Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 3): Chloe (A New World)

by Ryan Casey

“Come on. Better get moving if we wanna find her.”

  The light shifted away.

  A group—a large group—walked over the fallen corpses of the dead and kept pressing forward.

  Chloë kept still for a few seconds. Kept her hand over Kesha’s mouth. She tried to shift her head away, but she could still breathe through her nose so she was okay.

  She waited until she was absolutely sure enough time had passed, until she was absolutely sure she couldn’t hear a thing, before squeezing back out between those pipes, stepping out into the tunnel.

  She looked back down the tunnel. Back where she’d been heading earlier. Back to Bardsey Island. But she’d seen those people. She’d seen how dangerous they looked.

  She knew they were looking for “her.”

  And she’d seen something else, too. Something in the hands of one of the people.

  A shoe.

  Her shoe.

  The one she’d lost back at the cabin.

  She felt a sickening feeling building in her gut. And as much as she wanted to go back to Bardsey Island, as much as she wanted to give Kesha away to someone who could look after her properly, as much as she wanted to see her dad one final time, Chloë knew she couldn’t.

  She couldn’t. Because those bad people wanted Kesha for some reason.

  And Dad had told her to run.

  The last thing he’d ever told her.

  So Chloë turned around. Looked back down the length of the tunnel. Looked into the darkness, past the fallen corpses of the monsters, past the narrow walls, past the blood.

  She adjusted her grip on Kesha. Made sure she was holding tight.

  She walked back towards the tunnel exit, towards the woods, towards the unknown.

  NINETEEN

  The night was cold, long, and Chloë was exhausted.

  She walked. Walked through the trees. Walked through smelly piles of mud. The rain lashed down from above, drenching her and Kesha, making it nigh on impossible to ever truly warm up. Chloë’s stomach kept on roaring. And judging from Kesha’s crying, she was hungry too.

  But there was no food. There was no escape.

  Only walking.

  Chloë yawned. Her eyes stung. She felt like she was walking through a dream. And she knew she should find a place to rest. She’d done so much running, been through so much exhaustion, she’d collapse and maybe die if she didn’t rest. Didn’t help that Kesha was weighing down her only arm either.

  But she didn’t sleep. She didn’t rest.

  Because she couldn’t let her mind settle. Whenever she let her mind settle, she was only reminded of just how alone she was out here.

  Kesha kept on wailing by her side. Lightning sparkled above. Wind roared through the trees, blasting sheets of rain down onto the pair of them.

  “What do you want?” Chloë asked.

  Kesha scrunched up her eyes. Reached out her little hands. Kept on wailing.

  “What the fuck do you fucking want?”

  Chloë heard her voice echo through the silent woods. She thought letting her temper out would make her feel better, more at ease. But it didn’t. It just made her feel worse.

  And it definitely didn’t help solve Kesha’s crying.

  She looked around at the trees. Looked around, Kesha’s cries ringing in her ears. How was she supposed to know what to do with a kid? How was she supposed to look after a baby? She was just a kid herself. Sure, she wasn’t like other kids her age. Dad always told her she was more grown up than the other girls, even before the monsters started walking the earth.

  But she wasn’t a mum. She didn’t know what to do with babies. How to look after them.

  She didn’t know where to start.

  She realised at that moment what she had to do. What she had to try. She had to keep walking. She’d got this far. Sooner or later she was bound to bump into a camp. And when she did, she could leave Kesha with them. At least she’d be safe amongst new people. Safer than out here anyway.

  And Chloë?

  She didn’t want to think about herself. Didn’t want to think how lonely she’d be when she finally gave Kesha up. How alone she’d be, all over again.

  She just had to find that camp.

  She walked further through the mud. The trees around her seemed to thicken. She found herself bumping into more of them, struggling to keep her footing. Eventually, she fell down right by the side of a tree where the ground had stayed pretty dry. She held on to Kesha. Closed her eyes. Felt the rain against her face.

  When she opened her eyes again, it was light.

  She jolted upright. Tasted sick in her mouth. She still felt damp from last night’s storm. Her teeth chattered with a shiver.

  But she’d fallen to sleep. She’d actually fallen to sleep.

  She looked around for Kesha. Had a horrible image that maybe she’d gone away. Maybe she’d crawled off again. And she wondered if it’d be such a bad thing. At least then Kesha was out of her hands.

  No. She couldn’t think that way. She had to find somewhere safe to take Kesha. She had to make sure she was okay.

  Kesha was on the ground by her side. She was rolled up into a little ball. Her eyes were closed. The closer Chloë moved towards her, the more she thought she heard her little chest rising and falling.

  She sat beside her. Stroked her soft face. She was a good kid. She’d cried, sure, but she was a good kid. She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve to be out here in these woods surviving with Chloë. She knew she’d need food soon, or she’d probably die. She wasn’t sure. She didn’t really know how babies worked.

  But as Chloë looked at Kesha, as she stroked her face, she felt the reality building up inside. The reality of what she had to do. Because this couldn’t work. The two of them, it couldn’t work.

  She knew what she had to do. Especially now Kesha was sleeping.

  She didn’t want to do it. Not at all. Didn’t feel comfortable about it.

  But she had to.

  Because Kesha wasn’t Chloë’s to look after.

  Kesha wasn’t Chloe’s responsibility.

  Chloë had no one.

  So Chloë picked Kesha up. Held her in her arms. Kesha kept her eyes closed. Kept on sleeping.

  “Come on,” Chloë whispered. She sniffed up, first signs of a building cold in her blocked nose. “We’ll get you somewhere safe.”

  She walked ahead.

  Walked ahead knowing exactly what she had to do.

  If she couldn’t find a safe place to leave Kesha with other people, then she’d just have to do her best at finding a safe place without people.

  Somewhere Kesha would be found.

  Hopefully.

  And then she had to go.

  TWENTY

  Chloë stared up at the tree and held her breath.

  The sun was midway up in the sky now, meaning it was probably late morning. The birdsong was the only noise she could hear, a pigeon calling somewhere far away. The weather was pretty warm again, just like it had been in the last days on Bardsey Island. But Chloë couldn’t stop shivering.

  Shivering, because she knew what she had to do.

  She looked to her left. Saw Kesha lying on the ground. She felt bad every time her little face looked back at her. Because Kesha didn’t understand. All she’d think is that everything was going to work out just fine. That’s all babies ever thought, right?

  Chloë wanted to believe that was true. She wanted to believe that everything really was going to work out fine.

  But she wasn’t sure how seriously she could take it.

  She licked her dry lips. The smell of poo still lingered from the nappy she’d changed of Kesha’s on the walk down here. She’d never changed a nappy before. Found it disgusting. One of the reasons she never liked the idea of babysitting in the first place. Even picking up dog poo was bad enough when she used to go on walks with Shania, her cousin, but nappy changing was much harder because it was real human gunk.

  It was okay thou
gh. She’d made sure she’d kept her eyes shut so she didn’t have to look at it.

  She stared up the tree. She could see from the way the branches stuck out on the way up that it was perfect. Well, not perfect. But good enough to get up there. Good enough to do what she had to do.

  Not what she wanted to do. Not what she wanted to do at all.

  But the only thing she could do.

  She picked up Kesha. Scooped her up in her left arm.

  And then she tucked her into the front of her trousers. Tightened the band around her waist so that the kid was just balancing in there, like a little baby kangaroo in its mother’s pouch.

  Kesha giggled a bit. Made noises that were cute.

  And Chloë wanted to play along. She wanted to laugh and giggle along with her.

  But she couldn’t. She couldn’t let herself.

  So she started climbing the tree.

  She’d grown used to climbing trees one handed, using her legs and feet for a lot of the support, back at Bardsey Island. Hadn’t been an easy thing to learn. Nothing was easy to learn with your left hand. Didn’t help that she was never left handed in the first place. But she’d been getting there. She’d been learning. She’d been getting used to it.

  Turned out climbing with an extra bit of weight tucked in made it even more difficult, like learning all over again.

  She climbed a little higher. Scooped her feet around another branch. The hardest bits were always moving one hand between one branch and another. You didn’t have anything but your legs to support. One slip, and it was over.

  But Chloë was good at what she did.

  She didn’t slip.

  Well. She hadn’t yet.

  She swung onto the next branch. She felt relief tickling in the middle of her chest every time she made it.

  She had to keep on moving. Had to keep on climbing up. She knew which branch she had to get to. Knew exactly which branch. She just had to—

  She heard a snap.

  Her body froze. She couldn’t figure out where the snap came from.

  Not until she felt the branch she was clinging to slipping away.

  She saw it all in a blink of an eye. Falling to the ground below. Landing splat on top of Kesha. Turning her into mush on the forest floor which the monsters, the things, all gathered around for a feast.

  But no.

  She couldn’t let that happen.

  She reached out. Swung her hand around for anything. Anything to grip onto. Anything to ease her fall.

  Her fingers slipped from another branch…

  Then fell away.

  She felt herself falling. Felt herself falling backwards like she was on a rollercoaster, only this one never stopped dropping.

  She kept on trying to grab on to something.

  Kept on trying, because it’s what she had to do. It’s what she had to do to survive. For Kesha to survive.

  She was on the verge of giving up when her fingers tightened around another branch.

  She clung on. Clung on with everything she had. In the pouch she’d made in her trousers, Kesha started to cry again.

  Chloë gritted her teeth together. Shifted her weight onto that branch. “Not now,” she said. “Not now. Please.”

  Kesha didn’t stop crying. She didn’t stop crying as Chloë clambered up the tree. As she made her way—much more carefully this time—to that branch. When she reached it, she lifted Kesha out of the pouch she’d made in her trousers.

  She looked at Kesha. Looked at Kesha as she rested there on the wide branch. It wasn’t safe. Kesha could crawl off. Fall down to the forest floor below at any time.

  Chloë had to make Kesha safer.

  She pulled the band from her trouser waistline. Had to rip away some of the material with her teeth.

  And then she wrapped it around Kesha’s waist.

  Tied Kesha to the branch.

  She shuffled back. Seeing Kesha there, tied down to the tree, she felt bad. So bad that hot tears built up in her eyes.

  Kesha looked back at her. Scrunched her hands together. Looked around at all the sights. She didn’t know what was happening. She didn’t understand.

  Poor baby didn’t understand.

  “You’ll—you’ll be safer here. Safer than with me. I promise.”

  Kesha looked up at Chloë again. Reached out her hands. And Chloë saw that cuteness. Saw that innocence.

  She wiped her eyes. “I’ll be back for you. When I find someone. When I find somewhere safe to take you. I promise I’ll be back for you.”

  She knew Kesha couldn’t understand her.

  And as Chloë climbed back down the tree, down to the ground below, she was pleased that Kesha wasn’t able to understand her.

  If she were old enough to understand, she’d be clever enough to understand the shakiness in Chloë’s voice, the tears in Chloë’s eyes.

  If she were old enough to understand, she’d know that Chloë was leaving.

  For good.

  TWENTY-ONE

  As Chloë walked away from the tree where she’d left Kesha, she fast started to realise the error of her decision.

  The sun above had been bathed in clouds. Rain started to fall again. Around her, nothing but trees. Endless trees lining the side of a hill that she seemed to be walking through. She didn’t know where she was. Didn’t know where she was going. All she knew was she was somewhere in Wales because that’s where Bardsey Island was just off the coast of.

  Wales. England. Didn’t matter where she was.

  All that mattered?

  She was alone.

  She felt the pain splitting through the bottom of her right foot after walking barefoot on it for so long. She knew she should take the other shoe off. Ditch it, just like she used to do when she walked alone through these woods.

  But she knew that by ditching that shoe, she was giving up on the island. She was giving up on the life she’d made at Bardsey Island.

  She was giving up on her dad.

  She found herself drifting to the taste of water on her lips as she walked on endlessly. She still had the knife on her, but she kept it tucked into her trousers, which she had to keep pulling up after tying Kesha to that tree with the band. Had she made the wrong decision? Should she have left Kesha behind? She’d left her there because she wanted her to be safe. She knew that eventually, someone else had to come through these woods. Someone had to save her.

  But what if they didn’t?

  What then?

  She stopped. Looked ahead at the trees. More trees. More endless trees. She knew what these woods were like. She knew the path of trees would go on and on, stretch on for what seemed like forever.

  And she knew the truth.

  It could be days before anyone found Kesha.

  Weeks.

  Months.

  Years.

  And what then?

  How would she ever look herself in the mirror again then?

  Chloë turned around. Looked back. Looked at the hilly path she’d climbed up. She’d been walking for a couple of hours. But not quickly. If she ran back to Kesha, she could be with her again in just over an hour, she thought.

  She didn’t think she had the energy inside her to run back.

  Besides, why did she want to run back?

  She thought about that. Thought about why she wanted to be back with Kesha after leaving her not long ago. And she knew why it was. She knew exactly why it was now.

  She didn’t care about Kesha. The only person she cared about was Dad.

  But she wanted someone by her side.

  And she wanted to look after Kesha.

  She wanted to make sure she was okay because for some reason, the people at Bardsey Island wanted her. The bad people at Bardsey Island.

  For some reason, they thought Kesha was different to everyone else.

  Chloë looked up the hill. She could keep on going. Keep on walking away. Turn her back on all of this.

  But Kesha’s cute little eyes stuck in
Chloë’s mind.

  That innocent expression on her face. The way she didn’t understand what was going on, not really.

  Chloë couldn’t turn her back on Kesha. She couldn’t turn her back on that child. Not like this.

  She ran back down the hill. Splashed through the mud, which had yet to dry in spite of the warmer air. She didn’t feel capable of running much further, but she knew she had to. She’d made a mistake. She’d messed up leaving Kesha behind. She’d made the wrong call.

  She ran on and on. Ran in the marks where her footsteps had made in the mud. She got lost a couple of times. Lost sense of direction, of where she was. But she always found her way again. Always found those footsteps.

  She was going back for Kesha. She was going back because she’d made the wrong move. She was going back because she had to go back.

  Because Margery wanted Chloë to take Kesha away from the bad people.

  Because Dad wanted Chloë to take Kesha away from the bad people.

  She lost her footing. When she rebalanced, she realised she was in the footstep marks again.

  Only…

  Wait. These footsteps were bigger than hers. Wider.

  She looked up ahead.

  A monster clambered out from behind a tree. A woman with long, greasy black hair. The bottom half of her face had been chewed away completely.

  Chloë slid back. Grabbed her knife. Lifted it, swung it at the monster’s head.

  The monster shifted. Shifted out of the way, just in time. Like it knew Chloë’s attack was coming. Like it was expecting it.

  And then it pressed its rotting fingers into Chloë’s stomach and pushed her down into the mud.

  The knife went flying to Chloe’s left. The monster pinned Chloë down. Moved its snapping teeth closer to her bare belly, closer to her warm guts…

  Chloë did the only thing she could.

  She stuck her thumb and index finger into the monster’s eyes.

  Stuck them deep in with all the strength she had.

  Stuck them in until she felt them burst, not strong enough after rotting away.

  And then she kept on pressing.

  Pressing right through into the monster’s brains.

  She felt the monster twitch a few times. Felt something wriggle inside her skull.