I Dream of Zombies (21 page)

As the smell of burning flesh met her nostrils, Marla looked around and
could not believe what she was seeing.
What the hell?
Turning back, she reloaded her last magazine and chose her shots carefully. The mass had thinned out, but she lacked enough bullets to finish them off. In the background she saw bodies hit the floor.
How?

“We have to run as this
whole place is going to go up,” Marla urged.

“But there’s a dozen. Maybe more behind them,” Ellen argued.

“She’s right,” Tommy agreed.

“You’re joking?” asked Ellen, picking up her gun.

Tommy shook his head. He placed a couple of lighters in a pocket and slung some magazines under his left arm. Lighting another rolled-up title, he suggested, “I’ll chuck this and you two run past them.”

Marla crept forward and felled the first two shadows. “Out of bullets now,” she said with a grimace.

“No fear,” said Tommy as he flung the lit magazine into the line of freaks. One caught alight and set fire to the next creature as it bumped into it. The bodies lunged forwards together, seemingly oblivious to the flames sweeping around them.

Ellen gasped at the smell of burning and rotting flesh, and held her hand over her face as they sprinted towards the gap at the side of the line of
the dead. Someone fired and the nearest figure collapsed to the ground. “Don’t shoot!” Marla shouted.

Tommy cut into one of the creatures as it lunged their way. Pushing it backwards, he retrac
ted his knife as the thing fell against the line of corpses. With a groan the dead turned their heads to glance at the living, their gait staggering as they tried to rotate as one mass and follow.

“Devan?”
queried Marla, running towards him. “What are you...?”

“I heard gunfire and found these in the boot of the car. Thought you might need some help,” he explained as Tommy looked at the weapons in his hands.

“You can shoot well, kid,” he replied.

“My dad taught me,” Devan answered, proving his point by taking do
wn two of the dead that were now behind them.

Glancing back as they fell,
Marla grabbed Ellen’s hand and ran towards the broken glass door with Tommy in hot pursuit. Devan followed, moving backwards for a while as he shot down the creatures one at a time. He wondered where they were all coming from, guessing they had been sealed inside this place for a reason.

The girls ran out blindly towards the jeep. With the windows blacked out they
could not see who was inside, but assumed everyone was there. As they neared the car, the door flew open and Joanna jumped out. “Angelica?” she screamed as Bob began to bark.

“Where is she?” asked Marla.

“She came looking for you. All we could hear was gunfire and she said it was her fault you went in there...”

“But where...?” Marla
asked again.

Her last words were drowned out by Joanna’s screams as she began to run forwards. Marla spun around to see Angelica struggling to break free of one of the creatures
that was gripping her by the arm and trying to bite her neck. The girl was kicking him with all her might.

“Fuck!” shouted Tommy, grabbing Ellen’s gun out of her shaking hands.

At that moment Bob ran forwards barking and the weight of him knocked his master sideways. The shot from the gun flew wide. “No, Bob! Back!” Tommy commanded, reaching down to grab his collar. He glanced up as Devan shot a bullet straight through the head of the undead, whose grip loosened on Angelica. She looked up with an expression of sheer relief and thankfulness just as the thing turned and sank its teeth deep into her shoulder. The girl’s screech of pain shook the world, which folded in on itself as Joanna cried out for her sister in vain and scrambled towards her. Marla grabbed her by the arm and pulled her backwards, the high-pitched screams shattering her senses. Ellen grasped Joanna around the waist and helped her sister to drag her towards the vehicle.

Tommy
raised his gun and fired straight through the forehead of the freak this time. It collapsed in a lifeless heap. Angelica stumbled forwards, gripping her dripping shoulder with her hand. The blood pumped from the gaping wound. “Don’t leave me here,” she cried out. “Please…”

Devan looked at Tommy with an expression of ravaged regret. His face seemed to cave in on itself, and the older man could see what he was going through.
Tommy turned to see where the other girls were, but they were inside the jeep and the door was closed. The dead were still piling out of the entrance of the building, around half of the bodies in flames, and in the middle was the girl, bleeding and crying, the life as she knew it fast leaving her. In a day or so she would be one of them. He lowered his gun and glanced sideways at Devan.

Angelica sank to her knees. “Don’t leave me! Don’t let me turn into one of those things. Not like my dad, not like my mum, not like my brother...” She crumpled to
the floor and sobbed.

Devan raised the gun and fired once.

***

They drove in silence. Marla peered in the rear-view mirror at Devan. The boy looked haunted, his face turned slightly as he gazed out of the window. Ellen sat cradling Joanna, who was still crying, and Bob had his head on her leg. Marla glanced sideways at Tommy, but he was staring straight ahead, his expression unreadable. “It’s getting dark,” she said at last. “Want to find somewhere to sleep or stay in the car?”

“Don’t mind,” Ellen replied, stroking Joanna’s head slowly. “I’ll go with your decision.”

Devan nodded once, but did not peel his eyes away from the world outside.

“If we stay in the car, they won’t be able to see us because of the dark windows, but we will see them,” said Marla softly. “What do you think?”

“I don’t care,” muttered Joanna. “Angelica’s gone, so what’s the point?” she added, before bursting into tears again.

Ellen stroked her hair and
muttered, “Shush, it’s okay,” while looking up at Marla’s face in the mirror with a look of warning.

Her sister got the message and turned her attention to Tommy. “What do you think?” she whispered.

“Maybe we should find somewhere. It’s going to be too hard on the girl and we all need sleep. It’s too cramped.”

“Any suggestions where?” she asked.

***

Taking the turn-off for Kings Langley, Marla drove along the desolate and quiet streets. Litter blew here and there; a plastic bag swept up into the waiting boughs of a tree as the chill of night approached. Many of the brick houses had planks of wood nailed across their windows. At the very corner of the road was a shop and it was also boarded up at the front, but only the bottom floor. The top window was cracked open. Marla stopped the car. “This looks promising, Tommy,” she whispered. “Do you think there could be people here still?”

“Well, someone boarded it up
. I can take a look,” he offered, pushing the door open.

“No, Tommy, I’ll go,” she insisted. “
If someone is there, a guy with a gun might scare them. Maybe just keep an eye on Bob. Make sure he doesn’t bark.”

“Alright, but make sure you don’t go empty handed.”

“No worries,” she assured him with a smile.

Marla placed her gun in her bag and
slung it over her right shoulder before stepping out of the jeep. She glanced back at her reflection in the driver’s window. Dark glass was a pro and a con, she thought, feeling slightly fazed by the fact that she could not see any of the passengers. Standing with her back against the door, Marla glanced up and down the street to double-check no one was there. She spotted a dead-looker sitting slumped in a front garden, but it did not stir, so she decided to take her chances. Walking around the jeep, she stepped on to the pavement, painfully aware of every echo of her boots, and strode closer to the bay window of the shop, trying to figure out whether there was a gap between the nailed strips of wood. No such luck; the planks were set too closely together. Someone else was not taking any chances, that much was clear.

Wandering
up to the door, she pushed the letterbox open and glanced inside. The hallway was dark and she could not discern any source of light. Narrowing her eyes, she peeked up the staircase, but could only make out four steps. To the left the hallway stretched back and ended at another door. There was a rug on the floor and a table with a plant on it.
Flowers!
They had to have been watered recently. Bending down a little, she peered as far as she could to the right – yet another door, but this one ajar. Moving slightly, she strained her eyes to try to see through the gap between the door and the wall. Something moved.
A shadow.
On the fourth step a pair of boots appeared. Marla’s heart leapt into her throat and she staggered back on her bent legs. The letterbox pinged shut with a snap of metal on metal.

Recovering her balance,
Marla stared all around and down the road. The coast was clear. No one, living or dead, had heard the rap or the gasp she must have made. Straightening up, she backed away from the door, confused as to her next move. There was someone inside, but what should she do? Knock? Marla felt her bag and willed herself to remain calm. Backing away further, she gazed at the jeep. She knew she had to be braver for all of them, but who was inside the house? Would they open the door and then would it be safe? As she struggled to make a decision, it was made for her.

A woman of perhaps thirty, dressed in a
checked shirt, black jeans and boots stood holding the door open. Her curly, black hair was swept back in a ponytail. “What do you want?” she whispered.

Marla gathered her wit
s about her. “Place to sleep, please. We don’t need food or anything. Just for tonight.”

The
stranger studied her for a moment, before answering, “I almost didn’t answer, but you made me think of myself out there, all alone.”

“I’m not alone. I have my friend, my sister, and another guy and girl, and a dog. The girl just lost her sister. It’s
because of her, more than anyone, that I wanted to find a place to sleep. We saw all these houses boarded up and thought...”

“
…you’d check,” finished the woman. “I would too, probably. The house next door is mine, also boarded. We know the people in the next two houses, too, and we’ve been living off the stuff in this shop.”

“What happened to the owners?” Marla asked.

“Took off. I’m Leonie, by the way. Get your friends and you can crash, but no weapons in the house.”

Marla raised an eyebrow.

“Them’s the rules,” Leonie insisted. “Take it or leave it.”

“Alright, I’ll just tell them.”

Marla hurried quietly back to the car and slid into the driver’s side. “There’s a woman living there, aged thirty-something I’d guess. She has the house next door and says she knows the people in the next two along. Name’s Leonie. Said we can stay the night, but no weapons.”

“Really?” asked Tommy. “Right, I guess I’d probably lay down the same rule.”

“But they could be anyone,” Devan protested, speaking for the first time since the incident.

“She seems
trustable, I think. My back didn’t go up. Sure she’s fine,” Marla replied. “It’s going to be dark in about half an hour. We can keep looking or...”

“Nah, I’ll go with your gut instinct,” said Tommy.

“And I think we’re all in this together,” Ellen added. “People will just want to help each other...” She stopped talking as her thoughts turned to Angelica.

“I’ll stay in the car with my mutt,” Tommy suggested. “That way I can guard our stuf
f. And if there’s any trouble, I’ll hear it first.”

Marla frowned. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I can stretch out in the back and he’ll stay quiet with me. Also, I need to take him to do a you-know-what before it gets dark.”

“Is that in code so he doesn’t know what you mean?” asked Ellen.

Tommy smiled. It was the first remark to lighten the atmosphere. He glanced at Joanna and his heart sank. He couldn’t help wondering if he could have saved her sister if his first shot had hit home. Life was a bunch of what-ifs. Shaking his head, he glanced back at Marla.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she told him
as she got out of the car. “Oh and here’s the keys, in case.”

He smiled. “Thanks. I’ll drive down
the road a bit, so if he barks I won’t be drawing anyone near the house. If he does, they’ll get confused, I hope, as they won’t see us. Get a good night’s sleep.”

“I’ll just get some things we need out of the boot and we’ll be on our way,” she added.

Devan, his shoulders slumped, got out of the vehicle while Ellen helped Joanna out the other side. They stood apart from one another. Ellen noticed how the girl could not bring herself to look at the youth and she felt sorry for him, although she didn’t know how to voice it.

“Come on,” Marla said. “Think we have everything.”

Ellen watched Devan sling his bag over his shoulder and follow her sister, looking dejected. She wanted to say something, but second thoughts stopped her from doing so in front of Joanna.