Chapter 17
Vicky hadn’t said much to Flynn for the past hour or so, and he hadn’t tried to speak either. As she scanned their surroundings, on high alert for what could jump out on them at any moment, she caught sight of Flynn doing the same.
When they reached an old high street, Flynn stopped in his tracks and Vicky pulled up next to him. A strong wind tore down the deserted thoroughfare and cut straight to Vicky’s core. Vicky looked at Flynn to see him continue to scan the street, his eyes wide, his head movements twitchy.
“It’s a good idea to stop every once in a while,” she said. “It may look clear, but if you’re going to survive out here, you need to be extra vigilant. Well done.”
Like everywhere else, grass grew up through the cracks in the road. Smashed shop windows and signs hanging from posts swung in the wind. Old cars had rusted where they sat, their tyres flat.
Flynn still didn’t seem keen on moving off, so Vicky said, “What’s up?”
“I think we should go around.”
“Go around where?”
“I dunno,” Flynn shrugged, “just get off the high street maybe? It just doesn’t feel right out here.”
“Your dad and I picked this area clean for the past decade. What we learned very quickly was that high streets are no more dangerous than residential areas. Despite what George A. Romero has told us—”
“Who?” Flynn interrupted.
“An old movie director. He made zombie films that showed hordes of the fuckers turning up to shopping malls. He made it look like visiting the places was in their DNA. I remember Rhys laughing every time we entered a diseased-free shop. The diseased couldn’t give two shits about commerce. They care about food; that’s all. You’re as likely to find them skulking around fields hunting rabbits as you are to find them in built up areas snacking on rats.”
Wide-eyed, Flynn chewed on his bottom lip as he watched their surroundings. “At least you’d see them more easily in fields.”
“That’s true, but to avoid the built up areas around here will take us on a huge detour. We’ll be exposed for much longer just because of the extra time it will take to get to Home. The risk isn’t worth it.” A yellowed piece of newspaper skittered across the road between them. “We just need to have our wits about us and keep on going. The quickest way to Home is straight through this town.” Looking up at the strong sun, Vicky said, “We have quite a few hours of daylight left, so let’s make the most of the light and get through the town.”
The snap of Vicky’s telescopic baton echoed off the shop fronts on either side of the street, and she walked with a slightly lowered stance; ready to kick off in a flash. Flynn followed her.
When Vicky heard a rustle, she spun around to find Flynn had stopped to retrieve the catapult she’d given him as a birthday present. The boy had it wrapped in a carrier bag.
Vicky reached up behind her head and grabbed the handle of her baseball bat. She had it wedged between her back and rucksack. After she’d pulled it free, she rolled her shoulders, relieved to finally remove the thing. She then handed it to Flynn. “Here, take this. A catapult won’t do much for you here. If something comes at you, you won’t have time to aim. You need to swing for the fucker to take it down.”
After Flynn had tucked the catapult into the back of his trousers, he took the baseball bat, turned it over in his hands, and gulped.
Of all the shop signs on the high street, just one remained above its shop. Browned with age, the sign clearly used to be white. It had flourishing and joined-up purple writing on it. Vicky squinted as she stared at it for a few seconds before she worked out what it said. Deja Vu. A row of ripped leather chairs ran down either side of the shop. The once tiled floor had lost its battle against the grass that pushed up through it.
The slap of clumsy footsteps startled Vicky and she straightened where she stood. With the echoes created by the surrounding buildings, it took her a few seconds to pinpoint the sound. Just as she did, a diseased burst from an alleyway.
“What do we do, Vicky?” Flynn asked, his voice breathless and high in pitch.
As the thing closed down on them, pure hate on its face, Vicky stepped aside. “You need to take it down.”
Flynn gripped his bat with both hands and held it up, ready to swing. “Come on, Vicky, you can’t be serious. I’ve never had to fight one of these things.”
With one eye on the monster, Vicky said, “And no better time to start.”
“Vicky?”
“Flynn, you have to learn to fight them. I can’t carry both of us.”
“Please, Vicky.”
Tears ran down Flynn’s face, but she couldn’t step in. “You have to learn, Flynn. It’s either kill or be killed; those are the options.” While she gave him his ultimatum, Vicky stepped back a pace so the diseased would head for Flynn. The urge to protect him burned bright inside of her, but she held her ground. She thought of the kid like she would her own son, but this had to work. He’d do it. When the chips were down, he’d find it in him.
After she’d stepped back another pace, Vicky’s mouth dried and her heart raced. Had she made the right call? He might not be ready. But he had to be ready. He had to try. With a bat and just one diseased, they had the perfect opportunity to practice.
“Get ready to swing for it, Flynn.”
The boy wrung his grip on the bat and frowned against his tears.
“On the count of three,” Vicky called as the diseased closed the gap.
“Three.”
“Two.”
The boy swung too early, and Vicky’s heart leapt into her throat. The end of his bat just caught the diseased on the nose. It may have only skimmed it, but it made enough contact to knock its face to the side and to send the monster sprawling.
Flynn froze as he stared down at the thing with a look of horror. His chest rose and fell with his rapid breaths.
Only dazed, the diseased fought against its own lack of coordination as it tried to get up. Before it could fully right itself, Vicky rushed over to it and brought her baton down on the top of its head.
One hard whack later and Vicky had caved in the thing’s skull. Blood pooled on the ground beneath it from where its soft brain had spilled from its broken cranium. The copper reek of blood surrounded Vicky, and the start of a heave sat in her throat.
With her hands on her hips, Vicky recovered her breath and looked down at the thing like she expected it to move. Not that she’d ever seen one of them recover from a brain injury, but then she’d never seen crazed infected lunatics before, so who knew what would happen next.
When Vicky turned to Flynn, she saw him standing in a state of shock. After she’d wiped the end of her baton on the diseased’s clothes, she walked past Flynn on her way back up the high street. She patted his shoulder as she passed him. “You’re a man now, Flynn; you need to learn to fight like one. The first is always the hardest, and you’re still alive, so I’m not worried for you. It’s going to be a steep learning curve, but you’re ready for it.”
Once Vicky had passed him, she released the longest sigh. The anxiety of what she’d just put the boy through had wound so tight in her stomach it gave her indigestion. A glance behind and she saw Flynn remained rooted to the spot, so she called, “Come on, mate, we need to get the fuck out of here before more show up.”
With one last look at the downed diseased, Flynn came to life and followed after Vicky.
Chapter 18
“I did it, didn’t I, Vicky?”
When Vicky looked across at Flynn, she couldn’t help but smile at his temporary joy. To see the burden removed from his heavy shoulders, if just for a short while, lifted her spirit. “You did it, mate.” Her smile widened as she continued to climb the steep hill. “You knocked your first diseased to the floor. That’s the hardest kill, you know?”
Wide eyes stared back at her. “It is?”
It obviously hadn’t registered the last time she’d said it to him. “Sure! No
w you’ve done it once; you’ll feel that little bit more confident to do it again. You’ll knock plenty of the fuckers down before you reach the end of your life. Hell, you’ll probably knock plenty of the fuckers down before you reach the end of the week.”
Another smile, although crooked and slightly broken, lifted on Flynn’s face. A life on top of the containers must have turned the terrifying world beyond into a truly hellish prospect. Flynn had done well so far to manage what must have been damn near crippling anxiety. Vicky needed to make sure killing the diseased became second nature to him. With both of his parents gone, she couldn’t let Flynn die too. Now his nurturing—and survival—rested purely on her shoulders. With such a daunting task, she now saw why Rhys had stalled so much when she’d pushed him to let the boy grow up.
They walked up what used to be a main road, the incline steep enough to send a slight ache through Vicky’s calf muscles. Nature pushed up through the hard surface and ran cracks all across it. A road between towns, hopefully there would be less diseased out here. Not that Vicky would ever lower her guard.
A rumble turned through Vicky’s stomach so loud that Flynn heard it, even above the strong wind that swayed the long grass around them. Vicky had a peripheral awareness of Flynn’s attention on her, but something else had just caught her eye. A quick glance at Flynn and she saw him just about to open his mouth. Before he could speak, she clamped her hand across the lower half of his face and pressed a finger to her pursed lips. Vicky pointed up the hill. Nestling in amongst the long grass—some of the lush green blades in its twitching mouth—sat a rabbit. With its long ears pulled back, it chewed on the grass and looked around, oblivious to the owners of two hungry bellies as they watched their potential dinner.
The action burned Vicky’s knees, but she slowly lowered herself and pulled Flynn down with her. Out of the rabbit’s line of sight, she spoke in a whisper. “Get the catapult out. Time for your next lesson.”
So hungry it hurt, Vicky fought the urge to take the catapult from Flynn and do it herself. He needed to learn. Out in the open, anything could happen to her at any time. If she didn’t teach this kid how to survive, she’d be condemning him to death.
A shake ran through Flynn’s hand as he pulled the catapult from his bag. She’d seen him pick up stones since she gave him the weapon, and now she watched him load it with a perfectly round one. Even harder to let him do it now he’d produced the perfect projectile, Vicky bit her tongue and let him do what he needed to. As the boy adjusted his stance, Vicky looked down to see another smooth stone by her right foot. She lifted it up and rolled it between her fingers as she instructed the boy.
So close to him, Vicky could smell the musty reek of dirt that he carried in his hair. The bathroom container they’d set up did enough to maintain a level of hygiene, but everyone had an unpleasant scent now. “Okay, you need to pull the elastic tight before you lift the catapult.”
The shake hadn’t left Flynn as he pulled back the loaded weapon and lifted it out in front of him.
“Now close one eye.”
Flynn did that.
“Breathe. Really calm yourself, try to slow your heart down so you can hold the catapult as steady as possible. Get the rabbit in your sights, and then ….”
Before Vicky could say anything else, the thwack of the catapult’s elastic sounded out as Flynn loosed the perfect stone.
Were it a cow, then he may have hit it. Maybe. A house he would have had no problem with. What a time to find out that the boy had a fucking terrible shot!
The rabbit took off up the road away from them. In one fluid movement, Vicky grabbed the catapult from Flynn, loaded it with the smooth stone in her hand, stood up, and let the stone fly with another thwack.
The white flag of the rabbit’s tail bobbed up and down until Vicky scored a direct hit on the small creature’s head. The satisfying thud of the stone connected with the animal’s skull, and it rolled over and over.
Vicky ran to the thing, the steep incline draining her energy and the long grass whipping at her legs. The rabbit could recover at any second, and they couldn’t go without food any longer. Like a fish out of water, the small creature twisted on the hard road. It kicked and turned, disorientated and dazed.
When Vicky lifted it up, it twisted in her grip in a palsied attempt to writhe free.
Flynn caught up a second later, so Vicky handed the creature to him.
At first, he held it at arm’s length as if afraid to touch it.
“You need to get a proper grip on it otherwise it’ll kick free. Grab its head tight.”
Although he winced as he did it, Flynn followed Vicky’s instructions and covered the rabbit’s head with his grip.
“Okay,” Vicky said, “now pull as hard as you can. You need to break its neck to put it out of its misery.”
It looked like Flynn wanted to argue, but he didn’t. Instead, he screwed his face up and pulled; although, not very hard.
“Come on, Flynn. This isn’t a game anymore. If you can’t kill a rabbit, you’ll die.”
With a clenched jaw, Flynn bared his teeth and grunted as he pulled harder this time. The rabbit’s neck broke with a pop and Flynn dropped the creature a second later. It hit the ground hard, its dead body limp.
After Vicky had picked it up, she wrapped a piece of string around its feet and tied the other end to her belt.
Vicky only realised she’d chased the rabbit to the brow of the hill they’d been climbing once she’d stopped and taken in their surroundings. Their position afforded them a view of the town below. From where she stood, it looked like a normal town. The streets and buildings looked overgrown, but from their distance, she couldn’t tell by quite how much.
As she squinted against the lowering sun, Vicky saw an old farm about a mile away. “There,” she said as she pointed down at it, “that’s where we’ll stay tonight.”
She tapped Flynn on the back, said “Come on”, and jogged off in the direction of the farm.
Flynn looked far from happy about it, but he followed her down the steep hill anyway.
Chapter 19
If Vicky kept Flynn moving, then he wouldn’t have time to think about his family. Who was she kidding? She needed the physical distraction as much as he did. With a parasitic guilt gnawing away at her about Larissa, if she stopped to think about it for too long, it could tear her apart. But Larissa didn’t matter at that moment. She looked at Flynn by her side; he didn’t look back. Instead, he remained focused on the town at the bottom of the hill.
Both Flynn’s terrible shot at the rabbit, and then having to kill it afterwards had clearly drained him. The boy seemed close to drowning in his depression. Just keeping him alive would be hard enough, if he fell off the precipice into despair …
Logic dictated that running downhill would be a hell of a lot easier. However, it could prove fatal if one of them slipped and fell. An injury had the potential to ruin everything. Even as they walked, each heavy footfall sent a jolt through Vicky’s body. Fire burned in her knees and threw stabbing pains all the way up her back to the base of her neck. To stop, or even slow down, would take the strains off her body, but they had to keep moving.
The grass that grew up through the road not only whipped at their shins, but it left the road surface raised and uneven. Unable to track every potential lump and bump that could throw her to the ground, Vicky looked at the town below instead. Hopefully she wouldn’t fall over.
So vast, the large town at the bottom of the hill spread out in either direction. Home lay on the other side, so they’d have to go through it. Like the high street, they couldn’t afford to go around, and it wouldn’t be any safer if they did. Regardless of which route they took, they’d be vulnerable until they were behind a reinforced and locked door.
Sweat stung Vicky’s eyes, so she drew her sleeve across her forehead. As she marched, she fought to keep her breathing level and blinked against the salty itch that blurred her vision. Although they ha
d to get through the town, it made sense to go in the morning when they had a good chance of doing the journey without it getting dark.
Now they’d gotten much closer to the farm at the bottom of the hill, Vicky saw that it had no farmhouse; it was just three barns, each seemingly dropped in a field with little regard for the position of the others around it. Surely that worked in their favour. With no house to loot, the barns had a much better chance of remaining empty because they wouldn’t attract any attention from either the diseased or other survivors. Home seemed safe, but if there were other survivors out in the wild, who knew what they’d gone through—and would be prepared to do—to survive.
Still spring, the strong wind and setting sun lowered the temperature enough to pull Vicky’s sweating skin taut and lift goosebumps along her arms. Without their blankets from the shipping containers, they’d have a cold night.
The sound of Flynn’s heavy breaths next to Vicky forced her to look over at him.
With his mouth stretched wide as if to pull as much oxygen as he could into his body, Flynn looked back.
“You need to get in better shape,” Vicky said. “All we have now are our wits and fitness, and we need to spend all of our time sharpening both of them. You understand?”
Although the boy didn’t speak, he nodded. His red face glistened with sweat.
“I reckon we’ll be at the barns in about ten minutes. Can you keep it up for that much longer?”
Flynn didn’t reply as he continued his quick pace. But no reply had to be better than a refusal.
“Good,” Vicky said, and she returned her attention to the barns halfway down the hill, and then the town beyond it. From this far away, the large built up area seemed quiet. But looks could be very fucking deceiving.
Chapter 20
Vicky damn near fell into the barn when they finally reached it. Exhausted from the day, her legs shook as she crossed the concrete in front of it and entered the smallest building of the three in the field. It looked the least desirable, so hopefully she’d gauged it correctly and they’d be left the fuck alone. They didn’t need anyone stumbling upon them. Not that she’d seen many other people of late. In the past decade, they’d only seen one other party once. They’d been far away and walking through a field. Vicky and Rhys hid away from them until they passed. Over the years, Vicky had run through that scenario and played it out differently in her mind.
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