Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 3): Chloe (A New World) (5 page)

C
hloë couldn’t remember
the last time she’d ran so much.

The afternoon sky rapidly grew darker. Clouds thickened, and rain lashed down. Every now and then, thunder roared from above, making Chloë flinch with every crackle.

In front of her, masses of trees.

She gasped as she sprinted through them. She’d lost a shoe back on Bardsey Island, but kept her left one on for protection. She used to walk everywhere barefoot. Used to spend her life with nothing on her feet. But her time on Bardsey Island had softened her. It made the ground beneath her hurt when she’d trained herself not to notice it. Her time on Bardsey Island made everything more difficult, more torturous than it used to seem.

Her teeth chattered as she moved through the trees. The air was growing cold. Her clothes were drenched. Baby Kesha seemed to be getting heavier in her arm. She was crying now, too. Wailing. She’d been wailing for ages. Chloë didn’t know how long. Didn’t have a clue how long she’d been running, how far away from Bardsey Island she’d got. She didn’t even know how far she wanted to get.

She didn’t know what she was doing, what to do.

Just that she had to get away from the people who were taking the island for themselves.

That she had to get away, and she had to take baby Kesha with her.

She looked to her left. Thought she heard a crack of a twig. And then something else to her right: a branch snapping. Her pulse rattled in her skull. She wasn’t sure what to believe in, not anymore. It’d been three months since she’d set foot on the mainland. She used to trick herself that she could adapt to the old way of life again in no time. That it’d just be easy to slip back into because she knew the world, she knew what to expect from it.

But she was wrong.

She was so wrong.

It was much more terrifying than she remembered.

And she hadn’t even seen anything yet.

She felt her legs grinding to a halt. She knew her body would give in soon. She’d been running for what felt like forever. She couldn’t remember the feeling of being able to breathe properly.

But she didn’t want to stop running away. She couldn’t stop running away.

Not until she knew she was safe. Truly safe.

She slipped a few metres after that. Fell face flat in the mud. Kesha felt the full weight of the fall, too. Cried some more as blood trickled out of a cut on her head, soon washed away by the rain.

Chloë pulled herself back towards a tree. Sat up against it. Leaned back and stared up at the falling ra
i
n. She cried. Cried and tried to convince herself that she was stronger than this. That she’d survived out here for so long when she was last on her own. That she’d been tough before, so she could be tough again.

But she’d been tough last time because she thought there was nothing left for her. She thought there was just her. She’d just been existing. Existing, alone.

Until she found out the news that her dad was alive.

She remembered that moment. The moment when she found her dad’s diary in the possession of the Church of Youth people. She remembered the light bulb that flickered inside her. The light bulb of hope. He was still alive, and all of a sudden something mattered. All of a sudden, feeling returned. Real feelings and emotions.

She’d saved him. Got him out of that CoY prison and saved him. And then she’d led him and the rest of her group to Bardsey Island. A dangerous journey that she didn’t like to think about too much. A journey where she’d lost people she cared about, like Alice.

But she’d made it. Her and her dad both made it.

She was a fool to ever think it was all over when they got off that mainland.

She was a fool for ever thinking humans could all live peacefully together even when they weren’t surrounded by monsters.

After all, they’d been fighting long before the monsters started walking.

She looked at Kesha. Looked at this crying baby. Blood diluted by the pouring rain falling down her face.

She shook her head. Then she wiped the blood away. Wiped it away even though it made Kesha wail even more. The cut wasn’t bad. Kesha would be fine. Chloë just needed her to stop crying. She couldn’t cope with the crying.

It reminded her of what’d happened on the island too much.

Garth pointing his gun in those cots.

Firing the guns.

And then the battle at Heathwaite’s.

The cries and the screams she’d seen and heard there.

She licked the rain off her lips. She couldn’t think about what she wanted to do next because she didn’t know what she wanted to do next. She’d been living without a goal for so long that she didn’t know what she wanted anymore.

Just that she wanted her dad.

She wanted Dad because he made her strong.

She wanted Dad because he was all she had.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. Sniffed up.

She was about to stand and start walking when she heard something to her left.

Something she hadn’t heard in a long while.

Something that sent shivers up her arms.

A groan.

C
hloë couldn’t move
a muscle when she heard the groan for the second time.

The rain from the darkened late afternoon sky lashed down on her. She saw trees ahead of her. Around her. So many trees that it made her dizzy. She could taste tears on her lips. In her arm, Kesha weighed her down, still bawling, probably thirsty, probably hungry.

But all that mattered to Chloë was that groan.

She wasn’t sure when she’d last heard one exactly. Probably the runners that attacked her when she was trying to get everyone loaded into the boats to sail from Holyhead to Bardsey Island. Since then, she’d only heard those groans in her dreams. In her nightmares.

But hearing them again was much scarier than she’d ever remembered.

Hearing them again made everything all the more real.

She clenched her teeth together. She didn’t want to look. But she could hear the footsteps getting closer. Hear the groans getting louder. She knew she didn’t have an option. She had to turn. She had to see.

She moved her head to the left. Slowly.

When she saw the monster stumbling through the trees, her first feeling was one of nausea. A deep sense of nausea. The monster was male. Its skin had been ripped away from its arms and its chest, some of it dangling from the rotting muscle underneath. One of its eyes had turned right back into its head. There was a massive hole in the side of its neck, stringy veins spewing out of it like snakes where it’d been bitten, seemingly long ago.

It looked like it’d died of hunger way before it’d even been bitten.

But that just made it look even more hungry now.

It lifted a hand. Stumbled closer towards Chloë.

Towards Kesha, who kept on crying.

Chloë wanted to move. She wanted to flee. But all she could do was stay still. Stay still and watch the monster approach.

If she stayed still, it’d end her life.

It’d end everything.

She didn’t want everything to end. But without Dad around—without anyone she cared about around—what did life matter anyway?

No. She couldn’t think that way. Couldn’t let the buzzing noises that tipped her over the edge last time start in her head again.

She stood. Backed away from the tree, from the zombie. Her legs were stiff. She still hadn’t caught all her breath after her running earlier. She knew she was hungry, but she didn’t feel it, not after seeing the monster.

But she knew she had to get away.

She didn’t have a weapon. Even if she had a weapon, she only had one arm to fight with. She had to run.

She turned. Ran away from the monster. She headed in the direction she’d been going earlier, further and further away from Bardsey Island. She didn’t know where she was. Didn’t remember this place from her journey down to Holyhead. She could be anywhere in the world.

Did it even matter where she was?

What even mattered anymore?

She looked over her shoulder, running away from the monster. It wasn’t a runner. Wasn’t keeping up with her. That was a good thing. A positive sign. Her legs weren’t moving as quickly as before, so it’s a good job she wasn’t trying to get away from a fast one.

She thought about the fast monsters. Thought about the ones she’d come across in the woods a few months ago. The ones that screamed, setting a trap, luring people in.

She thought about them and wondered just how much the monsters had changed again in her three months on Bardsey Island.

It was September now. She left the MLZ back in March.

How much had everything changed in those six months?

She looked over her shoulder again. No sign of the monster. She started to slow down. She knew she wasn’t safe—she could never be safe here. But at least
,
she could rest for now. Think about what she was going to do. About how she was going to—

Something slammed into the right side of her body.

Knocked her off her feet, into the mud.

Kesha fell from Chloë’s arm again. And as bad as Chloë felt about that, she was the least of her worries right now.

Another monster was on top of her. Half a torso. Wasting away, just like the one that’d been chasing her.

Its teeth snapped right above her neck.

She pushed on its head. Pushed on it, the skin of its scalp slipping away the more she pressed. She forgot how strong they were. How strong she had to be to fight them off.

She had to remember.

She had to remember fast if she wanted to survive.

She heard more groans. Groans to her left. And when she looked, she saw more figures drifting through the trees. Drifting towards her.

Drifting towards Kesha’s cries.

Chloë pressed back harder against the monster’s head. She tried to stick her fingers into its eyes, but she’d been cutting her nails on Bardsey Island so they weren’t as sharp as they used to be. She thought about using her teeth. Using her teeth to bite at the monster. But there was nothing she could do. She was trapped. Trapped and on the verge of being surrounded.

She reached back. Reached around the woodland floor. Reached for something to use. Something sharp. A stick, maybe. Something she could swing at the monster’s head.

Nothing.

It was only when the monster was within an inch of her neck that she noticed the knife pressed deeply into its waist.

She twisted to the left. Let the monster’s face bury into the ground.

And then she reached down to its waist. Stretched with everything she had. Wrapped her fingers around the knife and pulled.

It didn’t budge.

She twisted around again. When she did, she saw the monsters in the trees getting closer to Kesha. She knew time was almost up. Hope was almost over. But she had to keep on trying. She couldn’t just give up. Not now. Not after everything.

She made one final big pull at the knife.

This time, it slipped out of the monster’s waist.

Cold blood oozed out of the old wound.

Chloë lifted the knife.

Put it into the space between her face and the monster’s face.

The monster pressed down against it with its forehead.

Pressed down, not knowing, not understanding.

Pressed down so hard that it cracked its own skull.

Kept on pressing down, brains dribbling down onto Chloë’s face, eager to get a bite of her.

It finally stopped pressing down when the knife slipped inside its brains, mashed them up.

Chloë rolled out from underneath it. Ran over to Kesha. Picked her up, determined not to stab her accidentally with the knife.

She looked at the monsters approaching through the trees. She wanted to fight them. Put them down. Stop them ever hurting her again.

But she knew she couldn’t.

She knew she couldn’t take them all on. Not with Kesha in her arm.

So she turned around and did the only thing she knew how to do now.

She ran.

C
hloë ran
.

The rain lashed down hard now. The sky above was getting dark. Behind, she swore she could still hear the groans of the oncoming monsters that’d pursued her earlier. Or maybe they were new monsters. Another crowd readying an attack on her.

She didn’t know what to think. Didn’t know what to believe.

All she knew was that she had to get back to the tunnel.

She’d thought about her change of decision a lot while she’d been fleeing the monsters. At first, it was almost as if her body had turned back in the direction of Bardsey Island before her mind settled on the idea. But the truth was, she couldn’t survive out here. Not alone with a little baby. It was cruel on the kid. And whatever they had planned for Kesha, Chloë knew that it would be better than whatever fate awaited them both out here.

She had to get back to the tunnel. She had to shelter. Rest.

She had to take Kesha back to Bardsey Island. As much as she didn’t want to, it’s the only thing she could think of.

She ran through trees she swore she recognised. But then they all looked the same in the thick expanse of the woods. She wasn’t sure whether she was heading back in the same direction as before. Just that she had to find that island again. She had to get back.

Not just for Kesha. For herself, too.

She’d heard the bullets when she ran away from the nursery. Heard Garth fire at her dad. But she hadn’t seen her dad die. And the longer she spent out here, alone in the cold dampness, dark rapidly approaching, the more selfish she started to feel for running away from her dad. Turning her back on him and fleeing. Because he’d never do that to her. He’d never just run away.

She needed to know he was dead.

She didn’t like to think that. Didn’t want to even consider it.

But if he was gone, she needed to see for herself.

And if he was…

She didn’t want to think about what she’d do if he really were.

She kept on running. Her knees were in agony. Kesha had stopped crying at least, but Chloë wasn’t sure whether that was a good or bad thing. Good thing is she wasn’t attracting any more monsters with her wailing. Bad thing? Maybe she’d passed out. Passed out with hunger, or thirst. Maybe she was dying in Chloë’s arm, and there was nothing Chloë could do to help her.

No. There was something she could do. There was something she could do and she was doing it.

She had to get back.

She had to get Kesha to someone else.

She couldn’t look after a baby. She couldn’t take on this responsibility.

She couldn’t even look after herself.

She wasn’t sure how far she’d been running when she saw the grassy verge in the distance.

She stopped. Froze. Up ahead, the small brick building that she’d climbed out of. The tunnel exit. It was here. She could go inside it. Shelter for a bit. And then she could get Kesha back to the island. Because she didn’t care who was taking over the island. Didn’t care what they were doing.

She just wanted to be home again.

She’d apologise. Tell them she was in the wrong. She’d do everything she could to make sure they let her and Kesha back in.

She started to step towards it when she saw movement in front of the tunnel.

They appeared out of nowhere and in an instant. Stood up from the long, wet grass.

Monsters.

At least thirty of them.

All standing between Chloë and the tunnel entrance.

All watching.

Chloë felt her body collapse from within. She just needed to get through them. To get Kesha back. She could try fighting them but she knew she’d never win. There were thirty of them and one of her. No, even worse. One of her and a baby. One of her and someone she had to look out for.

She ran again. Ran to the right. Heard the monsters begin to groan as they followed her. She could try running around in a circle. Luring the monsters away from the tunnel entrance. Yes. That’s what she had to do. She had to lure them away and clear her path. She was okay. She could do this. Everything was going to be fine.

She thought she saw movement in the corner of her eyes. Movement, over towards the right. But she didn’t think too much of it. Especially not when she looked right in that direction. There was nothing there. Nothing at all.

She kept on moving. Circling the tunnel entrance. Kesha was still quiet. She had her knife, and she’d use it if she had to. She hoped she wouldn’t have to—she felt rusty, not at using a knife because she’d been practising operating weapons on the island. But just at fighting the monsters.

So many days of not having to worry about them, not having to look over her shoulder, and they were here. Again.

She looked back. The monsters were still on her trail. So they’d learned to crouch, to adapt, but still they fell into the same old dumb trap whenever they saw a human.

They chased.

Something else they’d have to adapt to. Turn from chasers to hunters.

Chloë didn’t want to think about that too much.

She turned back and saw something in front of her. Something strange. Something that sent a shiver up the back of her neck.

A woman was crouched down in the grass. She was leaning forward. Dressed in a black dress. Completely drenched in rain.

Doing a quick scan, Chloë didn’t see any bite marks anywhere. Which was strange. What was also strange was the fact that the woman didn’t give off the aura of being infected. Chloë couldn’t describe what aura she meant. Just a feeling about them, usually. A knowledge of what they are before you really even know what they are for certain.

She slowed down. Approached the woman.

Clung on to the knife in her hand, held on to Kesha further up her arm.

She stepped closer to the woman. The rain was easing. A final surge of light filled the late afternoon sky as sunset approached.

Chloë stepped closer to the woman.

“Hel… Hello?”

The woman didn’t move. Didn’t twitch. Not at first.

And then she lifted her head.

Turned to look at Chloë.

It was then that Chloë realised something was wrong. Because this wasn’t a woman. This wasn’t a woman at all.

It wasn’t even a monster.

It was…

She didn’t get to finish her trail of thoughts.

The
thing
stood up and hurtled in her direction.