”

The man’s voice made Chloë’s entire body solidify.

She wanted to turn around. Wanted to turn away from the tent. Hold her hands up. Admit she’d sneaked in. Accept she’d done wrong.

But she couldn’t.

She just couldn’t.

So she stepped inside the darkness of the tent.

The man’s footsteps got closer. He got so close that Chloë could hear his heavy breathing. She looked around the tent. Looked around for something she could use as a weapon. Anything she could use as a weapon.

No knives in sight.

No guns.

No…

She saw the keys beside the bottles of water.

A big bundle of keys. Loads of key rings—The Simpsons figures, bottle openers.

A penknife.

Chloë crept through the tent. Dropped down to the keys. She could use the knife. Use the knife to slit the man’s throat.

And then she could be out of here on the motorbike before anyone realised what was going on.

She felt the lump in her throat building as the man’s footsteps stopped right outside the tent. She grabbed the keys. Unfolded the penknife. Turned back around and faced the tent entrance.

She waited for the man to pull the tent opening aside.

Waited for him to poke his head inside.

And then she heard a groan.

“Fuck,” the man said, relief evident in his shaky voice. “Holy fuck.”

He walked away from the tent.

Chloë heard him extend the ladder on the inside walls of the camp. The one she’d seen the group looking over before they went into their tents for the night.

She heard him climb up it.

Climb up to the source of the groaning.

She loosened her grip on the knife.

He was distracted.

She had her distraction.

She had her chance.

She walked to the entrance of the tent. Peeked through. Saw the man leaning right over the wall. Pointing a crossbow at something in the woods below. Smile on his face.

She turned her head. Looked at the motorbike. She could get onto it. Start it up. Then she could use one of the other keys to open the gated area of the fence—impossible to see from outside, clearly up ahead now she was on the inside. Whoever had built this camp was good with wood. Good with building, full stop.

Maybe they were good people.

She didn’t have time to find out.

She held her breath. Heart racing. Butterflies flapping their angry wings around her chest.

And then she ran.

Ran towards the fence.

She crouched down in front of the gate. No time to look back. She could hear the bolts of the crossbow firing into the groaning monsters’ heads—and that was enough.

She fumbled around the keys with her shaking fingers.

Tried different ones.

No luck.

No fucking luck.

She was about to give up when one of them fit snugly in the gate door.

When it twisted.

She heard a slight creak from the gate. Looked over her shoulder to check the man hadn’t heard.

Luckily, he was leaning over the fence.

The groans of the monsters drowning out any other sounds.

Chloë looked back at the gate. Pulled it slowly. Tried to keep it as quiet as possible. She felt bad that the monsters would be able to get in. She felt bad for the people of this camp. Maybe they were good people. Maybe they could’ve helped…

No. They couldn’t help her.

And she needed to find her dad.

She pulled the gate open.

Sprinted back towards the bike.

She felt something hot split the middle of her chest.

She tumbled back, not understanding fully.

Hit the ground.

It was only when she heard the footsteps closing in on her that it became more clear.

The tall, blond man crouched down.

Yanked the keys out of her hand.

Pointed the crossbow to her head.

“I’ll give you ten seconds to tell me what the fuck you’re doing in our camp. If you don’t give me a good enough answer, it won’t be a bolt in the chest. It’ll be a bolt in the head. Speak.”