Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 2): The Journey (4 page)

T
he scream woke
Chloë from her sleep.

She opened her eyes. Stared up into the darkness. She thought right away it might be a part of her dream. She often dreamed about screaming. About people dying. Mostly people she cared about.

And then she heard the gunfire.

She leaned forward. Scrambled to reach the torch she’d taken from a hardware shop on the main street of Hopeforth.

“Dad?”

Her dad didn’t respond.

She couldn’t hear anyone in here with her.

Couldn’t hear a thing.

Just gunfire.

Screaming.

And…

She heard the groans.

She clenched her jaw. Walked over to the window. Peeked out onto the street. She couldn’t see much. Just the occasional flash of a gun. The occasional movement of a body down on the street.

But the gunfire. The cries. The groans.

Something had happened.

No. Something
was
happening.

She rushed over to the side of her sleeping bag.

Someone grabbed her left arm.

She struggled with them. Shouted out.

“Chloë!”

She struggled again for a few seconds before realising it was dad.

“It’s okay. It’s… What’s going on out there?”

“There’s gunfire. And groans. The monsters. I think they—”

“Ssh,” Dad said. He pressed a finger to her lips. “Need to keep quiet. We need to weigh them up before we do anything. Try and figure out how many there are of them.”

Chloë pulled away from Dad. Felt her knuckles brush the torch. She lifted it. But then she realised she had a choice. Torch or knife. Torch or knife.

As her eyes adjusted to the pitch darkness that so many nights in the woods had accustomed her to, she pushed the torch away and lifted the knife.

“I’m going out there,” Chloë said.

“Going out there? What—”

“People are in danger. I won’t let them just die out there.”

“All due respect, angel, but you’re hardly going to beat them singlehandedly.”

“Well you better give me a hand then, hadn’t you?”

“I left my gun with the main group.”

“You what?”

“We agreed it’d be safest if—Chloë!”

Chloë wasn’t standing for any more of her dad’s talk.

She walked over to the door.

Rushed down the staircase. Tried to stay as silent as possible with nothing on her feet. She wanted to get a sense of her surroundings. A mental picture from the things she could hear, from the echoing of her gentle footsteps against the walls, from the smells and the tastes in the air.

She thought about this town. This town she’d been convinced was safe. She’d seen no blood. No trace of any monster attacks.

And yet she could hear gunfire cracking at the other side of the door.

She could hear the groans getting louder, louder…

She turned the handle.

Held her breath.

Stepped outside.

Even though it was pitch black, she saw them just feet away.

Someone lay on the concrete. Right in the middle of the road. A woman. Her guts were hanging out of her waist. Her old skin looked like it’d been torn away with the slightest of bites.

The woman was squirming.

Spurting out blood.

The woman was Suzy.

Chloë tasted sick. Another dead. Down to eighteen. Eighteen at
most
More were dead. More had to be dead.

This was it. She was losing them. They were all dying. All dying on her, tonight.

No. No, she had to fight.

She rushed over to Suzy’s side. At first, she wondered if maybe Suzy was still alive. If maybe she was choking on her own blood. If the monster attack had been pretty recent.

But when Suzy’s arm shot out and grabbed her left thigh, Chloë knew right away she’d already gone.

She heard her dad behind. Heard him running towards her.

But she held her balance. She held her balance because that’s what she had to do. If she wanted to be strong. If she wanted to be a leader.

She pulled back the knife.

Slammed it down.

Split through Suzy’s temple.

Mushed up her brains.

Suzy snarled. And Chloë could almost hear the pain in her dead voice.

But then she went still, and there was nothing.

“Chloë—up ahead.”

Chloë didn’t have to lift her head to know that monsters were coming her way. She smelled the rot. Tasted the body odour in the air. Three of them, at least. She could tell from the sound of their skinless feet against the hard concrete.

Three of them.

She could take two.

Dad could take one.

“Take the one on the left,” Chloë said.

“But—”

Chloë didn’t say anything else.

She just hurtled towards the two monsters in front.

Lifted her knife.

Waited for the sound of their snapping teeth to be within earshot and then…

Slam.

She stuck the blade between the eyes of the monster. Heard the one on the left tumble down as Dad cracked its skull with the torch.

She pulled the knife away from the monster’s head.

But it didn’t budge.

It was stuck.

Wedged in.

Chloë pulled back. But she could hear the monster in the middle getting closer. Behind them, she saw gunfire. Heard more screams. The supermarket. Something was happening at the supermarket. There was a light. The smell of burning.

The monster grabbed Chloë’s hair.

Dragged her towards it.

She lifted her feet.

Pressed them against the chest of the dying monster.

Felt it topple backwards.

She didn’t want to call her dad for help. She couldn’t always rely on her dad.

She had to be strong.

She had to fight.

She had to—

The knife split away from the monster’s skull.

Chloë fell down.

The monster landed on top of her.

She felt its weight knock the breath out of her chest. Felt its softening skull crack against her forehead. She tried to call out for her dad this time. No choice. No choice because the monster was kneeling on her left arm. Her knife was dangling out of her fingers.

But she could hear more struggling.

Hear Dad struggling.

She felt the monster’s saliva roll down onto her face. Thick, slimy, bloody gunk.

She tensed her left hand.

Tried to arch it round.

She just had to stab it.

Just had to finish it off.

And then the monster shifted and the knife fell completely away from her fingers.

Chloë reached out for it but it was too far. She tried to grab the monster, also no use.

The monster’s face pressed up to her skin.

She felt its cold breath drool on her neck.

She held her breath.

Lifted her feet, her legs upwards.

Wrapped them around the monster’s skull.

And she squeezed.

She stuck her nobbly knees right into the sides of the monster’s head. Her legs were tougher after all her walking, all her running. They were much stronger than they used to be in P.E. Much stronger than they used to be in gymnastics.

So she pressed as hard as she could on the sides of the monster’s head.

Dug her knees even further into its temples.

Tensed.

Hard.

She heard her dad shout out as he toppled the monster. As he barged away from another. “Chloë!”

She looked him in the eye.

Saw his silhouette in the dark as the monster’s teeth pressed into her neck.

And then she heard a crack.

Her knees shifted.

Dampness covered them. A rotting egg smell filled the air.

The monster’s teeth went loose.

It took her a few moments to realise she’d crushed its head with her thighs.

She pushed it away. Dad helped pull her to her feet. “Come on,” he said. “We need to get inside. We need to get somewhere safe—”

“The supermarket,” Chloë said, grabbing her knife and running towards it like nothing had happened.

Dad sighed. Laughed. “Sometimes, I wish you were that timid girl you used to be.”

“She’d be dead right now.”

Chloë took down more monsters on the way to the supermarket. She fought them off. Remembered they weren’t the people they used to be. That the people they used to be were gone.

Gone, just like the rest.

She took down two more. Her dad followed closely, fighting away more invaders.

When Chloë reached the supermarket, she knew what’d happened right away.

The entire exterior of the shop was covered in flames. Inside, bottles of water. Cans of beans and soup. And people. Charred bodies, now nothing more than ashy smoke in the air.

“They took our fucking guns!”

Chloë looked to her right. Saw Jackson running towards her. Instead of the usual rifle in hand, he was holding a crowbar. Which meant something bad had happened.

“What?” Dad asked. “What d’you mean they took our guns?”

“A group,” Jackson said, blood oozing from a nasty wound on his liny forehead. “Group came in here. Led the undead in. I… I tried to stop ‘em but—but there were too many of ‘em. Way too many of ‘em.”

Chloë watched the flames engulf the supermarket. Saw the fear and horror on the faces of people like Dan, Anisha, Harvey. The optimism of earlier destroyed by an unbeatable sense of loss.

“I heard them mention a transmission,” Jackson said.

Chloë dry swallowed. “A—a what?”

Jackson scratched his head. “A transmission. Some… some place they said they were heading to. Sounded Welsh, or something.”

Chloë’s stomach sank. She looked up at her dad. Saw him shaking his head.

“What?” Jackson asked. “What’s that look?”

“We might know where that place they were heading to is,” Dad said.

When Dad told Jackson about the transmission they found, Chloë saw the look of rage building in Jackson’s eyes, in the rest of the group’s eyes. And she understood why. She understood exactly why.

She’d not been honest.

She’d killed her people.

She’d cost lives.

Again.

I
t wasn’t
the sound of screaming that woke Chloë the following morning.

But the sound of silence was just as bad.

She opened her heavy eyes. Looked up at the ceiling in the first floor flat. She wasn’t sure she’d fallen to sleep. Wasn’t sure she’d be able to. But outside the window, beyond the blind, she could see the soft light of sunrise. She could hear the morning birdsong cutting through the silence.

Not a good silence. Not the peaceful silence it could’ve been. The bad sort of silence.

The silence of loss.

Loss of people.

Loss of hope.

She got up. Looked to her left. Her dad’s sleeping bag was empty. He must’ve gone out. Gone to get some water or breakfast. Or to reassure members of the group that everything was going to be okay. That he was sorry.

Apologising for the thing Chloë should’ve been sorry for.

Lying.

She wrapped her black cloak around her and looked through the blinds. The main street of Hopeforth was still. She couldn’t see a soul out there. And if she squinted enough, she could convince herself that nothing happened last night. That the conflict, the monsters, they were all just a part of a nasty nightmare.

And then she saw the blood and body parts spread across the tarmac and the fantasy faded.

She walked away from the blinds. Grabbed her knife. Headed towards the stairway leading down to the front door. The final casualty total was currently at three. Suzy, Andre and Lorna. Which brought the numbers of the group down to sixteen. And while losing three didn’t sound like a lot, Chloë knew it was even worse because of the secret she’d hid. The truth she’d concealed.

The truth about the transmission.

“Is anyone out there? I repeat, is anyone out there? Safe haven. Safe place. Safe community. Pwllheli. Pwllheli, North West Wales. Survivors welcomed. Survivors welcomed. Pwllheli.”

She descended the stairs. Put her hand on the front door. She thought about the look in Jackson’s eyes when she’d told him about the transmission. When her dad finished her words for her.

She saw the hate build in them. The betrayal. The distrust.

And she saw it in the eyes of others, too.

Chloë knew about a safe place. She knew all about it. And she’d kept it hidden.

She swallowed a lump in her throat and lowered the handle.

When she stepped outside, the first thing she noticed was the faint hint of burning in the air. The supermarket had been set alight in the bandits’ raid. Turned out a few of the other buildings had, too. A grocery store. A newsagents. Reminders that this place wasn’t safe. That nowhere was safe.

The worst part? Chloë
knew
something wasn’t right. She knew it right from the moment she first got here. But she’d seen the way everyone had reacted. Seen the way they’d raided the supermarket. Seen the way they’d eaten together, laughed, like everything was normal again.

She’d seen hope.

And now that hope was gone.

She heard voices to her left. Turned, and saw Jackson standing with three others. Hassan. Anisha. Dan. They looked back at Chloë. Stopped speaking. Stared her in the eyes.

Chloë looked right away. Lowered her head. She needed to find her dad. Needed to talk with him. He’d told her he’d help her, and more than anything, she needed him right now…

But no. She was supposed to be a leader. So how was she leading by turning her back and walking away from her people?

She had to be strong. Even in times of crisis. Especially in times of crisis. That’s what Alice once told her.

She stopped.

Turned back.

Walked towards Jackson and the others.

“Got nerve wandering over here, kid,” Hassan said.

Jackson raised a hand. “Leave it out, Hassan. She’s just a kid at the end of the day.”

Chloë wasn’t sure whether to be startled at Jackson sticking up for her or insulted by him dismissing her. “Get everyone here in the next five minutes. We need to talk.”

“Oh you’re fucking right about that,” Anisha shouted, scratching her arms. Her brown eyes were puffy, like she hadn’t slept much last night. “We do need to talk. We need to talk about you.”

“Anisha,” Jackson said.

“No,” Anisha said. She batted Jackson’s hand away. “She lied to us. She knew about that—that safe place and she kept it from us.”

“We spoke with Pete about this,” Jackson said. “He told us why. Chloë and him had their reasons—”

“And their reasons got us killed!”

Jackson looked at Chloë. Shrugged.

“Just get everyone here,” Chloë said.

She turned around. Walked towards the supermarket.

“Where are you going?”

She didn’t respond.

She just kept on walking.

Walking, like she used to do when the buzzing noises built up in her head.

Walking, like she used to do when her emotions bottled up inside.

Walking, like she used to do to make herself feel like a kid again.

T
he group was all together
ten minutes later.

Chloë stood on the raised door of a shop step. She still felt like she was being looked down on, though. Like she wasn’t a leader.

But she had to be.

She had to lead these people.

She’d saved them from the Church of Youth. They’d trusted her.

She had to repay that trust.

“The transmission,” Chloë said, cutting through the chatter. “The one I found. I didn’t tell you about it because I was worried—”

“It wasn’t your choice to hide it from us!” someone shouted.

“I know. And I’m sorry. But I did. I made a mistake.”

“A mistake that got Suzy killed,” Harvey said.

Hearing Harvey’s shaky, judging voice made Chloë’s insides go funny. Harvey was always okay with her. He never said anything bad to her. But knowing he blamed Chloë for his wife’s death… that took a lot to shake off.

“Yes,” she said. “I made a mistake. But I’ve gone to these safe places in the past. We all have. And we’ve all found the same things.”

“Then what do you propose?” Hassan asked. “That we stay here? Wait for more bandits and undead to wander in and kill us?”

Chloë swallowed. “No,” she said. “We… I think we should move on.”

A collective groan from the group.

“Move on to where?” Dave asked.

“To Pwllheli. To the place where the transmission mentioned.”

Silence amongst the group. A few sideward glances.

“But I thought you just said it wasn’t safe?” Hassan said.

“It probably isn’t. But neither is this place. But it’s the best hope we have.”

“How do we know the transmission’s even recent?” Harvey asked.

“We don’t. But it’s the only place we know of. We can go there. Check it out. And if it isn’t safe, then…”

“Then what?” Alice asked.

Hearing Alice’s dissent threw Chloë even more than hearing Harvey.

She looked at these eyes. All of them watching her. All of them waiting for an answer.

“We push on. It’s all we can do.”

She waited for someone to say something. Waited for her dad to speak. Or for Alice to speak. Just for
someone
to speak.

“She’s right.”

It wasn’t Alice. It wasn’t Dad. It wasn’t even someone who liked her, like Harvey or Dan.

It was Jackson.

Jackson, again.

He stepped forward. Stood beside Chloë. Looked at the rest of the group.

“The kid made a mistake. But we’ve all made mistakes. And now the truth’s out and we have a choice. We push on to Pwllheli. Or we don’t. What option is there, really?”

A few mutters amongst the crowd. A couple of nods.

“I don’t agree with Chloë’s methods. But I understand why she did what she did. So we need to stick together. More than ever before. Ain’t that right, Chloë?”

He looked at her. And for a moment, in his green eyes, she saw something unfamiliar. A look she couldn’t place. One that made her feel… strange.

“But the bandits. The bandits pushing on to Pwllheli. They took our guns. What about them?”

Jackson looked at Anisha. Then he closed his mouth. Turned back to Chloë. “That’s the kid’s call. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Shame they got a head start on us, but…”

More grumbles and groans. More hard glances at Chloë.

“Hey. Least we got a chance to catch up.”

Jackson walked away. Everyone stared at Chloë.

“What do you think?” she asked.

The crowd chattered amongst themselves. And then they nodded. Each and every one of them nodded.

Chloë looked back at Hopeforth. Remembered the positivity of yesterday. The optimism.

She shook her head. Looked at her dad. Caught him nodding. Smiling.

And then she saw Jackson. Saw him standing beside Colin and Arnold.

He nodded at her. Chloë nodded back.

“Then we’d better get going,” Chloë said.

They walked away from Hopeforth, all sixteen of them, towards a new hope.

Towards a new safe haven.

Towards fresh death.