Zero Hour
by
James Loscombe
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Tales of the Apocalypse contains nine short stories and novellas set before, during or after an apocalyptic event.
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Copyright © 2016 by James Loscombe
The rights of James Loscombe to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are ficticious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Free Book
Copyright
Table of Contents
Zero Hour
About the Author
Other Books
CHAPTER ONE
Beth let go of Dale’s arm and took a final look at him. She could see that he intended to go through with it.
What if it doesn’t work? She wanted to say. If he was going to die, then she wanted his sacrifice to have meaning, but there was no way that either of them could know.
He smiled at her a final time and through the tears she managed to smile back at him. Then he turned and walked towards the forest.
The low moan of a thousand zombies seemed to drown out everything else. She watched Dale until the forest engulfed him. When the zombies saw him their sound changed from a moan to a growl and she expected Dale to scream, but he didn’t.
The zombies fell upon him. Beth had seen enough to know what was happening, but it seemed impossible that Dale could be gone. She already regretted not stopping him, but there was nothing she could have done.
She thought that she could feel the ground shake, but she knew it was only her heart breaking with the realisation that he was dead.
The zombies turned back towards the village. Whatever Dale had expected to happen didn’t. Beth didn’t feel surprised. She didn’t feel anything at all. She stood rooted to the spot as the zombies began coming towards her.
She thought she might scream, but she was numb, not scared. Dale was dead, and there was nothing that she could do to bring him back. The zombies were coming towards her, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Soon she would be with Dale again, or she would know no different.
The zombies seemed to falter. They were a hundred metres away from her, and she could see their rotting flesh clearly in the moonlight.
She could hear them moaning, but it had changed in a way she couldn’t define. They sounded sick. Sicker.
One of the zombies came forwards but before it managed more than half a dozen steps it stumbled and fell to the ground. It struggled for a moment; its arms and legs flapping uselessly in the air. Then it stopped.
The others began to fall. They seemed to melt away from the mass and Beth watched them turn, from zombies, back into corpses. Hundreds of them fell.
Her first thought was that Dale had been right and she was glad for him. His sacrifice had meaning and the zombies were dying. Her second thought was that it hadn’t been enough of a reason for her to lose him.
She could hear more bodies falling in the forest and movement behind her. The zombies were dying, but she couldn’t be glad because she had lost too much. The only thing she could think was that Dale was gone. There was nothing she could do that would bring him back.
* * * * *
A soldier came towards her. He was carrying a large machine gun and kept one eye on the dying zombies while he spoke.
“You need to come with me miss,” he said.
Beth nodded and gladly turned away from the zombies, but she refused to take the man’s hand.
She followed him back to the ruins where people were now just standing around. She saw Dawn and Noel and Rachel and the children. They looked at her. They seemed to be waiting for her to tell them what to do. She turned away.
“I’ve got her,” the soldier said, but he was no longer talking to Beth.
A woman answered him. “And what about the patient?”
“Dead m’am.”
“Fuck!” she said. “Are you sure?”
“Certain m’am.”
Beth listened with casual disinterest. None of it felt real.
The woman began to pace. Her red hair was vibrant in the moonlight.
“What shall we do with this lot?” the soldier said.
The woman stopped pacing and looked at him. Now Beth recognised her as the woman that Dale had called Velma. She was older, perhaps mid-fifties, but still pretty. Beth wondered if Dale had slept with her and then stopped herself from thinking further about that. Dale was dead now, so what difference did it make?
“Get them back to the village,” Velma said.
“M’am?” the soldier said.
“You heard me,” she said. “Get them back now.”
Beth started to speak, to tell them that they couldn’t go back, but no words came out. The idea was attractive: the zombies were dead, so now they were safe. They could go back to their old lives and try to forget what had happened.
The virus is in the water, Dale had said. You can’t go back to the village.
The words seemed to haunt her and she stood still while the soldiers began to round up the survivors and direct them back towards Harmony.
She wanted to tell them to stop, to wait, that they couldn’t go back. But maybe the soldiers already knew that. They had referred to Dale as ‘the patient’ so they must have known. But then why…
Beth wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
She looked around. Panic was beginning to melt the numbness that she had felt since Dale… There would be time to mourn him later, right now she had to keep her head.
Dawn was a few paces behind her, standing with the others. People that Beth had counted as friends were starting to follow the soldiers. She didn’t have long. If she was going to do something then she needed to do it soon.
* * * * *
Velma turned her back on Beth to talk to someone else. She didn’t seem to notice when Beth took a step away and then another. After that, Beth didn’t pay attention to what the woman did.
She grabbed Dawn’s hand without a word.
“What are you doing?” Dawn said, automatically trying to pull her hand back. Beth held on and began to drag her away.
“Come with me,” she said. She didn’t have time to give an explanation and she didn’t think she’d be able to get the words out if she tried.
“Beth stop it,” Dawn said, her voice loud enough to draw attention. “You’re hurting me, let go!”
She stopped but looked around. A few people from Harmony had turned to look at them.
“What’s going on Beth?” Noel said, walking towards them and bringing the others with him.
Beth looked at them and knew that if she told them they might not believe her. She wasn’t a leader, that had been Dale, but she could tell them and let them make up their own minds.
“We have to go,” Beth said.
“Go?” Noel said. “They said it was safe to go back to the village.”
Beth nodded. “Maybe they think it is,” she said. “But it’s not. The virus is in the water
. If we go back, we’ll all turn into zombies.”
“Oh dear,” Noel said.
“We have to leave,” Beth said.
None of them agreed, but none of them argued either.
Beth squeezed Dawn’s hand again and, this time, she didn’t resist when she started to walk away.
She led them towards the forest where the bodies of the zombies were laying. The forest closed in around them, and she didn’t look back. Beth had no idea how many people were following her but it didn’t matter anyway. She had Dawn to look after, everyone else was on their own.
* * * * *
Beth kept hold of Dawn’s hand as they picked their way through the forest. She could hear footsteps but no one spoke, and she didn’t turn around to see who was there. It wasn’t her responsibility. They were following her, but it had been their decision to do so.
The ground began to rise as the forest thinned. She could feel Dawn tugging on her arm, but didn’t let go of her hand.
“Beth!” she hissed.
Beth turned around.
Dawn looked exhausted but, no matter how tired she was, they couldn’t afford to stop. They had to keep moving because there were zombies nearby and she wouldn’t feel safe until they had a roof over their heads.
There were other shapes in the forest with them, but none that she could identify in the darkness. Perhaps twenty people had followed her into the forest.
“Beth they’re following us,” Dawn said.
Her first thought was zombies. It seemed like the only possible explanation, but the moans that she heard were distant, and she had an idea that zombies weren’t built for stealth.
“It’s the soldiers,” Dawn said.
Beth felt a weight settle on her chest. She hadn’t expected the soldiers to care whether they went back to Harmony or not. Perhaps she had been naive. She doubted that Dale would have made the same mistake.
Noel pushed his way to the front of the group and stopped behind Dawn. “What are we going to do?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Beth said.
She could only think of one reason why the soldiers would have followed them; they wanted to take them back to Harmony. She couldn’t let that happen but they couldn’t fight an army. That left only one option.
“Come on,” she said, taking Dawn’s hand again. She started to run.
The branches whipped past her face, and she stumbled over the uneven ground. She could hear others following but couldn’t afford the time to look back and see for sure. Now that she was aware of their presence she could hear the subtly different sound of the soldiers coming behind them; their heavy boots and the rattle of their guns.
She looked ahead, but the light and the landscape conspired to stop her seeing far. The hill rose and fell, and the path twisted around on itself so that, at times, it seemed like she was running back towards the soldiers.
She didn’t think they would shoot her, but she had heard the stories from Dale, and she knew that they wouldn’t stop until they had what they wanted. Hadn’t she seen it with her own eyes? The way they had come for him, and hounded him, until he’d been forced to kill himself just to get away.
Tears stung her eyes. She felt confused and upset, and she missed him. She wanted to scream, but she didn’t have any breath to spare.
“Stop where you are!” a magnified voice called from behind her.
Beth did not stop. She kept running and dragging Dawn behind her.
“Freeze!” the voice said again.
She rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. She didn’t know whether the soldier had tried to warn her, or whether it had just been a coincidence.
There were zombies. Enough to kill her and everyone who had followed. They shuffled slowly towards her and she backed away, keeping Dawn behind her.
She swore under her breath and wished that Dale was there. He would know what to do.
“Stay where you are,” the soldier said. “We’re coming to get you.”
Beth felt relieved that she wasn’t going to have to make the decision for herself. The soldiers were coming, and they would take care of the zombies. They would also take them all back to Harmony, but did that matter? She had been on her own for less than an hour, and she had led everyone that she loved straight into a pack of zombies.
It seemed that she wasn’t cut out to be a leader. They might all be better off taking their chances in Harmony. Maybe the army would be able to do something about the water, and they would all be safe.
Dawn tugged at her arm, and she looked down at her little sister. “What is it?” she said.
“This way,” Dawn said. “We can get through here.”
Beth looked in the direction that Dawn was pulling her and saw that there was a path through. They wouldn’t be able to move as quickly, but it was possible to get away.
Still, she hesitated. Maybe it would be easier just to go with the soldiers. They would be protected, at least until the virus in the water turned them all into zombies, and then they wouldn’t have to care.
“Come on,” Dawn said.
Beth looked at Dawn and realised that she couldn’t take her back. They had to keep going because it was the only way that they stood a chance. Not a very good chance, she was willing to admit, but it was better than the cold certainty that one by one they would all turn into zombies.
She crouched to get beneath the bushes and then reached back for Dawn’s hand. The space was narrow, and she could feel sharp branches cutting her face, but they kept moving and soon it opened up enough for them to pick up speed.
* * * * *
When she glanced behind Dawn, she could see the familiar shape of Noel, tall and thin and, right now, bent double so that he could get through the gap without cutting his face on the overhanging branches.
They moved as quickly and quietly as they could, but it wasn’t easy, and none of them were particularly skilled at it. Beth pushed aside more branches and held them for Dawn to follow, but she couldn’t do anything for the others.
After a few minutes, she saw that they were moving back towards the zombies. The path had curved in a way she hadn’t expected. She could see the dreadful creatures ahead and knew that it wouldn’t be long before they became aware of the humans she was leading towards them.
What would Dale do? she thought. In a very real way, this was still his evacuation. He had planned their escape, and she was just fulfilling his wishes. She didn’t think he would give up just because they found themselves travelling towards a group of zombies.
So she kept going and the others followed. She didn’t know what she was going to do about the zombies when she finally reached them, or they became aware of her, but going back wasn’t an option.
When they finally emerged from the bushes they were not in any better of a position than they had been before entering.
“Beth?” Dawn whispered.
Beth turned to look at her sister, while keeping an eye on the zombies who were stumbling towards them, their half-starved bodies were emaciated and rotting. “What is it?” she said.
She heard the click of half a dozen guns being raised. She looked back along the path and saw the dark outline of soldiers.
For a moment, she froze. They had emerged right in the line of fire, and she had little faith that the soldiers would spare them and risk letting the zombies get away. She didn’t know what to do. Her legs felt rooted to the spot. Time seemed to slow down but, at the same time, her heart began to race. They were all going to be killed.
“Everybody back,” she heard herself say. Beth pulled Dawn towards the bushes and the others followed. “Keep down.” The words seemed to come from someone else (Dale?), but it was her speaking.
They did as she told them and a moment later the air was alive with gunshot. She turned and saw the flash of machine guns heard the groans of the zombies multiplied. If they had been human, they would have turned and fled, or at least dived for cover, but they were zombies so they just kept
moving towards the soldiers.
She saw that their two problems were going to take care of themselves if they could just stay out of the way. Some of the zombies fell and didn’t get up, but the rest kept coming, ignoring Beth and the others and going straight for the men and women with guns.
Beth watched the zombies but, when they reached the soldiers, she had to look away. That wasn’t enough to prevent her hearing the screams and the crunch of bones.
She felt Dawn tugging her arm and looked down at her. “We can go,” she said.
Beth looked up and saw that the path behind the zombies was now clear. She took Dawn’s hand and started to walk. The others followed and soon they were away from the sound of zombies chewing the flesh of the soldiers who had tried to protect them.
CHAPTER TWO
They kept walking until the sun was up and the forest was a long way behind them. When Beth looked she was surprised by how many people had followed her, but told herself that she didn’t need to worry about them. The only people she had to look after were herself and Dawn, the rest were welcome to follow, but they weren’t her responsibility.
The fields were mostly overgrown, but offered little protection. In the time since the zombies had come, farming had dwindled and then stopped. Corn was rotting on its stem and the ground was covered in dry husks.
At the top of the hill she could see zombies in the distance, but they were the slow moving kind, and far enough away that she didn’t consider them a threat.
She kept going, pushing aside the corn and listening to her own breathing. Dawn was close behind. The sky was clear blue and impossibly far away. There were no aeroplane contrails and, for the first time, she realised how alone they really were. Living in the village it had been easy to believe that civilisation was close by, but now she saw that it wasn’t.
Zero Hour (Zombie Apocalypse Book 2) Page 1
