Winter Smith (Book 1): London's Burning (37 page)

              She had also acquired a notebook, which she had begun writing in. She noted everything from the first day of the outbreak to now. Reading back on it, she could see how much had changed.

              The building made natural sounds that Winter began turning into something else, allowing her nervous and paranoid mind to twist things to its own liking. She thought at one point she heard a footstep, and had spooked herself so much she had gone to investigate, hoping she didn’t come face to face with the dead.

              This building was so well hidden, sat in an industrial estate, and so safe from the dead, Winter wondered why nobody was here. She wondered where all of the workers could have gotten to. Maybe they had all gone home when the outbreak began. She tried to remember the date it had begun. It had seemed so long ago.

              At some point in the dark hours she heard birds singing outside. Lyrics of things they had witnessed, a sorrowful tune that made Winter sad. She pulled out a pen and flipped to the nearest clean page in her journal and began to write: ‘Birds singing outside. Makes me wonder if animals are infected. I seem to be seeing and hearing them doing their day to day things, while humanity dies around them.’

              She had never had a pet of her own. Her mother was allergic to cats and her dad had had a bad experience with any other animal there was. Maybe when all of this was over she would get a pet. A nice cat or a little rabbit.

              Outside she heard something fall. It echoed through the night, disturbing the calm. Standing up, she crept past the two sleeping children and peered through the window. All she could see was a suffocating dark. The streetlamps had stopped working a long time ago.

              She crept out of the room and into the warm hallway, clutching her journal. Looking out through one of the odd rectangular windows, she could see that the car park was empty. She thought this strange. The zombies had been there since they arrived. Why would they have left? Where would they have gone?

              She headed down a dark stairwell, past windows that allowed her to get a good view of the nearest street. Again, there was nothing but rubbish blowing across the ground in an unheard gust of wind.

              She got to the bottom floor and opened the door of an office next door to the one where Violet and Zach lay sleeping. To be truthful, Winter wasn’t sure if they were sharing a room again, but Winter hadn’t seen either of them since her argument with Zach. She was sure he had spent the rest of the day slandering her name, his words mixed with Violet’s to create a horrible image of the famous Winter Smith.

              She manoeuvred her way past desks full of scattered papers, left behind coffee mugs and overflowing bins until she got to the window. The blinds were drawn, disallowing her from seeing anything outside. She scanned for the chains that would open the blinds, and once she found them she pulled.

              The blinds snapped and shot upwards.

              A mass of zombies pressed against the window, their decaying flesh and blood soaked hands slapping the glass repeatedly. There was an even louder thump and Winter saw one deranged being throwing itself against the glass over and over again, without any signs of pain. They had all laid their empty dead eyes on Winter. They all suddenly realised with as much brain as they had that there was food on the other side of the glass.

              Winter suddenly realised why the zombies from the car park had gone. They had discovered the weak part of the building and were set on getting in.

              Winter knew she had to leave the room. The window was buckling in its frame under the pressure of the dead. With a few more hits it would break.

              She realised she had left her gun up on the third floor; in the office she had had her argument with Zach. She was helpless without it, especially now.

              She turned and began to run, listening to the thumps on the window behind her. She was sure she heard it crack but she didn’t turn back. Instead, she slammed the door shut hoping the loudness of it was enough to wake up Violet and Zach. She was sure there would be zombies against their windows, too.

              She ran back up the dark stairwell, remarking on how calm the building looked from other parts. She tripped on the last step and smacked straight into the glass wall. It smashed and she began to fall forwards, down to the last floor below. She managed to grab the railing, as glass fell around her. She breathed in, counting herself lucky.

              A second later the door of the office Violet and Zach shared opened. Violet headed out of the room, again in her underwear, without weapon, observing the glass pile on the floor.

              She looked up to see Winter balanced precariously on the floor above, hovering slightly towards the edge but still gripping tightly to the side of the railing.

              “What the hell is going on?” Violet asked. Her voice was harsh, but she sounded worried. Winter wondered if Violet panicked for her friend, or didn’t even care.

              “The zombies. They’re on that side of the building. They’re going to get in!”

              Just then there was a scream from the office Violet stood outside of. The sound of glass smashing sounded pitifully and then groans and hisses of the dead began to echo around them. The sound of footsteps echoed Winter’s beating heart, and Zach tumbled out of the office with two guns in his hand, a shirt that was undone to reveal his chest, and flowery boxers.

              “They’re in!” Zach screamed. “They’re inside!”

              Violet took her gun from Zach before he ran towards the stairwell. As he passed the office Winter had come out of, the glass panes displaying company names smashed and zombies hurtled through. Zach fired at the glass in front of him that separated the stairwell and watched it shatter before leaping through and climbing the steps.

              Winter pulled herself back to her feet and began to run to the third floor. She could hear bullets being fired on the first floor and was only slightly aware that Violet had been left behind.

              “Winter!” Zach screamed.

              Winter didn’t reply. She had to get a weapon before it was too late.

              As she got to the third floor, a tight muscle pain underneath her buttocks, she thought about locking herself in an office. But then she heard a scream. Running out into the third floor hallway, she looked down to the first floor and saw Violet fleeing the number of zombies pursing her. Winter could see Violet was leading them to reception. The building would soon be full.

              Winter sped up. She was not wearing shoes and each time her bare feet hit solid ground she winced.

              She could hear the kids crying somewhere below and felt guilty that she had left them behind. She hadn’t heard Zach since she got to the third floor, and for a horrible moment she thought he was dead.

              She got to the middle of the building, hurried past the third floor kitchen, and made her way to the other side of the building, which was quiet but wouldn’t be quiet for long.

              She skidded past the office room she had been in earlier that day. Turning back, she saw Zach running towards her, holding the hands of two petrified children. She was relieved to see him, but she knew there was no time. She flung open the office door, charged in, picked up her gun and charged back out of the room before Zach had even arrived.

              “What are you doing?” He screamed. “Lock us in! Lock us in, for god’s sake!”

              “We need to get out of this building, Zach.” Winter gasped. She suddenly felt breathless. She was aware of a stitch in her side that was outweighed by the pains in her upper thighs. Her body seemed to be giving up on her. She needed it to function properly in a situation such as this.

              “Where’s Violet?” Zach cried. His unbuttoned shirt billowed as he let go of the kids and ran to the railing, looking to the floors below. “There’s nobody downstairs. Come on, if we’re getting out of here let’s go now.”

              “Don’t you want to find Violet?”

              “We’ll find her.”

              Zach led the way, leaving the kids to Winter. She gripped their shaking hands in her sweaty palms and they followed Zach.

              Winter could hear the sounds of the zombies. She could hear their groans, could almost smell their decaying flesh. She remembered it mentally, for if she were to survive she would write it down in her journal.

              As they got to the stairwell, Winter’s ankle gave up on her. Her foot fell to one side and she fell on her hands and knees, her face inches away from whacking the floor. Her journal bounced away from her. She could hear Zach running. He was going to leave her behind.

              She eyed the journal and snatched it back up. Her gun, strapped around her body, was heavy. She ignored the dull ache in her ankle and made her way down the steps once more. As she got to the second floor, she could see that Zach was holding the door open. Running down the hallway, pursued by a dozen zombies, was Violet. She held her gun; her eyes were fixed on Zach. Winter noticed how her body moved with a rhythm, the dark night sky casting her bare body in sultry shadows. Her stomach rippled while her legs flowed past each other, her arms cutting through the air. She was outrunning the decaying zombies, but they would be upon them if they didn’t move.

              Winter turned away from Zach, who was holding out his hand for Violet, and spotted the kids hiding in the stairwell below. She panicked, afraid that the dead cornered them, but hurrying down the steps she saw that for now the bottom floor was empty. She crouched down by the kids, tried to calm them down with her own shaking hands.

              “It’s going to be okay, Connor, Leah, everything will be okay, okay?”

              The kids just nodded as tears fell from their tired eyes.

              “ZACH!”

              Winter turned in time to see Zach grab Violet’s hand and literally lift her through the air. She spun around, wrapping her arms around Zach’s neck, planting a kiss on his lips as the zombies made their way towards them.

              “Thank you,” Violet breathed.

              “Come on, we have to move,” Zach said.

              They turned just as the door leading to the stairwell shut. A zombie smacked straight into the glass, growling as it did so. The dozen behind it screamed and hissed, chilling Winter’s skin. And then, as Violet and Zach reached the bottom floor, the shattering of glass paralysed them just for a second. They heard thuds as the zombies nearest the glass fell onto the floor, but then they realised the stairwell was now occupied by not only them, but the dead as well.

              Winter looked to her left. There, illuminated by a weak moonlight and glowing like a beacon of hope was a fire escape door, leading out to a deserted pathway.

              Winter threw herself at the door, pressing the bar inwards, feeling the door release and swing out into the early hours of the next day.

              She charged out into the night, her bare feet scratching on the stone floor. The kids followed Winter and made their way towards the car park, away from the building at the same time Winter’s senses registered that the air was humidly warm and the night was still. Yet Winter knew they weren’t out of trouble yet.

              Violet hurried through and gripped Winter’s arm to steady herself as she stumbled. She was only in her underwear and looked like a little girl. Zach followed, pulling the fire escape door shut behind him, and they heard the sickening thuds as the dead crashed into the door and growled at them.

              “They fucking took our home.” Violet growled.

              The piercing scream of a child in terror reverberated on their ears. Winter began to run to the car park, where she knew the kids had gone, but not before she registered the look of annoyance exchanged between Violet and Zach.

              She didn’t care if they were not following her. All she cared about was saving the kids.

              She burst through some bushes and fell out into the car park, which was crawling with the dead. The kids were stood in the middle, and the dead were surrounding them like lions taunting a gazelle.

              Winter ran to the lone-parked car and pulled herself up onto the roof. The sound of her gun hitting the metal alerted the zombies to her arrival. As she stood up, Winter lifted her gun and began to fire. She wasn’t aware she was screaming, her rage from the past couple of days pouring out of her at last. She just watched as her bullets collided with the dead. She enjoyed watching them fall, enjoyed watching them head towards her only to be shot down. She saw Zach running towards the kids and saw Violet running away from the scene.

              Winter lowered her gun, her eyes following Violet. She was fleeing. She was leaving them behind. She wasn’t being pursued by anything but her own ambition to escape. Winter shouted her name. Violet didn’t reply. Zach looked up at Winter and screamed.

              Winter turned to see a zombie launch towards her and over the car. It grabbed her in mid air and she felt her bare feet leave the cold metal roof of the vehicle. Suddenly her safety was gone as she lost all of her senses, everything turning upside down as dead hands gripped her skin.