Jack Lewis - Fear the Dead - A Zombie Apocalypse Book

He was right, though there was not a chance I was telling him what my plan was.

"You're not coming - end of discussion."

His shoulders sagged, but he didn't say anything else. Maybe the message had finally gotten through to him.

"Look, kid, stay behind your walls. It's safe here. It might not be much of a life, but at least you got one. The second you step outside these walls, it's forfeit."

He said nothing, just stood there and sulked.

I gave his bag a tap. "Take these back to wherever you took them from, people will need them. And look, can you tell this wanker to open the gate?"

Justin looked up and the man in the turret. "Moe says let him go," he said.

The guard pressed a button. The chain and pulley on the gate creaked into motion, and soon the black bars swung open. I stepped through them, out of the safety of the town and back into the wastes. Behind me, I could feel Justin's eyes on my back following me every step of the way.

***

I walked out of town and into the woods. The temperature was warm and the leaves on the trees were still. Although the sky was sunny, a grey cloud was gathering to break it. I could smell the earthy aroma of the pine trees, and for some reason it made me feel hungry. How long had it been since I'd eaten?

There were a few lone infected walking lazily through the trees, but there was nothing to worry about unless I planned on making a racket. My most pressing need was to find shelter before night came. There I could get some food in my belly and fire up the GPRS, because I needed to get my bearings. The last two days had knocked me off course, and I didn't have a clue which direction I should be heading in. I could have turned it on there and then, but I didn't trust doing it out in the open. There were too many places for bodies to lurk and eyes to see.

I walked for forty-five minutes and I found the shack that Noah and his friends had stayed in. I didn’t know whether I should use it; for all I knew, it was a regular spot for the Vasey scouts, and some of them could easily turn up while I slept. The last thing I needed right now was to run into anyone from Vasey.

Then again, I doubted they'd be making any runs anytime soon after what happened to Noah, and besides, the sky was starting to turn a little too dusky for my liking and I didn’t want to get caught in the open. I didn’t have a choice.

I got inside the shack. It was just one room, and it was empty. At some point it had probably been used as a storage shed for park rangers, but now it was just four walls and wooden floor boards. There was a faded poster imploring the use of walky-talkies on patrols on one wall, and from another a sink stuck out from the plaster, though the water had long since been cut off. I dropped my bag and sank to the floor, resting my back against the wall that was furthest away from the door. As soon as I touched the floorboards, I felt my energy seep out of me.

In the corner of the room I found a small grill camping stove with a rubber tube that connected it to a gas canister, as well as two bottles of water that I deemed drinkable through their lack of any offensive odour. I twisted the knob of the camping stove to feed it gas, and I pressed in the ignition to create a spark that sent blue flames shooting underneath the grill. Despite it being evidence that the Vasey scouts used this shack on their trips, it was a fantastically lucky find. If I'd had a calendar with me, I would have checked to see if it was my birthday.

Five minutes later I had a chicken soup sachet cooking in the pot. The smell was salty and about as far away from chicken as you could get, but the aroma of warm food was enough to make my mouth water. I could almost hear my stomach thanking me in anticipation.

While the soup simmered I reached into my bag and took out my GPRS. I turned it round in my hand looking for nicks or scratches, and once I was satisfied there were none I rotated the screen toward me. It was time to see just how much further I had left to go. I thought of the detour of the past two days, and I clenched my jaw. I knew I must have at least four hundred miles left, and I could cover about twenty five a day if I got my arse in gear. This had been was two whole days wasted, fifty miles not walked.

I pressed in the rubber ON button and waited. It usually took a moment and then the screen turned blue, but now it was completely blank. I left it a few more seconds, but the tight feeling in my chest made it hard to be patient.

I pressed it again. And again. This time I pressed the button in deeper, held it in longer. The screen stayed black.

I ran my fingers through my hair. If the GPRS was broken, I was absolutely screwed. The farm was so far away that I would never get there without directions, and though I'd been told where it was, I had never been there myself. My only link was the GPRS, into which years ago Clara had programmed the coordinates ready for a trip that we never got to make.

The idea of the farm and carving out a life there was a dream, really, because there was no telling what kind of state it was going to be in. But I had to make it. I owed it to Clara, because I'd promised I'd get us there once. I promised her that no matter how run-down it had gotten, we would put the work in and make it our own; that we’d make a safe home in a world where death stared in from all sides.

And now the screen was black. I twisted the unit in my hands again looking for signs of damage. In my haste I dropped it to the floor. I snatched it up again, held my breath, and pressed the button.

Nothing.

I stood up. I put my hands behind my head and paced the room. It was broken, that much I was sure of, and the chances of getting the parts to fix it, even if I had the know-how, were slim.

I couldn't breathe, but I couldn't stay still. Everything was ruined.

The door of the shack burst open. I snapped my head to the doorway and felt every nerve in my body fire. Within a second I tensed my muscles ready to snap on anything that moved toward me.

A thin figure appeared in the doorway and stepped out of the night. It was Justin. He looked at me, and then looked at the GPRS on the floor.

"Damn, that's too bad," he said, his voice hollow, his lips curled into a smile.

That was when I knew it was him.

Chapter 5

Before I could even recognise my actions I had stomped across the room. I towered over Justin, my nostrils flaring as I took big breaths. I knew that he had done something with the GPRS but I just didn’t know what, and I knew it was going to take every ounce of my self-control not to beat it out of him.

I wasn’t a violent man, and he was just a kid, but if he had broken the GPRS then I was screwed. Stupidly, I didn't know the way to the farm by heart; I relied on the machine to tell me. I’d once tried to learn the way so that I’d have a back-up in case the worst happened, but after two days of straining I had to give it up. I guess my brain just doesn’t work that way. It’s not like I could just ask someone where it was either; of the two people in the post-infected world who knew the farm, one of them was dead and I never wanted to see the other again.

I poked a finger into Justin's chest. His body was so soft that my finger seemed to sink in, and he took a faltering step back toward the wall. He looked strangely calm.

"What the fuck have you done?" I said with a tight voice.

Despite how I loomed over him, Justin didn't shrink away. This was a far cry from the kid I had seen in town, the one with the awkward gait who couldn't even balance his own shoulders. He cleared his throat. "Does it really matter, now, huh? It’s done either way."

I turned away from him. I could feel my face getting red. I walked across the room in three strides, picked up the GPRS and then walked back. In front of Justin, I pressed in the 'on' button, but the screen stayed dead. Justin watched me with a bored expression. I shook the GPRS in his face.