Chapter 8
Moans. That was all I could hear. They’d found us. All we’d done was sleep. All we’d done was let our guards down. We had been taking surviving for granted. We thought we could get through this without a struggle. We thought wrong.
The ripping and tearing was what woke us up. Courtney first. She rushed around, trying to find the problem, but it was everywhere. The Zombies had found us. We weren’t safe. But we couldn’t get out.
I still remember that panic-stricken night, when the darkness seemed to pierce my soul, trying to make me submit to the brutal death which was waiting for me. But I wouldn’t give in. I’m a fighter, I thought, I was made to fight. Fight and survive.
Courtney was thinking the same as me. If we couldn’t get out through the doors, then we needed to go up. Up the stairs. The second floor! Of course! It was where we had watched the parade, but, apart from that, it had served us no true purpose, had been of no great use to us. Well, now was its time.
Everyone had woke up, and Daniella was crying. We thought we were safe. Secure. We weren’t. Far from it.
I got Daniella moving, while Courtney got the others upstairs, and put the dogs on their leads, trying to drag them away from their ‘food’. Well, this much food certainly wasn’t good for them, especially when it was trying to kill them.
Once we were all at the upper floor, I barricaded the stairs, and Courtney told us to look out the window. We did. And what we saw made Daniella start crying again, and Sophie sit down on the floor in shock, not moving for at least a minute.
All of the Zombies in the area, it seemed, were gathered around the pub, and, as I watched, some actually entered, and started their slow, but petrifying, invasion. What on earth had caused this?
“One minute.” Courtney said, turning to look at Daniella. “What’s that on your arm?”
There was a spot on her arm, about the size of a small finger nail, black in colour.
“That? Dirt, I think.” Daniella choked out, between her sobs.
“Dirt? I don’t think so.” I almost whispered, pulling it off, with a little difficulty, and examining it carefully. “It’s... I’ve never seen anything like it. Wait... It seems to... No, it can’t be...”
“What? What is it?” Courtney asked me urgently.
“It’s a device... Made for calling the Zombies... By use of brainwaves...”
“How can you tell?” Sophie had recovered from her shock, and was now listening.
“I... I have seen one... Like it... Before. In a box, at London Library, when I was helping out. There were loads of them, all like this, but I... Well... I don’t know what I thought they were. We’ve... Been tricked.”
“By the only people we thought would help us!” Courtney yelled, punching the wall and immediately regretting it. “We’ve all got them, look!”
My eyes instantly locked onto a small black device on my arm, and I ripped it out. A little blood came out; it must have been attached to the skin tightly. Everyone else pulled theirs off as well, and we even had to get one off each dog!
When I took Molly’s off, I noticed that her nipples had swollen a little bit, so wondered what had actually happened when Buddy and Molly had gone missing.
But there was no time for that. We may have gotten rid of our ‘Zombie Attracting Devices’, as I called them, or ZAD, but, once Zombies are on your tail, you just can’t shake them off. Shooting them was an option, but we didn’t really have enough ammo to shoot down almost the entire population of London.
We could, however, keep going up. Right up. Up to the roof. And luck must’ve been on our side, as there was a room with a skylight in it, which we all were forced to climb out of, before hoisting up the dogs with a sling made from our old school uniforms.
Once on the roof, we had the problem of keeping the dogs in control, whilst Courtney told us the rest of her plan. Get to the next roof, get down, get the Jeep, go. Simple? Hardly.
Z-Day Series: Book 1 First Burnz Page 9
