The Undead Day Twenty (11 page)

‘We’re not going to the fort,’ a hard tone and blunt words. Paula looks up to see that emotion and meaning are now gone from Heather as she addresses the group with Paco standing very tall behind her.

‘It’s only twenty miles from here…’

Heather shakes her head. Making her intentions clear. ‘No.’

‘May I ask why?’ Paula asks.

‘They’ll hurt Paco. I won’t risk that. If they see him they won’t understand…’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Howie says, cutting across her. ‘I don’t think you understand. See that man? That’s Nick. His girlfriend runs the fort. We run the fort. It’s our fort…’

Six

‘Just a few minutes,’ she tells him. He looks down at her hand on his arm, his eyes expressive. ‘I mean they seem nice enough,’ she adds, speaking low and quiet. ‘What do you think?’

Paco does not reply. The equilibrium in his head is back to where it should be. Heather is awake, talking, smiling and touching his arm. The infection inside was like a pendulum swinging back and forth. It suppressed his memories of the dog and his life before while something inside of him suppressed the need to bite and pass the infection.

He is not what he was before he was bitten. He is not what he was when he woke in the true state of being. He does not know what he is. He does not think to know what he is. He has Heather. Heather is safe. That’s all that matters.

She fingers the shreds of her top and looks down at the remaining strips of her trousers. They cut her clothes off. She’s been washed too. So many bites on her skin. She remembers it happening. The teeth sinking into her shoulder and knowing she had about two minutes before she went down. Except she didn’t go down. She stayed fighting and took more punishment than anyone had a right to take. She thinks back to the days since meeting Paco and the times she watched him taking down dozens of the infected at a time just with his bare hands. Ripping them apart, stomping on heads and breaking necks with that trademark film thing he does. Paco was bitten and raked open in nearly every fight. He was cut, bruised, hit, struck, kicked but never once reacted to any sense of pain.

‘I don’t hurt,’ she tells him, speaking her mind in the way she has come to do with him. ‘Tender but…’ she frowns and pokes a bite mark on her stomach. She should be in agony but instead it’s just a bit sore. She pokes another one, then spots a cut made by a dirty jagged fingernail and pokes that too. She pokes more, pressing and digging the tips of her fingers in until his hand reaches across to stop her. She blinks up at him, surprised at his action. The world is nuts. Everything is crazy. She saved six children and ran all day yesterday and has fought a running battle all night. She was exhausted to the point of passing out a little while ago. Now she feels okay, a bit tired but nothing like she should. She shrugs and pulls a face at him. ‘Did you give me zombie?’ She looks ahead to the group of people in front of her. ‘Did Paco give me his zombie thing?’ She asks, her tone instantly changing from the softness she uses for him to the general blunt expression of her hatred for humanity used when addressing any other human being.

‘Er…’ Paula hesitates, looking back while walking on.

‘We don’t know how it works,’ Howie says without turning. ‘Hopefully Reggie might figure it out.’

‘Reggie?’

‘One of our team,’ Howie says.

Team? Heather doesn’t like the sound of that word. It implies people working together. It implies teamwork and sharing things with other people. She doesn’t like other people. People are bad. They ask stupid questions that make her feel uncomfortable. She survived for days hiding in a church when it first happened. Not from any religious beliefs but because it was isolated and had thick walls and miles of open flat land round it. She simply got bored in the end and went looking for supplies which is when she met Paco, or rather, when Paco chased her and tried to eat her. He didn’t eat her.

She looks up at him, remembering when he didn’t eat her. Team sounds bad. Get some clothes and they can go somewhere else. Walk and find a nice barn to stay in. Just her and Paco.

She heard about Mr Howie and Dave a few days ago. She heard they had a fort and were fighting back. She even saw them at different times. The world had suddenly grown very small and it appeared all lives were crossing paths or some other weird shit was going on. She saw Clarence going nuts when the Saxon broke down about two weeks after the outbreak started. She and Paco were hiding in a building nearby. She saw the Saxon and a blue armoured van driving through another town after the bad storm that made everywhere flooded. She felt something then. A sensation at seeing them and hearing their names. She felt a pull to them. An instinct that her own kind were fighting back and she should be doing something to help. That was offset by her own deep wariness of other people. She even watched the battle against the ten thousand while keeping the children hidden. She saw so few go against so many and felt the rage inside when they charged out in response to the little girl screaming in torture. Paco felt it too. They both did.

Now they are walking behind them and her instinct to be away and on her own is proving the stronger of the two. Get clothes and get away. That’s the new plan.

Blowers walks on. He wants to turn and check but the woman is pretty much down to her underwear so he can’t. He doesn’t like someone having a loaded gun walking behind them. One pull of the trigger could kill the boss. He looks across to Dave, seeing the small man’s hand is resting on the top of his pistol while his head is cocked as though listening intently. Clarence is walking behind Howie too. Using his bulk to break the line of fire.

They walk in silence. He looks at the back doors ahead, then along the building line noting the ground floor windows are all boarded up. He checks the sides and any possible points of danger. Hopefully they can go back to the fort and ditch Maddox. Get some coffee, get cleaned up and see what the elders want to do next. That’s the hierarchy in his head and it’s fine with him. Whatever they have between them works. They’ve fought battles they had no right to walk away from so he doesn’t question it now but focusses on his role and his team to keep the cogs of the machine working.

‘We’ll go ahead,’ he motions to Nick and Cookey. The three of them speed up as Maddox appears in the doorway.

‘What are you doing? I said to stay out the front…’

‘You told Mo and Blinky to remain at the front. I was checking the back.’

‘Prick,’ Cookey mutters under his breath, walking past Maddox into the room.

‘You found him then.’

‘Get fucked,’ Nick says, passing on his other side.

‘Is that Heather?’ Maddox asks, ignoring Nick.

‘Back out the front.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I said so and that’s the point of danger…’

‘They’ve got radios if anything happens.’

‘Listen you fucking…’

‘Clear?’ Howie asks, walking into the room with a look at the pair of them.

‘Clear,’ Maddox replies quickly. ‘But they don’t want to leave here.’

‘Can’t make them,’ Howie says, moving aside to let the others in.

‘We can’t just leave them here,’ Paula says, hearing the conversation.

‘I tried talking to them,’ Maddox says.

‘You and Marcy have a go,’ Howie tells Paula, glancing at Paco in the doorway with Heather standing behind him. ‘You two want to get cleaned up here?’

Paco looks at Howie then at Clarence, at Paula, Marcy, back to Howie then to Maddox who he stares at for several long seconds before going back to Howie.

‘Er…Heather?’ Howie says at the lack of verbal response. ‘You want to get cleaned up here?’

‘We’re not going with you,’ Heather says, leaning Paco round to look at Howie.

‘We said down there,’ Howie says, motioning with his head to the grounds behind her.

‘I said I’d talk to you for a few minutes.’

‘We can talk at the fort. It’s like twenty miles from here.’

‘We can talk here just fine.’

‘Okay,’ Paula says, stepping in diplomatically. ‘Heather? Want to come with me? We’ll have a look for clothes.’

‘I’m staying with Paco,’ Heather says, her tone blunt and hard. Paula goes to reply as Marcy lifts a hand and peers round Paco.

‘Nothing bad will happen.’

‘I said…’

‘Heather, Subi told us to come and find you. We’ve done that. We killed them to get in here. We’ve got the house secure now…you need to get cleaned up.’

‘It’s only upstairs,’ Paula says.

‘I think the old woman is making coffee,’ Maddox adds, detecting the fear in the woman and trying to help.

‘Just a few minutes,’ Marcy says, watching Heather’s reaction and the look of panic on the woman’s face. ‘Hey, it’s okay…what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. We’re going. We have to go…’

‘Go where?’

‘We just have to go.’

‘Okay, that’s cool,’ Marcy says easily, ‘it’s fine, you can go when you want.’

‘We will,’ Heather says, feeling the pressure of too many people being near her. Too many eyes facing her direction. Too many questioning looks. They’ll ask things. They’ll want to know who she is. She can’t handle that. She can’t be in crowds or with people. Paco stiffens in response to her tone behind him. His head lifting an inch. His eyes growing hard.

‘Easy,’ Clarence rumbles, looking at Paco. ‘No threat here…’

‘Paco, it’s fine,’ Heather says, rubbing his blood stained arm. He’s covered in blood from the fighting last night and probably her blood too. She can’t remember when they last had food or water either. She was looking for these people but now she’s found them she can’t deal with it. She has to deal with it. Too many questions form in her mind. Her fear of crowds and people making the thoughts confused and jumbled. This is what happens when people ask questions. She gets panicked and feels like she’s backed into a corner.

‘You fought last night?’ Howie asks, his tone low and easy.

Heather nods, then realises he can’t see her nod. ‘Yes.’

‘How many did you kill?’

She shrugs then winces at herself, hating her own stupidity. ‘Few.’

‘We found the hedge you went through…by the stables. It was more than a few.’

‘Then why ask?’ she says bluntly while looking at Paco’s back and wishing the beautiful woman would stop staring at her. Her hand on his arm, feeling the hairs and picking at a dried patch of blood without realising it. ‘They came all night,’ she finally says.

‘You did well,’ Howie says, staring down at the ground. ‘Just you two against so many.’

She frowns. That wasn’t a question but a statement and he left it hanging like she should respond. ‘We…I had a shotgun but…’

‘It broke. We found it,’ Howie says. ‘So you saw us…that day in the square, that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘You heard the girl screaming?’

‘Yeah,’ she says, her voice low and hoarse.

‘Mr Howie?’

‘In here, Reggie,’ Howie calls out.

Heather peers round to see a small man wearing glasses holding a bag clutched to his chest rushing into the room.

‘Did you find them? Ah yes, yes indeed’ Reginald says, spotting Paco in the doorway. ‘The woman? Is she not with him?’

‘Behind him,’ Howie says.

‘She’s half naked,’ Marcy adds.

‘Half naked? Whatever for? I say, hello? Can you hear me? Ah yes, yes there you are. I’m Reginald…’

‘Heather,’ Heather says.

‘Good gracious you are half naked, oh my…well indeed, yes you should get changed. Indeed you should…Hello? You must be Paco…’

‘He doesn’t speak,’ Howie says.

‘Right, gosh…no speaking.’ Reginald says, his curiosity once again overcoming his fears as he walks to stand close and peer up at the famous man. ‘Hmmm, very interesting. Yes indeed. Red eyes. I say, they are still very red…have they reduced in the redness at all?’

‘A bit,’ Heather says, watching the small man.

‘Yes,’ Reginald says slowly, staring hard. ‘Your injuries are healing aren’t they…of course it an assumption on my part that the neck is where Meredith took him. Am I correct in thinking that?’

‘The dog bit his throat,’ Howie says, scratching his head. ‘Is that what you asked?’

‘Indeed it was,’ Reginald says, still staring up at Paco. ‘Is he strong?’

‘Very.’

‘Indeed. Yes. Fast too?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me about his cognitive function…’

‘He’s getting better.’

‘In more detail please. Can he speak at all?’ Reginald asks, his eyes fixed on Paco.

‘Reggie, let them get a drink and get cleaned up first,’ Paula says.

‘Ah yes, of course. Do forgive me…and you? Are your eyes red at all?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t see them.’

‘They’re not,’ Marcy says.

‘Not red,’ Reginald says, nodding slowly deep in thought. ‘Indeed, yes…one more question. Do tell me, Heather. How many attacked you last night?’

She winces, pressing closer into Paco’s back. Everyone is listening. They’re asking her questions. She can’t handle it but the question he asked is important. ‘I don’t know…they kept coming all night.’

‘Hmmm, difficult to assess,’ Reginald says. ‘But if you had to put a number?’

She thinks back to night. A series of memories that flash through her mind.

‘Over fifty…’ she says, remembering the number of shotgun shells in the box she took from the house they found. Instant grief hits. One of the children died at that house. Shot by the man inside who panicked when he saw Paco. ‘I had fifty shotgun things…’

‘Cartridges?’ Howie asks in surprise. ‘You had fifty? You shot fifty of them?’