by Wilde, J. M.
Chapter Nineteen
None of us moved. I’d stopped breathing, but I couldn’t bring myself to gasp for air, too afraid that even a slight movement would cause Elliot to fire the gun. Time slowed down, and the possibilities of how this could end started flying through my head, too many of them ending with Wyatt lying dead on the floor. I was still holding the axe, I could lunge at him and hit him in the head. But would I be quick enough? He’s so furiously insane, would that even be enough to stop him?
I knew I couldn’t risk it.
“Elliot,” Wyatt said, pleading with him. “She’s going to die. We need to save her.”
“She’s been bitten,” he replied. “She’s already dead.”
“We can still save her,” I said, and Elliot turned the gun at me. I felt my legs start to shake as my gaze moved between the barrel of the gun and Elliot’s vacant eyes.
Nikki began to scream. I knew it was too late. I shut my eyes, waiting for her screams to stop, for her pain to be over. But her cries just became louder and more violent.
“We’re not saving her,” Elliot said. “She’s getting exactly what she deserves. And you’re all going to stand here and listen to every last wail. Because this is what happens when you try to destroy paradise.”
Each scream was more blood-curdling than the next. We all stood there, helpless as we listened to Nikki being eaten alive. Every now and then she managed to yell for help, and I wished Elliot would just go out there and shoot her, put her out of her misery, but he was enjoying the moment too much to end it himself.
I felt like I was going to be sick, and all I could think of was poor Nikki, lying on the ground, slowly dying a painful death while zombies tore through her flesh. I hoped she knew we wanted to help her, I hoped she wasn’t thinking she had been abandoned while she took her last breaths.
I tried to make eye contact with Jo, to somehow let her know that we’ll be alright, but her eyes were squeezed shut, tears falling down her face. She was the closest to the window, and every time Nikki let out another shriek, Jo jumped, her body shaking like a leaf.
The silence finally fell upon us like a heavy burden, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved that Nikki’s pain was over, or afraid because it seemed that ours was just beginning.
“Now,” Elliot said. “Let’s everyone just relax and take a seat. We’ll discuss this like civilized folk.” He lowered the gun slowly, watching each of us suspiciously as we moved over to the dining table.
Once we were all seated, Elliot took his place at the head of the table and placed the gun gently in front of him, pushing the dead rabbit aside. “Do you see now why it’s impossible for you to leave?” No-one dared utter a word. “You simply cannot survive out there. No-one can. Nikki just proved that. Your only option is to stay here. And if you would all just open your minds a little to see it my way, I know we could make this paradise thrive.”
We stayed silent. I could still hear Nikki’s screams echoing through my mind. All I wanted was to be away from this place, but I knew there was no way we would leave without a fight.
Elliot broke the silence. “People, you’re looking at this all wrong! Where’s your enthusiasm? Where’s the excitement?”
“Excitement?” Wyatt asked. “What’s exciting about any of this?”
“Everything, my dear boy!” Elliot smiled. “It’s the apocalypse! Even the sound of that word just fills me with adrenaline and enthusiasm. Apocalypse! It’s spectacular! I adore that word and everything it means, I really do.”
We stared at him, jaws hanging open. I felt like I could see his last thread of sanity unravelling before my eyes.
“This is our chance to rewrite our lives,” he beamed. “To finally live like we were meant to: like hunters, like animals, like warriors.”
Wyatt leaned forward, staring his brother in the eyes. “Do you really think the world ending and everyone we love dying is a good thing?”
“Yes,” Elliot replied, without even thinking about his answer.
We all gasped in horror.
“The world was a terrible, evil place before,” he explained. “We were controlled, treated like puppets by the Government to do their bidding. Slaving away at jobs we hated just to buy things we didn’t need, then coming home to an empty house to spend hours on the couch watching reality television? We were the zombies, Wyatt. We went to war with each other. We were greedy, hateful people with no reason to live. We slaughtered each other long before zombies came along. Don’t you see? It’s much better this way. It’s a level playing field, where only the strong survive. And now that we know we could die a violent, horrible death at any moment, we’re finally allowing ourselves to truly live!”
Wyatt rested his elbows on the table and dropped his face in his hands. He sighed, rubbing his face. “You’re insane.”
“I am not insane!” Elliot roared, jumping to his feet and pounding his fist on the table. “You want to sit around moping all day trying to wish the world back into existence? Fine! But I see the truth: this world is ours for the taking.”
Wyatt slammed his chair back, making it tip over with a loud thud. “Wake up, Elliot!” he yelled. I didn’t know what to do. I had never seen Wyatt furious before. “Nikki is dead! She was your best friend since you were kids, and you just let her die! What if it was me out there? Would you just let me die, too?”
“Hopefully, we’ll never have to find out,” Elliot replied calmly. “Because as long as you stay here with me, you’ll survive. You can’t leave, Wyatt. Ever.”
“We’re not staying, Elliot.”
“You stay,” Elliot said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Or you die.”
Enraged, Wyatt lunged at his brother, punching him hard in the jaw.
“Wyatt!” I yelled, springing up from my chair.
“Wyatt, don’t!” Ben said as he tried to hold Wyatt back. “He’ll kill you. Let’s just get out of here.”
Elliot grabbed the shotgun from the table and held it against Wyatt’s head. Screams filled the room as we all pleaded with Elliot to stop. A loud buzzing sound interrupted our warring, and I looked down to see Elliot’s beeper sitting on the dining table, vibrating wildly.
They were coming.
Chapter Twenty
“Stop!” I yelled, slamming my hands onto the table. Everyone went quiet, hearing the vibrations just as I had.
Elliot lowered his gun, picked up the beeper and headed down the hallway. “Truce,” he said. “Our war against them is more important than our war against each other.” He nodded at Wyatt and Ben, who cautiously nodded in return. “I’ll get the weapons. Wyatt, Ben, you two meet me out front in three minutes,” he called before slamming his bedroom door shut behind him.
As soon as he was gone, I ran up to Wyatt and hugged him tight. “Are you okay?”
He hugged me back. “I’ll be fine.”
“Let’s just leave,” Jo whispered, standing up from the table.
Ben shook his head. “We can’t. We don’t know how many of them are out there.”
“We’ll have to go with him to fight,” Wyatt said.
I stepped back, staring up at him with eyebrows raised. “That’s crazy! He just tried to kill you!”
“We don’t have a choice.”
I gestured to Jo and myself. “And what are we supposed to do?”
“Stay here,” Ben said.
“I will not!” I argued. “I’m just as good a fighter as you two are, maybe even better.”
Jo clutched on to my arm. “No, Eva.” Her eyes were wide in fear. “Don’t leave me alone up here. Please.”
“You can come, too,” I said. “We can all fight.”
She shook her head. Her fingers trembled as they dug into my skin. “I don’t want to fight anymore.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she pleaded with me to stay.
As much as I wanted to help Wyatt and Ben, I could see Jo was falling to pieces. The thought of leaving Jo while she was utterly terrified made my hea
rt ache. I had to stay.
“Okay, Jo,” I said as I wrapped her in a hug. “We’ll stay here with Hunter. We’ll be okay.”
Wyatt nodded in agreement. “Ben and I need to do something about Elliot. We’re not safe around him anymore, maybe we never were. I see that now.”
Ben narrowed his eyes at him. “What are we gonna do?”
Wyatt thought for a moment. “We’ll tell him we need to get in his jeep and drive around the perimeter, to kill the zombies faster. He’ll love that. I’ll drive, and once we take care of the zombies I’ll just keep driving. We’ll take his weapons and dump him in the most infested part of town. He won’t stand a chance.”
“Do you really think you could kill your own brother?” I whispered, trying to be quiet so Elliot couldn’t hear.
“He’s not my brother anymore, Eva. My brother died a long time ago. I see that now, too.” He leaned forward and kissed me before turning to leave. “Stay safe.”
“Take care of Jo,” Ben whispered as he hugged me goodbye.
“See you soon,” Wyatt said before running out the front door with Ben right behind him. A few minutes later, Elliot met them out the front of the house, handing them both machetes. The three of them jumped into the car, with Wyatt at the wheel just as he had planned.
Jo and I stood at the window, watching as they sped away.
“Elliot really is crazy, isn’t he?” she asked, staring out over the trees.
I nodded, silently cursing myself for not listening to my gut. “I should’ve done something,” I said. “I knew we weren’t safe here as long as he was around. I just wanted this to be the paradise we dreamt it was on the way up here. It was our only chance.” A rogue tear fell onto my cheek and I quickly wiped it away, knowing I had to be strong. But I was so tired of being strong. I wondered how much more I could take before I couldn’t handle this new life anymore.
“It’s okay, Eva,” she said, taking my hand. “We all wanted to believe this was paradise. We haven’t missed our chance. Elliot is gone now. We can start again.”
I closed my eyes, hoping desperately that she was right. I hoped that it would all be over soon, and that all the evil I’d seen wouldn’t poison my soul so much that I could never live a normal life again.
Hours passed and Wyatt and Ben still hadn’t returned. Jo and I had spent most of the day on the roof, watching for any sign of them, or worse; zombies.
“It’s too hot up here,” Jo said, fanning herself with her hand. “I’m going to have a cold shower.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be down in a sec to make us something to eat.” I scanned the trees carefully. We hadn’t seen any zombies since morning, when we lost Nikki. Elliot, Wyatt and Ben must have taken them all down before they got too far up the mountain.
The sun was starting to set, so I decided to do a quick perimeter check before we locked down for the night. I climbed down the stairs and slowly crept into Elliot’s room, looking for a better weapon than my axe. Even though he wasn’t there, I still felt on edge.
I opened his wardrobe, surprised to see dozens of swords, machetes, knives and guns. I picked up a samurai sword and called for Hunter as I walked out the front door. Hunter came running out of the house and walked by my side, searching around for any danger. We walked down the driveway until we reached the gate, then started following the fence-line through the rainforest. After a few minutes, I noticed something odd about the fence up ahead.
Once I got closer, I saw that a huge hole had been cut into it. A few meters away, I found another one. And another. By the time I had walked the entire perimeter, I had counted fifteen holes, each one large enough for a zombie to just stroll through with ease.
I felt sick to my stomach at the image of Elliot standing there, cutting holes into the fence to let those monsters in. I started walking back to the house to find something to patch the holes up before it got too dark, when Hunter started sniffing wildly and let out a defensive growl.
I stopped in my tracks, holding the sword up at the ready. I heard the crunching of leaves up ahead, followed by a low screech. I couldn’t figure out which direction it would attack me from, but I knew it was close.
It emerged from the palms on my right. It was so horribly decayed that I couldn’t even tell if it used to be a man or a woman, but I knew one thing: it was hungry. Hunter started biting at its ankles, but it didn’t stop. I waited for it to get close enough, and swung the sword at its neck with full force, slicing its head clean off. I was bolting through the trees before the rotting skull had time to hit the ground. Just as I pushed my way through the rainforest and into the clearing, I heard a shrill scream from inside the house. I ran as fast as I could, with Hunter right beside me, and burst through the front door to find a zombie clawing at the bathroom door, Jo’s screams coming from inside. It was fresher than the zombie in the rainforest, and much taller than me.
Hunter jumped on its back, biting furiously at its neck, causing the monster to spin around in an attempt to pull him off. I ran right up to it, swinging the sword high and fast. The top of its head spun off and flew into the wall, sending blood and brains spattering everywhere. Hunter jumped off of it just before it fell backwards onto the floor.
I stepped up to the bathroom door. “Jo? It’s me. Are you okay?” The door opened slowly and Jo stood there, wearing only a towel, tears streaming down her face. I wrapped my arms around her, thankful that she was okay.
Once Jo had calmed down and got dressed, we tirelessly dragged the zombie out onto the back porch and kicked it down the steps. Wyatt and Ben would need to take it over the fence when they returned, it was too heavy for us to carry.
“Elliot cut over a dozen holes in the fence,” I said to Jo as we scrubbed our hands. Even though we wore disposable gloves when we moved the body, we wanted to be sure we were clean. “I need to go patch them up. Who knows how many more zombies are out there.”
“Eva, no,” Jo pleaded. “It’s too dark out there now. It’s not safe.”
I knew she was right. It was too dangerous, we would have to wait it out and hope that no more zombies found their way through the holes and into the house. “Alright,” I said. “Let’s whip up something quick for dinner, then hide out on the roof for the night.”
Jo sighed. “I wish we knew where Elliot’s bunker was.”
I’d wanted to find the bunker ever since we arrived, but I never had a chance to explore the land properly, not with Elliot always lurking around. Jo and I cooked spaghetti, constantly looking out the window whenever we heard a sound. Our nerves were completely on edge, and I could tell she was just as worried as I was that Wyatt and Ben hadn’t returned yet, but neither of us said anything about it. With every hour that ticked by, dread swept over me more and more.
After dinner, we went back up to the rooftop garden.
“How many of them do you think are out there right now?” Jo asked, peeking over the edge and into the darkness.
“Don’t think about it,” I said, not wanting to know the answer. “You’ll freak yourself out. All that matters is they can’t reach us up here. We’re safe.”
The tropical heat made it warm enough for us to stay on the roof comfortably. Jo began drifting to sleep, but I was wide awake. I couldn’t stop thinking about Wyatt and Ben, and why they hadn’t returned yet. I had a terrible feeling that something had gone wrong. Terrifying images flashed in my mind. I imagined hundreds of zombies swarming over the car, making it impossible for them to escape or survive.
“Stop it, Eva,” I muttered to myself, squeezing my eyes shut to force the images out of my mind.
After a while, I fell asleep and straight into a horrifying nightmare. Elliot was chasing me through the rainforest. I sprinted as fast as I could, dodging zombies that jumped out at me from behind the trees. He was gaining on me. Tripping on the winding roots of a tree, I flew through the air, landing hard on a rock.
Elliot launched himself onto me, clutching my throat with enormous
strength. I watched in horror as his face began to decay rapidly. He was transforming into a zombie before my eyes. I couldn’t move. All I could do was watch as he morphed from a psychopathic human being into a murderous monster. Just before he started to sink his teeth into my skin, I awoke in a cold sweat, gasping for air.
After catching my breath, I noticed the sun was rising. I peered over the roof, hoping to see the jeep parked in the driveway. My heart sank when I saw there was no jeep in sight. I decided to go downstairs and make myself a large cup of coffee to keep myself awake.
I quietly went down into the house, careful not to wake Jo, but Hunter had heard my movement so he followed behind. I walked into the kitchen and was about to switch on the kettle when I heard tyres rolling over the dirt driveway.
“Jo!” I called. “Wake up! They’re back!”
Excitement and relief overwhelmed me as I ran out the front door and down the porch steps to see the jeep turning the corner and coming to a quick stop. Hunter followed behind me, barking at the car.
I watched as the door of the jeep swung open. I couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around Wyatt again.
But Wyatt wasn’t the man stepping out of the jeep.
It was Elliot.
And he was covered in blood.
Chapter Twenty-One
The shock of seeing his face again knocked the air out right of my lungs.
“Hello, Eva,” he said with an evil glint in his eyes. Fear washed over me like a heavy wave. I held my breath, hoping to see Wyatt and Ben get out of the jeep, but I could see there was no-one else in there.
I stormed towards him. “Where are they?” I yelled.
He walked straight past me, twirling the keys in his fingers. “Who?”
“You know damn well who! Where’s Wyatt and Ben?”
“Oh, them.” He paused. “They didn’t make it.”
I stood frozen in terror as the reality of what he said sunk into my bones. Tears filled my eyes and my heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
“What did you do?” I roared, chasing after him.
