Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] (52 page)

The dust on the bottom step would serve as my post it note. I jumped over it, turned around, and wrote the name of the next town into the accumulated dust, followed by my name so she’d know who’d written it. I wiped my finger down my trousers and stepped out into the sunlight, feeling like I done the right thing. She would understand, but even if she didn’t, I wasn’t going to lose sleep over it. After all, this whole thing was her fault in the first place.

Blakely wasn’t like this place, and the next town, like the rest of London, was buried beneath eleven years of uncontrolled plant growth. Once I got there I’d set a fire going, it would serve as a beacon for my sister. I wasn’t bothered about anyone else seeing it, after all, I was a hunter; what did I have to fear from anything?

The irony of my last thought didn’t even raise a single smile. I took a deep breath, frowning as I realised that even the air tasted dead. “Stop that, you blathering idiot,” I retorted. It was highly likely that whatever happened here occurred a long time ago, and the chances of discovering the reason as to why was effectively zero. I should put it down to yet another unexplainable event and move on.

I hurried past a local graveyard, averting my eyes at the sight of the overturned earth and broken open coffins. The desire to get the fuck out of here grabbed me and refused to let go. My hurrying turned into a jog that ended up as a sprint. Before our old house passed from sight, I glanced behind me one last time just to ensure that my sister wasn’t behind me. No such luck, all I saw was more of the same fucking grey.

This place, the weirdness, this sterilised feel, and especially the stillness, was beginning to freak me out. We had expected the town to be relatively clear of the dead, but nothing could have prepared me for this.

Neither of us was in any mood to engage in a pitched battle with the hordes of shambling dead that inhabited the towns, yet it appeared that the balance was changing over.

Before her sudden decision to move, we had been slumming it inside a pub for the past couple of months. For the first time in years, we had actually discovered a place untouched since the outbreak. So untouched, we even found the original occupants lurking in one of the rooms on the second floor.

The dead things soon started to move when their senses detected a hunter had broken through one of the barricaded windows. Apart from my little encounter with those two, neither of us had seen of any dead things since before the last winter. All that changed in just one week.

Exactly eight days ago we caught sight of the first procession of shambling corpses. I was in the bedroom idly staring out of the window whilst chewing on a piece of jerky that Danielle had found on her last trip. I noticed movement on the horizon and immediately believed that they were horses. Of all the livestock able to flourish through this disaster, the horses had come out top. I hadn’t seen a cow or a pig in over a decade.

Their true appearance only became known once they got a little closer. I almost choked on my food when I saw how many they were. Danielle’s cry of alarm told me that she had seen them as well. My sister ran into the room and stood behind me, her hands on my shoulders. She was shaking like a leaf. I couldn’t blame her, there must have been thousands of them out there, all lurching and stumbling towards some unknown destination. Thankfully, that didn’t include our refuge.

I slowly stood up and closed the window, unable to keep my eyes off this unprecedented spectacle. This line went on throughout the night. In the morning, apart from the choking stench and lumps of meat that had fallen from their moving bodies, there was no sight of any other zombie.

It was my sister who suggested that our town might be clear, and that it was obvious that the food had run out, hence the mass exodus. I couldn’t fault her logic, but I still insisted on waiting for another few more days before we ventured out of our secure home.

My first sight of green was just yards from me. I slowed to a jog and breathed a sigh of relief as my feet passed over some invisible barrier. With grass and weed under me now, that feeling of extreme unease finally began to lift. Looking back, perhaps I shouldn’t have gone along with her plan and stayed inside the pub where it was safe.

Then again, maybe not. I ground the heel of my shoe into the soft earth, feeling thoroughly ashamed of my behaviour. Deep down I knew what the fuck was wrong with me. Of course, I did, I wasn’t a complete idiot. I had been starving myself of meat ever since I wavered onto the dark side. The food that Danielle had found for me kept my human body going, but that was about all it did.

I was acting more human now than I did before the outbreak.

The greys in front of me still defied explanation, and right now all I wanted was to lie down, preferably with the knowledge that my sister was safe. That wasn’t going to happen, though, at least not yet; there was no chance of me stepping back onto that dead ground. I took a deep breath and forced my shame back before turning around.

A new landscape now awaited me. This one was just as formidable as the one I left behind. Even though I had known what to expect, I still could have kicked myself for now realising just how much greenery there would be here. I wrote down the one place where Danielle and I definitely knew in Blakely. The Centenary Square was an open paved area in front of the town’s civic centre. We used to visit every year when they held the annual German market. Thing is, seeing my hometown almost untouched by the vegetation affected my perception of what Blakely would be like.

I ran the tip of my fingers along the nearest block of green. Picking away at some of the rich green moss, I found a crumbling concrete wall. “This is a mistake,” I muttered. Nature truly had run amok here; it felt as though the plants had made up for not being able to establish a presence in my town. From where I stood, even I doubted that I’d be able to get to the square.

Eleven years without human interference had made this place unrecognizable. I hurried along the moss-covered wall, taking care not to catch my feet on the dozens of thick shoots that had pushed up between the paving, dislodging the stone. The road to my side was just as impassable thanks to a solid bank of bramble that filled the space. This was my only way into town. I considered staying where I was and wait for her to find me, but I tossed that idea in the bin. What if she approached the town from another direction?

“Why did you have to leave there?” I whispered, hating the sound of my voice. I sounded like the whining teenager I never was. God, I couldn’t believe how afraid I felt. I stopped dead, held my breath, and strained my hearing, knowing that at least some part of my new senses were still operating. I wasn’t alone in here, of that much I was certain, and I hadn’t been alone ever since I entered the perimeter of this overgrown area.

Somebody was watching me. I jerked my head back and looked up into the thick branches. A human face glared back down at me. He was about my age, completely naked, with a thin muscular frame. The man growled before he ran across a thick overhanging branch and dived into the adjacent tree. Before I even had time to take a breath, my observer had already made his way into a hole in the building and disappeared into the darkness.

Judging from the noise blasting from his exit, the new arrival had comrades, and by the sound of the raised voices, far more than I was able to handle. Then again, considering my weakness, I wouldn’t have even been confident about tackling the one man.

I stepped back and pressed my body against the wall, gaping in astonishment as over a dozen humans emerged, each one blinking in the bright sunlight. I saw the one who’d initially spotted me, right at the back, I also noticed that he was now armed with a weapon. He carried a thick wooden club—a broken armchair leg—complete with thick nails driven into the end.

“I don’t want any trouble,” I shouted. “I’m only passing through.”

Two men scrambled down, jumping onto the floor a few feet from when I stood. I couldn’t believe the size of the man at the front. The others were all the same built. In this new world, where there was hardly enough food to go around, most humans were all on the thin side, except for this one. I was big, but this guy looked like he could eat two of me.

The man grinned and calmly approached, a rough grin painted across his pockmarked face. “Well, this is most surprising.” He turned around. “We will be eating tonight,” he yelled.” The man turned back. “Isn’t this a turn up for the books! I never believed that I’d bump into another hunter.” It wasn’t until I felt his mind trying to penetrate mine that I finally understood. I had met my first true hunter, I also realised that this bastard really was going to eat me. I saw the naked lust in his large black eyes.

He growled deep in his throat before lunging. His hands caught my wrists, and he pulled me towards him before thrusting my body back and swinging me into the side of the tree. I slammed into the bark, my senses reeling.

“He’s a hunter,” yelled the man. Go back to the hall and wait for me.”

Through my pain-blurred vision, I saw him licking his lips.

“I’m going to take my time with you,” he purred. “Christmas has come early for me.”

“Wait,” I cried. “How can you eat me? I am like you. We’re the same.” I struggled in his grip. “Come on, you know our meat is poison to each other.”

The man laughed. He released one of the wrists, fastened his hard fingers under my chin, and pulled me forward. “Where did you hear that shite? No, don’t bother replying, I’ve just found it.”

The bastard was inside my mind; I recoiled as his stinking probes teased open every locked door to get at my most secret thoughts. What made the situation worse was this fucker had been inside me before I even crossed the barrier. I mentally shuddered, feeling his cold claws peel my memories back, layer by layer, I heard his dark chuckle echoing inside my head; he knew full well that I could stop him.

“Please,” I begged.

The hunter pushed his face hard against mine. “You dare to beg? Just what kind of a hunter are you? Colin, you sad little worm, your education is sadly lacking in the affairs of your own kind. Now, if you had stumbled into my kingdom a few days ago, I might have taken you under my wing and ‘educated’ you.” The hunter took his probes out of me and threw me to the floor. “Alas, providence showed me that it’s not just you whose knowledge of our world is full of gaps.”

The hunter clicked his fingers. He lifted his leg and pushed his boot hard against the side of my neck, and I could only watch in horror as his human accomplices jumped out of the tree and descended upon my immobile body. The bastards trussed me up with thick cord and wire, yet even this act gave me some respite. It meant that this other hunter wasn’t going to consume me immediately, and it gave me a little time to work out how to get away.

He spun around, laughing. “Get away? You’re going nowhere, little worm.”

“Why are we even bothering, Alan?”

I looked towards the direction of the outspoken human. He’d finished wrapping thick rope around my ankles and was getting back onto his feet. He too looked my age, but unlike the other humans, his skin wasn’t taught over his bones. This joker had access to food. The man pushed his fingers through his long dirty blond hair and took a deep breath. From how the others had ceased their business and were gazing up at him, I guessed that this one must be the spokesman for the other humans.

“I mean no disrespect, but we need to eat as well.” The man couched and ran his fingers along the inside of my thigh. “Why do we have to use this fucker as bait?”

The hunter stared at the others, one by one. I saw the movement, but didn’t take much notice, my mind was still whirling over the human’s outrageous suggestion. This bastard was actually wanting to eat me! Depression soon silenced my fury. Why should I even be surprised by this turn of events? Fuck, I’ve been a sheep in wolf’s clothing ever since last year. I was weak, and I deserved to die.

“Can you see what I have to put up with now?”

His tone of voice made my blood boil, pushing away just a sliver of my own self-pity. Okay, so I was going to die here, that much I’d already realised, and I hadn’t come to terms with the prospect, but then again, who did? Even in this world where life and death was more closely linked that any one pre-event could have anticipated, it was still a terrifying ordeal, even for me.

The last thing I needed before meeting my maker was for this fucking jumped up alpha male talking to me exactly like my sister used to address me when I was a kid. Back when mum had ordered her to look after her annoying ten year old brother when all she wanted to do was to fuck about in the mall with her mates.

‘Can you see what I have to put up with now?’ Danielle’s favourite saying back then. Had this bastard purposely stolen that from me, just one more taunt before he had me killed?

Surprisingly, it appeared that his words were just a coincidence. Although the hunter appeared to be giving his second in command a bit of a dress down, complete with the use of a withering look that would have put my sister’s looks to shame, inside, this fucking psycho was absolutely furious.

He had extreme difficulty in controlling his temper, and I discovered that the mental transfer ceased to be a one-way affair. My own mental probe hitchhiked on his

This was one hunter that had had some raging anger issues back when he was a lowly human. I saw a glimpse of a young man aged sixteen smashing up his mum’s best plate collection because she had the nerve to tell his dad that she’d caught him smoking weed. I blinked, realising that I was actually in the hunter’s mind. The mental transfer had ceased to being a one-way affair. My own measly mental probe had found a way to worm inside. It was a short-lived victory, as the huge man standing beside my tied up body knew almost immediately. He took his raging glare off the human and winked at me.