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

Once the guys confirmed the all clear, we darted down the stairs, out the front door and I gave Charlotte the thumbs up. Clay, followed by Misfit, headed around to the boot of the car and searched inside for something while I helped Charlotte get Kay out. Together we guided her into the house. It wasn’t easy – her skin was so clammy I worried she’d slip out of my supporting grasp. And it didn’t help that she had the agility and focus of an emotional drunk. She struggled and lashed out at us half-heartedly, making progress slow and awkward, her words incomprehensible.

At the base of the staircase, and just as I was wondering how we were going to drag Kay up, Misfit, clutching a small bottle of water, caught up with us. He stuffed the water bottle under his arm and, while me and Charlotte hauled Kay up by the arms he shoved her from behind. Together, the three of us got her up to a kid’s bedroom and placed her gently down onto a quilt emblazoned with pink hearts and princesses.

Clay returned to the bedroom carrying the holdall we used as a first aid and medical kit, and where we kept the general supply of antibiotics we’d managed to stock pile from various chemists and supermarket pharmacies. Kay would have her own supply somewhere about her – or she should have – given to her after she got bitten by Anna. I watched as Clay got down onto his knees on the floor by the side of the bed. He laid the first aid kit onto the floor and unzipped it, rooted around in it and pulled out a little brown bottle. Checking the label, he undid the safety lid and tipped out a couple of pills.

Misfit watched patiently, the bottle of water open and ready as Clay put the pills to Kay’s lips. She clamped her teeth together like a reluctant child and shook her head but Clay persisted and prised her jaw open before slotting the pills inside. Misfit pressed the lip of the bottle into Kay’s mouth before she had chance to spit out the pills, swilling water into her and forcing her to swallow or choke. Me and Charlotte stood and watched as Kay swung her head to the side of the bed and threw up on the floor, just missing Clay. What came up was mostly clear liquid – I couldn’t be sure when she last ate anything – and we could all see the two white pills sitting in the centre of the wet patch on the carpet.

‘Let’s try that again, shall we?’ said Clay, wiping sweat from his brow.

After a couple more goes, Clay and Misfit finally succeeded in getting the antibiotics down Kay’s throat and making them stay there. Charlotte offered to stay with Kay and to keep her cool with a wet flannel while the rest of us went to settle in to our new – and improved – home. Luxury after so long living in caravans.

‘How long until the antibiotics start working?’ I asked Clay as we collected our food supplies and meagre personal belongs from the Mazda. It was parked as close to the front door as possible, ready for a quick getaway if one was needed.

Clay slung a backpack on his shoulder and stood by the car. He shook his head. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Soon, I hope.’

‘She is going to be OK, isn’t she?’

‘Sophie, I’m not a doctor. To be honest, I don’t know if she’s going to be all right. Sorry.’

‘But she has to be.’

Clay placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘I know,’ he said with a nod before turning back to the car and grabbing a box from the boot, leaving me unsatisfied.

Misfit had been stood by the car watching mine and Clay’s exchange and as Clay disappeared into the house, he came over and placed his arms around my shoulders.

‘She’ll be OK,’ he whispered into my ear.

Inside the kitchen, we dumped our supplies on the work surface. Packing things away in cupboards – like after doing a supermarket shop in pre-zom days – was just a waste of time and energy. 

‘So, who’s having the master bedroom?’ said Misfit. He gazed at me as he leant his back against the work top.

‘Shall we be gents and let the ladies have that master room, like?’ said Clay. ‘You and me can have the double room, eh mate? Cool?’

I saw a flash of disappointment in Misfit’s eyes. I wondered if my expression matched his. Misfit opened his mouth to say something but Clay cut him off, adding: ‘Well, come on, roomie, let’s settle in and then I’ll have a check on how Kay’s doing.’

I glared at Clay’s back as he trotted out of the kitchen. Misfit shrugged, gave me a half smile, turned and followed after Clay.

I took mine and Charlotte’s stuff up to the master bedroom. It’s a lovely room, with white circular walls, low windows and a cast iron bed in the centre. It made me think of how the Martello tower might have looked if it had ever been finished. Memories of me and Sam up there flooded into my head. But I shook them out because, like Misfit said, mourning is a waste of precious energy, right? I was ready to move on.

Apart from over a year’s worth of dust, the master bedroom was as bright and fresh as any room I’d seen in a while and I had the feeling I’d just checked into a country hotel for a romantic weekend. But when Charlotte bounced in to tell me Kay was sleeping and that Clay was with her, I was reminded that romance was definitely off the agenda.

Yesterday passed with us all taking turns in forcing pills down Kay’s throat and jumping out the way whenever she threw them back up. I wanted to believe that her reluctance to take the medicine she needed in order to live was because she was too delirious to know what she was doing. But I had a horrible feeling it was intentional. That she had given up.

During my breaks from taking care of Kay, I managed to finish writing my account of our last thirteen days in Folkestone. It was a relief to have it all out of my system and onto paper, and good to be able to start this new diary this morning. I have no idea where the story that will fill these pages will take us all. I just wish I had a better opening than my friend being so sick. But, let’s be honest, it’s not like there can be a happy opening to the diary of life in the zombie apocalypse, can there?

11.30pm

There’s been very little change with Kay. That’s as good as today’s news gets. I’m going to get some rest. Misfit has the night shift.

December 29, 4am

‘Wake up.’ My eyes shot open and I sat up, ready to fight zombies with my bare hands. ‘It’s OK.’ Misfit – I couldn’t make him out in the dark but once I’d come to my senses, I recognised his voice – placed a hand on my shoulder to calm me.

‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s Kay. Her temperature’s gone through the roof. It’s 106 degrees. She won’t stop shaking and throwing up.’

‘Oh my god.’

‘I think she’s dying, Soph.’

‘No!’

‘I’ve woken Clay – he’s with her now – and I’ve come for you and Charlotte. I think we need to say goodbye.’

‘Fuck off. No fucking way!’ I scrambled out of bed, leaving Misfit to wake Charlotte, and I darted across the landing.

I hesitated at the open door of Kay’s room and saw Clay standing over her bed. He turned to look at me as I took tentative steps across the room to join him. His eyes locked into mine – wide and frightened – and he shook his head.

‘She’s not…’ I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

‘She still with us but…’ Clay wasn’t doing so good finishing sentences either.

We both glanced down to Kay’s unconscious form. She looked so small and weak. I couldn’t believe things had turned out like this. Not the fighter I knew. I looked back at Clay. He was always the one that seemed to know what to do, so seeing him looking helpless and hopeless made icy shivers of fear run through my body.

Kay was going to die; what would I do without her?

Misfit and Charlotte joined us and the four of us stood silently around Kay’s bed, our heads bowed. Every now and then I glanced at one of the others for support, and in the light from a gas lamp I could see tears streaming down their cheeks.

‘Damn it, Kay,’ I said after a while. ‘Don’t fucking leave us. There are zombies that need slaying and it won’t be any fun without you!’

2pm

During our vigil, and after a last-ditch attempt with plenty of cold compresses made with icy water from the water butt outside, Kay’s fever broke in the early hours of this morning. Right at the point where we didn’t think she could get any hotter without setting fire to her sheets, right when we thought her ragged breathing would stop and her chest would cease to move, a sweat broke out on her forehead, a sign that her body’s thermostat had begun to regulate itself again. By 9am her temperature was down to 103 degrees and just before I came downstairs for a rest and to eat some breakfast, it had gone down to 102.

It turns out that between the four of us we had actually succeeded in getting enough antibiotics down her neck in order for them to kick in and fight the infection. The wound on her neck still looks gory and inflamed but we’re keeping it clean and allowing it to get some air between dressing changes and it definitely isn’t as putrid as it was.

Misfit came into the kitchen as I ate dry, stale
Cheerios
from the packet. He pulled out a chair and sat down next to me at the pine table. I offered him the
Cheerios
and he took it from me, plunging his hand inside and grabbing a handful of little O’s.

‘I knew she wasn’t a quitter,’ said Misfit.

‘But… but do you think she tried? Tried to quit…’

‘What, cos of what happened to Sean?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yep, I was thinking that. But, you know, she can’t escape the fact that that isn’t who she is. I guess her body had the final say and it came back fighting.’

‘Do you ever think it’s safer not to have feelings for anyone?’ I asked, my eyes locking into his.

Misfit put the cereal box down and placed the palms of his hands either side of my face. ‘No,’ he said simply. ‘You may as well be dead in that case.’

As I stared into Misfit’s eyes, I had the strangest sensation that someone had filled my lungs with helium and I was floating off, out of this atmosphere like a balloon. That was until I heard a little voice say, ‘Um g
uys
…’ Misfit’s hands fell from me and I glanced to my right to see Charlotte standing in the doorway. ‘Sorry,’ she continued, her cheeks reddening. ‘I thought you’d like to know that Kay’s stable.’

‘Yes, of course. Thanks, Charlotte,’ I said.

‘Clay’s with her, so I’m going to grab a bit more sleep.’

‘Sure. Rest up,’ I said to her, my lungs having popped and my feet having grounded. I watched as she turned and disappeared into the hallway. I turned back to Misfit. ‘I think I could do with shutting my eyes for a bit.’

Misfit grabbed my hand and pulled me up onto my feet. He led me through the kitchen, across the hall and into the living room where I imagined he would shove me up the stairs and into the room I share with Charlotte. Instead, he pulled me to the brown leather sofa at the back of the room.

‘Lay down,’ he said. I did as I was told, lying with my head on a pale blue cushion. Misfit lay next to me, putting one arm under my neck and around my shoulders and the other around my waist. I snuggled into his chest and in the comfort of his warm embrace, I fell asleep.

6pm

We slept for a few hours, until we were woken by Clay stomping through the living room, his boots pounding the wooden floorboards.

‘Oh sorry,’ he said as me and Misfit poked our bleary-eyed heads up to see what the racket was. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

Grumpy, I gritted my teeth but even so the words, ‘Yeah, right’, slipped through.

‘Huh?’ said Clay.

‘Nothing,’ I mumbled.

‘How’s Kay?’ asked Misfit as he sat up.

‘Her temperature’s down to 101 degrees. She’s conscious, and she’s drinking plenty of water. She’s doing OK.’

‘That’s great news,’ I said, sitting next to Misfit. ‘Thanks Clay. I don’t know what we’d have done without you.’

‘S’alright. My mum was a nurse.’ Clay wandered over and sat on an armchair across from me and Misfit. ‘Any time me or one of my sisters got sick, it was like Mum would go into full work mode. I learned a lot from watching her. But,’ Clay shrugged, ‘it doesn’t feel like enough.’

‘It was enough. More than enough. You did great, and lucky for Kay you did,’ I said. ‘So she’s definitely going to be OK?’

‘Yeah, defo… totally over the worst of it.’

‘How long before we can move on again?’ I asked.

‘I know you want to get going as soon as, Soph, but give her a few days, hey? Kay needs to get her strength back, like,’ said Clay. ‘I know it must be tough not knowing what’s happened to your family,’ he added after a moment.

I cast my eyes down to my grubby socks. ‘Yep.’ I glanced up and fixed my eyes on Clay’s. ‘But no worse than knowing what happened to them. Not worse, just different.’

‘You got that right,’ he said with a small, sad smile and a nod of his head.

‘Yeah, when the outbreak kicked off,’ began Misfit, looking down at his lap, ‘my stepdad ordered us into the car. He wouldn’t even give us time to pack anything. He said we’d be better off getting out of the town and hiding up in the countryside where there were less people – meaning, less zombies. Good plan, only, he was too busy swigging on the bottle of whisky in his hand to notice that we driven into a gridlocked street. He was going too fast and slammed into the back of a stopped car. Faye, who’d been in my mum’s arms and not strapped in, she… she went straight out the windscreen. Mum dived out the car. But there were zombies and… I had my knife and I flung the car door open and stabbed each and every zombie that took a bite out of my mum and sister.