Blog of the Dead (Book 3): Lost (21 page)

Once we had thoroughly exhausted ourselves, we lay together, me in his arms. I wondered if we’d drawn an undead crowd. I couldn’t see because of the drawn curtains. But I didn’t care. I was in a trance-like state. Nothing mattered outside of that scruffy van.

‘I needed that,’ I said.

‘Me too,’ said Misfit and we couldn’t help giggling. ‘Any time I can help out with a little stress relief, let me know.’

‘I will.’

I lay for a little bit longer.

‘We should get on,’ I said after a while. I sat up and began dressing myself. Misfit sat up next to me and ran a finger down my bare arm.

‘At some point I think we deserve a whole day in bed together, just like couples did before all this zombie crap.’

‘Yeah, a whole weekend.’

‘No, a whole week.’

I laughed and lay down on my back while I shuffled my skinny jeans up my skinny legs. I remembered Mal and his positive approach to the zombie apocalypse. The outbreak had brought me love. I glanced at Misfit. He was smiling as he watched me wriggle into my jeans and do up my flies. I knew I loved him. Anyone could have sex, but what happened between us, well something that intense only happened when two people loved each other. Shit, I sound like a love struck teenager. Only, love gets you thinking in clichés and finding them acceptable and not completely vomit inducing. Yeah, thinking of Mal and his positive spin, the outbreak’s been as kind to me as it has been cruel.

We opened the van’s back doors to find our cries of ecstasy had attracted a gang of around fifteen zombies.

‘Ah, give me a break,’ I said as they surged forwards once they’d clocked us.

I stood at the back of the van with my left hand resting against the inside of the back door to steady myself. Misfit mirrored me on my right, and the pair of us stabbed zombie heads. It was tricky as we had to kick the zombies back as they crowed around the rear of the van, while avoiding the arms that tried to grab us and pull us down onto the tarmac. I gripped onto a wooden board that had been secured onto the inside of the door in order to stop myself from being pulled into the thinning crowd, while my right arm drove my knife into the zombies’ brains.

With the zombies slain and the bodies shifted to the other side of the road and out of our way, we concentrated on getting the van out of the muddy ditch. It wasn’t difficult at all now it had stopped raining and we didn’t have the pressures of approaching zombies and the dead of night against us. It was one of those occasions when I’m not sure I was that much help. I just stood at the front of the van sort of making out like I was pushing while Misfit reversed it. Anyway, he got the van out of the mud and thanked me for my help and we drove back to the cottage.

The others hadn’t got back yet. The house was empty and still and filled with subdued mid afternoon light.

‘We should probably head out on a supply run tomorrow,’ I said as we stood in the kitchen. ‘Or maybe you could…’ My words trailed off as, completely ignoring me, Misfit stalked out of the kitchen.

I followed him into the hallway to find him standing at the foot of the stairs. This being Marsha’s house we’d had no need to go upstairs. It was just hers and Amelia’s rooms up there. Oh and the bathroom but there was no need to use that – we went to the toilet in a bucket that was kept outside in the garden.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked as Misfit began to climb the stairs.

‘I just want to take a look around,’ he said.

‘But why?’ I asked as I followed him.

‘I’m nosey.’

Misfit paused outside the first door he came to at the top of the stairs. He gave the door a shove to open it fully and I could see over his shoulder that it was the bathroom. Up the last few stairs to the left, we were presented with two doors off the landing, both closed. Misfit went for the closest one and, with his hunting knife in his hand, he turned the handle slowly and quietly and I couldn’t help but wonder if he expected someone to be inside. Misfit’s overly cautious behaviour made my heart speed up and my palms break out in a sweat and I slid my knife from my belt. With wide eyes, I watched as he gave the door a push.

I jumped, scaring myself, but no little zombie girl lurched from the room. The only thing that did emerge from the room was a thick stale aroma – the smell of dead air and dust and mildew you’d expect from somewhere that had been sealed for a long while, not one that’d had a little girl sleeping in it just nights ago.

I followed Misfit inside. The curtains were drawn, making the room gloomy and adding to the suffocating staleness. Misfit drew them apart with a strong tug, causing not only the last of the day’s light to filter inside but to fill the room with a waft of dust. I sneezed a few times in quick succession. Once my sneezes had passed, I gazed around the room. A film of dust covered everything. Aged posters of
Steps
,
Britney Spears
and
Backstreet Boys
were peeling from the walls, while a cobweb stretched from an old boom box, like the one I’d had when I was a kid, to a shelf full of VHS tapes and an old portable analogue TV.

‘This room hasn’t been used in years,’ I said.

‘Nope.’ said Misfit.

‘So this isn’t Amelia’s room then, but whose is it?’

‘Sophie, it
is
Amelia’s room.’

‘But…’ I stopped as I picked up a cassette tape from the dressing table. As I dropped it, the resulting cloud of dust made me sneeze again… ‘It can’t be. This stuff is all years old, like from when I was a kid.’

‘Yeah, I don’t think Amelia has been seven for quite some time,’ said Misfit.

‘What?’

‘Amelia didn’t just go missing the other night, Sophie. She’s been missing for a long time. And it looks like Marsha never stopped looking for her.’

‘I don’t get it. Marsha, she–’

‘Sophie, Marsha has had us searching for a kid that went missing years ago.’

‘Amelia went missing years ago?’

‘Yes. Way before the zombie outbreak.’

‘You can’t be serious,’ I said. ‘Marsha’s had us searching for a kid that went missing years ago?’

‘
Yes
.’ Misfit sounded exasperated that I just kept repeating what he’s already said.

‘But… but why would she do that?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t even realise it herself.’

I thought for a moment. ‘Shit, like she’s been stuck in a loop, reliving that time over and over,’ I said. ‘That poor woman must have totally lost it when Amelia disappeared.’ Something dawned on me. ‘You already suspected yesterday didn’t you?’

‘I suspected as soon as I saw that photo she showed us.’

‘The one where she’s wearing a
Steps
t-shirt, damn! I thought that was weird. OK. OK,’ I said. I tapped my lips with my forefinger as I thought. ‘Marsha’s nuts. She’s still searching for a kid who’s been missing for, like, ten years.’ I chewed my lip, then added, ‘Do you think she’s dangerous?’

‘I’m sure she’s harmless.’

‘But we don’t know, do we?’ I said. ‘And right now she’s out with our friends.’

‘They can handle themselves.’

‘But we don’t know what she’s capable of–’ The sound of the front door opening cut me off. ‘Fuck,’ I said in a whisper. ‘What do we do? She’ll know we’ve found her out once she knows we’ve been up here.’

Me and Misfit looked at each other for a moment.

‘We go and confront her,’ said Misfit.

‘But we don’t know how she’ll react.’

‘We haven’t got any choice, not unless you want to hide up here until she goes to bed.’

‘Fuck this,’ I said. ‘Let’s bite the fucking bullet.’

‘Atta girl,’ said Misfit with a wink.

We marched out of the bedroom and down the stairs, me just ahead of Misfit. I heard footsteps approaching from the hallway below and, as we were halfway down, Marsha appeared at the foot of the stairs. Her eyes widened as she saw us and her brow furrowed.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, strain evident in her voice. ‘Where have you been?’ she added when neither me nor Misfit answered her.

‘Where do you think we’ve been?’ I asked.

‘I don’t want anyone in her room,’ said Marsha. ‘I need to keep it just so – exactly as she left it. I don’t want anything touched.’

‘We didn’t touch anything,’ I said.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Clay as he, Kay and Charlotte sidled up behind Marsha.

‘The police rummaged through her belongings,’ said Marsha. ‘I asked them not to. I thought they might get things mixed up, not how she liked them. She wouldn’t want to come back and find things different to how she left them.’

‘What’s she going on about?’ asked Kay.

‘The police?’ asked Clay. ‘But…’

‘When did Amelia go missing, Marsha?’ I asked.

‘Just the other night,’ she said. ‘You know that. You were here.’

‘Yeah but how many
just the other nights
ago did it happen?’

‘Sophie, what you going on about?’ asked Clay. He moved forwards so he stood beside Marsha. ‘The poor woman’s lost her daughter, for Christ’s sake.’

‘I know that Clay, I just want to find out how long ago she lost her. The truth,’ I added, looking back at Marsha. She stood shaky and frail, her hand on the banister to support herself.

‘I don’t remember anymore,’ she said. ‘It feels like only yesterday. But I know I’ve been searching for such a long time.’

I watched as Marsha sunk down and perched on the step second from bottom. Relieved she hadn’t turned into the raving nutter I thought she might once busted, I trotted down the steps to sit next to her. ‘Go on,’ I urged her.

‘She disappeared from the house – just like that. We had no idea why she got up and left. Maybe she was influenced by something she saw on TV or read in a book, thought she was going on an adventure, I don’t know.’ Marsha shook her head as she spoke and she looked so pitiful that I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. I had no children so couldn’t understand the bond that must exist between a mother and a child. Who knows what that bond can drive you to do when it’s broken against your will.

‘We didn’t have any internet then,’ Marsha continued, ‘so no chance she could have been groomed by someone online. You know, they suspected me and Ray, my husband at first. It was horrible, first to lose our daughter then to realise we were suspects. They found nothing to confirm their suspicions but things like that never really leave you – people always look at you like you could have killed your own daughter. I’d never have hurt her, neither would Ray. There was a police search, media coverage, and the community pulled together but… nothing. Not even a piece of clothing found. People got bored, they moved on to the next thing and things got forgotten. Only I couldn’t forget. I searched day after day. It put a strain on my marriage. Ray wanted me to accept that she was gone and move on. He wanted a memorial service but I told him she wasn’t dead. I couldn’t believe he’d given up on her like that. Eventually, a few years later, he left. I never saw him again. I guess he’s one of those things now. A zombie.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Clay said to Marsha. I looked at him, his bloodshot eyes were heavy lidded but adrenaline acted like match sticks to keep them up. ‘I trusted you. I thought your little girl was out there,’ he waved in the direction of the front door behind him, ‘but all the time she’s been gone – how long?’

‘It must be getting on for ten years,’ said Marsha, her head hung low. She avoided looking at Clay as she spoke.

‘Ten years? You’ve had us searching zombie infested fields and hills and shit for someone that went missing ten bloody years ago?’ said Kay.

‘I don’t believe this,’ said Clay.

‘She’s out there, I know it!’ said Marsha.

‘Fucking crazy!’ said Clay, shaking his head.

Charlotte bent down on her haunches in front of Marsha. ‘I guess you were so used to searching for her, even the zombie apocalypse didn’t stop you.’

‘Fuck the understanding, Charlotte,’ said Clay. ‘We’ve been risking our lives, I’ve hardly slept a fucking wink cos I thought a little girl was out there and all this time, she probably died ten years ago! Fuck!’ Clay punched the nearest wall with his bare fist, leaving a smudge of blood, and stormed off to the front door. He flung it open and disappeared outside.

Marsha sprung to her feet. ‘She’s not dead! I’ll never give up on her!’ she yelled through the door. ‘She’s still out there! She’s still out there somewhere!’ My baby, she’s alive!’

The rest of us shoved past Marsha while she continued to rant, red-faced, and we headed outside after our friend, our weapons at the ready.

‘Clay! Clay, come back!’ we each yelled. ‘Clay!’

He began to jog before breaking into a run. I guess he didn’t want to be followed but we weren’t giving up that easily.

‘Clay!’ yelled Kay.

‘Be careful,’ I said to Kay as I ran alongside her. ‘We don’t want to draw zombies.’

We ran on, down country roads that all looked pretty much the same, flagged either side by hedges and flat fields. We came out onto a two lane road and turned right, the hedges here too high to see over in some parts, and occasionally giving way to a wooden fence or a brick wall lined with tall trees. But still Clay ran on. I spotted a few zombies in the road ahead of him. Clay didn’t even slow down and he punched one of them with his bare fist. The other two span in his wake and me and Misfit took care of them as we shot past.