George (Book 1): The Long Road Home

by Scarlet Le Clair

  “What do we do?” I asked panicked.

  “Shhhh, for now we wait until morning and we can see a little better. We have enough food to last a few days and weapons, in case we need to fight our way out.”

  “Will, I don’t want to wait another few days, I want to get back to Kelly and the kids, it’s been a month nearly!” I was scared and frustrated and kept imagining how Kelly and the kids must be feeling.

  “Calm down George, we don’t need to wake everyone up, they will just panic and create noise drawing them things towards us. If it comes down to it tomorrow, I will go out the back door and try to draw them away from here for you to get everyone else out safely, ok?” he said, placing his hand on my shoulder.

  “Yeah ok, thanks, Will, sorry, I’ll keep watch tonight, I couldn’t sleep now anyway,” I replied.

  “Ok, its three now. Wake me up in two hours and I’ll take over.” He said, making his way back to his sleeping bag.

  I moved position slightly to be able to see the front of the station without drawing too much attention to myself.

  As I watched them, I wondered where they had come from? The warehouse? Surely they couldn’t have walked that far, that fast? Did they still have family members alive and mourning for them or had their whole line been taken out but this vicious, unforgiving virus?

  I sure hoped that my family were safe and had food and water left.

  Not long now Kelly, please be safe I thought in my head. I passed the time by thinking of all the good times I had with Kelly, before the kids were born and after. The family holidays and days out, the laughing, smiling and even the tears. I thought about how good it would be to hold them in my arms again, to rub noses with poppy, fist bump Cameron and kiss my wife.When I checked my watch again it was 6:10, I got up and woke Will, advising him that the numbers outside had grown, but not by much and I was confident that as long as we kept quiet the zombies would move on, and we could get out of here safely.

  Will took over my position at the window, I used the bathroom quickly and made my way to Will’s sleeping bag next to Nia, who immediately cuddled into me.

  I wrapped my arms around her and held her close, wondering what Kelly would think of Will, Nia and the others staying with us. Nia’s top half was out of the sleeping bag and from where I lay I could see the curve of her breasts, her nipples hard and poking through the thin layer of her top, and despite my best efforts, I was getting hard. I closed my eyes and thought back to a time with Kelly.

  We were making love in our bed at home before we had the children. I was on top of her, loving the way it felt to have her naked body pressed against mine, and those little noises she made as she was about to finish, really got me going.

  Nia whispered my name as if to acknowledge that it was me and not Will, breaking through my daydream.

  “Yeah it’s me,” I replied.

  I was now rock hard after thinking of Kelly and needed to be with her as soon as possible, to hold my wife in my arms, to make love to her and promise never to leave her again.

  I was so thankful for the sleeping bag in between Nia and me, until she opened it and pressed her body against mine, her hand grazed my hard length on accident as she tried to pull the covers back over us, she moved away quickly.

  “Oh hell, George, I’m sorry, I’m so used to sleeping with you that I didn’t think and just got into your bag. Shit I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  I could see by the little sunlight coming in that her cheeks were flaming red and I was certain that mine matched hers.

  “Hey its fine, I’m sorry I was thinking of Kelly and….” I trailed off, not knowing what else to say.

  She had pulled my bag back over me and hers back over her “Are we good?” she said.

  “Yes we are, come here.” I chuckled at the awkward situation we were in but pulled her back in close to me.

  I had not known her long but these days, friends became family quickly and I really cared for her and Will and the others.

  “You two ok?” Will whispered from his lookout post at the window.

  Nia looked up at him.

  “Yeah we’re good, all good, hey why are you over there and George here anyway?” she asked him.

  “There was a little, Zombie activity last night and George took first shift and I’m taking second shift. Now get some sleep you two, you are going to need all the energy you can get over the next few days,” he replied. “I’m just going to go downstairs for a look.”

  I opened up my sleeping bag again. “Come on I know you want in.” I smiled just pulling it over the top of us

  She gave me a sexy smile and turned her back to me, tilting her head so that her lips were close to mine. “I just got so used to sleeping with you George I don’t know what I will do when you go back to Kelly.” She pushed her ass into me and I was getting tingly feelings below again.

  Stop it George, you’re married, I told myself. I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “I’m sure Billy wouldn’t mind keeping you warm,” I whispered, chuckling.

  “Billy and I are just friends.” She slipped her small hand behind her pulled down her bottoms and underwear and rubbed at my penis.

  My hand which was resting on her hip was now on her bare ass.

  I didn’t want to stop, because she felt good, but I had Kelly waiting for me at home. “Hey, I can’t, I’m sorry,” I said into her hair, I removed her hand from me and mine off her ass.

  She turned to face me, her top pulled down by her movement, showed her small pink nipple, hard.

  Oh God I was going to hell for this, even just looking at her.

  “Oh hell George, I have to tell you now, that I want you, I want you bad. I have since the night you saved me. I kept hoping each night that you would come back to our room and take me there and then on the floor, but you remained the gentleman. So I’m telling you now as this may be our last night together that I want you inside me George, making love to me. Nobody would have to know,” she whispered, her breathing was fast and heavy and matched mine.

  I jumped up, pulling the sleeping bag off the both of us, making my way quickly to the bathroom, I locked myself in the first stall and took long, deep, breaths.

  There was no excuse for this, I was the worst husband ever, but I promised myself that I would keep my distance from Nia and that when I made it back to Kelly I would take every day to make it up to her.

  I washed my hands, splashed some water on my face and made my way back into the main room, I had decided to get breakfast sorted for us all.

  For some reason it felt a lot colder out here now and then I realized, the fire escape!

  “No!” I said but it was too late. Two of the kids had gone out for a sneaky smoke.

  “Ahhh!” I heard as Jack and Kate came running back inside. They closed the door quickly which caused a loud bang drawing the zombies’ attention to us.

  The banging from downstairs started immediately, they knew that we were here and they were coming for us.

  “Oh Shit! Will, they know!” I called out as panic erupted around us.

  “Everyone, stop! We need to calm things down, if they continue to hear noises from in here then they will never stop. Everyone just try to be as quiet as possible, grab a weapon and make sure you are ready to go, in case we need to be on the move,” Will said walking into the middle of the room.

  He was already an amazing leader, people just listened to what he had to say. Everyone in the room grabbed some sort of weapon, they got dressed and used the bathroom, Kerys and Nia went around making sure people got a drink of water and something to eat.

  Will called Adam into one of the side rooms, just as Nia called me.

  “George can we talk a second?” her voice was calm but her eyes looked desperate.

  I nodded “of course” I opened the door next to the one with Adam and Will in and followed her inside, closing it behind us.

  “George, I’m sorry for doing what I did because you’re married but I can�
��t be sorry about telling you how I feel. You are amazing George, you saved me and for that I will always be grateful and in your debt. Please forgive me, I couldn’t handle it if you were to cut me off.” Her voice broke at the last part and her eyes were full of tears.

  My heart went out to her, I felt guilty and ashamed about what happened but flattered that she liked me. I didn’t want to lose her either for I was positive that we could put it behind us.

  “Come here.” I pulled her into me to hug her, and she gave a little sob.

  “Nia, we have gotten close over the last few weeks, we have been forced to spend a lot of time together and I do care about you a lot but I love Kelly and my kids, and don’t want to do anything to hurt them or lose them. We can still be friends if that’s ok, I don’t want to lose you Ni.”

  “Ok, that’s good, George, I would never forgive myself otherwise.” She squeezed me tightly and let me go, walking to the door to leave, before she did she turned around and grabbed my hand leading me out.

  We entered the other room where Will and Adam were discussing exit strategies. Will looked at us when we entered, saw that we were holding hands and smiled a little. Adam didn’t notice and if he did, he didn’t say anything

  .

  “Hey both, I just stuck my head down the stairs, the glass is holding but is starting to crack. If we can block the stairs and the door off, then we should be ok. From in here we have access to the roof and the fire escape. Hopefully once they find a way in through the front more will follow. Two of us could then go down the fire escape and lead them away enough for you to get the cars and meet us somewhere,” Adam explained

  “Us?” I asked, Nia had let go of my hand and sat in the chair beside Adam. I put my hand on her shoulder, more for my comfort than hers.

  “Amelia and I discussed it this morning. We’re both pretty fit, well enough to outrun the zombies, we can run a few blocks making noise, then double back to meet you guys in the main street.”

  “Ok, for now, let’s get the stairs blocked the best we can,” Will advised, and we all got up to look for furniture large enough to block the stairs.

  CHAPTER 10

  We blocked off the stairs with the wardrobe and a weights bench from the gym, some of the zombies had already broken through the glass doors with their arms and more were pressing in behind them, it was only a matter of time before the doors gave in completely.

  Upstairs everyone was on edge, there was nervous chatter all around and everyone held some sort of a weapon.

  Will stood with Adam and me at the front of the room. “This is our plan, we wait for enough of them to move around to the front and then make our way quickly down to the fire escape. We’re just heading to the roof to see if there is any way off there.”

  “What if they break in downstairs and we are still surrounded?” Kerys asked.

  “We have blocked off the stairs the best we can, if we do get trapped up here, then two of us will go down the fire escape and try to distract them long enough for you guys to get out.”

  I could tell people didn't like Will’s answer but we really didn't have any other choice, the fire station was as good as any to be trapped in. There were the main doors and two fire doors in between them and us and that's if they managed to get past the stuff on the stairs.

  I just hoped that when we got to the roof we would find a way out of this place.

  “George, you got the binoculars?” Will asked.

  “Yeah,” I nodded.

  “Ok let's go see how it really looks,” he said quietly and gave a big sigh.

  He was looking pretty tired, I think the toll of him always trying to be our leader, trying to keep everyone safe, was hard on him.

  Up the stairs to the roof we went one behind the other, quietly.

  Will opened the door slowly and edged out just in case there were any surprises for us up there, but he needn't have bothered we were alone on the large, flat roof. The only thing up here was an old table and chairs that had been bolted down and a satellite dish.

  As we neared the edge we got lower to avoid being seen from below. Adam and Will got there first and from the gasps they emitted I was scared to look.

  Curiosity got the better of me and I crawled over to them and followed their gazes. There were tons of them in front of the station and because of the noise they were making they were attracting more. We made our way to all four edges and on each side we were surrounded.

  “Holy hell,” I whispered.

  “I don’t think we can go to the next building. It looks badly burnt from a fire and it may not be safe. I'll go across and check it out,” Will suggested.

  “I'll come with you as back up,” Adam told him.

  “George, stay here, incase anything happens to us, and you need to get our people out of here,” Will said.

  “Right, no pressure, be safe guys,” I told them, nodding my head.

  There was a sizable gap between the buildings but both men made it easily with a little running jump.

  I watched them for a few minutes before becoming lost in my own thoughts.

  I remembered back to the day when this all began, there had been news reports of riots further up the country but at the time we thought that they were just that. Then came the reports of people attacking others and biting them, of the dead coming back to life.

  Most people ignored it at first, believing it to be some sort of government scare tactic, or a prank. But then it was happening more and more, getting closer and closer to home.

  The day it really hit home for us was a Sunday, Kelly and I had taken the kids to the supermarket to do our monthly shop.

  We had completed our shop and it had been checked out by the lady on the till, I was just getting my bank card out of my pocket to pay when a man started shouting, he came running down an aisle covered in blood shouting, “He bit me, that crazy guy, just bit me!”

  People rushed to his aid as he collapsed on the floor.

  Being a trained first aider I went to go and help but Poppy wouldn’t leave my hand go, “Don’t go daddy, there’s a bad man, can we go now.” Her little hand pulled at mine.

  “Uh yeah ok sweet heart, he has plenty of help there anyway” I assured her.

  Handing the lady my card, we heard another scream, followed by many more, the man must have died and re animated and started to bite at the people trying to help him, another man, probably the one that started all this came around the corner, also biting at everyone he could lay his hands on.

  Chaos erupted so quickly it still didn’t seem real.

  “George, let’s get to the car,” Kelly said, panic lacing her voice.

  The cashier, threw my card back at me and receipt. “Thank you for shopping here,” she said before quickly closing her till and running off.

  Kelly had the trolley with Cameron in it, I picked up Poppy and ran with her out of the store into the car, throwing in the bags of shopping as quickly as I could and leaving the trolley right there in the car park. Thankfully we got home safely with all of our shopping.

  But I can still hear the man’s screams now as he was feasted upon, still see the blood, so much blood…

  “George? Where’s Will and Adam?” Nia startled me out of my thoughts.

  “Uh, over there on the roof.” I pointed to where I last saw them, on the other roof trying to get into the building through the fire door up there.

  “Oh, I guess they got in,” I said, realizing that I was looking at an empty roof.

  Before we could say anymore, the door we were looking at flew opened and Adam ran through it closely followed by Will and a dozen or more zombies. Will was the first to take the leap back to our side, landing smoothly and Adam next landing not so smoothly and calling out in pain as he hit the roof.

  Nia and I were quickly by his side, helping him to sit up to see where he had been hurt.

  “I twisted my ankle as I landed,” Adam explained.

  Will moved over to us too and the
four of us watched in horror as dozens of zombies came through the door of the other building, however because they could not jump, they just continued to walk off the building, showing no fear or hesitation as they fell off the edge, down the six floors and hitting the pavement below.

  We could hear the snapping of bones and the squelching of blood and tissue as they got broken and crushed from the fall and from others landing on them.

  Between the sounds and the smells coming from them I was starting to feel nauseous, and I wasn’t the only one.

  Nia stumbled off to our left and threw up, she stood in the corner for a few seconds more, trying to catch a breath.

  “I need to go back inside,” she said and made her way back down the stairs into the station.

  Will, Adam and I just nodded, our eyes still transfixed on the zombies coming through the other door. The crowd was thinner now but there was still a steady stream of them, and then I saw the worst thing that I had ever seen in this apocalypse so far.

  A little boy, about the age of 9 or 10 came through the door, missing his left cheek and part of his nose, revealing the white bone underneath, stringy bits of muscle and gristle dangled from his wounds.

  He looked at us with milky white eyes and growled, before breaking into a run, when he came to the edge of his building he didn’t slow down and it actually looked like he would make it to our side but he fell to the ground just like the rest before him.

  “We have to get away from here,” I told the other two who merely nodded.

  Will and I helped to get Adam to his feet, he tried placing the weight on his ankle and called out in pain.

  “Well that’s our distraction plan out of the window, I can’t walk on this never mind run. If we are forced to leave, don’t wait for me, just get everyone else to safety ok, we have come too far to be held up by an idiot like me,” he said limping in between us as we supported him.

  “Actually we have come too far to leave an idiot like you behind, we got into this together and we will get out of it together, ok?” Will replied.

  “Agreed, I’ll go with Amelia if it comes to that,” I told them.