‘Fuck,’ I said.
‘Usual day at the office,’ said Kay and she swung her axe into the head of an oncoming zombie. ‘Wish I’d hung onto that bloody chainsaw now,’ she added. Kay slammed the axe down onto the head of the next zombie, while I slid my hammer from my belt. With my hammer in my left hand and my knife in my right, I concentrated on doing as much damage as quickly as possible to as many of the zombies around me as I could.
I could see Rachel just up ahead, covered in black blood and brain goo. The horde jostled to get to her, but she managed to slice through their heads with the edging blade faster than they could pull her in. But I knew it wouldn’t take long. I smashed a zombie’s skull with my hammer and plunged my blade through the eye of another before casting a glance back to the cottage. The garden around it was full of zombies but nothing compared to what was coming towards us from the track. If I waited until I had pulled Rachel out of there, maybe they’d be too many that way too. I hated myself. I told myself I had no choice.
‘Kay,’ I yelled over the groaning and snapping jaws, ‘you’re right. Let’s get the fuck out.’
We both changed direction and made for the cottage, slashing at everything in our way. I rammed my knife into zombies’ heads for me and for the life that I was possibly carrying inside me. I had to survive for the both of us.
Beside me, Kay ploughed through the zombies with her axe. ‘Yeah, come on you fuckers,’ she said to them. ‘Just fucking try it!’
Despite not wearing a jacket or even a shirt over my vest top, I felt sweat trickle between my shoulder blades and down my spine. I had to pause a moment to wipe the perspiration from my forehead with the back of my hand to stop it from stinging my eyes and clouding my vision. Me and Kay were heading for the side of the cottage in order to get out into the fields at the back, and we were doing a pretty good job at clearing the way. But that’s when I heard the scream. I glanced back to see Rachel swamped by zombies. I gasped with a mixture of sorrow and guilt. I could have tried to save her. I let that happen.
It took only that one moment, that brief lapse of concentration. I felt a searing pain in my upper arm and turned to see a zombie’s teeth in my flesh, my red blood spilling down my right arm. I swung my hammer into the top of its head. One more swing and the zombie slumped to the ground, taking a chunk of me with it. I stared at the wound for a moment. Funny, while the large open wound hurt like hell, like I’d just been branded with a hot iron, I couldn’t get my head around the fact that it was going to kill me. I didn’t feel any different.
I glanced up to see Kay standing staring at me, her mouth open. She ignored the zombies staggering towards her – just for a moment – and then she snapped out of it and was back on it, splitting zombie skulls open with her axe. I, too, jolted out of my shock to rejoin the fight. I might have been infected but I could still make myself useful in helping Kay get away. I swung my knife with renewed vigour. I had nothing to lose now. I was going to die, and I could damn well take as many dirty, disgusting zombie fucks down as I could.
I heard a horn blaring and I glanced back up the track to see the campervan hurtling – as much as the poor old thing could – towards what remained of the horde on the other side of the white car. I saw Misfit at the wheel. He drove the van through zombies as they staggered along the track. He carried on, the van hitting the zombies making their way through the field. He managed to flatten many of them before coming to a stop in the garden not far from me.
I continued to slay zombies, but I watched as Misfit jumped out of the van and began driving his hunting blade through zombies’ heads with expert and precise speed. He made his way through the field towards me, killing as many of the zombies that stood between us as he could. When he reached me, his eyes settled on the bite and they grew wide.
There was nothing either of us could say.
Only a few zombies remained in the garden. I zoned out from them, knowing that Kay would deal with them and I dropped my weapons to the ground. Misfit dived at me and wrapped his arms around me, holding me to him so tightly as though he thought he could squeeze the infection out of me.
‘No. Sophie, no!’ he sobbed.
‘I’m sorry, I said, pulling away from him so I could see his face. ‘I fucked up.’
We were both sobbing – our bodies shaking as we held onto each other. I felt something wedged in his pocket. I moved further back from him and I pulled out a plastic bag. I opened it and lifted out a pregnancy test and a small brown teddy bear. The sight of them was too much and I collapsed onto my knees and cried. Misfit dropped down to his knees in front of me. After a moment I looked up at him.
‘Remember your promise,’ I said to him.
‘I remember,’ he said.
I wanted to make my final entry in my diary before I go. So I’ve done it. Reliving it as I write it all down hasn’t made it seem any more real. I feel a little unwell, but nothing more than feeling slightly hungover. If I seem calm, I’m not. I’m beating myself up – How could I have been so careless? If only we’d done a runner straight away, hidden somewhere until the zombies had passed and then gone back for Misfit. If only I’d left Rachel to the zombies sooner. If only I’d put the fucking biker jacket on. Misfit’s jacket. If only I’d been more fucking careful. Damn it! DAMN IT!
I have a virus that’s going to kill me. I have eight hours, well, seven if you think it took me an hour to log this entry.
Fuck. I have seven hours…
April
April 5, 1pm
In the days that followed, me and Kay cleared the zombie bodies out of the garden. We piled them into the back of the van and I drove them up to the road at the end of the track. I dumped them in the field on the other side – out of sight. It was backbreaking work and it took a while. Then I repaired the gate and the fence. There was more damage than there should’ve been because I couldn’t help myself – lost it and I fucked up three more panels, shredding up my knuckles. Kay didn’t try and stop me. She waited for me to get it out of my system and fall to my knees then she sat next to me with her arm around my shoulder while I cried.
We left the burnt out car where it was and, once the fence and gate were fixed, I had to park the camper on the other side of it, at the top end of the track. Kay asked me why I wanted to stay in the cottage after what happened but I just answered her by shrugging my shoulders. She’s gone now, Kay. She went back to Folkestone two days ago. Said she’d decided to face her demons. She took the camper. I just hope it got her there OK. She said she couldn’t sit around here with me clinging onto the past. And she said she couldn’t spend the rest of her time in the apocalypse with someone who communicated largely with a series of shrugs and grunts and Mmmmm’s. She said she needed to be with people who actually had something to say for themselves. She didn’t mean anything by it. She was just being honest. There was only one person who saw through my quiet exterior and only one person who made me want to speak. Well, OK, two people. But Clay isn’t here anymore either.
I’ve just finished reading her diaries. It took a few weeks to get up the courage to live through her words. It was painful. Reading the words she wrote brought her back to me but only the ghost of her – only enough to tease the fuck out of me. Bitter sweet, as they say. Afterwards, I thought I should add my own words. Only, I’m not educated and clever like she was. My words probably won’t make as much sense as hers or I’ll struggle to make my feelings clear.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do what she wanted me to do. She tried to make me promise that I’d put her down if she ever got bit. But I told her that the only thing I could promise her is that I’d always love her. That’s another reason that Kay didn’t want to be around me anymore. I ignored Sophie’s wishes. I didn’t put her down.
She’s out there now, standing, staring at the cottage. She’s too timid for me to approach right now. But I’ve started to leave dead animals out by her regular spot at the fence – foxes, rabbits and squirrels. She eats them.
And I make sure she can see me while she eats. Each time I move a little closer to the fence. It’ll take time, I know. It’s early days. I’ll have to be patent. But I can do that. I’m a hunter.
April 14, 5pm
Today I sat on the grass on the other side of the fence while she ate the rabbit I left her. She stood watching me while she tore chunks of meat off the bone, blood dripping down her chin. I wondered if she recognised me at all, if anything pre-bite remained in her head. I couldn’t see any recognition. I just wondered if there was none at all, or if it was just that, if there was, she just didn’t know how to express it, if you know what I mean. Told you I wouldn’t make much sense.
I can’t help wondering if she knew exactly what I felt for her. I’m not good with words so I don’t know if I managed to get it across. I know she loved me – I read it in her diary, but I knew anyway. I loved her from the first time I saw her. She used to keep her diary on her laptop. That’s gone, everything she wrote then, so I’ll never know what she thought of me back then – back when me and my stepdad and the two wankers that hung out with us busted into her home. Yeah, I knew I loved her even then. But my fear of that fucked up bastard that used to bang my mum – in more ways than one – made me pretty pathetic and weak. Until I couldn’t stand it anymore and I shot him.
I didn’t think the others, her people, would accept me into the group. But she did, without question, and eventually they did too. My feelings for her grew and I had to watch her with another guy. But you know what? And this might make me come across as an idiot or a liar, but I just wanted her to be happy, even if it wasn’t with me. Yeah, believe it. But there were moments when I didn’t think she was happy, moments when I think she wanted to do a runner. They were supposed to get married and – maybe it was just me – I got the sense she wasn’t as happy as she made out. I think she was having doubts. I could be wrong.
In the end, she was mine.
As I watched her eating today, I couldn’t help looking at her stomach. I wondered if she had been pregnant. Then I stopped myself cos that was only going to do my head in completely – the thought that I’d lost two instead of one.
April 21, 9pm
I’m not good at keeping this diary like she was, you know doing it every day. I’ve been moving closer to her while she eats. There’s definitely no aggression towards me. She growls a little if I make a sudden movement, more like she’s worried I might try and steal her food.
Her skin doesn’t look so grey anymore. I always think she looks beautiful but she looks better now that her cheeks aren’t quite as sunken.
Yesterday I left her knife and hammer on the ground, just to see what she’d do. She ignored them. But I’m going to keep trying to see if I can reach her in there. I might not have been able to put her down like she wanted me too, but I will damn well keep my promise to her – I will love her forever. For better, for worse…
***
Table of Contents
December
January
February
March
April
Blog of the Dead (Book 3): Lost Page 21
