Fear the Dead: A Zombie Survival Novel

by Lewis, Jack

  David took a step backwards, never taking his eyes off us for a second. He reached to the counter behind him, took hold of some rope and threw it at our feet.

  “Tie your wrists together.”

  I looked at the rope. It was ragged and worn, and there was what looked like a chicken feather embedded into it. I glanced up at David. There was an intense look in his eyes, and I could see his finger resting on the trigger of the gun. Would he really do it, I thought? Could he kill me? The old David couldn’t have, but it had been so long since I last saw him. A man can change a lot when he’s left to his own devices.

  I put the rope on my wrist. The material was rough and scratched against my skin, and I struggled to tie a knot with one hand.

  “No,” said David, “Not your own wrists. Tie yours to the boy’s.”

  My head sunk. The last thing I needed was to be tied to Justin. He made enough dumb decisions for himself, and there was no way I was letting him get me killed too.

  “No David,” I said in as calm a voice as I could. That was the trick with David when he was mad; calm words and soothing tones.

  He walked across the room and stood over us, the shotgun bearing down on our heads.

  “Tie them together. Now. Won’t ask again.”

  I looked at my brother-in-law’s face. I remembered how, years before this, we used to go to the footy together. He’d buy the pies and I’d buy the beer - that was our system. We watched our home town get promoted one season and then relegated the next. He’d been groomsman at mine and Clara’s wedding, and he’d helped me rewire our house after a dodgy electrician screwed us over.

  He wouldn’t hurt me.

  I got to my feet and stood in front of him. I forced a smile on my face, and I reached over to grab the shotgun. “C’mon Dave. Don’t start things like this,” I said, and move my hands toward the gun.

  David took a step back. Quicker than I could react, he span the gun round and jabbed the butt of it hard into my face. I felt my nose crack and a kind of fizzy pain exploded in my head. Blood spurted out and dripped over my skin, warm and thick, and dropped onto the floor. I put a hand to my nose and when I pulled it away, it was covered red.

  The pain screamed through my head. My heart was hammering and I felt a rage start to flow through my limbs. I looked at David. This wasn’t the same man as I used to know. I could feel my breaths coming quicker and shorter. My face was getting hot, flushing my capillaries with blood as my brain took in the sensory information of having my nose broken and translated it into anger.

  “You motherfucker,” I choked out.

  Nobody did this to me.

  I leapt forward and smashed my fist into his face. This time David’s nose popped, and as his bone crunched he let out a cry. He dropped the shotgun to the floor, and I could see water welling up in the corner of his eyes.

  I dropped my fist and took a step back.

  “You big baby,” I said, trying my hardest to cool down.

  He looked at me and his eyes were so intense they almost burnt red. He had blood all over his fingers, and when he touched his cheek he left a red smear.

  “You left me,” he said. “We both lost everything. Right when I needed you, you left me.”

  I shook my head. I was done with this. Right now, getting a car didn’t seem worth it.

  He moved toward me. “You left me to die!” His screaming voice echoed off the stone walls.

  He swung his fist toward me, but this time my reactions were quick enough for me to move my head to the left and make him miss. I ducked down a little and sank my fist into his belly. The wheezing sound he made told me I’d struck home and I had knocked the wind out of him. I pushed him to the floor.

  I got on top of him and sank my weight into him. I raised my fist and was about to bring it down on his bloody nose, when his knee sprang up and smashed straight into my groin. The world seemed to turn white, and the only thing I could think about was the utter agony in my testicles.

  For a second, the twin forces of pain and anger fought for control of my brain.

  I was going to kill him. This was it. The rage was taking over me. I forced myself up off the floor and turned to him, ready to tear him apart.

  Then the shotgun fired, and the loud boom it produced almost ruptured my eardrums.

  ***

  I looked up and saw Justin stood in front of us. He held the shotgun in the air and smoke was drifting from the barrel. There was a strong smell of gunpowder, and my ears rang from the explosion. Above us there was a hole in the ceiling. Flecks of slate and dust fell onto the floor.

  What the hell was the kid thinking? By shooting the gun he’d just made a noise so loud that every infected within five miles was going to set their radar on us. Right now, as the seconds ticked by, they would be turning their feet in our direction, a swarm of them all intent on tearing us apart.

  Before I could reprimand him, Justin pointed the shotgun at me.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  Justin flicked his head in my direction. I turned round and saw that David was stood directly behind me.

  “We need a car,” Justin demanded.

  David’s eyes were hollow, as though he were struggling to process the situation. He had a lot to take in – his broken nose, the shotgun blast, seeing his brother-in-law for the first time in years.

  “A car? For what?” His voice was nasal from where he pinched his nose to stop the blood.

  I looked up at him. With the infected due to arrive shortly, we didn’t have time to mess around. I didn’t want David to know where we were going, but I couldn’t just steal a car from him. I needed him to agree. “We’re going to the farm,” I said.

  David spent a few quiet seconds thinking. “Okay. Good plan. The farm. Haven’t seen it since dad died.” He looked at Justin. “Give me the gun, I’ll show you the car.”

  This didn’t seem right; he’d agreed to this far too easily. I was about to tell Justin not to even think about giving back the gun, but the naïve kid had already passed it across. I closed my eyes and let out a long, frustrated breath. How many times did he have to make the same mistake? I thought back to Torben at the barricade.

  When I opened my eyes, David had the gun pointed at me.

  “I’ll ask again. Tie your wrists together.”

  Reluctantly, I did what he said. After smashing me in the nose in the nose with the shotgun, I knew that David wasn’t the gentle person I had once known anymore. I didn’t know this man, I didn’t know what he was capable of. And he posed a threat to me most, of all people, because he was angry with me for what I’d done.

  Maybe he had good cause, I didn’t know anymore.

  “Go and wait outside,” he side to Justin.

  The boy looked at David and then back to me, as though he were asking what to do. I nodded at him. He walked over to a door at the far side of the room past the table and chairs. There was a padlock on it.

  “Use the door you came in,” said David.

  When we were alone, neither of us spoke for a while. David kept the gun pointed at my chest, but he was staring at the floor. I wondered what he wanted and why he had sent Justin out. Was he going to kill me? Despite how unsure of him I was, I still couldn’t believe he’d go that far.

  I felt a sting of pain from my nose. I put my finger to my nostrils and scratched away some of the dried blood. “Don’t suppose you have any paracetamol? I heard most of them still work,” I said.

  He shook his head.

  I needed to say something. I had to get him out of this state of mind. The infected weren’t here yet but the shotgun blast was sure as hell going to draw them to us, and when they got here I wanted to be long gone. Not only that, there were others out there, apart from the infected, who could have heard it.

  Torben. The hunters.

  “Remember when we were drunk in Brussels and we had to pay out for another night because you were so wasted? They wouldn’t let you on the flight.” I said, tryin
g to bring up a light memory to break the mood.

  David looked up. “Remember when my sister died and you abandoned me?” he spat.

  I hung my head. I couldn’t have this conversation, not now. I knew he was hurting, but it was something I just couldn’t face. “Look, Dave – “

  Justin came running in, his eyes wide with panic. He stopped just short of us and caught his breath. “They’re here. Fucking loads of them.”

  I snapped my head to the doorway but I couldn’t see them yet. That didn’t matter. Justin had seen them, and as I predicted, they were going to swarm us. I felt my skin go clammy, and the tendons in my neck pulsed.

  In the doorway, the first of the infected walked through. It was a male. His body was slim and his skin was wrapped around his bones like Clingfilm. He looked at us and growled.

  I got to my feet. “We need to move,” I said. I looked at David. He had his hands wrapped around his body and he was staring at the infected. He blinked rapidly. The infected had always terrified him, and I guessed that hadn’t changed in the years since I last saw him. Next to him, on the floor, was the shotgun.

  I reached down and picked it up. The handle was clammy from David’s sweaty palms, so I wiped it on my jeans. Justin tugged at my sleeve.

  “More of them are coming.”

  I glanced at David. The infected man was moving toward us, but David didn’t move. His breath was raspy, and his eyes were squeezed shut.

  “Justin, take care of it,” I said, and nodded at the infected.

  Justin took his knife out of his belt and held it at head height. His stance had improved, and I was glad to see that he’d actually paid attention to the things I taught him. Most of his awkward posture was gone now. He was surer of himself, better at handling his own body. He took a step forward and without a second’s contemplation sank his knife deep into the skull of the infected, splitting its head open with a crack. The infected’s body sank to the floor and brain fluid leaked out from the knife hole.

  “Hold this,” I said, and passed the shotgun to Justin.

  I bent down, hooked my hands underneath David’s armpits and hauled him to his feet. Evidently he hadn’t enjoyed a healthy diet during his time alone, because the guy weighed practically nothing. Getting him to his feet seemed to shake it out of his trance a little, because he opened his eyes and there was a hint of alertness there.

  In front of us, three infected struggled to get through the doorway, blocking each other’s way like commuters fighting to get on a tube. Behind them I could see the faces of others straining to get at us. This room was going to be filled with dead faces and snapping teeth soon, and when it did we’d have no chance. I gritted my teeth and let out a deep breath.

  “Where’s your car?” I said.

  David didn’t answer; he was too busy staring at the infected as they groaned with their desire to eat us.

  I slapped him on the face. He blinked, and looked at me. He rubbed his reddened cheek.

  “Where’s the damn car?” I said.

  He pointed at the door. “Through there.”

  “You’ve got the keys?”

  He nodded.

  Here was the choice then. I could take the keys from David, get in the car and drive away. Or I could still take the car and let David come with us. I didn’t want to take him, but it wasn’t really much of a choice to make. I was hardly going to leave him here for the infected to get him.

  Not again.

  “Good. You’re coming with us.”

  I dragged him toward the door as the infected finally spilled in, pushing and shoving against each other in their struggle to get close to us. I got to the door, raised the shotgun and fired it at the padlock. Another blast rang in my ears, and the metal smashed into pieces. I kicked the door open.

  Outside, there was the car.

  I grabbed Justin and hauled him outside. Behind me, David hovered in the doorway. The infected were a few feet away from him now, but he didn’t move.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I said.

  “Leila,” said David, looking at the mannequin sadly as the infected filled the room and swarmed around his doll, leaving her out of reach.

  “Leila’s fine. They don’t like the taste of plastic.”

  I grabbed the collar of his shirt and dragged him away. We got in the car. There was the choke of the engine as it sparked to life, and soon we were speeding away, leaving the infected-infested building behind us. My pulse was racing as I turned the steering wheel and followed the road out.

  We had had the car and that was something, but it had come at a price. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw David. His eyes were blank and his mouth was open, and he retreated to wherever the hell it was he went when things got too much for him.

  I didn’t even want one person travelling with me. Now I had two.

  Chapter 15

  I steered the car through the corkscrew country roads. I had forgotten how easily you could lose your driving skills without practice, and the last time I’d been in a car was over a decade ago. I remembered that Clara and I still had her beat-up Yaris when things all kicked off, and sometime later we found a Mercedes with the engine still hot and the keys in the ignition. I had loved driving that.

  In this part of the world the roads were tiny and they ran anyway they could but straight. At random times without any warning the road would seem to shrink so much that your wing mirrors scraped the hedges or the ramshackle stone walls that all ran alongside us.

  I looked at Justin next to me. He stared out of the window with his eyes wide, taking in every centimetre of scenery. To him, someone who had fifteen years of his life living behind walls, everything was a wonder. To me, the way the roads twisted and turned made it feel like we were circling a drain.

  “David,” I said.

  I looked in the mirror and saw him curled up on the back seat, asleep.

  “How long’s he been out?” I asked Justin.

  He looked away from the window. “All day, pretty much.”

  I nodded. I’d rather he was asleep and quiet than awake and asking me questions.

  Justin leaned in a little toward me. “Is there something wrong with him?” he whispered.

  I thought about a tactful way of putting it. “Bering alone does strange things to some men.”

  “Sure does. It made you the most paranoid, distrustful person I ever met.”

  I didn’t even have the energy to reprimand him. Last night we’d pulled over on a layby to get a little rest, but I hadn’t managed more than two hours. In the night the country was a foreboding place, and at one point I had seen reflective eyes staring at me through the darkness. My first thought was stalker, and my heart pounded, but then I realised it was a fox.

  My head throbbed. I was starting to worry that the blow from David’s shotgun had given me concussion or something because every twenty minutes my eyelids flickered, and my attention started to drift.

  The road in front of us seemed to run straight for a while, so I moved into fourth gear and picked up the speed. The engine hummed in the car bonnet and on the backseat, David snored in rhythmic breaths. A stone wall ran alongside us. It was hundreds of rocks of all shapes and sizes piled together, presumably to keep livestock from getting into the road.

  Above us, the sky was mostly blue but with a few rain clouds drifting through it. Little patters of water trickled onto the windscreen, so I turned on the wipers and watched them sway hypnotically from side to side. My eyelids felt heavy, and I knew they were starting to close. My brain sent soothing messages through my body and tell me it was okay. My attention began to dissipate and my thoughts drifted.

  There was a loud scrape and then a thud as the car swayed to the left and smashed into the wall, the impact of the metal against the rocks waking me immediately. Behind me in the mirror I saw David jolt upright. I felt my pulse racing and my breaths were shallow. I looked at Justin next to me.

  “You hurt?” I asked.

>   He shook his head, his eyes large and white.

  The wall in front of us was destroyed, and some of the rocks had collapsed onto the car bonnet. I hoped the car was okay; the last thing we needed, just fifty miles from the farm, was for it to break down.

  The worst thing was that I was to blame. It was my stupid inability to sleep properly that had made me tired and made me drift off while I was supposed to be watching the road. Now I’d probably wrecked the car and I’d also put Justin and David in danger. If David hadn’t already done it for me earlier, I would have hit myself in the nose.