Zombiekill (10 page)

Schafer glared at Jeremy. He didn’t have time for this. The zombies behind were getting closer and growing in number. They had drawn others, and there were almost twenty now. Schafer blinked away a droplet of sweat from his eyelid. “
You
do what you like.
I’m
going to carry on. Magda and Rilla are coming with me to Attwood’s.”

Lyn dragged Victoria to the shady side of the tanker that offered a little shelter from the sun. “Are we there yet?” she asked. “I can hear them. Can’t you hear them?”

The zombies were making a lot of noise and Schafer realized the noise wasn’t just coming from the ones behind them.

“Now, hold on, Schafer,” said Jeremy as he turned away. Jeremy tried to grab Schafer’s arm again, but he shrugged it off and walked past the rear of the tanker.

“Magda?” Schafer stood in the road with his daughter lying in his arms, wondering suddenly if Jeremy wasn’t right.

Magda joined her husband’s side and looked at him. “Was ist—”

“Oh, Lord.” Jeremy rounded the tanker to find Schafer and Magda staring at the path ahead of them. The road to Attwood’s was full of corpses. There had to be at least a hundred or more filling the road, blocking any route through to the far end.

“Now what do we do?” asked Jeremy. “We can’t go back and we can’t go forward; just what the hell do we do now?”

Schafer looked at Rilla and was reminded of how he used to carry her up to bed like this when she was younger. She would inevitably fall asleep whilst watching TV, reluctant to go upstairs to be on her own. He would carry her up gently and place her in bed without even waking her. She looked the same now: carefree, relaxed and innocent. He couldn’t let anything happen to her, he
wouldn’t
.

“We have to… to…” He couldn’t actually think what to do. They were almost surrounded. Going back to Jeremy’s or forward to Attwood’s meant a fight, and he wasn’t going to be any use carrying Rilla. He could see that Magda was struggling with the heat, and even Jeremy and Lyn looked exhausted. Victoria was silently sucking two fingers in her mouth, her eyes downcast. They were all relying on him, waiting for a decision, for an order.

A zombie suddenly appeared at the back of the tanker, its body clattering into the axle and arms scratching against the hull. It stumbled forward toward them, its intent all too obvious. Magda screamed, and Lyn pushed Victoria behind her while Jeremy began to back off.

“What do we do, Jeremy, what do we do?” Lyn shouted hysterically.

“Take it out, Jeremy,” said Schafer, calmly.

The zombie approached, its feet scraping across the tarmac, and pustules around its mouth oozing dark slime. The woman had worked in the garage once, and her slim figure had drawn many admiring glances. Now her ravaged body was riddled with maggots and blow-flies, and her arms were missing large chunks of flesh.

“What the fuck?” Jeremy stepped back again. “What the…?”

Schafer knew then that they had no way of fighting their way anywhere. They were scared. All of them were scared. He couldn’t risk giving Rilla to Jeremy to carry. He would dump her as soon as they got into any kind of trouble. Lyn had Victoria to take care of, and Magda simply didn’t have the strength. Schafer sighed.

“We have to go. There’s a narrow alleyway over there behind that station wagon. It’ll double-back to the buses, but we’ll have to take it and find somewhere else to hold up for now. Attwood’s will have to wait.”

As they all backed away from the advancing zombie, another appeared from behind the tanker, then a third, and then a fourth.

“Schafer?” Magda looked at her husband who was gently lowering his daughter to the ground. Ignoring her, he grabbed the baseball bat from Jeremy and pointed it at them.

“Go. All of you. Down that alley.”

“What are you doing? Are you coming?” asked Jeremy as he began to trudge away toward the alley, his eyes locked on the party of zombies.

“Oh, I’m coming all right and I’ll bring Rilla with me.” Schafer turned back to the zombies, his face set in grim determination. The plan had been shot to shit, but they would make it another way. He just had to figure out a way around the horde ahead of them. He had to figure out a way to get Jeremy on board. As it was, he was just as much of a liability as his little girl. Schafer lifted the baseball bat in both hands and gripped it firmly as his eyes focused on the nearest zombie. “I’ve just got to take care of business first.”

CHAPTER 6

The last lock of hair fell to the floor silently, and Kyler held up a mirror in front of his daughter’s face. She looked at herself blankly, and it was obvious she hated it. She had gone along with him reluctantly, but ultimately he had not given her a choice. The whole process had taken less than ten minutes, and Kyler felt relieved when it was over. He was more nervous about cutting his daughter’s hair with the scissors than he was the end result.

Charlie shrugged and looked at her father in the mirror behind her. “Happy now?”

Kyler shook his head. “This has got nothing to do with me being happy, and you know it.”

Charlie got off the stool and brushed herself down, thick clumps of blonde hair cascading to the ground and joining the hair already there. They had arranged to cut her hair outside so at least they didn’t make a mess inside.

“Here.” Kyler passed her the mirror, and she took it to look at hew new haircut once more. “Clear that up,” he said as he trudged back inside.

“Yes, Sir,” muttered Charlie. She had known he wouldn’t offer to help clean up afterwards and already prepared herself for it. It was the end of another warm day, and little strands of hair had fallen down her top causing her back to itch.

“Very…” Charlie searched for the right words to describe her new haircut. Nothing came to mind. Kyler had effectively turned her into a boy, chopping off her long blonde hair that her mother had used to tell her was her best feature. Now most of it was blowing around the garden, and she looked more like a young man than a girl. Her father refused to explain why she had to do it other than to say it was more practical. She had tried to counter him by arguing that it was practical to stay sober, to be on guard with the increasing zombie activity outside the main fence, but he had refused to be drawn on his drinking and insisted they cut her hair that day. He had muttered something about how the zombies would be able to grab her long hair if they ever went outside, so she may as well get used to it being short now.

Sighing, Charlie went to the garage to put the stool and scissors back. Kyler hadn’t even used a decent pair of scissors when he’d butchered her hair and used a rusty pair from the garage. She was surprised he had any since he spent most of his time fashioning weird weapons from what tools he had. As she placed the stool down quietly, she noticed something new on the workbench, and suddenly realized where the steak knife set had disappeared to. There was a pair of gardening gloves with a knife neatly bound to each finger. They reminded her of the glove from an old horror film, though these would no doubt be more comfortable to wear. She picked one up and slipped her hand inside. The glove was a size too big, but it remained in place, and she swished it through the air, imagining herself decapitating a zombie. She had never struck a person in her life, nor had she had to deal with one of the dead. Still, it was interesting to pretend. Kyler obviously thought about it a lot more than her; he had spent all day making these gloves.

Charlie slipped the glove off and put it back. As she went back outside, she noticed the warm air carried the strong moans of the dead clearly today. Either there were a lot of them close by, or something had piqued their interest. Carefully, Charlie walked to the driveway and looked at the fence. There were no more than three at the fence, rattling on it like caged prisoners. She wasn’t sure if they wanted to get in, or if she wanted to get out. The moaning sound was further off, carried to her by the gentle breeze. Shrugging, Charlie returned to the house. Whatever had drawn them away wasn’t her problem. Since the screaming woman had arrived and died on the day that her mother had been taken away from her, Charlie had wondered if there were others. The woman might have been living with her family, although that didn’t explain why she was on her own. Surely nobody would leave their family behind? If the woman had been with others, then perhaps she had been the one who had been forced out to look for help. Perhaps it was her family who were being slaughtered out there, forced to leave their house in search of food. Perhaps the thousands of zombies around Peterborough had found them.

Charlie shuddered. Her own morbid thoughts were too depressing, and she locked them away as she made her way into the downstairs bathroom. She put her hands on the cold rim of the sink and stared into the dusty mirror on the wall. She looked not just tired but terrible, in fact. It wasn’t just the drain of living alongside the dead that took all her energy, but living with her father. Either side of the fence there were problems and pressures, just different ones.

She rifled a hand through her cropped hair. Maybe she could do something with it. She picked up a hair clip and tried to pin a length of hair back from her fringe, but the short hair wouldn’t hold.

“I need to accessorize.” Charlie went to the laundry and perused her father’s fishing gear. Several rods were leant up against the wall, a cobweb stretching between them. He hadn’t been out for months now, and Charlie wondered how big the fish would be. She could just imagine a nice fat trout, its juicy white meat filling her belly. As her stomach groaned, she began to rummage through the drawers along the wall. There were old jackets and scarves that rarely saw the light of day. Her hand touched a soft felt cap, and she pulled it out, recognizing her father’s old fishing cap. It had blue and green checks on it and smelt a little musty from being in the drawer for so long, but as soon as she dropped it onto her head she felt better. She turned back to the mirror and looked at it. It was at least two sizes too big for her, and she couldn’t help but smile. She hadn’t seen that hat for years. The last time she could recall seeing her father wear it was on her fifteenth birthday when he had returned home late from taking some tourists out on Edward MacDowell Lake. He had come home stinking of fish and oil, and she had been so happy to see him that she had hugged him and got the smell all over her party dress. The memory of her party brought back other memories, too, of her friends, of laughter, of the dreams of a bright future, and of her mother. Charlie’s smile faded.

“Dinner’s ready.” Kyler called out from the kitchen.

“Coming.” Charlie rubbed her hands on her thighs and walked through to the kitchen where she found Kyler sat at the table and two plates of cold spaghetti waiting.

Kyler frowned as she took her seat. With her jeans and UCLA sweater, Charlie was beginning to look more like the son he’d never had than his daughter.

“Take that hat off while we’re at the table,” he said gruffly. “You know the rules.”

“Of course.” Charlie slipped it off and put it beside her plate. She had hoped it might draw a comment from him; maybe elicit an old memory like it had in her.

“Elbows?”

Charlie forced a smile upon her face. “Sorry, Dad, forgot,” she said removing her elbows and arms from the table. Couldn’t he just let it slip this once? Charlie very much doubted that God was watching, and if he was then elbows on the table were the least of his problems.

She waited for Kyler to say grace and then picked up a fork. She spun it around on the plate, reeling in a strand of spaghetti. It wasn’t much of a meal, but she knew they hadn’t much choice. They had to make what they had last as long as possible. She held up the fork and sucked the spaghetti in, savoring the cold tomato flavor before returning her fork to the plate and twisting another piece around it.

“What should we do tonight?” Charlie sucked another piece of food from her fork. “Monopoly? You haven’t won in a while now.” The truth was they hadn’t played in a while. Not since the day her mother had died, in fact. They hadn’t played anything since then, and the tedium of watching her father drink until he fell asleep wasn’t riveting entertainment. She had read every magazine from cover to cover three times over and wanted to try and entice her father out of his shell. She watched him chew his food and then place his fork down on the table. He said nothing, and she wondered if he was even going to answer her at all or just sit in silence.

Kyler swallowed heavily and then rested his hands on the table either side of the plate. He stared at his food, at the cold spaghetti that he had so carefully emptied from the can and poured out onto the two plates.

“You want to play games?” he asked, quietly.

Instantly Charlie knew she had said the wrong thing. Of course he wouldn’t want to play a game.
Of course
he wouldn’t want to do anything with her. She was so bored of it all, of everything, of knowing exactly what he was going to do or say before he’d even thought it.

“Okay, maybe not then. How about a run? The park’s lovely at this time of year.” She couldn’t resist it. Her mother had always encouraged her to speak up, and now there was no stopping it. Charlie knew she would piss Kyler off for being so flippant, but she seemed to piss him off anyway, so she might as well enjoy herself.

Kyler looked at Charlie. “No, I don’t think—”

“The cinema then?” asked Charlie, keeping her tone light and irritating. “You know, popcorn, big fat sugary drinks, and lots of—”

“NO!” Kyler banged his fists on the table causing the plates to jump, and his fork fell to the floor.

Charlie bit her lip. Too far. Oh well. So, he was angry with her—what else was new?

“This isn’t a game, Charlie. This isn’t what you think.” Kyler looked at her, his face red from anger. “Those games you used to play with your friends are over. You have to grow up. You can’t act like a little kid anymore.”

“I think I got that, Dad,” Charlie said as she slipped another fork loaded with spaghetti into her mouth. She looked outside at the fading sunlight. Another hour and it would be dark. “The only games I could play with my friends now would have to involve a Ouija board, right?”

Kyler leant back in his chair and a shadow fell across his face as the sun dipped behind the horizon. “You want to talk about that?” he asked Charlie.

“Talk about what?”

“Your friends. Them.” Kyler’s eyes were hidden in the shadow, but he was looking at his daughter carefully, watching how she ate slowly. He brought his chair forward again so that she could see him, that there was no misunderstanding that he meant it seriously. This was no game to him. “
The dead
.”

“Oh, Dad, don’t be so melodramatic. No, I don’t want to talk about my dead friends. That’s hardly going to solve anything.”

“Very true. I’m glad you understand that. In the old world you would’ve been booked in to see a shrink if one of your friends died. In this new world we’ve dispensed with useless things like psychiatrists and—”

“Shaving?” Charlie muttered as she finished her food.

Kyler looked at his daughter as she pushed her empty plate away. “So, this is just a joke to you?”

“Do you see me laughing?” Charlie reached for the bottle of water on the table, but Kyler snatched it away before she could reach it.

“Really? What’s that for?” Charlie went to tuck her long blonde hair behind her ears and then remembered there was nothing there anymore. She brushed the side of her head with her fingers and pretended to scratch her ear. “I’m not allowed a glass of water now?”

“You can have a glass in a moment. I just want to make sure that you comprehend what is happening here. You seem to still think you can get back to the way things were; that one day this will all be over.”

“It will, Dad. Sooner or later, it will.”

“Oh, yes, Charlie, but you seem to think that things will go back to the way they were.”

“Well, I think—”

“You have to see that they won’t ever be the same again. Those things out there won’t allow it. We let them take control. The time for change has gone. We let them grow, let them spread, and now they have complete control. We can never get back to what we were, not with
them
out there. How do you think you’d cope if you were on your own?”

The question shocked Charlie. She had been prepared for a lecture, even considering trying to answer back, but this was a question she hadn’t been expecting.

“I’m not on my own, Dad. I’m not going to be. You’re here.”

“Your mother was here too. You can’t rely on others for the rest of your life. Our situation is far too perilous for that kind of naïve attitude.”

“Yeah, but what happened to Mom was an accident.” Charlie felt her cheeks flush at the memory. Why should he make her feel guilty about it? “It was just an accident, Dad.”

“An accident? Perhaps. But that implies an event that occurred without warning, an unforeseen turn of events that was outside the realms of control. I don’t buy that. Do you? Do you think what happened was a random act of nature or God or something that we couldn’t have controlled had we been more prepared?”

Charlie looked at the blue and green cap on the table. Her father hadn’t always been like this. The tourists used to love him, they all did. He was fun to be around, and she refused to believe that man had gone. “I guess not. We didn’t know that woman was going to come.”

“Yes, but we weren’t prepared, Charlie. We weren’t prepared anywhere near enough. I should’ve thought through what could happen, made you and your mother understand—”

“Yeah, well, I understand now, Dad. It’s going to be a long, hot summer. And those poor people outside our gates are going to stay there. I get it.”

“Do you?” Kyler sighed. “I’m not sure you do. Would you have done what your mother did? Would you have opened that gate to help?”