by John Riley
'Oh God no...' She whispered, her blood turning cold. The two kids hadn't run, the eldest held the younger now and they were both white as sheets, mouths hanging open.
'Mum...' The girl choked out, 'Mum?'
Sarah looked down.
The body was moving, a twitching at the fingers that seemed to spread down the arms. When it reached her torso, she began spasming crazily, her legs, arms and head convulsing like she was having a fit. Maybe it was the head trauma, Sarah wondered in shocked revulsion. She and the children had slowly backed away as the woman started bucking violently on the ground. She glanced down at the children and saw them holding each other tightly, mouths agape. The little boy was openly crying.
Then the movement stopped as suddenly as it started and the body rose like a puppet. Limbs pulled up by invisible strings, seemingly random but always a different string at a time, unsupported by regular muscle movements. Sarah could see the side of the monster's face, it was spotless; it had been lying in a pool of blood but it's face was now clean and perfect, the monster turned. It didn't look at her, it didn't seem to be looking at anything at all, its eyes were blank and its face expressionless. It was also completely wound free, the hair lying artfully and completely obviously clean.
Sarah took a step back uncertainly, keeping herself side on to the woman and waiting tensed. The children's Mother started towards the park, ignoring or not noticing Sarah at all, the woman's movements were very puppet-like now, limbs barely under control, shuffling and stumbling almost on the cusp of falling. The children had moved towards Sarah, she heard their careful footsteps stop beside her,
'What is she doing?' The girl asked quietly, confusion obvious in her tone. No answer came, Sarah couldn't think of one. She stole a glance at the concrete to see the gore; still there, proving that the woman had been injured at least. She stared hard at the back of the woman's head, the only thing wrong with... her, was that she was now obviously struggling to control her body, the metal railing around the park only not halting her progress because she rolled over it.
The three of them stood in silence, watching as the woman exited the park on the other side by rolling over once more and eventually turned a corner out of sight. Sarah realised she had her hand on the girl's shoulder,
'She... Should we follow her?' The girl wondered aloud,
'Do you want to?' Sarah replied simply,
'No.'
'Me neither.' Sarah took her hand off the girl's shoulder and folded her arms across her stomach, 'We should go.'
The girl nodded slowly, the boy cocked his head to one side and then tugged at his sister's arm,
'Laura!?' their Mother called hysterically, 'Stevie!?'
The three of them ran.
5
Laura wasn't out of breath. She was young, but Sarah had never seen herself as old and she was a fitness instructor, she prided herself on being as physically fit as she thought it was possible for her to be. Yet Laura was leading the way, half-pulling, half-carrying her brother and she wasn't out of breath. Sarah blamed it on the lack of sleep and the amount of running she had already done, she apparently wasn't cut out for the apocalypse.
She'd had a few minutes of running, slowing to a quick walk to rest before they pushed themselves into a jog. During this time, her mind had been whirring and she had come to the half-serious conclusion that the world was coming to an end. Like millions of other humans, she had seen a plethora of apocalypse films, television programs and more books than the both put together, they all started like this; an isolated infection that spread quickly.
Infected, the undead, walkers; Zombies. The things she had seen so far put her more in mind of a combination of several b-movie monsters, like an infected were-vampire or something, but what it boiled down to was mind-bendingly crazy regardless. The children's Mother had been dead, Sarah knew that head wounds bleed a lot but even if the woman hadn't been dead she had certainly been injured. The only things she knew that could heal like that only existed in films. This wasn’t real life, it couldn’t be when they were being hunted down by something like that.
They had managed to lose her now though; the path had been winding with no branching paths but they couldn't hear her calls anymore and this was a blessing because the houses the path had been behind were replaced by tall wire fences. They were into the old centre of the town now, originally a business district before the buildings were condemned and demolished to make way for the industrial warehouses and factories that occupied it now. The town “centre” had been relocated to create a new shopping area in a nicer part of the town and the true centre had become fully industrial until the factories and warehouses were themselves abandoned, awaiting a demolition that would never come thanks to the cost.
This meant that the path they were now stumbling exhaustedly down wouldn't end until it reached the main road into and out of the industrial centre, which in turn meant no escape should anybody come running up or down the path towards them.
'We need to stop.' Sarah would probably have walked into Laura if she hadn't said anything, her eyes had been looking at her feet, 'Steven is too tired to keep going.'
Laura spoke in short sharp sentences, Sarah couldn't tell if the girl hated her or didn't trust her or... She couldn't read her at all in fact,
'We can't stay on the path, she might be following.' Sarah said tiredly, 'We can't leave the path either to be fair, we might be able to climb the fences but Steven can't.'
The girl pointed to a corner of fence half hidden by a tall bush, it was obviously bent and held against the rest of the fence by a stick jammed into the dirt beneath it.
'Into the factory?' Sarah said to herself, 'Ok.'
The stick turned out to be a solid metal bar concreted into the ground, but with Laura's help she managed to pull the chain off enough to let Steven crawl through. The fence was topped with barbed wire but they draped Sarah's jacket over it and the woman and the girl climbed carefully over. The floor was now tarmac, the scuffed dirty white lines of the parking spaces still visible beneath the detritus of years. Sarah looked around silently, the children started walking to the factory ahead of them, Steven had begun to sniffle quietly.
Sarah had noticed that he did everything quietly, she thought he must be about six, maybe younger, but he acted more like a dog than a child; a dog that had been beaten regularly and cowed into a silent watchfulness. He was intelligent, she'd already seen that in their brief time together, he listened to his sister with an attentiveness strange in one his age and despite Sarah's best efforts to be friendly on the forced march he had kept his distance.
His sister was more than intelligent; she was resourceful, strong-willed, careful and Sarah had guessed her age at about fourteen but now couldn't be sure she wasn't younger. She felt a stab of sad admiration for this child who had obviously been forced to become an adult before her time and a better one than most twice her age.
Lifting to pull her jacket off the fence, Sarah turned to see the girl pull tentatively at the door to the factory, it didn't move. She had already pushed and then done both again to the other door by the time Sarah had reached them, but without any luck.
'How do we get in?' Laura asked,
'We don't,' Sarah stated simply, 'we don't know what's inside, it could be dangerous.'
'So, we just sit here?' Laura said with a frown, 'We can be seen from the path still.'
She was right, the distance to the fence wasn't enough to keep them from view,
'Alright, stay here.' Sarah sighed.
It took her less than a minute to find a broken and boarded window on the other side of the factory, from what she could see through the gaps in the boards the room on the other side was empty. She pulled experimentally on the boards and they creaked, looking quickly around she spotted another length of wood and after a few seconds of levering the board clattered to the floor. Laura and Steven poked their heads around the corner of the building, obviously drawn by the noise,
/> 'I'll go in first,' Sarah fingered the edges of the window carefully and found them free of glass,
'Ok.' Laura moved imperceptibly closer to her brother,
'Just wait here, I don't think anybody could be in here but who knows.'
The pack was the first thing through, it hit the floor on the inside with a muffled thump. Sarah pulled herself onto the window ledge and into darkness in one smooth motion. She balanced carefully on the edge of the sill for a few seconds to allow her eyes to scan the floor for obstructions before dropping softly beside her pack. The window she had climbed through was the only source of light, it managed to illuminate the piles of yellowing boxes and metal shelving that had been pushed roughly into a corner but the door-less portal to the rest of the factory was like looking down into a pool of oil.
The room was devoid of life at least, she could see that much. She crept back to the window without quite knowing why and peered back out into the light of the morning,
'Ok it's clear.' Sarah whispered, 'we'll get Steven through first and then I'll help you.'
Laura hesitated, she eyed the window and then squinted back at the fence,
'You could run.' Sarah sighed tiredly, 'I wouldn't be able to get my pack and get after you in time, I'm too tired to be doing much running anyway.'
'How do I know we can trust you?' Laura asked bluntly,
'You don't.' Sarah cut across simply, 'But as far as we know we're the last unaffected humans in the town, or the country, or maybe even the world. I could have let your Mum attack you back at the park, you aren't my responsibility after all.'
'So why didn't you?' Laura responded.
Sarah stared at her from the window, the girl held her gaze patiently,
‘I’ve seen what happens to people who get caught by them.’ Sarah said finally, ‘I couldn’t see that happen to you and your brother.’
'Ok,' She said quietly, ‘come on Stevie.’ the boy obeyed without a word and Sarah clasped his hands in hers and pulled him up and over the sill. She let him down with a little involuntary “oof” noise and felt his eyes on her,
'Now me.' Laura called, Sarah obediently lowered her arms out of the window again and the girl walked her way up the wall and clambered into the room.
'It's dark.' Steven said in a low voice,
'I've got a light on my phone.' Sarah thought aloud, 'We should really stay in here, but the door's missing,'
'The other doors were locked,' Laura pointed out,
'Yeah but we got in.' Sarah replied, ‘and if we got in who knows who else could already be here.’ That made the girl squint worriedly into the inky blackness, 'I think we'll be OK though, we should have seen something by now if there was something to see, we've made enough noise.'
'It stinks in here!' Steven called, he had his head poked out of the doorway,
'Don't do that!' Laura snapped, pulling him back.
The girl kept going until her back was against the wall beside the window and then forced her brother to the floor, sitting herself down after him. Sarah looked around at the room again, she could move one of the shelves in front of the door perhaps but they were flimsy and wouldn't block anybody's way for longer than a few seconds, they'd just have to keep an eye on the doorway.
'What did you mean by “we're the only unaffected humans” stuff?' Laura had a look of confusion on her face,
'I didn't think... of course you don't know, how would you?' Sarah pushed her hair behind an ear and looked down at the kids, 'Your mother isn't the only person being the way she is.'
'A bi...' Laura stopped herself and quickly rethought, glancing at her brother 'a psycho?'
Sarah nodded once, her eyes un-focusing as her mind replayed the whole ordeal,
'How many?' the girl asked slowly,
'I don't know.' Sarah snapped back to the present, 'it's like that Body Snatchers film.' She stopped, Laura's look of utter incomprehension met her and she did a mental U-turn, 'They seem normal at first, it's hard to tell. Until they try to ki... hurt you.'
Laura kept her eyes on Sarah for a minute and then looked away, obviously digesting the news,
'What is it?' The girl didn't look at her, but kept her eyes on a spot on the wall, 'why is it happening?'
Sarah shrugged,
'I don't know that either.' When Laura didn't respond she continued, 'My fiancé came home and tried to attack me. I ran from him and met you two.'
The girl looked up at her again her expression softer, 'I'm sorry.'
'We don't know that there's anything to be sorry about yet.' Sarah replied, colder than she meant to be, 'I mean we don't know what this is.' She amended.
The look on Laura's face made her appear to be about thirty years older, and wiser by far than Sarah. This fourteen year old girl had heard what Sarah had to say, concluded that her mother was lost to her and internalised this new information in the space of a handful of seconds. A wave of pity rose in Sarah at the lost childhood of this unbelievably tough young woman, followed by a torrent of dread that she was right and Daniel was truly lost to her.
The pain of the loss threatened to overwhelm her, only Laura's gaze kept her from breaking down, it was obvious she understood. The pity in the look was almost too much to bare, Sarah moved forward and sat down beside Laura with a barely feigned groan,
'I'm exhausted.' Sarah yawned, desperate to end the conversation, 'I barely slept last night and I've been running for hours.'
'We slept all night,' Laura said, Steven had already lay down with his head against her leg, 'But with all the running we could do with the rest.'
'We shouldn't all sleep...' Sarah started slowly,
'I don't think I'll be sleeping ever again.' Laura said flatly,
'I'm sorry.' It was all Sarah could think to say, it felt like her brain was filled with cotton wool.
Laura stared at her in silence for what felt like an eternity,
'I'll watch for a few hours.' the girl said, finally looking away, 'you look awful.'
Sarah didn't reply, she lay down with a grateful sigh, dragging the backpack under her head.
6
Sleep had been a long time in coming, flashes of the previous night made her almost too afraid to close her eyes. When it finally did come Laura seemed to shake her gently awake barely a second later,
'Erm, Miss?' Sarah erupted into a sitting position, making the girl flinch back, 'we have to find some food, my brother's hungry.'
'Sarah, my name is Sarah.' The girl didn't respond, 'There's some food in my pack hang on.'
She rummaged in it and pulled out two more energy bars, handing them over blearily,
'How long was I asleep?' The girl handed one to her brother and he ripped into it, she opened her own much more slowly and flicked a glance at Sarah with the first bite,
'Not sure, an hour or two maybe?' She mumbled around the food in her mouth, Sarah just nodded.
Two hours, added to a similar number that night all after alcohol and terror driven running. She needed a plan, well no in truth she needed sleep, food and thinking about it she actually just needed none of this to be happening. But it was happening, no hiding from it now that there were others.
She looked at the children again, Steven was looking forlornly at the empty foil in his hands, his sister handed him the last piece of her own bar and he smiled at her as he took it. Laura looked up at the feeling of Sarah's gaze,
'What?' Her voice wasn't quite as sharp as it had been before,
'Why do you hate your Mum?' Sarah had told herself she wasn't going to pry; the girl was obviously on the defensive to put it mildly. But the way this young girl watched after her brother was more motherly than anything else and the boy himself was perfectly at ease with his sister, Sarah had always thought siblings were supposed to fight.
'I... don't.' Laura answered, looking at her brother who had found something on the dusty floor to play with.
Sarah let the silence grow, the girl finally filled it,
'She works a lot.' She began, 'Since Greg; Steven's dad, died she just doesn't...'
Steven had stopped playing and was listening with his big orb eyes staring at his sister,
'My dad doesn't see me anymore because he's a “woman beating arsehole”,' Sarah heard the quotation marks and guessed the girl's Mother had been the source, ' that meant we had Mum to look after us when she's not working, which is hardly ever and our Grandad when he's not watching TV, which is less often than that.'
'So, you look after Stevie.' Sarah stated,
'It isn't as bad as it sounds,' Laura said hurriedly, 'someone is always there, it's not like I'm alone in the house with him and I'm fourteen which is nearly old enough to...' She tailed off sheepishly.
'I'm five!' Steven proclaimed proudly, 'nearly six next year.'
Laura smiled at her brother and nodded agreement solemnly,
'Soon you'll be older than me!' She laughed, the boy squinted at her but didn't argue, Laura laughed again.
'So, what happened this morning, you said she hurt your Grandad?' Sarah asked, the girl stared at the floor in silence for a few seconds.
'I'd been up for a while with Steven, he always gets up early, Grandad was in his chair already because he'd stayed over to “watch us”.' Laura stated quietly, 'Our Mum doesn't go out much, she doesn't like meeting new people, but it was a work thing so she had to go. She wasn't back when we got up, I made Stevie get dressed and got us both breakfast before she got home. We were still in the kitchen, I heard Grandad start shouting...'
Steven was nodding, his small face solemn, but as his sister faltered he looked at Sarah,
