“Go, go, go!” Kate yelled, slapping the open side of the jeep.
The car sped forwards, pinning Velma to the seat. She didn’t try to fight the gravity pulling her down and only listened to the shouts and screams around her.
Someone fired a gun.
“Got one!” Kate shouted.
A screech of tires and the jeep turned sharply. She found herself thrown into Lucy’s lap and quickly pulled herself up.
“What’s going on?” she said.
Another gunshot, this time from the front of the vehicle where Michelle was leaning out of the window with a gun in each hand.
“Rot in hell fuckers,” she said.
Mark was spinning donuts on the soft ground. Guns were being fired from every direction. It was so loud that she could barely think.
When she finally managed pull herself together and look out of the window, she saw a hundred, or more, zombies. They had crept into the camp during the night, somehow getting past whoever had been on guard duty. The jeep was surrounded.
Velma reached for her own gun. It was only a small SIG Sauer (there were bigger guns in the trunk), but it would kill a zombie as effectively as a rifle or a machine gun at close range. Well, perhaps not quite as well as a machine gun.
She pushed herself up and opened the roof. Now they were all leaning out of the jeep taking shots at the zombies, and they actually seemed to be breaking through the line. When there was enough space, she thought, Sam would hit the accelerator and get them out of there.
The zombies that she could see didn’t look good. They were starved and weak, and most of them had eyes glazed over with cataracts. A few rags were all that remained on some of them, while others were completely naked.
She squeezed the trigger and watched the head of the nearest zombie explode. She had always been a good shot, one of the few soldier skills that came naturally to her. It fell to the floor, and another took its place.
“We need to concentrate our shots,” she shouted before realising that they were unlikely to do anything she suggested. “Aim towards the road. If we can clear a path, then Sam can get us through.”
Velma turned to lead by example. The zombies in the road were coming towards them slowly, moaning. She might have thought they were starving, if they hadn’t done tests to prove that zombies could keep going regardless of when they last ate.
She fired and another zombie hit the ground.
To her surprise, the others turned and concentrated their shots in the same area. The zombies went down easily. The soldiers were all highly trained marksmen and barely missed a single head shot between them.
“You fucker!” Kate shouted.
Velma turned in surprise. While they had been concentrating on the zombies in front, the ones behind them had been getting closer. One of them had managed to get right up to the jeep, and its gnarled, arthritic hand was clasping the back. As Velma watched, Kate stamped down on its hand and fired a single shot into its head.
“Motherfucker,” she said.
“Are you hurt?” Velma said.
Kate nodded and turned to reveal the tear in her trousers and the deep gash in her leg which was bleeding heavily and already turning septic. She looked at Velma with tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Velma said.
“Fuck,” Kate said.
They both knew what it meant.
“We’ve got to go,” Sam shouted.
“Do it,” Kate said.
“I’m sorry,” Velma said.
She raised her gun and aimed at Kate’s head. She realised that she didn’t know anything about the woman, but it was too late to find out now. There was only one option.
“Do it!” Kate said.
Velma nodded, closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger.
The sound of the gunshot was so loud that it diminished all the other sounds around them. She opened her eyes in time to see Kate’s body tumble off the back of the jeep and land like a heavy sack of meat on the ground below.
Velma grabbed hold of the roll cage as Sam accelerated away from the body, but she never took her eyes off Kate. If it hadn’t been such a crime to waste ammunition, then she might have shot the zombies that descended on her, instead all she did was watch them.
* * * * *
They stopped twenty minutes later in a clearing where she thought they would be safe. There was no sign of zombies nearby.
She jumped out of the jeep before it had come to a complete stop and turned to face them all as they got out.
“Who was on patrol last night?” she said. Velma could feel her face glowing red, but she didn’t care.
No one replied but they lined up in front of her.
“Who was it?” she shouted. She knew she should keep her voice down so that the zombies didn’t hear, but she couldn’t help herself. “Tell me!”
“I was,” Mark said. “And Kate.”
Velma nodded. The news didn’t diminish the pity she felt for Kate, no one deserved what had happened to her, but she could no longer be angry at the woman who was zombie food.
Very slowly she walked towards Mark. Behind her back she took out her gun and turned it so that she was holding the barrel as if it was a handle.
“You let them through,” she said.
“I know,” Mark said. “I’m sorry.”
“You think sorry is going to bring her back?”
Mark shook his head.
Velma turned so that she was shouting at the others as well as Mark. “Did you all see what happened to her?”
They nodded.
While Mark was turned away, she swung the gun as hard as she could. It connected with his jaw, and she heard the bone crack. He cried out in surprise and pain and spat blood out of his mouth as he span away from her.
“You killed her!” Velma said. “You all killed her! Do you understand?”
Mark put a hand to his jaw to cradle it. He nodded along with the rest of them, but it would be hours before he was able to talk again.
“You need to listen to me, do you understand? I’m in charge here, and if you want to get back to Eastern Bridge in one piece, then you’d better remember it. Do I make myself clear?”
They nodded. She considered hitting Mark again, she was angry enough to do so, but she wasn’t sure he could take another hit and with Kate gone, they couldn’t afford to lose him.
“Back in the jeep,” she said.
They nodded and meekly turned back towards the vehicle. A distant part of her realised that she had broken them, but she couldn’t feel any joy in it.
She and Sam reached the driver’s door at the same time. “I’m driving,” she said.
He looked as if he might argue, but after a moment, he turned away with his head bowed and walked around to get in the back. She considered telling Michelle to swap with Lucy, but she didn’t want to push her luck, and she was just as angry at Lucy as with the rest of them.
She pulled the door closed behind her, started the engine, and they drove away from the clearing in silence, but this time she was in charge, and that made all the difference.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The convoy stopped. Dawn sat up on the floor and looked around, certain, for a moment, that something had happened and that the next thing she would hear was zombies outside. Instead, she heard the other people in the caravan waking up.
She got up and went to the door.
“What’s going on?” someone said behind her.
Dawn looked through the window and saw people walking around.
They had stopped next to a roundabout at the bottom of a hill. There were other cars on the road, but they were abandoned. Off one of the turnings, there was a petrol station.
She went outside.
She looked at the other people who had got out and were now walking around, stretching and talking amongst themselves. Dawn walked towards the jeep and saw Beth standing beside it, talking to Colette.
She pushed past the others, none of them see
med to notice her. When she got close to the jeep, she called out, and Beth turned to look at her.
“Dawn!” she said as if she had forgotten she was there. “What are you doing out here? You should be inside.”
“I wanted to see you,” she said.
“I’m busy,” Beth said. “Can you go back to the caravan and wait there please?”
“Why?” she said. “I’ve been stuck inside for three days. I just want to look around.”
“It’s not safe.”
“Everyone else is getting out.”
Beth looked around as if she hadn’t noticed. Then she turned back to Dawn. “I don’t care what everyone else is doing, I want you to go back inside, now.”
She could have argued but what was the point? “Fine,” she said.
“Go on then,” Beth said.
She turned away and before she’d gotten a couple of steps she heard Beth and Colette starting to talk again.
* * * * *
Toby was leaning against her caravan when she reached it. He smiled at her and she smiled back, feeling herself start to blush.
Despite being four years older than her, he was the nearest person to her age in the whole convoy. He had his hair cut short at the sides and a mess of curls on the top.
“Hi,” she said.
“I was looking for you,” he said.
She felt herself blushing again and looked away. “Why were you looking for me?”
They had spoken briefly a few times, but there were always things to do. She hadn’t really had a chance to get to know him properly, and she thought that she might like to.
“I thought you might want to hang out,” he said. “It must be boring for you in that caravan, with your sister gone and everything. Do you want to do something?”
Dawn glanced back towards Beth but couldn’t see her. She nodded to Toby. “Like what?” she said.
He shrugged his broad shoulders. He looked like an adult to her which made his interest in spending time with her even more difficult to understand. “Just hang out.”
It was nice to have someone want to spend time with her. Clearly Beth was too busy, and the only reason anyone else spoke to her was out of pity.
“Sure,” she said.
“Come with me then,” he said.
He was wearing a grey hooded top and a pair of ripped jeans that were covered in dirt. On his feet, there was a pair of trainers that had once been white but now looked almost yellow. Dawn found herself wondering about her own clothes, a dark denim jacket, and white vest. Did she look like a child to him?
There were five vans and the jeep in the convoy. Behind the rear caravan, there was a cage full of chickens.
Two cows and the horse were tied up behind the caravan. They stopped to look at them but the animals didn’t seem to notice.
“Why did we stop?” Dawn said as she stroked the horse.
“Fuel,” Toby said. He nodded at the petrol station that she’d noticed before.
“Can they get it out without power?” Dawn said.
He shrugged again and started stroking the horse along with her. Their hands were close together and she saw that his were covered in scratches that had barely healed. She felt a sudden urge to take them in hers and hold them, but she couldn’t do something so bold.
Then Toby took her hand in one of his, and she looked away.
“Let’s go back,” she said.
“Why?” Toby said. “Aren’t you having a good time?”
She couldn’t look at him. Instead, she shrugged.
“Look at me Dawn,” he said.
She turned her head slowly and peeked at him through her fringe.
He reached up with his free hand and brushed her hair behind her ear.
“I really like you, Dawn,” he said.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what was happening, and she wasn’t sure whether she liked it or not.
“I’d like to kiss you,” he said.
“Here?” she said.
He moved his hand from her hair and touched her lips. “Here,” he said.
She couldn’t move. She had never kissed a boy before, and she hadn’t expected it to happen like this. She was shaking but couldn’t tell whether it was fear or excitement.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
“Don’t you like me?” he said.
He was still holding her hand. She couldn’t have moved away, even if she wanted to. It wasn’t excitement she felt, it was fear. She felt trapped.
“I don’t want to,” she said.
He kept looking at her, and she thought he was going to kiss her anyway.
After a moment, Toby let go of her hand and took a step back.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The horse continued to look at the ground as if something monumental hadn’t just happened. Dawn looked at him, and she wasn’t sure what to say.
“It’s just… I really like you, Dawn. I thought you liked me too.”
“I do like you.”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to say that.”
“No it’s true,” she said. Just because she hadn’t wanted to kiss him outside, where everyone in the convoy could be looking at them, didn’t mean that she didn’t like him. She wasn’t sure about that yet. But she did know that she didn’t want him to be angry with her.
“We should go back,” he said. He turned and took a step away from her.
“Wait!” she said, her voice just a little too loud.
He stopped, but he didn’t turn back. She took a step towards him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I do like you.”
He remained looking away from her, and she suddenly felt very stupid for not letting him kiss her.
“Maybe when there aren’t so many people around,” she said.
For a moment, he remained still and then he nodded. “Maybe,” he said. “We should go back, though.”
She nodded, and they walked away from the animals.
Dawn climbed the steps into the caravan. Nobody even looked at her as she closed the door and found a seat. There was nothing to see out the window except the rest of the convoy milling around, waiting to be told that it was time to move on.
* * * * *
The convoy left in the evening. No one needed to explain that it wasn’t safe to stay there, despite there being no zombies in sight.
Dawn stared at the wall and wondered what Toby was doing in the caravan in front. Was he thinking about her?
She had a lot of questions but no way to get answers. Beth hadn’t come back to the caravan, and she didn’t want to talk to anyone else.
They ate in silence. It seemed as if the survivors from Harmony had run through every conversation they had.
After dinner, Dawn watched the children while Rachel went into the bedroom to have a lie down. She said she wasn’t feeling well and, after a few minutes, David went to check on her. Neither of them came back for nearly an hour.
Dawn had seen them behave like this plenty of times before, but somehow she had never put two and two together. When they came back in she suddenly realised what had been happening between them and couldn’t believe that she had been so blind as to not see it before.
After they had put the children to bed, they came back into the common area and sat together. Dawn watched. He was very attentive to her, and she smiled and laughed when he said something funny. It seemed so obvious now, but she hadn’t noticed it before.
They seemed happy, that was the biggest difference between them and everyone else. They had an air of contentedness. She wondered if she could have the same kind of happiness with Toby.
She went to sleep thinking about him, and when she woke up the next morning, she found that the convoy had stopped again.
* * * * *
Throughout the morning, people came and went while Dawn sat in the middle of the caravan not looking at any of them. She had a book that she’d found in one of the boxes which hadn’t been mov
ed out, but she struggled to read it. The story was set in the world before the zombies, the ‘old world’ as she was beginning to think of it, and she struggled to relate to what any of the characters were dealing with.
How was she supposed to care about the cheerleader with a crush on the school geek when she was worrying about zombies?
The door opened, but she didn’t look up. She turned another page and tried to focus on the words.
“Are you busy?”
Toby’s voice was enough for her to know him. She looked up and saw him standing at the door, he hadn’t come inside. She also saw that everyone else had gone out, they were the only ones there.
She got up.
“I can come back later,” he said.
He turned away.
“Don’t go,” she said, “I want to talk to you.”
“You wanted to talk to me?”
“About yesterday,” she said.
“Is anyone else here?” Toby said.
Dawn shook her head. She didn’t see what that had to do with anything, but maybe he was worried about being embarrassed. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
Toby nodded, but she couldn’t tell whether he accepted her apology or not. He sat on the seat by the window and pulled down the blind so that they couldn’t see out. “Come and sit with me Dawn,” he said.
She walked over to the bench where he was sitting and sat beside him.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t need to be scared.”
He didn’t try to kiss her, and she wondered if he’d changed his mind. Maybe he’d realised that she really was just a stupid kid.
“Can I tell you something?” she said.
“You can tell me anything,” Toby said.
She turned to look at him, and she saw that he meant it. She tried to smile, but she was too scared of what he would say when she told him. Maybe he wouldn’t want to talk to her anymore.
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