She checked her watch again and saw that another minute had passed. She turned back towards the cluster of buildings, but there was no one there. Not even Harold had come to see her off.
Velma began to pace back and forth. The jeep was painted in army camouflage, and there were cans of petrol in the back. The keys were in the ignition.
She could just go alone.
Maybe she wouldn’t even go after the super zombie. If she just got in the jeep and left by herself then she could find a community that was willing to take her in, start a new life away from the military.
She took her bag off and swung it into the back of the jeep. It was full of food, water, and a sleeping bag. Although the nights weren’t cold yet, they would be soon. Winter was fast approaching.
“Is this it?” a voice behind her called.
Velma turned around. Six of them were walking towards her, four women and two men. She didn’t recognise any of them, and she was glad. Her biggest fear, up to this point, had been that the man who’d spat on her would be amongst them.
“They’re expecting us to ride out in this?”
The man who had spoken had light coloured hair that rose into a quiff at the front. He was wearing army camouflage and his name tag said, Henning. The others weren’t dressed as soldiers, but she could tell by the way they held themselves that they were military.
She stood up straight to greet them. “Sergeant Beck,” she said, deciding at the last minute that it would be better to introduce herself with her military rank, although she hated to use it.
They looked at her, and she thought that they weren’t going to say anything. They had to know who she was, and maybe they thought this was a shit assignment, that they had done something wrong to be given it. Maybe they had.
“Let’s get on with it then,” said Henning. He walked towards the jeep and Velma could already feel herself losing control of them. This wasn’t how she had wanted to start things off. They could have at least pretended to be friendly.
“What’s your name soldier?” she said to the other man before he could walk off.
He turned around. He didn’t answer at first. Velma wondered if they had been delayed because they had been talking about her. It wasn’t an appealing thought. “Sam Billing,” he said.
She nodded and turned to the others. “And the rest of you?”
“Lucy,” said a red headed woman in a black suit.
“Michelle,” said a dark haired woman who looked like she might be Spanish or Mexican, she was wearing brown trousers and heavy boots.
“Alice,” said a woman with hair that was so dark Velma was sure it must have been dyed. She was also wearing a black suit and had dark makeup around her eyes.
“Kate,” said the last woman. She was wearing black as well, but it looked more suited to the environment they were heading out into. She was a little older than the other three women and carried a gun under each arm.
“Mark,” called Henning from the side of the jeep. “Are we going or what?”
None of them had given her their rank. She was sure they were military, but they didn’t respect her enough to report like to her as if she was a superior.
“Let’s get on with it then,” Sam said. He threw his bag into the back of the jeep alongside hers and then climbed into the driver’s seat. Velma almost told him to get out but decided that it wasn’t a fight worth having. They would be travelling a long distance and would need to share the driving.
She climbed into the front passenger seat and waited while the others climbed into the back. Sam started the engine, and the gate began to open.
Velma refused to look back as they drove away. Refused to think about the fact that she had spent weeks travelling through the wilderness to get to Eastern Bridge and that now she was leaving it willingly. The last time she’d left had been to take up her position at the research centre and then they had travelled by helicopter.
She heard the gate close behind them, and the jeep stopped. She turned to look at Sam, wondering why he hadn’t driven away. He was fumbling with the radio and after a moment, static began to hiss.
“Turn it off,” she said.
“Just looking for some tunes,” Sam said.
Velma switched off the radio herself. She couldn’t remember when the commercial stations had stopped broadcasting, but she was absolutely certain that there would be no music on the military channels. “Just drive,” she said.
“Yes sir,” Sam said.
The jeep moved away from the compound gates and Velma still refused to turn around. It hadn’t been her home and unless she could find the super zombie and prove she wasn’t a liability, it never would be. She watched the forest engulf them as they headed into the unknown.
* * * * *
They travelled for three hours before they had to stop for the first time. While they were moving the soldiers talked but every time she tried to take part in their conversation they stopped. Her voice became like a brick wall, and after she’d spoken, there would be silence for a few minutes before they started on a completely different subject. After a while, she gave up.
The road out of the compound had been cleared, and they didn’t meet any obstacles there. A few times she thought that she heard something moving in the forest, but when she looked she couldn’t see anything. A single zombie wouldn’t try to take on a moving vehicle, but it was still an uncomfortable reminder that they were venturing into dangerous land.
They reached the edge of the military-controlled land at 1230 and Sam stopped the jeep.
“Lunchtime,” he said.
The others climbed out of the vehicle, stretched and yawned, and Velma watched them for a moment. She considered telling them that they weren’t stopping yet, asserting her authority, but she was hungry as well. After a moment, she opened the door, climbed out of the jeep, and grabbed her bag from the back.
Without actually saying so they made it clear that they didn’t want her to sit with them. They sat in a closed circle and none of them moved to make space for her. So Velma sat on the ground by herself, a few feet away from them, and pulled out her water bottle and a couple of ration bars. She told herself that it didn’t matter, that she wouldn’t have done any better if she’d stayed in the compound, but it was still disappointing.
It occurred to her that they should have checked the area for zombies. They had stopped right on the border and on two sides of them there was dense forest. She considered telling one of the soldiers to take a look, but she could guess what the response would be if she tried. Instead, she ate and kept her eyes open, performing the kind of half-arsed surveillance that likely would have gotten her killed when she’d been on her own.
They didn’t get back in the jeep until Sam decided it was time. The others stood up on his command, and she wondered what would happen if she didn’t. Would they drive away without her? She wasn’t prepared to take the risk.
“I’ll drive,” she said, walking towards the door.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sam said. He didn’t even turn to look at her when he spoke. He carried on towards the driver’s door and Velma sped up to catch him.
“I’m driving,” she said.
They locked eyes and for a moment she thought he was going to shout at her. If he did that, then she knew she would back down. Despite her rank she wasn’t real military, she wasn’t cut out for confrontation like that. Instead, he laughed.
Although she wouldn’t have thought so before, laughter turned out to be even more difficult to deal with than shouting. A moment later they were all laughing. At her.
Sam put his hand on her arm, and she flinched away. She felt humiliated.
“I’ll drive, alright?” he said.
Velma nodded meekly and slunk away, back around the jeep to the passenger door. Only to find that Michelle had taken her place. For a moment she thought they really did intend to leave without her.
“Are you getting in or not?” Sam said. He started the e
ngine.
Velma climbed into the back of the jeep and squashed herself between Lucy and Mark. Neither of them looked at her and then they started moving again.
* * * * *
Outside of the territory cleared by the army, they were forced to travel more slowly. There were fallen trees and deep pits in the road that they had to negotiate or, as happened a few times, change course to get around. No one spoke other than to offer Sam support. Velma was forced to concede that Sam was a better driver than her.
With that thought appeared a fragment of hope. The hope that they hadn’t laughed at her because they had no respect for her, but because they knew that Sam was the better driver. That might even be his specialty so it would have seemed ludicrous to force her hand and make him give up the wheel to her. What was the point of bringing a specialist driver if they weren’t allowed to drive?
Her hopes were dashed when they stopped to make camp that evening.
They found a clearing at the top of a hill which gave them good visibility in all directions. She jumped out of the car behind Lucy. None of them spoke, so the silence didn’t seem to be directed at her. She pitched in with the rest of them and no one turned down her help.
In less than twenty-minutes they had erected a crude shelter between two trees. It wouldn’t do much to keep them warm, but they would be protected from the wind and rain.
Mark and Lucy took first watch while the rest of them sat beneath the canvas. They looked, to Velma, like they might have been friends, even before being sent to work for her. Even if they hadn’t known one another they were all military, and that meant something, she knew. Brothers and sisters of the gun, or whatever.
She grabbed her bag from the back of the jeep and walked towards them, trying not to think about earlier that day when she’d sat alone to eat lunch. Things would be different now, she told herself. They were in the wilderness, and they had plenty of enemies out there without turning against one another.
Velma dropped her bag on the ground in front of them. They were sitting in a loose line eating energy bars and tinned fruit. They wouldn’t risk starting a fire.
“What are you doing?” Alice said. She spoke with a Northern European accent, and Velma thought that once upon a time, not that long ago, she would have been considered the enemy.
“I’m just sitting down,” she said.
“Not there you aren’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
“We don’t want you to sit with us,” Alice said.
“Why not?” Velma said.
“Because we don’t like you,” Alice said. “We know who you are.”
Velma just stood there. She could hear a gentle breeze shaking the trees above and some small movement in the bushes that was probably an animal. She didn’t move.
“Go on,” Alice said. “Get out of here.”
“I don’t know why you’re being like this,” Velma said. She was determined not to cry, but she could feel the tears welling up behind her eyes.
“Because you’re a traitor,” Alice said. Then she spat on the ground at Velma’s feet.
She turned away, unable to stop the tears falling, but still able to keep them hidden from the others. She didn’t want them to think she was weak, as well as a traitor.
Without looking she reached for her bag, picked it up and carried it back to the jeep. She didn’t feel hungry after that.
* * * * *
The next day they travelled in the same formation as before. The way that Sam handled the rough ground suggested she had been right to think driving was his specialty, but it didn’t make her feel much better.
The others spoke as if she wasn’t there, and she drifted in and out of the conversation. Lost in her own thoughts, Velma began to think that it had been a mistake to come at all. No, it had been a mistake to stay in the compound and continue trying to ingratiate herself with the other people who lived there. The better option would have been to leave on her own, and not come back.
The trail of the super zombie was easy to follow once they had picked it up on the second day. It was too large to travel with any degree of stealth. Even she could see the way the tall branches were broken as if a bus had passed through them.
Instead of taking any control over the situation Velma found herself looking outside of the group for signs of civilisation. It seemed likely that there was some around, although she had seen no trace of it when she had been on her own. Failing a ready built community for her to join, she thought, she might just find the nearest place that would be good for food and live by herself.
When they stopped to eat no one spoke to her, and they made decisions about which direction to take and when to leave the road without consulting her. The best she could say about the situation was that they didn’t leave her behind. Although she wasn’t keen to test how far she could push that.
They travelled constantly, stopping only for essential activities. There were fewer zombies than she had expected to see in the wake of the super zombie. For a while, she dared to hope that meant they were dying off, although none of the research she had overseen suggested that was likely to happen. Zombies could be affected by injuries, the weather, and the land, but it was virtually impossible to extinguish them without removing the head or destroying the brain.
When they stopped, she sat alone. She listened to them talking in the distance and long into the night. She slept in the jeep and only seemed to leave it when she had to go to the toilet.
They had been travelling for three days when Lucy came to see her.
Velma was sitting in the back of the jeep, leaning her head against the window and dozing. They wouldn’t be stopped for long, and she didn’t want to find out whether they really would leave her behind.
She was startled by a knock on the glass and turned with equal surprise to see Lucy staring through the glass at her.
“Open up,” Lucy said.
Velma looked at the other woman’s flaming red hair. She didn’t think that she’d ever seen Lucy smile. She wound down the window. “What do, you want?”
Lucy pulled open the door and started to climb in. “Move over. I need to talk to you.”
Velma didn’t have any choice except to move. Lucy pulled the door closed behind her. Velma tried not to feel intimidated by the woman but having her so close didn’t make it easy.
“What do you want?” Velma said.
“Why do you let them talk to you like that?” Lucy said.
Velma shrugged and then tried to remember if there was a recent incident that Lucy was referring to. It had been happening so much that she barely noticed it.
“You’re supposed to be in charge, aren’t you?”
“I suppose so,” Velma said.
They sat in silence for a moment.
“What’s the point of you being here?” Lucy said.
“Excuse me?”
“If you’re just taking up space then why did you bother coming?”
“No one’s acting like I’m in charge,” Velma said.
“Including you,” Lucy said.
Velma opened her mouth to argue but all of a sudden she understood what Lucy was getting at. She wasn’t acting like she was in charge, she was behaving like a bullied schoolgirl. How could she expect them to respect her if she didn’t demand it?
“You need to show them you’re in charge.”
“How?”
“The next time one of them says something to you, or refuses to do what you tell them, you need to make them do it.”
“Yes, but how?” Velma said.
“You’re a smart lady, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
Lucy turned to go.
“Wait,” Velma said.
Lucy turned, arched her eyebrows and waited.
“Why are you helping me?” Velma said.
For a moment, it looked like Lucy wasn’t going to answer. She pursed her lips as if in thought. “I guess I feel sorry for you,” she said and then got out of the
jeep and closed the door behind her.
* * * * *
She spent the rest of that evening in the jeep, thinking about what Lucy had said. A deeply suspicious part of her was sure that it was a trick. That, as soon as she acted on the advice, they would all turn on her, laughing. It might even be the cue they were waiting for to abandon her in the wilderness.
A bigger part of her recognised the advice for what it was; good and sensible. It was the kind of thing she might have said to herself. But even if it was good advice, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t turn on her. Perhaps they would see that as even more amusing.
Velma didn’t sleep that night. Once Sam and Kate had left on patrol and the others were asleep, she got out of the jeep and walked among them. They didn’t seem so terrible while they slept and she could still imagine what it might have been like if they could have been friends. She stopped in the middle of the camp.
If she could be sure how they would react then maybe she could do it.
But if she couldn’t do it then what was she doing there?
She had told Harold that she would do everything she could to bring the super zombie back alive, but if she didn’t become a leader, then her ability to do that would be severely compromised.
After a while, she walked back towards the jeep. She didn’t think she would be able to sleep, but she leaned her head against the window anyway. She closed her eyes and wondered what she could do to prove herself to these soldiers and make them realise that she wasn’t going to be walked all over. Her doubts about whether or not this was the right thing to do faded as sleep claimed her.
* * * * *
Velma was woken by the jeep rocking back and forth. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was and she almost cried out in surprise when the door opened. Lucy and Mark climbed in either side of her and pulled the doors closed. Sam was already in the front seat with Michelle beside him. Velma turned around and saw Kate jump in the back.
Zero Hour (Zombie Apocalypse Book 2) Page 13
