Thirteen Roses Book One: Before: An Apocalyptic Zombie Saga (25 page)

He tightened his grip and hauled her away from the door. Krystal kept her hands where they were, the knife still gripped tight. She lifted her right hand away until the tip of the blade pressed against the back of her left hand. She moved it until it rested between her fingers and then she guided it, until it sat over what she hoped was his eye.
 

The manoeuvre seemed to take forever and throughout it he dragged her forwards, bulling his head at her and trying to push through her hands. She grimaced and pushed the penknife. She felt the moment it entered his eye and he whined, like a dog being beaten. She pushed further and hot liquid poured out and down her arms.
 

She gagged and spat, and gagged again, but kept pushing. Then he froze. She liked to think she knew the exact moment it pierced his brain, but the truth was she knew nothing except the feel of his fingers digging into her shoulders, and the hot tang of his breath that made her stomach churn.
 

She shoved him in the chest and he dropped like chopped wood, thumping to the floor. Her arms hung by her sides as she took deep breaths, chest heaving. She turned around and found the door. She turned the handle and pulled it open. She could see herself, frantically pushing at a pull door, and despite what had just happened, the blood rose to her cheeks as she blushed.
 

The light spilled into the room and she turned to look at James. It wasn't James. It had, perhaps, once been called that, but it wasn't anymore. His hair was already falling out, leaving behind a scalp that resembled cold porridge. His eyes looked like one of her friend's after a particularly bad winter. And he smelled, of meat left out in the sun for far too long.
 

She needed the knife. The handle poked from his eye socket like a flag and she screwed up her face. She needed it. She took one slow step and another until she stood over the corpse. She'd seen a few horror movies in her time, though nothing as bad as what she'd seen on the street, but she knew he wasn't going to rear up for one last attack. The way he'd stiffened when she got the blade into his brain had been as final as it gets.
 

At least she knew how to kill them. She blinked, hand hovering above his head. She knew how to kill them. What the hell was going on? When had she been able to kill anything? And what were they? She knew the answer to that. Zombies were cool. At least, they were until you were shut in a cupboard with one. Then they were just smelly.
 

She looked at her hands, wondering at the cold. The blood that caked them was cooling down and becoming sticky. She heaved and bent over, trying her hardest to keep her five cups of tea down. Once the urge to regurge was gone, she reached out again and wrapped her hand around the knife.
 

It took some tugging, but eventually it came free with a sucking noise normally reserved for freeing your boot from deep mud. That thought took her back to camping with Mum and Dad. It was an early memory, one of the few not ruined by what came after. She remembered fires and lying on the beach, and walking through woods and laughing.
 

She scrubbed her eyes with one hand and then pictured herself with blood smeared across her face. Considering the state of her hands, it probably wasn't the worst that could happen. She carried the knife with her thumb and first finger out of the room and straight across to the toilet.
 

As it clattered into the sink, the shakes set in and she grabbed the edge as her knees gave way. After a few minutes of hyperventilating on the bathroom floor, she pulled herself up and blasted the hot water on full, scrubbing her hands until they hurt.
 

The clean knife went in her back pocket and she finally looked at herself in the mirror. The blood was scrubbed off, but she looked different anyway. Older and far more scared. Fear was something that had become so common place she thought she'd conquered it. Turns out there are different kinds of fear.
 

A ball coalesced in her stomach, heavy and painful as another type of fear she'd never had assailed her. Where was Ed? She ran to the lift and hammered the button. Had he switched the lifts off as well? There were like, a million stairs in this place. She stopped hammering and let out a long breath once she heard the whirr that signalled the lift's approach, and listened. The building was eerily quiet. No air con, no hum of lights, no voices.
 

The ride up was long and fidgety, and she kept touching the knife in her pocket and remembering the sound as it came out of the zombie's eye. She'd done plenty she wasn't proud of in the last three years, and few things she was. She'd had to defend herself a bunch of times, and sometimes she'd succeeded. Other times she'd ended up bruised and bloody and penniless, but that was how it worked.
 

But she'd never used the knife. It had been there, but any time she'd been tempted to reach for it, she'd imagined the person she was fighting having something far larger stashed away, and the moment she brought it out, they had an excuse. Now she'd not only used it, but she'd killed someone she'd been chatting to only a few minutes earlier.
 

Her shoulders hunched and she wondered whether she shouldn't have just stayed in the bathroom. Then the doors slid open and she groaned. Across the room she saw Ed, backed against the window, hands before him like they'd make any difference. The floor was covered in corpses, stiff and cold like James. The air con hadn't made any difference.
 

She dashed across, weaving between the bodies and grabbed him by the shoulder. He flinched and shoved her away.
 

'They just all fell over. One minute she was talking about her son and the next she just fell over. They're so cold.'

'Yeah, not for long. C'mon.'

Ed finally looked at her through eyes that struggled to remain still, flicking this way and that.
 

'What do you mean?'

'They'll wake up soon.'

The little amount of blood that had managed to remain in his face fled and he took her outstretched hand. 'Where have you been?'

'Went to turn off the air con. Getting a bit cold in here.'

'How do you know how to do that?'

'I don't. Took James with me.'

'Where's James? Who's James?'

'James is a zombie. Well, he was. Now he's down an eye on the floor of the electrics office.'

Ed's eyes settled on her, brow creasing. 'I don't get it.'

'Tell you later, c'mon.'

She was trying to keep her voice calm and quiet. She'd seen the ambulance people do it when they came to take someone away. They always talked to her and anyone else around, always with the same questions.
 

'Did they have anyone, anyone we should call? Did you know they were struggling?'

And she'd always notice the calm quiet voices and somehow she'd answer the questions with a straight face, like they weren't the stupidest questions in the world. She was using that voice now talking to Ed, and he was responding just like she'd always done.
 

'Yeah, 'course.'

He let her lead him across the room, weaving between the bodies. They could wake up. At any moment she could put her foot down and feel a hand around her ankle. She had to stop herself running across the room, if only so Ed didn't lose the plot entirely. She kept seeing things from the corners of her eyes, movement that made her jerk to one side, only to see nothing but corpses.
 

They reached the lift without Ed freaking out further at the presence of lots of dead bodies, and stepped in. They both sighed and she pressed the button. The doors were most of the way closed when an arm slipped through. Ed screamed and threw himself back, banging off the opposite wall. She grinned, waiting for the door to close and snap off the offending limb.
 

Instead, they pinged and reopened, and she stared at the faces of those with whom they'd shared their day, every one staring at her with sunken eyes and bared teeth.
 

Alex - Friday: 6 Days to Plague Day

They stood before St Paul's, buffeted this way and that by eager tourists and business men with their heads down and game faces on. London felt overwhelming after the peace of Yorkshire. Everywhere felt overwhelming at the moment. Even the train had been stressful.
 

Luke had dragged him out of bed and dumped him on the floor late yesterday afternoon. Following a brief announcement that they were on their way back to London, he vanished to book tickets, leaving Alex to wake up and get ready to leave. He wasn't ready to go anywhere. He still only half-believed he had hands, and every time he used them they jarred and felt alien.

The sun was out, returned after a weekend away, and he rocked his head back to soak up the rays. He kept going back in his mind to that moment on the train when he'd seen his stumps. Not knowing why they were like that was almost worse than seeing it happen. The complete lack of mental preparation had caught him like a punch in the stomach, and he was still struggling to draw breath two days later.
 

He wondered if this was how you felt when someone you loved got killed, in a road accident or something. The shock of it impacting as much as the event itself. His entire world had spun away, like nothing mattered anymore, and realising his hands meant that much to him only made him extra paranoid. He didn't want to use them in case something happened.
 

Luke had done it to keep him in line and on the train, but he'd done so much more than that. Alex glanced to his left. Did he know what he'd done? Would he care if he did? The man, or whatever he was, was a conundrum. He was evil, if such a thing existed, yet he was striving to save the world. The two things didn't gel, in any way.
 

And Luke didn't quite gel either. Most of the time he was this grinning man who delighted in screwing with other people. But every now and then Alex caught him looking pensive, or being polite and nice when he didn't need to be, and he couldn't help wondering which of the two Lukes was nearer the truth.

Now, though, his face showed only the evil Luke. His teeth were clamped together, the pressure pulling the skin on his face tight and showing off the pulsing vein in his temple. He hadn't said much about why they were here, only that it was one of his own kind who was after him. Apparently, it wasn't very surprising.
 

Alex was happy to stay clear of what was going on. Given the choice he'd be far away. He still hadn't managed to contact Lisa and he was sure she'd think he'd run away. Threatened with a baby and done a runner. Maybe she'd visited the lab and found it empty. Or maybe she'd given up on him. He couldn't blame her, not with how little he'd been around recently.
 

'Have you got any money?'

'Huh, what?'

Luke gave him a look. 'I said, have you got any money?'

'Uh, not on me, but in the bank I guess.'

'Get some, please. We need two tickets for St Paul's and they're tight bastards in there. And I need something to eat as well.'

'Why do you need it now? How did you pay for our train tickets and everything?'

'I have outstanding skills of persuasion. But one doesn't fleece the church, not unless you want a whole world of trouble. Don't get me wrong, it's tempting to thumb my nose at him, but it's not going to get me back home any quicker.'

'Where's home?'

'Money, now.'

With a sniff, Alex walked across to the cashpoint in front of the supermarket and took out a hundred pounds. There was no doubt he wasn't getting it back, but he didn't think saying that to Luke would make much of a difference.
 

A few minutes later they strolled into the cavernous confines of St Paul's Cathedral. He'd never been in here. It was one of those London landmarks that had vaguely appealed but was never worth the cost. It was, in truth, pretty impressive. The floor was a wonderful pattern of black and white, like a chess board that had gone out of control. The columns were huge and majestic and covered in stunning carvings. The ceiling seemed ridiculously far away and his neck ached within five minutes of being inside.
 

He tried to relax and enjoy the place, but Luke fidgeted like a bored school boy and it ruined any enjoyment he might have got from the experience.
 

In fact, Luke wasn't just fidgeting, he looked really uncomfortable. He kept scratching parts of himself and looking this way and that. Alex heaved a sigh and grabbed his arm.
 

'What is it?'

'He can see me here. I just don't like being watched, that's all.'

'Who can see you?'

'Who do you think?'

Alex chuckled and shook his head. Luke was many strange and amazing things, but the part of the story that was clearly not true, was the part where he was an angel. That was like saying God sent him here to do holy works. Next he'd be claiming the Bible was true.
 

Alex snorted and made his way beneath the massive dome, peering up with his mouth open. He tended to dismiss religion wherever possible, but there was no denying they built great buildings. Luke came past him fast and put his hand around his arm. He tugged him towards the back of the church.
 

It was pleasantly quiet and soon they found a darkened corner in the North Transept with no one in sight. Luke stopped and squared him up so he faced the brick wall.
 

'What do you see?'

'A wall. Maybe some scratched graffiti, although I'm sure that couldn't be there, not if God's watching.'

Luke smiled, a rare genuine grin that made Alex itchy.

'You really don't believe at all, do you?'

'There's just so many reasons to think it's all a crock. It's about control, always has been. Why expect your peasants to be scared of you? It's far more convincing to create something for them to be scared of, something that happens after they die. You don't have to prove anything and you get obedience without all the pesky hangings and executions.'