“My son is not a monster. My wife is not a monster.”
Eve sighed. “I was listening to what Cassie was saying and she’s right. Soon as you put one of those crazies down, they get right back up again and stumble after you. They’re zombies – walking dead people.”
“I have trouble believing that, even with all that we’ve seen. Dead people don’t rise. There must be some other explanation.”
Eve flapped her arms. “Viruses don’t usually turn people into bloodthirsty psychopaths, either, but hey, you know what, it happened anyway. Someone turned the crazy factor all the way up to eleven.”
Nick closed his eyes for a second and thought. “Look, I don’t know the answers any more than anybody else. I just don’t think it’s prudent to start assuming things like a zombie apocalypse. We all just need to stay calm and keep our heads about us.”
“Who made you so important that you think you can manage everyone? What is wrong with you, man? Don’t you see what’s going on?”
“Eve, I’m just trying to help. What’s gotten into you? Why are you so mad at me?”
Eve turned away from him, looking like she was hiding a bout of tears. “I just don’t want to be here. I don’t feel safe.”
This time Nick decided to reach out and touch her. He placed a hand on her shoulder and rubbed. Eventually she began to turn back to face him.
A scream sounded from the bus.
Everybody in the field looked around as one, startled and afraid, nerves already close to cracking.
One of the bus’s side windows cracked in the centre. It looked like someone’s head had been pushed through it and then pulled back inside.
Eve had her hands clasped together in front of her face. “What the hell is happening now? I can’t take any more.”
Nick sprinted across the short patch of grass over to the bus and sprung up the steps into the aisle. What he saw confused him. Jake had Mark shoved up against the side of the bus, forcing his head against the broken window as he tried to bite a chunk out of his face. Mark tried to resist, but his bulbous cast was wedged beneath the seats, pinning him in place. Jake had hold on his dreadlocks.
Nick stumbled forward as Dave ran into the back of him. When the other man saw what was happening he swore loudly. “Shite! Jake is one of them.”
Nick shook his head, but it quickly occurred to him what had happened. “The little girl bit Jake’s hand. She infected him. Damn it!”
Mark screamed for help.
Nick broke from his stupor and started forward, but stopped when Mark’s screams were cut short by Jake’s teeth sinking deeply into his windpipe. Nick watched in horror as veins and cartilage were torn away like wet spaghetti.
Dave grabbed hold of his coat and pulled him back. “We’re too late. Come on!”
But Nick was frozen. He couldn’t take his eyes from what was happening in front of him. Two men who he had only just been chatting to were now soaked in blood before him.
Jake lifted his head from Mark’s neck and spotted Nick standing at the front of the bus. He hissed through bloodstained teeth.
Nick leapt out of the bus and landed on the grass outside. Dave punched a big red button set beside the door and it quickly folded shut. Jake crashed up against the glass panel, glaring out at them with swollen, bloodshot eyes. Gory chunks of flesh hung from his teeth. Mark’s flesh.
Jake screeched at the top of his lungs.
“Run!” Dave bellowed to everyone. “Jake is infected. Bloody move it!”
Everybody took off like kids in a playground, scattering at different speeds. Nick held up the back, trying to keep everybody moving in the same direction before they lost each other. He glanced back and watched as the bus shrunk away behind them, but then he saw Jake emerge from it, climbing through the hole where the windscreen used to be.
“Oh no!” Nick started coaxing the two old ladies to move faster. “Come on, come on,” he shouted. “Ethel, Margaret, move, move, move.”
Jake let out another piercing scream and the fleeing passengers managed to find another gear, picking up more speed, finding energy that only the fear of death could liberate. Eve and Cassie were at the front of the pack now, heading for the treeline.
Nick glanced back again, but it wasn’t good. Jake would be on them long before they all made it to the treeline. He wasn’t dead, not a shambling zombie. He was one of the crazed, adrenaline-fuelled members of the infected. Even if they did somehow make it into the woods, they still wouldn’t be safe. Jake would just hunt for them.
Suddenly, Ethel stopped dead. She doubled over and clutched at her chest. Margaret stopped beside, putting an arm around her companion’s shoulders. “Ethel! Ethel, now, we have to keep moving. Stop being a silly beggar.”
Nick stopped and went back for them. They had only seconds to get moving again. Jake was sprinting after them at great speed.
“Come on,” Nick urged the two old ladies. “We have to keep moving.”
Ethel fell to her knees, wheezing. “M-my heart. I can’t. I need to…stop. Just go.”
“No,” Margaret stated firmly. “I refuse to leave you here.”
Nick grabbed Margaret’s brittle forearm and tried to pull her away. “Come on, we have to go or we’re all dead.”
“Then you go.” Margaret pulled her arm back with surprising strength. “I’m not leaving Ethel to face that monster alone.”
Ethel managed to right herself on one knee. Her face had gone deep purple and she squinted in agony. Despite that, she grabbed Margaret by the hand and squeezed tightly. “Margaret Skinner, I am not letting you get hurt because of me. If you don’t get moving right this very second, I will come back and haunt you. I swear it.”
Margaret looked ready to burst into tears. Nick stared down the field. Jake was only metres away now, lolloping across the grass like a deranged ape.
Ethel fell down, rolling onto her side and clutching at her chest. She looked up at her friend and hissed. “Go.”
Nick grabbed Margaret’s arm and this time she didn’t resist. They got moving again, leaving Ethel behind to her fate. Hopefully it would be the heart attack that claimed her and not Jake’s savage teeth.
The last thing Nick heard before Ethel’s screams filled the air was the old lady cursing at Jake. “I’ve taken shits harder than you, you fucking pussy.”
The rest of the passengers entered the shadows of the treeline and didn’t look back again.
Chapter Seven
Nick and the group eventually stopped in a clearing about half a mile into the woods. Everyone was sweating, having run uphill most of the way. They managed to leave Jake behind as he stopped to maul Ethel, but Nick could still hear the infected teenager’s animalistic shrieks in the distance. In her dying breaths, Margaret’s old friend had bought the rest of them time to escape.
Dave slumped up against a tree and tried to catch his breath. Perspiration soaked his hair and matted it against his forehead. “I pray we never have to do that again. I think I left one of my lungs back there.”
“Tell me about it,” Nick said. He knelt on the ground and tried to catch his own breath. It was several minutes before he was able to stand again and ask the group a question. “Has anyone else been bitten?”
“Why?” Cassie asked.
“Because Jake was bitten by the little girl and now, a few hours later, he’s infected. That’s how this thing is spreading: an infected person bites a healthy person. I feel dumb for not realising it earlier, but it makes perfect sense. I just can’t believe how quick it happens. I’d assumed a certain part of the population had become infected and that the rest of us were healthy, but that’s not how it works. This thing is spreading person to person.”
Carl spat at the ground. “So we could all end up like that?”
“If you get bitten, yes. Has anybody been bitten?”
Everyone shook their heads.
“Okay.” Dave seemed to relax a little. “We all better be real careful from n
ow on then. We come across someone infected, we run. No fighting with them like we did with that little girl.”
“I agree,” Nick said, feeling bad about Jake’s fate now that he knew it involved him.
“We have to be more careful,” Eve said. “I’m not ending up like one of those monsters.”
“They’re people,” Nick grunted. “My wife and son were infected, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you keep calling them monsters.”
Eve folded her arms and lifted her chin. “I’m sorry, but as nice as people might once have been, if they’ve been infected, they’re monsters.”
Nick clenched his fists. But before he could shout his reply, Dave shushed them both. “Come on now. No point arguing over it. I think we all understand that people are sick – infected, if you like – but they’re dangerous and we cannot forget that.”
“I think some of them are dead,” Cassie said, echoing her previous statements.
The group went silent. Nobody argued at first.
Then Carl spoke up. “This nonsense again,” he muttered.
Eve was the first to speak in support of Cassie. “I think she’s right. Nick killed an infected man when he rescued me. He got right back up and came after us again. He was messed up, slow and clumsy, but he was still walking around trying to eat us, even with most of his neck missing.”
Nick couldn’t contain his grief any longer. It had been building in the pit of his stomach like an ulcer and now it was ready to burst. What everyone was talking about was utter nonsense. And it offended him. “I killed my son,” he said, feeling sick as he said it. “James was infected, but he didn’t come back to life after I killed him. He stayed dead. He is dead. So your theory is bullshit.”
“Well, that shoots Cassie’s theory down once and for all then,” Carl stated, obviously satisfied. “The dead are not getting up and walking around.”
There was silence again. Everybody looked at Nick. The full weight of his confession suddenly dawned on him. He didn’t want their judgment, their pity. They could never understand his loss or what had occurred in his kitchen.
Nick marched off deeper into the woods, leaving the others behind him – along with their unwanted pity. Far enough away, he slumped back against an old spruce tree and started bashing his head against the bark. He burst into tears, crying so hard he thought he might suffocate, so hard was his sobbing.
He wanted to die. He wanted it all to be over.
The nightmare was too much.
Eventually Nick’s body became so weak that he couldn’t sustain his own weight any longer and collapsed to the ground. He found himself staring up at the grey sky. Peculiarly he started to wonder if it might rain. Covered in dirt and blood, the thought of being cleansed by Mother Nature was surprisingly comforting.
A twig snapped nearby.
Nick’s mind leapt back into focus. He sat up and searched in the direction of the noise.
“Hey,” Eve said, coming and kneeling on the ground next to him. She stretched out her legs and then plonked herself down on her bum. “It’s dangerous to be out her alone.”
Nick sighed. “I honestly don’t care.”
“I do. Are you okay? I mean, considering the fact that the world has fallen apart.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just getting some stuff out of my system.”
Eve nodded as if she understood. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“The things I said. Actually, I’m pretty much sorry for everything I’ve said to you since we met. I know I’ve been a bit up and down. I’m hormonal at the best of times and this situation certainly isn’t helping.”
“You said I rescued you.” Nick said, recalling the word Eve had used in their previous group conversation.
Eve looked down at her hands. “Yeah, well…that’s because you did rescue me. I just don’t like feeling like I owe anybody anything, I guess. Makes me defensive. I’m sorry I called your family monsters.”
“It’s okay,” Nick said, managing to raise a tiny smile of forgiveness. “I just don’t like to think of my wife as being beyond help. I keep trying to convince myself that this will all blow over and that Deana will be waiting for me when I get home. James too. Huh, stupid.”
“James is your son?”
“He was my son. I killed him. I think there’s probably a special kind of Hell for fathers who kill their sons.”
“What happened?” Eve asked.
“He was sick, just like the others we’ve seen. He attacked me in the kitchen, like a wild animal, and I-I slipped. We both fell… His head hit the chair.”
Eve sighed. Pity Nick didn’t want. “He didn’t come back like Mr Curtis?”
“No. I was in the house for another ten minutes and he was just…dead. Mr Curtis was back on his feet almost right away.”
Eve propped her chin up with her hand and seemed to think for a moment. “Perhaps it has something to do with their injuries.”
Nick frowned. “Dead is dead, isn’t it? Why would it matter how they die?”
Another twig snapped.
“You have to go for the head,” said a voice belonging to a stranger.
Chapter Eight
Nick and Eve leapt up. Three huge men, two black, one white, stood several metres away. One of the black men was bald with a pointed goatee, while the other was well groomed with short, cropped hair and light stubble. The white man was the biggest of the three – a mountain, six-and-a-half-feet for sure. His heavy beard was growing grey, giving him the appearance of a grimy Father Christmas. All three men wore the same grey tracksuits and white trainers.
“Who are you?” Nick demanded. Instinctively he placed Eve behind him.
The black man with the pointed goatee sucked at his teeth. “Could ask you the same thing, little man.”
The towering white man put his hand up to silence his associate and then smiled at Nick. “My name is Jan. Janwin Banks. This is Rene,” he motioned to the quiet man on his right. “The charmer on my left with the Fu Manchu is Dash. Don’t ask what his real name is, though, because he won’t tell you.”
“You’re prisoners,” Nick said, noting their matching attire. He started backing away slowly, pulling Eve with him.
Jan held his palms out in peace. “Hey, brother, there’s no need to fear us. We stepped in the same shit puddle you have. We’re just trying to make it somewhere safe.”
“How did you get free?” Eve asked from over Nick’s shoulder.
“The fuck it got do wid you, sweetheart?” the one named Dash said.
Jan sighed and took a wary step forward. “Let’s just say that we’re the lucky victims of circumstance. The guards who were relocating us to a new bin in Nottingham are all dead.”
Nick and Eve backed away more quickly.
Jan chuckled. “No, not because of us. There was an accident. Some imbecile driving a Land Rover went right into our minibus. Next thing I know, there’s a bunch of lunatics tearing apart our P.O.s. We managed to cut our wrist ties on a piece of twisted metal on the banged-up Land Rover and ran for the hills. There were five of us to start with, but we didn’t all make it. It appears things have changed a little recently. People aren’t as friendly as I remember.” He scratched his head. “Tell you the truth, I actually prefer it on the inside.”
“There’s some kind of virus infecting people, making everybody crazy,” Eve said.
Jan nodded and scratched at his impressive beard. “Makes sense. People don’t act like savages for no reason.”
Nick thought about how the three men had introduced themselves. They could have snuck up, but instead Jan had spoken and given up his presence. “You said something about needing to go for the head?”
“Yeah,” Dash told them enthusiastically. “It’s the only sure way to put ‘em down for keeps.”
Jan nodded his agreement. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when one of these infected people dies they have a tendency to come back.”
Nick s
tared at the man. “You know that for sure?”
“Like I said, there were five of us to begin with. I’ve seen enough to know the rules. The dead are getting up and walking. Hallelujah!”
“I told you,” Eve said to Nick.
“When they come back,” Jan continued, “they come back different. Clumsy, slow, and easy to deal with, but they tend to group together and come after you in a pack. If that happens you’re in trouble. You can only drop them for good with a hefty blow to the head.”
Eve glanced at Nick and he could tell what she was thinking. James hadn’t come back because he struck his head on the chair when he fell.
“How do you know all this?” Nick asked.
“Because we saw that shit,” Dash grunted. He obviously disapproved of having to explain himself. “We’ve been hiking it all the way from Nottingham. Seen some seriously wacky shit since then, blud.”
“It wasn’t too bad at first,” Jan said, “but things quickly deteriorated. I don’t even know the name of the last town we passed through, but there was no one left alive, all infected or dead. We managed to lay low and avoid them, but if they’d spotted us we would’ve been done for. That’s why we made for the countryside. I suppose you both had the same idea?”
“There’re half-a-dozen of us, actually,” Nick said, wanting to let them know he had backup if he needed it. The spokesmen for the three men, Jan, seemed intelligent and rational, but there was no telling what the man was truly like.
“A bunch of us came here in a bus,” Eve said, understanding Nick’s strategy.
“Mind if we join up with you?” Jan asked bluntly.
Dash pulled a face. “You serious, J? We don’t need to team up with this honkey and his bitch.”
Nick clenched his fist and stepped forward. “I think you might want to learn to keep your mouth shut, blud. Let your associate do the talking. He’s better at it.”
Dash stepped forward to meet Nick. “You want a piece of me, honkey?”
Jan stepped between them, holding his fellow prisoner back. “Look, with all that’s going on, I think safety in numbers is the only thing we’ve got going for us. If we join together we can figure something out and try to stay alive.”
The BIG Horror Pack 2 Page 7
