‘Just hold on,’ Luke pleaded as though that could somehow stop the change that was about to happen.
Once they were inside the cottage, Mark tried to convince Grace that she was going to be fine, while everyone else got to work securing the doors and windows.
‘Should she be in here with us?’ Paula questioned, ‘and should we really have locked ourselves in here with her? She is going to turn.’
‘I saw something similar on a TV show once. Maybe we could just chop the arm off?’ Mark asked.
‘Unless that TV show was a documentary on how to survive a zombie attack, then that’s not going to work,’ Luke retorted.
Grace could tell he was worried and tried to force a small smile as she said, ‘it’s okay, just open a door and send me out. Paula’s right; I am going to turn and you lot shouldn’t be trapped in here with me when it happens.’
‘Gracie,’ Mark whispered softly. ‘It’s okay. I'll stay awake, until you turn, then I’ll deal with it.’ He spoke the last few words loud enough for the others to hear, as he turned his head to glare at Paula.
‘I know she’s your sort of wife now, but what if you fall asleep and she turns and kills us all?’ Gregg demanded.
‘I’ll keep watch too, if Mark falls asleep and Grace turns, I’ll do the right thing,' Luke offered.
Grace couldn’t help but laugh despite the inappropriateness and lack of humour in the situation. ‘That’s so sweet that you two are willing to kill me.’
'Not you,’ Luke corrected her. ‘The thing you’ll become. Paula, if you kill her now you’ll be killing Grace, not the monster she’ll turn into.’
‘Fine,’ Paula snapped, ‘but just for the record, this is a terrible idea.’
‘Noted.’ Mark said, while glaring at her again.
Luke and Mark kept their word and alternated between keeping watch over Grace.
‘Maybe it wasn’t a bite?’ Mark asked hopefully as the sun began to rise following what seemed like a long night.
‘That thing bit me, I know that. Are you really prepared to use that knife on me? Maybe Paula could…’
‘If you turn and it has to be done, then it’s going to be me,’ Mark insisted.
‘Or Luke if it happens on his watch.’
‘I told him to wake me if that happens. I need it to be me.’
‘And they say romance is dead,’ Grace tried to joke.
‘I’m not complaining, but if you were going to turn, wouldn’t it have happened by now?’
Grace opened her mouth to reply that they might not be a set time limit, when she began to shake as though having a seizure. Mark held onto her tightly, trying to prevent her from hurting herself. Luke woke up and was next to them within seconds.
‘Is this it? Is it happening?’ His voice gave away his confusion and concern.
‘I don’t know, something's wrong. You've seen more people turn than any of us, that first night in the hospital. Did any of them appear to have a seizure before they turned?'
‘No.’ Luke shook his head adamantly. ‘Not a single one of them.’
Grace groaned, as her apparent seizure continued.
‘Do it,’ Paula ordered.
‘Do it now,’ Yasmin spoke up and Gregg stepped forward holding his own knife.
Luke stood and pushed him backwards. ‘Not yet, she hasn’t turned, not yet. We don’t know what this is.’
‘She was bit,’ Gregg retorted while trying to push Luke out of the way. ‘There’s three of us against you and Mark, so either you kill her now or between us we will, along with anyone who gets in our way.’
Luke backed away, knelt down and held onto Grace. ‘When she turns, not before,’ he insisted as tears filled his eyes.
‘Now back the hell off.’ Mark's hand tightened around his knife.
‘With pleasure,’ Gregg replied. ‘When she bites you both, we’ll just take you all out.’ He switched his knife for his gun, while Yasmin and Paul took out their own guns.
Grace appeared to have passed out. Her face was pale and her body felt cold to Luke’s touch as he kept his hold on her. Mark held the knife above her head. Grace’s eyes opened, and he prepared to slam the knife into her head.
‘Wait!' Grace managed to call out hoarsely, as the lack of water during the previous twelve hours had caused her throat to feel sore and dry. ‘It’s me. I'm still me. I'm alive.’
Chapter seven
‘Mark is being held in Strangeways, awaiting trial,’ Luke told Grace when he woke her the following day.
She had stayed the night at Luke’s house, after giving up her own house before she had left Manchester. Luke had given up his room for her and moved his things into the spare bedroom.
‘What?’ Grace questioned and noticed Luke’s bloodshot eyes. ‘Did you get any sleep at all last night?’
‘Some, a little, maybe. I pulled some strings though, threatened a few people, verbally I mean. Not with physical violence,’ he felt the need to point out.
‘And?’
‘Strangeways, like I said.'
‘But why? What are they saying he did?’
‘Murder.’
'But Mark would never…he didn’t…'
‘Technically he did, but they’re twisting the whole thing obviously and they have CCTV footage, which they’ve cut and edited. It makes it look like Mark murdered a bunch of soldiers and doctors, who were apparently trying to stop the outbreak and prevent Mark from destroying a potential cure.’
‘Don’t make me laugh,’ Grace retorted. ‘Nobody was trying to stop the outbreak, at least not until it was too late and their methods were…they’re the ones who should be on trial, not Mark.'
‘We know that, but with the falsified evidence and fake witnesses, it’s not looking good for Mark.’
‘Well, we’ve got to help him. We can’t let him go to prison.’
‘He’s already in prison.’
‘You know what I mean. We can’t let him stay there.’
‘Whatever we do; I think we’re going to have to go down the legal route this time. Things aren’t like they were before,’ Luke reminded her.
‘I never thought I would say this, but I almost miss the zombie outbreak.’
‘No you don’t,’ Luke insisted.
Day 401 of the outbreak
‘Where is she?’ Mark demanded, grabbing the soldier by the neck, before he could aim his gun at Mark.
Luke prised the weapon away from their new captive, added it to the growing collection in his rucksack, then pointed his favourite rifle at the soldiers head as though he needed any more motivation to answer Luke’s question.
‘The immune woman?’ the soldier asked as he choked from the pressure Mark was applying to his neck.
‘Yeah, the immune woman,’ Mark snapped.
‘She’s…,’ he began, failing get the words out.
‘Mark, a little less pressure please, he can’t tell us if he can’t breathe,’ Luke informed him.
‘Right, sorry about that.’ Mark let go. ‘I get a little pissed off when my wife is taken away to God knows where for God knows what.’
‘They’re trying to find a cure. That's why they took her.’
‘A cure?’ Luke asked. ‘Why? There’s nobody left to cure, except us and they sure as hell don’t give a shit about us.’
‘The cure’s not for you. It's for a wealthy family. I don’t know who, but they have a lot of influence and they were in the city when all this started. They think it’s only a matter of time before…you know,’ the soldier pulled a face.
‘Was that meant to be an impression of one of the infected?’ Mark asked in disgust. 'Luke, you should shoot him just for that.’
Luke moved closer towards the soldier, pressing the rifle against his head.
‘No, wait! I can tell you where they’re keeping the immune woman.’
‘I’m listening,’ Luke said.
‘At North Manchester Hospital. They’re running tests.’
&nbs
p; Mark took a gun out of his bag and shot the soldier in the head.
‘What did you do that for? I think he was telling us the truth,’ Luke argued.
‘I’m sure he was, but we need to rescue Grace. We can’t have him warning whoever is in there with her that we’re coming,’ he explained.
Grace closed her eyes as another needle was inserted into her. The doctor had said the reason for so many tests was so they could find out what was causing her ‘episodes’ and once she was better; she would be able to go home. At first, she had insisted she had no home. She was told that she had a family who loved her, who wanted her to get better, so that she could come home to them. Grace was shown pictures of a man and a woman with two girls, who the doctors told her were her parents, herself and younger sister. They all looked so happy together. Grace wanted to believe they were her family and that she had a zombie free home and a loving family waiting for her. Grace still had unwanted doubts, about her apparent home and family. It all seemed so far-fetched, that she could forget them all and instead imagine a city full of zombies and all the soldiers trying to stop anyone from leaving. Although, after having time to think about things, she wondered which was more implausible; the zombies or her losing her mind and imagining the whole thing. Maybe the doctor was telling the truth, she thought to herself. She had brought Grace some clothes, three meals a day and even unstrapped her from the trolley and provided her with a real bed. The door to Grace’s room was still locked, but if she was on a psychiatric ward, that might make sense. She was jolted out of her chaotic thought process by what sounded like gunshots. They were screams and someone yelling.
‘Grace, where are you?’ a male voice shouted somewhere in the distance.
‘Grace, hold on, wherever you are, we’ll find you,’ a different male voice called out.
She wondered if she should call back and let them follow the sound of her voice, but what if they were there to hurt her? That didn’t make any sense. Why would someone break into a hospital to hurt her? They were probably the ones shooting though. So she remained quiet until the door was kicked open and two men who looked familiar rushed to her side.
‘Grace, it’s okay we’re here.’ Mark said, kneeling next to Grace's bed.
‘Mark? Luke? But you’re not real. You can’t be. The zombies…they’re not…’
‘What the hell did they do to her?’ Mark questioned, looking up at Luke.
The two of them helped Grace to put on a pair of shoes that Luke took from the female doctor who lay just outside the room with a gunshot wound in her head. The shoes were a size too big, but they couldn’t be choosy.
‘Not real, not real,’ Grace kept repeating as the two men guided her out of the hospital.
‘Those bastards really did a number on her,’ Mark snapped. 'If I hadn't already killed them, I'd fucking kill them.'
'Let's concentrate on getting as far away from here as possible. We can get angry about those bastards later. Even the unarmed ones you shot on the way in here,’ Luke added in an accusing tone.
‘What did you expect me to do? They weren’t exactly going to just let us walk out of here with Grace and I didn't know who was armed and who wasn't.'
‘Fair point, but you didn’t have to look like you were enjoying it so much.’
Chapter eight
'Mark,’ Grace gasped at the sight of him. He had lost weight and looked like he hadn’t been sleeping much. He barely looked like the Mark she knew. Even when they had been fighting the infected together and fleeing from the soldiers, he always seemed so strong and in control. It felt like an insult that something as normal as prison might be the one thing to break him.
‘Grace,’ he said unable to look her in the eye, as he sat down opposite her.
‘I know you didn’t do this. Not like the way they’re…’
‘It doesn’t matter. I did it and I’m going to die in here,’ he cut her off.
‘Stop talking like that, we’ve been through worse.’
'Maybe, but I’m done, Grace. I thought things would go back to normal, but too much has happened. I did too much, went too far to…’
‘No; we all did what we had to,’ Grace said, but she didn’t entirely believe the words as she said them.
‘Then maybe you and Luke should be locked up too,’ Mark pointed out.
‘You don’t believe that.’
‘I don’t know what I believe anymore, but if you and Luke don’t leave this alone, you will be locked up. Or maybe you’ll just die in mysterious circumstances. You didn’t think they would really let us walk free and live happily ever after? Even if we could live with ourselves, they were never going to let us go, Gracie.’
‘I’m not letting this go.’ Grace stood and turned to leave.
'Then they won’t either,' Mark warned.
‘He just seemed so…,’ Grace tried to explain to Luke.
They were sat in the kitchen at the dining table.
‘He’s given up, I guess it makes sense,' he reasoned.
‘Well explain it to me then.’
‘You of all people should understand. You gave up and moved away.’
'But I came back and I didn’t start believing that getting locked away in prison was a good thing.'
‘You feel guilty though, right? Because I know I do,' Luke admitted.
‘I didn’t enjoy what we had to do Luke, but I know we had to do it.’
‘I’m sure Mark knows that too, but just rescuing you; he must have killed a few dozen uninfected humans. Now add that to the body count of infected and uninfected over two years and of course he’s feeling it.’
‘We’re all feeling it and I get it. He's got more on his conscience, but dying in prison isn’t the answer,’ Grace argued.
‘He has a point though. Not that he deserves to die in prison or anywhere else, but we were stupid. It’s obvious now. They were never going to let us go.’
‘They gave us their word,’ Grace replied weakly.
Luke stifled a laugh. ‘Sorry, but these are the people responsible for giving the orders that left us to die. I don’t think their word ever counted all that much. We need to be careful and watch our backs.’
Day 683 of the outbreak
‘It’s okay, don’t shoot!’ a voice called out, but Mark continued to aim the gun in his direction.
Luke and Grace looked to Mark for confirmation, while only lowering their guns slightly.
‘Give us one good reason not to,’ Luke called back.
'Because it’s over, the cure worked and there’s nobody left infected. You’re free to leave or stay, whichever, but it’s over,’ the soldier insisted as he stepped out into the clearing.
‘Why should we believe you?’ Mark demanded.
‘We just need to take you in to administer the immunisation, then it’s over,’ another soldier appeared from behind a nearby wall. ‘Except Grace of course, because she's already immune. We finally managed to make a vaccine from her samples.’
Luke put his gun down and walked towards them.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Mark hissed. ‘Don’t tell me you believe this crap.’
'Whatever. If they’re telling the truth, it’s over and if they’re lying, then what’s the point? What are we fighting for anyway?’
Grace ran after Luke, ‘I’m not letting you go alone.’
‘Oh for fuck sake,’ Mark snapped, dropping his own gun and joining them.
More soldiers appeared from their various hiding places, including nearby trees and walls and they all aimed their weapons at Grace, Mark and Luke.
‘We’ve got them. Shall we shoot them now?’ one soldier asked into his radio.
‘Told you so,’ Mark couldn’t help saying.
‘Yes, helpful,’ Luke retorted.
‘Wait,’ Grace stepped forward — ignoring the worried stares from Mark and Luke as they tried to hold her back. ‘You need us, if you were telling the truth about the infection being under control.’
‘We don’t need you, but we were telling the truth. The infection is over,’ the soldier retorted. 'Awaiting orders sir,’ he spoke into the radio again.
‘Hear her out,’ the voice replied.
Grace didn’t waste any time. 'Well if everyone else, except this rich family is dead; you're going to need witnesses to what happened here, or at least whatever you say happened here. The whole city has been on lock down for two years now. The media are going to be all over this.’
Mark stepped forward and said, 'you know she’s right. How long before they start coming up with conspiracy theories and how long before some of those theories come too close for comfort to the actual truth?’
'Hide what?' the soldier questioned arrogantly. 'Everyone knows why Manchester was cordoned off. It was a citywide outbreak of MERS.'
'Do you need a little help convincing everyone of that?' Grace asked.
‘What are you suggesting?’ The soldier looked at Grace dubiously.
Grace couldn’t help noticing all the weapons still aimed at herself, Mark and Luke. ‘Give us the full official story. We’ll tell it to the media and anyone else who asks. They can look into our backgrounds and see we're real people who were born and have lived our lives in Manchester.'
‘In return for?’
‘Our lives, obviously’ Grace offered.
‘And never having to worry about where to live, money or jobs again. Whatever we need, you guys pull some strings and get it for us,’ Mark bargained.
‘Don’t push it,’ Luke whispered.
‘Who’s going to take the word of a homeless person and a thief?’ the soldier asked.
‘And a doctor,’ Luke chimed in, ‘quite a mix of people from different walks of life. Or you could just hope and prayer that the word of a rich and over-privileged family carries enough weight with the press and the average doubting person out there. This had better work,’ Luke added in a whisper to Mark and Grace.
‘Did you hear all that?’ the soldier asked.
‘Bring them in, alive and we’ll talk,’ the voice responded.
After The Zombies | Prequel | After The Zombies Page 4
