Fear the Dead: A Zombie Survival Novel (3 page)

I clenched my left hand
and felt it burn. "It was the smell of your man's piss that brought the
stalker. There were three of them partying in that shack, and three's a crowd.
You know what crowds of people tend to attract? Stalkers, and infected. If
you’re going to blame anyone, then blame your guys for being too scared to
travel alone."

"A man can't live
alone," said Moe.

"I do pretty
well."

He looked at me and
grinned, as though he had made his point. "Yeah, you sure are living the
good life."

I looked at my bandaged
hand and my dirty jeans. I felt fatigued beyond belief, and my head was clamped
in a vice. I'd been travelling for weeks and I was still four hundred miles
away from where I needed to be, and I only had provisions to last me a day. The
only things I had were my dead wife’s bracelet - useless unless I came across
an infected with a taste for fancy gold -, a revolver with no bullets, some
soggy fireworks and a GPRS that was my only link to my salvation. Maybe Moe had
a point. I wasn't living, I was getting by. At least in town they had supplies,
walls and something of a life going for them.

But then again, they also
had to live with each other, and that wasn’t a good thing. Every day you spent
in the company of another person was a day you trusted your life to them,
trusted them not to make some stupid decision that would get you killed.

It was time for me to go.
I sat up and tried to spin my legs round to the side of the bed. It took all
the effort I had and the strain made me sweat. Justin stood away from the
dresser and moved to help me, but I gave him a glare that stopped him cold. I
finally got my feet on the ground, though I didn't want to risk standing up
yet.

"Where's my
things?"

Moe nodded to Justin. The
kid walked to the other side of the room and bent down to the side of a book
case. He picked up my bag and put it on the edge of the bed.

"Not sticking
around?" said Moe.

"Got somewhere I
need to be."

"Where?" asked
Justin, his eyes alive with curiosity. Any mention of anything outside town
seemed to excite him.

"Unless you think
you got a reason to know, I’m not saying."

Moe stood up and reached
into his pocket. As well as a stray piece of fluff, he pulled out my GPRS. I got
to my feet. What was he doing with it? I felt my blood rush to my head and I
saw spots, but I fought through the feeling and stayed upright. The sight of
him holding my GPRS, my only link to the farm, made me want to knock him out
cold.

That wouldn't be the
right thing to do. I couldn't show him what it meant to me, because that would
make it all the more valuable in his eyes. I had to play this smart.

"You went through my
stuff?" I said.

He nodded. "Think
healthcare is free? This ain't the NHS."

"No. They had a
better bedside manner."

Moe smirked. "I was
an old and set in my ways long before things turned to shit, so I'm not going
to pretend to know what this is." He tossed the GPRS on the bed. I cradled
it in my hand and inspected it, but thankfully there didn't seem to be any
damage. I let out a long breath. I placed the GPRS carefully in my bag on the
end of the bed.

"You can take your
gizmo, your game or whatever it is. But I need paying."

I didn't have time for
this. I had to leave right away. Outside the window the sky was white and the
sun was shining. It was actually a beautiful day. It was the kind where, long
before the fall, Clara and I would load up the car with sandwiches and go for a
picnic. Looking at it, you could almost imagine there was nothing wrong with
the world. It wasn't true, obviously. The infected didn't care whether the sun
was shining or it was pissing with rain. They'd tear your flesh apart whatever
the weather.

I looked back at Moe. I
wanted done with this. "Fine," I sighed, "what do you
want?"

He nodded down at my bag.
"That's a nice revolver."

I shook my head. "No
chance."

"It's not much good
to you without bullets, unless you think waving it at one of the monsters will
stop it."

"I'll take my
chances on finding more bullets. I’d rather have the gun and need the bullets,
than find the bullets and need the gun. "

He walked to my bag and
stuck his hand in it. I felt a knot tighten in my stomach. It felt like he was
invading my space. That pack had been my only means of living for months now,
and I had carried food, ammo, clothes, and everything else I needed to stay
alive in it. Seeing someone else going through it made me clench my fists.

"You want to take
your fucking hand out of there?" I said. Something was bubbling up inside
me, and this time it wasn't dry heaves. I filled my lungs and tried to bury the
feeling, knowing that if things kicked off here I would likely have a whole
town to contend with.

"I'd much rather
take this," said Moe, and he pulled his hand out of the bag. In his curled
fist he held Clara's gold bracelet.

I took a step toward him.
My tiredness was gone, replaced for the moment by the energy only fury can give
you. Moe took a step back, but I noticed his right fist tightening into a ball
at his side. Near the dresser, Justin twitched. He looked from me to Moe, as if
weighing up what action to take.

The old man I might have
been able to deal with, but Justin was different. Sure, he was dripping wet behind
the ears and had probably never stepped foot outside town in his life, but he
hadn’t spent the previous night fighting a stalker. I had survival instincts
and experience, but right now he had the physical edge. I didn't take another
step forward.

"You're not having
that."

"What good is it to
you?" he said, letting the gold slink through his cigarette-stained
fingers.

"It's
personal."

Moe looked to the
bracelet, and then to me. A wide grin spread on his face, and his grey
whiskered cheeks tightened. "I didn't have you pegged as the sentimental
sort. Mr Lone Wolf."

In another second I was
going to punch that smile off his face, no matter what the consequences. This
was why I stayed away from people; you couldn’t trust their intentions, and I
couldn’t trust myself not to beat the hell out of them.

"I suggest you take
your fucking fingers off that bracelet."

He threw it on the bed.
"Sure. But it's either the bracelet or the gun. I'm a generous man - I'll
let you pick."

I glanced sideways at
Justin. The kid looked jumpy.

"Suppose I just beat
the crap out of both of you." I said.

Moe laughed. "Even
if a fine physical specimen as yourself were able to do that in your current
state, do you suppose you'd get a foot out of Vasey without getting a bullet in
your back?"

He was right, I knew.
There was no way I was getting out of here by force. I had two choices. I
either gave him the gold bracelet, my last memento of Clara, or I gave him the
revolver. What a choice. The bracelet was the only thing of hers that I had,
but the gun that could easily be the difference between living or dying.

The way I saw it,
memories wouldn't do me much good in the grave, and I thought Clara would
respect that. She wouldn't want me to lessen my survival chances just to keep
hold of a piece of jewellery.

"Take the
gold," I said.

"A pragmatic choice,
and I can’t say it doesn’t fit you.” He stood up, rubbed the bracelet on his
jumper and then stuffed it in his pocket. “There's a pretty girl in town. She’s
got an ass you could eat your dinner off, but she costs a little too much.
Maybe this will buy me a few hours with her." said Moe.

His words hit me in the
gut. The last memory of my dead wife, and I’d cheapened it. I’d taken the slim
chance of survival in this world over keeping the memory of her around, and now
it was going to be used as currency to pay a whore.

Chapter
4

Moe was a piece
of crap, and meeting him confirmed what I had known about Vasey all along. The
idea of sticking around had some comfort to it - walls, warmth, and protection
- but it came at a price I had no interesting in paying. If being around people
was the cost of security, I'd rather take my chances outside. It just wasn't
worth it. At least alone I could control what I did, and any mistakes I made
would be my own. If you spent time without someone else, you were at the mercy
of whatever dumb decision they made.

  I walked down the pothole-ridden road
that led out of town. I looked to the side of me and saw a bunch of shops lining
the high street, though none of them were used as businesses these days. What was
once a bakery was packed with blue gas canisters, and a yellow-walled hair
boutique with a "Village Supercuts" sign had the skins of various
animals hanging up on the walls. It was a strange choice, really, because
further down the road was a butcher shop, and surely that would have made a
better choice to store animal hides. From another doorway a man watched me
walk. He was topless and the curve of his stomach poked out above his jeans,
the beginnings of a beer-belly that he had no business growing in this new
world where food was rare and beer even rarer. He rested his arms on the
doorframe and let a cigarette hang from the corner of his mouth. He never took
his eyes off me as I walked past him and toward the gate that guarded the town
exit.

The gate was
twenty-feet high, black and made of steel. On either side were stone turrets,
and in each turret stood a guard with a gun. Vasey, like many places in the
North of England, was once home to a Norman stronghold, and the black gate was
a remnant of its ancient defence. Now though, instead of protecting the
townspeople against invading armies hungry for territory, it was protecting
them against the living dead who were hungry for brains.

I walked up to
the gates. The guard in the left turret twitched at every step I took, and when
I stood in front of the bars he raised his gun at me. I looked up and saw that
it was an air rifle. It wasn't exactly lethal, but I didn’t want to take a shot
in the head from it. Still, there was no way I was going to let them keep me
here. I took hold of two of the steel bars, which felt cold against my skin,
and I shook them. They didn’t budge.

"Need you
to step away from there," said the voice above me.

I looked for
some sort of latch or bolt so I could get the gate open, but there didn't seem
to be anything. On the side, where the gate joined the turret, I saw a chain
which fed into a pulley system. That was why it wouldn't open, then. Although
the gate was a relic from centuries past, at some point it had been mechanised,
and now the gate would only open if someone operated it. I guessed the controls
were in the turret.

Above me, the
guard raised his rifle a little higher. "I won't ask again, back away from
the bloody gate."

I needed a
little diplomacy here. I had to persuade him to open the gate for me, and
getting angry would earn me nothing but a pellet in my skull. I tried to
breathe in and control my pulse, but the feeling of something being outside
control made me feel trapped. I wanted to climb up the gate, jump in the turret
and knock the guard out, but I wouldn’t get more than halfway up before I was
peppered with shots from the other one.

I looked back
toward the street. The man in the doorframe was still staring at me. He spat
his cigarette onto the floor. Above me, both guards had their air rifles
trained on my head. I felt my chest begin to tighten, and my palms were getting
clammy. The gate loomed over me, unmovable, and I felt the hairs on my arms
raise. Who the hell did they think they were to trap me here, to stop me from
leaving?

Nobody did that
to me - nobody. I was going to show them what happened when you did.

I took my bag
off my shoulder and reached inside it. I knew what I was doing was stupid, but
I couldn't stop myself. I felt around for my revolver and, with the handle in
my grasp, I was ready to pull it out. I didn't have any bullets, but I wanted
to see how cocky the guard was when I waved a real gun in his face instead of
an air rifle. I looked up at him and slowly reached my hand out of my bag,
knowing that as soon as they saw the gun they would shoot me.

Just as the
silver of the chamber glinted in the sun, I heard a voice call out behind me.

"Kyle,
wait."

I turned round.
Justin was running toward me in a strange shuffle. He wore a thick coat on that
was too long for him at the sleeves, and his body was unbalanced by a rucksack
on his shoulder.

I looked up at
the guard. "Get this open, now."

The guard acted
like he hadn't heard me. Justin got closer, and he had a nervous grin on his
face.

"Where are
you going?" He asked.

"I’m
leaving."

"But
where?"

"You don't
need to know."

He stood in
front of me and dropped his bag to the ground, and there was the clang of
something metal. There was a pause, and Justin seemed to be thinking of what to
say to me. What could he possibly want?

"Take me
with you," he said.

So that was it.
That's what the coat and bag were for. I wondered what was in it the bag;
probably provisions, but for all I knew it could be his toys or something. The
kid had never set foot out of the town in his life, so I dreaded to think what
he'd packed as necessities for his "trip".

I stopped just
short of sneering at him. "The class trip’s not until next week."

Justin looked
at me, puzzled. I realised that he had been born straight into this new world
that even after fifteen years hadn’t stabilised itself enough to establish a
‘normal’ way of life for people.  Justin didn't have a clue what things had
been like before. He didn't know what a class trip was, because he'd never been
in school. I realised how alien the experience of the world was for kids like
him, those who were born into it rather than adapting to it. He couldn't help
how he was.

This time I
spoke in a kinder tone. "You can't come with me." I nodded at what
was beyond the gate. “There are no walls out there, Justin. There’s nothing
separating you from them, and one wrong step
will
get you killed.”

He shook his
head. "I've been out before. Not so far, just round town, but far enough.
I know how to avoid them."

"You ever
been out at night?" I asked.

He looked to
the ground. "No."

"Then you
don't know what's out there. Those pathetic bastards are nothing compared to
what comes after it gets dark."

"I know
about the night things."

I let out a
sigh. I looked up and saw that above me the guard was listening to our
conversation with interest. I wondered if he had ever been out at night, or
whether anyone in this town had ever spent a night in the dark hoping a stalker
didn’t catch their scent. Then I remembered Noah and the others in the shack,
about how they'd risked their lives to help me with the stalker.

I took a step
toward Justin. "The things out there will tear you apart."

His eyes were
wide. "I can handle it. Or you can show me."

"I'm not a
babysitter."

"And I’m
not a baby. I'll pull my weight. I've got supplies," he said, and gave the
little bag in front of him a kick.

The bag was
packed tight, and I could see the outlines of tin cans busting at the fabric.
The stuff would have been a godsend for me, considering I only had enough on me
to last a couple of days at a stretch. But the price was having a tagalong, a
kid who was so green that he'd blend into the grass, someone who would
undoubtedly make the wrong move somewhere down the line and get us both killed.

I could see
that he was earnest in wanting to join me, and his intentions were good, but it
wasn’t a chance I was willing to take. I shook my head softly. "Why do you
even want to come?"

He leaned in a
little closer. His voice was quieter. "This town, there's nothing to it.
No future. The people here are drinking themselves stupid, and they're not
thinking about what’s coming. We should be doing something; farming, expanding,
I don't know what. But they're sinking into a rut and they're smiling about
it."

The kid was
making a little sense in this point. "It’s not much better out
there," I said, and nodded my head back toward the gate.

He looked at me
in a strange way, almost knowingly. "I bet you got a plan."

He was right,
though there was not a chance I was telling him what my plan was.

"You're
not coming - end of discussion."

His shoulders
sagged, but he didn't say anything else. Maybe the message had finally gotten
through to him.

"Look,
kid, stay behind your walls. It's safe here. It might not be much of a life,
but at least you got one. The second you step outside these walls, it's
forfeit."

He said
nothing, just stood there and sulked.

I gave his bag
a tap. "Take these back to wherever you took them from, people will need
them. And look, can you tell this wanker to open the gate?"

Justin looked
up and the man in the turret. "Moe says let him go," he said.

The guard
pressed a button. The chain and pulley on the gate creaked into motion, and
soon the black bars swung open. I stepped through them, out of the safety of
the town and back into the wastes. Behind me, I could feel Justin's eyes on my
back following me every step of the way.

                                                        ***

I walked out of
town and into the woods. The temperature was warm and the leaves on the trees
were still. Although the sky was sunny, a grey cloud was gathering to break it.
I could smell the earthy aroma of the pine trees, and for some reason it made
me feel hungry. How long had it been since I'd eaten?

There were a
few lone infected walking lazily through the trees, but there was nothing to
worry about unless I planned on making a racket. My most pressing need was to
find shelter before night came. There I could get some food in my belly and
fire up the GPRS, because I needed to get my bearings. The last two days had knocked
me off course, and I didn't have a clue which direction I should be heading in.
I could have turned it on there and then, but I didn't trust doing it out in
the open. There were too many places for bodies to lurk and eyes to see.

I walked for
forty-five minutes and I found the shack that Noah and his friends had stayed
in. I didn’t know whether I should use it; for all I knew, it was a regular
spot for the Vasey scouts, and some of them could easily turn up while I slept.
The last thing I needed right now was to run into anyone from Vasey.

Then again, I
doubted they'd be making any runs anytime soon after what happened to Noah, and
besides, the sky was starting to turn a little too dusky for my liking and I
didn’t want to get caught in the open. I didn’t have a choice.

I got inside
the shack. It was just one room, and it was empty. At some point it had
probably been used as a storage shed for park rangers, but now it was just four
walls and wooden floor boards. There was a faded poster imploring the use of
walky-talkies on patrols on one wall, and from another a sink stuck out from
the plaster, though the water had long since been cut off.  I dropped my bag
and sank to the floor, resting my back against the wall that was furthest away
from the door. As soon as I touched the floorboards, I felt my energy seep out
of me.

In the corner
of the room I found a small grill camping stove with a rubber tube that
connected it to a gas canister, as well as two bottles of water that I deemed
drinkable through their lack of any offensive odour. I twisted the knob of the
camping stove to feed it gas, and I pressed in the ignition to create a spark
that sent blue flames shooting underneath the grill. Despite it being evidence
that the Vasey scouts used this shack on their trips, it was a fantastically
lucky find. If I'd had a calendar with me, I would have checked to see if it
was my birthday.