“Then why did you tell me to come this way?”
Before she could answer, the first of the diseased appeared around the corner. Not only shredded from the window, it limped as if hurt from the drop into the basement. Yet it still moved toward Vicky and snapped its jaws.
“What the fuck are we going to do?” Flynn called out.
But Vicky didn’t respond. Sure, her heart beat so fast it damn near exploded, but she had a plan and it would work.
When the first diseased had climbed up a few stairs—the others backed up behind it in a line because of the narrow corridor that led up the stairs—Vicky swung for it with her baton and scored a direct hit on the top of its head.
The creature fell to her blow, and the next diseased climbed over it.
With a clinched jaw, Vicky drove the baton as an uppercut into the monster’s chin. She knocked it back and it fell over the top of the first into the others behind.
The next diseased appeared and Vicky yelled out as she dealt yet another fierce blow.
The diseased moved forward as a rising tide. Slow, but unrelenting, they came toward Vicky. She hit every one of them with her baton. Sweat ran into her eyes and her arms had turned to lead, but she pushed through her discomfort and persevered.
Another heavy whack sent another one of the diseased stumbling backwards.
Silence followed. Vicky fought to catch her breath and watched the pile of fallen bodies at the bottom of the stairs.
When none of them moved, she finally turned back to Flynn. “The three hundred Spartans.”
Even in the dark, Vicky saw Flynn’s frown. “There’s a Greek myth,” she said, “about how three hundred Spartans fought off a vast Persian army. It's said they led the Persians into a narrow pass, where they slaughtered them. Because it funnelled their enemy into a tight space, it rendered their numbers useless. The Spartans, who already had superior fighting skills, only needed stamina to win the battle at that point.”
Another deep breath and Vicky broke into a coughing fit. The dust in the air ran straight to the back of her throat, and she heaved with every wet bark that flipped through her. When she recovered, she stood up straight and smiled. “Not that I have the stamina of a Spartan warrior, but it looks like I had enough to beat about fifteen diseased.”
Still clearly shaken from the ordeal, Flynn watched Vicky with wide eyes. A warble rattled his voice. “Thank you. I thought I was done for when I fell.”
Giving him a sharp nod, Vicky stepped past Flynn. With a two-step run up, she shoulder-barged the basement door open and fell out into the old barn conversion. Her baton raised, she did a quick scan of the place. It seemed empty.
Vicky led the way around the side of the hole in the floor.
“More than fifteen. I’d say double that,” Flynn said as he looked down at the diseased in the basement.
Vicky laughed. “Good job I didn’t realise that at the time.” She winked. “I would have left you for dead had I known.”
Chapter 26
“Hey,” Flynn said as he ran over to an old wooden pole, “look at this.”
Vicky followed him over. “Oh … My … God. I could kiss you, Flynn.”
“It’s okay, you don’t need to.”
Vicky laughed at his red cheeks as she removed the bottle from the bottom of the funnel. “Your dad and I used to do this to collect water too. The bottle’s full, so whoever set this up must have moved on.” A shake ran through Vicky’s hands as she pulled the bottle free and handed it to Flynn. She watched Flynn drink, her mouth drier than ever with the prospect of fluid in front of her.
After Flynn pulled the bottle away and gasped, he handed it to Vicky, who held it up to the light. He’d had at least half of it. Just before she drank it, she looked at Flynn again. “To Rhys and Larissa.”
Although Flynn nodded, he didn’t reply. Instead, he pulled his shoulders back and clamped his jaw tight.
Vicky then drained the rest of the bottle. Despite its muddy taste, the water stretched to every dry part of her mouth and she released a satisfied groan.
In the moments that followed their drink, both Vicky and Flynn stood in silence and looked out over the town they were heading toward. Although nothing like London in size, it looked large enough; especially when they had to travel through it by foot.
“I think going through it is the sensible option,” Vicky said as she stored the empty bottle in her backpack. “If we can move fast, we can rest when we get to the other side. We’ll be much closer to Home by then too.”
Flynn stared into the city with pursed lips and a pale face.
Vicky rocked from side to side. It did little to ease the aches in her hips, back, knees … hell, every fucking part of her ached.
Although she knew he hated it, Vicky reached over and ruffled Flynn’s hair. “Come on, champ, let’s do this.”
The teenage boy blew his greasy hair from his eyes and raised an eyebrow in Vicky’s direction.
Despite her exhaustion, Vicky laughed for the second time in as many minutes. “Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
She laughed some more. “Just thanks. Come on, let’s go.”
Like everything else in this world, nature had claimed the sign that read WELCOME TO FOXSTEAD.
A shake of her head and Vicky turned to Flynn as they walked into the town. “This place used to be rammed full of arseholes. Right on the commuter belt, the city wankers earned all their money in London and came to live out here. When London got too dangerous to spend any leisure time in—terrorist attacks, muggings, armed robberies—everyone who could afford it moved out to towns like this. They went into London for business and left for pleasure. London became a rat hole on the weekends that very few people visited for fun. All large houses with high gates, the four-by-four crowd loved it here.”
“Four-by-four?”
“Oh, sorry. I forget you’ve spent most of your life in a shipping container. There was an all-terrain vehicle, that would probably be pretty fucking useful now, and it was called a four-by-four. Anyway, a lot of the rich mums had them to take their offspring to school in. Back in the day,”—Vicky kicked a particularly stubborn tuft of grass that had sprung up from the middle of the road—“these roads were so smooth you could roll a marble down them.”
“So they didn’t need the four-by-fours.” Flynn said.
Vicky laughed. “Exactly! Nice cars, but they ended up becoming a symbol of pretension rather than anything else.”
As if to highlight her point, Vicky looked to her right at the first large house in the town and a huge rusted out Land Rover sat in the driveway. “That’s one there.”
“It doesn’t look very practical.”
Four flat tyres, mould around the window seals, and rust spots all over the bodywork, Vicky laughed again. “It would have ten years ago.”
By the time they’d passed the next house on the opposite side of the road, the mood had darkened and a chill snapped through Vicky. Everything seemed to get quieter inside the town.
A glance across at Flynn and Vicky saw him look around. “I’ve got a bad feeling, Vicky.”
“Have you had a good feeling since you’ve left the containers?”
“Well, no, but it feels much worse now. How do we even know that Home is legitimate? What if it’s a trap?”
“It could be, but why would they want to trap us?”
“Maybe they want to eat us?”
Because they were surrounded by harder surfaces than before, when Vicky laughed, it echoed down the abandoned street. It took any mirth from her response as she watched for signs of movement potentially disturbed by her sound. “This ain’t the movies, Flynn.”
When she saw his vacant look, Vicky elaborated. “People don’t eat people when they can plant veg and shit. Why the fuck would they?”
Flynn didn’t reply, and near silence hung between the pair. Other than the scrape of their shoes over the craggy road, Vicky heard nothing. I
t made it harder to ignore the feeling of being watched. She snapped her head around to look at another house beside them. Grass grew up the walls, the gate lay broken from where it had fallen from its hinges, and the dark windows stared back at her. Anything could be in there. Without a word to Flynn, she picked up her pace and Flynn seemed more than happy to follow.
Chapter 27
The pair said very little to one another as they walked through the deserted town. They navigated a rat run of streets with abandoned houses on either side of them—or houses that appeared to be abandoned.
When Vicky spoke, she saw Flynn jump. “One good thing about the diseased is that they let us know they’re coming. The clumsy fuckers couldn’t sneak up on shit.”
“I still feel like we’re being watched.”
“You’re not helping, Flynn.” It would have been easy for Vicky to discount what he’d said if she didn’t feel the same.
Flynn shrugged.
When she saw an entrance to the back of a large school, Vicky pointed at it. “Let’s go through there.”
“Why?”
“There has to be some open spaces in there. At least if we’re walking alongside a school field, nothing will be able to take us by surprise.”
The boy looked like he wanted to argue with her. When he didn’t, Vicky took the lead and guided them through the entrance to what the sign told them was The Coach Park.
As they walked up the long driveway, Vicky looked at the school. A hockey pitch on their right, she hadn’t given it a second thought until Flynn gasped. The sharp outburst sent her pulse skyrocketing, and she dropped into a defensive crouch.
As Flynn stared at the hockey pitch, his jaw loose, he said, “We need to get out of here.”
“Why?”
He pointed at the pitch. “Someone’s been here recently, look how short the grass is.”
“I’m glad I brought you along; for comedy value, if nothing else.”
Genuine confusion crushed Flynn’s face.
“That’s Astroturf.”
“What’s Astroturf?”
He had a point. Why would he have seen it before now? And even if he had seen it, he would have been too little to know what it was. “Fake grass, Flynn. It’s used on all-weather sports pitches like this one so people can play sport on it all year ’round.”
With the same confused frown on his face, Flynn dropped his head with a sigh. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“For being such an idiot.”
Vicky had been too harsh on him. “You’re not an idiot; you have a lot of questions because you’ve been living away from everything for most of your life. I’m sorry, I should be more understanding.”
When they reached the large open area of asphalt that must have been used for coaches a long time ago, Vicky looked around. A huge sports hall stood on the other side, and it led down into what looked like the main part of the school. It had to be more cramped down that way. If they went the other way, it looked like they’d pass the sports fields.
Before Vicky could ask Flynn which way he thought they should go, she stopped and grabbed his arm.
Flynn stopped next to her.
“Pass me the catapult.”
As he fished the weapon from his pocket, Flynn looked around. When he saw what Vicky had seen, he stopped. “Shall I try?”
“We don’t have time for you to try at the moment, Flynn. We can practice your skills when we’re out of this shit-hole town. And when I’m not as hungry.”
With her attention on the pigeon across the other side of the open space, Vicky took the catapult from Flynn, loaded it with a round stone, and pulled the catapult back. A deep breath did enough to still her aim. With one eye closed, she focused on the fat grey bird and let the catapult go with a thwack.
A burst of grey feathers and the pigeon fell on its side.
Vicky jogged across the open space with Flynn behind her. When she got to the bird, she pressed it into the ground with her foot. The thing twitched beneath the pressure. “Put it out of its misery,” she said to Flynn.
Although he gulped, Flynn brought his foot up and stamped on the bird’s head. Its small skull crunched beneath his pressure and the creature fell limp.
Vicky lifted the dead bird up by its feet. She retrieved some string from her pocket, bound the creature’s legs together, and tied the bird to her belt.
“We’ll eat this later.” She looked up at the sky. It may have still been warm, but the day wouldn’t last forever. “I want to be well away from this place before it gets dark.”
Chapter 28
The dead bird slapped against Vicky’s right thigh as she walked. About twenty minutes since she’d strapped the thing to her, she barely noticed the repeated pressure now. From the look of the sky, Vicky would have guessed it to be about seven in the evening. Not quite the height of summer, night had started to show signs of settling in as was typical for this time of year. Other than the scuff of their feet over the craggy road and the occasional rustle of long grass, silence surrounded the pair.
Vicky’s eyes stung from watching their surroundings; the less she blinked, the less chance she had of missing something. The school had been as she’d predicted: open and easy to spot anyone approaching them. Now they walked down the town’s high street, Vicky wound tight in anticipation of an ambush. Regardless of no evidence to back it up, she couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched.
Old shops with large windows—most of them smashed—lined either side of the road. Every building housed a dark shadow that the diseased could hide in should they so desire. As the day went on, the shadows grew even darker. At the same time, the place looked picked cleaner than a carcass in the desert, so maybe the diseased had moved on. Not that she could think like that; complacency led to death in this new world.
The scuff of a shoe over a hard ground called out into the street. Vicky stopped and shot a paranoid glance in the direction she thought the sound had come from.
She didn’t say anything to Flynn, but the boy moved closer to her side. If he hadn’t heard it too, her reaction would have been enough to spook him.
A few seconds later, it sounded like the slight clearing of a throat from the opposite side of the road. They were surrounded.
Vicky’s already dry mouth dried further, and the need to run balled in her calves. At any moment, the town could come to life. It may not be the diseased, but they were clearly in a place that belonged to someone.
To remain frozen to the spot would only make them more vulnerable, so Vicky set off down the high street in the direction they were heading. Maybe whoever watched them would let them through. A woman and a teenage boy posed no threat, right?
With every step down the high street, the darkness of night around the pair seemed to close in—almost as if the place were tightening its grip on them, squeezing them until they couldn’t move.
Something shifted in the shadows to Vicky’s right—or at least she thought it did. A darkness within the dark seemed to shuffle slightly. Maybe she’d imagined it.
When she glanced up at the fading light in the sky, she tugged on Flynn’s sleeve and picked up her pace.
“I don’t like it here,” Flynn whispered.
At first, Vicky didn’t respond. But if they were being watched, to talk to Flynn couldn’t give them away any more. “It seems fine to me.” The wobble in her voice undermined her words.
“You don’t sound like it seems fine to you.”
To admit to his observation could be to encourage the people to come out of the shadows. They didn’t need to hide if their cover had been blown. “There’s a lot of places for people to hide,” Vicky said, “so it’s understandable that you’re imagining things hiding in them. The mind has a way of playing tricks on us.”
“But I’m not imagining it.”
When something clearly shifted in one of the buildings to their right, Vicky grabbed Flynn and led him down an alleyway on the left.<
br />
The tight space amplified their footsteps and called out to anyone observing them, but they had to get the fuck off the high street. Maybe whatever lurked there would stay there.
Vicky’s pulse ran away on her by the time she’d stepped out of the alleyway and into an old car park. An automobile graveyard, the vehicles sat as exhausted memories of what they once were. Flat tyres had grass growing up the sides of them. Grimy windows collected moss and mould on their perished seals. Rust coated their bodywork like acne.
With more of an open space in front of them, Vicky grabbed Flynn’s hand and jogged across the car park with him. As she ran, she checked behind. It seemed clear; maybe their plan had worked.
Once out of the other side of the car park, Vicky led them back toward the high street. If she’d judged it correctly, they’d come out lower down and nearly out of the godforsaken place.
When Vicky checked behind them, ice ran through her veins. Silhouettes crowded the alleyway they’d only just left. Not the silhouettes of the diseased; this mob moved with much less urgency, but came at the pair like a rising tide, confident in their clear advantage over the situation.
When Flynn shrieked out, his voice carried over the car park. “Vicky!”
“I see them,” she said through clenched teeth. She lowered her voice. “Once we round this corner, we need to run, okay?”
The boy didn’t reply.
To run too early could encourage the mob to give chase. Exhausted from their journey, Vicky had the beating of diseased in her, but real live people, the first she’d seen in a decade, other than those in her party … well, who fucking knew what she could do to avoid this lot.
Despite her urge to sprint, Vicky led Flynn around the corner at the same fast march they currently moved at.
Confident they’d gotten out of the crowd’s line of sight, Vicky pulled on Flynn’s hand. “Now! Let’s go.”
The pair moved off at a jog, the sound of their feet slapping against the road. Stealth didn’t matter anymore. They’d been seen, and it served no purpose to ignore that fact.
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