Jack Lewis - Fear the Dead - A Zombie Apocalypse Book

Only, I wasn’t dead yet. And while I was still living, I wouldn’t let him get back. I turned and stumbled into the office, slamming the door behind me. From the warehouse I heard the cries of the infected and Torben’s gun fired again, but this time it wasn’t in my direction.

In the manager’s office I stopped to catch my breath. I looked down at my chest and expected some gaping hole from the gun shot. Instead, I saw red spaghetti stains splotched down my shirt. Torben’s bullet had hit the food crate.

I let out a long sigh, and then collected myself.

I followed a series of doors that took me out of the manager’s office, and sure enough they led me out of the warehouse. When I got outside and the sunlight hit my eyes I felt a wave of relief. I squinted and let my eyes adjust to the sun shine.

“Kyle!”

I looked up. Justin was perched above me on a ledge about thirty feet in the air. His eyes were wide, and he shook slightly as he stared at the ground.

“Get down, we need to move,” I said.

He held the ledge tightly. “I can’t do it,” he said.

I didn’t have time for this. Right now, the hunters were occupied by the infected. This was the best chance we would have to get out of here.

“Kid, get the fuck down or I’ll leave you. That’s your choice – jump or die.” I turned my back on him and started to move away from the warehouse, my pulse racing and my lungs struggling to take in enough air. I had to get away.

I heard Justin let out a cry behind me, and then there was a thud as he hit the floor. He screamed. I snapped round, and saw him on the floor.

He led on the floor like an injured footballer, clutching his ankle and groaning.

“Can you walk?” I said.

He put his hand on the floor and tried to move his weight onto it. I walked over, put my hand under his armpit and pulled him up. He tried to take a few steps on his hurt ankle, but he winced with each one.

“Think I’ve done it in,” he said.

I looked at Justin nursing his ankle and I wondered if things could get any worse. The hunters knew exactly where we were, we were leaving without any food and after his injury Justin was going to slow us down even more.

The world had it in for me.

Chapter 13

Waves rippled out from one end of the reservoir to the other. The water beneath was murky and gave no clue as to the depths it held, and the darkness inside it seemed to hold the promise of dark secrets. I wouldn’t have liked to swim in there.

The path to David’s ran alongside the reservoir and span out into a country side full of knobbly hills and, further on, patches of forest. This particular route had once been used by seventeenth century merchants who shipped wool across Lancashire, and years ago, Clara and I had walked it on sunny Sundays afternoons when we wanted to get out of the house.

Justin sat by the smouldering fire. The smoke drifted up into the sky in patches, and the embers glowed red. He had his right legged crossed over his left and he was tying a sock around his ankle.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He looked up at me and blinked. “It’s for support.”

I had to take a deep breath. For the last two days since leaving the wholesalers it had been tough to keep a handle on the burning feeling that rose in my chest. My fists were constantly clenched and my whole body was so tense I felt like I was going to snap in half.

Back at the warehouse Justin had done what he swear he wouldn’t; he’d gone against my instructions and done his own thing. I told him to stick with me and we’d escape, but instead he climbed to the top of a twenty foot shelf to get food and tried to be a hero. Now he’d screwed up his ankle and he was walking like a damn cripple, and the journey to the reservoir had taken us two days when it should have taken six hours.

I should have just left him. Why should I support him and set myself back days because hop along can’t match my pace anymore? He did this to himself.

But I couldn’t leave. He knew where the farm was, and I wasn’t giving up.

My face was starting to get red again. I walked over to the fire and stomped on it. The embers hissed under my boot and sparks shot out from the side. I ground my teeth and then spoke, trying my best to keep my tone level.

“What did I tell you, Justin? What did I make you promise to me?” I said, losing the fight to keep the contempt out of my voice.

He lifted his head a little. He looked ashamed. “To listen.”

“So why didn’t you do that, damn it?”

I took a deep breath. I curled my hands into a fisted and pressed the middle of my palm with the tip of my fingers. It was a technique Clara had shown me to calm me down, but this time it didn’t work. I looked at the kid in front of me and all I could think was how he’d broken my GPRS and forced me to take him along, about how he’d ignored my instructions at every turn and got us in such a mess that we weren’t getting to the farm this side of Christmas. I looked at the boy and all I saw was someone who was ruining everything for me. A stupid little kid who didn’t know what he was messing with.

Everything I did was for my promise to Clara, and he was fucking it up.

Who the hell did he think he was?

My veins pulsed, and my skin felt hot. I started to feel my head go fuzzy and knew I wasn’t going to be able to think properly because the anger was taking over. I raised my right boot in the air.

“God damn it!” I screamed.

I kicked what was left of the fire and sent red embers flying in all directions. Justin twisted his body away and moved back to avoid being hit. His eyes were wide and his face started to drain white. As the last of the red embers turned black and fell to the earth, I picked up my bag.

“We’re moving.”

Justin didn’t move. He had his knees drawn up to his chest and rested his head on them.

“Get up. You’ve wasted enough of our time.”

He still didn’t move. I took a deep breath and walked over to him. Was he crying? I couldn’t tell. I felt a pang in my chest, and the hot feeling that was burning through me started to fade. This wasn’t me. It was just the situation making me feel like this. It was like everything turned to shit at the slightest opportunity, and my options were narrowly dwindling away.

We had no supplies, no energy and we had a group of hunters close on our tracks. Now the only thing we could do was get a car, and to do that I had to go see my brother-in-law, David.

***

We crossed the road and walked by the side of the reservoir. Something about the pool of water and the way the hills were positioned around it collected the wind and made it snap around our heads. My ears started to hurt, and I could see Justin’s turning red.

“Put your hood up,” I said.

He reached behind him and lifted his hood over his head, but he didn’t say anything. He hadn’t spoken since I had gone mad and kicked the fire. For me, there was nothing wrong with the silence. But I couldn’t have him in a mood. I needed him to listen to me and do what I said, so I needed to snap him out of it.

We reached the merchant’s pathway that turned away from the reservoir. If we followed it for ten minutes, we would reach the old building that David had taken as his home sometime after Clara died and we went our separate ways.

“Sit down a minute,” I said.

I sat down on a bench next to the reservoir, and Justin did the same. Behind us the waves gently lapped. Today would have been a perfect day for wind surfing.

I looked at the kid. There were dark rings under his eyes, and his face was drained of colour. “I’m sorry,” I said.

He looked up at me and arched his eyebrows quizzically.