‘It’s just to get keys. They’ll be in an office or something. Come on.’
She scrambled up into the cab and, once the others joined her, drove round to the front door. She was just stepping down when she saw another flash of movement from the corner of her eye. She turned but it was gone again.
‘Krystal, when you said fast, did you mean really fast?’
‘Yeah, crazy fast, why?’
‘So fast like that?’
She pointed as a zombie emerged from the front entrance and scurried across the car park. It was faster than any others that she’d seen. In fact, it was faster than most humans she’d seen. Krystal stiffened and put her hand on Bayleigh’s arm. ‘Yeah, exactly like that.’
Jackson
He groaned and sat up. It was close to dark outside and a crescent moon peered down over London. The stars were out as well, but only the largest were visible through the light pollution. He loved it here. London was its own world, distant and distinct from everywhere else. It created a bubble of light around it too bright to see outside of, and everyone within was blinded by the same light.
He stood, stretched, and ambled to the window. It was his. The whole town was his. He would cross it and defeat the enemies of God, then he would rule it as the new children of God were born and raised. He raised his arms as if to cradle the city in them. Then he turned to stare at Ella who was, in turn, staring straight back at him.
‘You still sure you gonna come with me?’
She nodded, swallowing. ‘As long as you keep your eyes and hands off me.’
‘Hey, I was joking before.’
‘Joking? I’ve seen the marks on Harriet, I know what you do. She might not mind it, but I do. Try anything and I’ll cut your throat when you’re asleep.’
Jackson blinked. The sudden change from sweet Christian girl to ruthless… actually, it wasn’t so surprising. He believed in God, but Christianity was another thing entirely. Seemed to him that Christianity was what made Etienne and his boys do what they did. He sniffed and rubbed his nose.
‘You’ve seen her marks. What about mine?’
He turned and pulled up his top and she gasped. He stayed that way for a moment. Harriet must have undressed him before, because there was no way anyone else could have missed the patchwork of cuts and welts that decorated his back. He didn’t mention that a large part of it was self-inflicted. There were enough marks from Harriet for it to be valid.
‘Our love goes both ways, so don’t judge. Isn’t that what it says in the bible? Don’t judge someone in case you get judged as well?’
Ella blushed and turned for the door. He grinned and watched her arse before following her out into the corridor. She was heading for the fire door so he lengthened his stride and caught her by the shoulder.
‘Hang on. The ladies I was training before. Get them for me?’
Without waiting to see whether she’d take the order how she should, he squeezed past and stomped down to the fire door. He crept out onto the white-floored landing and peered over the edge of the stairwell.
They were three flights down, pushing and shoving and struggling to get up the stairs. He couldn’t help smiling. It was like people in the sales after Christmas, everyone desperate to get the last of this or that. In this case, it was the last humans. But they weren’t getting those.
‘Sale’s over. You want something, come and get me.’ He bellowed down the stairwell and smiled again as their frantic struggles increased.
They’d got up another flight and a half by the time Ella came through the fire door. With her were maybe ten of those he’d been training before his sleep. Every one looked tired and scared, and carried a random selection of knives and kitchen utensils. He ground his teeth together. They had to work, because he had to go.
‘Right, we don’t have time for you to be scared. We don’t have time for you to piss about and worry about what might happen. Those fuckers are brain dead, mindless animals. Only they aren’t animals cos they can’t hunt or use their instincts. They’re just stupid.’
He paused. They were all staring at him, listening intently, like he had the answers. He had to have the answers, he was God’s chosen. ‘We’ll work in pairs. Two to a zombie. I’m gonna kill the first few and show you how it’s done, alright?’
The first zombie broke free of the pack and stumbled up the stairs, hands reaching. ‘Remember, you have to go for the head. You can do other things to make them less dangerous if you want, but until you hit the head they’re just gonna keep coming. Here, let me show you.’
He took two steps down and stretched. The zombie pretty much shook his hand and he let it get a good grip on the bandages before he hauled on it as hard as he could. He yanked the zombie off its feet and hauled it up the stairs.
‘You see,’ He put his foot against its shoulder and drove his blade through the back of its hand. ‘Even when I take the arm off.’ He yanked again and tore the arm out of its socket. He held it out, still hanging off his blade, and flashed a smile at the ladies. ‘He can still get up and attack me. And will.’ He stepped back and watched the zombie clamber up the stairs.
Blood jetted from the stump but it came on, just as Jackson knew it would. He swung the arm, earning a sickened groan from the ladies as he smacked the zombie in the face with it. Blood and bits of flesh spurted from the end of the arm and splattered across the stair well. ‘The second thing to remember is these bastards eat their own. Don’t fight them if you don’t have to.’
He booted the zombie in the face and sent it flying down the stairs. It landed with a sickening crunch on the landing below. The zombies below it swarmed and tucked in. Jackson turned back to the ladies, gesturing with the dripping arm. ‘They eat their own. It’s a good distraction, it gives you time to think, and it means you don’t have to fight it to the death. Let’s start with that. I want you in pairs and I want the next few zombies to go back down the stairs.’
He stepped away, leaving the space open. All ten ladies were looking greener, but more confident as well. They gathered together in a bunch and he sighed. ‘Look ready to fight, would you.’
‘How?’
‘Stop holding onto one another. Brace yourselves. Get your feet set so if something pushes you, you can push back.’
They gave it a shot, with varying degrees of success, but he stopped short of cussing them again. It wouldn’t help. He shook the arm off his blade and it dropped to the floor with a dull thud. His right hand stung from the use. He needed to be careful, too much with it and the fingers would never heal.
The zombies came up the stairs. The first two reached the ladies and it was like everyone in the stairwell took a deep breath. Then one of the ladies kicked the first zombie in the face. It wasn’t the best blow but its nose exploded and it stumbled. It put a foot behind to steady itself and stepped on air.
Jackson grinned as it fell back into its pals. They took one look at the bloody nose and dragged it down. He saw one of the zombies fix its teeth around the nose and tear it off before the body disappeared beneath the press. The lady punched the air as the body fell and the others grew more confident. Two of them kicked at the next one. One missed completely, but the other got it square in the chest. It stumbled and fell back but was shoved forward again by those behind.
The ladies panicked as it attacked and Jackson growled. When did he step in? Should he step in at all? Another of the ladies stepped into the gap and, with one hand held out like she was playing tennis, shoved her knife straight into the creature’s face. It was a great shot and the body stiffened and fell away. The lady failed utterly to keep hold of her weapon, however, and it was swallowed up along with the body.
The two bodies on the stairs were enough to bring a halt to the advance for a moment.
‘Pretty good. Not as difficult as you thought, right?’
There were nods for the most past and he leant against the rail, settling in to watch. The next attacks went the same way and one of the
ladies managed to slam her rolling pin into the zombie hard enough to break its skull open and send it toppling backwards. They got another breather and Jackson was about to leave them to it when four zombies came rushing up the stairs together.
The ladies set to and were doing their best, but the ones in the centre were squashed by those outside them and couldn’t move properly. One of the zombies caught a hand and before anyone could react one of the ladies was yanked off the top step and toppled.
She screamed wildly as she fell on top of the zombie and they tumbled together down among the creatures. Jackson swore and leapt around the rail, shoving the other ladies aside. Two of them had the same idea as him and were already pushing down the stairs, flailing madly at anything that moved.
The lady beside him opened the skin on his arm with her kitchen knife so he back handed her in the chest and sent her back up the stairs. Three zombies were all within hitting distance. He hit the first straight in the face and grinned fiercely as his blade opened it up.
The second he grabbed around the throat with his right arm. He squeezed and pulled and felt something give, but it was taking too long. He drove his blade into the neck beneath his arm and shoved it back and forth. The head tore free and he tossed it into the melee.
The lady who’d been dragged in was thrashing like a child in his van straps. She didn’t appear to have been bitten. Yet. His blade went straight into the zombie that stood between him and her and he shoved it aside, then grabbed her. She kept kicking.
‘It’s me, stop bloody struggling.’
She either couldn’t hear him or her panic had taken over completely because she kept kicking. Zombie hands clawed at his back and legs as he put her over his shoulder, holding her clumsily with his right hand, and shoved his way back up the stairs. The ladies stood aside to let him through and he reached the relative quiet of the landing.
The lady was still freaking out, even as he dumped her on her arse on the cold floor, but she was safe and—
‘LARA.’
He spun around. The line of ladies was holding strong at the top of the stairs and he pushed his way between them. That was when he remembered the other lady who’d come off the top with him. She was called Lara. And she stood among the zombies, bloodied knife in hand.
He had a second to make eye contact before one of the zombies got the break and bit deep into her arm. She wailed, hacking at it with her knife. But tearing its face apart was little consolation when the next zombie buried its jaws in her shoulder. Another sunk its teeth into her leg and for a brief moment she stood, zombies attached to all her limbs, mouth open in a howl.
Then the zombies pulled and she came apart like a chicken leg. The blood, thicker and richer than zombie blood, sprayed across the walls and floor and the zombies fell to feasting. The lady beside Jackson vomited straight down the stairs before she stumbled away from the pack. The others did the same, covering their faces and mouths as they ran from what lay before them.
Jackson took a step down and stood in the middle of the stairs. ‘Get out, back through the fire door. You ain’t ready for this.’
They didn’t need any coaxing. They ran, leaving only Ella, halfway between the fire door and the stairs. She was shifting back and forth, trying to decide whether she wanted to run or stay.
‘Go on, get out.’
She shook her head, lips pressed tightly together. ‘No, I’m staying.’
Jackson stared for a moment, then nodded. ‘Fine. I’m not staying long.’
He crept further down the stairs until the feasting zombies were within arm’s reach. Then he started to kill. He kept it as simple as possible, one blow for each. His left arm was soon aching, unused to so much high impact stuff, and he was forced to use his feet.
His right elbow was efficient for driving them to the floor where his boot could crack skulls. At some point Ella joined him on the stairs. She wielded a healthy-sized kitchen knife that she used to stab the zombies through the temple and back of the head.
They kept coming. He glanced over the balcony and saw there were plenty more below. But this landing was saturated, blood and bodies strewn about like confetti after a wedding. He took a step back, pushing his breath between his teeth.
‘Let’s go.’
He glanced across at Ella. She had blood up to her elbows and all over her legs. She panted when she looked at him and her eyes were wild. He grinned and shook his head. ‘Plenty more time for that. Not now.’
Reluctantly she followed him up the stairs and out of the fire door. He pushed open the door of the first room and looked at the two dead bodies on the bed. Ella came with him and the blood lust fell from her face. Jackson clumsily got the first body into his arms.
‘What are you doing?’
‘We don’t want anything in here that attracts them. We need to get rid of these.’
She shook her head, eyes growing wet, and Jackson sniffed. ‘We can’t keep them here. They’re going, deal with it.’
She watched him mutely as he strode past her and back out of the fire door. He tossed the body over the edge of the stairwell and the sound of it striking the floor was muffled as he pushed through the fire door. The second went the same way.
He headed back into the room and started moving the bed. It was heavy and didn’t want to move. Ella caught onto what he was doing and steered while he shoved with his shoulder. Soon they had it on end, covering the fire door. They brought the second out and added it to the pile. It would hold for a while. Whether it would hold long enough for him to train from the ladies what had just witnessed in the stair well was another matter.
He chafed at the delay in going to St Paul’s, but they had to be safe. They had to be. What good was there in killing Az if he returned to a massacre? He stomped down the corridor, mentally preparing his speech, when another voice sounded in his head.
‘My son. My chosen one. I will speak with you now.’
He dropped to his knees, tears welling up in his eyes.
Luke
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t be interested in food and finding safety. All he could do was see Sophie, blood spurting from her as she fell. Did all humans have to deal with this? Was this how it felt when a loved one died?
Why did any of them, any of his people, yearn to be human? How could they dream of this as some sort of perfect existence? He stared at his hands and slowly clenched them into fists. He wanted to be part of this world but he would do anything to lose this feeling. The Father had demanded he regrow this place, bring life back to the scorched Earth, but he couldn’t be here any longer. He couldn’t be here with this feeling, this aching inside that threatened to overwhelm him.
Bayleigh drove them down to the warehouse and all the way he was muttering instructions on autopilot. He didn’t care where they went. There was nowhere he wanted to go anymore. He was holding his thoughts at bay, but he didn’t know how much longer he could keep them in check.
As they pulled into the car park, he stared at the long row of lorries. Every one of them would be filled with food slowly rotting. Everything around them was slowly rotting. The houses would go. It would take a few years before they started showing the signs, but come back in twenty and there’d be nothing that wasn’t fallen in or overtaken by nature.
By then the food in the trailers would be gone and the zombies would be… he didn’t know. Would they be gone? Would they be advanced, working in packs like the hunter gatherers of old? He would have to wait twenty years before the Father allowed him back in. Twenty long years of seeing people die and experiencing this pain after it.
Or he could go and speak to Az and Seph. There it was. He couldn’t avoid it. It would be easy. They didn’t need Az’s little army. They didn’t need anyone except the three of them. The Father would never suspect Luke would kill him. Of course he wouldn’t, he was his son. All they needed was access to his realm and a sharp knife.
That’s all it would take for him to return to his right
ful place. He would regain his immortality and lose this horrible feeling eating away inside. And he would have his powers back again. Not just the fear, but the control over purgatory and his wings. His wings.
He rubbed his hand over stumps that were now entirely covered by hair. He rolled his shoulders, acutely aware of the lack of weight there. He was half a person, no longer an angel yet not human enough to exist here properly. He had the feelings, but he couldn’t deal with them. He hadn’t grown up, hadn’t been a child learning how it all worked. He was stunted.
He shook his head and slipped down from the truck, heading towards the cab of the full trailer. It opened but the keys were nowhere to be seen. Bayleigh wanted to get the keys from the office inside and, despite his misgivings, he couldn’t argue the logic. This trailer was already full and ready to go. They could spend the next few hours hauling crates of food or they could just take this one. Or… he didn’t care. It made no difference in the long run.
They climbed back into the artic and drove round to the front. The girls were talking about the zombies they’d fought last time they were here, and he shifted in his seat. He shuddered at the thought but part of him welcomed it. Killing things might be just what he needed.
Bayleigh spotted it first. The zombie moved like those they’d fought before and he watched, horrified, as it raced from the building to hide behind another truck. He opened the door.
‘Stop, what the hell are you doing?’ Bayleigh said.
‘We need to get the keys.’
‘Not with those bloody things out there.’
‘They’re only zombies, Bayleigh.’
‘Only? They’re crazy hyper zombies and we’re going nowhere near them.’
Luke pushed the door open, loosening his sword. ‘Both of you, stay here. I’ll go inside and get the key.’
He slipped out before they had the chance to argue. They’d come after him, of that he was sure, but maybe it would make up his mind if someone got killed. If one of his people died he was stuck here and had the perfect excuse to go to Az.
Thirteen Roses Book Five: Home: A Paranormal Zombie Saga Page 13
