Zom-B Gladiator (5 page)

‘Life was wonderful when we were alive,’ the doc continues. ‘We could love, procreate,
bond. The downside was that we could be hurt too. But we endured the pain because the joy was so intense.

‘I won’t pretend that nothing has changed. We cannot love the way we once did. Everything now is a resemblance. But even a vague, loving forgery is better than experiencing only the emptiness of the damned.’

‘I’m not sure I agree with you,’ I say solemnly. ‘It’d be different if
I didn’t expect to lose some of you guys any time soon. But if I was to place a bet, I wouldn’t give any of you more than six months, a year tops.’

‘Even though I have survived more than a hundred years already?’ he asks.

‘Things were different then. The world made sense. It worked. Now it’s just death, destruction and loss. We’re all for the chop, and I don’t want to care when you,
Burke or anyone else gets ripped away from us.’

‘What about our response if
you
are taken?’ the doctor asks quietly. ‘Will you care if nobody mourns your loss, if we wipe you from our thoughts and carry on as if nothing has happened?’

‘Not in the least,’ I say chirpily. ‘When I go, I’m gone. Makes no difference to me whether you lot celebrate or wail for a week.’

Dr Oystein nods
glumly. ‘As you wish. Like I said, I do understand. If you do not seek friendship, we will not force it on you. No Angel needs to care for their colleagues in order to slot in with them.

‘But I do care, B, and I will continue to. Billy Burke cares about you too, and quite a few more. If you ever change your mind and crave a friend, we will be here for you. Always.’

‘Unless you’re killed
before me,’ I note.

‘Touché,’ he smiles. Then, smile fading, he reaches out and touches my cheek, briefly but lovingly. ‘Be careful out there, B. Come home safely to us.’

He turns and leaves. I want to call him back and accept his offer of friendship, drop my guard, have at least one person in the world that I can feel close to.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

I won’t.

I remember
my friends from school. My parents. Mark. Timothy. The pain I felt at their loss. And I make a vow to myself, not for the first time since I returned to County Hall.

Never again.

We patrol the streets, entering every building we come to, checking it thoroughly. Zombies are in many of them, sheltering from the sun. We gently edge past the resting reviveds and head up flights of stairs, exploring the upper levels, looking for attics or
locked doors.

We haven’t found any survivors while I’ve been with the Angels, but lots of humans were rescued before I joined, and a few have been unearthed by other search squads since. They’ve had to be cunning to survive so long in a city where death is almost a certainty.

Reviveds rely heavily on their sense of smell and hearing. To outwit them, the people with the smarts douse themselves
in perfume or aftershave – those smells mean nothing to a zombie, they only react to natural human scents – and wear soft shoes or slippers. The really sly ones also wrap bandages round their stomach and chest to dull the sounds of their heartbeat and digestive system, shave off their hair so they don’t sweat as much and take other inventive, anti-detection measures.

The gutsier survivalists
realised that once a zombie has given a building a once-over, it usually doesn’t check again, unless it was accustomed to double-checking spaces when it was alive, for instance if it was a security guard. So some of the humans have made their bases in buildings which zombies frequent, the reasoning being that they’re the safest places in London, since the inhabitants won’t scour their own
lair. Also, other reviveds recognise and respect a fellow zombie’s home, and they almost never trespass. We’re not sure why, it’s just the way they’re wired.

Angels on earlier missions to find survivors never bothered to check a building that was home to a nest of reviveds. Now, having been clued in by those we’ve rescued, we’re more thorough.

‘Oh what fun,’ Rage grumbles as we exit
another block of flats with nothing to show for the time spent panning around inside.

‘Patience is a virtue,’ Ashtat says.

‘What’s so special about the living anyway?’ Rage sniffs. ‘Why should we care about them? If they find their way to County Hall, fair enough, it would be rude not to let them in. But we could be tracking down mutants, turning the tables on hunters, kicking Mr Dowling’s
arse. This is a waste of our time.’

‘Yeah,’ Shane says, backing up his buddy as he normally does.

‘Don’t act like an infant,’ Carl snaps. ‘We’re fighting this war for the sake of those who are still alive.’

‘Sure,’ Rage says, ‘but there are millions in camps or on islands dotted around the world. What does it matter if we rustle up a few more? It’s not going to make a difference.’

‘It will to those we rescue,’ Ashtat says.

‘Well,
duh
!’ Rage snorts. ‘I’m talking about the bigger picture. That’s what we’re supposed to be looking at, right? The doc told us that the minor battles being fought across the globe are meaningless. The fight here, between us and the clown’s forces, is the only real game in town. So why aren’t we focusing on that? We should be too busy
to play at being Good Samaritans.’

Shane nods fiercely. ‘What he said.’

Ashtat and Carl scowl at Rage and Shane, but don’t come back with an argument because they can’t think of one. I’m not bothered. It doesn’t matter to me. I just do what I’m told and try not to think too much. That should be the end of the debate, a win for Rage, but then, breaking his usual moody silence, Jakob speaks
up.

‘I think it’s to remind us that we were once human.’

We stare at the thin, pale boy. He doesn’t speak very often. It’s easy to think of him as a mute.

‘I forget sometimes,’ he says softly. ‘I find it hard to recall my life before this. It seems like I’ve been an undead creature for as long as I can remember.’

‘So what?’ Rage asks when Jakob falls silent again.

‘When I feel
distant from my humanity,’ Jakob whispers, ‘I think about linking up with Mr Dowling and his mutants. From all the reports, they have a grand time, going wherever they like, killing as they please, not caring about anyone except themselves. It must be liberating to be that brutal. The world has fallen. The walking dead have taken over. We don’t neatly fit into one camp or the other. Why not
throw in our lot with the clown and his crew, kill off the remaining humans and enjoy the party for the next few thousand years?’

‘Blimey,’ Rage laughs. ‘And I thought
I
had a dark side.’

Jakob shrugs, wincing at the pain that brings to his battered, cancer-ridden body. ‘That’s just the way my mind wanders. Am I the only one who has thought such things?’

He looks around and everyone
drops their gaze, except for Rage, who nods enthusiastically.

‘Dr Oystein sees through us,’ Jakob says. ‘He knows all that we imagine. He can’t rely on our unwavering support, because any one of us could give into desperation and temptation, and change sides.

‘I think the searching, the rescues and escorting survivors to safe havens outside London are to keep us in contact with the memories
of what it was like to be alive. Because if we lose those, or if they come to mean nothing to us, what’s to hold us in place? Why should we bother to stay loyal?’

There’s a long silence as we think about that. Jakob might not say much, but when he does speak, he tends to have something worth saying.

‘Is that why you’ve been so distant recently?’ Rage asks me. ‘Are
you
thinking about
stabbing us in the back and heading over Mr Dowling’s way?’

‘You’re the only one I’d stab,’ I smirk. ‘I’d leave the others for the clown and his posse.’

‘Then you
have
been thinking about it,’ he challenges me, bristling.

‘I think about all sorts of things,’ I purr, baiting him, unable to resist the opportunity to get under his skin.

‘If you ever –’ he starts to say, raising a
finger to point at me warningly.

‘Rage,’ Ashtat interrupts.

‘Don’t stick up for her,’ Rage barks. ‘We won’t have
girl power
here. If this little –’

‘Shut up,’ Ashtat says calmly, ‘and look to your right.’

Rage glares at her but does as she commands. I see his eyes widen, so I look too.

There are a couple of people on the street, no more than ten metres ahead of us. They’ve
come out of the remains of a shop. It’s a woman and a young child. The woman is holding the child in her arms. I’m not sure if it’s a boy or a girl.

But I’m sure of one thing, by the way their chests rise and fall, by the smell of the perfume they’ve coated themselves with, by the terror in the woman’s eyes when she spots us.

They’re alive.

For several seconds nothing happens. We stare at the woman and her child and she stares back. The child’s face is turned into the woman’s chest. I don’t know if it’s aware of us or not.

Ashtat lifts her hands over her head and calls out softly, ‘We’re not
going to hurt you.’

The woman bolts the instant Ashtat moves. Not back into the shop, where we could trap her. Instead she turns and dashes along the street.

We start after her as a pack, acting instinctively. Carl stops us with a curt and commanding, ‘Wait!’

As the rest of us pause, Carl jogs forward a couple of steps, then leaps. He lands not far behind the fleeing woman and immediately
bounces into the air again, like a frog. He lands a few metres in front of her and she comes to a halt. Turns frantically, looking for an escape route. She spots an open door in a building and starts towards it.

‘That’s not a wise move,’ Carl says calmly. ‘There could be a dozen zombies on the other side of that door.’

The woman stops and stares at Carl. Then looks back at the rest of
us. We’re all standing still.

‘What are you?’ the woman gasps, taking another step away from Carl, edging closer to the door, caught in two minds.

‘That’s a long story,’ Carl chuckles. ‘All you need to know right now is that we mean you no harm. We’re not going to attack you. We won’t even detain you. If you’re suspicious of us and don’t want to talk, you can carry on down this street
and we won’t lift a finger to stop you. I’ll just say two words to you before you go.
County Hall
.’

Carl shuffles out into the middle of the road. The woman licks her lips nervously, then starts to run. She thinks this is a trick. I don’t blame her.

Nobody moves, even though we’ll all hate it if we lose her. I say a silent prayer that she’ll stop and look back. But then she turns a corner
and disappears from sight. I feel my spirits sinking. I look around and everyone is staring glumly at the spot where she vanished, even Rage.

‘Hard luck, Carl,’ Ashtat says. ‘At least you tried. I thought –’

‘Wait a minute,’ Carl hushes her. He’s smiling hopefully. The fingers of his left hand are flexing slowly, as if trying to beckon the woman back. I don’t think there’s any chance
of that, but I hold my peace along with the other Angels. I count inside my head, determined to give Carl the full minute he asked for. After that, I’ll tell him to forget it, we can’t win them all, maybe next time luck will be on our . . .