Jack Lewis - Fear the Dead - A Zombie Apocalypse Book

He’d gotten my GPRS to work, and he knew where the farm was.

I took a second to calculate our odds. From what I had seen there were a minimum of four hunters – minus the one I saw get eaten in the warehouse – with the probability of there being at least a few more that I hadn’t see yet. I knew they had at least two guns, double what we had, and they actually knew how to use them. That put us at a pretty big disadvantage.

There was nothing I could do right now other than listen and hope to get some idea of their plan.

“This fucking thing,” said Torben. “Never works properly. Thought you fixed it?”

The driver screwed up his face. “Got us here, didn’t it?”

Torben held the GPRS in one hand and picked at his teeth with the other. “Should have just snatched the kid,” he said. He tossed the GPRS back to the driver. “Anyway, get in there and see what they got. If you see any bottles of stout, grab me a couple,” he said, and pointed at the Babe and Sickle.

While the driver searched the pub Torben rested on the bonnet of the pick-up. From time to time he’d glance back in our direction, making me sink lower in my seat, but mostly he stared at the road ahead in contemplation.

After ten minutes the driver came back out. They got in the pick-up truck, revved the engine and then left.

As soon as they were out of sight, I turned to Justin. I poked him in the chest, jabbing my finger so hard it made him wince. I could feel my head get tight, and most lips curled.

“I thought you said it was broken? Huh? That nobody would be able to use it? That’s the only reason I didn’t beat the crap out of you when Torben took our stuff – because you promised me he wouldn’t be able to work it.”

Justin chewed his lip and furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry Kyle, I didn’t know. Really – I thought it was trashed.”

“Damn it” I said. I pounded the steering wheel, and the horn went off.

Behind me David jumped awake. He rubbed his head. “What’s going on?”

“We’re fucked, that’s what’s going on,” I spat.

I opened the car door and got out, slamming it behind me. I didn’t care who heard us now. I walked to the boot, opened our bag of supplies. I tipped most of it back into the boot and left a fifth still in the bottom of the rucksack, which I slung over my shoulder. Next to all the food was the shotgun. I thought about taking it, but then I put my hand on my belt and rested on the handle of my knife.

That would be enough. They needed to gun more than me, and I wasn’t a total monster.

The passenger door and opened and Justin got out. He walked over to me and looked at the food scattered across the boot of the car.

“What are you doing?”

I could feel my blood running red hot through my veins. Right now Justin’s face annoyed me too much. Did he realise what he’d done? Did he understand that ever since he stuck his nose into my business, things had turned to shit?

I reached forward and shoved him in the chest, sending him down onto the floor.

“They know where the farm is, and they’re headed there right now. It’s all fucked Justin, and that’s on you.”

Justin sat up and drew his knees closer to his chest. There was a scared look to his eyes, as though he didn’t know what I was going to do next. I knew that for a second he was thinking about arguing with me, but then he decided better of it. “Look, Kyle, what can I say? I’m sorry.”

The back door of the car opened and David stretched a long leg out. “What’s happening?”

I slammed the boot of the car shut and looked at him. “I’m leaving,” I said. “You two can go to hell.”

Chapter 18

I walked away from the car. My face was burning and my blood was boiling in my veins. My mind was so clouded by a fog of anger that I didn’t even look where I was going; as long as I got away, that was all that mattered.

I put my foot on a stone wall and hopped over into the field. The earth was sodden and my foot was covered in mud before I’d even walked five steps. Behind me, I heard the car door open. I took a deep breath and picked up my pace. I wasn’t turning back this time. I wasn’t forgiving another one of Justin's mistakes. He’d screwed me over from the start, and now the only thing I had to cling on to was gone. The farm belonged to the hunters now.

“Kyle”

I heard David’s voice behind me, and I heard him grunt as he climbed over the wall.

“Shit!”

I turned round. David had slipped in the mud and he was flat on his back in the field, his coat covered in the brown mess. He seemed to be waiting for me to come and help him up, but instead I turned and carried on walking.

A few minutes later he caught up with me. He put a muddy hand on my shoulder. I stopped and turned to him.

“Fuck off, David,” I said.

David scratched the back of his neck. There was something weighing on his mind, but as usual he was struggling to get the words out.

I put my hands in my pockets. “Just save it. There’s nothing you can say. The farm is theirs now. It’s all pointless.”

Finally the words came to him. “It’s not pointless. Not at all. You were right. The farm’s the answer; dad knew it, Clara knew it – I know it.”

His words were coming fast. He stared at me with narrowed eyes that were like brown marbles.

I looked across the field in front of me. It seemed to stretch for miles and connected into other fields in an endless bed of green and brown. I tried to see what was beyond it, whether there was anything worth looking for, but there was nothing in the distance to cling on to.

I looked at the floor. “Even if you’re right, the farm’s out of the question now. Torben has it, and there’s no way I can take on him and his guys alone.”

David sighed. “You’re not alone. You never were. You’ve always had people with you Kyle, you’ve always been a leader. But for some pig-headed reason you choose not to act like it.”

I looked at him and saw the sincerity on his face. “A leader wouldn’t watch as many people die as I have,” I said.

“You can’t do this alone,” said David.

The wind blew through the grass, sending the long stalks dancing in different directions. For miles on the horizon the fields all blew in unison. They were all overgrown and muddy, same as the farm would be, but with enough time and hard work something could be made out of them.

With the farm in the hands of the hunters, I felt empty inside, like someone had opened my chest and scooped everything out. I’d clung onto the idea of getting there for so long, that it was all I had.

Maybe David was right. Maybe we shouldn’t give it up. Perhaps it was time to fight.

I looked at him again. This time I felt something welling up in me, some kind of resolve. But there were something I had to say, things I had to get out of the way.

“I can’t watch someone else die,” I said.

“Everyone’s got to.”

I nodded. “But you and Justin – I don’t want to see that happen on my account.”

David screwed up his nose. He wiped his boot along the grass and let the mud slide of it.

“Sometimes you have to throw the dice,” he said.

He was right. For all this time, all these years of travelling alone, it wasn’t other people that I’d avoided. I had been running away from fear. I was scared that if I let my guard down and allowed people inside it, then sooner or later I was going to have to watch them die. I’d thought that being alone was better than risking losing someone, but I was wrong.

A man couldn’t live alone, especially not in a world like this. Man was on the ropes and the world was delivering the knockout blows. Unless someone did something, unless we stuck together, we were going to hit the floor.