The Zombie Saga (Book 2): Burn The Dead (Purge) (14 page)

There’re too many of them.
I can’t risk them seeing me going into the house; they’ll storm the place, draw
attention to it, and then there’ll be an army of Necs at the door. “Shit. Shit.
Shit!
” I say under my breath. I’ll have to wait it out.

But Josh doesn’t have
time
to wait!

A minute or so goes by and
I watch with dismay as even more Necs join the pack. I count fifteen in total.
Too many to take on with the spade. Maybe I should try the lane again—it could
be clear by now.

Just as I’m about to
retreat up the road, I hear an ear-piercing whistle coming from the bottom of
the street. I turn my head and gasp in shock. Standing about thirty metres from
the Necs is Amelia.

Where the hell did she
come from?

“Come on, you rotten
fuckers!” She screams at the top of her voice, gesturing with her hands for
them to follow. “Come and get me!”

What the fuck is she
doing? Is she nuts?

Without hesitation, the
Necs start to charge down the hill toward her, snarling like starved animals.
Within seconds, the front door is clear. I race to it, spade in one hand, key
in the other.
Please, God, let her be okay
. When I’m safely inside the
house, I quickly close the door and lock it, and then race into the kitchen.
Josh is sitting at the table, holding up a bandaged hand; the colour drained
from his cheeks.

“Did you get it?” he asks,
groggily. “Did you get the antiviral?”

“Yes. I got it.”

“And did you see Amelia?
Is she safe?”

“She’ll be fine, Josh.
Don’t worry.”

I sit next to him and pull
the bandage up a little to inspect the bite. There’s a mixture of dried blood
around the teeth marks. The veins in Josh’s hand have started to turn black.
Not
a good sign
. I roll his sleeve up all the way to his shoulder. Pulling out
the injection gun from my vest, I clip the antiviral bottle onto the top. Can’t
quite believe I’m about to give a nine-year-old boy an injection. What if I
miss? Hit a nerve, or an artery or something?

That’s the least of my
worries!

“Is it gonna hurt?” he
asks, looking up at me, his eyes vast with dread.

I shake my head. “Only a
little sting. Nothing to worry about. And it’ll be over in a second.”

He nods his head and
closes his eyes tightly.

Trying to keep my
quivering hand from shaking, I stick the tiny needle into the flesh of his
upper arm, and then push the white trigger. Trying to ignore the sobs coming
from Josh’s mouth, I focus on the liquid quickly disappearing from the bottle.
I carefully pull out the needle and put the gun on the table. “Well done,
buddy. All over.”

Josh opens his eyes, wipes
the tears away and sniffs hard. “That hurt a lot, Cath.”

“I’m sorry. But it’s
finished now.”

“Will you still have to
cut my hand off?”

“No, of course not. We’ll
just have to wait a little to see if it’s worked.”

“But what if it doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll cross that
bridge when we come to it. All right?”

“Okay.”

“Good boy.”

Getting up off the chair,
I make my way over to the sink and pour two glasses of water. Still exhausted,
I swallow it in one, and then return to the table and give Josh the other. He
takes a sip and starts to unroll his sleeve.

“How are you feeling,
buddy?” I ask, placing my palm over his forehead to feel for a temperature.
“Any fever?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re not burning
up, so that’s a good sign.

“When’s Amelia coming
back?”

“I’m sure she won’t be
long,” I reply, trying desperately to conceal the worry I feel swirling around
my stomach. “She’ll be fine.”

Will she?
I don’t know. Maybe. She’s pretty strong. And
clever. Plus, she probably knows these streets better than most.

“She told me to keep an
eye out for you in the kitchen,” he continues, “while she looked from my
bedroom window.”

“What, she went upstairs
on her own? After what happened earlier?”

He nods.

“
Bloody hell
, your
sister’s something else.”

“She’s not scared of
anything.”

“I don’t doubt it. She’s
pretty brave. Much braver than me.”

“And me.”

“Oh, I don’t know about
that. You’ve been through a lot tonight, too. How’s your hand?”

“It stings. But it’s not
that bad. It’s not as bad as when I sprained my wrist.”

“Oh, that sounds painful,”
I say, eyes fixed on the blackened veins, waiting,
praying
for them to
disappear. “How did you manage that then?”

“I fell.”

“Really. From where?”

“At school. One of the
boys from my class pushed me down the stairs by the corridor.”

“That’s awful. Why did he
do that?”

“Because he’s a bully—and
bullies don’t like foster kids. They used to call me a scrubber and they’d kick
me under the table at lunchtime. They’re horrible.”

“So what happened to the
bully? Did you tell the teacher?”

“No. I couldn’t. He said
he’d kill my sister if I told my teacher or my foster parents. And then I’d
have nobody left to look after me.”

“He sounds like a rotten
little boy. So what happened then?”

“Nothing. He said sorry to
me a few days later.”

“Really! How come?”

“Well, he didn’t say
anything about not telling Amelia. So she went down to where he lives, which is
not that far from here, and punched him in the nose. She told him that if he
ever touched me again she’d kill
his
parents instead. And then he’d be a
foster kid, too.”

I can’t help but laugh.
Even with everything that’s going on. “Well, as much as I don’t condone
violence,” I lean into him and whisper, “it sounds like the little
shit
deserved it.”

“Definitely.”

Josh
has been sleeping for the past fifteen minutes. I wish I could take him up to
his bed, but Michael’s twitching remains are still up there. Instead, I’ve
pushed two kitchen chairs together, and thrown a coat over him to keep him
warm.

Why is he sleeping?

Hard to tell if it’s the
antiviral taking effect.

Or the virus.

I pray it’s the former as
I watch the back door for Amelia to return. It’s already been too long. Where
the hell is she? I feel the need to look for her but can’t possibly leave Josh
alone.

Shouldn’t have left
Michael up there on the landing. Maybe I’ll drag what’s left of him into one of
the other rooms. Josh’ll be okay on his own for a few minutes.

I put my palm softly on
his forehead; there’s no fever. That’s something at least.

“Amelia?” Josh croakily
asks, his eyes half-open.

“Try to sleep,” I whisper.
“She’ll be home soon enough. I’m sure of it.”

“Why hasn’t she come back
yet?”

“She’s probably waiting
for the right moment.”

“Why?”

I shush him like a baby,
stroking the top of his head. “Try not to worry; she’s a clever girl.”

He closes his eyes. I
watch him for a minute or two until I’m certain he’s fallen back to sleep.
Quietly getting up off my chair, I make my way out of the kitchen and into the
hallway. As I pass the living room door, I glance inside at the empty room,
once host to their foster parents. I notice the lock; it’s broken completely
off, taking with it some of the doorframe. Visions of Juliet in the bedroom,
biting Josh’s hand, flood my mind. I see myself sticking the knife into her
eye; it sends a cold quiver of repulse through me.

What’s to stop her
breaking out again?

She’s clearly more than
capable.

No, she isn’t.
She probably had Michael’s help the first time.
There’s no way she could have done that on her own.

Could she?

I climb the stairs and
reach the landing. My heart shudders when I see Michael’s remains, still
convulsing, nails scratching at the carpet. I try not to look at his face—
what’s
left of it.
It’s too much, even after everything that’s happened today.
Without a second thought, I pull out two cable-ties from my vest, and secure
his limbs. I don’t bother with the muzzle; he no longer has a mouth. I drag his
moving corpse into Amelia’s bedroom. There are
worse
places to leave a
Nec—but not many.

I close the door and
return to the landing.

“
Shit
,” I mutter
when I hear the back door slamming shut. “Josh! Wait! Don’t go out there!”

I race down the stairs,
towards the kitchen, my stomach churning at the thought of him outside
alone—injured.

Sick.

Turned?

“Josh!” I shout as I burst
into the kitchen.

“She’s home!” Josh says,
hugging his sister tightly as she catches her breath. “She made it! She’s
safe!”

I gasp with relief.

Just to see her face
again, in one piece, makes me almost want to cry my heart out. But I don’t,
instead I go to her, take her by the hand and bring it up to my chest. “Thank
God you’re safe.”

Still struggling to
breathe, Amelia sits down at the table.

I quickly fill up a glass
of water and hand it to her. “I don’t know if you’re crazy, stupid, or
brave—but what you did out there was beyond belief.”

“Thanks,” she manages to
say between gulps of water.

“That’s not a compliment,”
I reply, shaking my head. “You could’ve been killed. What the hell were you
thinking? You’re just a kid.”

“This
kid
was busy
trying to save my brother’s life.
And yours
. If I hadn’t distracted
those Necs, you would have never got back in one piece.”

“But what if they’d caught
you?”

“But they didn’t. They
were pretty slow. Most of them anyway.”

I go quiet for a moment,
unable to think of anything worthwhile to add.

“Look,” Amelia continues.
“I don’t care about how stupid I was; all I care about is my brother.” She
reaches over and takes hold of Josh’s wounded hand. “Did you get the
antiviral?” She peels back the bandage.

“Careful, Amelia,” Josh
says, pulling his hand away. “It still hurts.”

“We need to see it,” I tell
him. “Otherwise we won’t know if the medicine worked.”

Josh slowly begins to
unravel the blood-soaked bandage, revealing the bite mark.

“Is it better?” Josh asks,
a slight whimper in his voice. “Am I gonna turn into one of those things
outside?”

A huge smile of relief
covers my face when I see that the blackened veins have vanished. “I think
you’re going to be fine,” I reply. “You haven’t been sick, and you don’t have a
fever. It looks like it worked.”

Amelia grabs his arm,
pulling his hand up to her face. “Let me see.” Instead of smiling, she lets out
a drawn-out groan. “Oh thank God,” she says, pulling him in for a hug. “Don’t
scare me like that again. Okay?”

“Okay, sis. I promise.”

I watch them for a moment,
letting their love for each other take me away from this nightmare. I almost
want to cry.

But I’ve cried enough
today.

I pull up a chair next to
her. “So what happened out there? You were gone for so long. Josh has been
worried sick. We both were.”

“Well,” she takes another
sip of water, “after they chased me down the street, I hid behind a car, and
then when they’d passed me, I made my way back up the lane. But the middle of
the lane was packed with Necs, ten, maybe fifteen, so I had to wait in one of
the gardens. I stayed in a shed until the coast was clear.”

“That sounds pretty
horrible,” Josh says. “So they didn’t bite you then?”

Amelia snorts. “What, me?
As if. They’d have to catch me first.”

“Jesus Christ,” I say.
“And I thought
I
was a hard ass.”

“Foster kids have to be
tough. Isn’t that right, bro? We don’t take crap from anyone.”

Josh nods proudly.

“So are you sure you
managed to give those Necs the slip?” I ask.

“Yeah. Of course. They
were easy. Dumb as cows. I just climbed over—”

Suddenly the glass panel
of the back door shatters, spraying shards all over the kitchen floor.

“Oh, shit!” I scream as I
watch a pack of Necs scramble through the opening, foaming dripping from their
ravenous jaws.

“
Ruuuuuuuun!
”

The
house is alive with growls of the dead.

Inside the hallway, I
barge open the kitchen door and hold it shut, the weight of multiple Necs
scratching and pushing behind it.

“What are we going to do?”
Amelia screams; Josh is holding onto her arm, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“There’s too many of them!”

“We need to get out of
this house,” I say, with no time to weigh up a real plan. “Open the front door,
Amelia.”

Eyes wide with terror, she
slowly pulls it open, but then is jolted backwards, taking her brother with
her, as a dead-man tries to enter the house. I have no choice but to let go of
the kitchen door and race over to help. I push the front door shut, trapping
the Nec half inside. “Get upstairs!” I scream. “Now!”

The hallway starts to fill
with a small army of Necs from the kitchen. I release the front door and then
bolt up the stairs.

On the landing, I see
Amelia holding a long wooden stick with a hook on the end, trying to reach the
attic hatch on the ceiling. “Leave it!” I shout. “There’s no time!”

“No! It’s the safest
place! Just keep them back!”

With no time to argue, I start
to kick out at the Necs climbing the stairs, using the banister and opposite
wall for support. “Hurry up!”

“Nearly got it.”

One of my kicks misses a
female’s face, so I grab both her wrists and push her hard. She plummets down
the stairs, taking three other rotters with her. I hear the sound of the attic
hatch opening. Turning, I see a thin metal ladder materialise on the landing.

“Come on, Cath!” Amelia
calls out as they race up into the ceiling. I follow closely behind. Halfway
up, I feel the grip of a Nec on my ankle. I kick out wildly, managing to free
my leg. But more and more are coming up the staircase, filling the landing. I
race into the darkness of the attic and try to pull up the ladder, but the heft
of bodies from below is too much.

“Pull it up!” Amelia
shouts from behind me.

“I can’t!” I reply as I
drive a boot into a female Nec as she tries to climb. “There’s too many of
them!”

“Throw something at them!”
Josh yells.

Reaching blindly to my
side, I feel a large box. It’s heavy, so I drag it along the floor until it
drops down the ladder, hitting the Nec in the face, splitting her nose like a
piece of wood. Amelia slides a second box towards me, and I push it off. It
slams into the chest of a Nec, propelling him off the ladder and into another
rotter. With the ladder clear of bodies, I start to retract it fast. I struggle
past the clutches from reaching Necs, but only for a moment. And then the
groans become muffled sounds when the ladder is up, and the hatch clicks shut.

And then complete and
utter darkness.

Body trembling, still in a
state of shock, I breathe heavily through my nostrils, waiting,
praying
for some great escape plan to suddenly appear.

“Where’s the light
switch?” I hear Josh whisper.

“I don’t know,” Amelia
answers. “There should be a pull-string somewhere.”

I reach about in the
blackness until I feel a thin string hanging just in front of me. I pull it and
the attic lights up. I scan my surroundings quickly, looking to see if the
floor is safe to walk on. It’s not. There are various sized boxes, filled with
board games, toys, Christmas decorations, and other neglected junk, some
rolled-up insulation wool, and a wedding dress, hanging from a ceiling hook,
covered in a thin, protective plastic. “Stay on the wooden beams, kids,” I
whisper. “Or you’ll fall through the floor. It’s not safe up here.”

Josh nods as he puts his
legs completely onto a thick beam. “What do we do now?”

“We wait,” I tell him.

“For what?”

“For help to come.”

Amelia crawls along the
beam to her brother. “There’s no help coming. It’s just us—and them.”

“Stop it, Amelia,” I
whisper loudly. “Help
is
coming. We just have to be patient. Those Necs
will leave when they’re hungry enough.”

“But they know we’re up
here,” Josh says. “They’ll wait for us.”

“They’ll soon forget,” I
reply. “As long as we stay quiet.”

“You promise?”

“I promise, buddy. We’ll
be all right up here. Safest place in the house. Your sister saved us again.”

“I didn’t save anyone,”
Amelia says, coldly, her eyes down on her brother’s injured hand. “I brought
them here, to the house. They followed me.”

“Don’t be silly,” I reply.
“None of this is anyone’s fault. We’re all just stuck in the middle of a
nightmare, and we need each other to get through it. So I don’t want to hear
about any blaming. Okay?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Okay?” I repeat—firmer
this time—but still whispering.

After a few seconds, she
looks up at me and nods. “Okay.”

“
Good
. Now let’s
just stay together and we’ll be all right.”

“Amelia, you left the hook
on the landing,” Josh points out, his tone filled with worry. “What if they use
it to get the ladder down?”

“Don’t worry, bro,” she
replies. “They may be fast, but they ain’t smart. Well, not
that
smart.”

Josh nods, grasping his
sister’s arm tightly, the fear engraved in his eyes—eyes that have seen way too
much horror for a lifetime, let alone a day.

There is a small hole by
the hatch. I peer through it and look down onto the landing. The entire floor
and stairs are teeming with the dead, some just wandering around aimlessly,
while others stare up at the hatch with confused, bitter expressions. And it’s
only going to get worse with the front and back doors exposed. There’s no way
we’re getting out of here anytime soon. We’ll have to just sleep up here, for
days if that’s what it takes. Hopefully it won’t get too cold.

I look around the attic
for something soft for us to lie on.
Maybe an old sleeping bag, or a sack of
clothes.
I stand up on the beam, holding onto the roof for balance, and
then make my way over to the largest box I can see.

“Where are you going?”
Josh asks.

“I’m just looking for
something to sit on. These wooden beams are uncomfortable. We may be up here a
while.”

“Why don’t you use the
wedding dress?” he suggests, pointing over to it.

“Good idea, Josh.”

“Can I help?”

“No, it’s all right,
buddy. Just stay close to your sister. We can’t have too much movement up here;
it might agitate them.”

“Okay, Cath.”

 Reaching the dress, I
tear off the dusty, plastic cover and stare at the stunning white gown for a
moment, unable to see anyone other than the infected-version of Juliet wearing
it. Should I leave it here? Out of respect?

Don’t be so stupid.

She’s dead. She doesn’t
need it. Her foster kids are more important.

I unhook the dress and
drag it over to him. I lay it over a beam. “Here, Josh. It’s not ideal but it’s
better than nothing.”

“Thanks, Cath,” he says as
he climbs onto it. “It’s comfortable.”

“
Great
,” I reply.
“I’ll find you something too, Amelia.”

“Don’t worry about me,”
she says. “I don’t need anything. I’ll be fine.”

“But we don’t know how
long we’ll be up here. It might get cold.”

“I’ll be all right. Don’t
fret.”

She’s a stubborn little
girl—I’ll give her that.
“Okay,
but if it gets cold—”

“Then I’ll tell you.”

I hate being up here. I
know it’s the only place they can’t get to, but I just feel so trapped. I
despise the thought of not having an escape route. I mean, what if they never
stop coming? What if they quarantine the whole of Crandale—permanently? What
then? We’ll starve to death. No, we’ll die of thirst before that. We’ll be able
to go without food for months. Or is it weeks? And what about Josh? How long
will
he
last without food or water? I can’t bear the idea of him
withering away in front of me. And what about Amelia? Despite everything she’s
capable of, everything she’s been through, she’s still just a kid.

Oh God, please let them
be all right. Don’t let them die up here.

Shut up, Cath!

They won’t die! Not with
me watching over them. Experience or not, I’ve kept them safe this far—so I’ll
be
damned
if I’m gonna fail now.

Palms behind my head, I
lie back on the beam. It’s wide enough to balance my weight, and it doesn’t
hurt. At least not at the moment. I’m sure it’ll hurt like hell soon enough.