“Are we going back to Haven?” asked Tommy.
Caballero nodded. “It’s too dangerous for us. We would need to come back with more men and vehicles. A solid plan is needed for this. It’s not an easy in and out job like the smaller places we’ve been to. I was too optimistic.”
“Shame we can’t check out the cathedral,” said Martinez. “Big place like that could hold a lot of people.”
“Hopefully they’ve barricaded it and whoever is in there knows what they’re doing. All we can do for now is go home.”
“Shame,” echoed Tommy as he gazed out the window at the pavements laden with bile-dripping freaks.
Monday afternoon
Tommy knocked, listened out for a “Come in” and then poked his head around the door of the hospital room. “Ready for a visitor?” he asked.
“Of course,” said Marla, straightening the bedclothes around her and smoothing back her hair. She forgot about the upturned magazines by her legs and gave him a friendly smile.
“How are you?” Tommy asked.
“Fine,” she replied. “I’ve been sitting here reading most of the day and I had a lot of visitors: Billy and Eric, Bella and Claire, and Ellen, of course.”
“Nice one.”
“Mmm, but Ellen said an odd thing. She asked if you’d spoken to me yet, but she wouldn’t say what about when I asked. Do you know if there was something she wanted you to tell me?”
Tommy preoccupied himself with moving the chair around rather than looking directly at her. “No, I don’t think so.” Finally, he sat down, but still found himself fidgeting.
“Oh.” Marla shrugged. “Can’t be anything important. How was your day anyhow?”
“Ah, interesting. We went on patrol in Salisbury.”
“Really? I wish I’d been there.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Tommy, shifting position again.
“Why?”
“Freaks everywhere. Never seen so many and it was daylight.”
“Shit. So you didn’t find anyone?”
“We didn’t even get a look in. Drove in, saw nothing much on the way, except for the odd straggler, hit the main road, went up a side one where there was nothing but houses, and whoa, it was packed full of freaks. I couldn’t believe it. Even Caballero looked shocked.”
“Sounds really bad. Why did you go there?”
“Apparently, the helicopter crews saw people when they flew over, near the cathedral.”
“I heard that Salisbury Cathedral is beautiful,” said Marla. “Sorry, strange thought to have when the place has obviously, well…”
“Yeah, it was scary. Everywhere you looked there were freaks and we were on the outskirts. About 40,000 people lived there, Caballero said.”
“God, do you think they all turned?”
“I hope not, but it made me wonder. I mean how many other places are like that? I never thought that many would come out in daylight.”
“I dunno,” mumbled Marla. “Jakob’s the one to ask about stuff like that.”
“Mmm.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot, you hate him.”
“I don’t hate him… look, let’s not get started on that again or the nurse will come in and ask us to stop arguing.”
“Yeah, like an old married couple,” joked Marla, but to her surprise, Tommy didn’t laugh. Instead, he gawked, looked awkward and then glanced out the window. She gazed at him, curious, but he failed to look back again, so she took a deep breath and tried to think of something to say, assuming she’d reminded him of a bad memory. “You okay?” she asked finally.
“Er, yep, I’m fine. I’m thinking I’d best be going.”
Marla raised an eyebrow. “Already? You only just got here, Tommy.”
“Yeah, but I said I’d meet up with Barney. He should be finishing school about now.”
“Oh, I understand. Please say hello to him for me. I didn’t want him visiting me in hospital. Not a happy place for kids.”
“I don’t think he’d mind.”
“I know.”
“I’ll see you soon then,” said Tommy, standing. With that, he was out the door before Marla could say goodbye. She scratched her head, feeling somewhat perplexed.
Tuesday, 6
Tommy opened his door to find Ellen standing there with a chilly expression. “Hi, Tommy,” she stated flatly. “How are you today?”
“I’m okay.”
“Sure about that?”
“Yep. Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked.
“Are you coming to the hospital with me? Marla’s coming out today. I waited for you a while, but there was no sign of you, so I thought I’d come get you.”
“No, no, I can’t. I’ve got things to do.”
Ellen smirked. “Really?”
Tommy nodded and shrugged. “What? Have I done something wrong?”
“You didn’t talk to her, did you?”
“Was I meant to?”
“Tommy! It’s me you’re talking to here. I know how you feel about my sister.”
“Keep it down,” he said, checking the corridor.
Ellen lowered her voice: “She nearly died, you saved her life, and you’ve had this whopping great crush on her for how long? You two really need to talk.”
“No, no… we don’t. I know when to leave things be.”
“Tommy?”
He sighed. “Ellen, I don’t want to be rude, but it’s none of your business.”
She waved her hands in the air. “Okay, okay, but don’t ask me for advice about my sister again. I don’t know what you’re scared of, Tommy Armstrong. Anyway, I’m going to tell her you wanted to come, but had to do something important for Caballero.”
“Tell her what you want,” said Tommy, not liking the feeling of being pushed into a corner.
Ellen looked set to reply, but changed her mind, muttering, “See you,” instead.
Tommy watched her walk away and then closed the door, not really knowing what to think of his own behaviour. But sometimes it was best to take the less complicated route in life, and Marla was certainly complicated.
Friday, 9
Ellen’s dream
She hurtles down the corridor as it snakes, transforming into a tunnel of inky black where her feet sink into warm earth. Pausing for a second, she peers back, making out the shape of the wailing creature behind her, dripping blood. Relentless. Forever. He will come.
From the cracks in the walls the laughter seeks her out, pressing against her eardrums, plummeting through the silence, enveloping everything. But then she remembers how it only used to be a slight echo in the distance. When did it become so loud? When did she recall that it used to be so small a sound?
In that instance she knows it is now. This has never happened before. This is still the dream, but it has changed. She knows.
All around, she searches with her eyes for the source of the laughter. It is hiding, concealing itself. “Why do you hide?” she asks the walls, impenetrable and deaf to her question. It lies beyond them. The laughter is there.
Remembering the dead thing behind her, she turns, not fearing it anymore, knowing this is only a dream, a nightmare, a thing she conjured up for herself. Almost laughing, she glances back, but he is still there, stumbling blindly, clinging on to her scent.
Grimacing, she wills herself to go on, to outrun him, to escape. Such a thing must be possible. It is her nightmare after all, not his. As she runs she looks about for a weapon, anything with which to fight him. Laughter bounces off the walls now, leading her. It lies ahead, whatever it is.
The corridor spins and turns again, and she goes with it, stumbling in the warm dirt that hugs her feet, seeming to swirl like liquid, but then it solidifies and her body slides into the dark.
***
Feeling something pulling at her body, Ellen felt herself rising and then falling until a choking sensation around her throat forced her to wake. Spluttering, she blinked, her eyes fluttering uncontrollably for a second. She g
ripped the bed, its solidity bringing her back to reality.
“Ellen, don’t worry, you’re okay. I am here. You are alright.”
She turned her head to see Rita striding towards her, carrying the familiar looking blue glass of water that she always gave her on reviving. Ellen straightened her head on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling as her breathing began to calm. The familiar; the real world – the only one, she reminded herself.
“Don’t move, honey,” urged Rita as she set the glass down on the side table and removed the sensors from Ellen’s face. “That was a little longer again.”
“Really? I woke early. Weird,” she muttered, pulling herself up into a seating position. Taking the glass of water, she gulped it down.
The door of the observation room opened and Doctor Grice walked out, trailed by Owen. “Good, good,” remarked the doctor. “Ellen, you were asleep for twenty minutes longer. This is good progress, I feel.”
Ellen swallowed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she placed the empty glass on the side. “I did something different,” she said, remembering. “I acted. I tried to defend myself by finding a weapon and going in search of the laughter, but I woke before the time the dream usually ends.”
Owen smiled. “Amazing… we saw differences on the machines…”
“This is very good, Ellen,” Doctor Grice replied. “If you can confront your fears in your dream, we might be able to stop them. Did you see the man who gave the warning or the laughing man?”
Ellen frowned and shook her head. “No,” she answered softly. “They weren’t there.”
Week 15
Sunday, 11
Tommy walked the length of the corridor from his room to Marla’s and stopped outside. He raised his hand to knock on the door and then paused. Shaking his head, he turned and wandered back, but then stopped again. Feeling a strong desire to kick himself, he swung his arms around to loosen the tension in his body. On cue, the door opposite him opened and a soldier stepped out. He gawked at him.
“Hey,” said Tommy awkwardly. The soldier nodded and walked briskly away. Embarrassed, Tommy raised both hands on top of his head, laced the fingers together and walked very slowly in the direction of Marla’s room again. Once he heard the lift doors close, he glanced over his shoulder to be sure the soldier had gone. He had. Tommy breathed out and leaned against the wall. Come on, man! For fuck’s sake! As he berated himself, a door opened and Marla stuck her head out. Immediately, he stepped away from the wall in astonishment and humiliation.
“Tommy?” she asked. “I heard someone outside my room. Did you see anyone?”
Feeling his face flush, he shook his head. “Nope.”
She stared at him, clearly lost for words, and he realised it was one of those now or never moments. “Do you have a second?” he asked and then wanted to kick himself again as it was going to take much longer than that.
Still gripping the door handle, Marla answered, “Sure,” before turning back into her room. He followed and she closed the door. Folding her arms across her chest, she took two steps away and waited for him to speak.
“How are you?” he asked, leaning against the wall, as if it was the only visible means of support in the room.
“I’m okay,” she answered. “They took the stitches out of my stomach and although a bit tender, it’s fine. My hand is perfect – just a scar – and even my ankle is holding up.”
“That’s great.”
She sighed. “Tommy, it’s been a while. You visited me in hospital every day, but then I haven’t seen you around since. Is everything alright?”
He stared down at his boots for a second while he considered how to word what he wanted to say, but he had never been great with sentences anyway, so what was the point of trying to phrase this correctly? “I don’t want you to leave,” he blurted out. “You said you’d asked for a transfer out of here, but I don’t want you to go. I know you’ve been scared since you got hurt, but we can work this out… together.”
“Oh.” She glanced towards the window and back. Feeling his eyes on her, she looked away again.
“So, you’re not going to look at me now?” he asked.
She forced her head around. “Oh,” she repeated before glancing away again.
“Should I come back later?”
“Ah.” Marla noticed a smirk on Tommy’s face and she smiled. “You just caught me off guard. I thought we were friends.”
He hesitated. “We are, but I thought we got closer, or at least I thought we did on the way here…”
“We did, Tommy…”
“Until Jakob came along.”
She tutted. “I was never interested in Jakob. Not really. I was flattered, and then I wanted to find out information from him on this place and the dead-lookers. He knows a lot. He’s very good at what he does…”
Tommy raised an eyebrow.
“Then there’s you and Hanna… that’s real stuff, normal. You have a family there.”
“There’s nothing going on between me and Hanna. She’s my ex. We’re getting on well now because we both realise we were acting like stupid kids,” Tommy replied. “The two of us arguing is pointless and only hurts our son. We can see that now.”
Marla bit her lip. “I thought…”
“You thought wrong.”
“Sorry. I remember she hated me.”
“She’s got over that now. It isn’t important. Anyway, I really don’t know what’s going on in here, Marla. I’ve known you long enough to trust you, and I hope you trust me, especially after all the crap we’ve been through. We can try to find out what’s going on in this place, but right now I’d rather be in here than outside. I think we should stick together and if you leave it’s going to be hard on me, because I don’t want to leave my son and yet I’d want to go with you.”
“Okay… I see. Tommy, I honestly didn’t know what you thought about me.”
“The only thing that matters is us being alive, here, now, and surviving – being safe while the shit out there continues to hit the fan.”
Marla laughed despite herself. “You have a way with words.”
He grinned and held up his hands. “So sue me.”
She laughed again.
“You know, it’s funny hearing you talk like that about Hanna. When you accused me that time of being jealous of Jakob, you were dead right.”
Marla stared at him, surprised.
“The only person I was ever really interested in was you,” he admitted finally.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she asked.
“It never came up.”
“Never came up?”
“You know, I didn’t want to mess up our friendship and then I got married...”
“You were thinking about it back then?”
Tommy rubbed his chin and smiled. “Yep, sad, eh? I didn’t think I was your type, but when I got divorced I figured I might chance my arm, but then you took up with my friend, Mark.”
“Ah, Mark, mistake of the decade...”
“So, I didn’t say anything. I thought about it recently, but then, as you kept saying, the world had gone to shit and stuff like that wasn’t important anymore. So I kept quiet, which was a mistake...”
Marla smiled. “You should have said. I was never thinking seriously about Jakob. My sister… well, she reminded me that life was to be enjoyed. Jakob seemed nice and I thought about having fun for once, rather than thinking about all this death. I’m pretty sure he didn’t take me seriously. Even if something had happened he would only have been fling material...”
“Fling material?”
“Yeah, you know – nothing serious…”
“You know you could have flinged me any time!” he said.
Marla laughed. “The word I think you’re looking for is flung, and I had no idea. Seriously! You and me, wow, it’s a funny thought.”
“Now that’s why I didn’t say anything.”
Marla didn’t reply, but ran
her fingers through her loose hair, ruminating over the things he had said. So he really did have feelings for her, but did she have real feelings for him? Avoiding his gaze, she couldn’t resist smiling as she turned towards the window. She was pretty sure she did have them. The man had been gradually taking up more and more of her thought time since the day they boarded that coach from London. In all this mess something was beginning to shine again and she liked it. The rattle of the door handle swept her back to reality.
“Where are you going?” she asked, feeling an irrational panic at the thought of him leaving, now that he had said so much.
He shrugged. “Back to my room, where else? I reckon I’ve shocked you enough for one day and you need to rest. If there was a pub I’d be heading there.”
“But I don’t want you to go,” Marla said softly.
Tommy didn’t say a word, but approached her slowly and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Let’s talk about this tomorrow, properly,” he said after a while. “Rest up and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Well, that leaves me open to doing anything, surely?”
“Perhaps,” he replied with a wink.
Swerving to the side of him, she pushed the door closed. “I think we have some stuff that needs discussing right now.”
“What kind of stuff?”
Marla brushed against him, her breasts pressing against his chest. She felt a flicker of excitement in her stomach, which warmed the region right below. Inhaling his scent, she tilted her head and kissed the edge of his mouth. “Stuff like this.”
With a surprised smile, Tommy let his right hand trail down the side of her body, coming to rest on her hips. Inserting his fingers behind her belt, he pulled her against him. “Or we could leave the talking until later,” he responded, pressing his lips against hers.
“I like that idea,” she breathed in between kisses as she felt the heat between them rising.
I Dream of Zombies (Book 2): Haven Page 21
