Fear the Dead: A Zombie Survival Novel (14 page)

Chapter
16

I saw the sheer number of them, and my
mouth fell open. There were at least a hundred dead faces, some with their lips
torn off, eyes missing, arms cut in half, entrails hanging loose. Some stumbled
into one another and fell to the floor, only to be trampled on by those behind
them. There were so many that it was like a travelling battalion marching to
war, except this army had no purpose or aim.

I looked at David. He was leant so far back
against the car that it was like he was trying to melt into it. His hands
clutched for the door handle behind him, as though he didn’t dare turn round to
find it in case one of the infected pounced.

We needed to escape or fight, those were
our only choices. The car was dead, so that was out of the question, and I
didn’t want to be walking on the road on foot during the night. There were
other things to worry about apart from the infected.

Fighting them would be foolish. I could
take three of them, at a push, Justin could handle one and David was only good
for standing there in shock. That left a hundred of them still left to fight.

Above us a sheet of black had covered
the sky and blotted out the light so that not even the stars were shining.

I took a step forward, grabbed the
handle and opened the car door. I shoved David’s shoulders down so that he
didn’t bang his head and pushed him into the car. Justin followed suit and
opened the passenger door, got inside and shut it as quietly as he could.

I looked at the infected getting closer,
their numbers large enough to trample anything in their path, and something
inside me wanted to shout out. I felt a cold panic in my chest, and my skin was
tingling. I had never seen this many in my life.

“Kyle, get in,” said Justin.

I opened the driver door, sat down and
tried to get my breath back.

“Now what?” asked Justin.

From the back of the car, David spoke.
“Seen this lot before. They’re like a shoal of fish, they wander around and any
infected they see get swept up. When I saw them there was half this many.”

“How do you know they’re the same ones?”
I said.

“Recognise some of them.”

The infected got closer, so that now
they were ten metres away from the car. It was clear that they were going to
walk in our direction. I gripped the sides of my seat and sucked in the insides
of my cheeks.

“What can we do?” I said.

David looked at my eyes in the rear view
mirror. “Just wait it out.”

I shook my head. “No fucking way I’m
just sitting here with a hundred of them close enough to spit on.”

He leaned forward a little. His voice
was a whisper. “Nothing else you can do. You can’t run. You can’t fight. You
have to trust me. Just wait it out.”

I leant my head back and banged it
against my seat. Yet again I was put in a position where I had to go by someone
else’s word. I never wanted any of this; I was just fine on my own. Well, not fine,
but I survived.

 It was the end of the frigging world
and it was
still
impossible to avoid people.

I sighed. “Not much of a choice.”

The infected stumbled past us. It was
clear now that there was way more than a hundred of them; it was possible we
were even looking at a thousand. How had they all collected together? Was it a
conscious decision to group up, or did they just go with the flow?

As they walked down the road some of
them brushed against the car. A rotten smell drifted in and clogged up my
nostrils, and I realised the driver window was still open. As quietly as I
could, I wound it up. The infected let out an orchestra of moans as they passed
us.

“It’s going to take an hour by the looks
of it,” I said.

I remember once Clara and I were driving
home from the Lake District when  we got stopped in the road by a herd of
roving cows. The farmer leading them apologised, but we were stuck in the road
for half an hour waiting for them to pass. I remembered being pissed off at the
time, but looking back I didn’t realise how lucky I was. After all, cows
couldn’t eat you.

Justin leaned his head back and spoke to
David. “What do you call a group of infected? Is it a pride?”

“Probably a herd,” said David.

“More like a murder,” I said.

David frowned. “That’s crows.”

“Still fits.”

“A parliament of infected,” said Justin,
and laughed.

“What are you talking about?” I said.

Justin smiled. “A group of owls is
called a ‘parliament’. I think it fits the infected, too.”

Soon David caught on and let out a
chuckle, and even I found it hard not to smile.

I felt my calf muscles start to cramp a
little, so I stuck my leg forward and stretched out the muscle. I looked to the
trees in the distance and wondered if any owls were nesting in there, whether
there were even any owls still living. I guessed that most of them would have
been killed by stalkers.

The night wore on and the infected
carried on shuffling past. We were about halfway through now, and it gave me
the feeling of being in the eye of a tornado. I felt my stomach sink. Next to
me, Justin was asleep. I looked at him and blinked, marvelling at how the kid
had managed to sleep with hundreds of infected just feet away.

David cleared his throat, and leant
forward.

“Kyle.”

I turned round. “Yeah?”

He paused for a second, as though he
were trying to compose his words.

“I still need to know why.”

I let out a long sigh. I knew what he
was asking me; he wanted to know why I had left him after Clara died. For years
I tried to bury the memories of that night – of our group being attacked,
people being ripped apart, turning round and seeing one of the infected 
tearing flesh from Clara’s arm. I gritted my teeth and tried to push the images
back.

“What does it matter now?” I said.

David hung his head. “You know me, Kyle.
Better than anyone. Like a brother.”

I nodded.

“So I need to know why you abandoned me.
We were the only survivors. I needed you, and you left me to die alone.”

Outside the sky looked bloated with
darkness, as though any second it was going to vomit it out on top of us. The
faint moans of the infected floated into the car.

“I’d just lost my wife. No, not lost. I’d
let
them kill her - I couldn’t protect her. And when it was all done,
and it was just me and you, I couldn’t even look at you. “ I put my hands on
the steering wheel and gripped it. “I failed her, David. I failed everyone.”

For a while the only sounds were the scuffling
of the feet of the infected.  I sat and took in deep breaths. I could feel
tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. I’d never spoken about this before.
I’d barely even allowed myself to think about it.

David leaned forward and pout a hand on
my shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said.

I let the words sink in. I could feel my
whole body start to shake, and emotion overtook me. I felt it run through my
arms and legs, like adrenaline but thicker and heavier. I blinked and put a
hand to my eyes, wiping away the moisture.

I turned round and looked at David. Although
they were brother and sister, he looked absolutely nothing like Clara.

“I’m sorry, David,” I said. “After it
happened, I couldn’t face anyone. I didn’t trust myself to protect anyone
again, because I knew that I’d only let them down and lose them.”

He nodded and squeezed my shoulder.

A weariness overtook my body and I felt
the energy seep out of my arms and legs. I felt my eyelids start to drop. Then
I took one look at the infected outside and I forced my eyes open. Now wasn’t
the time for sleep.

“Go ahead,” said David. “Get some sleep.
I’ll keep watch tonight.”

I shut my eyes, but I couldn’t let
myself sleep.

***

Five hours later I watched the sun rise
to the east of us, in the direction of the farm. We were only twenty-five miles
away now, which was walkable in a day or so. As long as we avoided the
parliament of infected, we would be okay.

I reached across and shook Justin’s shoulder.
He groaned, lifted his head and rubbed his eyes.

“Jesus, what time is it?” he said.

“Time to go.”

I looked behind me. David was awake and
picking at a loose thread on his coat. I stretched my arms and legs, feeling my
joints crack and my muscles expand. I took a deep breath and tried to fill my
lungs with air, but I spluttered.

“So stuffy in here,” I said. “It
stinks.”

I grabbed the window handle and twisted
it, and the glass wound down. As the cold morning air blew into the car,
something else also drifted in.

It was the sound of an engine. I looked
in the rear view mirror and saw the vehicle getting closer.

“Shit,” I said.

It was a pick-up truck, and it was
driving down the road toward us. Torben Tusk was behind the wheel.

Chapter
17

I slid down in my seat as much as I
could and left only the top of my head on show. Behind me on the back seat,
David was curled up and his eyes were shut. Next to me, Justin was asleep in
the passenger seat. Too much of him was on show, and if Torben glanced at the
car as he drove past he was sure to see him.

I tapped Justin on the shoulder, but he
didn’t stir. A bubble of spit blew from the corner of his mouth and popped. I
gave him a hove, and this time his eyelids flickered and then opened.

He looked at me, blinked, and then went
to say something. I reached across and put my hand over his mouth.

“Don’t move, don’t speak. Trust me.”

When he nodded, I slid my hand slowly
away from him. I moved back down my seat and beckoned Justin to do the same in
his. He moved his body down the seat, finding a lot easier than I did. Now we
just had to hope that David didn’t decide to wake up.

The truck got closer and soon it was
driving next to us. Through some instinct I breathed in and held my breath as
it passed, as though breathing might somehow give away our position. The truck
rumbled past and stopped outside the Babe and Sickle. Torben got out followed
by his friend who, last time we saw him in the pick-up, was the driver. Now I
could see why he wasn’t anymore; he had a make-shift sling around his right arm,
and part of it was smeared red.

The pub was only twenty feet away and it
was a calm day, so we could hear the hunters talk. I reached for the handle and
slowly wound down the window.

“Pass me the tracker,” said Torben. His
voice sounded rougher than normal, his tone more clipped.

The driver reached over to the truck,
picked something up and passed it to Torben. “What’d ya think they’re doing out
here?” he asked.

Torben twisted the device in his hands,
pressed something and then stared at it.

When I got a good look it at, I felt
something sharp twist through my chest. That was my GPRS! Torben Tusk was
holding my GPRS, and it seemed like it was working. I snapped my head to Justin
to see if he was watching this. His wide eyes and furrowed brow confirmed that
he was. I was dying to saying something, but now wasn’t the time.

I felt my forehead begin to sweat. My
hands shook, and my face felt like it was heating up. There was no way this was
a coincidence, no way that Torben had got his hands on
another
GPRS and
just happened to be going in the same direction as us. There was only one
explanation for this.

He’d gotten my GPRS to work, and he knew
where the farm was.

I took a second to calculate our odds.
From what I had seen there were a minimum of four hunters – minus the one I saw
get eaten in the warehouse – with the probability of there being at least a few
more that I hadn’t see yet. I knew they had at least two guns, double what we
had, and they actually knew how to use them. That put us at a pretty big
disadvantage.

There was nothing I could do right now
other than listen and hope to get some idea of their plan.

“This fucking thing,” said Torben.
“Never works properly. Thought you fixed it?”

The driver screwed up his face. “Got us
here, didn’t it?”

Torben held the GPRS in one hand and
picked at his teeth with the other. “Should have just snatched the kid,” he
said. He tossed the GPRS back to the driver. “Anyway, get in there and see what
they got. If you see any bottles of stout, grab me a couple,” he said, and
pointed at the Babe and Sickle.

While the driver searched the pub Torben
rested on the bonnet of the pick-up. From time to time he’d glance back in our
direction, making me sink lower in my seat, but mostly he stared at the road
ahead in contemplation.

After ten minutes the driver came back
out. They got in the pick-up truck, revved the engine and then left.

As soon as they were out of sight, I
turned to Justin. I poked him in the chest, jabbing my finger so hard it made
him wince. I could feel my head get tight, and most lips curled.

“I thought you said it was broken? Huh?
That nobody would be able to use it? That’s the only reason I didn’t beat the
crap out of you when Torben took our stuff – because you promised me he
wouldn’t be able to work it.”

Justin chewed his lip and furrowed his
brow. “I’m sorry Kyle, I didn’t know. Really – I thought it was trashed.”

“Damn it” I said. I pounded the steering
wheel, and the horn went off.

Behind me David jumped awake. He rubbed
his head. “What’s going on?”

“We’re fucked, that’s what’s going on,”
I spat.

I opened the car door and got out,
slamming it behind me. I didn’t care who heard us now. I walked to the boot,
opened our bag of supplies. I tipped most of it back into the boot and left a
fifth still in the bottom of the rucksack, which I  slung over my shoulder.
Next to all the food was the shotgun. I thought about taking it, but then I put
my hand on my belt and rested on the handle of my knife.

That would be enough. They needed to gun
more than me, and I wasn’t a total monster.

The passenger door and opened and Justin
got out. He walked over to me and looked at the food scattered across the boot
of the car.

“What are you doing?”

I could feel my blood running red hot
through my veins. Right now Justin’s face annoyed me too much. Did he realise
what he’d done? Did he understand that ever since he stuck his nose into my
business, things had turned to shit?

I reached forward and shoved him in the
chest, sending him down onto the floor.

“They know where the farm is, and
they’re headed there right now. It’s all fucked Justin, and that’s on you.”

Justin sat up and drew his knees closer
to his chest. There was a scared look to his eyes, as though he didn’t know
what I was going to do next. I knew that for a second he was thinking about
arguing with me, but then he decided better of it. “Look, Kyle, what can I say?
I’m sorry.”

The back door of the car opened and
David stretched a long leg out. “What’s happening?”

I slammed the boot of the car shut and
looked at him. “I’m leaving,” I said. “You two can go to hell.”