Die Trying: A Zombie Apocalypse (15 page)

I shrugged. “So that puts you and
Harrigan in the back seat.”

“Yes. With Millie wedged in between us where she will be safest. Give
Harrigan your Glock – you can’t shoot and drive at the same time – but maybe carry the little revolver if you think you would feel better being armed.”

“I would,” I said meaningfully. “I most definitely would.”

I cracked open the can of soda. It was blood-warm and tasted like drain cleaner.

* * *

Time crept by slowly. Daylight dragged on and on. I spent some time reading one of the Stephen King books, and a lot
more time sitting alone in the silence, wondering if this was what it was like for those who served in the military, counting down the hours until an attack. Was this what it was like for the heroes of D-Day during World War II? Were those men nervous and trembling in the hours before boarding the massed invasion craft that swept across the English Channel? Were they so scared they felt physically ill?

What about Jed and
Harrigan? Were they feeling the same nauseating, debilitating fear that clawed at me?

And what about Colin Walker?
He said he was ex-military. I wondered if he had served at the pointy end of the spear in the Middle East, and whether fear was a shadowy companion for all of us.

Or was it just
me?

We took turns on guard duty at the kitchen window, while the others slept. Not that there seemed to be a lot of sleeping going on.
The floor was hard and uncomfortable. After an hour of tossing, I crept out to the kitchen and relieved Harrigan who was standing watch. I stole a quick glance through the curtains. The sun was setting. Harrigan and I exchanged a few desultory words, but there wasn’t much to say. He drifted down the hallway and I took another can of soda from the pantry and sipped at it while my thoughts swirled round in ever-decreasing circles of fear and death.

I
suddenly heard soft footsteps behind me and I whirled on the spot. Walker’s daughter, Millie, was standing in the kitchen doorway. She had slipped off her shoes and was creeping through to the bathroom.

She froze, and her eyes went wide. I saw her clutch instinctively for the bracelet on her wrist and
wrap her fingers round the chunky floral detail.

“Hi,” I said softly.

The girl said nothing.

“Millie, right? My name is Mitch. Mitch Logan. We haven’t had a chance to talk since the helicopter accident.”

The girl said nothing. She stood perfectly still, like a forest animal on the edge of a clearing – ready to flee at the first sign of danger.

I had the
Glock in my hand. I set it down on the kitchen cupboard and offered her the can of soda. Her eyes searched my face – and then she reached out and took the can from me.

“It tastes like warm piss,” I said. The girl blinked.

I apologized.

She sipped at the drink
, then handed it back.

“You’re fifteen, right?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry about your mother. Your dad said she died in the first days of the outbreak.”

The girl frowned, like she was annoyed. Maybe she thought such personal matters weren’t to be shared with strangers. Maybe she had a sudden memory of her mother before the apocalypse. She bit her lip, and then said softly, “That’s right.”

“And you don’t have any brothers or sisters who might have escaped
? There’s just you and your dad?”

She nodded. “I’m an only child.”

I made a wry face. “I wish I was…”

The girl said nothing.

I leaned back against the kitchen counter. The girl still hadn’t moved. “Do you remember much of what happened when the helicopter went down?”

The girl shook her head. “No,” she said. “Just a lot of noise and smoke.”

I nodded. “You and your dad were lucky to survive.”

Millie didn’t look so sure about that. She stared at me for long seconds, with an expression that seemed almost a glare of defiance, then her demeanor altered and she shrugged her shoulders. “I guess so.”

“It is a pity about the pilot… did you know him?”

“No,” she shook her head again, and th
e long tresses of her hair flicked across her shoulders like a swishing tail.

I studied her face very carefully. There was no doubt that the helicopter crash and our subsequent close escape from the undead had terrified th
is girl. I had seen her face – seen the look of sheer horror in her eyes. They were looks that couldn’t be faked – not by a fifteen year old kid. She had been scared out of her mind.

But now…?

I wasn’t getting the sense that this girl was so traumatized
–  so deeply scarred – that she could barely put two words together without collapsing in a blubbering mess of tears and trembling. Not at all.

In fact, n
ow I was getting the impression that this girl wasn’t frightened at all any more. She was guarded. Wary.

Maybe her father had given her the mother of all
‘don’t talk to strangers’
speeches.

She crept past me to the bathroom without another word, and I turned back to the window.
She was gone for a few minutes. I heard her footsteps as she passed back through the kitchen, but I didn’t turn around. I kept staring out through the window.

I was thinking troubled thoughts.

Chapter Four.

Sunrise.

I stayed awake through the night and watched the morning dawn bright and clear and blue through the kitchen curtains. My eyes felt gritty and raw. When I heard the stirring, shuff
ling sounds of people waking, I went down the hallway towards the living room.

The room looked like the aftermath of a plane crash. Millie was curled up on the sofa chair with her head tilted back towards the ceiling
, and her legs tucked uncomfortably beneath her bottom. Harrigan and Jed were lying sprawled across the floor. Jed was on his back, one arm flung wide and the other across his face, as though shielding his eyes from the light. Harrigan was lying on his side. He was awake. I saw him gazing up at me with an expressionless face. I looked him in the eye for a couple of seconds then turned away.

Walker was
half-laying and half-sitting, his body resting up against the side of the sofa, and his legs thrust straight out in front of him. His body was limp, like a wounded man who had been propped up until the paramedics could attend to him. But he wasn’t asleep. His breathing was deep and steady and rhythmic, and yet I noticed the flickering movement of his eyes behind the closed lids. I stood perfectly still and watched him until he went through the pantomime of waking – complete with a convincing yawn and tight-muscled stretch of his arms. His eyes went straight to mine. They were clear and alert. He knew I had been watching him, and I guessed he knew that I knew he had been awake all along. But neither of us said anything.

“I thought you army ninja types slept with your eyes open,
Mr Walker.”

The corner of his mouth twisted up. It could have been a smile – but it might have been a grimace. He said nothing. He got to his feet, and the movement stirred his daughter awake. She blinked
and yawned, still muzzy with sleep, until a moment later when the realization of where she was struck her like a delayed shock. She looked up at me.

“Morning,” I said.

The girl looked towards her father, as if she should take her cue from him, but Walker had crossed to the full-length window. He had his back to us.

“Morning,” she said softly, then looked quickly away.

I got the message.

I went down on my haunches beside
Harrigan. “I know you slept well,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. “You’ve got a body like a mattress – all that soft padding. Must be like sleeping on a cloud.”

Harrigan
grunted and rolled onto his back. “A man who loves and trusts the Lord as his Savior always sleeps well, Mitch” he said – and I wasn’t sure if he was serious, or mocking me.

Br
eakfast was silent and tense. Even though the morning had dawned clear, the gloom as we huddled over cans of beans and the last of the sodas was like a heavy cloud. Hardly anybody spoke. Millie ate nothing at all, and even Harrigan picked at the contents of his can like a sparrow.

As we sat, Walker went through the process of stripping each of our guns, checking them meticulously, and reloading each weapon. Jed had a spare magazine for his
Glock, and Walker had one for his own weapon. He emptied them of ammunition, and then reloaded each of them. Finally, he emptied the shells from the little revolver and slid in fresh ones. He handed it to me without a word.

Everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to speak; sitting in a tight semi circle around the candle, even though it had long since be
en extinguished. The only sound in the room was the sound of Jed, eating with gluttonous ignorance, mouth open as he chewed, and thick sauce dribbling down the coarse dark stubble of his chin.

I sighed to myself.

My mouth was dry, and sweat was breaking out in the palms of my fists.

In the era of Napoleon, the British army had a peculiar tradition prior to engaging an enemy that was behind a fortified defense. The army called for volunteers to storm the ramparts, knowing that the first attack was likely to be a desperate, suicidal assault. They called the men the ‘forlorn hope’.
I looked at the faces around me and wondered whether the wretched thing we were about to do would end in the same monstrous bloodshed – with the same tragic results.

“When we get outside, we stay together – no matter what,” I said, looking pointedly in the direction of my brother. “We move as a group.”

Walker nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “No one goes off alone. We look for a car and we do it moving in a tight knot, with every gun covering every angle.”

The nylon bag was heavier now, weighed down with the ransacked supplies we had gathered from searching the house. I zipped it shut, and slid it across to Jed. “It’s your responsibility,” I said. “You’re big enough to lug it, and not be slowed down. If I put that thing on my back I’ll buckle at the knees.”

Jed’s face soured suspiciously. “Let Harrigan carry it,” he said. “Or G.I. Joe, here. Why has it gotta be me?”

I sig
hed again. “Because Harrigan is going to be watching the girl, and Walker is going to be taking the lead,” I said patiently. “You’re the only choice – unless you’re prepared to put your life on the line, if need be, to keep the girl safe.”

Jed
thought about that – for less than a second. He nodded and dragged the bag towards him. He got to his feet and tested the weight of it slung over his shoulders, looking at me defiantly as though the bag weighed nothing at all.

The gesture reminded me once again why my brother was so dangerous; he was a dumb, ignorant, selfish brute. Jed was a thug. It was as simple as that. I could trust him – but only to do what was in his own best interests. As long as our efforts served his purpose, he would be a reluctant part of the group.

But not for a single moment longer.

Once the group outlived its usefulness, I knew that I too would have outlived his need for me. That would be the moment he
would seek his revenge.

That would be the moment he would kill me.

We all got to our feet and drifted towards the front door, like a group of skydivers about to leap from a plane – without parachutes. I pulled on my leather jacket, and helped Harrigan shrug on his heavy coat. He had my Glock in one meaty fist and his crow-bar in the other. We exchanged a silent look, and then I wrapped my hand around the cold brass knob of the handle and took a long deep breath.

Walker
stood right behind me, with Millie pressed at his side. Walker checked his weapon one last time, and I heard Jed and Harrigan do the same.

“It’s now, or never,” I said
, the words like jagged glass in the back of my throat. I unlocked the door – and pulled it slowly open.

* * *

I went out the door and onto the porch, squinting into the bright glare of morning sunlight and feeling the slap of fresh warm air on my face. My heart was racing like a trip-hammer in my chest, and the sound of blood fizzing in my ears was almost deafening. I had the little revolver in my hand, arm extended, and I swept the barrel of the weapon in an arc that covered the lush green grass across the front lawn.

Nothing. I felt Walker’s bulky shape pressed against my side but I didn’t look at him. I heard the others, but my eyes stayed fixed and searching. There was no movement, no sound – not even the sound of birds or breeze.

Dead silence.

I hesitated for a split-second. I honestly don’t know what I had expected as I burst out through the doorway, but it wasn’t this. My nerves were drawn tight as a bow. I could feel the trembling tension in my thighs and arms.

I stole a glance at Walker. His face was grim, his mouth a thin line.

“Go!” he whispered, the single word inflected with anxiety and fear and urgency. “And don’t look back.” He shoved the flat of his hand between my shoulder blades.

I went.

I went at a run, leaping down from the low veranda and landing in the long grass. I could feel nervous sweat blistering across my brow and trickling down my back. After the heavy rains, the air was thick and humid. Sweat stung my eyes. My head twisted and turned, never still for a moment, and the pistol bounced and wavered with the jolt of every step.

I went left, through a low garden of bright yellow flowers, and glanced at the house
up ahead.

It was a single story brick home, with a big bay window beneath an aluminum awning. The window had been broken, the frame twisted and mangled. I saw blood on the curtains and more blood on the
window sill. I kept running.

There was a
paved driveway on the opposite side of the house with a median strip of grass. I ran towards it. I could hear the scrabble of heavy pounding footsteps close behind me. I could feel Walker’s presence, seeming to hang over my shoulder like the shadow of death. I could hear ragged breathing and Harrigan grunting with the effort of keeping up with the group.

I reached the corner of the house and snapped a glance left. The driveway was empty.
Where the pavers abruptly ended was a high wrought iron gate, and behind it a garage door.

I started to slow…

“No!” Walker breathed heavily, as though he could read my mind. “Keep going.”

I didn’t argue. I ran on towards the next house. The street was gradually curving, and as I rounded the gentle bend I saw a
burned out car in the middle of the road. The car was sitting down on its steel rims. The tires had melted away. The windshield and side windows were all gone and the paintwork had been vaporized so all that remained of the sheet metal was scorched grey. The blacktop was bubbling, and tendrils of wispy smoke still drifted up into the morning sky.

There was a charred body beside the
vehicle with a crow perched on its back, pecking at the remains. I couldn’t tell if the body was a man or a woman. The hair had been singed away and all that was left of the corpse were disfigured blackened lumps.

I looked up. The
next house on the block was another single story brick home with a steeply angled roof, like maybe the owners had renovated and built extra space into the attic. There was a silver sedan on the front lawn, grass growing up around the tires, and a red station wagon parked in the driveway.

“Yes!” I heard Walker hiss
, and his voice rose with triumph and relief. “Try the station wagon first.”

I veered towards the driveway
. The wagon was a Honda Crosstour – maybe only twelve months old. The duco sparkled in the sunlight.

I went to the driver-side and snatched at the door handle. It was locked. I pressed my face hard against the window. I couldn’t see any keys in the ignition.

“Try the other doors!” Walker hissed at me. He went down into a crouch, his back pressed against the car, his gun swinging in an arc to cover the street.

Harrigan
went to the other side of the car, and we tried every door. They were all locked.

“I’ll smash
the fuckin’ window!” Jed snarled. He raised the butt of the Glock to use it like a hammer, but Walker snatched at his wrist.

“Forget it!” Walker hissed. “No noise. We’ll try the sedan.”

We moved in a tight knot towards the car parked on the front lawn. It was an old and tired Ford Taurus that looked like it had endured two decades of hard driving. The paintwork was dull, the windshield covered with a layer of dirt and grime. There were ugly scars of rust on the front fenders. The passenger side window had been lowered half an inch – maybe to let the heat out as the car sat baking under the summer sun. I tried the door. It was locked. I thrust my fingers into the gap between the window and pulled down hard. The glass moved a quarter of an inch, and then stopped.

“Here!” I heard
Harrigan hiss. He was on the other side of the Taurus. He had the driver’s door open. He clambered into the car and reached across to unlock the doors.

I pulled open the door I was standing by and stole a glance around me. Walker was kneeling against the front fender, gun arm extended, covering the str
eet. Jed was right behind Harrigan, with his gun arm extended towards the nature strip on the far side of the road. Walker’s daughter was standing behind me like a shadow. She was jigging with terror from foot to foot, the tension and simmering panic raw in her expression.

“Keys?” Walker
hissed over his shoulder, never taking his eyes from the street.

“No,”
Harrigan hissed. “Wait a minute.”

He pulled down the car’s sun visors. Nothing. He thrust his hands under the driver’s seat and then ransacked the cracked faded plastic pockets and crevices of the car’s console.

“We don’t have a minute!” Walker spat.

Harigan
backed out of the car empty handed. Jed swore bitterly under his breath. “Want me to wire it?”

“Can you?” Walker
called back at him.

“Give me a minute.”

“We don’t have a fucking minute!” Walker said again. I felt the panic in me rising. We were totally exposed – totally vulnerable, standing by the side of the road, clustered around a car in the blazing morning light.