Dead Ahead (21 page)

Cassie was transfixed as three more of them slammed into the gate, then another, and another; it got to the point where she had no idea how many were out there. Faintly she heard shouting from upstairs; it sounded no more than a murmur over the awful din that the Firsts were making, their screeches and scrawls blended together, creating a strangely mesmerising melody.

Cassie leapt back, several of the creatures heads exploded to the left as something large and grey collided with them, sending blood and brains spraying through the grill and smattering Cassie’s face and clothes.

The pack of Firsts thinned out as the headless bodies fell to the floor, letting those that had been at the back surge forward, as they did, Cassie caught sight of the large grey beer barrel swinging towards them from behind; Cassie turned on her heel and fled as it came crashing into the backs of the Firsts heads, spaying a fountain of blood across her shoulders as she ran away.

Cassie collapsed in a heap as she got to the top of the stairs, breathless and shaking she leaned against the wall. Jim, Sarah, Ethan and Zoe came streaming out of the bedrooms excitedly.

“Holy shit...! Did you see that?”

“Yeah...! That beer keg completely wiped them out! How the hell did you come up with that idea, Zoe?”

“It was Mr Crawley’s idea really, he put the whole thing together; I was usually the one stood at the door.”

“Oh shit! Cassie! Are you ok, did they bite you?”

“I’m ok! I’m ok!” She said shakily.

That was all Cassie managed to squeeze out through the turmoil within; but through all the fuss around and within her; her eyes met with Zoe’s as she slowly backed away, and disappeared down the hallway.

It was around an hour later that Cassie heard a knock at her bedroom door. Sarah had insisted that she go for a lie down after her traumatic ordeal; Cassie hadn’t resisted, she had needed the time alone anyway, time to think. She was well over the shock of the creatures gruesome deaths but needed time to think on what Greg had said to her. The second knock on the door snapped her out of it.

“Come in....” Cassie shouted.

Zoe’s face peeked round the door, “They want you in the kitchen.” She said timidly.

“Thanks, Zoe.” Cassie said, and just before the girl disappeared she added, “Oh and Zoe...” She peeked around the side of the door again, looking nervous, “It’s ok, Zoe, I don’t blame you for anything. It was just a shock is all, you don’t need to be worried about me being mad at you.”

“Thanks, Cassie.” She said with a sheepish smile.

“Wait there, let me just put my boots on and I’ll walk down with you.” Cassie said swinging her legs quickly off of the bed.

When they reached the kitchen everyone was stood around the centre worktop with very serious expressions on their faces. Cassie instantly put it down to yet another argument between Ethan and Greg, in which she was only partially correct.

“So you see, Cassie,” Jim said after an overly lengthy explanation, with a lot of butting in from other people, “Greg, Sarah and Zoe have voted for staying here another night, whereas Ethan and me vote for leaving as soon as. What do you think?” Cassie had already made her mind up by this point but was rudely interrupted by Greg before she could speak.

“I don’t think we should just stay here tonight! I think we should head off in a completely different direction in the morning, forget all this
saving the world
bull crap and just get out’a here!”

“What.... and just leave the plant to spread radiation around the world forever? Fucking idiot...!” Ethan shouted back at him.

“C’mon guys, let’s just....” Sarah tried to interject but Greg just shouted over the top of her.

“Who gives a fuck about the world? The world is already dead! What does it matter? Besides, we will be heading south!”

“Oh for fucks sake...! You really think that the wind doesn’t blow south?”

“I don’t fucking know, I’m not Michael fucking Fish am I?”

“I think we should stay!” Cassie said, loud enough to be heard over their shouting.

“What?” Ethan looked at her like she had said that she wanted to jump off a cliff, “You can’t be serious!”

“I’m sorry, Ethan but I think we should stay!”

“Finally...! Someone who can see sense.” Greg said, throwing his arms up in the air and marching out of the room. Slowly, the others left too, leaving Ethan still staring at her with those unbelieving eyes.

“Why?” he asked, almost pleadingly.

“Can’t you
see
, Ethan? If I had chosen to leave, then we would still be arguing right now. It would have been three against three, a stalemate, and yes,
maybe
we would have got to leave today, but then there would have been three of us dragging their heels and putting us in danger. If we leave tomorrow, we do it on good terms and we get some more rest today, to start afresh,
early
tomorrow.”

Ethan still didn’t look happy, “I suppose you may be right. But we still only have five days; four and a half now, only four in the morning!”

“We will get there, Ethan. I know we will....”

“We don’t even have a vehicle! It took us two days to get here in a fully equipped Husky, how in hell are we going to make it the rest of the way on foot?”

“We don’t have to go on foot!” It was Zoe’s voice. How long had she been hiding there? “Mr Crawley has an Argo Cat, two actually. It’s really cool, it’s got eight wheels and it can go on the water as well as land! He took me out on one of them last year, it’s in the shed. Do you want me to show you?”

“I think we should let Jim take care of the Seconds out there first,” Ethan said, amused at Zoe’s sudden burst of enthusiasm, “but once that’s done and we are sure that there are no more of them coming we will go out and look; let’s say about an hour before nightfall?”

“Oh yeah...!” She said, slightly embarrassed at her outburst, “Ok then, I’ll go see if I can find the keys.” Zoe darted out of the door leaving it flapping in her wake.

Cassie shook her head, “I can’t make head nor tails of that girl, one minute she is up, the next she is down. It baffles me.”

“She probably has P.T.S.D. Cassie!” Ethan said at a near whisper.

“Really,” Cassie said in astonishment, “but she’s so
young
!”

“I know plenty of people who suffer from it, and not just soldiers; it can come on as a result of
any
kind of trauma. When you think about everything she has been through, it doesn’t surprise me; she lost her parents, then slowly watched everyone around her get killed, and even had to kill some of them when they turned, I’m surprised she’s not lost it completely. She’s one tough cookie!”

“How do you know so much about it?” Cassie asked, though she thought she knew the answer.

“I wasn’t always stationed in the lab, Cassie. I did my tour, in more places than I can even remember now, seen enough combat to leave scars, and I brought home with me more than I ever wanted.

“Unfit for service! That’s what they called me; but I had seen and knew too much for them to just kick me out, so they bumped me down to Sergeant and stuffed me in a hole in the ground,” Ethan laughed, “Did me a favour now that I look at it!”

“I’m sorry, Ethan, I never knew!”

“Why would you? It’s not something you walk around wearing a t-shirt about,” He lifted his hands and in a mocking manner said, “Beware! Combat stress! I may inexplicably be a complete asshole to you!”

Cassie had to stifle a laugh at his manner.

“It’s ok! I can laugh at it now. Today is a good day, in fact I haven’t really thought about it since we left the compound. I don’t have it so bad anyway; I know vet’s who can barely function in society, they can’t switch off, you know, can’t see that there isn’t actually someone out there trying to get them. Maybe the whole Zombie thing worked in their interests, maybe they are out there quite happy in the knowledge that their paranoia wasn’t in vain?” Ethan looked like he actually took solace in the thought.

“Well if a sixteen year old girl can survive this long,” Cassie said, “then I’m sure there are plenty of other people out there. Otherwise, what are we doing this for?”

Cassie heard someone burst through a door outside of the kitchen, it sounded like Greg shouting and bawling about something, she couldn’t quite make it out till she heard him say, “Where the fuck is he?” She looked to Ethan quizzically to see a sly smile break across his face.

“Oh, no...! Ethan, what have you done now?” She felt like tearing her hair out, those two were determined to destroy each other.

Greg burst though the kitchen door. “There you are you prick! What the fuck have you done with it?”

“Done with what, mate?” Ethan said innocently, still retaining his smirk.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about! Where the fuck is all the drink from the bar?” Greg was at boiling point, his face turning a bright shade of red.

“Oh, that! We used that as target practice this morning, y’know, ranging the rifles and whatnot; very important to range the rifles!”

“Fuck off with that bullshit! You couldn’t have used it all for ranging; it’s all gone, everything, even the taps are dry!”

“I poured the rest of it away first thing, you must have been asleep. I figured we wouldn’t need it, seeing as we were leaving anyway. Besides, we have a very early start tomorrow, wouldn’t want to be hung-over for that now, would we?”

“What right do you have to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, you bastard! If I want to get shitfaced that’s my choice, not yours!”

Ethan leaned in really close to Greg’s face, his mood changed in an instant; the happy go lucky cheeky face replaced by a deadly serious one, “If your being
‘shitfaced’
endangers me, or any other part of this group, then damn
fucking right
it is my choice!” Ethan probed a sturdy finger square into Greg’s chest with a thump, Cassie heard Greg wince at the action, “You, you little
weasel
, only care about yourself, you don’t give a
fuck
about anyone else here,
I’m
trying to keep everyone else safe; and if
you
put anyone else in danger,
anyone else
, I will
personally
take pleasure in killing you myself!”

Cassie was powerless but to watch on. Greg seethed as Ethan stared him down, still with his index finger pointed at Greg’s solar plexus, Ethan slowly pushed him away, making him step backwards towards the kitchen door till Ethan’s arm was at full reach, Greg kept on moving back and Ethan kept on pointing through Greg and towards the door. Greg spun on his heel and left, slamming doors in his wake.

“Was that completely necessary, Ethan?”

“I believe it was!”

“Really...?”

“I have worked with soldiers just like him before; determined to upset the ranks and make life difficult for everyone but themselves. You have to nip it in the bud or it will only get worse!”

“But he’s not a soldier, he’s a computer programmer.”

“We are
all
soldiers now, Cassie, like it or not, we are at war!”

“Well we can’t very well win a war if we are fighting amongst ourselves, can we?” Cassie left that to soak in as she left with all the grace she could muster. Men could be such idiots sometimes!

She confined herself to her room for the rest of the afternoon; not wishing to participate in any more games of ‘shoot the zombie’ she found herself a book to read amongst the possessions of the room’s previous occupant. ‘One fine day in the middle of the night’, the title intrigued her, as she remembered the poem from her youth; the book also began with a band of incompetent soldiers blowing each other up, which wasn’t usually her cup of tea, but she was soon sucked in.

It wasn’t till much later that she was woken from her stupor by a knock at the door, she wasn’t even reading the book any more, she was just staring at the bookmark she found laid between the pages in front of her, reluctant to read beyond the place that the poor unfortunate person before her hadn’t been able to continue with; it seemed unfair to do so somehow, and so was lost in her own thought.

“Come in!” Cassie shouted, and was relieved when Sarah walked through the door.

“How are you feeling, dear?” Sarah asked in her cheery manner.

“I’m fine thanks. How are you?” Cassie said, equally cheery.

“Good, good, I’m, uh....good!”

“You’re good then?” Cassie laughed.

“Yes, I’m good!” Sarah laughed too, “Zoe is taking Jim and Ethan out to see an ‘Agro Cat?’ is that what they called it? Anyway, they were wandering if you would like to join them?”

“The Argo Cat...? Yes! Let me just put my boots on and I will be right with them!”

“Righto...!” Sarah said as she left the room and Cassie scrabbled around on the floor for her discarded boots.

When she made it to the bottom of the stairs she found all three of them patiently waiting on her, well, Ethan and Jim were casually leaned against the wall while Zoe was bouncing on her toes.