Devouring The Dead (Book 2): Nemesis

by Watts, Russ

  “She’s fine,” said Jessica, making sure Moira wasn’t listening. “Look, I know she takes a bit of getting used to. Moira’s an introvert, but you’ll soon find that reassuring. She keeps herself to herself, but if you’re in a corner, you’d be glad to have her on your side. We picked her up a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Do you mind if we ask how? I mean, how do you all know each other?” said Heidi. She was sat beside her parents and could not contain her curiosity any longer. Occasionally, she would glance over at Tom, but he seemed deep in conversation with some other men. The old man who had been in their garden, Leonard, was asleep upstairs.

  Caterina yawned loudly. “Sorry, but I’m beat. I’m going up. We are safe here tonight, aren’t we, Christina?”

  “Good night,” Christina said giving Caterina a quick kiss. “We’ll be fine. I’ll be up soon.”

  “I might go too,” said Rosa. The room was getting fuller by the minute and she didn’t want to be around for the introductions, or having to face explaining her relationship with Jessica to someone new. “See you all in the morning.”

  As she disappeared up the stairs, Jessica turned around and patted Rosa on the arm as she passed. “I’ll be up in a sec, Rosa.”

  Glenda caught her husband’s disapproving eye. She doubted that he would say anything, but she also knew how he would be feeling. He grew up in a very traditional household with a stay at home mother, 2.4 children, and attended Sunday school without fail every week. He cleared his throat and Glenda worried that he might make a scene. She had to hear who these people were before Daniel said something that might get them thrown back out onto the street. The wine gave her the confidence to speak and she took a large gulp.

  “Christina, tell me, what’s going on? Who are you all?”

  “Well, myself, Jessica here, Rosa, Caterina, Tom, Harry and Jackson all met some time ago. Moira only joined us recently. We bumped into her in a house, what, a week ago?”

  “Yeah,” continued Jessica. “We literally bumped into her. This was somewhere near the edge of Southampton, I think. Me and Rosa were looking for food and we went into a house that we thought was empty. We were lucky really. We didn’t check it out properly first and if there had been one of the infected in there...well, we’d have been in big trouble. We just walked into this big house. The front door was open and there she was. She nearly took my head off. She had a crowbar and swung for me thinking I was one of the dead. I screamed and she missed, thankfully, taking out a chunk of plaster on the wall instead of me. That was it really. My screaming brought the real dead though so we scarpered. We couldn’t just leave her on her own, so she came with us.”

  Moira gave up on the window and came over to Jessica’s side. “I’m not all that bad, am I? I’m still pretty handy with a crowbar.”

  Christina laughed. “When you haven’t got your head buried in a book!”

  “Oh, that reminds me, I found a new one today I haven’t read before. I think I might go to bed and read for a bit.” She put her glass down on the coffee table and Glenda noticed it was only water.

  “Well, pleased to meet you, Moira,” Glenda said.

  “You too. Glenda and Daniel, right? Try to rest up tonight. And, er, Heidi? You too.”

  They expected her to go upstairs, but Moira went back to the window and lay on the floor beneath it. She took a paperback out from a bag and let it sit just beneath the curtains so she could read from the light outside.

  Jessica could see that Heidi kept glancing over at Tom when she thought nobody was looking and wondered what her situation was. Heidi was certainly good looking. A typical ‘Saturday night’ girl was what her friends would have described her as. Heidi was slim, blonde and young. She must’ve had a lot of attention before the end of the world. Her eyes were large and inquisitive and her light blonde hair draped over her shoulders. She had not said much yet, but from her looks and voice, Jessica guessed she must be about eighteen or nineteen. She had obviously not been wearing many clothes when Tom rescued her and her family. Heidi wore a small pair of shorts and a red vest top with thin straps that showed off smooth skin.

  “Heidi, I’m going up to bed in a minute, but in the morning, I’ll sort you out with some clothes, okay?” Jessica wasn’t sure what reaction she would get, and was trying hard not to shoehorn her into a type or category before she had even talked to her.

  “Hmm? Oh yeah, thanks. We didn’t get chance to pack or anything, you know, it was all so...fast. I haven’t even got a hairbrush with me.”

  Jessica nodded and then took a step toward her bedroom. She hesitated on the stairs as Daniel spoke.

  “So where do we all stay tonight? I’m guessing there aren’t enough beds to go around?”

  “You’ll find some blankets in the cupboard over there. I’m afraid you’re going to have to bunk down in here for tonight. We’ll reassess in the morning I’m sure,” said Christina.

  “Thanks, thank you very much,” said Glenda yawning. “Daniel, do you think we can try to sleep tonight? I’m exhausted.”

  “All right, love,” he said kissing her head. “Thank you, Christina.” He held out his hand and they shook.

  Christina tried not to laugh at the formality of it all. Daniel and Glenda proceeded to the linen cupboard and made themselves a bed in a corner of the room. As they lay down, Christina could hear them whispering to themselves and she hoped they would sleep. In the last few hours, they had seen their home burnt down and been attacked by zombies. Now they were in a strange house full of strangers. It would be a miracle if they slept at all.

  “So,” said Heidi who was still sitting on the sofa opposite Christina, “I guess I’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight. S’all right, I’ve slept in worse places.” She realised that actually made it sound as if she slept around and blushed.

  “Say, where is your mother from, I mean, originally? I thought she had a bit of an accent, but I couldn’t place it?” asked Christina.

  “Salzburg. She moved over here years ago with Dad. He was on holiday there and they got married and ended up moving over here. I think she’s been here longer now than Austria.”

  “Wow, I love Austria,” said Laurent. He appeared out of the darkness and Heidi jumped. “Pardon, I didn’t mean to startle you. I couldn’t help but overhear you. I’m Laurent.”

  “Of course, I remember from the van. Where are you from, Laurent? You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

  “The city of love, of course, Paris. Have you been?” Laurent sat down beside Heidi.

  “Um, no, not yet.” Laurent seemed like a nice man. He was dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. He had curly hair and a pointy nose. He seemed very enthusiastic when he spoke, which Heidi found a little odd under the circumstances. In the van on the way here there had been no time for anything apart from getting to safety as fast as possible.

  Jessica had been standing on the stairway the whole time and something about Heidi irritated her. “Not yet?” said Jessica to Heidi. “When do you think you’re going to go? I don’t think you’ll be going anytime soon. I think you’ve left it a bit late now.”

  Heidi missed the sarcastic tone in Jessica’s voice.

  “Oui, Paris is my home, but I do not think that I shall be seeing her again soon,” said Laurent wistfully.

  “Why not?” asked Heidi glancing over at Tom. He and the other men had stopped talking and were coming over to the sofa. “One day, maybe, when this gets sorted out, they’ll get the trains back up and running. We could go together, all of us. The Eurostar is super-fast, like…”

  “Heidi, how aware are you of what’s going on in the world?” said Jessica leaning forward over the bannister. “Have you been living under a rock? Have you just spent the last three weeks reading ‘Bimbo’ magazine or something?” Jessica stared at her and Heidi felt like she was being scrutinised. She blushed again.

  “Okay, okay,” said Laurent, “let’s remember, Jess, that this is a very unique situation her
e. If you hadn’t run into me, you wouldn’t know any better either, would you?”

  Jessica shrugged and stood up. “I’m tired. See you tomorrow, Laurent.” She trudged off upstairs and Heidi looked at Laurent.

  “I don’t think she likes me.”

  Laurent drew in breath and let it exhale slowly. “Heidi, don’t worry, she is just worried. I’m sure it’s nothing personal. There are lots of things to think about now. With you and your parents joining us our food and water supplies are going to be strained. We don’t have enough beds as it is. And now we have to contend with those monsters outside.”

  Harry sat down beside Laurent. Tom and Jackson plonked themselves down opposite on cushions they had arranged on the floor around the sofa.

  “We haven’t seen them in such large numbers since we left the city,” said Harry. “I’m not sure they’ll be gone before sunrise this time. A few we can handle. They disperse, they thin out, and we can take care of them. But this many? It’s dangerous.”

  “I think we might have to come up with a new plan,” said Tom. “Since we left London we’ve managed, just, but we’re running out of time.”

  “You were in London?” Heidi was amazed. “But...but I had a friend there who said London was destroyed, and that no one got out. She was in Epsom and said the infection basically just swept through London so fast that no one got out. I’m not sure if she got out. I haven’t heard from her since. I suppose there’s no way of knowing, is there? Did you really all come from London?”

  “Yep we sure did,” said Jackson. “We worked together. Well sort of. Tom and Caterina were in the same office as me, Christina and Jessica were in the same building. For a few days, we were trapped there in the city with a lot of our other colleagues. The city was overrun, that’s true, but we managed to escape. None of our other colleagues did. We met Rosa on the way and Harry here we met at the airport. His son, Benzo, was with us, but he didn’t make it either. We lost a lot of good friends, good people, to this thing.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Heidi. “So you got to an airport? How come you didn’t get away, get out of here?”

  “We were too late,” said Tom. “By the time we’d managed to get through the city, England was quarantined. There was no rescue or help waiting for us. We realised we were on our own and had to make our own way out. At that point, we didn’t quite realise how bad this infection had gotten. We figured we would head for France, use the tunnel you know? We couldn’t fly a plane or sail a boat, none of us knew how. So we thought we’d leave all this shit behind and get to France.”

  “That’s how we met Laurent,” said Jackson.

  “What these guys didn’t know was that I was doing the same thing,” Laurent said quietly. “Paris was hit by the infection too. Hell, the whole of France was. Is. I was an engineer on the tunnel trains and me and a friend decided to get out. It wasn’t hard. There was a few of us to begin with. When it all kicked off, we couldn’t get back to our homes, so we stayed at work. There was a workshop and some small warehouses that were inside the tunnel perimeter so they were well protected. There was a tall fence running around it, designed to stop illegal immigrants from getting onto the trains into England. It turned out to be quite effective at stopping the zombies too.

  “Anyway, we heard sporadic reports of what was happening in Paris and then the news just died out. The television, the radio, the phones; everything stopped working. The land outside the working yard was flat and we could see them. The dead were everywhere. I could not believe it to start with. There were women and infants. Some really young infants, just babies, you know? I can see their faces now, pressed up against the fence. My God, it was terrible.

  “After, I think five or six days, we began to run out of food. There was a canteen at work, but it was small. I managed to keep in contact with my wife for a while. She was at home, thankfully. I implored her to stay there, and stay hidden, but…

  “Me and two of my colleagues decided to try our luck in England. Without any news, we weren’t sure if the virus had spread there, but there seemed no point in staying. We would just starve to death. We knew how to drive the trains, and the power lines were still operating. We didn’t know for how long, so we decided to leave. I told my wife to come with us. I told her to drive to work and I would get her in somehow. My God, I was an idiot. She made it to my depot, but there were so many...so many.

  “I don’t know what happened to my friends I left behind. If they didn’t starve to death, then they would have had to go outside to find food. I don’t think they would get very far. I was travelling with Pierre and Patrice. They were good men. We managed to get the train through the tunnel okay. Officially, it was sealed off. The government ordered it closed as soon as the trouble started. In reality, it was just a few empty carriages blocking the entrance. We shunted them out of the way and hoped we would get out the other end. The tunnel was deserted, and we found nothing stopping us once we got to England. We were through in a couple of hours and everything looked fine. The fields looked so green I was sure we were safe. Pierre kept shouting, ‘We’ve made it!’ I didn’t feel like celebrating with him, not with how I left my wife. It was my fault she died. I should have told her to stay where she was. If she had…

  “Anyway, we never made it to London. When the train was approaching Ebbsfleet, we slowed down and thought we would get off and look for help. We pulled into the station, and I don’t know, something didn’t seem quite right. It was deserted. It was the middle of the day, so I thought there would be someone around, even if it was just the station manager or someone. We got off and began wandering around the station, but there was not a soul anywhere. The waiting room, café, car park, and the road to the station were all empty. Pierre said we should carry on into London, because there was no way London would be deserted too. We were about to leave when Patrice suddenly saw them. There was a young couple walking down the road toward us. We were so relieved, I can’t begin to tell you.

  “Patrice ran up to meet them, but...you can guess they were not so friendly. They pounced on him and he would’ve been dead quite quickly I think. Me and Pierre turned and ran. We had seen the infection in France and recognised it straight away. I was so shocked and Pierre too. He was so quiet. We made it back onto the train and were about to pull away when we saw Tom and Harry. They were walking down the tracks toward us, rifles in front of them and they were shouting at us. Inside the train, we couldn’t hear them or what they were saying, so we thought they were going to shoot us.

  “We jumped out of the cab, and well, Tom and Harry dragged us away into a sidecar. There we met the others and we waited until the zombies, the two who had killed Patrice, moved on. We waited for a few hours and finally it was quiet enough for us to leave. We talked and they told me what had happened to England. That’s how I ended up with them. Tom was taking everyone to Paris, but they did not get very far.”

  “Holy smoke and where is Pierre? Is he upstairs?” Heidi asked.

  “Non. He is dead too. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it with me. We have been on the road for weeks, Heidi. He got bitten. We were rushing from one place to the next and we got sloppy. Once you get the infection, you’re dead. There was nothing we could do for him.”

  The room was silent and Heidi became aware that her parents had stopped whispering. She knew they were still awake and must be listening to the story. Moira had heard it before, but put her book down all the same.

  Tom knew how hard it was for Laurent to talk about his wife. He took up the story, letting Laurent gather himself. “It was odd at first, wandering around other people’s houses, expecting them to suddenly appear and shout at you. Tell you to get out before they call the police. It was probably a week before I got used to it. I guess you just adapt, change to what the situation demands. I guess you just stop thinking about it in the end.

  “We didn’t know what to do. Our plan had been to get to France. Laurent’s was to get to England. We scuttled around from ho
use to house, living off whatever we could find, hiding from the zombies, moving at dawn or dusk only, staying out of sight. It was draining.

  “I got a cold and it spread around to everyone pretty quickly. We weren’t eating properly so our immune system was weak. We started looking for vitamins then, medicine, anything that would help us survive. We needed clean clothes, rest, decent food and most of all, clean water.

  “The first time I put a clean shirt on, I turned around only to see a photo of the man who used to wear it. I felt shameful, stealing a dead man’s clothes. That was a while ago now, mind you. I have no such qualms now. It’s all about surviving. The things that have been left behind by the dead, the things that they used to live with, their vehicles, their clothes, their stocks of food and shelter is what we use, what we have to do now to live. We have no choice but to take them, grab every little thing we can and devour it. If we don’t, we’ll soon be infected, or end up as zombies.

  “We came across an army barricade, I forget where. It was some small satellite town south of London, and there was a good stock of weapons and medicine. Whilst we grabbed it, Harry tried the radio. One of the trucks had an impressive set up; transponders, receivers, freaking digital everything. Harry had the best idea out of any of us how to use it as he was in the force.”

  “It was more luck than judgment,” said Harry. “It was way more complicated stuff than I was used to in the force, but I managed to find a signal. It was a pre-recorded message on loop. We’ve no idea how long it’d been playing or even if it’s still playing now. We couldn’t lug the radio equipment with us as we just didn’t have the means. So I listened to the message a few times and memorised it.

  “It was the British Navy. They said a final rescue attempt would be made for any UK citizens still alive, uninfected, and residing in Britain. All military personnel were ordered to fall back to the nearest retrieval point. Navy ships would be sent to selected places along the UK coastline for extraction: Southampton, Liverpool, Penzance, and Middlesbrough. That was it. Only four rescue points for the whole country.” Harry held up four fingers shaking his head.