SEVENTEEN
The climb down isn’t as bad as William thought it would be, even while holding the rifle in one hand.
He looks back up to check on Josefine. She’s making her way down the hill very carefully, choosing every step with great care.
“You afraid of heights?” he calls to her.
She glances down at him, then focuses on her feet again. “Do I look like I’m afraid of heights?”
“You need me to give you a hand? I can wait for you.”
“Just go on,” she tells him, waving a hand. “I’ve got this.”
William nods, then continues the descent. Josefine is already growing on him. She’s the type of person he likes to have by his side during the apocalypse; clever, determined, no BS.
Ozzy is following close to William. He obviously has no trouble with heights, and four legs seem to be quite the advantage when scaling steep hills.
William reaches the road and looks back up. Josefine is only a few yards behind, and from the top he can see Sebastian and Dan silhouetted against the blue sky. He waves, signaling everything is okay, and they wave back.
“Right,” he says to himself, looking around. “That rose hip seems like the obvious choice.”
A large bush is growing by the side of the road, the pink flowers in full bloom. He walks closer and bends down, trying to look through the branches, but they’re way too thick.
“Perfect.”
Josefine has reached the road. She dusts off her knees and hands and looks at him. “Is that where you’ll be sitting?”
“I think so. Are you okay with your part?”
“Sure. Damsel in distress. I’ve got this.”
William is about to say something when there’s a whistle from above. He looks up, and Sebastian lifts one hand.
“Right, it’s coming,” William says, getting the rifle ready. “Ozzy, heel.”
Ozzy is already by his side, and William walks around the rose hip and crouches right on the other side. He peeks over the branches and sees Josefine walk a little down the road. She then places herself at the roadside and begins waiting.
Ozzy is panting in William’s ear. He feels the excitement rise up through his legs.
Thirty seconds later, he hears the roar of the truck’s engine. Then he sees it coming towards them and ducks down. Spotting through a tiny hole in the branches, he can just make out Josefine. She steps out onto the road and waves both arms.
The trucker sees her and lets off the gas.
“It’s happening,” William breathes. “Get ready, buddy.”
Ozzy whimpers with suppressed excitement. Holding up and robbing a truck was never part of Ozzy’s training, so he probably has no idea what’s going to happen, but he’s obviously very aware that the situation is getting highly intense, mirroring William’s excitement and getting himself ready for whatever will go down.
The truck slows down further and comes to a halt in front of Josefine. She has shifted her weight onto her right foot and has lifted the left one slightly off the ground.
“Could you please help me?” she calls out, still waving at the truck driver. “I think I’ve dislocated my ankle!”
The driver—a skinny, buzzcut guy not much older than William—leans out the window and asks in Norwegian: “What’s the problem?”
“My ankle!” Josefine says, pointing. “I went hiking and I had a fall. I need a lift to town, could you please help me?”
The driver darts a look in the mirrors, as though to check if anyone else is around. Then he looks back out at Josefine. “Are you hurt besides your ankle?”
Josefine shakes her head.
“All right, come on then. Jump in. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
Josefine begins to walk over to the truck.
No! William thinks. No, make him come out …
For a moment he’s afraid that Josefine has forgotten the plan and is about to blow it. But then she pretends like her ankle gives way and sinks to the ground with a scream of pain—a very convincing one at that. She shakes her head and looks up at the truck driver. “I can’t! I can’t walk! Please come help me!”
Yes! That’s it.
The driver seems to chew on it—quite literally, as his jaw moves—then he pulls his head back in, unbuckles and opens the door.
“Yatzy!” William whispers. “Get ready, buddy.”
The remark is quite unnecessary, as Ozzy is already shivering with readiness.
William pulls back the hammer, carefully locking it in place. He doesn’t really like the thought of pointing a loaded rifle on an innocent guy, but Sebastian told him there’s a tiny chance the guy might be packing himself, so they can’t take any chances.
As he jumps down from the truck, however, William becomes convinced the driver isn’t carrying any weapons. He’s very short and even skinnier than William took him to be, his arms and legs both wiry and sunburned. He’s wearing cargo shorts way too wide for him, and they’re strapped in tightly with a way too heavy belt. His shirt—a black tank top with a Guns N’ Roses logo—reveals his ribs and collarbone.
At least he’s got great taste in music, William thinks to himself, clutching the rifle.
Josefine reaches out her hand as the trucker comes closer, but then he suddenly stops a few paces away.
“You out here all alone?” he asks, looking down at her.
Josefine nods.
“Did you see anybody else around?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“So you haven’t heard about the train?”
“What train? Please, can you just help me? My ankle is really hurting.”
The driver takes her hand and pulls her up. He places her arm over his boney shoulders and together they walk back to the truck. He helps Josefine into the passenger seat and, just as he closes the door and is about to walk around the front of the car, Josefine leans over and presses the horn.
The driver jumps in surprise and looks up at her through the windshield. “Why’d you do that?”
William knows why. It was the signal he needed. And he’s already jumped up and is running towards the driver, the rifle swinging back and forth, Ozzy quickly gaining a lead.
William stops about twenty feet away, places the rifle against his shoulder and gives off a short, loud whistle. The sound serves both a command for Ozzy to stop—which he does—and for the driver to turn around—which he also does.
His eyes grow big and round at the sight of William and the German shepherd both staring at him. He instinctively holds up his hands.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” William tells him, straining to hold the gun level, but it’s difficult because of the adrenaline. “We just need your fuel. If you stay calm and don’t do anything stupid, you’ll be perfectly fine and we’ll be out of here fast.”
The driver swallows and nods, his eyes darting from the rifle to the dog, as though he’s not sure which to fear the most. “All right. No problem, man. Please keep the dog away from me, okay? I hate dogs.”
Ozzy growls, almost as though he understands what the guy just said, and the guy steps backwards.
“Don’t move,” William says. “Ozzy won’t do anything I haven’t told him to, so don’t worry.”
Josefine comes back out from the truck and joins them.
“Good job,” William tells her.
“You too.” She looks up the hill. “You think they heard the signal?”
Just as William is about to answer, the sound of the helicopter’s engine starts up with a series of deep whoop-whoops.
He glances at her with a smile. “I guess that’s a yes.”
The driver—still holding up his hands—looks to the sky, squinting against the sun. “Who’s … who’s up there?”
“Our friends,” William tells him. “We’ve got a helicopter. Whaddiya think we needed the fuel for? Drinking?”
The driver ignores the rhetorical question and looks at William with an expression of even greater fea
r. “Look, it’ll take some time to fuel a helicopter …”
“We know that. We’ve got the time.”
“But we can’t stay out here for that long! Haven’t you guys heard of the train?”
“What train?” Josefine asks.
He looks at her, then back at William. “The train from Oslo! The one with the infection!”
William glances at Josefine and she glances back. The sound of the helicopter overhead has grown so loud it’s becoming difficult to hear each other.
“We didn’t hear about that!” Josefine shouts to the driver. “Tell us about it!”
The driver moistens his pale lips with his tongue. “The virus! It came into Norway from Sweden this morning. It reached Oslo almost right away. People panicked.”
“We know about that!” William shouts, as the shadow of the helicopter passes over them. “What did you say about a train?”
“They just said it over the radio half an hour ago!” the driver goes on, now shouting at the top of his lungs. “They tried to shut down all traffic going out of the city, but someone went crazy and hijacked a train full of people. They rode north and they’ve just been spotted by someone only five miles from here!”
William feels his pulse rising even higher as the helicopter descends and the beat of the rotor begins tapping at his eardrums. “Where are they headed?” he shouts.
The driver shakes his head. “That’s the thing, they aren’t headed anywhere—the train had stopped! People were climbing out the windows, all of them infected! They said every last person on that train had likely been infected, and there were several hundreds of them!”
William’s stomach drops. He can’t help but glance around.
“The train tracks run past this hill right on the other side!” the driver goes on, pointing. “If it’s true what they said on the radio, the area could be swamped with infected people right now!”
William knows the guy isn’t lying—he noticed the tracks from the air right before they landed.
The helicopter is close enough now that the wind is throwing around dust and pebbles, pulling at their clothes and Josefine’s hair.
Then—just before it touches down—William sees the figure coming down the road. It’s a young woman with long, beautiful hair, wearing a red summer dress which has been torn open on one side, revealing a small, firm breast with pale tan lines showing where the girl’s bikini used to sit. Normally, William’s eyes would have been drawn to the girl’s chest, but he hardly notices. Instead, he stares at her face, which is mostly missing. In its place is a red, bloody mask of exposed tissue. He can make out the gristle from the nose and the white teeth and jawbone. One remaining, cloudy-white eyeball stares right back at him.
Then the helicopter cuts the girl from view as it lands on the road between her and the truck.
EIGHTEEN
Iver scales the stairs three steps at a time reaching the second floor in a matter of seconds. He surveys the landing, quickly getting an overview of the three small rooms, the toddler sleeping in the one on the right.
Iver runs to the one on the left and looks out the window. From here, he can see Fred’s house and the fields beyond it. And farther off, the coastline where they landed.
He can also see the figures coming this way.
There’s at least a dozen of them. They’re walking in an uncertain, wobbly way—one of them actually falls down, then gets back up and walks on.
Iver squints his eyes, feeling his heart rate rise as he tries to see the figures more clearly, even though he already knows who they are.
Then he notices he’s standing right next to a telescope on a tripod—probably one that Agnete uses to admire the view—and he puts his eye to the ocular and searches for the figures.
It takes him a few seconds to find them. When he does, his breath escapes him; they look even worse than he remembers.
They’re all dead, of course, all of them sporting visible bite wounds. But they’re also drenched. Not like someone who’s been out in the rain, but like corpses that have been soaking in a lake for days—which really isn’t that far from reality. Their skin is grey and green and purple and swollen up like a sponge. Their hair is hanging like dead seaweed and their clothes are still dripping. Most of them are covered in sand, too, as they all seem to have taken a fall since they waddled ashore. Iver suspects that if the sea around Denmark had had sharks or other big predatory fish, they would probably have eaten off the zombies.
He pulls away from the telescope and tries to estimate how far the undeads are out. Two miles? Maybe three.
And with their current speed, they’ll probably reach Fred’s house within ten minutes. Some of them seem to be branching off in different directions, apparently sensing other targets—at least five of them are headed this way.
Iver runs back downstairs, almost crashing into Charlotte, who’s running past the stairs in her effort to close all windows.
Agnete comes out from another room carrying a long, slim wooden suitcase. Chris rips it from her hand and puts in on the table, shoving aside the dishes.
“Like I said, it’s very old and—” Agnete begins.
She gets cut off by Chris, who’s already opened the suitcase and is pulling out the rifle: “How many rounds you’ve got?”
“Rounds? Oh, you mean bullets? Only these.” She presents a plastic bag, which Chris takes and empties out onto the table. Iver counts four cardboard boxes.
“They’re all unopened,” Chris mutters. “And they contain fifty each, giving us two hundred rounds. They’re only .243, but that’ll do.” He looks at Agnete. “You’ve got any cotton buds? And I need a clean cloth, too.”
Agnete rushes out to the kitchen as Iver begins taking the rifle apart with practiced movements.
Iver steps over to him.
“Well?” Chris says, not looking at him. “Judging from the scared shitless expression on your face I assume you saw them?”
Iver nods. “Twelve,” he mutters. “Maybe more. They’re coming this way. Fifteen minutes out, tops.”
“Direction?”
“Huh?”
“What direction are they approaching from?”
“Uhm, the same way we came from.”
“North,” he says right away. “Did you see any boats?”
“No,” Iver says, frowning. “No, I didn’t.” It’s only now he connects the dots. “They looked like they swam here. Do you think they came from …?”
“The ferry,” Chris finishes, sending him a brief glance. “They can survive under water. Now we know. And we can probably expect a shitload more of them to arrive before nightfall.”
Iver swallows dryly. An impulse shoots through him to run up to the kid’s room, grab the toddler and leave the house. But where would he go? Even if he could find a boat and leave the island, the question would still be the same: where to go?
Charlotte comes into the living room, panting. “Done. I’ve checked everywhere, both down here and upstairs.”
“Good,” Chris says, still working the rifle. “I’ll have this ready in five minutes. Until then, see if you can find anything else that’ll serve as weapons. Anything that can punch or stab or cut. Preferably something long, so we don’t need to get too close to them.”
Agnete comes back into the living room with a cloth and a glass of cotton buds. She looks at them earnestly. “I think … I think you might want to check the garage. That’s where I keep my gardening tools.”
“Perfect,” Chris says. “Do that. Hand me those.” He takes the cleaning supplies from Agnete.
“Oh, I just remembered,” Agnete says, rushing to the bookcase. On the top shelf is a radio which she turns on.
“… approaching town from the north and the northeast end of the island,” a man’s voice says gravely. “I’ll repeat that. This is Chairman Viggo Andersen, I’m speaking to everyone on Anholt. The infected have reached our island. They’re approaching town from the north and the northeast end. Th
ere are a few dozen of them, and more seem to come from the sea all the time. Like was said at the meeting earlier today, remember whatever you do, to not let any of them inside your houses. I cannot stress this enough. Do not get into direct contact with these people. They are highly contagious. If you’re not already, then get inside your house as fast as possible, no matter where you are on the island. Lock the doors, secure the windows. Don’t do anything else until we’ve got the situation under control …”
Chris scoffs. “Might take some time.” He looks at Iver and Charlotte. “What are you waiting for? Get on with it.”
“Come with me,” Charlotte says, grabbing Iver by the wrist and pulling him along.
They run down the hallway and out through a door leading to the garage. As Charlotte hits the lights, Iver immediately sees the row of tools hanging on the wall. Normally, the shovels and rakes and hoes would remind him simply of gardening. But right now, to Iver they look more like a weapon display in a war museum.
Charlotte, sending him a quick sideways look, seems to be thinking something similar. “Okay,” she says, breathing deeply. “There’s plenty we can use. We’d better take them all.”
She steps over and takes down the shovel. Iver follows her example. His first choice is the rake. He weighs it in his hands, imagining swinging it at an oncoming zombie. His stomach tightens at the mere thought of the teeth connecting with the skull.
“Hey!”
He blinks and looks at Charlotte, who’s standing with her arms full. She nods towards the remaining tools on the wall. “Are you just going to stand there? Or are you going to take the rest of them?”
NINETEEN
“Did you see her?” Josefine shouts.
William doesn’t waste any time answering; he just runs towards the helicopter, ducking down as he’s seen people do in movies to avoid the worst of the wind from the rotors.
The sliding door opens, revealing Dan.
“Close it!” William bellows, waving frantically at him. “Close the door!”
Dan gets the message—even though he looks puzzled—and shuts the door again.
Dead Meat Box Set, Vol. 2 | Days 4-6 Page 50
