Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 1): Chloe (5 page)

C
hloë stared
through the cracked binoculars at the camp in the distance and kept as still as possible.

It was mid-afternoon. The clouds had gathered above, making the woods a lot darker than usual. The air was warm, and there was very little breeze.

She’d been walking for hours. All morning, just walking through the woods in search of some kind of place to rest. She’d dodged about seven groups of monsters on her way. Three groups of people, too.

This was the fourth.

This was different.

Her feet were sore. She’d got blisters a few miles back. One of them had burst, making it tricky to run. She knew she wasn’t helping by lying on her stomach and watching this group. But she was interested in them.

There were four people. Three men, one woman. All of them looked about Mum and Dad’s age, so in their forties. They had several tents set up. A barrier of spiky logs guarded their camp, which blood drooled down, suggesting a few monsters had found themselves planted on the edge of them. Deep ditches circled the camp, just in case any monsters did get through. A fire crackled. The smell of a rabbit cooking piqued Chloë’s interest, made her mouth water. She wanted so much to just walk into that camp. To just go up to the wooden walls and ask them for some food. Ask them to take her in.

But she knew she couldn’t.

She knew she couldn’t trust a single person.

So she’d have to do what she always did when she was hungry.

Watch the groups.

Study their habits.

Then, go in there and take whatever she could.

It wasn’t the right thing to do. It was something she knew Dad would never have liked her doing.

But it was survival.

And she needed to survive.

She lowered the binoculars. She’d found them wrapped around the neck of a dead man in shorts a few miles back. There were plenty of good finds lying around the woods like that. One benefit. She backed up slowly, so she was further away from the camp. Her mouth was dry. The last of her water was low. She could barely stand the thought of another one of those nasty energy bars. The burning of her tree had left her in the worst shape she’d been in for weeks. But she always found a way. Even if it meant doing things she didn’t want to do, she always found a way to survive.

And she’d do it to this group if she saw a weakness.

Because they had food. They had supplies.

Supplies were the currency of survival in the dead world.

She leaned back against a tree. Looked up at the sky. Watched the clouds drift along. Not a plane in sight. Maybe she was just looking at it the wrong way. Maybe these people weren’t bad. Maybe they’d let her in. Welcome her.

She closed her eyes. Imagined that.

Someone letting her in.

Someone she could trust.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a proper conversation with someone. She’d spoken. Spoken to people on the road. Spoken to old groups she’d been a part of. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually had an
honest
, complete conversation.

She felt the blood of the fallen monsters crusting on her skin.

Felt the pain around her neck.

Yes. That was the last conversation she’d had. The last
true
conversation.

The night she’d walked into that woods.

Buzzing noises raging in her head.

Wanting to put a stop to them, no matter what.

The string of her jogging bottoms…

The conversation she’d had with Riley. About life. About death.

That was the last time she’d truly spoken to somebody.

And she knew it was the last time she’d ever—

Her thoughts were interrupted by a vaguely familiar sound.

She heard something crackling. A noise she hadn’t heard for weeks. Months, even.

But if it was what she thought it was…

She peeked around the tree. Lifted her binoculars. Focused on the group’s camp.

Her heart fluttered.

A dark-haired man sat on a motorbike. One of the four group members.

Another motorbike by his side.

He smiled at the rest of the group. Put on his helmet.

Then, he drove off.

Chloë moved back behind the tree. That was it. A motorbike. No,
two
motorbikes. She’d never ridden one, but she could learn. She’d never fired a gun or stabbed anyone to death before the world ended, and she’d done just fine at those. A motorbike. It’d help her. Help her get around the woods.

And she could use it.

If someone was going off on a motorbike, what could they be going for?

Food?

Water?

Chloë’s mind raced. She could follow them. Find where they were going. And when they were out in the middle of nowhere, she could take the motorbike. She could find a way to hijack their supplies. A way to get into their camp.

A smile cracked across her face. She could find a way. Find a new home. And sure, conversation and friends would be nice. But they didn’t exist anymore. Not truly. Not really.

She stood up. Felt a blister burst on the sole of her foot as she ran in the direction of the motorbike, being careful not to get too close to the camp. Her foot felt even worse, now. But that didn’t matter. She had an idea. She had a plan. She had
something
.

Everyone needed something.

She ran through the woods. Felt the warm breeze pick up. The clouds grew darker. Cold specks of rain fell through the trees, cooled off her body.

The motorbike. It was her way to safety. Her ticket into that camp. She didn’t know how exactly, but she was going to use it. Use it to get some supplies at first. Then use it to get inside the camp. The camp with the barbed and spiked wooden fences; with the wooden cabin and the ditches and the tents and—

Chloë wasn’t sure how long she’d been running when she felt something smack against her foot.

She collided face-first with the dirt. The big toe of her left foot was on fire. She winced. Clutched it. Rolled over, half expecting a monster to be looking back at her, getting ready to tear her to pieces.

But there was no monster.

There was only a black motorcycle helmet.

Chloë stood. She stepped closer to the helmet. The wind dropped. The forest grew silent.

She felt something damp and warm underneath her toes.

It took her a second to realise she was standing in a trail of blood.

She followed it with her eyes. Looked over her shoulder. Towards the thickening trees.

She looked at where it ended. Where it led through into more trees.

And then, in the silence of the woods, she heard a blood-curdling scream.

C
hloë crept closer
to the source of the agonised scream.

The trees were thicker in this part of the woods. Didn’t help that the clouds had grown thicker, too. The air was still. Stuffy. Birdsong had dropped.

All Chloë could hear were the screams.

A man’s screams.

And the mumbling laughter of others.

She got down onto her stomach. Dragged herself along. She tried to dodge moving through the trail of blood, but sometimes she couldn’t avoid it.

The man. The man whose helmet was lying in the middle of the woods.

He’d been on his motorbike.

Then something had happened.

Something had—

Another scream.

A whooping cheer.

This time, Chloë noticed something. Something different in the air. The taste of burning. The smell of urine. Strong. Intense.

It wasn’t long before she understood the source of the tastes, the source of the smell.

She peeked through a gap between the thick conifer trees.

Up ahead, she saw a group of four men. They were topless. Dirty. Two of them had hair shaven right down. Others had long hair right down to their shoulders.

They were all branded on their chests with the same three-lettered mark.

The mark that made Chloë’s heart race.

Made her muscles tighten.

CoY.

They were smiling. Laughing. Saying things.

Because they weren’t the only ones opposite.

There was a man. He was tied down to a metal pole that lay across the forest floor.

He wasn’t screaming anymore.

He didn’t have a mouth to scream from.

His blackened body was covered in flames. He looked like he’d just crumble to pieces if someone prodded him.

Which the men did.

They prodded at his burning skin.

Knocked clumps of cooked flesh away from his body.

All the time, smiling.

All the time, eyes filled with delight.

Except for one of the men. The one with the shortest hair. He was sweating. Shaking. And when Chloë saw the patch on his denim shorts, she realised that the smell of wee hadn’t come from the burning man, but from him.

One of the long-haired men put a hand on his shoulder. The short-haired guy flinched. “You did good, kid. Real fuckin’ good.”

The short-haired man lifted his head. Teeth chattering. Forced a smile at the man holding his shoulder.

The long-haired man squeezed his shoulder tighter. Shook him backwards and forwards.

Then he pushed him away and looked back at the burned body.

“It’s getting late,” the main guy—Chloë figured he was the main guy cause he did all the talking—said. He had long, dark hair and well-toned muscles. “Holy One’ll be pleased when he sees this beauty.” He pointed at the motorbike. “I’m getting first dibs on it. Anyway, we’d better head back to camp. Don’t wanna miss out on any food. ”

“Or beer,” the other long-haired guy said. This man was skinnier. He had a thin moustache that had specks of ginger in it. Wide eyes with dark circles underneath.

“Or beer,” the main guy said, nodding. He was so muscular. Like someone out of that
Game of Thrones
series Dad used to like watching.

“We’ll head back. Take the bike. Leave the body like this. You etching?”

The second of the shorter haired guys—the one keeping the quietest—nodded. He walked over to the tree just beside the burned-out corpse. Started carving those three letters into the tree.

Melted skin drooled away from the burned man’s face.

“What about the others, Dan?” the skinnier long-haired guy said.

Dan—the main guy—looked around. And Chloë thought for a moment he was going to turn right around and look in her direction. “We’ll leave ’em. Once they find their friend out here, they’ll be careful where they walk in future. Or bike.”

“Merciful.”

“That’s the kind of guy I am, Percy. Wouldn’t want to … Hey, the fuck are you doing?”

When Chloë heard Dan’s shout, she was convinced he’d seen her. Convinced he was screaming at her.

But then she saw him walk over to … oh, shit. Someone else. Another man. Mid-length hair. He was holding some kind of book.

“I asked you a question, Seth. The fuck are you reading there?”

Seth looked around at the rest of the group for support. His face went pale. “I—I just—I just found it. Back at camp. One of the prisoners. I just—”

Dan cracked him across the face.

Chloë heard a bone in his face snap.

Seth fell to the forest floor. Percy stepped forward to help, then backed away when he saw Dan glare at him.

As Seth winced on the ground, clutching at his face, Dan looked around at the rest of his group. Looked into the eyes of each one of them. Chloë could see what he was thinking.
Go on. Challenge me. I dare you.

Nobody did.

Dan plucked the book from Seth’s hand. Flipped open the burgundy cover. Leafed through the pages. “The fuck is this? Anne Frank?”

Seth tried to speak. But judging by the yelp he let out, speaking wasn’t a good idea right now.

Dan flicked through some more of the pages. “Fucking gay shit. You know what we do to gays, right? You know the Holy One ain’t gonna stand for it when he sees you’ve been reading gay—”

“It in’t ga—argh!” Seth tried to speak again. He couldn’t move his jaw properly. Tears covered his cheeks.

Dan looked at him. Then he looked down at the book. Ripped a page out of it. Then another, then another.

He shook his head. Smiled. Stood up. “Don’t worry, kid. Your gay secret’s safe with us. For now.”

He threw the book over in Chloë’s direction.

Chloë nudged aside to dodge it.

Leaves and sticks rustled underneath her as she did.

She saw Percy look in her direction. Saw his weasel eyes scan the trees. “You hear that?”

Dan looked around. From the smile on his face, he wasn’t too concerned. “It’s a woods. I hear stuff all the time. Now let’s get this little queer-boy’s jaw sorted.”

He crouched down beside Seth.

Lifted him up.

“Now you’re gonna have to keep still,” Dan said. He grabbed the sides of Seth’s face. Rubbed his hand down the right side of his jaw.

Seth struggled. Begged in pained, mumbled tones.

The body beside them continued to blacken.

Chloë watched as Percy and the others grabbed hold of Seth from behind.

Held him as he kicked out, struggled.

“Just hold your breath and think of someplace much nicer than here,” Dan said. “On three. One. Two.”

Chloë heard the crack on two.

She winced. Turned away. Seth’s cry filled the woods.

“That’s it. That’s a good kid. Now up you get. Don’t cry. Don’t cry like a little queer. Remember what we said?”

Chloë looked at the book beside her. Her bottom jaw shook. She listened to the men chat some more. Listened to them laugh and joke and say all kinds of nasty things, all kinds of horrible words.

But their words didn’t hold her attention.

They drifted into the background.

Became no more comprehensible than the wind itself.

She shuffled closer to the book. Saw the writing on the cover. The gold ink.

Diary. 2013/14.

But most of all, as the men departed, as the smell of the burning body lingered, it was the words underneath the printed gold that she noticed.

The words etched into the burgundy cover of this diary.

She grabbed it.

Grabbed the diary with shaking hands.

Blinked. Blinked away her tears to check it was real. To check she wasn’t going insane with hunger. Insane with fear.

When she opened her eyes again, the words were still there.

Diary. 2013/14.

Underneath, in the bottom corner, a familiar logo.

Warburtons.

And then, etched on the cover, the words that rocked her entire world.

Property of Pete Baines.